Wordless Wednesday - West End Cardinal

Tombstone Tuesday - Gonzales & Galindo

Luis L. Gonzales
Pedro L. Galindo
Tombstones in Round Rock Cemetery

Sources:

Cemetery
Round Rock Cemetery, Sam Bass Road, Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas

Photograph
Gonzales, Luis L. and Galindo, Pedro L. Tombstones, Round Rock Cemetery, Round Rock, Texas. Digital Photograph, 2009. Privately held by Judith Richards Shubert, Fort Worth, Texas.

Smithfield Cemetery, North Richland Hills, Texas

Smithfield Cemetery, North Richland Hills, Texas
South Entrance

In the year 1887 the St Louis and Southwestern Railway built their tracks close to the area called Zion in Tarrant County, Texas. As happened with many little towns like this, it was eventually abandoned after the people and businesses began to drift away and relocate closer to the railroad where a new development grew up. This new settlement was called Smithfield, for Eli Smith, the resident who donated land for a church and cemetery.

"By the late 1940s Smithfield reported 350 residents and eight businesses. Nearby North Richland Hills annexed Smithfield in 1958. The Smithfield name survives in several local institutions, including a middle school, and on historical markers at the Smithfield cemetery, Masonic lodge, and two churches."

1861 - 1865
LEST WE FORGET
Dedication to the Memory
of those Confederate Veterans
that Served the South with
Honor Courage and Valor

Eli Smith
Texas Historical Commission

(Mar. 11, 1848 - Jan. 27, 1879)

A native of Missouri, Eli Smith moved to Texas in 1859 with his parents. They settled in this part of Tarrant County, and in 1868 Smith married Sarah J. Hightower. About 1876 Smith donated part of his farmland to the community, then known as Zion, for a Methodist Church and cemetery. Residents of the area honored Smith for his generosity and community service by renaming the settlement Smithfield. Smith remained an active Mason and a successful farmer until his sudden death shortly before his thirty-first birthday. He is buried at this site. (1984)

Eli Smith
Born Mar. 11, 1848
Died Jan. 27, 1879
Aged 30 Yrs. 10 Mos.
& 16 Dys.

Order of the Masons Symbol

Mary Idena
Dau. of
Eli & S. J. Smith
Born Oct. 8, 1872
Died July 22, 1887

Ancient Cedars of Smithfield Cemetery

Sources

Photographs:

Smithfield Cemetery, Tarrant County, Texas, Digital Photographs. 2009. Privately held by Judith Richards Shubert, Fort Worth, TX. 2009.

Websites:

Smithfield United Methodist Church - North Richland Hills, Texas, http://www.smithfieldumc.org/about.html : accessed July 31, 2009.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "Smithfield, Texas" http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/hjs17.html (accessed July 31, 2009).

Cemeteries Photographed by Allen Wheatley, Cemeteries Index for Smithfield Cemetery, North Richland Hills, Tarrant County, http://teafor2.com/Smithfield.html : accessed July 31, 2009.

Wordless Wednesday – Cemetery Bench

Brad Cemetery

just west of the entrance close to the highway

Photograph taken by Judith Richards Shubert, © 2009

Brad Cemetery, Hwy. 180 West of Palo Pinto, Texas

Technorati Tags: Cemeteries,Texas,Cemetery Statuary

Tombstone Tuesday - James F. Fisher

The community which was once known as Honey Bend now exists only as a cemetery. By the 1880s the little town was settled, taking its name from a very prominent twist in the nearby Brazos River.

At the peak of the communities' life, it boasted of little more than a school and church, but the folks there did manage to form a cemetery association in 1932 to maintain the original graveyard.

It is listed as a Ghost Town by Texas Excapes: Population 0. It is located in the North Central Texas area of Young County just a few miles south of Graham, off of FM 1287. It is about 37 miles NW of Mineral Wells.

James F. Fisher

James F. Fisher

In Memory
of
James F. Fisher

Was Born
Nov. 18th, 1877
And Died
Dec. 20th, 1882

"GO HOME Dear Friends,
And Dry Your TEARS
I Must Lay Here
Till Christ APPEARS"

Son of Joseph and Sarah Fisher


Sources

Photographs:

Fisher, James F. Tombstone. Digital Photographs. 2009. Privately held by Judith Richards Shubert, Fort Worth, TX. 2009.

Websites:

Holub, Dorman. USGWArchives.net Online Texas Genealogy, "Gooseneck Cemetery, Young County, TX." http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/young/photos/tombstones/gooseneck.html/ : accessed June 9, 2009.

Troesser, John. TexasEscapes.com Online, "History in a Pecan Shell: Ghost Towns-Gooseneck, Texas." http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasGhostTowns/GooseneckTexas.htm/ : accessed June 9, 2009.

Caleb and Charlotte Pinkston Simmons - Tombstone Tuesday in Round Rock Cemetery

S I M M O N S

Caleb Simmons
Husband of C. P. Simmons
Born Oct 21, 1808
Died Nov. 26, 1881
"Sheltered and safe from sorrow"

Charlotte Pinkston
Wife of Caleb Simmons
Born Nov. 30, 1818
Died Jan. 22, 1907
"Gone to a land of rest"

Round Rock Cemetery, Sam Bass Road,
Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas
Picture taken by Judith Richards Shubert, May 2, 2009 (c)

Major John Alexander Formwalt Honored Pioneer

In the pages of our nation's history, and in Texas, in particular, there has never been a person of a more spotless character than John Alexander Formwalt. He was the second son of Jacob and Rebecca (Troup) Formwalt born in Knoxville, Tennessee on April 22, 1820. His great-grandparents were of German birth and came to America in colonial days.

When a young boy John received his primary education in the subscription schools of the time and pursued his studies there until he was twelve years old. At age eighteen he went to a private school taught by an Englishman in the mountains of Alabama.

In the year 1840, young John A. Formwalt made his first visit to Texas. He stayed in Red River County for six months and then returned to Tennessee, having made the trip on horseback. He spent some years in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, where he worked as clerk and bookkeeper for a mercantile firm, but when his abilities and reliable character came to be recognized he was elected to the office of county clerk. He remained in that position from 1847 to 1849, when he was forced to seek a change of climate because of failing health.

This was in 1849, when the California gold fever was intense; and with others he journeyed to the Pacific slope, where he engaged in mining for nearly two years. He returned to his home in Mississippi and a year later, selling out his interests there, he emigrated to East Texas. He made the trip with ox teams and reached Anderson County after traveling for three months! When there, he purchased and operated a farm for two years and then moved to Palestine in the same county, where he was appointed postmaster, serving in that capacity for three years.

He resumed farming and in 1859 purchased a section of land near Thorp Spring in Hood County close to the town of Granbury. He was a very important man in the development of Hood County and was known to take an active part in its affairs and was recognized as a "wide-awake," progressive and valued citizen.

Major Formwalt was a Democrat, though he never was a politician. He was first appointed to the office of Justice of the Peace to fill a vacancy and was subsequently elected to the same office three times. He was a Master Mason in good standing for 25 years or more, and in religious belief he was a Presbyterian. He was very generous with his contributions to educational interests; and school, church and social interests found in him a friend.

Married twice, first at Pontotoc, Mississippi, in December, 1845, to Miss Courtney Lane McEwen, daughter of Colonel D. K. McEwen, he was the father of seven children. Courtney died in 1880, and having preceded Major Formwalt in death, her grave marker has the designation "Consort"

Courtney L.
Consort of J. M. Formwalt
Born May 11, 1825
Died Dec. 20, 1880

After Courtney died, and on December 25, 1882, John married Mrs. Burdett, widow of John Burdett and daughter of Judge Jowers, of Palestine, Texas.

In Memory of Maj. J. A. Formwalt Born April 22, 1820 Died Jan 18, 1914

Both Major Formwalt and Courtney L. Formwalt's memorials are on this tall, impressive monument located in a shady, beautiful spot under an old, magnificent cedar in Granbury Cemetery in Hood County.

Major Formwalt was always a leader and after Civil War broke out, he enlisted as a private in Captain William Shannon's company to serve in the Confederate Army; but in the following spring Colonel A. Nelson, to whom this company reported, noticed the qualities of leadership that this young private possessed, and sent Formwalt to the Brazos settlement to raise a company. He soon accomplished this. Formwalt was elected its captain, and he and his men immediately reported to Colonel Nelson's Tenth Regiment of Texas Infantry. This noted regiment, upon the promotion of Colonel Nelson, was subsequently commanded by Colonel Roger Q. Mills, and Major Formwalt participated in all the many desperate battles in which his command took part.

Major Formwalt was captured January 11, 1862, at Arkansas Post, and suffered imprisonment at Columbus, Ohio, for five months, when he was exchanged. After that time his service was in the Army of the Tennessee. At the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, in the assault led by Generals Pat Cleburne and Hiram B. Granbury, Formwalt, as senior captain, led his regiment to the charge and fell, severely wounded, being one among many other heroes whose blood was shed that day. He was not mortally wounded, however, and was afterward promoted to the rank of major.

Not long after the war ended, Major Formwalt returned home, began a mercantile business in Granbury but soon returned to the farm which had been badly wasted during the years he was gone. His wife and children had faced many hardships and dangers known only to those who were within the territory so frequently invaded by the Indians. Much of his property was wasted and gone, but he resumed the labors of a civilian and soon again became prosperous.

"Though spending his later years in judicial office, the military title of Major is far more fitting to Mr. Formwalt than that of judge, for, possessing the bluntness and courage of the Scottish chief, he combines with it the grace and courtesy of the faithful Christian gentleman. Deeply imbued with sentiments of patriotic devotion to his country, had his life been spent under favoring circumstances, honor and glory might alike have attached to his name and fixed it well upon the pages of his country's history; but as the fatality of events have decreed he is now serving his neighbors in the humble office of magistrate at the age of seventy-six years, but with buoyant step and figure erect appears not to exceed sixty. It has already been fitly written:

'The march of the soldier is ending;
On the hilltops over the river
The campfire lights are ascending
To our God, the merciful giver,
Where comrades assembling in glory
At the heavenly gates are waiting;
While mortals in song and in story,
Their valorous deeds are relating.' "

1896

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Sources:
Granbury Cemetery, Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Photographs taken by Judith Richards Shubert (c) 2009
History of Texas, 1896, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co.
Hood County Texas Genealogical Society

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In honor of Memorial Day, the topic for the June 2009 edition of the GYR Carnival is Veteran's Memorials. Sharing photos and/or stories related to all-things veteran's in honor of our fallen heroes.