Henry Cemetery
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H E R O K E E C O U N T Y |
Marker No: 15806
Texas Historical Cemetery Marker
Geographic: 31.887392,-95.117241
Location: 1.7 miles east of Gallatin on FR 22
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Marker Text: Woodson Henry and his wife Levissa Hutton Henry were part of a group of thirty-five Muskogee (Creek) indian families who came to Texas between 1832 and 1837 from Chambers County, Alabama. After claiming land in Texas, Henry returned to Alabama in 1840 to recruit additional settlers to join him in Texas. His father, Ezekiel Henry, soon packed up and took his family to the area that would become Cherokee County, Texas. Henry Cemetery was founded in 1852 when Ezekiel Henry chose the site to bury his twenty-four year old daughter, Parolee Henry Clark. The cemetery was expanded in 1853 with the burials of Ezekiel Henry and his son, Joseph Francis Henry. At least sixty-eight known descendants of the Henry family are buried in the cemetery. In 1854, neighbor Greenberry Jinkins brought his wife, Elizabeth Medford Jinkins, to be buried in the cemetery. Elizabeth’s is the oldest marked grave in the cemetery.
A section of African American burials is located in the northeast corner of the cemetery. One prominent marker is that of Peter Johnson, a former slave of the Jinkins family. Johnson had been given Jinkins family property upon his emancipation. The grave of Aaron Quarll indicates that he was a veteran of World War I. The area around the cemetery was rural until 1902, when the Texas and New Orleans railroad came through, and the town of Gallatin was established. The cemetery has changed hands several times since its founding by Ezekiel Henry, but a mention of the two-acre cemetery was not made in deed records until 1943. The Henry Cemetery Association was founded in 1986, and purchased two additional acres for the cemetery in 1987. (2008) |