Hood Cemetery

I’ve always loved strolling through cemeteries. Why, you might ask? Because history is buried there. Some say my interest is morbid. Not really. There is infinite peace among the dead, and tranquility hangs in the air. Soul-searching time. I plug Russ Hewitt’s guitar music into my ears and let the wandering begin. Tuning everything and everyone out allows me to tap into my inner strength. As time passes, my mind is rejuvenated, and I’ll be ready to tackle another chapter in book five of my Darcy McClain and Bullet Thriller Series. 

But for now, my quest over the coming weeks is to visit five cemeteries in the local area: Absalom H. Chivers Cemetery, Hood Cemetery, Lonesome Dove Cemetery, Thomas Easter Cemetery, and White’s Chapel Cemetery. I’ll begin with the three least known to me before doing my research: Chivers, Hood, and Easter. In part two, I’ll visit Lonesome Dove and White’s Chapel.

Immersing myself in my current surroundings, I roam the grounds of the Absalom H. Chivers Cemetery. I had to do some reconnaissance to find the location. The entrance is off a frontage road that skirts a main freeway, but I had to travel about five hundred feet down a dirt road to locate the actual cemetery. The burial grounds are hard to spot through the thick stand of trees, but the graveyard is fenced and there is a Historical Marker confirming that you’ve found the correct cemetery. 

The Historical Marker reads: This cemetery was established for the family of Absalom H. Chivers, a prosperous farmer and stockman who came here from Mississippi about 1852. With the help of his five slaves, he operated a farm along Dove Creek until his death in 1856. Chivers’ grave is thought to be the first in this burial ground, located on his original homestead. The land was set aside as a family cemetery in 1889 by his widow Eleanor (Joyce) Chivers (1816-1896), whose grave is believed to be the last placed here. Native sandstone cairns reflect some of the pioneer burial customs. 

My next destination was the Hood Cemetery, which is located inside Southlake’s Coventry Manor subdivision. Again, I had to do a bit of searching as I wasn’t familiar with the housing tract. The cemetery, one of Tarrant County’s oldest, is a one-acre site that dates back to 1845, according to Mike Patterson, a longtime area historian. Mr. Patterson assisted the Coventry Manor HOA members in updating the cemetery’s history. The burial grounds were once part of a 640-acre survey patented to Thomas M. Hood when Texas was a republic. (Yes, “patented” is the right term. It refers to the “letters patent” associated with a grant of land that was originally owned by some other nation — probably Mexico, in this case.)

The Historical Marker reads: This cemetery was established on the farm of Peters colonist Thomas M. Hood (ca. 1823-1859), who came to Texas from Missouri about 1845. The earliest marked grave is that of Urias Martin (1795-1855). Among the unmarked graves are those of Hood and his second wife Maryetta (Hall). Other Peters colonists and several Confederate veterans are buried here. In 1871 Thomas Hood’s family formally set aside the one-acre cemetery tract. Handmade native sandstone markers and burial cairns reflect the lifestyles and resourcefulness of early north Texas pioneers. 

From the Hood Cemetery I proceeded to the Thomas Easter Cemetery. I had no knowledge of this cemetery until I stumbled upon it while doing research on local graveyards, and was quite puzzled as to where it might be located. The gravesites are in a park alongside one of the main thoroughfares in Southlake and adjacent to a popular strip mall. In fact, one online photo showed an Old Navy store in the background.

Who was Thomas Easter? A Virginia native born about 1823, he migrated to Texas and settled in Tarrant County around 1848. Easter patented a 630-acre tract of land in the northeast corner of the county. A portion of this land was used as a cemetery upon his death in 1862. His wife Charity Easter, born about 1820, was buried here in the early 1880s.  Another known burial in the Easter Cemetery is that of early settler Hardin West (b. 1809), who died on March 10, 1881. There are also several unmarked graves.

You may also enjoy reading a previous post about my trip to the Medlin Cemetery in nearby Trophy Club: https://patkrapf.com/texas-the-missouri-colonists/  During your visit, tune into one of my favorite songs by Russ Hewitt, “Luminous,” and do some soul-searching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpklLcRcR0w