Old Shady Grove Cemetery History Comes Out of the Woods
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
SHADY GROVE — When Ethel Gallant was young, her parents took her to Old Shady Grove Cemetery.
She did not actually get to see much of it.
The old cemetery had become so overgrown that Gallant stayed behind while her parents made their way through the woods. But she knew members of her family were buried somewhere beyond the brush, and the place stayed with her.
“I always wanted to go back,” Gallant said.
On Sunday, Oct. 18, decades of family history, research and preservation work will culminate in the dedication of a Texas historical marker recognizing Old Shady Grove Cemetery, whose first marked grave dates to 1840.
The marker dedication is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Shady Grove Baptist Church, located at the intersection of Highway 287 and FM 232. The ceremony will follow the church’s lunch celebrating its 150th anniversary earlier that day.
If weather and conditions permit, organizers also hope to lead interested visitors to the cemetery following the dedication.
For Gallant, the project has always been personal.
Her great-grandmother is buried at Old Shady Grove, as is her great-uncle, a World War I veteran who Gallant said was killed in action in France.
As an adult, she eventually began looking for a way to return to the cemetery and preserve what remained there.
Gallant contacted the Houston County Historical Commission and began finding other people whose families were connected to the cemetery. Some had already been making their own efforts to keep family graves cleared.
Around 2012, Gallant said, a group came together for a major cleanup.
“We just all got a group together and went to the cemetery and did just a major overhaul,” Gallant said.
The effort did more than clear brush.
As volunteers worked, Gallant became increasingly interested in what the cemetery could tell them about the earliest generations of Houston County.
“I just kept looking into all of what we found,” she said. “I got even more interested in it and started trying to do the historical marker.”
That marker was eventually approved and completed, although finding the right place for it presented another challenge.
The cemetery is difficult to reach, located on county-owned property but access requires crossing private property.
Gallant said the landowners through whose property visitors must pass have been accommodating to families and others wishing to visit the cemetery.
The difficulty of reaching Old Shady Grove is one reason the marker will be placed at Shady Grove Baptist Church, where it can be seen by the public.
Gallant laughed that the marker has actually been ready for some time.
“I got the historical marker done, but it’s been in my garage a while,” she said.
What lies beyond the church and back in the woods reaches deep into Houston County history.
Gallant said she has confirmed that John and George Hallmark, both signers of the 1837 Texas Independence Houston County Petition, are buried at Old Shady Grove.
Gallant is careful not to claim more than her research has established. She said other members of the Hallmark family appear on the petition and there may be additional signers buried at the cemetery, but John and George are the two she has been able to confirm.
The visible headstones may not tell the entire story, either.
“There are a lot of graves that are not marked,” Gallant said. “A lot of people have told me at one time the cemetery was full of graves.”
During earlier cleanup efforts, volunteers sometimes discovered evidence of graves that had disappeared beneath years of vegetation.
“Any time we went and cleaned, we would uncover some new graves,” she said.
Sunday’s dedication will recognize more than the cemetery’s earliest burials.
Gallant said her research has identified several veterans buried at Old Shady Grove, including Confederate veterans. Plans for the ceremony include recognition of those veterans and information about their service.
Gallant will also give visitors some history of the cemetery and the Shady Grove area.
She has found old church minutes dating into the late 1800s and plans to share some of them during the ceremony, giving visitors a glimpse of everyday life in the community more than a century ago.
County assistance is helping make the cemetery itself accessible for Sunday’s planned visit. Gallant said Judge Lovell has been helping with arrangements to clear enough of the cemetery for people to safely walk through it.
“There are a lot of people who have never seen it who want to,” she said.
Gallant knows firsthand how easily a place like Old Shady Grove can nearly disappear.
She said her great-grandfather wanted to be buried beside his wife, Gallant’s great-grandmother, at Old Shady Grove.
But when the time came, he could not find the cemetery.
“He told my dad’s sister he wanted to be buried by his wife, but he couldn’t find the cemetery,” Gallant said.
She said he even got down and crawled through the woods trying to locate it.
He never did.
That story is part of why getting Old Shady Grove marked and remembered has mattered so much to her.
On Sunday Oct. 18, the cemetery hidden in the woods will have something it has lacked for generations: a marker beside the highway telling passersby that it is there, and that nearly two centuries of Houston County history lie beyond the trees.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
