Hood County Texas Genealogical Society
DUNAGAN CEMETERY
If rock walls could talk…tale of Indians’ demise would spring to life
by Pete Kendall
Hood County News – June 16, 2004
Headstone of George Washington
Dunagan
If rock walls could
talk, they’d tell a tale of murder and retribution. Probably. We can’t be
altogether sure. What allegedly transpired, approximately two miles west of the
present Rock Church Cemetery, was over 140 years ago. Every character in the
cast has passed on.
Of natural
causes…or otherwise.
Here’s what we know
for sure, thanks to 19th century historian Wilson Hopkins Barker and his great
granddaughter Vircy Macatee, who typed and published Barker’s memoirs under the
title “Sketches.”
Barker wrote:
“In 1860 Gideon Mills,
who was one of the first settlers on Paluxy about 20 miles above the mouth,
sent his son who was almost grown and his son-in-law about three or four miles
out in the timber to find and feed his hogs.
“They were
going through the open post oak woods looking for hogs, perhaps not thinking of
Indians, when they saw horses and men sitting around with hats on.”
Mills’ kin presumed
them to be amiable cattlemen. This error in judgment was grave. The cattlemen
were hostile Indians, who surrounded the young men, killed them with arrows,
collected the scalps and left the bodies for the wolves.
Mills and a
neighbor began looking for the boys the next morning. They believed them lost
in the woods.
“After
searching the country for miles in every direction, the boys’ bodies were
found,” Barker wrote.
“I believe that
their burial started the graveyard now known as the Rock Church Graveyard.”
Not exactly.
Today’s Rock Church
Cemetery opened for business 10 years after Mills’ loved ones rode to their
doom.
Where they’re
buried is Dunagan Cemetery on the present Milstead Ranch off Loftin Road.
Dunagan Cemetery
was once known as Jackson Cemetery. Before that, it was Mills Cemetery. Gideon
Mills originally owned the land. His oldest son (Henry Clay Mills) and
son-in-law (John Wood) occupy the first graves.
William Bryant
Baker, a Civil War veteran who died at the Battle of Pea Ridge, was brought to
Mills Cemetery for burial in 1862. George Washington Dunagan was interred at
the site in 1871 and Mary Emma Bayne Wood in 1872.
Meanwhile, back at
the Indian skirmish, Mills was a cultured fellow who understood two wrongs
don’t make a right. But he evidently had a temper and believed in country
justice: an eye for an eye.
Or, in this case,
two eyes.
According to
written family lore provided by Mrs. Dorothy Bailey, he tracked down three
Indians, shot them, secured the bodies to trees to expose them to the elements,
and then buried them in the vicinity of his deceased kin.
Then, or shortly
after, a rock fence was constructed around the little cemetery. Today, many of
the same rocks lie scattered in the vicinity of the only marked grave, which
belongs to Dunagan.
“The story goes that
Mills killed three Indians,” Paluxy-Rock Church historian Janet Saltsgiver
said. “I don’t know if he killed them right away or later.
“He buried them at
the edge of the cemetery. I don’t know if he marked their graves or not.”
The rock wall was,
and is, one landmark. So is, and was, a wagon trail adjacent to the cemetery.
Today, the trail is
distinguished by a hump that almost appears to be railroad embankment.
“That road was
built in the 1800s,” Saltsgiver said. “It ran right beside the cemetery’s stone
wall.”
The doomed Indians
could have been riding horseback on the trail in the direction of a Paluxy
River hard-bottom crossing well known to Indians and white folks.
Mills could have
met them, said howdy, and then said, “Goodnight, Irene.” The Indians may have
tried, and failed, to outrun his bullets.
“It’s a pretty good
ways from that cemetery to that Paluxy ford,” Saltsgiver said. “The trail came
across the Paluxy and then up toward the cemetery.”
One obvious
question arises:
Why would an angry
white man bury three Indians in the same cemetery where he’d buried loved ones?
“That would be
unusual,” Saltsgiver acknowledged.
Maybe he waited for
the Indians from behind the rock wall. Maybe he buried them where they fell.
We’ll never know for sure. Rock walls don’t talk.
It’s probably fair
to speculate that Mills’ young kin and the three Indians rest in peace, not to
mention truce, today at Mills-Jackson-Dunagan Cemetery. Who’s to argue?
Not Michael
Dunagan, “second cousin five times removed” of George Washington Dunagan.
“Probably what
happened is that the Indians had been down here raiding,” Dunagan said. “He
(Mills) probably caught up with them up the road.
“Back then, if you
killed an Indian, you dug a hole next to him, pushed him in and covered it up.”
The Indian story
was just a rabbit trail for Michael, who located to the Rock Church area four
years ago. He’d been in search of the cemetery in hopes of locating G.W.
“I’d seen Dunagan
Branch Creek on a map,” he said. “Then on the Hood County Genealogical Society
Web site, I’d found Dunagan Cemetery under the ‘lost and forgotten places.’
“I happened to have
the GPS (satellite locating) coordinates for the cemetery. I had a cheesy
little GPS. So I punched the numbers into the GPS and followed it.
“I was driving
around trying to find the cemetery. I pulled over on Glen Cemetery Road to help
a guy herd a calf back into his pasture. An elderly couple, Kenneth and Olive
Morris, came down the hill.
“I told Kenneth
that I was looking for the grave of George Washington Dunagan. He said, ‘That’s
my great-grandfather. He’s buried over yonder on Loftin Road.’
“Well, that was
like striking gold. So I drove over to Loftin Road. My GPS kept saying I was
driving around the cemetery. I pulled over at a house to ask where it was.
“Some kids who came
to the door told me, ‘There’s some Indian graves down there.’ I said, ‘Can you
show me where?’ They led me through some heavy brush to some unmarked graves,
just rocks.
“Then I saw George
Washington Dunagan’s grave. His last name is spelled exactly like mine.”
G.W. was a
battlefield hero…notably a live one.
“I’d thought he was
a (Confederate) general,” Dunagan said. “He wasn’t. He was a private. Everyone
just called him general after the Civil War because he fought in so many battles.
“He survived over
80 engagements around Atlanta and 160 total. He became a school teacher. He
taught out of a school not far from Vinegar
Hill Cemetery.
“Then in 1871, he
was out hunting and got pneumonia and died.”
G.W. dug a well and
built a cabin at the headwaters of Dunagan Creek, off the present Coleman Ranch
Road.
“The well is still
there,” Dunagan said. “From what I understand, it was still producing into the 1970s.
The cabin isn’t there. It’s up the road with a house built around it.
“The cabin is
probably 20 x 20 with a fireplace and a loft.”
G.W. was buried at
Dunagan Cemetery for a good reason. “It was the closest one to his homestead,”
Dunagan said.
When Rock Church
Cemetery was created, it became the resting place of choice for the Rock
Church area.
“Dunagan Cemetery
was kind of in the middle of nowhere back then,” Dunagan said. “It still is.”
Most of the briars
and brambles in Dunagan Cemetery have been chewed to the roots by voracious
goats.
That’s helped make
the grounds accessible…if not completely immaculate.
“There are between
20 and 30 documented graves,” Dunagan said. “Undocumented, no one knows.”
Dunagan and fellow
historian Preston Furlow are heavily immersed in restoration projects up the
road at Rock Church Cemetery.
“Rock Church
Cemetery is heavily Masonic,” Dunagan said. “Preston and I are in the same
lodge. In a way, we feel obligated to take care of the place, and we’re the
youngest ones.
“Mr. (Jesse) Caraway
gave the land for Rock Church Cemetery. It’s about four acres. When my time
comes, I’ll be out here, too.”
2004 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY