Amity Cemetery

Amity's community outlived its school. The Handbook says settlers arrived in the 1870s and that, according to one source, the name reflected the amicable relations of the early settlers. Amity had a school only from 1902 to 1906. By 1940 the community had a church, a cemetery and scattered dwellings; little had changed by 1966, and in 1992 the church still stood and Amity was still on county maps. The Handbook dates the oldest grave to 1877, a year earlier than the burials the plaque records.

What the plaque says

Amity Cemetery When 14-year-old Charles Farley died in Feb. 1878, his parents buried him near their farmhouse, as this frontier locality had no cemetery at the time. Three months later Fannie Nichols (1875-78) died and was buried nearby. The Farleys then donated an acre of land as a community graveyard. The neighbors built an adjacent brush arbor for funerals and general gatherings. In the summer of 1878, Baptists organized a church, naming it Amity (friendship). Before erecting their own buildings, Baptists and Methodists held services in the brush arbor or at Amity School (1 mi. NW). William H. Lindley (1840-1913) bought land south of the Farley Farm in 1885. When new surveys placed the cemetery on his land, Lindley deeded the burial ground to the public. Later his son-in-law, George Brown, gave an additional acre to be used if needed. A large tabernacle with permanent fixtures replaced the brush arbor and was used for funerals until 1938 or 1939, when it was severely damaged by a storm. Free-will donations have maintained the cemetery since 1951. A "First Sunday in June Singing" which Amity Baptist Church originated in 1897 now serves as an annual memorial day and homecoming. By 1978 Amity Cemetery has nearly 400 graves. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Brownwood State Park — 15 mi
  A CCC park on a reservoir that filled in a single flood before its dam was done, with stone cabins, a hilltop dance pavilion and a grand staircase climbed by dancers arriving by boat.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 24 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.
• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 25 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.

More markers nearby

• The May Community — 4.7 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Rising Star — 5.3 mi
• Rising Star — 5.6 mi
• Sipe Springs Cemetery — 7.2 mi