Barker Cemetery

Armstead Barker set aside four acres for the Gum Creek community's cemetery, but the ground was never deeded to the community. According to a Henderson County TXGenWeb page, the gap surfaced in 1920, when his estate was divided. During the Depression Lazarus (Babe) Barker was forced to put the land up for sale. On January 13, 1934, the Gum Creek Cemetery Association paid him $50 for the four acres, and the deed was recorded as A. Barker Cemetery (Henderson County Deed Book 179, pages 222-224). The page gives both 1893 and 1894 for Hester Barker's death.

What the plaque says

Barker Cemetery Hester (Stovall) and Armstead R. Barker struggled to buy the lands they worked for their former masters, W. C. Larkin and Nat Coleman. When Mrs. Barker died in 1893, her husband set aside 4 previous acres of land to be used as a cemetery by the settlers of the Gum Creek community and their descendants. Although Hester was the first person to be interred on this land, several earlier graves were relocated from their original sites. John Ellick, originally buried on the Barker farm in 1866, is the oldest of these. During the Depression, Lazarus Barker was forced to offer the four acres for sale. Concerned citizens of the Gum Creek and Lease Springs communities formed the Barker Cemetery Association in August of 1933, and by December Barker deeded the land to the association. Others donated land for a driveway to the road. Cemetery maintenance proved difficult for the farming families of the area, but in 1958 the Barker Cemetery Improvement Club sparked new development. A chain link fence, an organized list of graves, and a brick entrance were all completed by 1985. In 1997, over 300 graves had been counted in Barker Cemetery. Still in use, the site is a monument to the vision of Hester and Armstead Barker. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 2.5 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 17 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 29 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.

More markers nearby

• Athens Lodge No. 165 A.F. & A.M. — 3.3 mi
• Bruce Field — 4.6 mi
• Henderson County C. S. A. — 4.6 mi
• Athens — 4.7 mi