Clarendon Cemetery

Old Clarendon stood on a flat where Carroll Creek meets the Salt Fork of the Red River. Lewis Henry Carhart and his brother-in-law W. A. Allen founded it in the spring of 1878 as a Christian colony, building with rock, adobe and pickets; its lack of bars led rowdier Panhandle residents to call it Saint's Roost. When the railroad passed to the south in 1887, the townspeople voted overwhelmingly to move to it. Greenbelt Reservoir flooded the old townsite in 1968, and the old cemetery was then moved south on State Highway 70.

What the plaque says

Clarendon Cemetery In this first cemetery of Donley County, sixteen rods west lie the first dead of Old Clarendon. Here white civilization sank its roots in sadness and from the graves in this sacred acre strong pioneer spirits turned to face the future with greater love for the land and a firmer determination to build for a tomorrow which we know today. To those of the Old Clarendon Colony who first found rest on this bold promontory and to their survivors, this stone of imperishable Texas granite is loyally and lovingly dedicated. Erected by the State of Texas, July 4, 1938

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saints' Roost Museum — 0.8 mi
  Clarendon's county museum in the hospital Cornelia Adair built for JA cowboys in 1910, named for the nickname cowhands gave a Methodist town with no saloons.
• Donley County Courthouse — 1.4 mi
  Bulger and Rapp's red brick and white stone courthouse of 1891, the oldest in use in the Panhandle, given back its third floor and towers in a 2003 restoration.
• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The two-story house the Goodnights moved into on December 27, 1887, after leaving the JA, with a porch that looks over bison descended from the calves Mary Ann saved.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 27 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• James T. Patman — steps away
• Funeral Business in Clarendon — 1.2 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Clarendon — 1.4 mi
• Stockton P. Donley — 1.4 mi