Hyde Cemetery

Jim Ned was a real man with a long afterlife on the map. The Handbook of Texas calls him a Delaware chief who probably kept a village on the Brazos near Fort Graham and sometimes scouted for the Texas militia; he served Capt. Samuel Highsmith in the 1847 fight against the Wichitas on the upper Brazos. The Wise County entry says a village of about sixty-five Delaware under Jim Ned remained in the county when settlers arrived, befriended them, and gave his name to hills, streams and communities. Jim Ned Creek is believed named for him.

What the plaque says

Hyde Cemetery J. E. Barnes purchased this site in 1885 from P. J. Hyde and his wife Mary E. Hyde. The earliest marked graves are those of Barnes' wife Dizania (b. 1861) and son Felix, both of whom died on December 4, 1879. Many early settlers of the abandoned Jim Ned community (two miles north) are also buried here. Named for an Indian chief, Jim Ned was a thriving settlement before 1900 and included a church, school, mercantile store, and post office. About 75 graves at this site are unmarked. Others are indicated only with rocks and fences. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 15 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Wise County Courthouse — 19 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 25 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.

More markers nearby

• Lake Bridgeport WWII Training Site — 2.7 mi
• Wizard Wells — 5.2 mi
• Toll Bridge & Old Bridgeport — 7.4 mi
• Bridgeport Coal Mines — 9.0 mi