EARLIEST Burial at Hanson Cemetery - Comanche County, TX - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

Mr. Hanson is buried with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, and the headstone for at least one relative of his wife is visible in the plot. Mother Nature is beginning to claim the original marker, but one can still make out "Wm Hanson", "Born Sept 17", "and died", and it sure looks like "1871". However, the 2.0 marker indicates 1870, corroborating what is referenced on the historical marker. It reads:

In Memory of
William Hanson
Sept. 17, 1807
Oct. 22, 1870

Besides noting that either 1870 or 1871 was Mr. Hanson's last year on the planet, the historical marker explains an interesting arrangement that he had with Mathew Walton, another early area settler, which explains why the cemetery bears the name "Hanson":

When brothers J.H. and J.G. Walton and J.H.'s wife Annie Warsham Walton formally granted approximately one acre of land for a community burial ground in 1925, Hanson Cemetery was already well established. The scattered settlers of the community of Roch had already buried over fifty loved ones at the site. The community of Roch was named after Captain John Bernard Roch, who had one of the earliest homesteads in the area. The Roch community consisted of homesteads scattered along either side of what became the Comyn Highway (FM 1496) and County Roads 434 and 438.

The earliest burial at the cemetery is that of William Hanson, whose worn grave marker indicates that he died either in 1870 or 1871. Tradition states that William Hanson and M. Walton were neighbors who enjoyed hunting along Sowell Creek. The two men agreed that the man who was the first to die would be buried under oak trees along the creek, and the resulting cemetery would bear his name. The later burial of Hanson's wife, Martha Dunn Hanson, began the Hanson Cemetery. The Dunn family and the Walton family also had significant burial plots in the old section of Hanson Cemetery.

The cemetery grounds and grave sites were taken care of for many years by the Hanson Cemetery Committee under the chairmanship of J.P. Thompson. After Thompson's death in 1941, it was necessary to form a Hanson Cemetery Association to continue with the cemetery's upkeep. The association incorporated in 1985. A veterans memorial was erected in 1998 to honor those veterans interred in the cemetery.

FIRST - Classification Variable: Person or Group Date of FIRST: 10/22/1870 More Information - Web URL: [Web Link]

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