{"id":1097,"date":"2020-03-28T23:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T23:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/?p=1097"},"modified":"2024-01-21T02:41:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T02:41:04","slug":"dunagan-cemetery-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/cemetary\/dunagan-cemetery-1\/","title":{"rendered":"DUNAGAN CEMETERY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If rock walls could talk\u2026tale of Indians\u2019 demise would spring to life<\/em>
by Pete Kendall
Hood County News \u2013 June 16, 2004<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Headstone of George Washington Dunagan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If rock walls could talk, they\u2019d tell a tale of murder and retribution. Probably. We can\u2019t be altogether sure. What allegedly transpired, approximately two miles west of the present Rock Church Cemetery, was over 140 years ago. Every character in the cast has passed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of natural causes\u2026or otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what we know for sure, thanks to 19th century historian Wilson Hopkins Barker and his great granddaughter Vircy Macatee, who typed and published Barker\u2019s memoirs under the title \u201cSketches.\u201d
Barker wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 1860 Gideon Mills, who was one of the first settlers on Paluxy about 20 miles above the mouth, sent his son who was almost grown and his son-in-law about three or four miles out in the timber to find and feed his hogs.

\u201cThey were going through the open post oak woods looking for hogs, perhaps not thinking of Indians, when they saw horses and men sitting around with hats on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mills\u2019 kin presumed them to be amiable cattlemen. This error in judgment was grave. The cattlemen were hostile Indians, who surrounded the young men, killed them with arrows, collected the scalps and left the bodies for the wolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mills and a neighbor began looking for the boys the next morning. They believed them lost in the woods.

\u201cAfter searching the country for miles in every direction, the boys\u2019 bodies were found,\u201d Barker wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe that their burial started the graveyard now known as the Rock Church Graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s Rock Church Cemetery opened for business 10 years after Mills\u2019 loved ones rode to their doom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where they\u2019re buried is Dunagan Cemetery on the present Milstead Ranch off Loftin Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunagan Cemetery<\/a> was once known as Jackson Cemetery. Before that, it was Mills Cemetery. Gideon Mills originally owned the land. His oldest son (Henry Clay Mills) and son-in-law (John Wood) occupy the first graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Bryant Baker, a Civil War veteran who died at the Battle of Pea Ridge, was brought to Mills Cemetery for burial in 1862. George Washington Dunagan was interred at the site in 1871 and Mary Emma Bayne Wood in 1872.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, back at the Indian skirmish, Mills was a cultured fellow who understood two wrongs don\u2019t make a right. But he evidently had a temper and believed in country justice: an eye for an eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, in this case, two eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to written family lore provided by Mrs. Dorothy Bailey, he tracked down three Indians, shot them, secured the bodies to trees to expose them to the elements, and then buried them in the vicinity of his deceased kin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, or shortly after, a rock fence was constructed around the little cemetery. Today, many of the same rocks lie scattered in the vicinity of the only marked grave, which belongs to Dunagan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe story goes that Mills killed three Indians,\u201d Paluxy-Rock Church historian Janet Saltsgiver said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he killed them right away or later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe buried them at the edge of the cemetery. I don\u2019t know if he marked their graves or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rock wall was, and is, one landmark. So is, and was, a wagon trail adjacent to the cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the trail is distinguished by a hump that almost appears to be railroad embankment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat road was built in the 1800s,\u201d Saltsgiver said. \u201cIt ran right beside the cemetery\u2019s stone wall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doomed Indians could have been riding horseback on the trail in the direction of a Paluxy River hard-bottom crossing well known to Indians and white folks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mills could have met them, said howdy, and then said, \u201cGoodnight, Irene.\u201d The Indians may have tried, and failed, to outrun his bullets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty good ways from that cemetery to that Paluxy ford,\u201d Saltsgiver said. \u201cThe trail came across the Paluxy and then up toward the cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One obvious question arises:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why would an angry white man bury three Indians in the same cemetery where he\u2019d buried loved ones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat would be unusual,\u201d Saltsgiver acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe he waited for the Indians from behind the rock wall. Maybe he buried them where they fell. We\u2019ll never know for sure. Rock walls don\u2019t talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s probably fair to speculate that Mills\u2019 young kin and the three Indians rest in peace, not to mention truce, today at Mills-Jackson-Dunagan Cemetery. Who\u2019s to argue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Michael Dunagan, \u201csecond cousin five times removed\u201d of George Washington Dunagan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProbably what happened is that the Indians had been down here raiding,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cHe (Mills) probably caught up with them up the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack then, if you killed an Indian, you dug a hole next to him, pushed him in and covered it up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian story was just a rabbit trail for Michael, who located to the Rock Church area four years ago. He\u2019d been in search of the cemetery in hopes of locating G.W.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d seen Dunagan Branch Creek on a map,\u201d he said. \u201cThen on the Hood County Genealogical Society Web site, I\u2019d found Dunagan Cemetery under the \u2018lost and forgotten places.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI happened to have the GPS (satellite locating) coordinates for the cemetery. I had a cheesy little GPS. So I punched the numbers into the GPS and followed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was driving around trying to find the cemetery. I pulled over on Glen Cemetery Road to help a guy herd a calf back into his pasture. An elderly couple, Kenneth and Olive Morris, came down the hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told Kenneth that I was looking for the grave of George Washington Dunagan. He said, \u2018That\u2019s my great-grandfather. He\u2019s buried over yonder on Loftin Road.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, that was like striking gold. So I drove over to Loftin Road. My GPS kept saying I was driving around the cemetery. I pulled over at a house to ask where it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome kids who came to the door told me, \u2018There\u2019s some Indian graves down there.\u2019 I said, \u2018Can you show me where?\u2019 They led me through some heavy brush to some unmarked graves, just rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen I saw George Washington Dunagan\u2019s grave. His last name is spelled exactly like mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G.W. was a battlefield hero\u2026notably a live one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d thought he was a (Confederate) general,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t. He was a private. Everyone just called him general after the Civil War because he fought in so many battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe survived over 80 engagements around Atlanta and 160 total. He became a school teacher. He taught out of a school not far from Vinegar Hill Cemetery<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen in 1871, he was out hunting and got pneumonia and died.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G.W. dug a well and built a cabin at the headwaters of Dunagan Creek, off the present Coleman Ranch Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe well is still there,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cFrom what I understand, it was still producing into the 1970s. The cabin isn\u2019t there. It\u2019s up the road with a house built around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cabin is probably 20 x 20 with a fireplace and a loft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G.W. was buried at Dunagan Cemetery for a good reason. \u201cIt was the closest one to his homestead,\u201d Dunagan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rock Church Cemetery<\/a> was created, it became the resting place of choice for the Rock Church area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDunagan Cemetery was kind of in the middle of nowhere back then,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cIt still is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the briars and brambles in Dunagan Cemetery have been chewed to the roots by voracious goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s helped make the grounds accessible\u2026if not completely immaculate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are between 20 and 30 documented graves,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cUndocumented, no one knows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dunagan and fellow historian Preston Furlow are heavily immersed in restoration projects up the road at Rock Church Cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRock Church Cemetery is heavily Masonic,\u201d Dunagan said. \u201cPreston and I are in the same lodge. In a way, we feel obligated to take care of the place, and we\u2019re the youngest ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. (Jesse) Caraway<\/a> gave the land for Rock Church Cemetery. It\u2019s about four acres. When my time comes, I\u2019ll be out here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If rock walls could talk\u2026tale of Indians\u2019 demise would spring to lifeby Pete KendallHood County News \u2013 June 16, 2004 If rock walls could talk, they\u2019d tell a tale of murder and retribution. Probably. We can\u2019t be altogether sure. What … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cemetary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5622,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions\/5622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/granburydepot.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}