by Pete Kindall<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hood County News \u2013 March 6, 2004<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinegar Hill is a detective\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no town, no population, little documented history to prove that what supposedly happened really happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is a cemetery. And that\u2019s a stirring starting point for researchers, statewide and local, documenting the existence of post-Columbian civilization near the municipality of Paluxy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chris Dyer and Frank Saffarrans did their homework\u2026as much as was available to do. The primary source material dried up long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anybody who might know the God\u2019s truth about Vinegar Hill is buried on it among a grove of junipers that prevented Dyer and Saffarrans from documenting the entirety of the obscure graveyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parasitic vegetation proved as impregnable as barbed wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t really know how many people are buried at Vinegar Hill Cemetery,\u201d Saffarrans, of the Hood County Genealogical Society, said. \u201cIt\u2019s so grown up with junipers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can\u2019t blame the junipers for the cemetery\u2019s abandonment, abuse and neglect, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to a lady who lives nearby and a lady who\u2019s a historian, someone went in there in the 1970s, took the headstones and used them in a construction project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCarl Droste owns the land now,\u201d Saffarrans said. \u201cHe said he\u2019s going to get a work crew together this spring to cut down the junipers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for a theological dispute, Vinegar Hill might be as cosmopolitan today as nearby Glen Rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was a church in the Vinegar Hill area in the 1870s,\u201d Saffarrans said.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOne of the factions decided to have a dance.\u00a0\u00a0That so infuriated the other faction that the\u00a0congregation split.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe second faction turned over the floorboards because the church floor had been defiled by the dance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Baker\u2019s Crossing historian who probably wishes to be nameless said he was told that the structure, whether a church or school or community cabin, was originally located near the site of Vinegar Hill Cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That makes sense. It would have shortened the length of funeral processions between structure and graveyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mean-spirited ex-citizens gave Vinegar Hill its unfortunate moniker, Saffarrans said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSupposedly, it was said that members of the remaining faction had so much vinegar in their blood that nothing would ever grow on that hill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They forgot that junipers can grow in cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe name stuck,\u201d Saffarrans said. \u201cThe people buried there probably don\u2019t appreciate the vinegar connotation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinegar Hill was among county cemeteries identified and mapped by Saffarrans and Dyer, a Texas Historical Commission staffer, in an extensive THC survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intriguing is the story of Dunagan Cemetery southwest of Granbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019d never visited that cemetery before,\u201d Saffarrans said. \u201cThere was never anybody in a house nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChris went with me this time. He suggested we ask at another house that turned out to be Paluxy Valley Ranch, owned by Troy and Verla Milstead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey said when they bought the land, the seller asked at closing, \u2018Do you know you just bought a cemetery?\u2019 Verla got interested in it. She\u2019s cleared a lot of the underbrush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are four graves there, plus 30 marked by stones. Three or four are said to be Indians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every grave tells a story. G.W. Dunagan\u2019s tells a dandy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt just says\u00a0G.W. Dunagan\u00a0on the tombstone,\u201d Saffarrans said.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI looked in the Judge Davis (county historical) papers and learned the man\u2019s full name was George Washington Dunagan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe died in 1871, the same year he married. His only child was born after he died. Even though it was a girl, she was named George Washington after her father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey called her Georgie for short. The mother (Martha) never remarried. She died at the age of 92.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Caroline Orum tale tugs at the heartstrings.\u00a0\u00a0Caroline gave up the ghost in 1880 after bearing nine children.\u00a0\u00a0She\u2019s buried\u00a0oh-so-alone\u00a0west of Tolar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat individual grave was real interesting to me,\u201d Saffarrans said. \u201cI thought there was just going to be a field stone, and there turned out to be a tombstone by itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI looked up Caroline Orum in the census. She was head of a household with a husband, nine children and two grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe died three months after the census. That must have been traumatic for the family. The father died two years later in Limestone County, so evidently the family broke up after she died.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Millington Cemetery\u00a0is forgotten by many but not by those with ancestors buried in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on the Millington Ranch, about a mile off the highway to Lipan,\u201d Saffarrans said. \u201cYou go through two dry-weather crossings of Robinson Creek. It\u2019s a little cemetery almost in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe person who led us there is the son of the ranch owner. He knew exactly where it was. He\u2019d found it while he was hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saffarrans and Dyer confirmed the existence of another cemetery on property near Millington Ranch. They didn\u2019t confirm the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe person who showed us Millington Cemetery wasn\u2019t well enough acquainted with the owners of the other property to go on their property,\u201d Saffarrans said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat site is on the geodetic map. I wouldn\u2019t expect to find anything but the remains of a few graves there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saffarrans is much beholden, he said, to Mildred Thormann of Lipan. She wrote the definitive history of Hood County cemeteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe spent about five years visiting all the cemeteries and recording them,\u201d he said. \u201cHer book was really the basis for what Chris and I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never met her, but I\u2019ve always been thankful for her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Pete Kindall Hood County News \u2013 March 6, 2004 Vinegar Hill is a detective\u2019s delight. There\u2019s no town, no population, little documented history to prove that what supposedly happened really happened. But there is a cemetery. And that\u2019s a stirring … Continue reading