The Upland southern cemetery tradition in Tarrant county, Texas Page: 3 of 86
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While time was an unfortunate and exceedingly limiting factor, this report
is the response to a fascinating project of both field study and research to
determine several things. First, do cemeteries in Tarrant County show evidence
of the Upland South tradition as set forth by Jeane (7), and, if so, to what
extent is this tradition maintained. While the field research would call forth
an immediate "yes" to the first problem, the second problem could as readily be
answered in the negative even though vestiges of this tradition remain in every
cemetery visited in Tarrant County. And amazingly, at times, there would rest
a scraped and mounded plot of earth adorned with flowers amid a sea of green grass
and stately cedars. A third consideration of this paper is the derivation of the
religious significance of the funerial practises and symbols that were observed
in these burial grounds. As Clark (2) suggested, patrons who still preserve and
maintain these traditions may give no better reason than "that's the way it has
always been done," but they are, knowingly or not, guided or not, preserving a
viable religious tradtion in the midst of a rapidly changing technological society
where these vestiges are so badly needed.
A setting along the Trinity River which abounded with wild turkey, buffalo,
deer, antelope and wild horses; with panthers and wolves lurking in hidden places;
and, with honey and wild grapes plentiful, pinpoints the major area of this survey
as it was in the early 1800's. O'Donnell (11, p. 25) described this area as a
"lush and enchanting land" although the pioneers of this area and of the Upland
South tradition were not to find it a paradise. It was not until 1850 that the
present boundaries of Tarrant County were formed, but it is this northeastern
section of the county that is of initial concern for the survey. Other cemeteries
in Cooke, Denton, Dallas and Henderson counties were surveyed.
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Gough, Peggy G. The Upland southern cemetery tradition in Tarrant county, Texas, paper, July 8, 1975; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc851855/m1/3/: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.