For 130 years, the Hillcrest Cemetery has served as more than just as hallowed ground marked planted with a massive and ornate garden of stone.
But, like other historic areas, the Hillcrest Cemetery has seen better days, and is in the midst of a being restored.
“This cemetery is older than the city,” said Hillcrest director Patty Benoit. “Over the last 130 years, we’ve collected a lot of famous people and a lot of famous stories.”
It is believed as many as 16,000 people are buried in Hillcrest, and one of the earliest was placed there four years before Temple was established.
Mary Williams was only 17 when she died in 1877.
She was laid to rest less than 100 feet from Lovick Moore, who was a close personal friend of Republic of Texas Gen. Sam Houston.
Ellis Miller’s unmarked grave - one of America’s first black cowboys - is mere footsteps from Moore’s final resting place.
“I have identified at least 35 different people who are listed in the new Handbook of Texas,” Mrs. Benoit said.
Although revered, many of the monuments have succumbed to decay and are beginning to crumble, and in some cases, already have.
In order to preserve and protect the history, Hillcrest’s board of trustees has launched a capital campaign to raise $1 million.
The goal is simple: Preserve the historic integrity while ensuring its financial security.
With that, Hillcrest announced this week that they’d received a $25,000 grant from the Brown Foundation of Houston.
“We are proud to accept this award,” said Dr. Harry B. Macey Jr., president of the board of trustees. “In memory of Alice Brown’s parents and grandparents, and other relatives buried here. The Brown family has a long history in Bell County and we’re happy to help commemorate it in this manner.”
Although the contribution from the Brown Foundation - from the founders of Brown and Root - other substantial contributions have been made by Tommy and Shirley Strasburger and Ed and Patsy Hinkle.
”What we are trying to do is strengthen the cemetery financially and build its infrastructure,” Mrs. Benoit said.
That endeavor began five years ago, and Mrs. Benoit will never forget just how much has changed when the board of trustees took the step to preserve the old cemetery
“We were in an old barn with a dirt floor and there were rats running over my feet,” she said. “We literally had these 130-year-old records that were in old cardboard boxes with rats’ nests on top of them. We had a lot of things that needed to be preserved and we could not do it in a barn with a dirt floor.”
The city of Temple worked with the board of trustees and cleared away debris and brush from the cemetery property, and built two miles of fence around the cemetery.
Today, they are still working to determine how many people are buried, either famous or not, in the historic cemetery.
Mrs. Benoit said there are over 12,000 marked graves and she has burial records on 16,000.
“We also know that we have several thousand unmarked and undocumented burials…people would die at one of the hospitals and they’d have no family and no money, so they were buried in pauper’s graves,” she said. “We know they are out there and we know the names, but some of them, we don’t know where they are.”
Many of those unmarked graves are filled with those who died during the dengue fever epidemic in 1907 and the influenza epidemic in 1918, she said.
In the meantime, Mrs. Benoit and the board of trustees are continuing their work to preserve the history and uniqueness of the cemetery.
To learn more, or to make a donation to the cemetery, call Mrs. Benoit at 773-4844 or 773-4626.
bkirk@temple-telegram.com
