Evergreen Cemetery

The community of Evergreen began to take shape in the late 1860s, and a small strip of land was donated for a community cemetery in 1885, when Mrs. W.F. Hampton became the first recorded person interred there. A post office was established in 1888 with Samuel Gustine as postmaster, and the town name was officially changed to Gustine as the community grew steadily. Those buried there included prominent members of early Evergreen and nearby communities, including the Boyd family, landowners, farmers, and schoolteachers who operated a cotton gin and blacksmith shop; the Bolton family, who farmed, hauled freight and mail, and operated a barber shop for generations; the Couch and Johnston families, who came from Georgia and Mississippi and were farmers and landowners; and the Pettit family of Alabama, who were bankers, farmers, and cattlemen. After a road between the Comanche and Gentry Mill communities opened in 1895, Gustine businesses moved closer to the main route, but the cemetery remained three-quarters of a mile to the north. A land donation in 1897 and the purchase of additional acreage in 1918 allowed the cemetery to expand to meet the road. In 1999, it contained about 630 burials on 3.284 acres, including two Confederate Army veterans and veterans of World War I and World War II. Although all that remained of the old Evergreen community was a hand-dug well on private property south of the cemetery, the burial ground continued to serve the nearby communities of Pettit, Gustine, and Energy.

Texas · United States