Young County makes progress on William P. Johnston Cemetery

The Young County William P. Johnston Preservation Committee recently met with a representative from Texas Tech University about the possibility of making the cemetery a project. The county is waiting on a survey of the property to determine the next step for the project.

The committee updated the Young County Commissioners Court in September and voted to close the William P. Johnston Memorial Cemetery for future burials, recruit members for the committee and plan for surveys of the cemetery.

Four members were named to the committee which are Dorman Holub, Ernie Jackson, Jackie Tate and Young County Judge Win Graham. In September, members of the group wanted to reach out and find if any interested parties would use the cemetery as a college research project.

“A professor from Texas Tech came... Dr. Tamra Walter. She came to Graham (in November), and she wanted to look at the WPJ cemetery,” Judge Graham said. “At the end of (her visit), she said she was going to go back to Texas Tech and… try to use the cemetery as a Fall project for her... students. …They were going to come out and do a survey of it. They're trying to get ground penetrating radar and they would use that to try to identify unmarked graves.”

Graham said that some graves may extend beyond the boundaries of the fenced area of the cemetery and the county has reached out to the abutting property owner.

“He's 100% going to be cooperative with this. He's going to allow the surveyor to go back there and survey the tract of land that was deeded to the county for the cemetery,” he said. “He's going to allow Texas Tech, when they come to do their operations, all around his property to see if there's, in fact, people buried back there and off of the original track.”

In September, the county judge said the court was looking to conduct two surveys: a survey of the cemetery as it stands today and a survey of what the original cemetery was per the deed. The county judge said they are awaiting information from the survey.

“The survey has been acquired. The surveyors has his marching orders. I've given him all the information that I have and I'm waiting for that survey to be completed,” Judge Graham said. “The next thing that's going to happen is, hopefully, Texas Tech will come do this work in the Fall and then they're going to give us some more information. Then we'll have to figure out what the next step is.”

The judge said there was no timeframe on the completion of the survey but he expects it to be soon.

Background

The county judge was approached in early August regarding county ownership of the cemetery.

At the time, neither the city of Graham or Young County had information regarding the ownership of the cemetery.

“Several investigations of deeds failed to uncover whether the land was owned by the city, the county, or privately owned,” Graham said in September. “The city, county and local historians all invested time and resources in researching ownership of the cemetery.”

Around Friday, Aug. 18, the document was uncovered which was deeded Dec. 4, 1923 by Addie M. Graham to the county. The deed stated, “that this property shall be used solely as a burying ground for colored people, and should it not be used for that purpose, or if used for any other purpose, this tract shall revert to the grantor, her heirs or assigns.”