Last week, I wrote about finding the exact location of the State Home Cemetery. I also started discussing the search and subsequent finding of another small very elusive cemetery that Bruce McManus' grandfather Malvin Keathley had searched for off and on for more than 20 years. Mr. Keathley had been led to believe this missing cemetery was where some of the members of the Osborne family had been buried years ago. He originally had been told about this cemetery by Joe Dee Hambrick of Corsicana. According to Mr. Hambrick, his family lived north of Emmett having arrived in the area just prior to 1920. Mr. Hambrick said he remembered a small cemetery with an iron fence surrounding the graves but he wasn't sure that there were any headstones. His memory told him this little cemetery was located to the north of the Osborne family house in a pasture so he automatically assumed that this was an Osborne cemetery.

Bruce and I spent hours digging through the deed records looking at every deed transaction that involved any person with the last name of Osborne. Then we plotted each individual tract of land onto the abstracts of the county in an endeavor to find which tract of land the Osborne family might have owned in the Emmett area. Eventually we were able to narrow the list down to a single piece of land just north of Emmett which conformed exactly to the general location given us by Mr. Hambrick. We made a couple of trips out there looking on the east side of the farm-to-market road that runs from Emmett to Frost but we could not see any sign of the little cemetery. For a while, we put this one "on the back burner" and turned our interest toward other cemeteries.

Then about six weeks ago, Bruce hit upon the idea of writing letters to everyone who owned land around the old Osborne tract to see if anyone might know the location of the cemetery. Bruce went to the Navarro County Appraisal District Office and looked up the individual landowners along with their respective addresses. Bruce determined there were 10 owners who qualified as one of the neighbors to the tract and mailed each one a letter to see if he might receive a positive response. Sure enough, Mr. Al Ellison called Bruce and told him he remembered a small cemetery under the edge of an old cedar tree that is isolated from any other trees. We had already received permission from the man who leased the land to go anywhere we desired to look for the plot so Bruce went out there the next afternoon after work. The first old gnarly cedar tree he checked yielded nothing whatsoever that might indicate the presence of a small cemetery. However, when he returned to his pickup, he started studying an aerial map he had obtained off of a Web site on the Internet. The North Central Texas Council of Governments sponsors a Web site that has both regular road maps and aerial maps for downloading. Every cemetery we formally record has several aerial maps downloaded from this Web site marking the exact location of each cemetery. Gerron Hite who handles the cemetery division of the Texas Historical Commission says this is one of the greatest Web sites in Texas. Several times he has mentioned he wished all of the state had this mapping capability.

While studying the aerial map, Bruce noticed a second tree standing isolated in a field to the north. Moving to this location, he proceeded into the back area of the cultivated field and found this tree was also a cedar but much larger with a low hanging canopy. Under the edge of the canopy, he found a few old pieces of iron farm equipment but no sign of a cemetery. Once more he returned to the pickup but when he arrived back at his vehicle, he found another truck parked next to his. He soon discovered the truck belonged to Mr. Ellison so they both walked back to the old large cedar tree. Within a few minutes, Mr. Ellison remarked he had found a piece of an old iron fence lying in a ditch about 50 yards to the north of the tree. As soon as Bruce looked at the fence, he immediately recognized it as being part of a wrought iron cemetery fence. Mr. Ellison remarked he remembered a number of years ago when the area was being plowed, the man doing the plowing kept hanging his plow on a piece of iron fence buried horizontally in the dirt. Not knowing what the little iron fence represented, he moved it into a ditch so that he would not keep hanging his plow.

Than night, Bruce called to tell me he had found the long lost Osborne cemetery. A few days later, we made another trip to the site so we could use the witching rods in an effort to confirm the presence of graves next to the cedar tree. We soon found there were two graves located on the east side of the tree near the drip line of the canopy. We also noted the tree trunk was centered between the two graves. The ground around the tree has been cultivated for years and is on a slight slope which resulted in soil being eroded away every time there was a large rain. This has resulted in the land outside of the canopy being a foot or more lower than the land under the tree.

Bruce and I then checked the iron fence in the small ravine and with the aid of my digging stick we were able to uncover both ends which then allowed us to make a measurement. This small fence section measured 10 feet in length which is very typical of a small single family plot fence. We have looked at several this year that have one or two graves and the surrounding fence is 10 feet in width on the sides.

Now we were comfortable in the fact we had found the missing Osborne Cemetery even though we had been told by Ed Williams that all of the Osborne family members were accounted for in several cemeteries in the area. Once more, we went back to deed records and discovered this particular tract of land was purchased by Robert L. Moore in the early 1890s. We also found out there wasn't a prior landowner for this tract since it had been in the possession of the Navarro County School District. Certain tracts of land were set aside early in an effort to help provide money for the fledgling school district and this particular tract had not sold until Mr. Moore purchased it. We are now convinced the two graves are members of the Robert L. Moore family and they probably died just prior to 1900. Anyone who might have any information about this family, please contact Bruce or me. I also need to mention Mr. Hambrick could not recall any tombstones present inside the iron fence.