I cannot help but wonder what those buried in the Starkey
Cemetery might think if they were to wake and see Kerrville's largest retail
store where their fields once stood. The cars would be a puzzle of course, as
would the large paved parking lot. And the store building itself would be
mind-bogglingly large.
Years ago, as a kid growing up near there, I would cross a
drooping wire fence to enter the tangled little cemetery, reading the
tombstones there and marveling how old they were. I'm proud that the Starkey
family has made the spot so nice with the decorative fence and gate.
I know the stories of a few of those buried in that little
cemetery. Perhaps next time you pass the spot you'll think of those resting
there.
James Monroe Starkey was born in 1820 in Tennessee; his
second wife, Martha, was also born in Tennessee, in 1834. Her mother, Henrietta
Rees,
James Starkey had earlier married Elizabeth Young Ridley in
Tennessee, and shortly before she died, they had a daughter, also named
Elizabeth.
Leaving his daughter in the care of her grandparents Ridley,
Starkey became a Forty-Niner, going with
eight friends to the gold fields of California. This group called themselves
the "Invincible Eight."
According to a 1941 article by T. U. Taylor, "After
five years of gold digging, James Monroe Starkey took passage by boat for
Panama and finally landed at New Orleans."
This was well before Teddy Roosevelt had the canal constructed, so Starkey
crossed the isthmus on a narrow-gauge railway, then on by boat to New Orleans,
then by stage from New Orleans to the Texas state line.
Starkey made his way from East Texas to what would become
Kerr County on the back of a pony named 'Bustamante.' His dead wife's parents, the George Ridleys,
were now in Kerr County, as was his daughter Elizabeth, then 10.
"In Kerr County [Starkey] soon began to clear some land
for a crop, and also went into the business of making cypress shingles, which
at that time command a ready sale in San Antonio."
Martha, his wife, got to Kerr County when she was 18. Around
1851 "the Widow Rees and her four children" arrived near the site of
Bandera. The Indians proved troublesome, so they moved to the valley of the
Guadalupe, a few miles from the present town of Kerrville. The "Widow
Rees," was Henrietta Rees, who was buried in the little Starkey cemetery
in 1882.
Starkey met Martha A. Rees in Kerrville, and on April 3,
1860 they were married. Together they had five children, including Jones
Starkey, who died on his sixth birthday, and is buried in the little cemetery
near his parents. Alice, the eldest, was a teacher; John James became editor of
the Kerrville Times, and quite an expert on local history; Alonzo Lycurgus, who
served as county surveyor for nearly fifty years and for whom a local
elementary school is named; and Edwin, the youngest, who lived a good bit of
his life out of the state.
During the Civil War, Starkey served as "chief
justice" of Kerr County, a role similar to today's county judge. During
that struggle he was also appointed "enrolling officer" for the Confederacy,
and Provost Marshall for the county.
Later, when the county was building its first courthouse in
1876, Starkey was appointed to the committee to oversee its construction.
He also owned and operated a mill with partners Alonzo Rees
and Miles Lowrance, near, I suppose, where Starbucks is today.
Martha Starkey was a church leader who helped found the
Methodist church here, first at the old Rock schoolhouse, which I believe was
at the corner of Main and Sidney Baker, then at the Union Church, and finally
at the First United Methodist Church.
James Monroe Starkey died in Kerrville in 1891; Martha A.
Rees Starkey, also in Kerrville, in 1905. Among her last words, as she recalled
her life, were "T'was all a pleasure."
Think about them as you pass the little cemetery, tucked
there between the tire store and Wal-Mart.
Until next week, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who thinks we trip
over history every day in Kerrville. A small portion of his collection of
historic Kerrville photographs is on display this month at Starbucks Coffee in Kerrville. This column originally appeared in the Kerrville Daily Times April 7, 2012
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