Some Funny Shit

Seems George McCurley had to leave his previous residence due to his wife Elizabeth dying after having given birth to seven children who lived and God knows how many who didn't.  Dudes back then practically killed their wives and in fact did by forcing them to have sex and giving birth to more children than these poor women should have.  Childbirth wasn't the safest thing and claimed too many women's lives back then.  Well it seems after his wife died, her cousin by the name of Eliza moved in with him in spite of being married to another dude.  Ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So he and this chick are shacking up and all hell breaks loose.  So they pack their shit and the kids and brother Jonas and his family and go West!!!!  Of course back then you could pretty much claim whoever the hell you wanted to be or claim you and some chick were married when you weren't because there was a lack of paperwork and offices to be filled with filing cabinets of paperwork.  Seems old Jonas didn't like living in Texas so much so he eventually moved to Oklahoma.  The family I believe was originally from Ireland and for some reason after settling in the U.S. had this habit of naming their kids after U.S. presidents like George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and James Madison.  What for, who the hell knows. 

McCurley Cemetery

There were these two brothers, George and Jonas, who decided to hotfoot it to what is now Lewisville Lake.  Interesting story.  They leave Illinois and get to this area in 1856.  They acquire a bunch of land somewhere in the neighborhood of 640 acres of land.  Back in the 1800's if you wanted to be "somebody" then you owned land.  And the more land you owned, the more you were "somebody" and I guess if you really wanted to be "somebody" you named the area after yourself.  So that area became known as McCurley Prairie.  The Lewisville area was basically all prairie land.  So they started this community and put in a church,  seminary, and school among other things.  Naturally apparently being racist there was a separate school for Black kids.  Well, the Civil War comes along and apparently there were people in Texas who really had no interest in participating in this war and just wanted to live their lives.  Well some of these people decided to put together a Peace party and someone in this organization reached out to old Jonas who promptly reported this to law enforcement.  He was a Confederate and he helped get 42 people lynched over not wanting to participate in a war that the Confederate side lost.  Let that sink in.  Well in 1957, 100 years after old George and Jonas came to the area, it was decided that a dam needed to be built so Dallas wouldn't get flooded again like it did in 1908 and that got put in and so did a man made lake.  Wouldn't you know it, the McCurley's get bought out and their little community now lies at the bottom of Lake Lewisville.  The cemetery that was also put in was moved to Lewisville, TX and is situated next to Old Hall Cemetery.  So two dudes come all the way to Texas from Illinois to purchase 640 acres of land, name the place after themselves so they look like "somebody" and 100 years later their place is at the bottom of a lake and today no one gives two shits about who they thought they were.  But one of them was a fucking asshole who got 42 people murdered.

Welcome To History From A Different Perspective

We've been traveling around town visiting different cemeteries.  Why you ask?  Well a cemetery gives you historical content.  The dead can tell a tale.  The area around where we live was settled in the mid 1800's but prior to that it was inhabited by various Native American tribes.   For some reason some White dudes decided to move in and settle down in what was basically the middle of nowhere.  They brought their wives and kids via horse drawn wagon and traveled thousands of miles.  Which really when you think about it was crazy.  We've been taught to believe that these were rugged frontiers people coming out West and we're supposed to admire these people.  But there's another side to it as well.  A darker side.  And that's the story we're learning about.  About the hardship and short lived lives of women, children, and babies.  As well as the pretentiousness, hypocrisy, and arrogance of some of the original inhabitants.  We explore a different world.  Told from the other side.  From beyond the grave.