Mitchell Bend Cemetery - Hood County, TX
N 32° 19.067 W 097° 41.651
14S E 622918 N 3576410
The Mitchell Bend Cemetery dates to 1872, and it is still active, with just over 120 burials. It is located near the Hood-Somervell County line in rural Hood County, southeast of Granbury.
Waymark Code: WMYA0K
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 05/17/2018
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A 1989 Texas Historical Marker provides some cemetery history:
The Mitchell Bend of the Brazos River and this area of Hood County are named for an early settler, Nelson Cooney Mitchell. He was convicted of a murder arising out of a feud with the Truett family in 1874 and was hanged one year later. Mitchell is buried in this cemetery, as are many other pioneer settlers and their descendants. The earliest marked grave is that of one year old James Earnest, who died in November 1872. According to local tradition, however, some of the unmarked graves may date to before the Civil War.
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Nelson Mitchell's nickname was "Cooney", for reasons unknown, and while he wasn't necessarily a choir boy, he was innocent of the crime for which he was hanged. Of course, money was at the center of the problem, in which Mr. Mitchell helped out his neighbors, the Truetts, by carrying the note for their property. Things turned ugly when Mitchell sued Mr. Truett over the money, and after one day in court in Granbury, one of the Mitchell boys shot three of Truett's sons, killing two of them, as they all returned to Mitchell Bend. Mr. Mitchell and his son-in-law had lagged behind, so they weren't present. Bill Mitchell, the trigger man, fled, leaving his father to be convicted and sentenced to hang, while his brother-in-law was sentenced to life in prison (but was pardoned after five years).
While in the Hood County jail, Jeff Mitchell tried to sneak a gun and some poison to his father: The gun to be used in an escape attempt, and the poison to be used to escape the hangman if the escape failed. A jail guard spotted young Mitchell and shot and killed him. At the gallows, Cooney Mitchell said his peace and exhorted his children to avenge him, which Bill Mitchell did some years later, murdering Mr. Truett in front of his family in East Texas.
Cooney Mitchell and his son, Jeff, are buried side-by-side here at Mitchell Bend Cemetery, and while their original grave markers are worn, they still indicate the respective fate of both men. Descendants placed newer headstones here in 1990.