Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainWeatherford's 1863 cemetery holds graves of Oliver Loving, Governor S.W.T. Lanham, and a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient; a glass-faced mausoleum has generated persistent 'witch's tomb' lore with reported disembodied voices.
600 E Oak St, Weatherford, TX 76086
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public cemetery; free to visit during posted hours.
Access
Limited Access
Older cemetery with uneven ground, grass paths, and section roads; some areas wheelchair accessible via paved lanes
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1863 · Oliver Loving (cattle drover, Goodnight-Loving Trail) burial site · Governor S.W.T. Lanham burial site · Chester Bowen (Civil War Medal of Honor) burial site · Established 1863 — one of the oldest Parker County cemeteries
Greenwood Cemetery was established in Weatherford in 1863, during the Civil War, making it one of the oldest continuously maintained burial grounds in Parker County. The Historical Marker Database documents its 1863 founding date and identifies several of its most notable interments.
Oliver Loving, the Parker County cattle drover whose partnership with Charles Goodnight produced the Goodnight-Loving Trail, is buried at Greenwood. Loving died in 1867 from a wound sustained in a Comanche attack in New Mexico; his body was eventually returned to Weatherford for burial — a journey that Larry McMurtry drew on for 'Lonesome Dove.' Governor Samuel Willis Tucker Lanham, who served as Texas's 22nd governor from 1903 to 1907, is also interred at Greenwood. Chester Bowen, a Parker County native who received the Medal of Honor for Civil War service, is buried here as well.
The cemetery's grounds contain a variety of 19th and early 20th century funerary architecture, including several mausoleums. One of these structures — described in local folklore accounts as having a glass door or glass-faced front — became the anchor point for the cemetery's most persistent paranormal tradition. Parker County Today documented Weatherford's local legends in 2009 and included the 'witch's tomb' account among the town's enduring folklore.
Sources
The 'witch's tomb' at Greenwood Cemetery is a piece of enduring Parker County folklore tied to a specific mausoleum within the grounds — one distinguished by a glass-doored or glass-faced front that sets it apart from the surrounding carved-stone markers and conventional brick vaults. The identity of the individual interred in the mausoleum appears to be a 19th-century businessman or civic figure; no historical record connects the occupant to witchcraft, unusual circumstances of death, or any basis for the supernatural label that has accumulated around the structure.
Ghosts & Getaways, which documents Texas paranormal sites, describes the witch's tomb legend and the reported phenomenon of disembodied voices heard by visitors near the mausoleum — voices with no identifiable source among other cemetery visitors or from adjacent properties. Parker County Today's 2009 survey of Weatherford legends documented the witch's tomb as one of the most persistent pieces of local folklore, suggesting the tradition has circulated for at least several generations.
The 'witch's tomb' label is a common folk mechanism applied to distinctive cemetery structures across the American South and West — unusual architectural features (glass, unusual ornamentation, non-standard orientation) accumulate supernatural attribution independent of the actual history of the occupant. Greenwood Cemetery's version follows this pattern: the legend is genuine local tradition, the reported voices are a documented paranormal claim, but the named 'witch' appears to be entirely folkloric.
Notable Entities
Greenwood Cemetery contains historically significant graves including cattle drover Oliver Loving, Texas Governor S.W.T. Lanham, and Civil War Medal of Honor recipient Chester Bowen. The glass-faced mausoleum associated with the 'witch's tomb' lore is a distinctive 19th-century structure within the cemetery grounds. A Parker County Today blog post and the Ghosts & Getaways site both document the legend.
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