A Look into the Past...
The two acre cemetery is located on a small hilltop near the intersection of US Highway 87 South and Loop 306 on the southern outskirts of San Angelo, Texas. The cemetery was created by the Metcalfe and Spence families near Ben Ficklin, Texas, the original county seat of Tom Green County and now a ghost town. Ben Ficklin sat along the east bank of the South Concho River with its southern boundary near present day San Angelo Country Club and its northern boundary close to Loop 306. The first burials were in 1882 following the flood of August 24, 1882 that devastated the fledgling west Texas town. In addition to three flood victims, there are four graves of people reinterred from Ben Ficklin’s original cemetery that was located closer to the river bank. And, the cemetery serves as the resting place of Francis Taylor, considered to be the father of Tom Green County.
Until 2020, the cemetery was privately owned by descendants of Charles B. Metcalfe and his sister, Fannie Spence. To assure its care for generations to come, the Metcalfe-Spence descendants donated the cemetery to the Metcalfe-Spence Cemetery Historical Preservation Foundation, a non-profit corporation whose purpose is to preserve and maintain the cemetery grounds and memorialize the history surrounding the cemetery.