Rebecca Hopkins Speights (b. 1796) arrived in Sabine County in 1842 as a widow with four sons and a daughter. She owned about 250 acres including this site, which became a cemetery with her burial in 1857. Sited near the Speights’ home, the cemetery was actually on land granted to Mathew Arnold Parker, a Texas revolution veteran and first chief justice (county judge) of Sabine county. Joshua M. Hopkins Speights, buried here, was a state legislator and county judge. He and Hampton Pratt were among the first merchants in Hemphill. Of fifty-one marked graves, more than half bear the Speights surname. An unknown number of unmarked graves include Speights family slaves. The Speights-Pratt Cemetery Association manages this historic burial ground.