Anahuac's First Cemetery
Anahuac, Chambers County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Anahuac’s First Cemetery This burial ground, also known as Old Mexican Cemetery, is one of the most significant historic sites in Chambers county. It was established in the early 1830s, during the period of Mexican governance over Texas. This property was owned by Charles Willcox, an early area settler. As Anahuac’s oldest cemetery, the graveyard contains interments of some of the community’s first settlers, and is associated with the settlement’s early days. The earliest known burial here is of Benjamin Freeman, a land office agent and merchant, who died in 1835. Graves of other pioneers interred here remain unmarked. Today, Anahuac’s first cemetery remains a vital link to the community’s historic past.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in the early 1830s while Texas was still under Mexican rule, this burial ground—long known as the Old Mexican Cemetery—holds some of the first settlers of the fledgling community of Anahuac. The earliest documented interment is land-office agent and merchant Benjamin Freeman, who died in 1835, on the eve of the Texas Revolution. Many of the pioneers laid to rest here lie in unmarked graves, a common fate on a raw frontier where stone monuments were a luxury.
Why it matters
As Chambers County's oldest cemetery, it is a tangible link to the Mexican-era origins of Anglo and Tejano settlement on the Texas Gulf Coast, the generation that would soon fight for Texas independence.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Benjamin Freeman
- · Charles Willcox
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Events at Anahuac Leading to the Texas Revolution
Anahuac, TX
In the spring of 1832, Col. Juan Bradburn, commanding the Mexican garrison at Anahuac, jailed William B. Travis, Patrick C. Jack, and other American colonists and refused to hand them over for civil trial. Alarmed settlers rallied at Liberty and marched on Anahuac, and when Bradburn broke his promise to free the prisoners, they sent to Brazoria for men and cannon—precipitating the Battle of Velasco on June 26. The standoff ended when the Mexican commander from Nacogdoches released the colonists and arrested Bradburn.
Chambers County
Anahuac, TX
Chambers County was carved from Jefferson and Liberty counties and organized in 1858, taking its name from General Thomas Jefferson Chambers (1802-1865), the sole superior judge of Texas before the revolution and later a delegate to the 1861 Secession Convention. Its first county seat was Wallisville, and since 1908 the seat has been at Anahuac, near the mouth of the Trinity River on Galveston Bay.
Home of Thomas Jefferson Chambers
Anahuac, TX
Thomas Jefferson Chambers (1802–1865) was one of early Texas's most consequential officials, serving as surveyor general in 1829 and as the sole superior judge before independence. An active champion of the independence cause, he later sat in the 1861 Secession Convention as Texas left the Union. A town—Chambersea, later Anahuac—and a Texas county still carry his name.
Chambersea
Anahuac, TX
Built in 1845, Chambersea was the home of Thomas Jefferson Chambers, an early Texas civic and business leader who proclaimed his devotion to the state with a "Star" window in the west gable. The modest board-and-batten house featured a distinctive spiral exterior stairway and sat at the center of a plantation with barns, outbuildings, and a lattice summer house. The home's story turned dark in 1863, when Chambers was assassinated here.