Ben Ficklin Cemetery
San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Also known as Metcalfe-Spence Cemetery) Replaced older burial plot at nearby settlement of Ben Ficklin, after flood of Aug. 24, 1882, washed away the town and inundated the cemetery, exposing many graves. Charles B. Metcalfe, nephew of Col. Francis C. Taylor, founder of Ben Ficklin, selected this site, on higher ground, to reinter remains of relatives, including Col. Taylor, and bury his mother, sister, and another uncle, victims of the flood. Final resting place of many Tom Green County pioneers. Cemetery and village were named for owner of San Antonio-El Paso mail line, Ben Ficklin. (1973) Historic Texas Cemetery medallion attached to post in 2010.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When a catastrophic flood swept away the town of Ben Ficklin on August 24, 1882, it inundated the settlement's cemetery and exposed many graves. Charles B. Metcalfe chose this higher ground to reinter his relatives—including Col. Francis C. Taylor, the town's founder—and to bury his mother, sister, and uncle among the flood's victims. The site became the resting place of many Tom Green County pioneers, in a village and cemetery named for Ben Ficklin, owner of the San Antonio–El Paso mail line.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the memory of a frontier mail-line town erased by natural disaster, and the pioneers who rebuilt their community's memory on safer ground.
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Related people
- · Charles B. Metcalfe
- · Francis C. Taylor
- · Ben Ficklin
Related events
- · Flood of August 24, 1882
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tom Green County
San Angelo, TX
Carved from the old Miller and Fisher land grant, Tom Green County was created in 1874 and organized the following year, taking its name from General Thomas Green, a San Jacinto veteran and Confederate officer killed in 1864. The first transcontinental mail routes had already converged nearby in 1858. The county seat began at Ben Ficklin in 1875 before shifting to San Angelo in 1882.
Major Ben Ficklin, C.S.A.
San Angelo, TX
Dubbed the "Mystery Man of the Confederacy," Ben Ficklin packed extraordinary adventure into 44 years: a corporal in the Mexican War at 18, a pioneer of Western stagecoach and mail lines, a founder of the Pony Express in 1860, and an early promoter of the transcontinental railroad. During the Civil War he ran Union blockades as a Confederate purchasing agent, and afterward won a U.S. mail contract, headquartering near Fort Concho—until he died in 1871 from swallowing a fish bone. A town later named for him became Tom Green County's first seat until an 1882 flood destroyed it.
Site of Ben Ficklin
San Angelo, TX
Ben Ficklin began as a stage stand named for the frontiersman and mail contractor Major Ben Ficklin, who helped organize the Pony Express and once carried the first message from California's governor to Missouri's. From 1875 it served as the first county seat of Tom Green County, until a catastrophic flood swept it away on August 24, 1882. The county seat then moved to San Angelo.
Original Tom Green County
San Angelo, TX
When it was created in 1874, Tom Green County sprawled across nearly 12,800 square miles of West Texas — more than ten times the size of Rhode Island — astride the California gold-rush trail and the old Butterfield Overland Mail route. Named for Confederate general and Texas statesman Thomas Green, it drew German colonists, cattlemen like the Tankersleys, and settlers who pressed in despite earlier resistance from Native peoples. Over the following decades the giant county was carved into more than a dozen smaller ones as the railroad and new towns reshaped the region.