Brewer Cemetery
Douglass, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Dedicated 1816. Henry, born Oct. 24, 1776, died Jan. 23, 1865. Susannah, wife of Henry Brewer, born April 7, 1777, died 1853. Henry Mitchell born in Georgia, June 3, 1807, died 1849. John, born 1819, died 1910. Henry and John Brewer were in the Battle of Nacogdoches. Henry Mitchell Brewer fought at San Jacinto.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This family burial ground dates to 1816, when East Texas was still Spanish and later Mexican territory, and it holds members of the Brewer family who helped win Texas independence. Henry and John Brewer took part in the Battle of Nacogdoches, an 1832 clash that pushed Mexican forces from the town, while Henry Mitchell Brewer fought in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Their graves record a household woven directly into the fight for the Texas Republic.
Why it matters
The Brewer graves connect one pioneer family to the pivotal battles that severed Texas from Mexico, personalizing the struggle that created the Republic of Texas.
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Related people
- Β· Henry Brewer
- Β· John Brewer
- Β· Henry Mitchell Brewer
Related events
- Β· Battle of San Jacinto
- Β· Battle of Nacogdoches
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Brewer Cemetery
Cushing, TX
In 1835 the Mexican government granted Henry Brewer a league of land β some 4,000 acres β where settlers built log cabins by the springs and farmed, raised stock, and mined iron on the peak variously called Flowery, Brewer, or Iron Mountain. Brewer and his son John fought in the 1832 Battle of Nacogdoches, and Henry Mitchel Brewer served at San Jacinto before John later joined the Confederacy. A 1936 Texas Centennial marker honors the family and doubles as a grave marker; descendants revived the overgrown cemetery in 2001.
Rock Springs Cemetery
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Land here was deeded for burials in 1853, though graves may date to the 1840s, and for decades the historic Cumberland Presbyterian Church oversaw the ground. Families of the deceased tended it until a cemetery association formed in 1965. Among the interred are Rock Springs pioneers and veterans of conflicts from the Texas War for Independence through the Civil War, resting beneath vertical stones, Masonic markers, and interior fencing.
Site of Linwood
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Built about 1830 on land tied to some of the earliest Anglo families in Texas, Linwood stood at the crossroads of the region's founding dramas. Its builder, Joseph Durst, had risen to alcalde of Nacogdoches by 1826, and in 1832 the Battle of Nacogdoches ended on this ground with the surrender of Colonel Piedras's Mexican force to a small band of Texans. The home later belonged to George Whitfield Terrell, a diplomat of the Republic of Texas, and was the birthplace of congressman George B. Terrell.
Thomas Jefferson Rusk
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Thomas Jefferson Rusk passed the bar at twenty-one and, drawn to Nacogdoches, threw himself into the Texas independence movement, signing the Declaration of Independence and serving as secretary of war. He fought beside Sam Houston at San Jacinto and briefly commanded the Republic's army, then helped bring Texas into the Union and served in the U.S. Senate, where he worked to fix the state's boundary and promote a transcontinental railroad. Grief-stricken after his wife's death, the ailing statesman took his own life in 1857.