Brewer Cemetery
Cushing, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In January 1835, the Mexican Government approved Henry Brewer’s application for a league of land (4,000 acres). Early settlers built log cabins near springs. The primary activities were farming, raising livestock, and mining iron on Flowery Mountain. The peak, also known as Brewer Mountain, Iron Mountain and Panther Mountain, was part of Henry Brewer’s land and he built a home on top of the mountain. Henry and Susannah had eleven children, and when they moved from Mississippi with their younger children, many of their older children and their families also came to texas. Henry Brewer’s estate was probated after his death in 1867 and the land divided among the heirs, except for the family cemetery. The cemetery provides a record of early Texas settlers, including veterans of the Texas War of Independence and the Civil War. Henry Brewer and his son John fought in the Battle of Nacogdoches in 1832. Henry Mitchel Brewer fought in the Battle of San Jacinto and John Brewer later served in the Confederacy. In 1936, the state of Texas erected a centennial marker honoring the contributions of the Brewer family to the settlement and history of Texas. It also serves as a grave marker for Henry, Susannah and Henry Mitchel Brewer. After the last burial in 1977 the cemetery became overgrown and forgotten, and many limestone markers were weathered and broken. Descendants agreed to restore and maintain the cemetery during a family reunion in 2001, incorporating the Brewer Cemetery Association of Nacogdoches County the following year. There is evidence of at least 50 unmarked graves. The cemetery is a chronicle of families who carved their homes and livelihoods from the surrounding forests and waterways.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1835 the Mexican government granted Henry Brewer a league of land — some 4,000 acres — 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.
Why it matters
The Brewers' story — a Mexican land grant, an iron-mining mountain, and service from the Texas Revolution through the Civil War — compresses a generation of frontier East Texas history into one family plot.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Henry Brewer
- · Susannah Brewer
- · Henry Mitchel Brewer
- · John Brewer
Related events
- · Battle of Nacogdoches (1832)
- · Battle of San Jacinto
- · Texas Centennial (1936)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Brewer Cemetery
Douglass, TX
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.
Rock Springs Cemetery
Nacogdoches, TX
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
Linwood, TX
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.
Site of the Town of Mount Sterling
Douglass, TX
John Durst founded Mount Sterling in 1837 near the ruins of an old Spanish mission, building a saw and grist mill and a large warehouse along the Angelina River, where boats moored at its wharves. For a brief moment it promised to be a thriving river town of the young Republic of Texas. But the Córdova Rebellion of 1838—an uprising involving disaffected Tejanos and Native allies against the Republic—unsettled the region, and Durst abandoned the place, leaving Mount Sterling to fade into a ghost town.