Briar Creek Cemetery
Bowie, Montague County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlers began arriving in this area in increased numbers after the Civil War with the opening of rail lines and the cessation of indian conflicts. Many of the pioneers are interred here. The first burials, in the late 1870s, were for Kentucky native G.W. Simmons and for an infant of W.B. and Sarah Jane (Herndon) Dooley. Land for the cemetery was later deeded by Simmons' sister Margaret and her husband, G.W. Burnett. The early Briar Creek School was located on adjacent land by the 1880s, but only the cemetery remains as a reminder of the area's earliest settlers. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Civil War, with new rail lines opening and frontier conflicts fading, settlers poured into this corner of Montague County — and many of those pioneers now rest at Briar Creek. The earliest burials, in the late 1870s, were Kentucky-born G.W. Simmons and an infant of the Dooley family; land for the graveyard was later deeded by Simmons's sister Margaret and her husband, G.W. Burnett. An early school once stood on the adjoining land, but only the cemetery survives to mark where the community's first families lived and died.
Why it matters
Pioneer cemeteries are often the last physical trace of vanished frontier settlements, preserving the names of the ordinary families who turned newly opened land into communities.
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Related people
- · G.W. Simmons
- · Margaret Burnett
- · G.W. Burnett
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Montague County was carved out of the North Texas frontier in 1857 and organized the next year, taking its name from Daniel Montague, a pioneer surveyor who mapped the region and fought as a militia commander in the Mexican War. Surveyors like Montague were the advance guard of Anglo settlement, translating raw land into the grid of counties and farms. The town of Montague became its seat.
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