Bridges Cemetery
Chapman, Rusk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Eli and Eliza Buckner moved from Georgia to the Chapman community in 1851. Eliza died in 1857; when Eli died in 1861 he left a half-acre of land including their graves for use as a public burial ground. The Reverend Julius Caesar Alford Bridges of Georgia married Mary Ann Cosper in 1857 in Alabama. Some years later, they left that state with their ten children in twenty covered wagons and settled in Chapman. Bridges, a Confederate veteran, purchased the land on which the Buckner family and community cemetery was located for $100 in gold and later added more land. He served at the nearby Church Hill Methodist Church from 1880 until his death in October 1881. One of J. C. and Mary Bridges' eight sons, Francis "Frank" Bridges, married Mary E. Lowrie in 1884. Frank Bridges had many occupations during his lifetime. At one point he served as the first postmaster of the Chapman community. Bridges descendants continued to make their homes in the area. The Bridges Cemetery remains in service to Rusk County and the Chapman community. Among the pioneer families represented here are the Brooks, Futch, Garrison, Gossett, Jimmerson, Lowrie, Shumate, Snelgrove, Smith and Wylie families. In 1999 there were thirty-eight veterans buried in the cemetery. They served in a variety of U. S. and international conflicts including the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Others served the U. S. Armed Forces in peacetime. Unmarked graves in the back of the cemetery are believed to be those of slaves. The Bridges Cemetery is a chronicle of early Rusk County history. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began in 1861 when Eli Buckner set aside a half-acre around his family's graves as a public cemetery, and it grew as pioneer families poured into the Chapman community—among them the Reverend J. C. Alford Bridges, who reportedly arrived from the Deep South with ten children in twenty covered wagons. A Confederate veteran, Bridges bought the land in gold and gave it his name, and his descendants served as postmasters and neighbors for generations. Today the cemetery holds pioneers, dozens of veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam, and, in unmarked graves, people believed to have been enslaved.
Why it matters
A country cemetery like this is a layered chronicle of a place—settlement, war, slavery, and service—preserved in a single half-acre of Rusk County soil.
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Related people
- · Rev. Julius Caesar Alford Bridges
- · Eli Buckner
Themes & tags
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