Bynum Cemetery
Crockett, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Stephen G. and Keziah Albright Box came to Texas from Alabama with their children in 1826. The Stephen Box land grant was deeded in April 1835, and the family set aside the acreage around this site for a burial ground. The earliest known burial is that of Dicy Box Hallmark (1807-1837), daughter of Stephen and Keziah Box and the wife of San Jacinto veteran William Calvert Hallmark. James Bynum, the widower of Margaret (Polly) Box, purchased the site in 1852, and it became known as Bynum Cemetery. Bynum conveyed the land to his grandsons in 1885, and it remained in the family at the dawn of the 21st century. The cemetery includes graves of veterans of the Civil War, Spanish- American War, World War I, World War II and the Korean War. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Stephen and Keziah Box brought their family from Alabama to Mexican Texas in 1826, they were among the first Anglo settlers of what would become Houston County, and the acreage they set aside for their dead became one of the region's oldest burial grounds. The earliest grave belongs to their daughter Dicy, wife of a veteran of the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, and the cemetery later passed to James Bynum, who gave it his name. Generations of the family kept it, and its rows hold veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Korea.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a compact record of how a single pioneer family took root on the Texas frontier and stayed for nearly two centuries, its graves tracing the sweep of American conflicts alongside the everyday story of settlement.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Stephen and Keziah Box brought their children from Alabama to Texas in 1826, Texas was not yet a republic or a state — it was a far northern province of Mexico, opening its lands to Anglo-American colonists. These were among the earliest settlers of what would become Houston County, arriving a full decade before the revolution that would change everything.
Life on this frontier was precarious and self-reliant. Families received land grants, cleared ground, buried their own dead, and set aside a corner of their own acreage for a burial ground because there was no other. The Stephen Box land grant was deeded in April 1835 — and the family reserved the land around this site for exactly that solemn purpose.
Within a year of that grant, Texas would be convulsed by revolution, and the little frontier community would find itself caught up in events that echoed far beyond East Texas.
People & events
The earliest known grave here belongs to Dicy Box Hallmark, who lived from 1807 to 1837 — a daughter of Stephen and Keziah, and the wife of William Calvert Hallmark, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. She died young, and her resting place became the seed of the whole cemetery.
The ground took its lasting name from another family connection. James Bynum, the widower of Margaret "Polly" Box, purchased the site in 1852, and it has been known as Bynum Cemetery ever since. In 1885 Bynum conveyed the land to his grandsons, and it remained in the family's hands into the twenty-first century — nearly two centuries of continuous stewardship by descendants of the original settlers.
The rows of graves read like a roll call of American history. The cemetery holds veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War — generation after generation of one rooted community answering the nation's call and coming home to the same quiet ground.
Its place in the American story
This single burial ground compresses the whole arc of the American frontier and the nation's wars into a few acres. The Box family arrived before the Texas Revolution, and Dicy's husband fought at San Jacinto — the 1836 battle that won Texas its independence and set in motion the events leading to Texas statehood and, eventually, the war with Mexico.
A family cemetery that stays in family hands for the better part of two centuries is itself a remarkable American story. Most such grounds are lost, plowed under or forgotten; this one was tended by the descendants of the people who first broke the soil.
And its military graves trace the country's conflicts from the Civil War through Korea in an unbroken line. A visitor can stand in one place and read, headstone by headstone, how an ordinary settling family sent its sons into every generation's war — the local face of the national story.
If you visit
A pioneer cemetery like this is best approached with patience and quiet respect. Walk the rows and read the dates: the oldest stones carry you back to the 1830s, to a Texas that was still Mexican territory when these families arrived.
Look for the span of wars written across the markers — Civil War through Korea — and notice how names repeat, evidence of a single family that stayed put for generations. Older graves may be weathered or hard to read; treat every stone gently and take nothing but the impression of the place.
Set well outside the bustle of Crockett, the cemetery has the stillness of open country, which suits it. If you are tracing the earliest history of Houston County, this is bedrock — the resting place of some of its first settlers, and a fitting, contemplative stop on a day of frontier history.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Stephen G. Box
- · Keziah Albright Box
- · Dicy Box Hallmark
- · William Calvert Hallmark
- · James Bynum
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Collin Aldrich
Austonio, TX
Collin Aldrich, born in 1801, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in the war that won Texas its independence, then served as the first chief justice of Houston County from 1837 to 1841 under the Republic of Texas. He died in 1842, and the State of Texas erected this memorial to him in 1936, the centennial of independence. His life bridged the battlefield and the founding of civil government on the Texas frontier.
Elisha Clapp
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The son of an American Revolution veteran, Tennessee-born Elisha Clapp came to Texas in 1822 and served in a cavalry company at the Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution. He captained mounted rangers on the frontier and, in 1837, was among the petitioners who organized Houston County, later receiving a captain's commission from President Sam Houston. He also helped found and served as an early trustee of Trinity College in the Alabama community before moving on to Leon County, where he died in 1851.
Captain Elisha Clapp
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Elisha Clapp came to Texas in 1822, among the earliest Anglo-American settlers, and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas its independence in 1836. He went on to serve as a captain in the Texas Army during the young republic's fragile early years. He died in 1856; his wife, Rebecca Robbins Clapp, outlived him until 1875.
Creek Cemetery
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Creek Cemetery began in 1889 with the burial of infant Sydney Hester, whose parents had two years earlier deeded land to the community—then called Georgia Camp—for a school. The burial ground grew alongside the settlement and today holds many of the area's pioneer families, along with veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars. Descendants of those early settlers still tend the grounds.