Cedarvale Cemetery
Bay City, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Cedarvale Cemetery traces its history to 1896, when Rufus A. Mathis was killed in a hunting accident and buried on land owned by D. P. Moore. At the time of his death, Mathis and other community leaders were in the process of establishing a cemetery for the community. Moore officially deeded four acres of land for a cemetery on March 14, 1896. By 1906 the Cedarvale Cemetery Association was established to care for the cemetery and subsequent purchases were made to enlarge the burial grounds. Many of Bay City's early settlers are buried here. (1992)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Cedarvale Cemetery began in 1896 with a tragedy — the death of Rufus A. Mathis in a hunting accident, one of the very community leaders then working to establish a burial ground near Bay City. Landowner D. P. Moore formally deeded four acres that March, and by 1906 a cemetery association had formed to tend and enlarge the grounds. Many of Bay City's earliest settlers rest here.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the memory of the pioneer families who built up Matagorda County on the Texas coastal plain.
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Related people
- · Rufus A. Mathis
- · D. P. Moore
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Matagorda County
Bay City, TX
Matagorda County traces its origins to March 1834, when the area was organized as a municipality of Mexican Texas along the Gulf coast. With Texas independence it became a county in 1836, formally organized in 1837, taking its name from the bay it fronts. The seat sat at Matagorda until 1894, when it moved to Bay City.
Matagorda County
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This corner of the Texas coast was home to the Karankawa people and the landing place of the French explorer La Salle in 1685. Colonists of Stephen F. Austin settled the area between 1822 and 1836, and the municipality of Matagorda organized under Mexican rule in 1834 before becoming Matagorda County in the new Republic of Texas. Erected by the state in 1936 for Texas's centennial, the marker honors early settlers, delegates to the conventions that declared independence, and Mary S. Wightman Helms, remembered as the first woman teacher in Texas.
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Rooted in a Matagorda County congregation of the early 1850s, this Baptist body organized at Red Bluff in 1889 and moved to the new county seat of Bay City in 1895, taking the name First Baptist Church. Its early members met in borrowed rooms and even a shared Union school before raising their first sanctuary in 1903, only to see a 1909 hurricane destroy it. Rebuilt in brick by 1915 and expanded through the mid-century, the church helped found other congregations and sponsored the Emmanuel Mexican Mission for decades.
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