Chapel Hill Cemetery
San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first recorded burial here is for Able Allison Lewis, a veteran of the American Revolution, in 1838. Oral tradition identifies his widow, Patsey Lewis, as giving land along El Camino Real for a public graveyard after his death. She and several of her family members are buried in the cemetery. These and other burials of the 1830s and 1840s are oriented north-south, several marked with slabs of hewn native rock. Other early burials include Dr. Samuel Thompson and his wife, Precious Wofford Thompson; and Sumner Bacon, an ordained Cumberland Presbyterian Minister who served as chaplain and courier for Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution. Veterans of conflicts dating to the American Revolution are interred here, with several having fought in the Texas Revolution and the Indian Wars of the 1830s. Gravestone materials include native stone, marble, granite and cement. Familiar names here include Fussell, Johnson, Layfield, Noble, Rhodes, Smith and Williams. In 1912, the cemetery expanded to the west through land bought from B. B. Fussell. Chapel Hill Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was located on the property and served the community for many years. The entire community helped with donations, materials and labor to build a new church building in 1937. Chapel Hill continued to prosper as a rural community with cotton as the main crop until World War II, when most residents left for combat or war industries such as the shipyards in Beaumont. The community cotton gin closed after the war, and the church discontinued services in the 1990s. The Chapel Hill Cemetery Association maintains the graveyard and church building. The cemetery remains active and continues to serve the area while also serving as a chronicle of community history. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2010
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chapel Hill Cemetery near San Augustine holds burials reaching back to 1838, beginning with a veteran of the American Revolution whose widow is said to have given land along the old El Camino Real for a public graveyard. Its oldest graves face north-south beneath slabs of hewn native rock, and among those interred is a Cumberland Presbyterian minister who served as chaplain and courier for Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution. The surrounding community lived and worshipped here through the cotton era until World War II drew its people to combat and coastal shipyards.
Why it matters
A single East Texas graveyard chronicles the sweep of the American frontier — from Revolutionary veterans to the Texas Revolution and the Indian Wars — preserving how ordinary settlers built and mourned across generations.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Chapel Hill Cemetery sits in the deep pinewoods of East Texas near San Augustine, a corner of the country that was old by Texas standards before Texas was even a republic. Its first recorded burial dates to 1838 — just two years after the Texas Revolution — when the young Republic of Texas was still finding its footing and this part of the state was a gateway for settlers streaming in from the older South.
The key to the place is the road it sits beside: El Camino Real, the King's Highway, the ancient route that ran across Texas connecting Spanish missions and later carrying American settlers westward. A cemetery given along that road was placed on the very artery of frontier movement. Land offered for a public graveyard along such a route was a gift to a whole community, present and future.
The surrounding decades were the raw early years of Anglo settlement — the 1830s and 1840s — a time of clearing land, building churches, and burying the dead in ground marked by whatever stone could be hewn nearby. That the oldest graves are oriented north-south and covered with slabs of native rock tells you these were people improvising permanence in a place that had few of the comforts of the settled East.
People & events
The cemetery's story opens with a soldier of an older war. Able Allison Lewis, a veteran of the American Revolution, was the first recorded burial here in 1838 — a man whose life had begun in the era of the thirteen colonies and ended on the Texas frontier. Oral tradition holds that after his death, his widow, Patsey Lewis, gave the land along El Camino Real for a public graveyard. She and several of her family lie here too, a founding family in the most literal sense.
Among the early graves is one that ties this quiet ground directly to the birth of Texas: Sumner Bacon, an ordained Cumberland Presbyterian minister who served as chaplain and courier for Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution. A frontier preacher who also carried messages through a war — that is a life that belongs to both the pulpit and the campaign trail. Nearby rest Dr. Samuel Thompson and his wife, Precious Wofford Thompson, and the familiar family names of the community: Fussell, Johnson, Layfield, Noble, Rhodes, Smith, Williams.
The cemetery is a chronicle of the community that grew around it. In 1912 it expanded westward onto land bought from B. B. Fussell. A Methodist congregation worshipped on the property, and in 1937 the whole community pitched in with donations, materials, and labor to raise a new church. Cotton sustained the settlement until World War II drew its people away to combat and to the shipyards at Beaumont; the community gin later closed and the church's services ended in the 1990s. Through it all, the Chapel Hill Cemetery Association has kept watch over the graves and the building.
Its place in the American story
Few places compress as much American history into a single acre as this one. Buried here are veterans of conflicts reaching all the way back to the American Revolution, alongside men who fought in the Texas Revolution and the Indian Wars of the 1830s. Walk the rows and you cross the arc of a continent being settled — from the fight for independence on the eastern seaboard to the far edge of the frontier a generation or two later.
That span is the national significance in miniature. The same families who had helped establish the young United States sent sons and grandsons westward, and those descendants carried the country's story to new ground. A single graveyard can hold that entire migration, generation stacked upon generation.
And there is the ordinary American history layered over the dramatic kind: a farming community that lived by cotton, worshipped together, built a church with its own hands, and then thinned out when a world war remade the economy. The rise and quieting of Chapel Hill mirrors the fate of countless rural communities across the nation — places that gave their young people to distant wars and industries and were never quite the same after.
If you visit
Come to Chapel Hill Cemetery for the feel of deep time in a small space. Look first for the oldest graves — the ones oriented north-south and covered with slabs of hewn native rock. They stand apart from the later marble, granite, and cement, and they mark the founding generation with a rough dignity that store-bought monuments can't match.
Move slowly and read the family names. Fussell, Johnson, Layfield, Noble, Rhodes, Smith, Williams — these repeat across the stones because this was a place where whole families lived, married, and were buried together over more than a century. The church building on the property is part of the story too; picture the whole community turning out in 1937 to build it.
This is an active cemetery still cared for by a local association, so visit with the quiet respect you'd give any resting place. It sits along the historic route of El Camino Real in the piney woods near San Augustine, making it a rewarding stop for anyone drawn to the earliest chapters of the American frontier. Give yourself time to simply stand among the stones — the sense of continuity here is the whole point.
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
- · Able Allison Lewis
- · Patsey Lewis
- · Sumner Bacon
- · Sam Houston
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
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