Compton Cemetery
Dew, Freestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William Scott Compton (1805-1882), and his wife, Angelina Louisa Gunn Ward (1806-1880) purchased over 3000 acres here in the settlement of Avant Prairie (later Dew) in 1852. On this acreage the Comptons built a log home, barns and quarters for their slaves. An attorney and banker, William served as a county judge and state senator in Alabama before moving to Texas. This cemetery began in 1855 with the burial of the Comptons' eldest daughter, Elizabeth Blackmon Compton Johnson. Also buried here are the Comptons' sons, Joseph (Jodie) and Felix Richard, both Confederate veterans of the Civil War; and their granddaughter, Martha (Mattie) Jane, and her husband George Walton White, Texas State Legislator (1889 and 1891), Baptist minister, and charter member of the Corinth Baptist Church in Dew, Texas. George White's heirs formally set aside the cemetery property in 1943 and for the next 40 years the cemetery received modest care from family members residing in the original settlement home built by William and Angelina Compton. Descendants of the Compton and White families formed an association in 1983 for the purpose of maintaining the cemetery. Compton Cemetery represents a well-preserved example of a small family cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William Scott Compton, an Alabama attorney, banker, judge, and state senator, purchased more than 3,000 acres in the Avant Prairie settlement in 1852 and built a log home, barns, and quarters for the people he enslaved. The cemetery began in 1855 with the burial of his eldest daughter and holds two sons who served as Confederate veterans, along with descendant George Walton White, a Texas legislator and Baptist minister. Family descendants formed an association in 1983 to maintain the well-preserved grounds.
Why it matters
This family cemetery preserves the intertwined histories of antebellum settlement, slavery, and the Civil War that shaped so much of nineteenth-century Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1852, when William and Angelina Compton bought their land at Avant Prairie, Texas had been a state for only seven years. Planters from the older Southern states, including many from Alabama, were moving west in large numbers, drawn by cheap, fertile land in East and Central Texas. Many brought enslaved people with them, and cotton plantations spread quickly across counties like Freestone.
This was the height of the antebellum cotton economy, and slavery was its foundation. In the decade before the Civil War, Texas's enslaved population grew rapidly as planters expanded their holdings. The quarters the Comptons built for the people they enslaved were part of a pattern repeated on farm after farm across the region.
The cemetery's story runs through the Civil War, Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century. That long span lets it show how one family's settlement, fortunes and memory changed over time.
People & events
William Scott Compton was already an established figure when he came to Texas. He had been an attorney and a banker, and in Alabama he had served as a county judge and a state senator. With his wife, Angelina Louisa Gunn Ward, he bought more than 3,000 acres near what was then called Avant Prairie and would later be known as Dew. There they built a log home, barns, and quarters for the people they enslaved. The marker does not name the enslaved men, women and children whose labor built and worked this land, but their presence is part of this place's history.
The burial ground began with grief. In 1855 the Comptons' eldest daughter, Elizabeth Blackmon Compton Johnson, was buried here. Other graves followed over the years, including those of the Comptons' sons Joseph, known as Jodie, and Felix Richard, both of whom served the Confederacy in the Civil War. William died in 1882, two years after Angelina.
The family story continued through a granddaughter, Martha Jane "Mattie," and her husband, George Walton White. White served in the Texas Legislature in 1889 and 1891, was a Baptist minister, and was a charter member of Corinth Baptist Church in Dew. In 1943 his heirs formally set the cemetery land apart. For about forty years, family members still living in the Comptons' original home cared for it, and in 1983 descendants formed an association to maintain it.
Its place in the American story
Compton Cemetery traces a path many Americans followed in the 1800s. Southern families moved west, carried slavery into new land, sent their sons to fight for the Confederacy, and then rebuilt their lives after defeat. The movement of Alabama planters into Texas helped make the state part of the cotton South, with lasting effects on its politics and society.
The cemetery is also a reminder of what a family burial ground leaves out. The Comptons' gravestones record their names, but the people they enslaved appear on the marker only as residents of "quarters." Across the South, the burial places of enslaved people often went unmarked or were forgotten. The marker does not say where the people enslaved here were buried. Honest history asks visitors to keep that silence in mind.
Finally, the cemetery shows how Americans keep local memory alive. Small family cemeteries survive only when people choose to care for them. The descendants' association formed in 1983 is part of a broad tradition of family and community groups looking after rural burial grounds that would otherwise disappear.
If you visit
This is a small family cemetery in rural Freestone County, so expect quiet and simplicity rather than grand monuments. Walk slowly and read the stones. Look for the Compton name, and for the Johnson and White families linked to it by marriage. The oldest graves reach back to the 1850s, and their weathered stone and lettering show their age.
Remember that this is a burial ground cared for by descendants. Stay on paths where you can, leave everything as you found it, and respect any posted rules or private land nearby. Visit in the spirit of the families who have tended it for generations.
The cemetery suits a slow drive through the back roads of Central and East Texas, where small towns, country churches and family plots tell the region's history one name at a time. Take a moment here to consider everyone whose lives were bound to this land: those remembered in stone, and those whose names were never recorded.
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
- · William Scott Compton
- · Angelina Louisa Gunn Ward
- · George Walton White
Themes & tags
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