Creek Cemetery
Houston County, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Addison P. and Melissa Hester deeded two acres of land to the Creek Community (then called Georgia Camp) for a school in 1887. Their infant son, Sydney Hester (d. 1889), was the first person interred here. An additional acre was donated in 1930. Creek Cemetery contains the gravesites of many local pioneer settlers, as well as veterans of the American Civil War and World Wars I and II. Neighboring communities, and many local residents who are descendants of pioneers buried here, continue to use and maintain the cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
A single rural cemetery like Creek gathers generations of American service and sacrifice, from the Civil War through the World Wars, in the heart of a pioneer East Texas community.
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Related people
- · Addison P. Hester
- · Melissa Hester
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bynum Cemetery
Crockett, TX
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.
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.