Denson Cemetery
Houston County, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Joseph Denson (1823-89) came to Texas from Alabama with his family in the 1830s. They were among the Predestination Baptists who settled in Houston County with the Church's founder, Elder Daniel Parker. Joseph married Caroline L. (Houston) (1836-1918), niece of Sam Houston, about 1851, and they had eleven children. He set aside 1.5 this acres from his farm for a family burial ground and was the first to be interred here with a marked headstone. Two additional acres were deeded to the cemetery in 1977. The annual Denson family homecoming is held here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Joseph Denson came to Texas from Alabama in the 1830s among the Predestination Baptists who followed Elder Daniel Parker to Houston County. Around 1851 he married Caroline Houston, a niece of Sam Houston, and the couple raised eleven children on their farm. From that land he set aside a burial ground, becoming its first marked interment, and the family still gathers there for an annual homecoming.
Why it matters
The cemetery ties an ordinary farm family to both a pioneering frontier faith and the household of Texas's most famous founder.
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Related people
- · Joseph Denson
- · Caroline Houston Denson
- · Daniel Parker
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Denson Homesite and Cemetery
Grapeland vicinity, TX
John Denson arrived in this area in 1835 with his parents, hardshell Predestination Baptists who had traveled with the noted frontier preacher Elder Daniel Parker. In 1837 John added his name to the petition that created Houston County, and he raised his family in a log house on Bennett Creek beside his wife, whose first husband was said to be kin to Sam Houston. As relatives died they were buried near the home, with the last of some eighteen graves filled in 1890.
Davis Cemetery
Grapeland, TX
Established around 1862, this Houston County burial ground took root in the heart of the Civil War, when East Texas was a Confederate homefront far from the fighting but bound up in its losses. Set among the farms and pine woods of Grapeland, it reflects the settlement of the region by families who had pushed into East Texas in the antebellum decades. Its Historic Texas Cemetery designation preserves that link to the war years.
First Christian Church of Grapeland
Grapeland, TX
This congregation took shape around 1870 in the community of Red House, a spot where an Indian village had earlier stood, before following the railroad to the new town of Grapeland in 1872. Like many frontier congregations it first gathered in the local schoolhouse, then raised its own sanctuary in 1895 — a building still in continuous use, expanded in 1947 with a dining room and educational wing.
Refuge Cemetery
Grapeland, TX
Reuben and Sarah Brown left Illinois to settle here in 1833, and their son John lived his whole long life within a mile of his birthplace at Old Fort Brown. In 1865 John deeded two acres for a church and school, on a site his mother-in-law had already chosen and named 'Refuge' as the family's resting place. Another acre followed in 1889, and a cemetery association tends the ground today.