Dunn Cemetery
Wheelock vicinity, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Started in pioneer era on land of James and Isabella Caufield Dunn, who with 8 other families came from Ireland to America in 1821, living first in Charleston, S. C., then in Boligee, Ala. In Dec. 1833 they began trek to colony of Sterling C. Robertson by ox-wagons and carryalls. With the Dunns were families of Henry Caufield, Letitia Ellis and her daughter Elizabeth Watson, Henry and William Fullerton, Hugh and William Henry, the widow McMillan, and the Youngs. Burial of infant of James and Isabella Dunn (1836) opened this cemetery, used ever since by heirs of the pioneers.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground grew from the homestead of James and Isabella Dunn, part of a group of Irish families who sailed to America in 1821 and, after stints in Charleston and Alabama, made the ox-wagon trek to Sterling C. Robertson's Texas colony in the winter of 1833. The cemetery opened in 1836 with the burial of the Dunns' infant child and has served the pioneer families' descendants ever since.
Why it matters
The Dunn Cemetery preserves the memory of Irish immigrants who joined the empresario colonies that peopled Anglo-Mexican Texas on the eve of its revolution.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James Dunn
- · Isabella Caufield Dunn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
St. Michael's Cemetery
Burlington, TX
St. Michael's Cemetery grew from the Irish Catholic families who settled the Milam County community once called Waterford. In 1876 brothers John and Michael Jones bought the land; Michael died two years later and was buried there, and in 1897 his heirs deeded the plot to the Catholic Diocese of Galveston. The headstones—German, Czech, Irish, Hispanic, and more—record the mingling of cultures that built Burlington, including veterans reaching back to the Civil War.
Jewish Cemetery
Rockdale, TX
When the railroad reached Rockdale in 1874, Jewish merchants were among its earliest residents, including the Lowenstein brothers, who sold goods from a tent before the tracks even arrived. By 1879 some 100 Jewish residents supported an active B'nai B'rith lodge, and in 1877 the Hebrew Benevolent Association established this dedicated burial ground. Its graves—among them a Confederate veteran and victims of an 1888 hotel fire—chronicle a community whose last burial came in 1939.
Zabcikville
Temple, TX
In 1856, Jan Zabcik Sr. brought his family from Moravia to Galveston, part of the wave of Czech immigrants who settled first around Cat Springs before moving on to Bell County. There the family bought land—a marker of status in the Czech community—and a small settlement grew, changing names from Kocenda to Lugoville to Marekville as different storekeepers took over. In 1923 Frank Zabcik bought the store and land and renamed it Zabcikville, and much of that original family acreage remains with descendants who still farm it.
Old Cavitt House
Wheelock, TX
The Cavitt homestead began as a log cabin raised in 1836, the year Texas won its independence, and grew into a fine hand-finished house completed in 1854. Standing on the road between Nacogdoches and San Antonio de Béxar, it served through the 1840s and 1850s as a stage stop. The Cavitts were political allies of Sam Houston, who was a frequent guest and gave a desk to Volney Cavitt.