Eastview Cemetery
Bay City, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery traces its origin to 1907, when 1.8 acres of land were purchased from D. P. Moore. The first recorded burial was that of Henry Abram in 1912. Known earlier as "The Burying Ground for Negroes," "Cedarvale Eastside," and "The Old Section," this cemetery is adjacent to the Anglo graveyard Cedarvale Cemetery. Over five acres of land was added to this site in 1945 when purchased from E. E. Weller and his wife Ella May Weller. Although the cemetery contains over 780 graves, it is believed that several unmarked graves exist, possibly in the old section. Buried here are veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Maintained by a cemetery association, many improvements have been made over the years to the grounds. The association had the roads resurfaced, made water accessible to all sections, installed flagpoles, established driveways, and planted several oak trees and numerous plants throughout the site. Closely associated with many of the area's African American churches and community organizations, the Eastview Cemetery continues to serve the vicinity and Matagorda county. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Eastview Cemetery began in 1907 on 1.8 acres bought from D. P. Moore, with the first recorded burial in 1912, and grew by more than five acres in 1945. Known over the years as "The Burying Ground for Negroes" and the "Old Section," it sits beside the Anglo Cedarvale Cemetery and holds more than 780 graves, among them veterans of both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Tied to the area's African American churches and organizations, it is still tended by a cemetery association.
Why it matters
The segregated burial ground stands as a record of Bay City's African American community across the 20th century and of the divided landscape of the Jim Crow South, even in death.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Eastview Cemetery took shape in the early twentieth century in Bay City, the seat of Matagorda County on the Texas Gulf Coast. Its origins in 1907 place it firmly in the era of Jim Crow, when segregation reached into nearly every corner of Southern life — schools, churches, neighborhoods, and, as this ground testifies, even the places where the dead were laid to rest.
That reality is written into the cemetery's own history. It sits directly beside Cedarvale Cemetery, the Anglo graveyard, and over the years it was known by names that make the divide plain — including "The Burying Ground for Negroes," "Cedarvale Eastside," and "The Old Section." Two cemeteries, side by side, separated by the color line that defined the age.
And yet this was also a period of remarkable community building among African Americans across the South. Denied full participation in the wider society, Black communities created and sustained their own institutions — churches, benevolent associations, and cemeteries like this one — that anchored their neighborhoods and preserved their history. Eastview is one of those anchors.
People & events
The story starts with a purchase: in 1907, 1.8 acres of land were bought from D. P. Moore to create a burial ground. The first recorded burial came in 1912 — a man named Henry Abram, whose name the marker preserves as the cemetery's founding memory. From that single grave the place grew into a community institution.
Grow it did. In 1945, more than five acres were added when land was purchased from E. E. Weller and his wife, Ella May Weller, expanding the cemetery well beyond its original footprint. Today it holds more than 780 graves — and, as the marker carefully notes, likely several unmarked ones as well, possibly in the old section, quiet reminders of those whose resting places went unrecorded.
What truly brings the ground to life, though, is the care it has received. A cemetery association has maintained it and made improvement after improvement over the years: resurfacing the roads, making water accessible to all sections, installing flagpoles, laying out driveways, and planting oak trees and countless other plants across the site. Closely tied to the area's African American churches and community organizations, Eastview has never been merely a field of graves — it is a place actively tended by the living on behalf of the dead.
Its place in the American story
Eastview Cemetery is a record of an entire community's life across the twentieth century, and its significance reaches far beyond Bay City. Segregated cemeteries like this one are among the most enduring physical evidence of Jim Crow — the color line held so firmly that it was maintained even in death, with the Black cemetery on one side and the Anglo cemetery on the other. To walk this ground is to read that history in the landscape itself.
But the marker insists on another truth, too. Buried here are veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War — men who served the nation in its wars even as that nation denied them equal rights at home. Their graves embody one of the central contradictions of American history: full sacrifice demanded of citizens who were granted less than full citizenship.
And in the story of the cemetery association's decades of care — the roads, the water lines, the flagpoles, the oak trees — there is the larger American story of a community's dignity and self-reliance. What the wider society segregated and neglected, the community itself preserved, tended, and honored. Eastview stands for that quiet, sustained act of remembrance.
If you visit
Come to Eastview as you would to any place that asks for respect first and curiosity second. This is a working, community cemetery, closely associated with the area's African American churches and organizations, so walk gently, keep your voice low, and let the place set the tone.
Notice its position. Eastview sits beside the Anglo Cedarvale Cemetery, and that adjacency is itself the history lesson — two grounds side by side, divided by the color line of their time. Then look for the marks of long devotion the marker describes: the oak trees planted over the decades, the flagpoles, the roads and driveways laid out by the cemetery association. These are not accidents of landscaping but evidence of a community's enduring care.
Seek out the veterans' graves, spanning both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, and take a moment with them; they carry one of the deepest truths this place has to tell. And remember the unmarked graves the marker acknowledges — the presences you cannot see. A visit here fits naturally into a thoughtful tour of Bay City's history, and it leaves you with something a livelier attraction cannot: the quiet, lasting dignity of a community that has honored its own for more than a century.
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
- · Henry Abram
Themes & tags
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