Elkhart Myrtle Springs Cemetery
Elkhart, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established with a church and school nearby, this cemetery is the primary remaining vestige of the early farming community known as Myrtle Springs. John A. Box of the David G. Burnet colony and original settler of the property received the land from the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas in 1835. Named for nearby flowing springs amid dense myrtle bushes, it was deeded to the cemetery association by E.E. and Ethel Buie in Nov. 1927 with an additional acre later donated by Emmett Coleman. The cemetery is a chronicle of community history, with many early Anderson County settlers, veterans, community leaders and their descendants buried here. The oldest dated marker found is that of Henry Davis (d. 1903). Historic Texas Cemetery - 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Myrtle Springs Cemetery is the last visible trace of an early Anderson County farming community that grew up around a church, a school, and the myrtle-fringed springs that gave it its name. The land traces to John A. Box, an original settler of David G. Burnet's colony who received his grant from the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas in 1835. Deeded to a cemetery association in 1927, its graves — the oldest dated 1903 — hold generations of the county's settlers, veterans, and community leaders.
Why it matters
Vanished farming hamlets like Myrtle Springs survive mainly in their burial grounds, which quietly preserve the names and lineages of the pioneers who first broke ground in Mexican and Republic-era Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Elkhart Myrtle Springs Cemetery preserves the memory of a community that no longer exists on the map. It grew up around an early Anderson County farming settlement called Myrtle Springs — named, simply and beautifully, for the flowing springs that ran among dense myrtle bushes. Like many such places, it had the essentials of frontier community life: a church, a school, and the land to farm.
The roots of the site reach back to the very beginnings of Anglo-American settlement in this part of Texas. The land here was originally granted in 1835 — before Texas was either a republic or a U.S. state — by the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, which then governed the region. That single date places Myrtle Springs at the hinge of an era, in the last months before the upheavals that would transform Texas.
Settlements like this were the building blocks of early Texas: small clusters of farming families drawn by water, timber, and workable soil. Many thrived for a time and then faded as railroads, roads, and larger towns redrew the map. When a hamlet like Myrtle Springs dwindled, its cemetery often became the last thing left standing — a quiet keeper of the community's memory.
People & events
The land's history begins with John A. Box, an original settler of the property and a member of David G. Burnet's colony — one of the empresario colonies through which families acquired land in Mexican Texas. Box received his grant in 1835, tying this ground directly to the colonial land system that first brought Anglo-American settlers into the region in organized numbers.
Over the following decades, the community of Myrtle Springs took shape around its springs, its church, and its school, and its people were laid to rest here. The cemetery became, in the marker's words, a chronicle of community history — the burial place of early Anderson County settlers, veterans, community leaders, and their descendants. The oldest dated grave that has been found is that of Henry Davis, who died in 1903, a small anchor point in a much longer story.
The cemetery's formal life came later. In November 1927, E.E. and Ethel Buie deeded the land to a cemetery association, and an additional acre was later donated by Emmett Coleman — ordinary acts of stewardship that ensured the burial ground would be cared for even as the surrounding settlement faded. In 2011 it was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery, a designation that formally acknowledges its role in preserving the region's past.
Its place in the American story
Across America, countless small farming communities have simply disappeared — their fields returned to pasture or woods, their buildings gone, their names surviving only in old records. What endures, again and again, is the cemetery. These burial grounds are among the most reliable historical documents rural America has, quietly preserving names, family lines, and dates that no other source recorded.
Myrtle Springs also connects to one of the foundational chapters of the American story: the settlement of Texas under Mexican rule. The 1835 land grant to John A. Box, tied to an empresario colony, is a tangible link to the moment when families were moving into Coahuila y Tejas under a legal system very different from the one that would soon replace it. A cemetery may seem an unlikely place to touch that history, but the land's title carries it forward.
The 2011 Historic Texas Cemetery designation reflects a broader national impulse to protect these fragile sites. As development, neglect, and time erase the last traces of vanished communities, recognizing and maintaining their cemeteries has become an important way of keeping the pioneers who built them from being forgotten entirely.
If you visit
A visit to Myrtle Springs Cemetery is a quiet, contemplative experience rather than a grand one. Set in the rural countryside of Anderson County near Elkhart, it invites you to slow down and read the stones — each one a small biography of someone who helped settle this corner of Texas. The oldest dated marker belongs to Henry Davis, who died in 1903, and from there the generations spread outward.
Let the setting do its work. The community that once surrounded this ground — its church, its school, the springs among the myrtle bushes that gave the place its name — is gone, and the cemetery is the primary remaining vestige. Standing among the graves, you're standing in what is essentially the last room of a vanished town. Please treat it with the respect any active burial ground deserves.
For travelers drawn to genuine, off-the-beaten-path history, this makes a meaningful stop on an East Texas route themed around pioneer settlement and old cemeteries. It rewards curiosity: read the family names, notice how they repeat across the plots, and consider that the land beneath you was first granted in 1835, when Texas still answered to Mexico. Few places let you feel the depth of that history so simply.
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
- · John A. Box
- · Henry Davis
Related events
- · Mexican land grant to John A. Box, 1835
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rev. Daniel Parker
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Born in Virginia in 1781, Daniel Parker became a pioneer Baptist minister who carried his faith to the Texas frontier before his death in 1844. His wife, Patsy Dixon Parker, is remembered alongside him. The Parker name loomed large in early Anderson County history.
Dickerson Parker
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Born in Tennessee in 1812, Dickerson Parker fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 clash that won Texas its independence, before his death in 1844. His wife, Lucinda Eaton Parker, is remembered with him. Both were part of the earliest Anglo settlement of Anderson County.
Miles Bennett
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Elder Daniel Parker organized this Predestinarian Baptist congregation in Crawford County, Illinois, in 1833, then carried it whole into Mexican Texas — a clever way around the colony's restrictions on organizing new churches. Its first Texas meeting was held in Stephen F. Austin's Colony on January 20, 1834, and a log meetinghouse followed in 1839. It is remembered as the first Baptist church in Texas.