Elkins Cemetery
Brownwood vicinity, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery traces its origin to 1876, when noted pioneer minister Noah T. Byars helped establish Live Oak Baptist Church. That year, Civil War veteran Silas H. Wood moved his extended family from Mississippi and settled on land which included this site. The first recorded burial was that of D.O. Melton in 1876. Wood donated about three acres including the graveyard to Live Oak Baptist Church in 1884. Known earlier as Gholson, a name it shared with an area school, it later was named Elkins for the town that developed here. The cemetery continued in use as a community graveyard until interments ceased when the construction of Camp Bowie here during World War II resulted in the temporary displacement of the Elkins community. Camp Bowie was discontinued in 1947, after which a rural community developed and the cemetery was again in use. Buried here are many of the area's pioneer families and their descendants; veterans of World War I; and at least three Civil War veterans, including Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Isaac A. Melton, whose funeral in 1910 was attended by fellow Confederate Civil War veterans and Masonic friends. The cemetery is maintained by the Elkins Cemetery Association and continues to serve the community. (1994)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began in 1876, the year pioneer minister Noah T. Byars helped found Live Oak Baptist Church and Civil War veteran Silas H. Wood settled his family here from Mississippi. Wood deeded the graveyard to the church in 1884, and it grew alongside a community known first as Gholson and later Elkins. Interments paused during World War II when Camp Bowie displaced the town, then resumed after the camp closed in 1947.
Why it matters
An ordinary rural cemetery holds an extraordinary cross-section of American history—Confederate veterans, World War soldiers, and pioneer families—showing how a single place absorbs the nation's larger conflicts.
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Related people
- · Noah T. Byars
- · Silas H. Wood
- · Isaac A. Melton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Zephyr Cemetery
Zephyr, TX
The town of Zephyr took shape in the 1860s on early land grants, gaining a school in the 1870s, churches, businesses, and weekly mail from Brownwood, while this cemetery served the area from the same decade. Among its graves are veterans of six American wars, from the Mexican War through Vietnam, and thirty-three victims of the catastrophic tornado of May 29, 1909, which nearly wiped the town off the map. Now grown past seven acres, the burial ground endures as a monument to the community's resilience.
Connell Cemetery
Brownwood vicinity, TX
William Connell brought his family to Texas in 1834 and lived through its most formative decades, serving in the Republic of Texas Army, the Texas Rangers, and later the Confederate Army. The cemetery that bears his name—thought to be among the oldest in Brown County—was likely in use before 1861, and when the Connells buried their son in 1866 they set what is believed to be its first headstone. Sixteen families and more than twenty unmarked graves lie here, a quiet record of the pioneers who settled this frontier.
Jenkins Springs Cemetery
Brownwood, TX
Richardson Jenkins, one of Brown County's earliest pioneers, settled a farm northeast of Brownwood whose spring took his name and later served the local school and church. The county's earliest known graves here belong to four army surveyors ambushed and killed nearby, and Jenkins himself, who died in 1867, has the first marked grave; veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam also rest in the cemetery.
Greenleaf Fisk
Brownwood, TX
Known as the 'Father of Brownwood,' Greenleaf Fisk (1807–1888) was born in New York to English parents and abandoned ministry studies in 1834 to brave the Texas frontier. He fought at San Jacinto in 1836, held county offices, and served as a senator in the Republic of Texas, and as a government surveyor he mapped and came to love this region. Settling here on a Texas Revolution land grant, he donated 60 acres for the town and 100 for county use, then persuaded neighbors to relocate to the new county seat.