Fayetteville City Cemetery
Fayetteville, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground has served Fayetteville since early in the community's history. The earliest recorded burial, of Cass Fisher, dates to 1851. Other notable burials include surgeon, military leader and public servant Dr. William P. Smith and veterans of conflicts dating to the War of 1812. Also interred here is P.J. Shaver, who surveyed and named Fayetteville; he also donated land for burial use, which was later divided into this cemetery and neighboring St. John's Catholic Church Cemetery. Today, the graves here serve as a record of pioneer families, teachers, preachers, business owners, judges, city officials, and Fayetteville community leaders and residents. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fayetteville's city cemetery has served the community since its earliest days, with the first recorded burial dating to 1851. Among those interred are the surveyor who platted and named the town and donated land for the burying ground, a physician and military leader, and veterans of conflicts reaching back to the War of 1812. Its rows of graves read as a roll call of the pioneer families, tradespeople, and officials who built the town.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a living archive of a nineteenth-century Texas settlement, preserving the memory of the immigrants and early citizens who founded and sustained the community.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · P.J. Shaver
- · William P. Smith
- · Cass Fisher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Thomas Deye Owings
Brenham, TX
Born near Baltimore in 1776 to a prosperous planter and ironmaster family, Thomas Deye Owings built a fortune in Kentucky's Bourbon Iron Works, founded Owingsville, and even laid an "Iron Road" to ship his goods. Commissioned a colonel in the War of 1812, he led the 28th U.S. Infantry and supplied ammunition for the Battle of New Orleans. Later he backed the Texas Revolution, financing companies of soldiers—roughly eighty of whom, including his son Robert, died at Goliad—and settling near Brenham, where he died in 1853.
Phillip James Shaver
Fayetteville, TX
North Carolina native Phillip J. Shaver settled in the Fayette County community of Rutersville around 1840 and, two years later, joined the Texas Army to defend area settlers, earning a 320-acre grant from the young Republic. After marrying in 1847, he bought 525 acres, surveyed a townsite he named for a former home, laid out its streets, and donated lots for a school, church, Masonic lodge, and cemetery. He supported the community he founded, Fayetteville, until his death in 1875, and his descendants remain in the area.
Halamicek Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
When the Pustejovskys' infant daughter Klara died in 1899, they buried her on land held by their Krystinek relatives; later that year the family conveyed an acre around her grave as a cemetery for the growing Czech community of Roznov. The settlement took its name from John Halamicek's birthplace in the old country. The stones here read like a roster of the Czech families who put down roots in Fayette County.
Pagel Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
Gottfried and Friedrike Pagel came to Texas from Pomerania in 1850 with eight children, buying land in this vicinity in 1852; Friedrike died the next year after the birth of her ninth child. Their son Wilhelm built a stone house, ran a store, and served as first postmaster of the community then called Rock House, and his 1873 burial on the family land became the first marked grave in what grew into Pagel Cemetery. Many neighbors of German heritage joined the Pagels here, and their descendants still maintain the grounds.