Forestburg
Forestburg, Montague County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established after the Civil War in memory of its pioneers who battled with the Indians, endured hardships and conquered the soil that civilization might live.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Forestburg took shape just after the Civil War, founded in memory of the pioneers who had pushed into this contested North Texas frontier. Its brief inscription honors settlers who battled Native peoples, endured hardship, and broke the soil so that a lasting community could follow. It marks the raw edge of settlement where survival itself was the founding achievement.
Why it matters
The town's founding story distills the hard reality of post-war frontier expansion, where new communities rose only after years of danger and struggle on the plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Perryman Cemetery
Forestburg, TX
The oldest marked grave in this Montague County burial ground belongs to an infant who died in 1862, and its early plots read like a chronicle of frontier hardship: a well-digger killed in an 1863 Indian raid, and two former Confederate soldiers who had been captured at Lookout Mountain. In 1883 Levi Perryman — himself a Confederate veteran, Indian fighter, and sheriff — bought the site and deeded it to the county. Still in use, the cemetery keeps the memory of the district's pioneers.
McGrady Cemetery
Saint Jo, TX
Allen R. McGrady and his wife Elizabeth Cox McGrady moved to this area along Clear Creek in 1859, settling on 160 acres. The cemetery began in the 1860s after a McGrady employee was killed by Indians and buried on the family farm, and an acre was set aside as a graveyard for family and neighbors. Allen and Elizabeth, who both died in September 1899, are buried here among the pioneers of Montague County.
Head of Elm Cemetery
Saint Jo, TX
The oldest of three graveyards in Saint Jo—once called Head of Elm—this hillside holds the area's pioneers and their descendants. Local tradition remembers settlers like Enoch Willett and his daughter Mary among those killed in Indian raids and buried here in the 1860s, though the first documented burial is that of infant Charlie Wyatt in 1874. Early residents recalled a far larger cemetery than the scattered surviving stones suggest.
A. H. Fortenberry
Slidell, TX
In the 1850s A. H. 'Sevier' Fortenberry brought his family from Arkansas into what was then raw Texas wilderness, farming and raising stock while joining his neighbors to fend off raids on the scattered settlements. On October 30, 1868, he was intercepted and killed by Indians as he rode to join a defensive posse, and was laid to rest in Denton County's Pollard Cemetery. He is remembered as likely the last person killed in the Indian conflicts of this vicinity.