Fulshear Black Cemetery
Fulshear, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ORAL TRADITION SAYS THAT THIS CEMETERY BEGAN AS A SLAVE CEMETERY ON THE PLANTATION OF TENNESSEE NATIVE CHURCHILL FULSHEAR. MANY EARLY BURIALS ARE UNMARKED, AND THE OLDEST HEADSTONE IS THAT OF REBECCA SCOTT IN 1915. IN ADDITION, MIDWIVES, A CHEF, A HORSE TRAINER AND COWBOY, THE FIRST COLORED SCHOOL HOUSE FOUNDERS, BUSINESSMEN AND WOMEN, TWO LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS, RELIGIOUS LEADERS, AND VETERANS FROM WWI TO THE VIETNAM WAR ARE BURIED HERE. A RURAL LANDSCAPE OF ROLLING HILLS AND TREES SURROUNDS A VARIETY OF HEADSTONES MADE OF FIELDSTONE, GRANITE, MARBLE, STEEL, HOMEMADE CONCRETE, WOOD AND RESIN. THE CEMETERY IS EVIDENCE OF THE RICH HERITAGE OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS AREA.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Oral tradition holds that this cemetery began as the burial ground for enslaved people on the plantation of Tennessee native Churchill Fulshear, making it one of the oldest African American sites in the area. Many early graves are unmarked, and the oldest surviving headstone, that of Rebecca Scott, dates to 1915. Those buried here include midwives, a chef, a horse trainer, founders of the community's first colored schoolhouse, business owners, religious leaders, and veterans from World War I through Vietnam, their graves marked in fieldstone, marble, homemade concrete, wood, and resin.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the full arc of a Black community's history—from slavery through freedom, education, enterprise, and military service—in a landscape that formal records often erased.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Churchill Fulshear
- · Rebecca Scott
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Oak Hill Baptist Church
Richmond, TX
In 1915, eighteen African American residents of Richmond, led by the Rev. A. C. Ray, gathered to found their own congregation, building a brush arbor on an oak-covered rise and worshipping in a member's home until they could buy the land. By 1916 they owned the site and had raised a sanctuary. Oak Hill Baptist Church grew into a center of worship, music, and outreach for the surrounding community.
Mt. Zion Baptist Church
Frydek, TX
Organized in 1866 as the Bethlehem Baptist Church by Joe and Abe Osborne and Louis Thompson, this congregation took root in the first year of freedom after the Civil War. Reorganized as Mt. Zion Baptist in the 1880s, its members worshipped in homes and then a log sanctuary, rebuilding faithfully after both a fire and a major storm leveled their church. More than a century and a half on, it still serves as a spiritual anchor for the Frydek community.
Church Of The Living God, Pillar And Ground Of Truth
Richmond, TX
Evangelist Isom Ford founded this congregation in 1918, the first of its denomination in Richmond, and its first church rose in 1923 in the Freeman Town neighborhood settled by freed people. Remarkably for its time, the church installed a woman, Octavia Laws, as a leader in 1921. Across the decades the building was added to, relocated more than once, and sustained ministries of food, clothing, and care for the community, bridging the generations from Freeman Town's emancipated founders to the present.
Texas Prison System Central State Farm Main Building
Sugar Land, TX
The land here began as a 5,235-acre sugar plantation worked by leased convict labor starting in 1878, when Texas ran a self-sustaining prison system funded by renting prisoners to private operators like Cunningham and Ellis. Despite brutal camp conditions, the leasing program persisted into the 1910s; the state bought the plantation in 1908 and renamed it Imperial State Prison Farm. Reforms of the late 1920s ended leasing and improved conditions, and in 1932 the Art Moderne main building rose here—poured reinforced concrete with a pyramidal-roofed tower—as the first modernized structure in the Texas prison system.