Fulshear Cemetery
Fulshear, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
More than six acres here of the Mexican land grant acquired in 1824 by "Old 300" colonist Churchill Fulshear, Jr., were donated to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, by Churchill Fulshear, Jr., in 1851. Originally Union Chappel Cemetery, it was renamed Fulshear for the town that developed here in the 1890s. The first recorded burial is that of Mahalia Sparks in 1850. A church building and school were erected here in the 1850s. The church relocated to fulshear in 1894. Original church trustees were Randolph Foster, the Rev. John Patton, J. W. Miller, G. D. Parker, William Wade, and e. H. Kemp.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began on land granted in 1824 to Churchill Fulshear, Jr., one of Stephen F. Austin's original "Old 300" colonists, part of which he gave to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1851. Known first as Union Chapel Cemetery, with its earliest recorded burial in 1850, it took the Fulshear name when a town grew up here in the 1890s. A church and school once stood on the grounds before the congregation moved into town in 1894.
Why it matters
It ties directly to Austin's foundational colony, the first organized Anglo-American settlement of Texas, whose land grants set the pattern for the American settlement of the region.
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Related people
- · Churchill Fulshear, Jr.
- · Mahalia Sparks
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Fulshear
Fulshear, TX
The land here was granted in 1824 to Churchill Fulshear, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300" colonists. His son, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, built a four-story brick mansion in the 1850s and bred and raced horses; his protégé John Huggins went on to train the first American horse to win the English Derby. The town itself was platted in 1890 when the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad arrived, quickly becoming a local trade center.
Pittsville
Fulshear, TX
Planters wary of the flood-prone Brazos bottoms settled Pittsville on the open prairie in the 1840s, naming it for storekeepers A. R. and Amanda Pitts. By 1860 it was a thriving commercial hub, and during the Civil War local home guard and Confederate cavalry—among them men who helped retake Galveston—camped nearby. When a new railroad bypassed the town to the south in 1888, trade drifted to the newly founded Fulshear, and Pittsville faded away by the late 1940s.
Wade Cemetery
Brookshire, TX
Wade Cemetery began in 1846 on the sprawling plantation of William Wade, a Mississippi planter who came to Texas in the 1820s and amassed over 11,000 acres of Republic of Texas land along the Brazos. His wife Hulda's grave is the oldest here; later generations—including a son who fought for the Confederacy—and neighbors from the Brookshire and Fulshear communities were laid to rest alongside the family.
Randon & Pennington Grant of 1824
Fulshear, TX
When Stephen F. Austin won a Mexican permit to settle 300 families in Texas, he and Baron de Bastrop issued 272 land grants between 1823 and 1824, many along the Brazos and San Bernard rivers. In August 1824 David Randon—an Alabama native of part-Creek descent—and his partner Isaac Pennington received 4,428 fertile acres on the Brazos, prized for river access to markets. Randon grew into one of the colony's most successful planters, while Pennington, one of the colony's earliest teachers, sold out his share and later carried the mail on a Texas post route.