Gates Cemetery
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
GATES CEMETERY THE GATES FAMILY CAME TO TEXAS AS PART OF STEPHEN F. AUSTIN’S ORIGINAL COLONY. THIS CEMETERY, THE FAMILY’S SECOND IN TEXAS, WAS ESTABLISHED ON LAND GIVEN TO SAMUEL H. GATES FOR SERVICE IN TEXAS’ WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. HE AND HIS WIFE, ELIZA DILLARD, RAISED THEIR FOUR CHILDREN IN THE GATES-WELL COMMUNITY, WHICH WAS SERVED BY THIS CEMETERY AND BY A SCHOOLHOUSE IN USE UNTIL THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY. THE FIRST BURIAL HERE WAS THAT OF THE GATES’ SON SAMUEL A., A CONFEDERATE VETERAN IMPRISONED AT VICKSBURG WHO DIED SHORTLY AFTER HIS RETURN HOME IN 1863. OTHER BURIALS INCLUDE HIS FATHER, SAMUEL H., AND HIS BROTHER, JOSEPH DILLARD GATES, A SECOND SERGEANT IN COMPANY I, FIRST TEXAS REGIMENT, ONE OF TEXAS’ FIRST CONFEDERATE UNITS. JOSEPH LATER SERVED AS INSPECTOR OF CATTLE AND AS GONZALES COUNTY COMMISSIONER. HIS GRANDDAUGHTER JAIME K. FERGUSON, ALSO BURIED HERE, WORKED FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AS A TEACHER ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS. SHE HELPED FORM A CEMETERY ASSOCIATION TO MAINTAIN THESE GROUNDS, THE RESTING PLACE FOR GENERATIONS OF GATES FAMILY MEMBERS. THE CEMETERY’S FEATURES DEMONSTRATE DECADES OF BURIAL PRACTICES AND REFLECT THE AREA’S EARLY HISTORY. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Gates family came to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's original colony, and this cemetery sits on land granted to Samuel H. Gates for service in the Texas War for Independence. The first burial, in 1863, was his son Samuel A., a Confederate soldier who died soon after returning from imprisonment at Vicksburg; another son, Joseph Dillard Gates, served in one of Texas's first Confederate units before a career in county affairs. A later descendant taught on Indian reservations and helped organize the cemetery association.
Why it matters
Spanning Austin's colony, the Texas Revolution, and the Civil War, the Gates graves trace one family's passage through the founding chapters of Anglo-American Texas.
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Related people
- · Samuel H. Gates
- · Samuel A. Gates
- · Joseph Dillard Gates
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William B. Fleming
Belmont, TX
Born in Georgia in 1830, William B. Fleming came to Texas before 1850 and rode with the Texas Rangers' mounted volunteers before serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Settling afterward in Gonzales County, he built a black-walnut log cabin along the Guadalupe River and turned to horse breeding. His stallion "Old Billy" founded the celebrated line of "Billy" quarter horses prized by cowboys, rodeo riders, and racers.
John Himes Livergood
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Pennsylvania-born John Himes Livergood came to Texas in 1837 and took up 640 acres near Gonzales, throwing himself into the defense of the young Republic's frontier. He joined the pursuit that ended in victory at the Battle of Plum Creek, scouted with Jack Hays's Texas Rangers, and endured the disastrous Mier Expedition—surviving the Black Bean Episode and imprisonment at Perote. Settling on the Lavaca River with his wife Sarah Ann and thirteen children, he became a county judge and justice of the peace before serving the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Clear Creek Cemetery
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The Clear Creek community took root in the 1850s along the Old Gonzales Road, the wagon route linking San Felipe, Columbus, and San Antonio. A Methodist church organized there, and the burial ground that grew beside it served the area for decades, holding more than a dozen Civil War veterans and members of the Sons of Temperance among its marble, granite, and local sandstone markers. When the railroad reached nearby Weimar in 1873, the community faded, but families kept returning to the cemetery, whose last recorded burial came in 1929.
The Presbyterian Church of Gonzales
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The Presbyterian Church of Gonzales was constituted on February 29, 1852, with eight charter members under the Rev. Joel T. Case, at first borrowing the local Baptist church for monthly worship. The congregation built its own sanctuary in 1875, opened a Sunday school of 62 pupils in 1881, and replaced its building with a new worship facility in 1925 as it continued to grow.