Gillum Cemetery
Oakalla, Burnet County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ABSLOM BARTON GILLUM (1836-1923) AND HIS WIFE, HANNAH EMMALINE, ARRIVED IN TEXAS FROM ALABAMA IN 1872. IN 1880, GILLUM BOUGHT LAND AT THE PRESENT SITE OF THE CEMETERY. A.B. GILLUM SERVED IN THE CIVIL WAR, WAS POSTMASTER OF OAKALLA, WAS RECOGNIZED AS A MASTER MASON AND OWNED A COTTON GIN. THE FIRST PERSON BURIED IN THE CEMETERY IS FOUR-YEAR-OLD WILLIAM “WILLIE” PETER GILLUM (1878-1882), THE SON OF A.B. AND HANNAH. OTHER BURIALS INCLUDE WOODMEN OF THE WORLD AND VETERANS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE PRESENT. AN ADDITIONAL 2.5 ACRES WAS ADDED TO THE CEMETERY IN 1990. THE GILLUM CEMETERY ASSOCIATION MAINTAINS THIS HISTORIC CEMETERY, A REMINDER OF THE AREA’S PIONEER ANCESTORS. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2010
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Absalom Barton Gillum and his wife Hannah Emmaline came to Texas from Alabama in 1872, and by 1880 he had bought the land that became this cemetery. A Civil War veteran, Master Mason, cotton-gin owner, and postmaster of Oakalla, Gillum first buried his four-year-old son Willie here in 1882. The grounds went on to hold Woodmen of the World members and veterans from the Civil War to the present, tended today by a family association.
Why it matters
The Gillum Cemetery preserves the story of a Reconstruction-era pioneer family whose members wove together the civic, fraternal, and agricultural life of a small Texas community.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Absalom Barton Gillum
- · Hannah Emmaline Gillum
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Smith Cemetery
Oakalla, TX
Tennessee-born James Gibson Smith Jr. and his Arkansas-born wife Sarah settled this part of Burnet County in 1850 and set aside ground as a family burial place while raising eight children. Their granddaughter Anita Fay, lost to diphtheria in 1901, was the first laid to rest here, soon followed by a neighbor and by the family patriarch. Descendants formed an association in 1981 to tend the site, which holds veterans of the Civil War and World War II.
Smith Cemetery
Lampasas County, TX
In the years after the Civil War, settlers pushed into the rolling prairies of central Texas, and the Browning Community took root in the 1870s along the Old Belton Road—a lifeline that carried goods, travelers, and mail between frontier towns. John R. Browning, his wife Julia, and their children were among the first families to put down roots here, farming the land and building the ties that knit a rural neighborhood together. The cemetery that survives is the enduring record of those pioneer households.
First United Methodist Church of Florence
Florence, TX
In the 1850s Florence was a cluster of log cabins with a shared stone building that served as church and meeting house on the Texas frontier. Circuit-riding Methodist ministers, serving several communities at once, brought regular preaching, and Rev. John Carpenter became the congregation's first appointed pastor in 1858. The church grew across the decades through mission societies, youth groups, and successive new buildings.
Smart-McCormick Home
Andice, TX
Bryce M. Smart built this home in 1855, when central Texas was still raw frontier and the great cattle drives were beginning to shape the land. A man of many trades, Smart ran a grist mill, a tannery, and a freight line, and family lore holds that his children rescued newborn calves abandoned along the nearby Chisholm Trail. Five generations later, McCormick descendants still keep the house.