Gulf Prairie Cemetery
Jones Creek, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ESTABLISHED CA. 1833 HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2009
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established around 1833, this Brazoria County burial ground dates to the last years of Mexican Texas, when Stephen F. Austin's colonists were settling the fertile Gulf prairies of the Brazos River bottom. Founded on the eve of the Texas Revolution, it is among the older cemeteries in a region that was part of the original Austin colony. Its designation as a Historic Texas Cemetery recognizes that deep connection to the state's founding era.
Why it matters
A cemetery begun in 1833 reaches back to the very origins of Anglo-American settlement in Texas, marking ground broken while the region was still Mexican soil.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gulf Prairie Cemetery
Jones Creek, TX
Once part of the Peach Point Plantation of James Franklin Perry and Emily Austin Bryan Perry — Stephen F. Austin's sister — this pioneer cemetery has served their descendants and the community since 1829. Austin himself, the 'Father of Texas,' was buried here after his death in 1836, and his remains rested at Gulf Prairie until they were reinterred at the State Cemetery in Austin in 1910.
Henry William Munson
Jones Creek, TX
Henry William Munson's life spanned the violent birth of Anglo Texas. He fought at the 1813 Battle of Medina near San Antonio, returned east, then came back as one of Austin's colonists in 1824. He took up arms for Mexico to put down the 1827 Fredonian Rebellion, but turned against Santa Anna's agents at the 1832 Battle of Velasco. He and his wife Ann named one son Mordello, after the Mexican officer who had saved Munson's life at Medina.
Emily Margaret Brown Austin Bryan Perry
Jones Creek, TX
Emily Austin was the sister of Stephen F. Austin, the empresario who led the first Anglo-American colonization of Texas. Raised in the lead-mining town of Potosi, Missouri, that her father Moses Austin helped found, she twice married and raised a large family before bringing her household to Texas in 1831 to join her bachelor brother. From the family's Peach Point Plantation she offered Stephen a home and counsel during the crucial years of colonization and the Texas Revolution, and her descendants went on to help build the new republic and state.
William Joel Bryan
Jones Creek, TX
Grandson of Moses Austin, whose colonizing dream reshaped Texas, William Joel Bryan came to the country with his family in 1831 and served in the Texas army from 1835 to 1838 during the struggle for independence. A prosperous planter, he was instrumental in building a deepwater port at the mouth of the Brazos and lived at 'Durazno,' a plantation given to him by his uncle Stephen F. Austin. The city of Bryan, Texas, bears his name.