Hawley Cemetery
Blessing, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established 1854 Historic Texas cemetery – 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1854 on the Matagorda County coastal plain, Hawley Cemetery dates to the early decades of Anglo settlement in the region and was formally recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2011. Burial grounds of this age are often the earliest surviving records of the pioneer families who first settled the area.
Why it matters
As one of the county's oldest marked burial grounds, Hawley Cemetery preserves a tangible link to the mid-19th-century settlers who established this stretch of the Texas Gulf Coast.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Grimes Cemetery
Blessing, TX
Sea captain turned cattleman Richard Grimes opened this family burial ground in 1856 after the death of an infant grandson, on the WBG ranch he and his son had built near Matagorda Bay. The ranch was a school for the cattle trade, employing cowboys like Charles Siringo and Shanghai Pierce, and after the Civil War it launched major trail drives north to the Kansas railheads at Abilene and Dodge City. The family and its ranching legacy stretched into the twentieth century, and the cemetery remains in use today.
St. Peter's Catholic Church
Blessing, TX
Just five years after the town of Blessing was founded, Catholic residents gathered for their first Mass in 1912, celebrated in private homes by traveling priests. Town founder Jonathan Edwards Pierce's Townsite Company donated land in 1914, and the parish of St. Peter's took shape the next year, gaining its first resident priest in 1930. The congregation has since rebuilt twice—including a remodeled army chapel—and become known for feeding seniors and hosting the community's beloved fall festival.
Midfield Methodist Church
Midfield, TX
Area Methodists worshiping at Hawley Methodist Church became charter members of a new Midfield congregation in 1907, first gathering at the Keller Hotel before building a sanctuary and parsonage on Junetta Street. As the surrounding population thinned, the congregation merged with Markham Methodist in 1970. In 1981 the members bought back their old building and reopened it as the Midfield Community Church.
Buckeye
Markham, TX
In the early 1900s land promoters lured northern families to Texas with promises of warm weather and fertile soil, and Buckeye — named for the founders' native Ohio — was one such planned town. Dr. Ambrose Plotner and John Stoddard bought the old Kuykendall pasture in 1902, laid out a vast irrigation canal, secured a railroad right-of-way, and platted streets named for citrus and figs. Despite a school, a post office, and hopes of an oil strike in the 1930s, the town gradually declined, its post office closing in 1971 with only a few houses left today.