High Hill Cemetery
Schulenburg, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
High Hill Post Office, established about 1858, united three adjacent villages and gave this community cemetery its name. This six-acre tract was once the property of George Herder (1818-87), a German immigrant and a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. The oldest stones here mark the graves of August Wolters, who died April 6, 1861, and Friedrich Eicholt, who died May 18, 1861. The cemetery contains about 241 graves, primarily those of German settlers in the area. Family members cared for the site until 1963, when the Old High Hill Cemetery Association, Inc., was organized.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The High Hill Post Office, established about 1858, united three neighboring villages and gave this six-acre burial ground its name. The land once belonged to George Herder, a German immigrant and veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto, and its oldest stones mark settlers who died in 1861. Holding roughly 241 graves — mostly of German families — the cemetery was tended by relatives until an association formed in 1963 to care for it.
Why it matters
High Hill Cemetery preserves the memory of the German immigrant communities that helped settle central Texas, linking that migration to the founding generation of the Texas Revolution.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1800s, Fayette County was one of the heartlands of German settlement in Texas. German immigrants began arriving in the 1830s and came in much larger numbers during the 1840s and 1850s. Many were drawn by reports of cheap, fertile land and the chance at a new start away from the political and economic troubles of Europe.
The rolling country between the Colorado and Navidad rivers filled with farming families who kept their language, churches, and customs. Small rural villages grew up close together, each serving the families nearby.
The post office established here about 1858 gave three of those neighboring villages a shared identity under one name, High Hill. The cemetery took that name too. Its oldest marked graves date to 1861, the year Texas left the Union and the country slid into the Civil War.
People & events
The land for this cemetery once belonged to George Herder, born in 1818. His story connects two chapters of Texas history. He was a German immigrant, and he also fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, where the Texian army defeated Santa Anna's forces and won Texas its independence. That makes him part of the Revolution's founding generation, years before the great wave of German immigration brought thousands of his countrymen to the area. He died in 1887.
The oldest stones here belong to two men who died in the spring of 1861, August Wolters in April and Friedrich Eicholt in May. Their names are a reminder that the German community was settled and burying its dead here before the Civil War began.
About 241 graves fill these six acres, most of them German settlers and their descendants. For about a century, the families themselves looked after the ground and kept the graves of their parents and grandparents. In 1963 the Old High Hill Cemetery Association, Inc., was organized to make that care formal and lasting.
Its place in the American story
German Americans are one of the largest ancestry groups in the United States, and Texas was an important destination for them in the nineteenth century. High Hill shows that migration in miniature: villages founded by newcomers, a shared post office, and a burial ground where their names are carved in stone.
George Herder's life shows that immigrants were not latecomers to the American story in Texas. He fought in the battle that created the Republic of Texas. That republic later joined the United States, and a nation of immigrants was helping build itself even at its founding moments.
The cemetery's long care by families, and later by an organized association, reflects a quieter but widespread American tradition. Ordinary communities have kept their own history alive, often long before any government marked it.
If you visit
Treat this as a place of rest first. Walk slowly among the stones and look for German names, and possibly German-language inscriptions on the older markers. See if you can find the earliest graves from 1861, and think about how new this community still was when they were carved.
The countryside around Schulenburg is gentle and rolling, dotted with farms and old church steeples. It still feels like the kind of rural settlement the German immigrants built. Be respectful of the grounds, which are still cared for by a local association.
The Schulenburg area is famous for its painted churches, whose richly decorated interiors reflect the region's Central European heritage. Combining this cemetery with a drive through those communities makes a rewarding day, and it's an easy detour from the main highway between Houston and San Antonio.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · George Herder
Themes & tags
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