Hubbard Family Cemetery
Lindale, Smith County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This site once overlooked the plantation home of Richard B. Hubbard (1800-1864) and his wife Serena Carter, who came here from Georgia in 1854. They operated a prosperous 720-acre plantation with 44 slaves. Their son Richard Bennett Hubbard (1832-1901), later a governor of Texas, had graduated from Harvard Law School and set up his practice in Tyler. While young Hubbard served with the Confederate army during the Civil War, his wife and children moved to the plantation. His twin daughters Mattie and Hattie died in 1863 and were buried on this hill. Also interred here are Hubbard's father, his infant daughter Claudia and his wife Eliza (d. 1868). The last interment was his nine-year-old son Bennie in 1877. Slave burials are marked with ironstone in this family plot. Hubbard served as lieutenant governor, 1874-1876, and governor, 1876-1879. He was a railroad promoter and a leader in the state and national Democratic Party. President Grover Cleveland appointed him United States Minister to Japan. During his service there, 1885-1890, his second wife Janie Roberts died of cholera. She and Hubbard, along with other members of the family, are buried in Tyler's Oakwood Cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This hilltop once overlooked the East Texas plantation that Richard B. Hubbard and Serena Carter established after arriving from Georgia in 1854, working 720 acres with 44 enslaved people. Their son, Richard Bennett Hubbard—a Harvard-trained lawyer who served in the Confederate army and later as governor of Texas—buried twin daughters here in 1863. Family members and, marked with ironstone, enslaved people lie in this plot, while the governor himself rests in Tyler's Oakwood Cemetery after a career that included service as U.S. Minister to Japan.
Why it matters
The cemetery holds together the entwined histories of the planter class, the enslaved people whose labor built its wealth, and the Reconstruction-era politics of a Texas governor.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This hilltop looks out over ground that, in the years before the Civil War, was the heart of a cotton-country plantation. When Richard B. Hubbard and his wife Serena Carter came from Georgia in 1854, they were part of a westward stream of Southern planters extending the plantation economy into the fertile lands of East Texas. They built a prosperous 720-acre operation—and, as the marker records plainly, they did so with the forced labor of 44 enslaved people.
That single fact places this quiet cemetery at the center of the era's central tragedy. The wealth of such plantations rested entirely on human bondage, and the comfortable planter's world memorialized on this hill existed only because of the uncompensated, coerced work of the people it enslaved.
Then came the war that would tear that world apart, followed by the long, contested decades of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. The Hubbard family's story runs straight through all of it—from the height of the slaveholding South, through the Confederacy's defeat, into the new political order that followed.
People & events
The elder Richard B. Hubbard, who lived from 1800 to 1864, and Serena Carter established the plantation, but the name that would carry into Texas history belongs to their son, Richard Bennett Hubbard. Harvard-educated and trained in law, he set up practice in Tyler and then served in the Confederate army during the Civil War, while his wife and children moved to the family plantation for the duration.
The hill holds the family's griefs as much as its prominence. The younger Hubbard's twin daughters, Mattie and Hattie, died in 1863 and were buried here. So too were his father, an infant daughter named Claudia, and his wife Eliza, who died in 1868. The last person laid to rest here was his nine-year-old son Bennie, in 1877—a run of loss that reads like the private cost hidden behind a public life.
And there is another set of graves that the marker insists we see: the burials of enslaved people, marked with ironstone, within this same family plot. Their names are not recorded as the Hubbards' are, but they are present—an unerasable reminder of the people whose labor made the plantation possible, resting on the same hill as the family that held them.
Its place in the American story
Richard Bennett Hubbard's career traces the arc of the post-war South's return to political power. He served as lieutenant governor from 1874 to 1876 and as governor of Texas from 1876 to 1879, promoted railroads, and became a leader in the state and national Democratic Party. Later, President Grover Cleveland appointed him United States Minister to Japan, where he served from 1885 to 1890—and where his second wife, Janie Roberts, died of cholera. A man who had worn Confederate gray ended up representing the reunited nation abroad, a personal illustration of how the country stitched itself back together.
But the deepest national significance of this site lies in what shares the ground. Here the planter class, the enslaved people whose labor built its fortune, and the Reconstruction-era politics that followed are not three separate stories but one, layered into a single hillside.
That honesty is the point. The graves marked with ironstone stand beside the family monuments, refusing to let the wealth and the office be remembered apart from their true foundation. In that, this small cemetery holds one of the hardest and most important truths of the American story.
If you visit
Approach this as a place of reflection rather than spectacle. The site once overlooked the plantation home, and the view still helps you understand why the family chose this rise for their dead. Note that the governor himself is not here—he and other family members rest in Tyler's Oakwood Cemetery—so what you find on this hill is the earlier, more intimate chapter.
Look for the ironstone markers set among the family graves. They are easy to pass over, and that is exactly why it matters to seek them out: they mark the burials of enslaved people, and honoring their presence is part of visiting honestly. Read the family's own losses too—the twin girls of 1863, the young son buried in 1877—and let the grief and the injustice sit side by side, as they do in the ground itself.
As a stop on an East Texas history route, this cemetery rewards a slow, quiet visit. It asks you to hold more than one truth at once, and it gives you a real place in which to do it.
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
- · Richard B. Hubbard
- · Serena Carter Hubbard
- · Gov. Richard Bennett Hubbard
Related events
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
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