Hunt Japonica Cemetery
Hunt, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The oldest legible tombstone in this cemetery is that of George T. Henry. It is dated 1872, sixteen years after the formal organization of Kerr county. The graveyard is located between the town of Hunt and the early community of Japonica. It has been used for the burial of many area pioneers and their descendants, and contains a large number of unmarked graves. Although inundated by floodwaters on several occasions, the Hunt Japonica cemetery remains in use as an important part of Kerr county's recorded history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Hunt Japonica Cemetery lies between the town of Hunt and the early community of Japonica, its oldest legible stone marking the 1872 grave of George T. Henry, sixteen years after Kerr County was organized. It holds many area pioneers and their descendants, along with a large number of unmarked graves. Though flooded on several occasions, the cemetery remains in use.
Why it matters
Pioneer burial grounds like this one preserve the names and memory of the families who first settled the Texas Hill Country.
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Related people
- · George T. Henry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hunt
Hunt, TX
Farmers and ranchers settled the forks of the Guadalupe River in the late 1850s, forming the Japonica and Pebble communities. In 1912 Alva and Lizzie Joy bought land at the confluence and named the new settlement for prior owner Robert Hunt; a post office followed in 1913. By the 1930s the area drew artists like E.M. Schiwetz and grew into a hub of summer camps and retreats while staying a small rural community.
Cade House
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Alabama native Guilford Marion Cade served as a doctor in the Confederate Army before moving to Texas in 1865 and, in 1883, bringing his family to Kerr County. After a storm destroyed the family's log cabin, his son built a frame house, and in the early 1930s a grandson and great-grandson raised this two-story stone house on a high hill — its irregular rubble masonry doubling as a demonstration model for the builder's carpentry clients.
The Dowdy Tragedy of 1878
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In 1878 the Dowdy family moved from Goliad to the Texas Hill Country, settling along Johnson Creek in Kerr County. Only weeks after they arrived, four of the children — Alice, Martha, Susan, and James — were killed in an Indian raid while tending sheep near their home, and were buried the next day at Sunset Cemetery. The attack, on October 5, 1878, was among the last such raids in the county.
Sunset Cemetery
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The oldest marked graves in Sunset Cemetery belong to four Dowdy children killed in an 1878 Indian raid soon after their family reached the Texas Hill Country from Goliad. Nearby lie four Byas children lost to an 1880s typhoid epidemic and pioneers like H. L. Nelson, who founded the Mountain Home post office. Assembled over decades from several landowners, the cemetery preserves the hardships of frontier Kerr County.