Hutto Cemetery
Hutto, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
T.A. Boatright buried a family child and her husband, E.B., here in the late 1880s when the site was known as Elmwood Cemetery. In 1889, she bought land here from C.P. and Julia Crews. Several graves already existed in addition to those of her family, and many were unmarked. Today, the earliest marked grave is that of Joseph Metcalfe (d. 1887). Over time, the property exchanged hands from the Boatrights to the Haygoods. Birdie Haygood Badger sold the property in 1950 to the newly formed Hutto Cemetery Association, and the cemetery name changed to reflect its association to the community. Records indicate that within the cemetery's bounds are two lots once reserved for paupers, as well as one lot associated with the Swedish church that evolved into Hutto's First Methodist Church. The community's history is evident in the cemetery, with text on grave markers signifying settlers who came from other states or countries, area residents who belonged to fraternal organizations or who served in the military as early as the Civil War, and children whose brief lives also contributed to the local history. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground took shape in the late 1880s, when it was known as Elmwood Cemetery, and the earliest marked grave dates to 1887. As ownership passed from family to family, the site filled with the community's story: settlers from distant states and countries, members of fraternal orders, veterans reaching back to the Civil War, and children whose short lives are recorded in stone. In 1950 a newly formed association bought the land and renamed it for the town of Hutto.
Why it matters
A small-town cemetery like this is a ledger of who settled central Texas and where they came from, preserving names and origins that formal records often omit.
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Related people
- · Joseph Metcalfe
- · Birdie Haygood Badger
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hutto Evangelical Lutheran Church
Hutto, TX
Lutheran worship in Hutto began in 1890 when ministers from Palm Valley Lutheran Church held occasional services for the area's fast-growing Swedish population. In 1892 August Swenson led the effort to organize a formal congregation, which built its first church in 1893—only to see it destroyed by a tornado and rebuilt the next year. Services here were conducted in Swedish until 1940, long preserving the immigrants' mother tongue.
Palm Valley Lutheran Church
Round Rock, TX
Swedish immigrants led by the Palm family settled this Williamson County valley in the 1850s, and in 1861 Andrew John Nelson and three helpers built a log church that also served as the settlement's first school. The congregation formally organized in 1870, replaced its log meetinghouse, and in 1894 raised the Gothic Revival sanctuary that stands today. Palm Valley remains one of the enduring landmarks of Swedish Lutheran settlement in central Texas.
Pfluger Cemetery
Pflugerville, TX
Henry Pfluger, born in Germany in 1803, brought his large family to Texas in 1850 as part of the German immigration that reshaped central Texas. Buried on his own land in 1867, he was joined here by his wife Christina, who formally set aside the acre as a family cemetery in 1880. The nearby town of Pflugerville took its name from the family, whose descendants still gather for reunions begun in 1934.
Round Rock
Round Rock, TX
Settlement gathered here in the late 1830s, and by mid-century former Austin mayor Jacob Harrell was selling lots near the Stagecoach Road crossing at Brushy Creek. A post office opened in 1851, and the community soon renamed itself Round Rock for a distinctive limestone ford; immigration from several states and Sweden doubled its population in the 1850s. When the railroad built a new townsite to the east in 1876, "New Town" quickly eclipsed the old settlement, and Round Rock briefly rivaled Austin as a commercial hub before growing, a century later, into one of the nation's fastest-expanding cities.