Industry Pilgrims Rest Cemetery
Industry, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Soon after Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fortran came to the area at the western side of Stephen F. Austin’s grant in 1831, now Austin County, the town of Industry became the first permanent German settlement in Texas. Following the Gotier Trace, many traveled through Industry on their way to points further west, but many made Industry their home. On April 26, 1873, Wilhelmina Schroeder, daughter of Friedrich Ernst, sold acreage to the trustees of the mutual cemetery graveyard for a community cemetery. The land was used as a burial ground long before Wilhelmina’s donation; pioneers who died while passing through industry on their way west were likely buried there in unmarked graves. The oldest marked grave is that of Max Schmidt from 1853. Many German settlers of the area are buried here, including Friedrich Ernst’s wife and multiple members of their family. The tombstone of Louise Ernst Stoehr, married to Ernst until his death in 1848, describes her as “the first German settler in Texas. 1800-1889.” Wilhelmine Schroeder’s tombstone has similar language. Cemetery records show the burials of veterans, including Jacob Wolters, Austin colonist and republic of Texas and confederate soldier. Adjacent to the Industry Pilgrims Rest Cemetery is the cemetery of the United Methodist Church, located along the south property line. In 1960, a perpetual care fund was established and in 1964 the Industry Pilgrims Rest Cemetery Association formed. Additional land was acquired in 1985 and 1990 to allow for expansion. Although small in size, Industry played an important role in the settlement of Texas, reflected in the burials of this historic cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fortran settled at the western edge of Stephen F. Austin's colony in 1831, the town of Industry became the first permanent German settlement in Texas. Travelers on the Gotier Trace passed through on their way west, and many stayed; the cemetery, formally deeded in 1873 by Ernst's daughter, held graves long before that, including Louise Ernst Stoehr, remembered on her tombstone as "the first German settler in Texas." German pioneers, Austin colonists, and Republic of Texas soldiers rest here together.
Why it matters
Industry's cemetery marks the beginning of German immigration to Texas, a wave that reshaped the state's culture, farms, and towns.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1830s, the western edge of Stephen F. Austin's colony was the far frontier of a Mexican Texas that was about to change forever. Land was cheap or free to those willing to work it, and word of that opportunity was traveling far beyond the borders of the United States — all the way to the German-speaking states of Europe. Into that opening, in 1831, came the settlers who would plant the town of Industry in what is now Austin County.
This was the age of overland travel by wagon and horse, when a "road" might be little more than a cleared trace through the country. Industry sat on one such route, the Gotier Trace, and so it became both a destination and a waypoint — a place travelers passed through on their way to points further west, and a place many decided simply to stay.
The decades the cemetery spans carried Texas from a Mexican province through the Republic years and into statehood, all while a steady stream of German families arrived, settled, farmed, and were eventually buried in the ground they had chosen for home.
People & events
The founding names here are Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fortran, who arrived at the area soon after 1831 and, in doing so, established what became the first permanent German settlement in Texas. From that seed grew a community whose German character would outlast its founders by generations.
The cemetery's formal beginning came decades later. On April 26, 1873, Wilhelmina Schroeder — Friedrich Ernst's daughter — conveyed acreage to the trustees for a community graveyard. But the land had cradled the dead long before that paperwork: the marker suggests that pioneers who died while passing through Industry were likely buried here in unmarked graves, and the oldest marked grave, that of Max Schmidt, dates to 1853, two decades before the deed.
The people resting here read like a roll call of early Texas. Members of the Ernst family lie among them, including Friedrich Ernst's wife. Two tombstones make a striking claim to primacy: that of Louise Ernst Stoehr, married to Ernst until his death in 1848, is inscribed as "the first German settler in Texas. 1800-1889," and Wilhelmine Schroeder's stone carries similar language. Also here is Jacob Wolters, remembered as an Austin colonist and a soldier of both the Republic of Texas and the Confederacy — a single life spanning three flags.
Its place in the American story
Industry is where one of America's great immigration stories begins. The German migration to Texas that started here swelled into a wave that reshaped the state — its farms, its towns, its food, its churches, and its very sound, as whole communities kept the German language alive for generations. To stand in this cemetery is to stand at the source of that current.
The national significance lies in that pattern of chain migration. Friedrich Ernst is widely remembered for writing home in enthusiastic terms about the opportunities of Texas, and letters like his helped turn a trickle of newcomers into a flood. What began with a couple of families at the edge of Austin's colony became a defining thread of the American immigrant experience, played out in the soil of a single small town.
The graves also capture how immigrant families threw themselves into their new country's fate. A settler like Jacob Wolters, colonist and soldier, embodies how quickly newcomers became Texans — taking up arms for the Republic and later serving in the Civil War. The cemetery is small, but the reach of what it represents is anything but.
If you visit
Read the stones. This is a place where the inscriptions themselves are the exhibit — most memorably the tombstones claiming to mark "the first German settler in Texas," a bold epitaph that turns a quiet grave into a piece of the historical record. Take your time with the German names and dates, and you'll feel the founding generation of a whole community gathered in one modest field.
Notice the neighbors, too. Adjacent to the Industry Pilgrims Rest Cemetery, along its south property line, lies the cemetery of the United Methodist Church — a reminder of how faith and community grew up side by side here. The grounds have been expanded over the years and are cared for through a perpetual care fund and a cemetery association, so you'll find them tended rather than forgotten.
If you're traveling through Austin County, let this small stop reframe the landscape around you. The rolling farm country you drove in on is, in a real sense, the legacy of the families buried here. Come with curiosity and quiet respect, and the place gives back a surprisingly large slice of Texas history for its size.
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
- · Friedrich Ernst
- · Louise Ernst Stoehr
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Industry
Industry, TX
In 1831 Friedrich Ernst, a native of Varel in Oldenburg, Germany, settled here and founded what became the first permanent German settlement in Texas—then still part of Mexico. The town was formally laid out in 1838, and Ernst lived out his life here until his death in 1858. His glowing letters home helped spark a broad German migration to Texas.
Charles Fordtran
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Charles Fordtran, a German of Huguenot descent, joined Stephen F. Austin's colony in January 1831 and earned a league of land surveying for Austin's partner Samuel May Williams. He fought in frontier clashes, rode with the "Spy Rangers" protecting fleeing families during the Texas Revolution, and raised fourteen children on his land near Industry. Arriving well before the great wave of German immigration, he was among the first Teutonic settlers in Texas.
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Bryan Daughtrey, a veteran of the War of 1812, came to Texas in 1822 as part of Stephen F. Austin's Second Colony and settled here in present Austin County. When his wife Anna died in 1847 he buried her on this spot, beginning a cemetery later used by the German Sternenberg family who bought the land. The community, its burial ground, and a school that ran until 1928 all took the name Star Hill—the English translation of Sternenberg—and descendants of those pioneer families still tend the graves.
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Friedrich Hackfeld left Germany and, by the 1850s, had put down roots on this Austin County land, anglicizing his name to Hackfield when he became a citizen in 1860. What began as a single-room log cabin grew, room by room and generation by generation, into a full German-Texan farmstead—and Friedrich's skill at digging wells brought water to neighbors as well as his own family. The farm's evolving buildings and plantings capture a whole immigrant world settling into the Texas soil.