HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

John McNeese Graveyard

Independence, Washington County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Land here on La Bahia Road was in 1831 grant to brother-in-law and sister of Stephen F. Austin. It was bought by John McNeese (1789-1853), an 1835 settler from South Carolina, whose grave is here. Plot is set aside by deed covenants forever for McNeese family graves.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This ground along the old La Bahia Road lay within an 1831 land grant to the brother-in-law and sister of empresario Stephen F. Austin. It was later purchased by John McNeese, a South Carolinian who settled in Texas in 1835 and whose grave lies here. By deed covenant the plot is reserved forever for the graves of the McNeese family.

Why it matters

The family burial ground preserves the memory of one of the earliest wave of Anglo settlers along a historic Texas road at the dawn of the Republic.

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Related people

  • · John McNeese
  • · Stephen F. Austin

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

La Bahia Road

Brenham, TX

La Bahia Road began as an east-west Indian trail—perhaps older still an animal path—crossing southeastern Texas and Louisiana, and grew into one of the earliest overland routes European explorers used in Texas. La Salle likely walked it in the 1680s, the Spaniard Alonso De León followed in 1689, and over the next century and a half it carried the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition, the "Old 300" colonists of 1821, and troops of the 1836 Revolution, near which Fannin's men were massacred at Goliad. In the twentieth century its path helped guide the surveyors who mapped modern Texas highways.

Home of Dr. Asa Hoxey

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Dr. Asa Hoxey built this home at Independence in 1833, when the settlement lay in Mexican Texas on the eve of revolution. As a physician and prominent figure, Hoxey hosted many of the leading men of the era, and his house became a gathering point during Texas's formative years. The state marked the site in 1936 as part of its centennial commemorations.

Moses Austin Bryan

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A grandson of Moses Austin, whose 1821 contract opened Texas to Anglo-American settlement, Moses Austin Bryan came to Texas in 1831 and worked alongside his uncle Stephen F. Austin. He fought at San Jacinto in 1836, served the Republic as a diplomatic secretary, joined the 1842 Somervell Expedition, and rose to major in the Confederate army during the Civil War.

Old Independence Cemetery

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This burial ground took shape in the early 1820s on land held by Judge J. P. Cole, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists who first brought Anglo settlers into Mexican Texas. Donated by his daughter, the cemetery became the resting place of statesmen, physicians, educators, and veterans who helped build the community of Independence. Its weathered stones read like a roster of the founding generation of Anglo-Texas.