Lee Cemetery
Quitman, Wood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
North Carolina natives Benjamin Lee, his wife Alice, and their family came to this area about 1853, and soon acquired over 1,230 acres of land. The Lees operated a large cotton plantation with the help of their ten children and slave labor. Benjamin Lee became a community leader and was elected county commissioner one year after his arrival in the area. Currently covering over thirteen acres, this cemetery began as a small family burial ground in 1856, upon the death of Benjamin Lee. Alice Lee was the second person to be buried here, and their graves are included in the Lee family plot in the oldest section, surrounded by an iron fence. The graves of the four Lee sons, all of whom served in the Confederate army, are also in the family plot. Although established as a family graveyard, the Lee Cemetery was expanded to include graves of neighbors and gradually became a public community cemetery. Many types of stones and grave markers can be seen here, including one above-ground brick vault burial. Members of the community interred here include banker Charles H. Morris; mayor and state legislator William D. Suiter; doctor John B. Goldsmith and newspaper publishers Homer R. and Mae O. Weir. (1986)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
North Carolina natives Benjamin and Alice Lee arrived around 1853 and built up a cotton plantation of more than 1,230 acres worked by their large family and enslaved people. Benjamin became a community leader and county commissioner, and the family burial ground begun at his death in 1856 gradually opened to neighbors and grew into a thirteen-acre public cemetery. Its graves—including four Lee sons who served in the Confederate army, alongside bankers, a mayor, a doctor, and newspaper publishers—read like a roster of the community's history.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the intertwined stories of a slaveholding plantation family and the wider East Texas community that grew around it before and after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Benjamin Lee
- · Alice Lee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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