Lexington Memorial Cemetery
Lexington, Lee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A Methodist Episcopal church, locally known as the German Methodist Church, was organized in Lexington in 1882. The church purchased two acres of land for a cemetery in November 1898. The first recorded burials on this site were those of two-year-old Reinhold Retzlaff and four-year-old Gustav Hillegeist in the spring of 1899. Also interred here are Civil War veterans Bernhard Retzlaff (who fought for both the Union and the Confederacy), Jacob Seifert, and Gustav Urbantke, who served as a lay minister for forty years. Others buried here include members of the Bauer, Grusendorf, Hillegeist, Hornung, Letterman, Otto, Peterson, Raesener, and Raschke families. All were charter members of the church. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cemetery grew from a German Methodist Episcopal congregation organized in Lexington in 1882, which bought two acres of burial ground in 1898. Its first recorded graves, in the spring of 1899, were two small children—Reinhold Retzlaff and Gustav Hillegeist—a reminder of how precarious childhood was for pioneer families. Among those laid to rest here are Civil War veterans, including Bernhard Retzlaff, who served both the Union and the Confederacy, and a lay minister who preached for forty years.
Why it matters
German immigrant congregations like this one anchored community life across central Texas, and their cemeteries preserve the family names and faith that shaped the Hill Country's settlement.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Bernhard Retzlaff
- · Gustav Urbantke
- · Jacob Seifert
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Trinity Lutheran Church
Fedor, TX
Organized in 1870, Trinity Lutheran became the center of religious, educational, and social life for the Fedor community, founded by settlers whose names reflect the Wendish and German immigrants who put down roots in central Texas. An early parochial school extended the church's reach, and Pastor G. Birkmann's remarkable near-half-century tenure lent the congregation deep stability. A gift of fifty acres helped anchor the church that still defines the community.
St. John Lutheran Church
Lincoln, TX
A Lutheran congregation was organized to serve the Lincoln community in April 1886 with help from pastors in neighboring towns, part of the strong German and Central European settlement of Lee County. The Rev. Th. Wolfram arrived in 1887 as its first resident pastor, and in these early years ministers also taught in the school on the church grounds. An 1892 sanctuary served the congregation until a 1957 tornado damaged it.
Jewish Cemetery
Rockdale, TX
When the railroad reached Rockdale in 1874, Jewish merchants were among its earliest residents, including the Lowenstein brothers, who sold goods from a tent before the tracks even arrived. By 1879 some 100 Jewish residents supported an active B'nai B'rith lodge, and in 1877 the Hebrew Benevolent Association established this dedicated burial ground. Its graves—among them a Confederate veteran and victims of an 1888 hotel fire—chronicle a community whose last burial came in 1939.
Lee County
Giddings, TX
Straddling the Old San Antonio Road on land first surveyed for Moses and Stephen F. Austin's colony, Lee County became in 1854 the heart of Wendish settlement in America, when Pastor Johann Kilian led his Sorbian-speaking congregation from Central Europe to a new home here. Their school was the only one in the United States to teach in Wendish, a Slavic language that survives in the modern world chiefly here and in Australia. The county was organized in 1874 and named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, with Giddings as its seat.