Little River-Wilson Valley Cemetery
Little River, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Wilson Valley community originally consisted of the seven Wilson brothers, their wives and children, and the Huckabee and Thornton families. They came from Mississippi in 1867 to escape Civil War devastation. According to family tradition, Easter Cobb Wilson, family matriarch, expressed a desire to be buried on a certain hillside. Her son Calvin Wilson designated a plot on that hill to be a family cemetery. In 1869, William J. R. Wilson, 3-year-old son of Ben and Edna Wilson, became the first to be interred at this site. Several others had been buried by 1877 when Easter Cobb Wilson died at age 81. In 1893, Bartlett and Avie McGregor Marks Huckabee deeded 3.27 acres of land, including the family plot, to the trustees of the Wilson Valley Cemetery Association. Wilson Valley, which had become a thriving area, declined when the railroad went through Little River, and gradually the two communities merged. Graves in the cemetery reflect a high infant-child mortality rate in the late 19th century and deaths due to an influenza epidemic in 1917 and 1918. A 19th century tabernacle is used for meetings and ceremonies. In 1997, over 1,300 graves were counted in the cemetery. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Seven Wilson brothers and the allied Huckabee and Thornton families came from Mississippi in 1867, fleeing the devastation the Civil War had left behind, and founded the Wilson Valley community. Family tradition holds that matriarch Easter Cobb Wilson wished to rest on a certain hillside, and after a three-year-old grandson was buried there in 1869 the plot became a family cemetery, formally deeded in 1893. Its graves — marked by high infant mortality and the deaths of the 1917–18 influenza epidemic — chronicle a community that faded as the railroad drew life toward nearby Little River.
Why it matters
Cemeteries like this map the great postwar southern migration, when families left a war-ruined Deep South to rebuild their lives on the Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · Easter Cobb Wilson
- · Calvin Wilson
Related events
- · 1918 influenza epidemic
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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