Livelyville Cemetery
Houston County, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
South Carolina native Thomas Lively (1812-69) moved to Houston County in 1850. The community that developed around his land was named Livelyville in honor of his family. In the late 1850s he donated this part of his property for use as a cemetery. Headstones date from the 1880s and included those of pioneer area settlers and Lively family members. After the Civil War the Livelys moved to Grayson County, where Thomas died and was buried. His wife Jane (Dotson) Lively (b.1822) later returned to this area and was buried here upon her death in 11922.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
South Carolina native Thomas Lively put down roots in Houston County in 1850, and the farming community that grew up around his land took the family name. In the late 1850s he set aside this ground as a burying place for his neighbors, and its oldest surviving headstones date to the 1880s. Though Lively himself died in Grayson County after the Civil War, his wife Jane later returned to be laid to rest here among the pioneers who had settled the area.
Why it matters
Rural community cemeteries like this one preserve the names and stories of the ordinary settler families who built East Texas farming country in the decades around the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Thomas Lively
- · Jane Dotson Lively
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jane Dotson Lively
Houston County, TX
Jane Dotson Lively came from Alabama to Houston County in 1850 with her husband Thomas, for whom the surrounding community of Livelyville was named. She helped establish a church and school on the family's land and was remembered as a courageous pioneer and community leader. Mother of thirteen and twice married, she lived to be one hundred, dying in 1922.
Davis Cemetery
Grapeland, TX
Established around 1862, this Houston County burial ground took root in the heart of the Civil War, when East Texas was a Confederate homefront far from the fighting but bound up in its losses. Set among the farms and pine woods of Grapeland, it reflects the settlement of the region by families who had pushed into East Texas in the antebellum decades. Its Historic Texas Cemetery designation preserves that link to the war years.
Denson Homesite and Cemetery
Grapeland vicinity, TX
John Denson arrived in this area in 1835 with his parents, hardshell Predestination Baptists who had traveled with the noted frontier preacher Elder Daniel Parker. In 1837 John added his name to the petition that created Houston County, and he raised his family in a log house on Bennett Creek beside his wife, whose first husband was said to be kin to Sam Houston. As relatives died they were buried near the home, with the last of some eighteen graves filled in 1890.
Joseph T. Bowman
Houston County, TX
Joseph T. Bowman came to Texas in 1835 as the son of Jesse B. Bowman, who would die defending the Alamo. That December he signed the Goliad Declaration of Independence calling for Texas to break free, and after the revolution he served in the army of the Republic of Texas. He settled with his family in the Houston County area around 1845.