Lott Cemetery
Goliad, Goliad County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mount Vernon Cemetery trustees acquired the two-acre Lott Cemetery plot in 1896 from Victoria Lott, widow of farmer and businessman Battice Lott. The earliest known burial here is of charity Johnson, who died in 1892. At an unknown date, the cemetery’s name was changed to the Lott Cemetery, probably in honor of a local African American family, some of whose members are buried here. Other burials are of men and women who worked in the local cattle industry, including Traildriver George McDow. Oriented to the east in accordance with Christian tradition, the grave markers, from simple wooden crosses and handmade cement slabs to sculpted granite obelisks, reflect the economic fluctuations in the local farming and ranching community. Other traditional elements are the cement borders and low ornamental fences that outline some family plots and stands of naturalized crinum “cemetery” lilies, a staple of southern cemeteries. After a tornado in 1902 destroyed Goliad’s Fannin Street Methodist Episcopal Church and the surrounding neighborhood, several dozen victims, including Salina Bennett Tate, were interred in a communal grave along the Lott Cemetery’s eastern boundary. Many other members of that church are buried here as are at least thirty veterans from all branches of the U.S. military services. A headstone inscribed simply “bingo” marks the grave of an orphaned African American man who was raised by prominent cattleman Ed Lott’s wife; he died around 1916. One of the two centenarians buried in the cemetery (Gertrude Todd is the other), Hattie Rhooney’s life spanned three centuries (1895-2002). HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2012
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Acquired in 1896 and soon renamed for a local African American family, Lott Cemetery holds the graves of trail drivers, cattle-industry workers, and everyday families whose modest wooden crosses and sculpted obelisks trace the ups and downs of the local economy. When the 1902 tornado destroyed a nearby Methodist church and neighborhood, several dozen victims were buried in a communal grave along its eastern edge. Among those resting here are more than thirty veterans, two centenarians, and a man known only as "Bingo," raised by a prominent cattleman's wife.
Why it matters
A working community's cemetery like this preserves the names and stories of ordinary Texans — Black and white, cowhand and centenarian — who rarely make the history books but built the ranching South.
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Related events
- · 1902 Goliad tornado
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fannin Street United Methodist Church
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Founded in 1872, Fannin Street United Methodist Church was one of the earliest African American congregations in Goliad County, established after emancipation as freedpeople who had worshiped alongside their enslavers formed churches of their own. The small country church—steeply gabled with a four-sided cupola and a Cincinnati-cast bell—weathered a string of catastrophes, most terribly the 1902 tornado that destroyed the building and killed fifty parishioners. Rebuilt in 1903 and struck again by lightning in 1976, the congregation endured, living out its motto that "the church is not the building; it's the people."
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