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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Goliad sits in the coastal-plain country of South Texas, and by the late 1800s it was cattle country through and through. The decades after the Civil War — the Reconstruction and Gilded Age years that spill into the Progressive era — were the age of the great trail drives, when herds were pushed north to the railheads and a rancher's fortune could rise or fall with the market. It was hard, physical, weather-beaten work, and much of it was done by Black cowhands, freedmen, and laboring families whose names rarely reached a newspaper.
Into that world, in 1896, the trustees of Mount Vernon Cemetery acquired a two-acre plot from Victoria Lott, the widow of a farmer and businessman named Battice Lott. A cemetery is one of the few places where such a community writes itself down. The earliest known burial here, of Charity Johnson, dates to 1892 — before the land was even formally acquired for this purpose.
At some later, unrecorded date the ground took on the name Lott Cemetery, probably in honor of a local African American family, some of whose members lie here. It became the resting place of ordinary working Texans, and the grave markers themselves — from plain wooden crosses and handmade cement slabs to sculpted granite obelisks — quietly record the good years and the lean ones in a farming and ranching economy that never sat still.
People & events
The people buried here were the workforce of the ranching South. Among them is trail driver George McDow, one of the cattle-industry hands whose labor built the local economy, and dozens of church members whose lives were bound up with the neighborhood around them.
The cemetery carries the memory of a single terrible day. In 1902 a tornado tore through Goliad, destroying the Fannin Street Methodist Episcopal Church and the surrounding neighborhood. Several dozen of the storm's victims — among them Salina Bennett Tate — were laid together in a communal grave along the cemetery's eastern boundary. Many other members of that same congregation rest here as well, so that a church scattered by the wind was, in a sense, gathered back together in the ground.
Two graves in particular reward a slow reading. A headstone marked simply "Bingo" belongs to an orphaned African American man who was raised in the household of a prominent local cattleman's family and who died around 1916 — a whole life compressed into a single word. And Hattie Rhooney, who lived from 1895 to 2002, saw her years reach across three centuries, one of two centenarians here alongside Gertrude Todd. At least thirty veterans from every branch of the U.S. military are buried here too.
Its place in the American story
The history most Americans learn is written from the top down — presidents, generals, the famous few. Places like Lott Cemetery tell the other, larger story: the one made by people who worked with their hands and were seldom recorded anywhere else. The cowhands and trail drivers buried here were part of the great cattle economy that fed a growing nation, and a striking share of the American West's real cowboys were Black men whose contributions history is only lately crediting.
The cemetery is also a small archive of Southern folk tradition. The graves are oriented to the east in keeping with Christian custom; family plots are outlined with cement borders and low ornamental fences; and stands of naturalized crinum "cemetery" lilies bloom among the stones, a plant found in old Southern burial grounds across the region. These are the everyday material culture of a community, preserved in place.
That this ground was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2012 reflects a broader national reckoning: an understanding that the memory of ordinary people — Black and white, laborer and centenarian — is worth protecting as carefully as any battlefield or statehouse.
If you visit
Come to a cemetery the way you would come to someone's home: quietly, and with respect. This is a burial ground first and a historic site second, and the families remembered here still matter to their descendants.
Let your eye travel across the range of markers. The plain wooden crosses and hand-poured cement slabs sit near sculpted granite obelisks, and that contrast is the whole point — it maps, in stone, the rise and fall of a working community's fortunes. Notice how the graves face east, and look for the cement borders and low decorative fences that frame the older family plots.
If you visit in the warmer months, watch for the crinum lilies that have naturalized among the stones; they are a living link to the Southern cemeteries this one belongs to. And spend a moment along the eastern edge, where the victims of the 1902 storm were buried together — and a moment at the small headstone that reads only "Bingo." It is the kind of marker that turns a walk through a cemetery into an act of remembering a whole human life.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · 1902 Goliad tornado
Themes & tags
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