McBryde Cemetery
Killeen vicinity, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mancel T. McBryde (1821-1896), who brought his family here from Georgia in the early 1860s, began this family cemetery in 1885 upon the death of his wife, Jane W. Goar McBryde (1826-1885). A farmer and rancher, McBryde selected a site south of his family's home on which to bury his wife. The McBrydes had eight children, four of whom married into the Hoover family. McBryde and Hoover descendants are also interred here, the burials facing east. The oldest McBryde family graves are enclosed in stone. The McBryde Cemetery is maintained by descendants. (1986)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Mancel T. McBryde brought his family from Georgia to Bell County in the early 1860s, the Texas frontier was still a place where families made their own institutions—including where to lay their dead. Upon his wife Jane's death in 1885, he chose a rise south of the family home for her grave, beginning a burial ground that gathered McBryde and Hoover descendants, their graves facing east and the oldest ringed in stone. Kin still tend it today.
Why it matters
Family cemeteries like this one map the quiet arithmetic of frontier settlement—who came, who married whom, and who stayed—preserving a community's roots when few other records survive.
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Related people
- · Mancel T. McBryde
- · Jane W. Goar McBryde
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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