Moss Ragsdale Cemetery
Rockdale, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The cemetery at this site was first used as a burial ground in the 1850s, but the land was not formally set aside for this purpose until a 1902 warranty deed noted “one acre of land . . . to be used exclusively as a burying ground and for no other purpose.” The cemetery is named for Matthew Moss, on whose property it was established, and Moss’ son-in-law, James Campbell Ragsdale, who was the first person interred at the site. All of the marked burials that remain at the cemetery are members of Matthew Moss’ extended family. Matthew Moss was born in Virginia in 1776 and served in the War of 1812 before moving to Arkansas, where he operated a steamboat on the Red River. He brought his family to Milam County ca. 1845. Moss died in 1858 and is presumed to be buried at this site. James C. Ragsdale settled in Fayette County ca. 1832, married Rebecca Moss, and served in the war for Texas Independence. Ragsdale died while on a business trip in Milam County, and was buried on his father-in-law’s property. The last known burial, in 1916, was that of Elizabeth Murry Ragsdale, wife of Matthew Moss Ragsdale. The cemetery is located near the former townsite of San Andres. San Andres was laid out in the early 1850s and a post office operated at the site from 1852 until 1877. David Green Davis, the first postmaster of San Andres, was buried here in 1871. Confederate veterans known to be buried at the site include David Green Davis, L.E.S. Williams, John Matthew Davis and Matthew Moss Ragsdale. Today, Moss Ragsdale Cemetery serves as a reminder of the many pioneer families who worked to settle Milam County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This family burial ground dates to the 1850s, on land formally set aside in 1902 "to be used exclusively as a burying ground." It is named for Matthew Moss—a Virginia-born War of 1812 veteran and Red River steamboat man who brought his family to Milam County around 1845—and his son-in-law James Ragsdale, a veteran of the Texas Revolution and the first person buried here. Several Confederate veterans and members of the extended Moss family lie nearby, close to the vanished townsite of San Andres.
Why it matters
In a single family plot the sweep of early American expansion appears at once—the War of 1812, the fight for Texas independence, frontier settlement, and the Civil War.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The land around Rockdale, in Milam County, sat at a crossroads of eras. When the first burials were made here in the 1850s, Texas had been a state for only a few years, and central Texas was still frontier — thinly settled country where families claimed land, farmed it, and buried their dead close to home. The people who filled this ground had already lived through some of the largest events in the early American story.
Matthew Moss, on whose property the cemetery was established, was born in Virginia in 1776 — the very year of American independence. His long life traced the young nation's expansion: military service in the War of 1812, a stint operating a steamboat on the Red River in Arkansas, and finally a move to Milam County around 1845, near the tail end of the Republic of Texas.
Nearby stood San Andres, a small townsite laid out in the early 1850s with its own post office. Places like it dotted the frontier — hopeful little communities that lived and died with the roads, the mail routes, and the fortunes of the families around them.
People & events
The cemetery carries two names, and two intertwined lives. It honors Matthew Moss — the Virginia-born War of 1812 veteran and Red River steamboat man — and his son-in-law, James Campbell Ragsdale, who was the first person buried here. Ragsdale had settled in Fayette County around 1832, married Rebecca Moss, and served in the war for Texas independence. He died while on a business trip in Milam County and was laid to rest on his father-in-law's land, becoming the ground's first grave.
Every marked burial that remains belongs to Matthew Moss's extended family — a single kinship network holding a corner of the Texas earth across three generations. Moss himself died in 1858 and is believed to lie here. The last known burial, in 1916, was Elizabeth Murry Ragsdale, wife of Matthew Moss Ragsdale, closing the record more than sixty years after it opened.
The cemetery also gathered in the wider community of the vanished town of San Andres. David Green Davis, the settlement's first postmaster, was buried here in 1871. He is one of several Confederate veterans known to rest at the site, alongside L.E.S. Williams, John Matthew Davis, and Matthew Moss Ragsdale — men whose lives ran from the early frontier straight into the Civil War.
Its place in the American story
Few places compress so much of the American story into a single acre. Here, in one family's burial ground, lie a veteran of the War of 1812, a soldier of the Texas Revolution, and men who served in the Confederacy — three separate national struggles represented among people who knew one another as kin and neighbors. The reach of early American history is not abstract here; it is a family tree.
Matthew Moss's biography alone is a map of national expansion: born in Revolutionary-era Virginia, moving to Arkansas to work the river trade, then pressing on to the Texas frontier in old age. That westward drift — Virginia to Arkansas to Texas across one lifetime — is the pattern that carried American settlement across the continent, repeated in countless families whose names survive only on weathered stones.
The formal 1902 deed setting aside the acre "exclusively as a burying ground" marks another quiet American ritual: the moment a family's informal graveyard becomes a protected, permanent place. It is how private grief was turned into public memory, one small parcel at a time.
If you visit
This is a place to read slowly. The marked graves all belong to a single extended family, so as you move among the stones you are essentially tracing one household's passage through the nineteenth century — birth dates reaching back before Texas was a state, death dates running past the First World War.
Look for the markers of the Confederate veterans and remember that at least one of them, David Green Davis, was also the postmaster of a town that no longer exists. The nearby former site of San Andres is part of the story: a community that flourished briefly, lost its post office in 1877, and faded, leaving its people to be remembered chiefly by this ground.
Set in the rural landscape near Rockdale, the cemetery makes a fitting stop for anyone drawn to the deep layers of Texas and early American history. It is unassuming, and that is the point — the drama here is in the dates and the names, not in any monument, and it rewards a visitor willing to stand quietly and do the arithmetic of a family's long century.
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 people
- · Matthew Moss
- · James Campbell Ragsdale
- · David Green Davis
Related events
- · War of 1812
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
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