Nuecestown Cemetery
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground served the original residents of the Nuecestown community. The settlement was established in 1852 by Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney (b. 1814) who owned a trading post at Corpus Christi, 13.5 miles southeast. Originally called "The Motts" because of a grove of large trees, it was later named for the nearby Nueces River. Land was deeded to the settlers by the H.L. Kinney Estate for use as a public cemetery. The earliest known grave is that of Elizabeth Beynon who died in Nuecestown on December 4, 1854, at the age of four. Her parents Benjamin and Elizabeth B. Beynon died the following year and are also buried here. Two citizens interred at this site, William Ball (1831-1897) and George Frank (1834-1904), were kidnapped by bandits in an 1875 raid on the community. Both men managed to escape their captors and returned to Nuecestown. Other graves include those of six confederate veterans of the civil war, one world War I veteran, and one victim of the 1919 hurricane. Nuecestown was once the site of a Stagecoach Inn, public ferry, meat packing plant, cotton gin, post office, school, general store, churches, and blacksmith shop, but only the cemetery remains.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cemetery is nearly all that remains of Nuecestown, a community established in 1852 by trader Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney on land he later deeded to settlers. First called "The Motts" for its grove of trees, the town once held a stagecoach inn, ferry, meat-packing plant, cotton gin, school, and churches. Its graves—Confederate veterans, a World War I soldier, a 1919 hurricane victim, and men kidnapped in an 1875 raid—trace the full arc of a frontier settlement that has otherwise vanished.
Why it matters
The burial ground is the last witness to a lost Texas coastal town, preserving the story of settlement, conflict, and everyday life along the Nueces frontier.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Nuecestown was founded in 1852, only a few years after the Mexican-American War settled the long dispute over the land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. The Nueces Strip had long been a contested borderland. After the war, men like Henry Lawrence Kinney tried to turn it into settled, profitable country by drawing colonists, merchants, and ranchers to the Texas coast.
Kinney had already set up a trading post at what became Corpus Christi, about 13.5 miles away. Settlements like Nuecestown grew up in its orbit, located at a river crossing and on the roads that connected the coast to the interior. A ferry, a stagecoach inn, and a post office made the place a real link in the region's transportation network.
The decades after the Civil War were a restless time in the Nueces Strip. Cattle ranching boomed, and raids and banditry made life on the border insecure. Later, the growth of railroads and of Corpus Christi itself pulled trade away from small river towns. Nuecestown shared the fate of many such places and faded, leaving its cemetery behind.
People & events
The community began with Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney, born in 1814, a trader and promoter whose name is tied to the founding of Corpus Christi. He established the settlement in 1852. At first it was called The Motts, after a grove of large trees (a 'mott' is a local Texas word for a stand of trees on open prairie). Later it took its name from the nearby Nueces River. Kinney's estate eventually deeded land to the settlers for a public cemetery.
The oldest known grave is a sad one. Elizabeth Beynon was four years old when she died in Nuecestown in December 1854. Her parents, Benjamin and Elizabeth B. Beynon, died the next year and were buried near her. Within about a year, one pioneer family was gone, which shows how fragile life could be on the early Texas coast.
In 1875 bandits raided the community, and William Ball and George Frank were among the residents taken captive. Both men escaped and made their way home, and both lived for decades afterward: Ball died in 1897 and Frank in 1904. Other graves in the cemetery belong to six Confederate veterans, one World War I veteran, and a victim of the 1919 hurricane that struck the Corpus Christi area. Taken together, these graves span more than half a century of the town's troubles.
Its place in the American story
Nuecestown is a reminder that American expansion did not simply roll forward. Towns were founded with high hopes, flourished for a generation, and then disappeared when roads, railroads, or markets moved. Ghost towns are a common part of the American landscape, and a cemetery is often the last thing left of them.
The graves here also connect one small place to much larger events. The Nueces Strip was contested ground in the Mexican-American War. The Confederate veterans tie it to the Civil War. The 1875 raid reflects the violence that marked the Texas-Mexico border in the years after that war. The World War I veteran and the 1919 hurricane victim carry the story into the twentieth century.
All of these national themes show up here in personal form: a child's grave, two men who escaped their captors, and neighbors lost to a storm. That is exactly why local burial grounds like this deserve to be preserved.
If you visit
Arrive expecting quiet. Almost nothing is left of the inn, ferry, cotton gin, school, churches, and shops that once filled Nuecestown, so the cemetery has to stand in for the whole town. Try to imagine the busy river crossing that used to be here.
Look for the oldest stones and for any that match the names on the marker, such as the Beynon family, William Ball, and George Frank. Keep in mind that old graves are sometimes unmarked or badly worn. Notice the trees, too, and remember that the settlement's first name came from a grove.
This is an easy side trip from Corpus Christi and fits well into a Coastal Bend itinerary that looks past the beaches at the region's frontier history. Be respectful: walk carefully around the graves and leave everything as you found it.
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
- · Henry Lawrence Kinney
Related events
- · 1875 Nuecestown raid
- · 1919 hurricane
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nuecestown Schoolhouse
Corpus Christi, TX
Nuecestown grew up along the Nueces River after Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney's 1839 trading post seeded the settlement that became Corpus Christi. Its public school, established before 1885, was among the county's largest by 1893, and this one-room building — raised after two earlier schoolhouses burned — accommodated every grade under a single hipped roof. When district officials closed the school in 1913, its students moved to nearby Calallen, and the schoolhouse survived as one of the settlement's last relics.
Nuecestown Raid
Corpus Christi, TX
On March 26, 1875, amid Reconstruction-era tensions between Anglo settlers and Mexicans along the Nueces River, a band of raiders attacked farms and marched captives toward Nuecestown. When they reached Thomas and Mary Noakes's general store, they wounded a customer and burned the building, though the family escaped by hiding in defensive trenches and fleeing to the river. The raid ignited waves of retaliatory violence in which many innocent Mexicans were killed, and it took Texas Rangers to restore order to the Nueces Strip.
Nuecestown (4 Miles North)
Corpus Christi, TX
Henry L. Kinney, founder of Corpus Christi, laid out Nuecestown in 1852 at the first ferry crossing on the Nueces River, luring English and German immigrants with cheap land and cattle. Nicknamed "The Motts" for its clumps of trees, the town gained a hotel, a packery, and one of the county's earliest cotton gins, and after the Civil War became a rendezvous for cattle drovers pointing longhorns north. On Good Friday 1875 raiders plundered and burned much of the settlement; when the railroad bypassed it around 1905, Nuecestown withered, and its post office closed in 1927.
Angelita (Littlest Angel)
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Angelita was one of several rural communities that sprang up in San Patricio County after the Civil War, its 1880s schoolhouse serving as the heart of local life. When the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railroad arrived in 1904, a town was platted and its depot became a shipping point for cattle and crops. But when the post office and school moved to nearby Odem in 1916, Angelita dwindled and finally disappeared.