Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Originally called "American Cemetery," Oak Grove Cemetery is located on the 1826 land grant of Empresario Haden Edwards. The leader of the 1826 Fredonian Rebellion, Edwards is interred here. The earliest marked burial on this site is that of Franklin J. Starr (d. 1837), a native of New Hartford, Connecticut and a local realtor. Many graves from the early Spanish cemetery of Nacogdoches were relocated to this site when the county courthouse was erected on the Spanish cemetery grounds in 1912. The earliest grave from that burial ground is marked, "Father Mendoza," 1718. Oak Grove Cemetery is filled with historical figures important both to Nacogdoches County and the State of Texas. Perhaps the most famous is Thomas Jefferson Rusk, judge, statesman and Sam Houston's secretary of war. Like Rusk, Charles Stanfield Taylor, John S. Roberts and William Clark , Jr., signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Other statesmen and soldiers interred here include Captain Haden Arnold and Elias E. Hamilton, veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto; Jacob Lewis; James Harper Starr; General Kelsey H. Douglass; George F. Ingraham; Nicholas Adolphus Sterne; Captain Frederick Voigt; and Dr. Robert A. Irion, who also was Sam Houston's personal physician. Other burials of interest include those of former slaves Mitchell Thorn, Lawrence Sleet and Eliza Walker. Frost Thorn was among Texas' early millionaires; Deidrich Anton Wilhelm Rulfs, Nacogdoches' master architect, designed Zion Hill Baptist Church on the north side of the cemetery. Richard William Haltom founded and edited Nacogdoches' "The Daily Sentinel," and poet Karle Wilson Baker was the third person named a fellow to the Texas Institute of Letters. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Once called the "American Cemetery," Oak Grove sits on land granted in 1826 to empresario Haden Edwards, leader of the Fredonian Rebellion, who is buried here. Its graves read like a roster of the Texas Republic: signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, veterans of San Jacinto, Sam Houston's secretary of war and personal physician, early millionaires, a master architect, and formerly enslaved men and women. Burials relocated from an older Spanish cemetery reach back to a stone marked "Father Mendoza, 1718."
Why it matters
Few grounds hold so much of a founding generation in one place, tracing Nacogdoches from Spanish colonial mission town to a cornerstone of the Texas Republic.
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Related people
- · Haden Edwards
- · Thomas Jefferson Rusk
Related events
- · Fredonian Rebellion
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John S. Roberts
Nacogdoches, TX
Once a sheriff in Natchitoches, Louisiana, John S. Roberts threw himself into the Texas cause, helping lead the 1832 Battle of Nacogdoches and commanding the Nacogdoches company in the 1835 storming of Bexar. He served in the 1835 Consultation and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. A Virginia native, he lived out his years in the town he had fought for, dying in 1871.
Captain Hayden Arnold
Nacogdoches, TX
A Tennessee native, Captain Hayden Arnold led the Nacogdoches company at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the decisive engagement of the Texas Revolution. He died in 1839, only a few years after the fighting that won Texas its independence. The State of Texas raised his marker in 1936.
Kelsey Harris Douglass
Nacogdoches, TX
A member of the Second Congress of the Republic of Texas, Kelsey Harris Douglass commanded the Texas forces in the decisive July 1839 battle that drove the Cherokee and their allies from East Texas. A charter member of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Texas, he died in 1840, the same year as his young daughter Anne Elizabeth. His marker was raised by the state in 1936.
Haden Edwards
Nacogdoches, TX
A Virginia-born empresario, Haden Edwards received a contract to settle American families around Nacogdoches but fell into bitter conflict with Mexican authorities and existing residents. In 1826-27 he led the short-lived Fredonian Rebellion, an early and premature bid for Anglo independence in Texas that collapsed quickly. A decade later, during the Texas Revolution, he was sent to the United States to raise funds for the cause.