Odd Fellows Cemetery
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
ODD FELLOWS CEMETERY ESTABLISHED 1870 HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1870, this burial ground was founded under the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, one of the great fraternal orders that provided mutual aid, burial insurance, and social bonds to nineteenth-century Americans. Cemeteries like it were often a community's most enduring institution, tying together the families of Gonzales across generations. It is recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery.
Why it matters
Fraternal-order cemeteries preserve the mutual-aid networks that stood in for social welfare in the towns of Reconstruction-era Texas.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Augustus H. Jones
Gonzales, TX
Augustus H. Jones took up arms during the pivotal year of 1835, when Texian colonists rose against the Mexican government and set the Texas Revolution in motion. He fought at the Storming of Bexar, the hard street-by-street fight that drove Mexican forces from San Antonio, and served in the Goliad area, another flashpoint of that struggle for independence. The state honored his service with a marker bearing the star and wreath, a tribute erected nearly a century and a quarter later.
Jesse Kencheloe Davis
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Jesse Kencheloe Davis was an Alabama-born soldier who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the decisive clash that won Texas its independence from Mexico. He lived out his years in Gonzales County — the very town remembered as the flashpoint of the Texas Revolution — and is buried here with his wife Eliza.
Dr. John Turner Tinsley
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Dr. John Turner Tinsley left Tennessee for Gonzales in 1834, settling in the town on the eve of revolution. A physician who also served as alderman, mayor, and justice of the peace, he took part in the 1835 Battle of Gonzales—the 'Come and Take It' clash that opened the Texas Revolution—and helped Sam Houston's army during the panicked civilian flight known as the Runaway Scrape.
Dr. Thomas Polk
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