Oilfield Cemetery
Saratoga, Hardin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A SMALL GROUP OF BIG THICKET PIONEERS SETTLED HERE IN THE MID-1800s TO WORK FARMS AND RUN HOGS IN THE ALMOST LIMITLESS FOREST. ONE OF THE EARLIEST ANGLO SETTLERS IN THE AREA, JOHN FLETCHER COTTEN (1819-1907), FIRST TRACKED HIS HOGS THROUGH THE WOODS AND DISCOVERED MEDICINAL SULPHUR SPRINGS IN 1860. AT THE URGING OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, WILLIAM HENRY HART, COTTEN FILED LAND CLAIMS ON THE PROPERTY, BUILT A LOG CABIN AND BROUGHT HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH GRANBERRY (HART) COTTEN (1828-1889), AND THEIR EIGHT CHILDREN TO THE AREA. COTTEN AND A PARTNER ATTEMPTED TO DRILL FOR OIL BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL DUE TO PRIMITIVE EQUIPMENT. HE FOCUSED ON HIS LAND HOLDINGS, FARMING AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE SPRINGS, NAMED SARATOGA AFTER THE NEW YORK HEALTH RESORT. BY 1901, HOWEVER, WILDCATTERS DRILLING FOR OIL BEGAN THE SARATOGA OIL BOOM. BY 1884 A CHURCH AND SCHOOL WERE BUILT ACROSS COTTEN ROAD FROM THE CEMETERY. MANY OF THE FAMILIES MOVED TO A NEARBY NEW SARATOGA TOWNSITE AWAY FROM THE OILFIELDS BUT THEY CONTINUED TO BURY THEIR DEAD “DOWN IN THE OILFIELD.” ORIGINALLY, THE CEMETERY WAS KNOWN AS J.F. COTTEN OR JORDAN CEMETERY BUT, BY THE 1890s WHEN EPSYE BAZOR HART, OWNER OF THE EPSYE HART SURVEY WAS BURIED HERE, IT WAS KNOWN AS SARATOGA CEMETERY. THE EARLIEST MARKED BURIAL IN THE CEMETERY IS THAT OF COTTEN’S SON, JOSEPH S. COTTEN (1865-1888). BOTH ELIZABETH AND JOHN COTTEN ARE BURIED HERE ALONG WITH MANY OTHER PIONEER SETTLERS, THEIR DESCENDANTS AND OILFIELD EMPLOYEES. WOODMEN OF THE WORLD MONUMENTS AND HEADSTONES OF VETERANS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE KOREAN WAR ARE ALSO PRESENT. CEDAR, PINE, OAK AND SYCAMORE TREES PROVIDE A BACKDROP FOR A VARIETY OF HEADSTONES INCLUDING CONCRETE, GRANITE, LIMESTONE, WOOD, SANDSTONE, MARBLE, FUNERAL COMPANY MARKERS AND ENGRAVED PETRIFIED WOOD THAT MARK THE BURIALS OF MANY RESIDENTS OF SARATOGA AND THE BIG THICKET.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Big Thicket pioneers settled here in the mid-1800s to farm and run hogs in the vast forest, and it was hog-tracking settler John Fletcher Cotten who discovered the sulphur springs he named Saratoga in 1860. His early attempt to drill for oil failed, but by 1901 wildcatters had ignited the Saratoga oil boom. Families who moved to a new townsite kept burying their dead 'down in the oilfield,' where headstones now mark pioneers, their descendants, and oilfield workers alike.
Why it matters
It captures the transformation of the Big Thicket from a frontier of farmers and hog-runners into an oil boomtown at the dawn of the Texas petroleum age.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1800s the Big Thicket of southeast Texas was a near-limitless forest, and the people who settled it lived off whatever the woods allowed — small farms hacked out of the timber and half-wild hogs turned loose to forage among the trees.
This was frontier life at its most self-reliant, far from towns and markets, where a family's fortunes rose and fell with the land itself. That land offered one more gift: mineral springs, prized in that era as health cures, echoing the famous spa resorts back East.
Then, at the turn of the 20th century, everything changed. The discovery of oil along the Texas Gulf Coast turned sleepy farm country into boomtown country almost overnight, and this quiet settlement suddenly found itself sitting atop a fortune.
People & events
The founding figure is John Fletcher Cotten, born in 1819, one of the earliest Anglo settlers in the area. As the story goes, he was tracking his hogs through the woods in 1860 when he stumbled onto medicinal sulphur springs — and, urged on by his father-in-law, William Henry Hart, he filed claims on the land, built a log cabin, and brought his wife, Elizabeth, and their eight children to settle it.
Cotten even tried to drill for oil, but the primitive equipment of the day defeated him. So he turned instead to farming, to his land, and to the promise of the springs, which he named Saratoga after the celebrated New York health resort. What he could not reach, others eventually would: by 1901, wildcatters had touched off the Saratoga oil boom.
The cemetery grew alongside the community. Its earliest marked grave is Cotten's own son, Joseph, who died in 1888; both John and Elizabeth rest here as well. Known first as the J. F. Cotten or Jordan Cemetery, it became the Saratoga Cemetery by the 1890s. Even after families moved to a new townsite away from the oilfields, they kept bringing their dead back to bury them, as they put it, "down in the oilfield."
Its place in the American story
This single patch of ground holds the pivot point of modern Texas history. It begins with hog-running frontier farmers and ends in the petroleum age — the transformation that would make the very word "Texas" a byword for oil.
The 1901 boom here belongs to the same moment as Spindletop, the great gusher near Beaumont that opened the Texas oil era and helped swing the whole nation toward petroleum. Places like Saratoga turned quiet backwoods into engines of a new industrial economy almost overnight.
The graves themselves are a cross-section of that changing America: pioneer settlers and their descendants lying beside oilfield workers, with fraternal Woodmen of the World monuments and the headstones of veterans from the Civil War through the Korean War — generation upon generation of one community, from wilderness to oil patch.
If you visit
This is an atmospheric old cemetery set among cedar, pine, oak, and sycamore, and part of its appeal is the sheer variety of its markers — concrete, granite, limestone, wood, sandstone, marble, and even engraved petrified wood.
Look for the distinctive tree-stump-style Woodmen of the World monuments, and for the range of veterans' stones spanning nearly a century of American wars. Each material and style is a small clue to who could afford what, and when — a social history told in stone.
Set in the Big Thicket near Saratoga, it makes a thoughtful stop on a road trip through Texas oil country: a place to stand where the frontier gave way to the derricks, and where a whole community, in their own words, still rests "down in the oilfield."
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
- · John Fletcher Cotten
- · Elizabeth Granberry Hart Cotten
- · Joseph S. Cotten
Themes & tags
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