Oxford Cemetery
Llano, Llano County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Oxford community was founded in 1880 when Confederate veteran A. J. Johnson came to Llano County and laid out the townsite. In 1881, a burial ground was established near this site for the use of the families of Oxford. Burials date from 1883, although some of the graves that were moved from a neighboring cemetery bear earlier death dates. Among those interred there are the town's founder, A. J. Johnson (1832-1912); and James R. Moss (1843-1924), who captained the Packsaddle Mountain fight, an 1873 battle that drove raiding Indians out of Llano County. (1985)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The community of Oxford took shape in 1880 when Confederate veteran A. J. Johnson laid out a townsite in Llano County, and a year later neighbors set aside ground nearby for a burial place. Among those resting here is Johnson himself and James R. Moss, who captained the 1873 Packsaddle Mountain fight—one of the last engagements that drove raiding Native peoples from the county. The cemetery preserves the memory of a frontier settlement now largely gone.
Why it matters
Small pioneer cemeteries like Oxford are the enduring records of frontier settlement, marking both the families who claimed the land and the violent contest for it during the closing of the Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · A. J. Johnson
- · James R. Moss
Related events
- · Packsaddle Mountain fight
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nine Miles West is the Enchanted Rock
Llano, TX
In the fall of 1841, Texas Ranger captain John C. Hays was cut off from his company atop Enchanted Rock and surrounded by Comanche warriors, yet from the granite summit he held them off until they withdrew. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936 to commemorate the celebrated frontier fight. The great pink granite dome had long been a landmark and sacred place for Indigenous peoples before it entered Anglo-Texan legend.
Packsaddle Mountain
Llano, TX
On August 4, 1873, atop Packsaddle Mountain a few miles east of here, Captain J. R. Moss led a small party of settlers — among them his kinsmen and neighbors — against a band of Native fighters said to outnumber them three to one. The settlers prevailed in what the marker records as the last Indian battle in this region. The fight closed a long era of frontier conflict in the Texas Hill Country.
Llano County
Llano, TX
The name Llano reaches back to 18th-century Spanish explorers, who applied it to the river running through this country—a name itself descended from a French term for the Lipan Apache. German colonists put down the first permanent settlements here around 1850, and in February 1856 the Texas legislature carved Llano County from Gillespie and Bexar, organizing it that August with Llano as county seat.
Homesite of Emil Kriewitz
Castell, TX
Emil Kriewitz left Potsdam for the Texas coast in 1846 and threw himself into the frontier's every hazard—first as a U.S. soldier, then as an agent of the Adelsverein, the German society organizing settlement along the Llano River in Comanche country. To build trust he lived among the Comanche himself, a striking act of diplomacy in a violent borderland. He married Amalia Markwort in 1857, built this home and a small "Sunday house" around 1867, and served his community as justice of the peace and postmaster until his death in 1902.