Pony Creek Cemetery
Stephenville, Erath County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(also known as Box/Pony Creek Cemetery) This cemetery is the final resting place for generations of local families, including descendants of pioneer settlers in the Pony Creek Community who came here as early as 1845. The oldest marked grave is that of J.T. Roberson (d. 1875), and another early grave is for Martha Walker Bills, born in 1799. It is believed that pioneers began building homes here circa 1845, although frontier conditions, including raiding Indian parties, remained difficult until after the Civil War. Following the war, new settlers arrived in the area. The community thrived from the late 1800s until the mid-1900s. In 1907, John and Mary Britton officially deeded land for the cemetery, which is also the final resting place of numerous veterans. Throughout its history, the community's cemetery has associated with the Pony Creek Baptist Church, established in 1865. The church building, located west of the burial ground, is used for funerals and meetings. The Pony Creek Community has always been agricultural, and the names of area farm families are preserved throughout the cemetery, maintained today by an association. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2000
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pioneers began building homes in the Pony Creek Community around 1845, though frontier conditions — including raids by Native war parties — kept life precarious until after the Civil War. The cemetery's oldest marked grave belongs to J.T. Roberson (d. 1875), and another early stone remembers Martha Walker Bills, born in 1799. John and Mary Britton formally deeded the land in 1907, and the burial ground, long tied to the Pony Creek Baptist Church founded in 1865, still preserves the names of the agricultural families who worked this land.
Why it matters
The cemetery marks one of Erath County's earliest frontier settlements, a place where pioneer farming families endured the dangers of the open Texas frontier before the community flourished.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1840s, the land that would become Erath County sat near the outer edge of Anglo settlement in Texas. This was cross timbers and prairie country, good for grazing and farming, but it was also contested ground. Native nations, including the Comanche, still moved through and raided across the region, and settlers who pushed this far west lived with real danger.
According to the marker, pioneers began building homes along Pony Creek around 1845. The going was hard, and frontier conditions, including raids, made life uncertain until after the Civil War. During the war, many frontier defenders were away and the line of settlement in parts of Texas actually pulled back, leaving outlying families even more exposed.
After 1865 the picture changed. New settlers poured in, the frontier moved west, and communities like Pony Creek could finally grow. From the late 1800s into the mid-1900s, the community thrived as a farming settlement, built around church, school, and family land.
People & events
The names on the stones here start with the pioneers. The oldest marked grave belongs to J.T. Roberson, who died in 1875. Another early grave honors Martha Walker Bills, born in 1799. Born in the earliest days of the American republic, she was buried on the Texas frontier, and her life spanned the country's westward expansion from the Atlantic seaboard to Erath County.
The church came before the deed. Pony Creek Baptist Church was established in 1865, the year the Civil War ended, and the cemetery has been connected to it ever since. The church building still stands west of the burial ground and is used for funerals and meetings, keeping church and graveyard together as they have been for generations.
In 1907, John and Mary Britton formally deeded the land for the cemetery, putting on paper a burial ground the community had used for decades. Since then it has received generations of local farm families, descendants of the first Pony Creek settlers, and numerous veterans.
Its place in the American story
Pony Creek is a small window onto one of the central American stories: the slow, risky push of settlement onto the western frontier, and the displacement of the Native peoples who already lived there. The raids remembered on the marker were part of a long, violent struggle over the southern Plains that shaped both settler and Native history.
The community's arc, a dangerous beginning, growth after the Civil War, and a long agricultural heyday into the twentieth century, matches that of countless rural American communities. Places like this fed the nation and formed the backbone of the rural South and West.
Today, as many such farming communities have shrunk, cemeteries like this one, designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2000, are often the most lasting record of who lived there. The farm family names preserved here are the community's archive.
If you visit
The cemetery goes by two names, Box Cemetery and Pony Creek Cemetery, so keep both in mind when you're looking for it on a map. It sits in open farm country outside Stephenville, and the setting itself tells you a lot about the place: this has always been an agricultural community.
Look for the early graves, J.T. Roberson's and Martha Walker Bills's, and notice how the family names repeat across the decades. Pony Creek Baptist Church stands west of the burial ground; seeing them side by side shows how central the church was to community life.
The cemetery is still cared for by an association and used by the community, so please be respectful. It pairs well with a drive through Erath County's ranch and farm country and a stop in Stephenville, a good way to feel the shift from the old frontier to the farming landscape it became.
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
- · J.T. Roberson
- · Martha Walker Bills
- · John Britton
- · Mary Britton
Themes & tags
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