Porter Cemetery
Weatherford, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Robert Scott Porter (1795-1877), first Parker County judge, dedicated this land near his cabin as a family cemetery in 1867 after the death of his 3-year-old granddaughter Syrene E. Newberry. Judge Porter's grandson Elbert T. Doss (1847-1869) and the judge's daughter Mary, her husband, W.G. Light, and child were killed by Indians and buried here. This site may contain about 50 burials, but only 28 are identified. The graves of Judge Porter and his wife Nancy Ann (Pearce) (1806-1901) are here. Their daughter Elizabeth Jane Doss Upton (1826-1908) was the last burial. Porter family descendants restored this cemetery in 1976. (1978)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Robert Scott Porter, the first judge of Parker County, set aside this ground near his cabin as a family cemetery in 1867 after the death of his three-year-old granddaughter. Frontier violence marks the plot: the judge's grandson, and his daughter Mary with her husband and child, were killed by Indians and buried here. Of perhaps fifty burials only twenty-eight are identified, among them the judge and his wife Nancy Ann, whose descendants restored the cemetery in 1976.
Why it matters
The graves testify to the hard, often violent realities of frontier settlement on the edge of the Texas plains in the mid-19th century.
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Related people
- · Robert Scott Porter
- · Nancy Ann Porter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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