HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Price-Sossaman-Slaughter Cemetery

San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Little physical evidence remains of the family graveyard near this site that contains the burials of members of several early San Augustine families. The remaining historic tombstone, that of James H. C. Price, dates to 1852. James Price was the son of Col. Elijah Price (1791-1852) and Temperance Thomas Price (1805-1859), who came to San Augustine in the 1840s. Elijah Price was a prosperous planter and merchant; he and his wife are both buried in the cemetery, which, as was the custom, was located near the family home. Their son Albert married into the Slaughter family, and their daughter Cornelia married into the Sossaman family; hence, members of those two families are also interred in the Price family cemetery. (2001)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Only a single 1852 tombstone still marks this San Augustine family graveyard, that of James H.C. Price, son of prosperous planter and merchant Elijah Price. Like many early Texas families, the Prices buried their dead near the family home, and marriages into the Slaughter and Sossaman families brought their members to rest here as well. The cemetery preserves the memory of several of the community's founding households.

Why it matters

Family burying grounds like this one are quiet records of the planter households that settled early East Texas and of the kinship ties that bound frontier communities together.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · James H.C. Price
  • · Elijah Price
  • · Temperance Thomas Price

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Hillcrest

San Augustine, TX

Raised in 1872 and enlarged to twelve rooms in 1878, this house was built almost entirely from the land around it — hand-hewn timbers, locally cut heart-pine floors and ceilings, and brick fired at the old Ayish Bayou kiln. Its seven fireplaces are dressed with marble mantels imported from France, carried inland by boats up the Sabine River. The blend of local craft and worldly finish speaks to a prosperous Reconstruction-era East Texas.

Home of Matthew Cartwright

San Augustine, TX

Built in 1839, in the days of the Republic of Texas, this house was purchased in 1847 by Matthew Cartwright, a member of a prominent East Texas family. Remarkably, it remained in the hands of his descendants for generations, and the State of Texas honored it with a marker during the 1936 centennial of Texas independence. Homes like it anchored San Augustine as one of the oldest Anglo-American settlements in the region.

Home of Col. Stephen William Blount

San Augustine, TX

Born in Georgia in 1808, Stephen William Blount came to Texas in 1835 and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence before joining the Army of Texas in the fight for independence. He went on to serve his adopted home as the first county clerk of San Augustine County and the first district clerk of the First Judicial District, living out his life in the town until 1890.

Site of the First Methodist Episcopal Church

San Augustine, TX

On January 7, 1838, with the rites of the Masonic order, the cornerstone was laid here for the first Methodist Episcopal church building erected in the Republic of Texas. The Reverend Littleton Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk—a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence—delivered the addresses at this early milestone of organized religion in the new republic.