Rhoads Family Cemetery
Alvord, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rhoads Family Cemetery Originally from Tennessee, Abner E. (1820-1910) and Chloe Mays (1824-1886) Rhoads and family came to this area from Kentucky by covered wagon, arriving in 1870. Their son, Moses b. (1845-1916), who was a Methodist circuit rider, schoolteacher and carpenter already living in Texas, came to join them on their 205-acre tract of land along with his wife, Eugenia Sarah (1845-1924), and children. The oldest dated graves marking the deaths of two of their young sons in 1879 and 1880 speak of the difficulties of their experience as they joined with others in settling the land. Recorded here are members of the Johnson, Mitchum, Rhoads and Woodruff families; some descendants believe that as many as 100 others may be laid to rest nearby in unmarked graves. The cotton growers who once plowed this land were forced to relocate in the 1920s and 30s when their fields' soil and fertility were depleted by years of cultivation. In 1940, much of the Rhoads property, including this burial ground, was sold to the U.S. government and is now part of the Ibj National Grasslands. This site remains as a record of these settlers whose successes and struggles are part of the heritage of the Alvord area of Wise County. Historic Texas Cemetery-2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Abner and Chloe Rhoads came by covered wagon from Kentucky in 1870, joined on their 205-acre tract by their son Moses, a Methodist circuit rider, schoolteacher, and carpenter. The cemetery's oldest graves — two young sons who died in 1879 and 1880 — testify to the hardships of settling the land. When decades of cotton cultivation exhausted the soil, the families relocated in the 1920s and 30s, and much of the property was sold in 1940 to become part of the LBJ National Grasslands.
Why it matters
This burial ground preserves the arc of frontier settlement and soil exhaustion that shaped, and eventually emptied, much of rural North Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The land around this burial ground tells one of the fuller versions of the frontier story — settlement, struggle, and finally departure. Its earliest chapter belongs to 1870, when a family arrived by covered wagon to break new ground in Wise County, Texas, during the Reconstruction and Gilded Age years of westward expansion.
This was the era when families from the older states of the South loaded their lives into wagons and pushed west, chasing cheap land and a fresh start. The journey itself was an ordeal, and what waited at the end — unbroken prairie, isolation, and hard seasons — asked even more of them.
What sets this place apart is that its story doesn't end with settlement. It runs all the way through to abandonment, as the same soil that drew the families in was eventually worn out beneath them. Few markers capture the full life cycle of a frontier farm community this plainly.
People & events
The founders were Abner E. Rhoads and his wife Chloe Mays Rhoads, originally from Tennessee, who came here from Kentucky by covered wagon in 1870 and settled a 205-acre tract. Their son Moses — already living in Texas and working as a Methodist circuit rider, schoolteacher, and carpenter — came with his own wife, Eugenia Sarah, and their children to join them. In one family you have the whole toolkit of frontier survival: faith, learning, and the skill to build.
But the oldest graves here are not the elders'. They mark two of the family's young sons, who died in 1879 and 1880 — a stark reminder that settling the land exacted its price first from the children. Those early stones speak of the difficulty of the whole undertaking more eloquently than any triumph could.
Over time the cemetery gathered members of the Johnson, Mitchum, Rhoads, and Woodruff families, and some descendants believe as many as a hundred more may rest nearby in unmarked graves. Then came the slow reversal: the cotton growers who had plowed this land were forced to leave in the 1920s and 1930s, as years of cultivation stripped the soil of its fertility.
Its place in the American story
This is the American frontier story told in full, including the ending that gets left out. We remember the covered wagons and the hopeful arrivals; we rarely remember that much of the land settled with such effort was later exhausted and given up. The Rhoads family's tract holds both halves.
The soil depletion that emptied these cotton fields was part of a national reckoning. Across the country, decades of hard single-crop farming wore out the land, and the crisis of worn-out fields helped drive the great federal conservation efforts of the twentieth century. In 1940, much of this very property was sold to the U.S. government, and it now lies within the LBJ National Grasslands — land the nation quite literally took back to heal.
So this cemetery marks a boundary between two eras of the American relationship with the land: the settlement era that carved farms out of prairie, and the conservation era that turned exhausted farmland back into public grassland. Standing here, you are standing exactly on that seam.
If you visit
The Rhoads Family Cemetery sits within the LBJ National Grasslands, and that setting is the whole experience. The fields the families plowed are gone; what surrounds the graves now is restored open country, the land returned to something like what the first wagon found in 1870.
Seek out the oldest stones — the two young sons who died in 1879 and 1880. They are the emotional center of the place, and reading their dates against the family's 1870 arrival tells you, without a word of explanation, how steep the cost of settling here really was.
This is a remote, contemplative stop, best paired with time spent walking the grasslands themselves. As you go, remember that the quiet prairie around you is not untouched wilderness but recovered farmland — a landscape that was settled, worked, worn out, and finally allowed to rest. Tread gently; it is both a cemetery and a lesson.
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
- · Abner E. Rhoads
- · Chloe Mays Rhoads
- · Moses B. Rhoads
Themes & tags
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