Riesing Cemetery
Columbus, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Riesing Cemetery Established 1872 Historic Texas Cemetery - 2005
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Riesing Cemetery was established in 1872, during the post–Civil War settlement of Colorado County, and was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2005. Though the marker records little beyond its founding date, the burial ground has served the surrounding community for more than 150 years.
Why it matters
Even a spare marker anchors a place in time, and an 1872 cemetery attests to the families who settled and endured in this corner of Reconstruction-era Texas.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tumlinson Family
Columbus, TX
John and Elizabeth Tumlinson brought their seven children to Texas as members of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, settling on the Colorado River. John was elected the district's first alcalde and, in May 1823, helped organize the first official Texas Ranger company to defend settlers — only to be killed in an Indian attack two months later. His descendants carried the family legacy forward, with more than a dozen serving as Rangers and frontier lawmen across the following century.
Asa Townsend
Columbus, TX
Born in South Carolina and raised in Georgia, Asa Townsend moved his large family from Florida to Colorado County, Texas, in 1838. A civic leader, he served on the committee advocating Texas's 1845 annexation to the United States and belonged to the Colorado River Navigation Association. During Reconstruction he organized ventures into Mexico and remained active in the Methodist church and Masonic lodges.
Alleyton Cemetery
Alleyton, TX
Alleyton grew from the settlement of the Alley brothers around 1822 and became Colorado County's largest town after William Alley donated railroad right-of-way in 1859. Blocks marked as a graveyard on the 1860 town map were formally established as a cemetery by 1880, when an adjacent Colored Cemetery was also created for the community's African American residents. Burials here span a yellow fever epidemic of 1867 and veterans of wars from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Fayetteville City Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
Fayetteville's city cemetery has served the community since its earliest days, with the first recorded burial dating to 1851. Among those interred are the surveyor who platted and named the town and donated land for the burying ground, a physician and military leader, and veterans of conflicts reaching back to the War of 1812. Its rows of graves read as a roll call of the pioneer families, tradespeople, and officials who built the town.