Salem Cemetery

St. Hedwig, TX

Beginning in December 1854, Polish families from Upper Silesia settled eastern Bexar County in a community first called Martinez, building a log mission church by 1857 and a cemetery beside it. The first known burial, in 1863, was of Rev. Julian Przysiecki, killed in a fall from his horse, leaving the settlers without a Polish-speaking priest. A new church to the Virgin Mary followed in 1868, the present cemetery was chartered in 1872, and the town was renamed St. Hedwig for Silesia's patron saint.

La Vernia, TX

Erasmus and Elizabeth Beall brought their large family from Warren County, Georgia, to Texas by 1853, buying land from San Antonio figures John James and banker John Twohig. The family plot began in 1854 with the burial of their eldest son, William Henry, and the last of the early Beall interments came in 1871. After lying quiet for more than a century, the site was folded into Countryside Memorial Park in the early 1980s.

La Vernia, TX

The Applewhite line reached Texas through Thomas Applewhite, a North Carolina–born War of 1812 sergeant who, with his wife Elizabeth and eight enslaved people, moved to Wilson County in 1853 and bought 214 acres here the next year. Local tradition holds the homestead served briefly as a stage stop on an alternate branch of the Chihuahua Road running from the coast to San Antonio. After emancipation, African American families who had taken the Applewhite name established their own homes nearby and remained in the area for generations, their story bound up with the land's original stone house, largely destroyed by 1950s highway work.

San Antonio, TX

John Salmon 'Rip' Ford lived nearly every role the Texas frontier offered: pioneer doctor and newspaper editor, Republic of Texas congressman, state senator, adjutant to Jack Hays in the war with Mexico, and a fearless Ranger captain in border and Indian campaigns. He served as a Confederate colonel during the Civil War and later as mayor of Austin and Brownsville, a constitutional convention delegate, and a charter member of the Texas State Historical Association. His grave marker, erected by the state in 1963, recalls his motto: 'Ready, ay, ready!'