San Geronimo Cemetery
Seguin, Guadalupe County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on the banks of the San Geronimo Creek, this cemetery was originally known as Beard’s Burial Ground when William and Margaret (Bridges) Beard were buried on their family farm in 1846. William Beard first came to Texas as part of the Stephen F. Austin Colony in 1831. After the death of his first wife, Martha (Harris), William married Margaret Bridges and together they moved to this area in 1838 to help start the community of Walnut Springs, later renamed Seguin in 1839. Their farm was part of 50 acres deeded to William by the Republic of Texas in 1845. Both William and Margaret Beard died just one day apart in 1846, though they were not the first burials in the cemetery. The oldest known grave in the cemetery is thought to be for 10-year-old Stephen A. Johnson who died in 1839. The first five trustees to care for the cemetery beginning in 1883 were: A.L. Baker, I.B. Dibrell, Jr., I.E. Legette, A.T. Woods, and W.M. Lay, grandson of William and Martha Beard. In 1897, the cemetery was renamed San Geronimo Cemetery. The cemetery holds many markers commemorating individuals and their service to the state: Henry Eustace McCulloch, Elijah Valentine Dale, George Washington Lonis, Robert D. McAnelly, John H. Sowell, Andrew Jackson Sowell and Lucinda Turner Sowell. Many of the early founders and settlers of the area and of Guadalupe County such as Weinert, Blumberg, Dibrell, Erskine and Woods, as well as several veterans dating from the Texas Revolution period through the Gulf War era, are buried here. One of the oldest cemeteries in Guadalupe County and predating the existence of the surrounding community, San Geronimo Cemetery remains a source of pride to the Seguin community today. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2016
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Known first as Beard's Burial Ground, this cemetery on San Geronimo Creek began with the graves of William and Margaret Beard, who died a day apart in 1846 on their Republic of Texas land grant. William had come to Texas with Stephen F. Austin's colony in 1831 and helped found Walnut Springs, renamed Seguin in 1839; the oldest grave may be that of ten-year-old Stephen A. Johnson, dead in 1839. Renamed San Geronimo in 1897, it holds early county founders and veterans spanning from the Texas Revolution to the Gulf War.
Why it matters
Predating the town it serves, the cemetery ties Seguin's origins directly to Austin's colonists and the founding generation of the Republic of Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To understand this cemetery on the banks of San Geronimo Creek, picture Texas in the 1830s and 1840s — a raw, fast-changing frontier passing from Mexican province to independent Republic to the edge of American statehood. Anglo settlers were arriving in organized colonies, staking farms along the creeks and rivers where water and timber could be found, and doing so far ahead of towns, courts, or churches.
The great engine of that settlement was empresario Stephen F. Austin, whose colonies brought hundreds of families into Texas under contract with Mexico. Those colonists formed the founding stock of dozens of communities, and their movement inland — from the older settlements toward new ground — is the current that carried the first families to this stretch of the Guadalupe country.
This was land newly organized under the young Republic of Texas, which rewarded settlement with grants of acreage. A family that received such a grant did not merely own property; they became charter members of a community that did not yet fully exist. The graves here predate the town around them, and that inversion — the burial ground older than its village — tells you exactly how early and how exposed this settlement was.
People & events
The cemetery began as Beard's Burial Ground, named for William and Margaret Beard, who were laid to rest on their family farm in 1846. William's Texas story reached back to 1831, when he came as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony — placing him among the earliest wave of Anglo settlers in the region. After the death of his first wife, Martha, he married Margaret Bridges, and in 1838 the couple moved to this area to help start the community of Walnut Springs.
That little settlement was renamed in 1839 for the Tejano hero Juan Seguín, becoming the Seguin known today. The Beards' farm sat on fifty acres deeded to William by the Republic of Texas in 1845 — a grant that marks them as founders in the fullest sense. When they both died in 1846, just one day apart, they were buried on their own land, and the ground took their name.
Yet they were not the first laid to rest here: the oldest known grave is thought to belong to ten-year-old Stephen A. Johnson, who died in 1839. In 1883 the first trustees took up the care of the grounds, and in 1897 it was renamed San Geronimo Cemetery. Over the generations it gathered the region's founding families and many who served the state — among them Henry Eustace McCulloch, a well-known figure of frontier and Civil War-era Texas — along with veterans whose service ranges from the days of the Texas Revolution all the way to the Gulf War.
Its place in the American story
The San Geronimo Cemetery is a small window onto one of the largest movements in the American story: the westward push of settlement across the continent. The families buried here were not spectators to that expansion — they were its foot soldiers, arriving under Austin's colonization contracts and helping to plant a town where none had stood.
A burial ground older than its community captures a truth about frontier America that is easy to forget. Death arrived before institutions did. Long before there were churches, schools, or courthouses, there were graves — the first permanent marks a scattered people made upon new land. In that sense a pioneer cemetery is often the true founding document of a place.
And the sweep of veterans resting here — from the Texas Revolution through the Gulf War — turns a single county plot into a timeline of the nation's conflicts. To walk it is to trace, in stone, the long arc from a frontier republic fighting for its existence to a modern superpower deploying its forces overseas. The same ground holds both ends of that story.
If you visit
Come to the banks of San Geronimo Creek and remember that this ground was consecrated by grief before the surrounding town drew its first breath. The oldest grave may belong to a child of ten, and the founders themselves lie here — a reminder that the earliest chapters of a community are often written in a cemetery.
Walk the older sections slowly and read the family names: the settlers deeded land by a young republic, the trustees who took up the cemetery's care in the 1880s, the veterans whose service spans a century and a half of the nation's wars. Weathered inscriptions and worn stone are part of the experience; let the age of the place speak for itself rather than looking for polish.
It makes a rewarding stop for anyone tracing the founding generation of the Texas Republic, and it pairs well with a broader look at the region's origins. Give yourself a few unhurried minutes here. A place that has been keeping its dead since the 1830s asks for that kind of quiet attention.
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
- · William Beard
- · Margaret Bridges Beard
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · Henry Eustace McCulloch
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Robert D. McAnelly
Seguin, TX
Born in Kentucky in 1806, Robert D. McAnelly came to Texas in 1835 and joined the army marching on San Antonio. He was among the storming party that entered Bexar on December 5, 1835, one of the opening blows of the Texas Revolution against Mexican rule. He lived out his days in Guadalupe County, dying there in 1888, and the State of Texas raised this marker to him in 1962.
John N. Sowell
Seguin, TX
John N. Sowell came to Texas around 1829 and served in the Army of Texas in 1836, the year of the revolution that won the region its independence. He belonged to a fighting family: his brother was the noted frontiersman Andrew Jackson Sowell, and their father took part in the Battle of Gonzales, the opening clash of the Texas Revolution.
Elijah Valentine Dale
Seguin, TX
This marker honors Elijah Valentine Dale, a veteran of the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto—the decisive fight in which Texian forces under Sam Houston secured independence from Mexico in a stunning eighteen-minute rout. Born in Georgia in 1807, Dale was among the settlers who tied their fortunes to the young Republic of Texas, and he lived on into the 1890s in Seguin alongside his Ohio-born wife, Jane. Their shared gravestone quietly binds a family's story to the founding of a nation-state.
King Family Cemetery
Seguin, TX
This burial ground holds one of Seguin's founding families, the Kings, who came from Tennessee during the days of the Republic of Texas. Brothers John, Henry, and William George King helped establish the town, and William—a Texas Ranger and veteran of the Mexican War—was one of several Rangers laid to rest here. The first burial, in 1852, was a six-month-old child, and generations of the family followed.