Sand Ridge Cemetery
Bleakwood, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Son of Colonel Samuel S. Lewis (1784-1838), a War of 1812 veteran, Lieutenant John T. Lewis (1808-1892) and his wife, Sarah Mariah (Stark) (1811-1895), helped establish a settlement near Cow Creek following the Texas Revolution. They found an ideal location to establish a burial ground on a high sand ridge bordered by timber and above the flooding of the creek. The oldest marked grave is that of Caroline Smith (1825-1886) but the area was used as a burial ground for decades prior to that date. Many unmarked and unknown burials exist, including one marked "Stranger." More than two dozen veterans are buried here, ranging from the Siege of Bexar in the Texas Revolution in 1835 to the Vietnam War, along with a monument to Col. Samuel S. Lewis. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2016
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Texas Revolution, Lieutenant John T. Lewis — son of a War of 1812 veteran — and his wife Sarah Mariah Stark helped found a settlement near Cow Creek and chose this high sand ridge, safe above the floods, as a burial ground. The oldest marked grave dates to 1886, though burials began decades earlier, and many rest here unnamed, including one stone simply marked "Stranger." More than two dozen veterans lie here, from the 1835 Siege of Bexar through the Vietnam War, near a monument to Colonel Samuel S. Lewis.
Why it matters
Its span of veterans from the Texas Revolution to Vietnam makes the cemetery a quiet ledger of American military service across nearly a century and a half.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John T. Lewis
- · Sarah Mariah Stark
- · Samuel S. Lewis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fawil Sam Herrin Cemetery
Newton, TX
Sam and Mary Herrin homesteaded 106 acres in the Fawil community of the East Texas piney woods, raising eleven children to adulthood and setting aside an acre for a family burial ground. The earliest graves, from 1911 and 1912, belong to a granddaughter and a daughter, and most of the dozens interred here descend from that pioneer couple. The surrounding community once supported three churches, a school, a plywood mill, and a store.
Friendship Cemetery
Jasper, TX
When Joseph Andrew Jackson Sheffield brought his wife Rebecca and their fourteen children from Georgia to Jasper County in 1885, they built a large family farm and gave the community its name—Friendship—along with land for a church and school in 1899. The cemetery's first burial that year was the Sheffields' young granddaughter, and the ground was formally recorded as a cemetery in 1906. Among its hundreds of graves lie early settlers, Texas Rangers, and veterans of conflicts from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Trout Creek Cemetery
Newton, TX
Carved from the James West Survey, this East Texas graveyard dates to the early 1860s, with oral tradition holding that its first burials were area Indians or enslaved people from the nearby Salem community. Its oldest documented graves belong to John and Christina Barnett, and among those resting here are six Civil War veterans alongside men who served in World War I, World War II, and Korea. Descendants have tended the grounds since the turn of the century, chartering a cemetery association in 1973.
Woods Cemetery
Burkeville, TX
The Woods brothers and their aging parents left Mississippi in the fall of 1840 for the young Republic of Texas, taking land grants and organizing a Baptist church in a settler's home by 1844. The family set aside a tract for a cemetery that has since grown to hold more than 368 people. Its stones tell a hard story—nearly fifty child graves from before 1930—and honor 42 veterans whose service stretched from the Indian wars and the Civil War through two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam.