Sarah Bradley Dodson

Bedias, TX

Sarah Bradley came to Texas as a child with Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred and, newly married in 1835, sewed a flag of blue, white, and red calico with a single white star for her husband's Harrisburg company as revolution loomed. Reportedly the first Lone Star flag, it was shown at Gonzales, flew during the Siege of Bexar, and is believed to have waved over the convention where Texas declared independence. She settled in Grimes County and donated land for Bethel Cemetery, where she was buried in 1848.

Bedias, TX

During the Republic of Texas years, settlers gathered here to form the Bethel community, and the burial of a smallpox victim in 1843 began what became Bethel Cemetery. Among those resting here is Sarah Bradley Dodson, remembered as the 'Betsy Ross of Texas,' whose 1835 Lone Star flag flew over Washington-on-the-Brazos at the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Her husband Archelaus later deeded the ground to a Presbyterian congregation, and in 1904 an adjacent section opened for the area's African American residents.

Iola, TX

Katy Holland came to Texas in 1822 as a seven-year-old, part of Stephen F. Austin's celebrated "Old 300" colony of Anglo settlers. Her life laid bare the brutality of the frontier: twice widowed before she married William Cobb in the 1840s, she raised five children through hardship and loss. Her first husband was himself an Austin colonist, and her cousin Tapley Holland died at the Alamo.

Madisonville, TX

The story of Park Cemetery begins in 1852, when John and Elizabeth Park buried her brother Thomas Jefferson Kellett—a veteran of the Republic of Texas army—on their land. As more family members were laid to rest, the plot grew into a community cemetery, formally set aside in 1870 for burials and a school. More than 600 graves now include veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars.