HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Shiloh Cemetery

Waller County, Waller County, Texas

Marker Inscription

In 1881 Thomas Armer deeded land in the Shiloh Community for a Baptist church. He sold an adjacent acre to the church for this cemetery in 1883, and in later years Armer sold more land to the church and to Pond Creek School. The community continued to grow, and by 1908 a larger sanctuary was erected and the cemetery was enlarged to include the Armer family burial ground. The earliest marked grave in the family plot is that of Daniel Armer (d. 1882). A tornado damaged the cemetery and destroyed the sanctuary in 1957, but the structure was rebuilt.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

In 1881 Thomas Armer deeded land in the Shiloh community for a Baptist church and, two years later, an adjoining acre for this cemetery. As the community grew, more land was added for a larger sanctuary, a school, and the Armer family burial ground, whose earliest marked grave dates to 1882. A 1957 tornado destroyed the sanctuary and damaged the cemetery, but the congregation rebuilt.

Why it matters

Church and cemetery grounds like Shiloh chart the quiet endurance of rural Texas farm communities across more than a century of growth, loss, and renewal.

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Related people

  • Β· Thomas Armer
  • Β· Daniel Armer

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Shiloh Baptist Church

Waller County, TX

In September 1871, thirteen worshippers carrying letters of transfer from other congregations gathered at the nearby Kirby Chapel Methodist Church and organized themselves as Shiloh Baptist Church, aided by the Rev. Jesse Tubb and Deacon John M. McGinty. A decade later the young congregation raised its own building beside the Pond Creek School, and by the early 1900s counted about a hundred members. Successive sanctuaries followed β€” a 1908 building lost to a 1957 storm, then a third raised in 1958 β€” marking a rural Texas community's enduring faith through Reconstruction and beyond.

Groce Family Plantations

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Jared E. Groce arrived in Texas in 1822 among the earliest Anglo settlers, his wagon train hauling elaborate plantation equipment into a raw frontier. He and his heirs built a string of cotton plantations with grand names β€” Bernardo, Groce's Retreat, Liendo β€” along with an early gin and ferry. On the eve of the Battle of San Jacinto the family fed and ferried Sam Houston's army, a direct contribution to Texas independence.

Plantation Home of Edwin Waller 1800--1883

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Edwin Waller lived on this Hempstead-area property, acquired during the Republic, from 1846 for many years. His public life bracketed the era's great turning points: a member of the 1835 Consultation and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he went on to serve as the first mayor of Austin. In 1861 he sat as a member of the Secession Convention, tying his long career to Texas's entry into the Civil War.