St. Martin Cemetery
West, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A wagon train of German Catholic settlers from Teutopolis, Illinois arrived in this area on November 11, 1874, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. That year, they built and dedicated a log cabin church to St. Martin. The John Deiterman family donated five acres for the church and two for a cemetery. Other German, Czech and Moravian families soon joined the farming community. In 1887, county surveyors discovered an error in the cemetery's location. It was actually sited on Anton Halbrook's property. He sold 10 acres across the road, and the graves were moved to the new site. Although several unmarked graves exist, the cemetery's first marked grave is that of Clement Uptmore (1831-1876). Represented at the cemetery are generations of the Deiterman, Jupe, Pfeiler, Seith and Willenborg families. Among the numerous decorative gravestones are metal crosses and granite and marble markers. A large crucifix marks the graves of two parish priests. An association maintains the burial ground, a significant reminder of the German and Czech history of Tours. Members hold a memorial service each November celebrating All Souls' Day. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On November 11, 1874 — the feast day of St. Martin of Tours — a wagon train of German Catholic settlers from Teutopolis, Illinois, reached this area and dedicated a log church, with the Deiterman family donating land for both church and cemetery. German, Czech, and Moravian farming families soon followed, and after an 1887 survey revealed the burial ground sat on the wrong property, the graves were moved across the road. Marked by ornate metal crosses and stone monuments, the cemetery still hosts an annual All Souls' Day service.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a lasting record of the German and Czech immigrant farmers who settled Central Texas and carried their Catholic traditions with them.
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Related people
- · John Deiterman
- · Clement Uptmore
- · Anton Halbrook
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tours Community
Tours, TX
In 1872 a group of settlers rolled in by wagon from Teutopolis, Illinois, arriving on St. Martin's Day and first calling their new home Martinsville. They soon renamed it Tours for the French city where St. Martin had been bishop, and built a log Catholic church dedicated in 1874. A school, shops, saloons, and even a brass band followed, but the community faded as Depression-era farm income fell and young people left for the cities.
Groppe Barn
West, TX
The town of West grew from a wave of German and Czech immigrants who turned the McLennan County blackland into productive farms. Among them was August Groppe, Sr., who bought this land in 1874, helped found West's German community, and in 1886 hired local builder Joseph Huber to raise this barn. With its brace-frame timber construction, cross-gabled hay door, and angled cross-shaped opening, it is a fine surviving example of a late-19th-century immigrant farmstead.
Former Site of Saint Peter's Church
McLennan County, TX
In the 1880s, eight German immigrant families settled near West, Texas, on land owned by Jacob Closner, who deeded ten acres for a church and burying ground. Organized as St. Peter's Evangelical in 1887 under the Rev. Christian Schaer, the congregation worshiped here for generations before merging into the First United Church in 1966. The building was later sold, but the pioneer cemetery remains.
Saint Paul's Church of Gerald
Gerald, TX
German farmers began settling this McLennan County region in the late 1880s, worshiping in the local schoolhouse until 1900, when sixteen men organized St. Paul's Evangelical Congregation. Chris Schuetz donated two acres in 1903 for a church, replaced by the present building in 1937. Though the town of Gerald declined after the railroad bypassed it in 1901, the church has endured as a spiritual center for the surrounding countryside and a marker of the vanished townsite.