State Cemetery of Texas
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Burial Ground for the Honored Dead of Texas, this Cemetery contains the remains of Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas"; nine governors of Texas (as of 1968); and representatives of every period of State history and every department of State government. Statuary at the graves includes a marble figure of Albert Sidney Johnston by Elisabet Ney and bronzes of Austin and Joanna Troutman by Pompeo Coppini. The Cemetery was founded in 1851 when Gen. Edward Burleson, hero of the Texas Revolution, was interred on this tract. In 1854, the State purchased the land, which had once belonged to Andrew Jackson Hamilton, provisional governor of Texas from 1865 to 1866. The Cemetery was seldom used, however, until the 1860's, when some officers of the Confederate Army of Texas were buried here. Today small, white marble headstones mark the graves of about 1,583 soldiers and 515 graves of members of their families. Through the untiring efforts of Louis W. Kemp, a State Official (1881-1956), the remains of over 100 prominent persons were reinterred here after 1930. Since 1951 those eligible for burial here include designated State Officials, Confederate Veterans, and certain others. In 1968 there were 2,389 graves. (1968) Historic Texas Cemetery medallion attached to post.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1851 when Texas Revolution hero Gen. Edward Burleson was buried here, this ground became the resting place for the honored dead of Texas, including Stephen F. Austin, nine governors, and figures from every era of state history. Confederate officers were interred here beginning in the 1860s, and small white headstones now mark some 1,583 soldiers and their families. Through the efforts of state official Louis W. Kemp, the remains of more than a hundred prominent Texans were reinterred here after 1930, among statuary by sculptors Elisabet Ney and Pompeo Coppini.
Why it matters
The cemetery is Texas's Arlington, gathering the founders, governors, and Confederate soldiers whose stories together tell the state's passage from revolution through civil war.
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Related people
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · Edward Burleson
- · Albert Sidney Johnston
- · Louis W. Kemp
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frances & Benjamin McCulloch
Austin, TX
This state marker rests over the graves of Frances Lenoir McCulloch and her son Benjamin, mother and son of a family that gave two brigadier generals to the Confederacy. Benjamin McCulloch first fought as a private at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, helping win Texas independence, then became a noted Texas Ranger before rising to Confederate brigadier general. He was killed at the Battle of Elk Horn (Pea Ridge), Arkansas, in March 1862.
William E. Collard
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Born in Montgomery County, Texas, in 1839, William E. Collard served the Confederacy in the 10th and 15th Texas Infantry during the Civil War. After the war he built a legal career in Robertson County, winning election as district judge in 1880 and later serving on the Court of Civil Appeals from 1887 until his death in Austin in 1902.
Gen. Alexander Watkins Terrell
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Born in Virginia in 1827, Alexander Watkins Terrell came to Texas in 1852 and served as a district judge before the Civil War, then rose to brigadier general in the Confederate army by 1865. In the decades after the war he became one of the state's most influential public men—serving thirty years in the Texas Legislature and, in the 1890s, as U.S. Minister to Turkey. He died at Mineral Wells in 1912.
William P. Hardeman
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Known affectionately as "Old Gotch," William P. Hardeman was a frontiersman and Indian fighter who fought in the Texas Revolution, the Cordova Rebellion, and the Mexican War before joining the Confederate army in 1861. Serving in the New Mexico campaign, he helped lead the celebrated cavalry charge at the Battle of Valverde, which earned him a colonelcy, and later commanded a brigade in the Red River campaign. Promoted brigadier general in 1865, he afterward became the first president of the state Confederate Home.