Stevens Cemetery
Hochheim, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Joseph (1810-1861) and Sarah Ann Steen (1820-1860) Stevens, with Stevens, Steen, and Stephens relatives and a number of slaves, arrived in this area from Rankin County, Mississippi in 1846. They bought land from members of Green DeWitt's Colony and began to farm and raise cattle near this site. The 1851 grave of their infant son, Joseph Enoch Stevens, has the oldest marker in this family burial ground; the infant's grandfather, Elisha Stevens (1776-1851), was laid to rest nearby a few months later. Honored here are pioneer family members, veterans and descendants, the heritage of this area of DeWitt County. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1846 Joseph and Sarah Ann Stevens arrived from Rankin County, Mississippi, with relatives and a number of enslaved people, buying land from members of Green DeWitt's Colony to farm and raise cattle. The family burial ground holds its oldest marker over the 1851 grave of their infant son, and the child's grandfather Elisha Stevens was laid to rest nearby months later. Pioneer family members, veterans, and descendants are honored here.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the story of an early settler family in DeWitt County — including the enslaved labor bound up in that settlement — during the founding years of the Texas frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Joseph Stevens
- · Sarah Ann Steen Stevens
- · Elisha Stevens
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Upper Yorktown Cemetery
Yorktown, TX
Ann Friar formally established this cemetery in 1872, burying her rancher husband, local Masons, and others on the family's ground. Its rolls read like a cross-section of frontier Texas — Anglo, German, and Hispanic settlers, victims of an 1876 feud, a Union sailor, and war veterans — and in 1949 an added acre made room for the community's African American residents.
George Washington Davis
Cuero, TX
Pennsylvania-born George Washington Davis brought his family to Texas in 1831 and claimed a league of land in the Green DeWitt Colony near present-day Cuero. He threw himself into the independence movement, serving as a delegate to the 1833 Convention and to the 1835 Consultation at San Felipe that helped set Texas on the road to revolution. After independence he held a series of local offices in the young republic.
Buchel Community and School
Cuero, TX
Settlers reached this corner of DeWitt County as early as 1839, opening a school and post office within a few years of arrival. In 1894 the Cuero merchant and banker Otto Buchel donated land here for a community school first known as Oak View. When a new building rose in 1921 it took his name, and though the Buchel School closed its doors in 1950, the schoolhouse lived on as a community center. For generations the little school was where a farming neighborhood educated its children and gathered as a community.
Mount Zion Baptist Church
Cuero, TX
Organized in 1869 with fifteen charter members just after the Civil War, this Baptist congregation began in the open-air fashion of the era, worshiping first in a brush arbor and then a log structure near Concrete. A storm and a series of moves finally brought a wooden church to this site in 1890, where the first service was held that Halloween. Remarkably, only four pastors guided the flock across its first century, a testament to the deep continuity of leadership in a close-knit congregation.