Stockdale Cemetery
Stockdale, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Before the Stockdale Cemetery was begun in the 1870s, most burials in the area took place in private, family graveyards. About 1873, however, a young man who was not related to any of the local settlers was thrown from his horse and killed. To provide a place for his burial, Dr. T. M. Batte gave one acre of land at this site, and the burial ground has been used by Stockdale citizens since that time. Additional acreage was purchased in 1881 and 1904, and in 1938 area resident Paul Ballard donated an acre of land for use by anyone who did not have a family plot and needed a place for burial. The earliest marked grave in the Stockdale Cemetery, that of Sallie A. Pope, is dated 1873. Many early settlers are buried here, including the town's founder, John R. King, and the first schoolteacher, Martin West. The cemetery also contains the graves of numerous war veterans and victims of a post-World War I flu epidemic. The women of Stockdale formed an organization in the early 1900s to care for the gravesites, and in 1965 the Stockdale Cemetery Association was formally organized. In use for more than 100 years, the Stockdale Cemetery continues to serve the residents of the Stockdale area.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Before the 1870s, Stockdale-area families buried their dead in small private plots, until an unrelated young man thrown from his horse needed a resting place and Dr. T. M. Batte donated an acre for a community burial ground. The cemetery grew through further gifts of land, including a 1938 acre set aside for anyone lacking a family plot. Among those interred are town founder John R. King, first schoolteacher Martin West, war veterans, and victims of the post–World War I flu epidemic.
Why it matters
A community cemetery like this preserves the whole social fabric of a young Texas town, from its founders and teachers to the ordinary residents who shaped everyday frontier life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Dr. T. M. Batte
- · John R. King
- · Martin West
- · Sallie A. Pope
- · Paul Ballard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Reagen Baker
Stockdale, TX
John Reagen Baker was a soldier of fortune in the turbulent borderlands of the 1840s — fighting for the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande, serving as sheriff of Refugio County, raising minutemen, and repelling Mexican raids into Texas in 1842. He joined the disastrous Somervell and Mier expeditions, was wounded, and afterward settled into the quieter life of a merchant. His career reflects the violent, unsettled decade before Texas found its footing.
King-Lorenz House
Stockdale, TX
This home was built in 1898 for Robert and Rachel Emma Smith, Rachel being the daughter of John R. King, an early Texas military and political leader whose descendants have held the house almost continuously since. Among later residents was Wade Lorenz, a former Texas Ranger turned Stockdale businessman and rancher. A variation on the traditional I-house plan, it is dressed with decorative woodwork on its porches.
First Baptist Church of Stockdale
Stockdale, TX
Baptists in the small Wilson County town of Stockdale gathered their first congregation in 1874, worshiping in a humble picket building and borrowing a mill house and schoolhouse before raising a sanctuary of their own. Storms, rebuildings, and steady growth marked the decades that followed, and from 1916 the congregation reached beyond itself to sponsor a Mexican mission, ordaining a line of ministers of both Anglo and Mexican heritage. The story is a compact record of how faith communities anchored frontier Texas towns.
Christ United Methodist Church
Stockdale, TX
On the Texas frontier of the early 1870s, faith often arrived on horseback. This congregation organized in 1871 with just two charter members, worshipping in a picket schoolhouse where circuit-riding Methodist preachers held services as they traveled their far-flung routes. In 1876 J. R. King, an early settler and state legislator, donated the land, and the community has rebuilt on the same spot ever since, raising a fourth sanctuary here in 1937.