Stockton Family Cemetery
Bartlett, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Stockton Family Cemetery is located on land originally granted in 1859 by Texas governor Hardin R. Runnels to Moses Allen, a veteran of the Siege of Bexar. Douglas Hayden Stockton and his wife Mary Elizabeth (White) brought their family to Bell County in 1870. With partner J.O. Darby, the Stocktons purchased over 1,200 acres of the Moses Allen land grant that year. The Stocktons soon built a residence near this site. This cemetery was established in April 1890 upon the death of the Stocktons' fifteen-year-old son, Simion Carothers Stockton. Years later, on December 15, 1908, Douglas and Mary Elizabeth Stokton legally designated this property as a family cemetery. The cemetery, which contains over eighty graves and is still in use by the Stocktons' descendants, documents over one hundred years of family history. Those interred here include Douglas and Mary Elizabeth Stockton and twelve of their fourteen children; Ead White, a former slave who remained with the family after the Civil War; numerous children and infants; and three family members who drowned in a hurricane in Corpus Christi in 1919. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded on land first granted to a veteran of the Siege of Bexar, this cemetery began in 1890 with the burial of the Stocktons' fifteen-year-old son and grew alongside a family that settled Bell County in 1870. Among the more than eighty graves is Ead White, a formerly enslaved man who stayed with the family after the Civil War, and members lost to the deadly 1919 Corpus Christi hurricane.
Why it matters
A working family cemetery still tended by descendants, it quietly documents more than a century of Texas settlement, emancipation's aftermath, and the disasters that shaped Gulf Coast life.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Douglas and Mary Elizabeth Stockton brought their family to Bell County in 1870, Texas was still finding its footing after the Civil War. Reconstruction was reshaping the state's politics. Formerly enslaved Texans were working out what freedom would mean in daily life, and the rolling blackland prairie of Central Texas was pulling in settler families who believed its deep, dark soil could make them a living.
The land under this cemetery already had a story before the Stocktons arrived. It came out of a grant made in 1859 by Governor Hardin R. Runnels to Moses Allen, a veteran of the Siege of Bexar. That 1835 fight for San Antonio was one of the opening campaigns of the Texas Revolution. Grants like this were one way Texas repaid the men who had fought for its independence, and they often ended up split and sold to later arrivals.
That is what happened here. In 1870 the Stocktons and a partner, J.O. Darby, bought more than 1,200 acres of the old Allen grant. Farm families across Texas were doing much the same thing in those years, turning soldiers' grants into working farms. Their homes, fields, and family burial grounds became the anchors of new rural communities.
Family cemeteries were common on the Texas frontier. Town cemeteries were often far away, roads were poor, and burying your dead on your own land kept them close. What stands out about this one is that it never went dormant. Descendants still use it, so it carries its history from the nineteenth century right into the present.
People & events
This place begins with a grief. In April 1890 the Stocktons' fifteen-year-old son, Simion Carothers Stockton, died, and the family laid him to rest near their home. Every grave that followed was placed around that first loss. The cemetery grew out of one family's mourning for a boy who never reached adulthood.
Douglas Hayden Stockton and Mary Elizabeth, born a White, raised fourteen children on this land. Years after their son's death, in December 1908, they made the arrangement permanent by legally designating the ground as a family cemetery. That step kept it from being lost if the land ever changed hands. In time both parents were buried here, along with twelve of their fourteen children.
One of the most striking names here is Ead White, a formerly enslaved man who stayed with the family after the Civil War. The marker doesn't tell us why he stayed or what his life was like, and it's better to be honest about that than to fill the gap with guesses. His burial among the family is worth noting all the same. In the decades after emancipation, the relationships between freedpeople and the families who had once claimed them were complicated, and they varied widely. His grave is a quiet, real trace of that history.
The cemetery also holds a tragedy from far away. Three family members drowned in the 1919 hurricane that struck Corpus Christi, one of the deadliest storms in Texas history, which killed hundreds along the coast. They were brought home to rest with their kin. Beside them lie many children and infants, a sobering reminder of how often families of that era lost their youngest.
Its place in the American story
America's history is often told through battles and presidents. Much of it was actually lived in places like this: a family plot on a farm where generations were born, worked, and were buried. This cemetery covers more than a century of one family's life, and it touches several national stories along the way.
It connects the Texas Revolution to the settlement that followed. The ground passed from a veteran's reward to a farm family's holding, which is how much of Texas moved from frontier to farmland. It also holds the grave of a formerly enslaved man who stayed on after the Civil War. Emancipation's aftermath wasn't only a matter of laws and amendments. It was also worked out in individual lives on farms like this one.
The drowning of three family members in the 1919 Corpus Christi hurricane links this inland plot to the story of the Gulf Coast, where storms have repeatedly reshaped communities and taken lives. Before modern forecasting, a hurricane could reach a coastal city with little warning.
Finally, the graves of so many children and infants reflect a national reality of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Childhood illness and infant death touched nearly every family, rich or poor. Places like this keep that history visible in a way statistics can't.
If you visit
This is a family cemetery that the Stockton descendants still use and care for. Treat it as the private, living burial ground it is. Respect any fences, gates, or signs, don't cross private farmland without permission, and remember that people buried here are still mourned by their families.
If you can view the grounds respectfully, look for the range of the stones, which covers more than a century. Older markers from the 1890s and early 1900s tend to be weathered and simple. Later ones show how gravestone styles changed over the decades. The many small graves of children and infants are often the most moving part of any old family cemetery.
The setting is part of the story. Stand here and picture the open Bell County prairie as the family found it in 1870, when this was working farmland and the house stood nearby. The quiet countryside around Bartlett still gives you some of that feeling of rural Central Texas.
This stop fits easily into a slow drive through the farm towns of Central Texas, between the larger cities along the I-35 corridor. It suits travelers who like the small, personal side of history: the families who settled the land, as well as the famous names.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Douglas Hayden Stockton
- · Mary Elizabeth Stockton
- · Moses Allen
- · Ead White
Themes & tags
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