Stroud Creek Cemetery
Tolar, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Stroud Creek community developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s due to post-Civil War migration, land grants, a nearby stagecoach line, and cessation of area raids by Native Americans. Stroud Creek settlers began to use this property, located on the Elizabeth Windsor survey and owned by Benjamin Irby, for burials in 1883, and it was later used by residents of Tolar. The interred include community and religious leaders, merchants, educators, farmers, and military veterans. The cemetery features curbing, fraternal markers, and vertical stones. Today, Stroud Creek Cemetery continues to be used and remains a testament to the pioneering men and women of western Hood County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Stroud Creek community grew up in western Hood County during the late 1870s and early 1880s, drawn by land grants, a nearby stagecoach line, and the end of Native American raids that had long deterred settlement. Burials began on Benjamin Irby's land in 1883 and the ground later served the town of Tolar, gathering community leaders, merchants, educators, farmers, and veterans beneath curbed plots, fraternal emblems, and upright stones.
Why it matters
The cemetery marks the post-Civil War frontier settlement of North Central Texas, made possible once the region's long conflict with Native peoples had ceased.
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Related people
- · Benjamin Irby
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Antioch Community
Tolar, TX
Now a quiet rural locale, Antioch began as a ranching and farming community in western Hood County in the 1870s, near where the county's last Indian fight—the Battle of Lookout Point—occurred in 1869. Settlers established a church, school, and cemetery, and the graves here include Confederate veterans George Washington Brown and Austin Musick. As church and school closed through the mid-20th century, the cemetery remained as the community's historic heart.
Martin Cemetery
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Martin Cemetery may date to 1859, when Nathan Holt was buried here after being killed in an Indian raid on the Texas frontier. It bears the name of William Harvey Martin, who came from Illinois in 1855 and acquired the land in 1876, and its stones—granite, concrete, and hand-carved—mark burials reaching back to about 1860. The graveyard stands as a quiet record of the hazards and endurance of early Hood County settlers.
John W. Bull Stone House
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Tennessee-born John W. Bull came to Texas in 1853, preempted land here in 1861 within sight of Comanche Peak, and in 1865 took part in the Dove Creek fight against Kickapoo people migrating through the region. After his land grant was approved, he hired mason Pat Gannon to build this stone house from a nearby quarry, chiseling the date "March 17, 1872" into the chimney. It stands as one of the area's earliest masonry homes on what was then the Texas frontier.
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In 1843 the Torrey brothers and their friend George Barnard—with Sam Houston as a silent partner—won a contract to build trading posts along the Brazos frontier. Barnard's fair dealing earned Native trust, and after ransoming a young captive, Juana Cavasos, from the Comanches, the family settled her with his brother Charles at a post near Comanche Peak. When the government removed the region's Native peoples to Oklahoma in 1859, the trade faded, and Charles built a gristmill whose town became Glen Rose.