The Century-Old Wimberley Cemetery
Wimberley, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This land was first patented to Amasa Turner in 1847. Settlers erected a log cabin here which served as a church and school facility. Worship services were conducted by circuit riders. In 1876 Melissa Wimberley, young daughter of Pleasant Wimberley, died and was buried on the church grounds. John H. and Callie Saunders bought the property in 1885 and gave one acre for a community cemetery. Later, additional land was given by the family of John R. Dobie. W. W. Moon (1814-1897), first permanent settler in Hays County, is buried here. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
First patented to Amasa Turner in 1847, this Hays County ground held an early log cabin that doubled as church and school, served by circuit-riding preachers. When Pleasant Wimberley's young daughter Melissa died in 1876 she was buried on the church grounds, and after John H. and Callie Saunders bought the land in 1885 they gave an acre for a community cemetery. Among those resting here is W.W. Moon, remembered as the first permanent settler in Hays County.
Why it matters
The cemetery gathers the founding generation of a Hill Country community, its graves marking the arrival and endurance of Texas's earliest settlers.
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Related people
- · W.W. Moon
- · Melissa Wimberley
- · Amasa Turner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John R. Dobie House
Wimberley, TX
Built about 1892 for Charles and Susannah Cock, this Hill Country house was bought in 1899 by John R. Dobie, a Scottish-born farmer, rancher, and Hays County commissioner. With its central-hall plan, board-and-batten walls, and classical touches, it is a fine example of Texas vernacular building, and it stayed in the Dobie family until 1977.
Jacobs Well Cemetery
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Serving area residents since 1883, Jacobs Well Cemetery grew from a Hill Country settlement named for a natural spring in Cypress Creek, where many pioneers had migrated from South Carolina. Landowner James Spillar donated the burial ground after the death of early settler Moses Bond Egger, and the graves that followed hold Texas Rangers, a county sheriff, ranchers, teachers, and whole families lost to epidemics. Descendants formed an association in 1980 that still tends the vertical stones, wooden markers, and unmarked graves.
Indian Mott Skirmish
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In the spring of 1840, peace talks between Texas and the Comanche collapsed in the bloody Council House Fight at San Antonio, and raiding surged along the frontier. That August, after a sweeping raid on the coastal town of Linnville, a large Comanche band was intercepted near Plum Creek by Texas Rangers and volunteers in a sprawling running fight. Local tradition holds that a handful of warriors were chased to this horseshoe bend of Lone Man Creek, where they hid in the tall grass and an oak mott until nightfall let them slip away, burying their dead beneath flat stones by moonlight.
Peal-Pleasant Valley Cemetery
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This 1.7-acre cemetery, with its 23 known graves, is nearly all that remains of an early Hays County community. Settlement began with North Carolina native John Bennett Peal, who with his wife Mary bought 1,920 acres in 1872 and helped found Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in 1875; the church also housed the Valley Ford School. Children from the Burchett, Edwards, George, and other pioneer families made the schoolhouse the center of Blanco Valley life, and several of those family names rest in the cemetery today.