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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1847 Texas had been part of the United States for little more than a year. The new state was granting land to settlers, veterans and others, and the Hill Country between Austin and San Antonio was still frontier. It was beautiful country of limestone hills, clear spring-fed creeks and cypress-lined rivers, but it was remote and thinly settled. Hays County itself was created shortly afterward, as the area's population grew.
Families who came to the hills built with what they had, which usually meant logs. Most early communities couldn't afford separate buildings for church and school, so one cabin often served both. On weekdays children learned their letters there, and on the days a preacher came through, the same room became a sanctuary.
That was the world circuit-riding preachers served. Traveling on horseback between scattered settlements, they brought regular worship to communities too small to support a minister. In the decades that followed, the settlement here grew into the community that today carries the Wimberley name.
People & events
The written history of this ground begins with a land patent. In 1847 the land was first patented to Amasa Turner, the formal grant that moved it from public domain into private hands. Settlers later built a log cabin here, and it became the community's church and school. Circuit riders came through to lead worship, as they did across frontier Texas.
In 1876 the place took on a sadder role. Melissa Wimberley, the young daughter of Pleasant Wimberley, died and was buried on the church grounds. Her grave is a reminder of how common child loss was in frontier families and how a church lot often became a burial ground through that kind of grief.
In 1885 John H. and Callie Saunders bought the property and gave one acre for a community cemetery, making official what the land had already begun to be. The family of John R. Dobie later donated more land. Among those buried here is W. W. Moon (1814-1897), whom the marker remembers as the first permanent settler in Hays County. Because of him, this small cemetery holds a link to the very beginnings of the county's settled life.
Its place in the American story
Across the United States, community cemeteries like this one are some of the most honest records of how the country was settled. Before courthouses filled with paperwork, the names on gravestones recorded who came, who stayed and who didn't make it. This cemetery holds both a county's first permanent settler and a child of the family whose name the town now bears. In one small plot it captures the beginning and the endurance of a frontier community.
The log cabin that served as both church and school is also part of a national story. From Appalachia to the Texas Hill Country, multipurpose buildings like this were the first public institutions many American communities had. They were where frontier settlements first gathered as communities instead of separate households.
The pattern of generosity on this marker matters too. One family gave an acre and another gave more land later, and many rural American cemeteries began the same way. Neighbors gave land so that everyone in the community would have a place to rest. That kind of local, voluntary care for the dead was one of the threads that held frontier communities together.
If you visit
Walk the cemetery slowly and read the stones. In old community cemeteries like this, the oldest markers can tell you about frontier families, lost children and long lives lived on the land. Look for the graves the marker mentions, but let the other names speak too, because many of them are the community's founding generation.
This is still a resting place for local families, so visit with the quiet and respect you'd want for your own. Stay on paths, don't touch or lean on fragile old stones and leave any decorations as you find them.
Wimberley is a popular Hill Country destination, known for its creeks, swimming holes and leafy riverside setting between Austin and San Antonio. Add this cemetery to a day exploring the town and its countryside. It adds a deeper layer to a scenic visit, because the families buried here made a home in these hills long before visitors started coming for the view.
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
- · 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
Wimberley, TX
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
Wimberley, TX
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.