Thomas Cemetery
San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1822, North Carolina native Benjamin Thomas, then in Alabama, read an advertisement calling for families to settle Stephen F. Austin’s colony in Texas. Between himself as head of family, his wife Mary Ann “Polly” (Dickinson), eleven children and seven slaves, he qualified for more than 3,000 acres. The family reached Natchitoches, Louisiana in Feb. 1822 and stayed there until July waiting for Austin to escort them to their new home. However, Austin never came, so the family continued their journey along El Camino Real and founded the Thomas Settlement in San Augustine County. Other early settlers included the Davis, Teel, Horn, Price, King, Brooks, Fitzgerald, Polk, Bate and Mathews families. A mercantile store, blacksmith, gristmill and sawmill supported the community. The Thomas children served in many capacities in early county and Texas history, including the military, ministry, law enforcement, and commerce. The Thomas Cemetery comprises two acres in the James W. Moss survey, near where the Thomas plantation home stood. Benjamin Thomas died in 1834 and Mary died in 1840. Their graves and many others are believed to be marked by native fieldstones. The oldest dated grave is for Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (1795-1840). The Thomas Cemetery is the final resting place of many citizens instrumental in the development of the Republic and State of Texas, including veterans of the War of 1812 through Vietnam, and fifteen born in the area before the Republic of Texas era. In 1946, trustees established a caretaking trust from which the cemetery is managed today. The cemetery is the only remaining physical evidence of the once-thriving Thomas Settlement. Many descendants live nearby, with some families represented by seven generations of burials in one of the oldest community burial grounds in San Augustine County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1822 Benjamin Thomas answered an advertisement calling families to Stephen F. Austin's new colony, and after waiting months at Natchitoches for an escort that never came, his large household pushed on along El Camino Real to found the Thomas Settlement in San Augustine County. A store, blacksmith, gristmill and sawmill grew up around them, and their children served the emerging Republic and State of Texas in arms, ministry, law and commerce. Today the two-acre cemetery, its oldest graves marked by native fieldstones, is the only physical trace of that once-thriving community.
Why it matters
It captures the first wave of Anglo-American settlement of Texas under Austin's colony—the seedbed of the Republic—preserved in one of San Augustine County's oldest community burial grounds.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1822, Texas was a frontier province of a brand-new Mexico, freshly independent from Spain and eager to populate its northern lands. To do it, the authorities turned to empresarios—agents licensed to recruit settlers—and the most famous of these was Stephen F. Austin, whose advertisements for families to join his colony reached hungry ears far to the east.
One of those ears belonged to Benjamin Thomas, a North Carolina native then living in Alabama, who read the call and decided to move his whole world to Texas. San Augustine County, where his family would settle, lay in the deep East Texas woods near the Louisiana line—the first Texas country a traveler crossed coming overland from the United States.
The route that carried them was itself ancient: El Camino Real, the royal road that threaded across Texas and had guided soldiers, priests, and traders for generations. To follow it in 1822 was to join one of the oldest streams of movement on the continent.
People & events
Benjamin Thomas came as the head of a large household—his wife, Mary Ann "Polly" Dickinson, eleven children, and seven enslaved people—a family so sizable it qualified under the colony's terms for more than 3,000 acres. The marker records the enslaved among them plainly, a reminder that this chapter of settlement carried the injustice of slavery into Texas along with the plow and the axe.
The family reached Natchitoches, Louisiana, in February 1822 and waited there until July for Austin himself to escort them the rest of the way. Austin never came. Rather than turn back, the Thomases pressed on along El Camino Real on their own and founded the Thomas Settlement. Other families—Davis, Teel, Horn, Price, King, Brooks, Fitzgerald, Polk, Bate, and Mathews among them—gathered around, and soon a mercantile store, a blacksmith, a gristmill, and a sawmill gave the community the sinews of real town life.
Benjamin died in 1834 and Polly in 1840, their graves believed to be among the many marked by native fieldstones. The oldest dated stone belongs to Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (1795–1840). Their children went on to serve in the military, the ministry, law enforcement, and commerce as Texas moved from colony to Republic to state.
Its place in the American story
The Thomas family belonged to the first great wave of Anglo-American settlement in Texas, the movement Stephen F. Austin set in motion and that became the seedbed of the Republic of Texas. Understanding that story means remembering that these settlers came into what was then Mexican territory, becoming colonists under a foreign flag more than a decade before Texas independence—a fact that shaped everything that followed.
The waiting at Natchitoches and the decision to push on alone capture the improvisation of frontier migration writ large across the American experience: plans made from a distance rarely survived contact with the road, and it was ordinary families' stubbornness that carried settlement forward.
That the cemetery holds veterans from the War of 1812 through Vietnam turns two acres of ground into a timeline of the nation's service. Fifteen of those buried here were born in the area before the Republic of Texas even existed. Few places let you trace so directly the line from the earliest colonists to the modern American story.
If you visit
Come with an eye for the humble and the handmade. Many of the graves are marked not by carved monuments but by native fieldstones—plain rocks set to honor the dead by a community that had little else to spare. Reading a cemetery like this is a quiet, patient act, and it rewards slowing down.
Remember as you walk that this ground is the only physical evidence left of the once-thriving Thomas Settlement. The store, the blacksmith, the mills, and the plantation home are gone; the burial ground endures. That makes these two acres, in the James W. Moss survey, the last true address of a vanished town.
It is a fitting stop for anyone drawn to the roots of Texas history, tucked into the old, wooded country of San Augustine County. Knowing that descendants still live nearby—some families represented here by seven generations of burials—gives the place a rare living warmth. You are not visiting an abandoned relic so much as a family's long, unbroken memory.
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
- · Benjamin Thomas
- · Mary Ann "Polly" Thomas
- · Stephen F. Austin
Themes & tags
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