Thompson Cemetery
Bald Prairie, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A native of North Carolina, Benjamin Rush Thompson (1811-1880) migrated to Milam County in the Republic of Texas in 1841. Thompson was a Mason and according to the census of 1850, a Methodist clergyman. He moved his family to Robertson County after 1855. Thompson set aside this portion of his land as a family burial ground in 1873, after the death of his son William M. (b. 1852). Only five of the thirteen graves are marked with inscribed stones. Thompson and his wife Margaret (1819-1880) are both buried here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Benjamin Rush Thompson left North Carolina for Milam County in 1841, when Texas was still an independent republic, and by the 1850s the census listed him as a Methodist clergyman and Mason. After moving his family to Robertson County, he set aside this ground as a family burial plot in 1873, following the death of his young son William. Of the thirteen graves here, only five bear inscribed stones; Thompson and his wife Margaret both lie among them.
Why it matters
Family burial grounds like this one mark the deep roots of settlers who came to Texas in its republic era and stayed to build the state that followed.
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Related people
- Β· Benjamin Rush Thompson
- Β· Margaret Thompson
- Β· William M. Thompson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bald Prairie Cemetery
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When Tennessee-born Elijah Rains settled the Robertson County prairie in 1848, he set aside this ground so that his neighbors would have a place to bury their dead. The nearby Duck Creek and Prairie communities soon shared it, and its stones now trace the whole arc of a Texas farming settlement β from an uncertain early grave to the oldest surviving marker of 1872 and the veterans of the Civil War and later wars laid to rest here. A cemetery association formed in 1928 and an added acre in 1957 kept the ground in use, and roughly 600 marked graves are still honored each Memorial Day.
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