Union Grove Cemetery
Gladewater, Upshur County, Texas
Marker Inscription
UNION GROVE CEMETERY HADEN HARRISON EDWARDS (1812-1864), A SOLDIER, MERCHANT AND LEGISLATOR, PURCHASED THIS LAND FROM THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO IN 1835. EDWARDS SERVED IN THE FIRST CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, IN THE FIRST AND EIGHTH TEXAS LEGISLATURES, WAS A MEMBER OF THE SECESSION CONVENTION IN 1861 AND WAS PRESIDENT OF THE SABINE PASS AND EAST TEXAS RAILWAY. BECAUSE OF HIS BUSY SCHEDULE, EDWARDS SOLD 270 ACRES TO JAMES RILEY PHILLIPS FOR HIS FAMILY HOMESTEAD IN 1857. PHILLIPS AND HIS WIFE, REBECCA J. (MACKEY), RAISED THEIR THREE CHILDREN ON THIS LAND. THE CREATION OF THE PHILLIPS CEMETERY BEGAN WITH THE BURIAL OF FLORENCE PHILLIPS (1849-1855). THE OLDEST MARKED BURIALS BELONG TO REBECCA’S PARENTS, JOEL LEWIS MACKEY (1801-1855) AND MARY FONVILLE MACKEY (1801-1858). BY THE MID-1880s, THE AREA BECAME KNOWN AS THE UNION GROVE COMMUNITY. WILLIAM MARSHALL PHILLIPS, JAMES AND REBECCA’S FIRSTBORN, INHERITED THE LAND AND CONTINUED TO FARM THE LAND. ANOTHER SETTLER, JOHN O’BYRNE, OPERATED A SAWMILL NEARBY. IN 1913, WILLIAM PHILLIPS’ WIFE DEEDED ACREAGE TO O’BYRNE, J. L. MACKEY, A.M. PHILLIPS AND THE COMMUNITY FOR A CEMETERY. EVENTUALLY, THE NAME OF THE CEMETERY WAS CHANGED TO UNION GROVE CEMETERY TO BETTER SERVE THE COMMUNITY. ADDITIONAL ACREAGE WAS PURCHASED IN 1986 AND 2001. THE LANDSCAPE OF THE CEMETERY IS TRADITIONAL WITH WHITE OAK, PINE AND POST OAK TREES AND A VARIETY OF HEADSTONES INCLUDING CONCRETE, FIELDSTONE, GRANITE, MARBLE AND WOOD GRAVE MARKERS. VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR, WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II, THE KOREAN WAR AND THE VIETNAM WAR ARE BURIED HERE. THE UNION GROVE CEMETERY ASSOCIATION MAINTAINS THIS HISTORIC PIONEER CEMETERY. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2010
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This East Texas burial ground began on land Haden Harrison Edwards bought from the Republic of Mexico in 1835 and later sold to James Riley Phillips, whose family homesteaded it from 1857. The graveyard opened with the burial of young Florence Phillips and grew alongside the Union Grove community, taking that name to serve neighbors beyond the founding family. Edwards himself was a soldier, legislator, and delegate to the 1861 Secession Convention, and veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam rest here.
Why it matters
The cemetery links the land dealings of a Republic of Texas legislator to the everyday farming families who turned his acreage into a lasting community, a common arc of early Texas settlement.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Union Grove Cemetery lies in the East Texas country of Upshur County, in a landscape of oak and pine that was still being sorted into farms in the early decades of Texas history. The land here passed through more than one sovereign hand in a short span, a reminder of how quickly the region changed masters in the nineteenth century.
The story begins in 1835, when Haden Harrison Edwards, who lived from 1812 to 1864, purchased this land from the Republic of Mexico. Within a few years the political map would be redrawn entirely, and Edwards himself would go on to serve in the new institutions of Texas, but the parcel that became this cemetery started as a Mexican land purchase.
Around that transaction grew the ordinary work of settlement: a family homestead, fields cleared and farmed, a sawmill turning timber into lumber, and eventually a community with a name. The cemetery is the place where all of that took root and stayed.
People & events
Edwards was a public man, a soldier, merchant, and legislator who served in the First Congress of the Republic of Texas, sat in the First and Eighth Texas Legislatures, took part in the Secession Convention of 1861, and led a railway company. A schedule that full left little time for farming, and in 1857 he sold 270 acres to James Riley Phillips as a family homestead.
James and his wife, Rebecca, raised three children on that land. The cemetery's origins are marked by loss: it began with the burial of young Florence Phillips, who died in 1855, while the oldest marked graves belong to Rebecca's parents, Joel Lewis Mackey and Mary Fonville Mackey, who died in 1855 and 1858. From its earliest days, this was a family holding its own close.
By the mid-1880s the surrounding settlement had become known as the Union Grove community. William Marshall Phillips, the eldest Phillips child, inherited the land and kept farming it, while a settler named John O'Byrne ran a sawmill nearby. In 1913, land was deeded to O'Byrne, to a J. L. Mackey, to A. M. Phillips, and to the community for a cemetery, and in time the burial ground took the name Union Grove to serve the wider neighborhood rather than one family. Later purchases in 1986 and 2001 enlarged it further.
Its place in the American story
The deepest significance of Union Grove is written in its chain of title. This single parcel was bought from the Republic of Mexico, held by a man who helped govern the Republic of Texas and then the State of Texas, and passed through the era of secession, all before it became a community cemetery. Few pieces of ground so compactly trace the rapid succession of sovereignties that defined nineteenth-century Texas.
It also captures a pattern repeated across the settling of America: land assembled by a prominent, busy public figure, then sold to a farming family who did the actual work of turning acreage into a home and a community. The cemetery marks the point where big-scale land dealing gave way to the everyday lives that filled the land in.
And like so many frontier burial grounds, it records the long arc of American military service, holding veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. A place that began as a Mexican land grant ends as a resting place for generations of American soldiers, the whole national story compressed into one grove.
If you visit
Let the trees set the mood here. This is a traditional East Texas cemetery shaded by white oak, pine, and post oak, and that canopy is part of the experience. Come when the light is filtering through the branches and you will understand why a place like this earned the name grove.
Look closely at the headstones, which range from wood and fieldstone to concrete, marble, and granite. As at any old cemetery, the variety of materials marks the passage of time and the changing fortunes of the families, from the hand-set stones of the earliest graves to the polished monuments of later years. Seek out the oldest marked burials from the 1850s to stand at the cemetery's beginning.
Then let your mind travel the land's history as you walk. You are standing on ground once bought from Mexico, farmed by a single family, and finally shared by a whole community, with soldiers from more than a century of American wars resting beneath the oaks. Maintained today by a local cemetery association, it makes a peaceful and reflective stop on a drive through the wooded country around Gladewater.
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
- · Haden Harrison Edwards
- · James Riley Phillips
- · Rebecca J. Mackey Phillips
- · John O'Byrne
Related events
- · Texas Secession Convention of 1861
Themes & tags
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