Wallis Hill Cemetery
Mont Belvieu, Chambers County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Elisha H. R. and Sarah (Barrow) Wallis brought their family to this part of Texas from Nachitoches Parish, Louisiana, in 1824. They settled on Wallis Hill in early 1825; their home became a familiar stop for travelers. When their son Elijah died in 1830, he was buried near the house. His was probably the first interment in what became known as the Wallis Hill Cemetery, although his grave is unmarked. When Sarah died in 1841, E. H. R. Wallis marked off land for the family cemetery. Wallis was buried here upon his death in 1846. Over the years, the cemetery was used for extended family members and other early residents, including at least one veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. There are approximately 25 known graves in the Wallis Hill Cemetery, many of them unmarked. Most date from the 19th century, since by the 1870s, large colonies of ants rendered the land nearly useless for further burials. Abandonment of this graveyard by area residents led to the establishment of the Wallisville Cemetery in 1879. Only a few burials appear to have occurred here after that time. One of the oldest Anglo cemeteries in what is now Chambers County, Wallis Hill Cemetery serves as a reflection of the heritage of the area.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Wallis family came from Louisiana in 1824 and settled on this hill in 1825, their home a welcome stop for travelers on the early Texas frontier. The graveyard began with the 1830 burial of young Elijah Wallis and grew into a family and community cemetery, holding at least one veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto among its roughly 25 graves. By the 1870s, swarming ant colonies made the ground unusable, and burials shifted to a new cemetery nearby.
Why it matters
One of the oldest Anglo burial grounds in Chambers County, Wallis Hill Cemetery marks the earliest wave of American settlement in Mexican Texas and the families who lived through its revolution.
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Related people
- · Elisha H. R. Wallis
- · Sarah Barrow Wallis
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Elisha H. R. Wallis settled here in 1825 within an empresario grant, and by 1858 Wallisville was the seat of newly organized Chambers County. It grew into a busy market town with a shipyard, cotton gin, skating rink, and the county's first newspaper, linked to Galveston by sloop and to Liberty by daily stage — even boasting a courthouse with a tower built for executions. The county seat left in 1908 after the celebrated "County Seat Hog War," a storm battered the town in 1915, and part of the old site now lies beneath the Wallisville Reservoir.
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