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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the Wallis family crossed into Texas in 1824, the land they entered was not American soil at all. It was part of the young Republic of Mexico, which had won its independence from Spain only a few years earlier. Mexico was inviting settlers into its thinly populated northern frontier, hoping farmers and ranchers would build up the region and help hold it.
The country around the lower Trinity River and the head of Galveston Bay was a watery borderland of coastal prairie, marsh, and wooded rises. Travel meant slow journeys by horse, wagon, and boat, and any dry, settled homestead along the way was precious. Families from Louisiana, like the Wallises, often came west along routes that linked the old French and Spanish settlements to the new Texas colonies.
Within a dozen years of the family's arrival, everything changed. The Texas Revolution of 1835–1836 broke Texas away from Mexico, and the decisive battle was fought at San Jacinto, not far west of this hill. Families along this stretch of coast lived through the upheaval of those months, and then through the decades of the Republic of Texas and early statehood that followed.
People & events
Elisha H. R. Wallis and Sarah Barrow Wallis came from Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, bringing their children with them. By early 1825 they had settled on the rise that still carries their name. Their home became a familiar stop for travelers. On a frontier with no inns and few roads, that meant a roof, a meal, news from elsewhere, and a safe place to rest.
The family's first grief shaped this ground. When their son Elijah died in 1830, he was buried near the house. His was probably the first burial on what became the cemetery, though no stone marks his grave today. Eleven years later Sarah died, and Elisha set aside land as a proper family burial ground. He was laid to rest here himself in 1846.
Over the following decades the graveyard grew beyond one family. Relatives and other early settlers were buried here, among them at least one veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. About 25 graves are known, and many are unmarked. Then nature intervened in an unusual way: by the 1870s, large ant colonies had made the ground nearly useless for new burials. Local residents turned elsewhere, and in 1879 the Wallisville Cemetery was established. Only a few burials seem to have taken place on the hill after that.
Its place in the American story
Wallis Hill Cemetery holds the story of the first wave of Anglo-American settlers who moved into Mexican Texas in the 1820s. Those families, many from the American South, set Texas on the path toward revolution, a decade as an independent republic, and eventually statehood. Most of them left little behind besides their graves.
The San Jacinto veteran buried here ties this quiet hill to one of the turning points of the 19th century. Texas independence led to annexation by the United States, and annexation helped bring on the U.S.–Mexican War, which redrew the map of North America.
The cemetery also shows how fragile frontier memory can be. Many of its graves are unmarked, including the likely first one, and the place survived partly because later generations cared enough to record it. It is one of the oldest Anglo burial grounds in what is now Chambers County, and a reminder that the big story of westward expansion was lived one family at a time.
If you visit
Come quietly and expect something small and understated. This is a pioneer family burial ground, not a monument park, and much of its history lies underground with no stone above it. Look for the historical marker, then take in the rise itself. On the flat Gulf Coast even a gentle hill mattered, and you can imagine why a family and the travelers who stopped with them would have valued it.
As you walk, remember that there are more graves here than markers. Stay on open ground and treat the whole site as a resting place. Old stones are fragile, so look without touching or making rubbings.
Wallis Hill fits well into a day on the upper Texas coast. The nearby community of Wallisville shares the family's name, and the San Jacinto battlefield lies a short drive west. Visiting both lets you follow the story from one settler family's hilltop to the field where Texas won its independence.
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
- · Elisha H. R. Wallis
- · Sarah Barrow Wallis
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Old Wallisville
Wallisville, TX
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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In the late 1870s, settler Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles set aside a plot of Chambers County land to bury his three-year-old grandson, and within a month the ground was recorded as a legal cemetery. Sixteen family lots were surveyed in January 1879 and purchased by locally prominent pioneer families, and by 1884 Van Pradelles himself was laid to rest among them. Kept in the family for more than a century, the burial ground passed to the Wallisville Cemetery Association in 1986.
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In 1824, during the era of Mexican colonization, Joseph Lawrence of New York—reputed to have sailed with Jean Lafitte's privateers—settled on a marshland ridge that became the seed of this community. A.B.J. Winfree arrived from Louisiana in 1827 on a land grant, and the settlement around his property came to be called Winfree's Cove, later shortened to Cove. Built first on cattle and later on farming, fishing, and fur trapping, the community incorporated in 1973 to preserve its independence.
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