Wallisville Cemetery
Wallisville, Chambers County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early settler Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles (1808-1884) set aside land at this site for the burial of his grandson, William M. "Willie" Chambers, who died on his third birthday on December 10, 1878. the land surrounding the grave was established as a legal cemetery in county deed records the following month. Field notes by county surveyor Daniel B. Wallis along with other deed work set up a total of sixteen family lots in January 1879. Several locally prominent families were among those who purchased the original sixteen plots, including the van Pradelles, Chambers, Gordon, Wooten, Sisson, Mayes, and LaFour families. In 1884 a. G. van Pradelles became the fourth known burial in the cemetery he established. Among the stately monuments and shade trees can be found the tombstones of numerous elected county officials and pioneer settlers. The Wallisville Cemetery has been expanded several times since Van Pradelles laid out the site in 1879. The cemetery land remained in the van Pradelles family for over 100 years until 1986, when a descendant entrusted it to the Wallisville Cemetery Association for care and administration.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
A pioneer family cemetery preserves the names and lineages of the settlers who built early Chambers County, turning private grief into a lasting record of a community.
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Related people
- · Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles
- · William M. "Willie" Chambers
- · Daniel B. Wallis
Themes & tags
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