West Salado Cemetery
Salado, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located in an area populated by former slaves following the Civil War, this cemetery dates to the 1870s. The earliest documented grave is that of Jozie Fulbright, who died in 1877, although according to local oral tradition there may be earlier unmarked burials. The land was officially deeded by Elijah Sterling Clack Robertson for church, school, and graveyard purposes in 1879. While the community's school and two churches are no longer in existence, the cemetery remains as an important link with the area's early black history. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
West Salado Cemetery grew up in a community of former slaves who settled here after the Civil War, its earliest documented grave dating to 1877. In 1879, Elijah Sterling Clack Robertson deeded the land for a church, school, and graveyard—the trio of institutions freedpeople so often built to anchor their new lives. Though the church and school are long gone, the cemetery endures as a link to the area's early Black history.
Why it matters
Freedmen's cemeteries are among the most enduring records of African American communities that took root during Reconstruction, preserving memory where other institutions have vanished.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jozie Fulbright
- · Elijah Sterling Clack Robertson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Robertson Home
Salado, TX
Built by Col. E. S. C. Robertson and his wife Mary Elizabeth, this rare antebellum plantation complex still includes the home, quarters, cemetery, and stables, and remains a working ranch occupied by later generations of the family. The Classical Revival house shows Palladian influences in its recessed porches and balanced pavilions. The surviving quarters are a reminder that plantations of this era were worked by enslaved labor.
African American Education in Belton
Belton, TX
Public education for Black students in Belton dates to 1882, when Mrs. Aleck McGee was hired "to teach the colored school." In 1890 Fisk University graduate Thomas Breckenridge Harris became the first instructor of the African American high school, and in 1936 a new building rose on this site for students of all grades, named T. W. Harris in his honor. The last class graduated in 1966, and Belton's schools integrated the following year.
Jeff Hamilton
Belton, TX
Born into slavery in Kentucky, Jeff Hamilton was a child when Sam Houston reportedly bought him at auction to spare him a cruel master, and he became Houston's personal servant during the governor's final years, standing at his bedside when he died in 1863. In freedom, Hamilton worked as custodian for Baylor Female College, following the school to Belton in 1886. Late in a long life that reached to 1941, he was honored by many groups for his firsthand link to Houston's era.
Jeff Hamilton
Belton, TX
Born into slavery in Kentucky and brought to Texas as a child, Jeff Hamilton became the enslaved personal servant and companion in the household of Sam Houston, the revolutionary general and Texas statesman, serving through Houston's governorship and until Houston's death in 1863. Freed by emancipation, Hamilton spent more than fifty years in the Belton area and worked for decades as custodian of Mary Hardin-Baylor College. His remembered life offers a rare, intimate window onto one of Texas's most famous households from the vantage of the man enslaved within it.