Woodley Cemetery
Marshall, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Wingate Woodley arrived in the Republic of Texas in 1839 and settled in Harrison County shortly after its formation that year. He received a letter from his father, William (b. 1787), in 1840, asking that he leave the lawlessness of this area and return to the safety of his former home in Georgia. Wingate remained, and in 1843 his father and mother, Telitha (McMichael), left Alabama with their large family and traveled by wagon train to Harrison county. the cemetery began with the burial of their young daughter, Harriett Ellen, here on their family farm in 1844. Woodley family records suggest that this site was set aside for cemetery use in William Woodley's 1844 will. The will was subsequently lost and never probated. The families of William and Telitha's eleven children and their descendants formed the nucleus of the former community of Arleston and account for most of the people buried here. this site, property of Woodley descendants for more than 100 years, was legally set aside by descendants of George and Caroline (Woodley) McJimsey in 1970. Buried here are veterans of conflicts ranging from the Creek Indian War (Alabama - 1836) to the Korean Conflict. The Woodley Cemetery Trust was established in 1986 to maintain this site.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Wingate Woodley reached the Republic of Texas in 1839 and stayed on despite his father's plea to return to the safety of Georgia. In 1843 the elder William Woodley brought his large family west by wagon train, and the burial ground began the next year with the death of a young daughter on the family farm. Descendants of the couple's eleven children formed the community of Arleston, and those interred here include veterans of conflicts from the 1836 Creek War to the Korean Conflict.
Why it matters
A family cemetery like this preserves the human roots of frontier settlement, tracing one clan's endurance across more than a century of American life and its wars.
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Related people
- · Wingate Woodley
- · William Woodley
- · Telitha Woodley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Woodley House
Marshall, TX
The Woodley family first settled Harrison County in the 1840s, farming the land and serving in local government. William Lawrence Woodley built this home in 1873 on land acquired from his father, and when he died in 1910 his son Jessie Lawrence Woodley inherited and enlarged it. The farmhouse now shows a six-bay porch, squared columns, and a center-gabled roof.
Bracken Cemetery
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Pioneer settlers Thomas and Mary Bracken brought their family to this corner of East Texas in the 1830s and set aside part of their land as a burial ground for their family and neighbors. The oldest marked grave belongs to the infant Clarence Liston, who died in 1876, and the cemetery holds pioneers from a scattering of early settlements—Grand Bluff, Elysian Fields, DeBerry, and others. Their son-in-law Dan Briggs formally deeded the site as a cemetery in 1891.
Bethel United Methodist Church
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From the mid-1800s, families around the little community of Arleston gathered each summer for the Bethel Camp Meeting—ten days of preaching and fellowship watered by a spring that still fills the baptismal font today. Worshippers met under brush arbors until the first tabernacle rose in 1880; fire and later vandals destroyed successive structures, and a cross made from the burned remnants now hangs above the pulpit. The congregation moved its building to Elysian Fields in 1945 but still holds August services in the old tradition.
Bailey Anderson
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