Woods Chapel Cemetery
Roby vicinity, Fisher County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1.5 miles southwest) Settlement of this area of Fisher County began in the early 1880s. A small frame building, erected near this site in 1883-1884, was used as a school and church. A cemetery was established and was in use by 1884. The church was named in honor of its first pastor, J. B. Woods. Among the first settlers here were Henry Clay Lyon (1815-1889) and his family. Lyon, a native of Tennessee, was a veteran of the Republic of Texas Army as well as the Confederate forces of the Civil War. Although Lyon is buried in the Woods Chapel Cemetery, a granite marker in his honor was placed in the Roby Cemetery at this site of the graves of his wife and children. Plans to reinter him next to his widow during the Texas Centennial of 1936 were never completed. The earliest marked grave in the Woods Chapel Cemetery is that of Sarah H. Lawrence (1881-1884), a granddaughter of Henry C. Lyon. Of the twenty-six marked graves here, thirteen are those of infants or small children. The graveyard also contains at least twenty-eight unmarked graves. An important part of Fisher County history, the cemetery is the site of an annual San Jacinto Day observance on April 21. (1988)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As settlers pushed into this corner of Fisher County in the early 1880s, a single frame building served as both school and church, and by 1884 a graveyard had begun — named for its first pastor, J. B. Woods. Among those resting here is the family of Henry Clay Lyon, a Tennessee-born veteran of the Republic of Texas army; of twenty-six marked graves, thirteen belong to infants and small children.
Why it matters
Frontier cemeteries record the hard arithmetic of settlement — high child mortality and short lives — that underlay the push into West Texas.
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Related people
- · J. B. Woods
- · Henry Clay Lyon
- · Sarah H. Lawrence
Themes & tags
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