Chesterville Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Chesterville Cemetery, out in Wharton County. Now, every good community starts somewhere, and this one starts with a land deal. A big one.

John Linderholm, manager of the Southern Texas Colonization Company of Chicago, purchased more than sixty thousand acres for development in Wharton and Colorado counties beginning in 1894. Sixty thousand acres. That is a lot of Texas prairie to sell to folks who have never seen it.

And sell it he did. Families started coming down, most of them from up north, following the promotions and the promise. The Chesterville community grew out of that effort, and it took its name from one of those arriving families: the Nelson Chester family, who moved here from Illinois about 1895, along with the Lafayette Kellison family.

Two families, one long trip, a whole new life on the Texas coastal plain. The Chesters wasted no time making themselves useful. Alvina Chester, born in 1875, became the town's first postmistress.

Her brother, or at least her kinsman, William Chester, born in 1869, developed the area and looked after local Linderholm interests. He was a partner in the Chester-Kellison general store and served a term as postmaster himself. Between the two of them, the Chester name was on just about everything that mattered in early Chesterville.

Then there was Peter Anderson. In 1897, responding to those same land promotions, Peter, born in 1857, came down and settled nearby with his wife Augusta, born in 1864, their children, and his parents in tow. His father, Andrew Anderson, had been born all the way back in 1818, which means he had seen a great deal of the world before he ever laid eyes on this corner of Wharton County.

Andrew did not get long to settle in. In March of 1898, he passed away. And here is where John Linderholm, the big Chicago land promoter himself, did something quiet and consequential: he set aside a parcel of land right there adjacent to the Anderson property, to serve as a burial ground.

The cemetery had its beginning in grief, as so many things do. The land was later deeded formally by Robert B. Wallace to the Chesterville Cemetery Association in 1909.

The association was reorganized in 1961, and it is still going, still overseeing this place that holds the stories of the families who settled and worked this former prairie land. Sixty thousand acres of promotion, a handful of families from Illinois, a land set aside in 1898 for one old man's rest. That is how a community plants itself, and that is how it remembers itself.

Right here in the ground.

What the marker says

Land promoter John Linderholm, manager of the Southern Texas Colonization Company of Chicago, purchased more than 60,000 acres for development in Wharton and Colorado counties beginning in 1894. The Chesterville community was an outgrowth of this effort. It is named after the Nelson Chester family who, along with the Lafayette Kellison family, moved here from Illinois about 1895. Alvina Chester (1875-1971) was the town's first postmistress, and William Chester (1869-1945) developed the area and looked after local Linderholm interests. He was a partner in the Chester-Kellison general store and also served a term as postmaster. In 1897, in response to the land promotions, Peter Anderson (1857-1942) settled nearby with his wife, Augusta (1864-1915), their children and his parents. When Peter's father, Andrew (1818-1898), passed away in March, 1898, John Linderholm set aside this parcel of land adjacent to the Anderson property for a burial ground. Robert B. Wallace deeded the land to the Chesterville Cemetery Association in 1909; reorganized in 1961, the group still oversees affairs of this site that chronicles families that settled and developed this former prairie land. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2001