Fairview Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Fairview Cemetery, just outside Bastrop. Now, every town worth its salt has a place where the stories don't end, they settle in. Bastrop has Fairview Cemetery, and that ground has been holding Bastrop's history since before Texas was even a republic.

The city of Bastrop was first laid out between 1830 and 1832. And right there in the original community plat, from the very beginning, twelve acres were set aside overlooking the colony. Somebody was thinking ahead.

Or maybe they just understood that a real community plans for all of it, the living and the otherwise. Tradition holds that the first known grave is that of Sarah Wells, who died in 1831. She was a child, a daughter of early colonist Marty Wells.

A child. You sit with that a moment before moving on. The first marked grave belongs to Crescentia Augusta Fischer, who died in 1841.

She was a German immigrant who contracted yellow fever after landing in Galveston, Texas. She made it to Bastrop. She had been there five days.

After the Republic of Texas was established, this cemetery kept receiving Bastrop's people. Elected officials, national figures, veterans of major military conflicts going all the way back to the War of 1812. The headstones include names like Governor Joseph D.

Sayers, U.S. Congressman George Washington Wash Jones, and Robert Kerr, an early African American legislator. Names that show up in the history books.

But the marker is careful to say something else too. Those prominent names share that ground with ordinary Bastrop residents, generation after generation, all of whom contributed to Bastrop's rich history in their own way. The marker says that plainly, and it means it.

Twelve acres, platted before the ink was dry on the town itself. That's not an afterthought. That's a community saying: we intend to remember.

What the marker says

The City of Bastrop was first laid out between 1830 and 1832. Included in the initial community plat was a twelve-acre cemetery overlooking the colony. Tradition holds that the first known grave was that of Sarah Wells (d. 1831), a child of early colonist "Marty" Wells. The first marked grave is that of Crescentia Augusta Fischer (d. 1841), a German immigrant who contracted yellow fever after landing in Galveston, Texas, and died five days after her arrival in Bastrop. The burial ground is significant as an early Republic of Texas cemetery located in one of the state's early communities. It is also the final resting place of numerous notable Bastrop citizens, including elected state and national officials, and veterans of major military conflicts dating to the War of 1812. Although headstones feature prominent names like Governor Joseph D. Sayers, U.S. Congressman George Washington "Wash" Jones and early African American legislator Robert Kerr, the cemetery is also a link to the many generations of ordinary Bastrop residents, all of whom contributed to Bastrop's rich history in their own way. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2003