DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and friend, this one deserves to be told right. Somewhere in Anderson County, Texas, there's a piece of ground that remembers everything. Not a building, not a courthouse, not so much as a foundation stone — just a cemetery.
And that cemetery is the only remaining physical evidence of a frontier town that once had every intention of mattering. It started in 1835, when two men named Joseph Jordan and William S. McDonald donated about five hundred acres of land in this area for a town they called Houston.
Later it would be known as Fort Houston. Somebody drew up an early map of the townsite, and right there on that map, a section was designated as a public burying ground. They planned for the dead before they finished planning for the living — which, on the Texas frontier, was probably wisdom.
The first soul said to have been interred there was the infant child of the Reverend Peter Fullinwider, an early Protestant minister in Anderson County. No fanfare, no ceremony we know of — just a small grave, and a grief that must have felt enormous in that wide open country. The oldest marked grave belongs to a Dr.
James Hunter, dated 1840. But Lord, the unmarked ones — those are something else entirely. Buried in that ground are victims of diseases, of Indian massacres, of the long catalog of hardships that faced early Texas settlers.
And tucked within the cemetery is a special soldiers' plot, marked with a large boulder, holding the graves of soldiers of the Republic of Texas. Two veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto — John W. Carpenter and James Wilson — rest there in unmarked graves.
And in that same plot lies General Nathaniel Smith, a veteran of the War of 1812. Now here's the part that'll stop you cold. In 1846, Palestine was made Anderson County seat, and Fort Houston was abandoned.
The town just — went. People packed up and moved on, the way frontier towns sometimes did, leaving nothing behind but that old burying ground. Every building gone.
Every street gone. The whole town, gone. But the Fort Houston Cemetery remained.
It's still in use as a public burial ground to this day — still receiving the dead, still keeping its long memory. It's the only thing left to tell you that Fort Houston was ever there at all. Some places hold a town's history in its buildings.
This one holds it in its stones, and its boulders, and its unmarked ground. And it isn't finished yet.
What the marker says
In 1835, Joseph Jordan and William S. McDonald donated about 500 acres of land in this area for the town of Houston, later known as Fort Houston. An early map of the townsite shows a section designated as a "public burying ground." The infant child of the Rev. Peter Fullinwider, an early Protestant minister in Anderson County, is said to have been the first to be interred here. The oldest marked grave, that of Dr. James Hunter, is dated 1840. The Fort Houston Cemetery is the only remaining physical evidence of the early frontier town, which was abandoned after Palestine was made Anderson County seat in 1846. Victims of diseases, Indian massacres, and other hardships that faced early Texas settlers are buried here. A special soldiers' plot, marked with a large boulder, contains the graves of soldiers of the Republic of Texas. Two veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto, John W. Carpenter and James Wilson, are buried in unmarked graves. The burial site of General Nathaniel Smith, a War of 1812 veteran, is also located in the soldiers' plot. The Fort Houston Cemetery remains in use as a public burial ground and as a reminder of the early history of the area. (1985)