Fulshear Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker tells this story, and I'm gonna give it to you just the way it happened. Picture a piece of Texas land with some real deep roots. More than six acres, sitting on ground that traces back to a Mexican land grant acquired in 1824 by an 'Old 300' colonist named Churchill Fulshear, Jr.

Now that title, 'Old 300,' that puts him in rare company, among the earliest Anglo colonists to settle in this part of Texas. And what did Churchill Fulshear, Jr. do with a piece of that land? In 1851, he donated it.

Gave it over to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. More than six acres, just like that. The place took the name Union Chappel Cemetery first.

That was its original name. But as the town of Fulshear developed out here in the 1890s, the cemetery took on that name too, and Union Chappel became Fulshear Cemetery. Before any of that renaming, though, before the town rose up around it, someone had already been laid to rest in that ground.

The first recorded burial is that of Mahalia Sparks, in 1850. One year before the formal donation was even made. That's how old the story here really is.

In the 1850s, a church building and a school were both erected on this land. The congregation put down roots, taught children, held services. Those trustees who were there at the start, their names deserve saying out loud: Randolph Foster, the Reverend John Patton, J.

W. Miller, G. D.

Parker, William Wade, and E. H. Kemp.

In 1894, the church itself relocated to Fulshear. But the cemetery stayed right here, holding its ground the way cemeteries do, quiet and patient, keeping the names of the people who built this place long before most folks ever heard of it.

What the marker says

More than six acres here of the Mexican land grant acquired in 1824 by "Old 300" colonist Churchill Fulshear, Jr., were donated to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, by Churchill Fulshear, Jr., in 1851. Originally Union Chappel Cemetery, it was renamed Fulshear for the town that developed here in the 1890s. The first recorded burial is that of Mahalia Sparks in 1850. A church building and school were erected here in the 1850s. The church relocated to fulshear in 1894. Original church trustees were Randolph Foster, the Rev. John Patton, J. W. Miller, G. D. Parker, William Wade, and e. H. Kemp.