DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker at Gulf Prairie Cemetery in Brazoria County tells it like this, and I'm just along for the ride. Now, there are cemeteries, and then there are cemeteries. Gulf Prairie is the second kind.
This ground goes back to 1829 — pioneer country, pioneer people, before Texas was anything but a dream and a whole lot of trouble. The land itself was originally part of Peach Point Plantation, and the families who laid their people to rest here were the descendants of James Franklin Perry and his wife, Emily Austin Bryan Perry. You may recognize that middle name.
Emily was Stephen F. Austin's sister. So right there, you've got roots tangled deep into the founding story of Texas.
And then comes 1836. That year, the man they called the Father of Texas — Stephen F. Austin himself — was buried right here in this very ground.
Let that settle over you for a moment. The Father of Texas, laid to rest in a plantation cemetery, surrounded by family, in a land he had spent his life trying to build into something. The community had been using this cemetery since 1829, and they kept right on using it.
Life and death don't pause for history. But history had plans of its own. In 1910 — more than seven decades after that first burial — Austin's remains were reinterred in the State Cemetery, in the city that carries his name.
So if you're lookin' for him now, he's there. But this ground in Brazoria County? This is where Texas held him first.
What the marker says
Pioneer cemetery. Originally part of Peach Point Plantation. Used by descendants of James Franklin Perry and wife, Emily Austin Bryan Perry, Stephen F. Austin's sister, and by the community since 1829. In 1836, Austin, the "Father of Texas," was buried here. His remains were reinterred in the state cemetery in the city of Austin in 1910. (1967)