Pond Springs Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Pond Springs Cemetery, out in Williamson County, has been holding its quiet ground since the eighteen sixties. The graveyard was begun for members of the Pond Springs Community, which means it was a community that looked after its own, even in death.

The oldest grave is believed to be that of Mrs. Asenath M. Stewart, who passed in 1862.

That's where the story starts, at least as far as anyone can say for certain. But here's the thing about this place. People were already laying their loved ones to rest here years before anyone thought to put it down on paper.

The land was in use as a graveyard long before it was ever officially deeded as such, and it wasn't until 1872 that Thomas L. and H. M. Rutledge made it official with a deed.

Then it took another five years, until 1877, before it even appeared in deed records as a cemetery. The ground was doing its work long before the paperwork caught up. Among those resting there is William P.

Rutledge, Sr., born in 1815 and gone by 1890, a veteran of the Mexican War. And there is Lavinia Hyland Chapman, born in 1844 and living all the way to 1929, who carries a distinction worth pausing on. She was a citizen of the Republic of Texas.

That Republic was a thing unto itself, and she was part of it. The Pond Springs Cemetery, the marker says, serves as a reminder of early Pond Springs history. And standing there among those stones, that's not hard to believe at all.

What the marker says

This graveyard was begun for members of the Pond Springs Community in the 1860s. The oldest grave is believed to be that of Mrs. Asenath M. Stewart (d. 1862). Also interred here is Mexican War veteran William P. Rutledge, Sr. (1815-1890), and Lavinia Hyland Chapman (1844-1929), a citizen of the Republic of Texas. Although the land was in use as a graveyard years earlier, it was not officially deeded as such by Thomas L. and H. M. Rutledge until 1872, and did not appear in deed records as a cemetery until 1877. It serves as a reminder of early Pond Springs history. (1988)