DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to pass it along right. On the other side of the storm levee, out there at the old Texas seaport of Quintana, sits one of the last physical reminders that this place ever existed at all. Not a building.
Not a dock. A cemetery. The Quintana Cemetery.
And the story of how it came to be is worth slowin' down for. It began as the family burial ground of Henry and Josephine Seaburn, who were buildin' lives and businesses here in the days of the Republic of Texas. Homebuilding.
Shipbuilding. Roots going deep into this coastal ground. The earliest known use of the cemetery dates to 1846.
That year, the Seaburns' infant child died and was buried near their home. Think about that for a moment. A young family, a new republic, and grief that had nowhere else to go but the earth right outside the door.
Over time, that child's grave marker, and many others in this historic cemetery, succumbed to the forces of nature and development. The land takes back what it can. What remains, the oldest tombstone still standing, belongs to Louisa Powlis Brown, bearing an 1851 date.
She has outlasted nearly everything around her. The last burial in the Quintana Cemetery occurred in 1942. After that, silence.
On the other side of the levee, the water keeps movin'. But in that cemetery, some things hold on.
What the marker says
On the other side of the storm levee is one of the last physical reminders of the early Texas seaport of Quintana. The Quintana Cemetery began as the family burial ground of Henry and Josephine Seaburn, who began homebuilding and shipbuilding businesses here in the days of the Republic of Texas. The earliest known use of the cemetery dates to 1846, when the Seaburns' infant child died and was buried near their home. The child's grave marker and many others in the historic cemetery succumbed over time to the forces of nature and development. The oldest remaining tombstone, that of Louisa Powlis Brown, bears an 1851 date. The last burial in the Quintana Cemetery occurred in 1942. (2001)