DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Sandies Chapel Cemetery — and it's one worth slowing down for. Out in Gonzales County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding history longer than most Texans have been alive. This cemetery first served as a burial ground for the family of Joseph and Catherine McCoy, pioneer settlers in the Green DeWitt Colony.
That's where it starts — one family, one patch of earth, staking a claim not just to the living land but to the ground beneath it. In time, the cemetery opened up to the wider Sandies Chapel community. And the earliest graves here date from the 1860s — which means this soil has been keeping its quiet vigil for a good long while.
Now, when you start looking at who's resting here, that's when the weight of it really settles in. There's William Taylor, a San Jacinto veteran — a man who was present at the moment Texas hammered out its independence. Alongside him lie citizens of the Republic of Texas itself, men who knew what it meant to carry a national identity that no longer exists on any map.
There are local Masonic leaders here. Civil War veterans too, including members of the Sandies home guard — men who stayed close to home but were bound up in that war all the same. And then there are four pioneer Methodist ministers, each one buried in the community he served: A.
A. Smithwick, T. G.
Russell, James E. Vernor, and C. W.
Elkins. Four preachers, one cemetery. The church may have moved on, but they did not.
That's the thing about a place like Sandies Chapel Cemetery. It started with one family in the DeWitt Colony and quietly became the gathering ground for an entire world — soldiers, statesmen, ministers, and neighbors. They're all out there together now, and the ground doesn't make much distinction between any of them.
What the marker says
This cemetery first served as a burial ground for the family of Joseph and Catherine McCoy, pioneer settlers in the Green DeWitt Colony. It was later used by residents of the Sandies Chapel community. The earliest graves date from the 1860s. Among those interred here are San Jacinto veteran William Taylor, citizens of the Republic of Texas, local Masonic leaders, and Civil War veterans, including members of the Sandies home guard. Also buried here are four pioneer Methodist ministers, A. A. Smithwick, T. G. Russell, James E. Vernor, and C. W. Elkins.