Smithwick Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, and I'm takin' this straight from the official record, this is the story of Smithwick Cemetery. It starts in 1854, with a young woman named Rebecca Chambers. Eighteen years old.

She was traveling through this part of Burnet County with family, the family of her sister and brother-in-law, Nancy and E. G. Evans.

And somewhere along the way, Rebecca took ill. Now, the land they were passing was vacant public domain. Just open country.

But on that hillside, there were flowers. Covered in them, reportedly. And Rebecca, sick as she was, looked at that hillside and made a request.

She asked to be buried there. Right there on that flower-covered slope. So that is where she was laid to rest.

The very first burial in what would become Smithwick Cemetery. With the land still public domain, others were buried there too, in those early years. About sixty-five of those early graves are marked by nothing more than rocks.

No names. No dates. Just stones pulled from the earth and set down by people who wanted to mark that someone had been there, that someone had mattered.

In 1857, the cemetery site became part of a one-hundred-sixty-acre survey belonging to A. J. Stanford, and that land was patented that same year.

The burial grounds went on to serve the early settlers of Hickory Creek, Elm Grove, and Smithwick's Mill. Communities putting down roots, and eventually, putting down their dead in this same hillside ground. For decades the cemetery carried on that way, informal, community-tended, growing quiet and then growing again.

Then in 1930, the Smithwick Cemetery Association was formed. That organized hand brought real change: additional land was added over the years, a caretaker was hired, and improvements came to the site, including a tabernacle and fencing. The association has continued to maintain it ever since.

Today there are around six hundred burials here. Among them, five unknown graves, reinterred in 1974 from the South San Gabriel River area by the U. S.

Corps of Engineers, people without names carried to this hillside and given a place among the named. And among the six hundred are veterans. Veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

All of it researched and brought to light by Doris M. Henry. It all started with a sick young woman and a flower-covered hillside, and a simple request to be buried somewhere beautiful.

Rebecca Chambers got her wish. And in gettin' it, she started something that has lasted well over a century and a half.

What the marker says

The history of this community cemetery dates to 1854 when 18-year-old Rebecca Chambers died and was buried here. Rebecca, who reportedly was ill while traveling past here with the family of her sister and brother-in-law, Nancy and E. G. Evans, asked to be buried on this flower-covered hillside. While the land was vacant public domain several other burials took place. There are about 65 early graves marked only by rocks. The cemetery site became part of the 160-acre survey of A. J. Stanford and was patented in 1857. The burial grounds were used by early settlers of Hickory Creek, Elm Grove, and Smithwick's Mill. The Smithwick Cemetery Association was formed in 1930. Additional land was added to the site over the years, a caretaker was hired, and improvements were made to the site, including a tabernacle and fencing. The association continues to maintain the site. Among the 600 burials here are 5 unknown graves reinterred from the South San Gabriel River area in 1974 by the U. S. Corps of Engineers, and veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. (1997) Incise on back: Researched by: Doris M. Henry