Steen Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Steen Cemetery in Gonzales County. Before the Steen family ever put down roots in Texas, they were already carrying history with them. Their migration west stretched across several generations, and somewhere along the way, back in Tennessee, they struck up a friendship with the Davy Crockett family.

That's the kind of detail that makes you stop and think about how tangled and wide the old frontier networks really were. Eventually, after all that traveling and all those years, the Steens settled in Gonzales County in 1846. Three years later, a young man named John Rumley Steen, born in 1824, bought the land that would come to be known as Steen Flat.

He was building something. In 1850, John Rumley married Mahala Burkett, who had been born in 1830. Mahala's family had their own story of westward movement.

They came from Missouri to Texas in 1830, part of DeWitt's Colony, one of those great waves of settlers who poured into this country and shaped it into what it would become. John Rumley and Mahala built a life on Steen Flat, and in 1851 their son James P. Steen came into the world.

He would leave it in 1863, just a boy. When James fell ill and knew the end was coming, he made a request. He asked to be buried under the trees.

The very trees that still shade this site today. His family honored that. And that simple, quiet act of love is where this cemetery begins.

Mahala herself, born in 1830, died in 1881. John Rumley lived on until 1910. The ground holds them all now, along with the other pioneers and families who settled and developed this corner of Gonzales County.

The marker calls the cemetery a chronicle of those people, and that's exactly right. Some chronicles are written in ink. This one is written in the shade of old trees, at the request of a boy who knew just where he wanted to rest.

What the marker says

The Steen family's migration west spanned several generations and included a friendship with the Davy Crockett family in Tennessee before they finally settled in Gonzales County in 1846. John Rumley Steen (1824-1910) bought this land, later known as Steen Flat, in 1849. In 1850, he married Mahala Burkett (1830-1881), whose family came from Missouri to Texas in 1830 as part of DeWitt's Colony. When their son, James P. Steen (1851-1863), fell ill and died, they honored his request to be buried under the trees that still shade this site. This cemetery remains as a chronicle of the pioneers and families who settled and developed this area. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2000