DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in San Augustine County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding memory since 1856 — and the story starts, as so many Texas stories do, a whole lot earlier than that. George W.
Teel and his wife Rebecca, born a Johnson, came to Texas from Arkansas in 1824. Not as latecomers, not as settlers who showed up once the hard work was done — they came as colonists with Stephen F. Austin's old three hundred.
That original company. The ones who were here at the beginning. Two years after arriving, George and Rebecca pulled up again and relocated from Austin's colony to the San Augustine area, and that's where they put down roots that held.
They ran a farm. They ran an inn. George served as a trustee of San Augustine University, which tells you something about the kind of man he was — not just scratching at the earth, but building something around him.
He also took part in the battle of Nacogdoches and the Texas War for Independence, so he knew what it cost to make this place what it became. When George W. Teel died in 1856, he was laid to rest beneath a pear tree planted near his home, and that spot became the family burying ground.
Rebecca's people followed. Kin of every kind found their way to that ground over the years. Among them, a son — Wyatt Teel — who carried the family story forward in his own complicated way, serving as a Confederate soldier, and later as sheriff, and later still as county commissioner.
Three different kinds of duty in one man's life. That pear tree near the house is long gone to time, but the ground beneath it still holds the Teels. San Augustine County holds them too.
What the marker says
This family cemetery was established in 1856 when George W. Teel was interred beneath a pear tree planted near his home. He and his wife, Rebecca (Johnson), came from Arkansas to Texas in 1824 as colonists with Stephen F. Austin's old three hundred. Two years later they relocated from Austin's colony to this area, where the couple operated a farm and inn. George Teel was also a trustee of San Augustine University, and a participant in the battle of Nacogdoches and the Texas War for Independence. Others interred are related to George and Rebecca Teel, including a son, Wyatt, who served as a confederate soldier, sheriff and county commissioner.