Wallisville Cemetery

Duane's take

Now, what I'm about to tell you comes straight from the official marker standing watch over this ground, and I'll let the stone do the talkin'. It starts, as so many things do in old Texas, with a child. A little boy named William M.

Chambers, called Willie by the people who loved him. Willie died on December 10, 1878. On his third birthday.

That detail will stop you if you let it. Willie's grandfather was Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles, born in 1808, and he was what you'd call an early settler of this country. When grief comes to a man like that, a man who has carved something out of raw land, he does what he knows.

He set aside a piece of that land so his grandson would have a place to rest. One grave. One child.

That was the beginning. The following month, January of 1879, the land surrounding that grave was established as a legal cemetery in the county deed records. County surveyor Daniel B.

Wallis came out and wrote up the field notes, and along with other deed work, he laid out a total of sixteen family lots. Sixteen plots. And the families who stepped forward to claim them read like a who's who of this corner of Chambers County.

The Van Pradelles family, the Chambers family, the Gordons, the Wootens, the Sissons, the Mayes, and the LaFours. Locally prominent families, every one. Now here is the part that settles heavy.

In 1884, A. G. Van Pradelles himself was buried in that cemetery.

The man who had set the land aside, who had started it all with a grandfather's grief, became the fourth known burial in the ground he established. He had built the place, and the place received him. Walk through the Wallisville Cemetery today and you'll find stately monuments and shade trees, and beneath them the tombstones of numerous elected county officials and pioneer settlers.

The cemetery has been expanded several times since Van Pradelles laid out the site in 1879. And the land itself stayed in the Van Pradelles family for over a hundred years, until 1986, when a descendant entrusted it to the Wallisville Cemetery Association for care and administration. A grandfather sets aside a patch of earth for one small boy.

Over a century later, his family finally passes the keeping of it to other hands. Some things, it turns out, are worth holding onto that long.

What the marker says

Early settler Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles (1808-1884) set aside land at this site for the burial of his grandson, William M. "Willie" Chambers, who died on his third birthday on December 10, 1878. the land surrounding the grave was established as a legal cemetery in county deed records the following month. Field notes by county surveyor Daniel B. Wallis along with other deed work set up a total of sixteen family lots in January 1879. Several locally prominent families were among those who purchased the original sixteen plots, including the van Pradelles, Chambers, Gordon, Wooten, Sisson, Mayes, and LaFour families. In 1884 a. G. van Pradelles became the fourth known burial in the cemetery he established. Among the stately monuments and shade trees can be found the tombstones of numerous elected county officials and pioneer settlers. The Wallisville Cemetery has been expanded several times since Van Pradelles laid out the site in 1879. The cemetery land remained in the van Pradelles family for over 100 years until 1986, when a descendant entrusted it to the Wallisville Cemetery Association for care and administration.