DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of the Nuecestown Cemetery, out here in Nueces County. Now, most towns leave behind buildings. Courthouses, storefronts, maybe a water tower with the name painted on the side.
Nuecestown left behind something quieter. But we'll get to that. The settlement itself was established in 1852 by Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney — born in 1814, a man who already had his hands in the trading business down at Corpus Christi, thirteen and a half miles to the southeast.
The place had a name before it had a proper name. Folks called it The Motts, on account of a grove of large trees growing there. Eventually it took the name of the nearby Nueces River, and Nuecestown it became.
The land for the cemetery was deeded to the settlers by the H.L. Kinney Estate, set aside for public use. And it didn't wait long to start filling up.
The earliest known grave belongs to a little girl named Elizabeth Beynon. She died in Nuecestown on December 4, 1854, at the age of four. Her parents, Benjamin and Elizabeth B.
Beynon, died the following year and are buried there alongside her. A family reunited in the most sorrowful way a family can be. Now, not every story in that cemetery ends in quiet tragedy.
Some of them have some fire to them. Take William Ball, born 1831, and George Frank, born 1834. Both men are buried at this site.
But before they got there, they had an adventure neither one of them asked for. In 1875, bandits raided the Nuecestown community. Ball and Frank were kidnapped — taken by those bandits outright.
And here's the part worth savoring: both men managed to escape their captors. Both of them. They returned to Nuecestown, lived their lives, and are resting there now — Ball until 1897, Frank until 1904.
The cemetery also holds six Confederate veterans of the Civil War, one World War I veteran, and one victim of the hurricane of 1919. Generations of a community, marked in stone. And what a community it was, for a time.
Nuecestown once had a stagecoach inn, a public ferry, a meat packing plant, a cotton gin, a post office, a school, a general store, churches, and a blacksmith shop. The kind of place that had everything a frontier town needed to grow and thrive. But towns, like people, don't always last.
The inn is gone. The ferry, the gin, the store — all gone. The only thing remaining in Nuecestown today is the cemetery.
The one piece of ground the H.L. Kinney Estate set aside, not for commerce, not for convenience, but for the people themselves. Turns out, that's the part that endured.
What the marker says
This burial ground served the original residents of the Nuecestown community. The settlement was established in 1852 by Col. Henry Lawrence Kinney (b. 1814) who owned a trading post at Corpus Christi, 13.5 miles southeast. Originally called "The Motts" because of a grove of large trees, it was later named for the nearby Nueces River. Land was deeded to the settlers by the H.L. Kinney Estate for use as a public cemetery. The earliest known grave is that of Elizabeth Beynon who died in Nuecestown on December 4, 1854, at the age of four. Her parents Benjamin and Elizabeth B. Beynon died the following year and are also buried here. Two citizens interred at this site, William Ball (1831-1897) and George Frank (1834-1904), were kidnapped by bandits in an 1875 raid on the community. Both men managed to escape their captors and returned to Nuecestown. Other graves include those of six confederate veterans of the civil war, one world War I veteran, and one victim of the 1919 hurricane. Nuecestown was once the site of a Stagecoach Inn, public ferry, meat packing plant, cotton gin, post office, school, general store, churches, and blacksmith shop, but only the cemetery remains.