San Jacinto Texans Buried at Fort Houston Cemetery

From the Fort Houston Cemetery site.

Yesterday I mentioned these two men as being buried at the soldiers' section at the Fort Houston Cemetery in Texas along with General Nathaniel Smith, War of 1812 veteran.

JOHN W. CARPENTER--  Veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto.  Born Sept. 25, 1806 and died Oct. 12, 1838.  Killed about four miles east of Palestine in an Indian skirmish prior to the main Battle of Kickapoo, brought back to Fort Houston Cemetery and buried there.

JAMES WILSON--  Veteran San Jacinto.  Died of yellow fever in Houston September 8, 1844.

Also buried at the cemetery:

WILLIAM FROST--  The last white man killed by Indians in Anderson County.  Killed near the Trinity River at West Point sometime during the latter part of February 1841.  Son-in-law of pioneer Joseph Jordan, who donated the land for the town and cemetery.

--Brock-Perry

Fort Houston Cemetery

From the historical plaque at the cemetery.

In 1835, 500 acres were donated for the town of Houston, later known as Fort Houston.  Part of this also included a public burying ground.

The first reported burial was an infant child.  The oldest marked grave is that of Dr. James Hunter dated 1840.

This cemetery is the only remaining physical evidence of the town which was abandoned after Palestine became county seat of Anderson County in 1846.

Burials in the cemetery often included victims of disease, Indian massacres and hardships that went along with life on the frontier.  A special soldiers' plot, marked by a large boulder, contains soldiers of the Texas Republic.

Two of them fought at the Battle of San Jacinto: John W. Carpenter and James Wilson, are buried in unmarked graves..

The final resting spot of General Nathaniel Smith, a veteran of the War of 1812, also is in the soldiers' plot.

--Brock-Perry