Lynchburg Cemetery

The Lynchburg Cemetery is one of the few remaining traces of the early town of Lynchburg, founded and named by Nathaniel Lynch, who arrived in the area in 1822 and received a Mexican land grant near the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River. The Lynchburg Cemetery, established on that land by 1834, was located outside the boundaries of Lynchburg until 1855, when the town was expanded from 40 to 71 blocks, and the one-acre cemetery became block 42, bounded by Sherman, Burleson and Hunt Streets. Travelers using Lynch’s Ferry passed the cemetery along the historic road that has served as the Eastern boundary of the cemetery since its creation. Lynchburg Cemetery is the oldest known burial ground associated with the historic community and is the resting place of many of its early residents, including pioneer settlers of the Republic and State of Texas, veterans of the Mexican War and Civil War, and their families and descendants. The oldest marked grave is that of A. B. Jones, who died in 1855. However, older burials exist, including that of Nathaniel Lynch (d. 1837) and his wife, Frances Hubert Lynch Hardin. Also buried here are some of the early Texas settlers who participated in the Runaway Scrape in April 1836, fleeing eastward ahead of the Mexican Army. Standing witness to the battle of San Jacinto, numerous hurricanes, and daily passing ferry riders, Lynchburg Cemetery persists as a silent reminder of an early Texas community, and serves as a record of this area’s settlers, shop keepers, tinsmiths, laborers, seamen, ship captains, judges, doctors, farmers and other citizens who came to a new land seeking opportunity.