Matagorda Cemetery

One of earliest cemeteries in Texas. Founded soon after town was settled, about 1829, as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony. Marked graves numbered 650 in 1969, but interments exceed 1,000. Inscriptions on stones chronicle frontier hardships. Those buried include victims of 1862 yellow fever epidemic; soldiers of Texas Revolution War of 1812, and the Civil War; also Karankawa Indian victims. Several patriots of early Texas are buried here as well. Among them is Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. (1970)