San Leon Cemetery   

                                                                                        All pictures taken by Floyd "Lanny" Martin - Email Zingo1226@hotmail.com

We would like to thank the San Leon Cemetery Committee members, President Jerry Berard, Past President C. B. "Chuck" Steinman and wife, Ruby Steinman, Secretary Jo Ann Wimberly, John E. "Sonny" Wimberly, and Chair of Galveston County Historical Commission, Alecya Gallaway, for their help in compiling this information. We would also like to recognize Dorothy Burns Baker, Elizabeth Priester and Ella Lee Sheffield, members of the Texas City Ancestry Searchers who in November 1977 helped to publish information on the San Leon Cemetery.

The following history of San Leon Cemetery is taken from The History of San Leon Volume 1 written by Alecya Gallaway, with her permission. Scalare Creations, P. O. Box 60, Bacliff, TX 77518-0060

In 1920, Joe Eagle owner of the San Leon Land Company deeded the old community burial grounds, and added the entire property of block 1 from the townside survey, to the people of San Leon forever as the San Leon Cemetery.

The deed was given to Mrs. Rena Kozlek and Mr. Monroe Heiman, and they acted as custodians of the cemetery, until the Cemetery Committee was formed. The cemetery is located on the western shore of Galveston Bay, and is bordered on each side by 21st Street and 22nd Street. Bayshore Drive (state highway 646) fronts the site. According to the cemetery records, more than forty people are buried in the old section of the Cemetery. Unfortunately today, the majority of these gravesites are unmarked, or have eroded into the bay.

 1.    Jordan infant, pre 1900, parents ran a store near Dickinson Bayou
 2.   Wm Trumbo, Union Soldier of Co. B, 1st Battalion, North Dakota Calvary
 3.   Anna Miller, Sept. 23, 1913 - Age 34 years
 4.   Jones infant
 5.   Jones infant
 6.   Miller infant
 7.   Mrs. Charles Ballard
 8.   Mrs. Etta LaRue (about 1928)
 9.   Lanard Duffey infant
10.  Mr. Jeffcoat
11.  Horace P. Swain
12.  Mrs. James Fuller, about 1930
13.  Mr. W. A. Schughard, 1852 - 1912
14.  (Mrs. John) Julia Jay
15.  Dr. Charles Hobbs,  2-21-1875 to 3-19-1921
16.  Hazel Christenson (infant)
17.  Norma Michael Sept 16, 1915
18.  Julia Christenson, 1850 - 1917
19.  John Christenson, 1848 - 1911
20.  Mrs. C. C. Kozlek
21.  Mr. C. C. Kozlek
22.  Albert Kozlek
23.  Anne Elizabeth Wilburn Kozlek, 4-7-1845 to 3-15-1926
24.  Thomas Kozlek, 10-12-1842 to 10-25-1911
25.  William Heiman, 12-12-1847 to 2-8-1932
26.  Mrs. Heiman
27.  Mrs. Madie Heiman Fink
28.  Maury J. Heiman, 1890 - 1936
29.  W. N. Campbell infant
30.  Smith infant
31.  Smith infant
32.  Smith infant
33.  Annie Virginia, daughter of George R. and Annie M. Smith, 10-16-1906 to 10-17-1906
34.  John Smith
35.  Katherine Smith
36.  Henry Franklin, killed during 1915 Storm
37.  McGinnis infant
38.  Alice Willoughby Johnson 1889 - 1912
39.  Alice and Ed Johnson infant
40.  Benard Holly infant
41.  Mrs. Mae Sue White, 1911
42.  Aunt Clara, housekeeper at hotel an later for Capt. Southern
43.  A.V.S. May 10, 1903, believed to be a male
44.  Skains, Confederate veteran
45.  Grant, Confederate veteran

The first recorded burials in the cemetery occurred during the 1890s when the town was called North Galveston, but according to several historic sources, Amos Edwards was buried on his estate after drowning in Galveston Bay before the Texas Revolution was won. The estate was near the point and not too far from the cemetery location. In the early 1900s Ben C. Stuart wrote several articles that mentioned the Edwards family burial site and how the tombstone near the edge of the bay could be seen for years before finally disappearing as neglect and erosion ate away the shoreline. The old Edwards estate also became the possible resting-place for some remains of several Mexican soldiers who were killed during the Battle of San Jacinto. A doctor who was living on the Edwards land prior to 1840 brought their bodies or parts of their skeletons, depending on who told the story to San Leon. Charles Hooten mentions this in his book, St. Luis Isle, published in London in 1847. According to San Leon old-timers and Saunders descendants, near the turn of the century T. W. Saunders found a skeleton in the high bank of shell gravel between the cemetery and the point. Tatters of clothing adhered to the skeleton and three Spanish coins were found in the garments of the rotted cloth. It was never know if this was the body of Amos Edwards who drowned in Galveston Bay before 1837, the body of a privateer from Lafitte's town of Campeche on Galveston Island, or one of the Mexican soldiers brought from the battlefield at San Jacinto .

                                                       

                               CEMETERY INDEX                              

Additional pictures of San Leon Cemetery
san_leon_cemetery_dedication_marker
san_leon_cemetry_entry_two
san_leon_cemetery
san_leon_cemetery_directors
san_leon_cemetery_entry
san_leon_cemetery_entry_four
san_leon_cemetery_entry_three
san_leon_cemetery_marker

Updated July 2, 2008