Cemetery of Canary Islanders

María del Carmen Calvillo, buried here, was born at San Fernando de Béxar in 1765, the eldest child of Ygnacio Calvillo and Antonia de Arocha. She married Juan Gavino de la Trinidad Delgado about 1781; when he was declared a rebel for his part in the uprisings of 1811 and 1814, she apparently separated from him. In April 1814 her father was murdered at Rancho de las Cabras in a raid that, investigators found, included his own grandson, and she took control of the ranch. She won a Mexican title in 1828 and died in 1856.

What the plaque says

Cemetery of Canary Islanders Predates church built 1732 by colonists who arrived 1731, led by Juan Leal Goras. They farmed and raised stock. Their villa, San Fernando, was first municipality in Texas. Among unmarked graves is that of flamboyant Dona Maria Cavillo. Site now county-owned. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 21 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 22 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 24 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.
• Mission Concepción — 26 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.

More markers nearby

• Captain Will Wright — 1.0 mi
• The Flores de Abrego Family and Floresville — 1.0 mi
• Wilson County — 1.0 mi
• James Charles Wilson — 1.0 mi