Concrete Cemetery

The graveyard is all that remains of a plantation community. James Henry Newton's plantation lay on the north bank of Cibolo Creek, and the men he enslaved hauled lumber and supplies by ox team from Port Lavaca; lumber was so scarce that settlers built log homes with floors of flat stone. The old rock church served as a school and as the meeting hall of the Bethesda Masonic lodge. On Sundays ox carts carrying both white and Black worshipers lined the New Berlin road, and camp meetings drew both. Claiborne Rector, a San Jacinto veteran, is buried here.

What the plaque says

Concrete Cemetery Encompassing 6.814 acres of land, Concrete Cemetery includes within its borders burials for both Anglo and Hispanic citizens of the La Vernia and New Berlin communities. The area surrounding the cemetery was called Concrete (formerly Bethesda). Local farmer and rancher James Henry Newton, who brought his family here from Mississippi about 1851-52, designated a portion of his property as a burial ground when his brother Joel died in 1856. The oldest recorded burial, that of Maria Madden Dial in 1855, indicates previous use as a graveyard. The community and cemetery were named for an 1858 concrete building used as a school, church and Masonic Hall. James Newton officially deeded a two-acre tract of land here in 1875 for use as a community cemetery. The first documented burial in the adjacent Hispanic section is that of Paulita Salazar in 1913. Additional donations of land were made by the descendants of J. G. and Jennie Scull. The graveyard contains a diverse collection of gravestones reflecting the historic communities it serves. Among the more than 800 burials here are pioneer settlers, infants and children, veterans and members of fraternal organizations. The site continues to serve the area. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 22 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.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 22 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Claiborne Rector — steps away
• Immanuel Lutheran Church — 1.8 mi
• La Vernia — 2.0 mi
• Pat Higgins Grass Farms — 7.1 mi