Hamilton-Beeman Cemetery

William Harvey Beeman's 640 acres came out of the Mercer colony, an empresario grant that Sam Houston signed in 1844 and that grew into a long legal tangle. The Handbook of Texas says Charles Fenton Mercer, known as an abolitionist and speculator, was unpopular, and Congress outlawed such contracts a day after his was executed. When Texas sued in 1846, the case was heard in Navarro County's district court, where Judge R. E. B. Baylor declared the contract void; the Texas Supreme Court later upheld it. In 1850 the legislature guaranteed claims made before October 25, 1848.

What the plaque says

Hamilton-Beeman Cemetery William Harvey Beeman (1817-1860) received a Mercer colony grant of 640 acres in Navarro County and brought his family here in the 1840s. He and pioneer Samuel Hamilton (1820-1900), who owned adjacent property, each gave one acre to establish this cemetery in the 1850s. The first burial was that of Hamilton's infant son in 1859. Both Hamilton and Beeman, a freighter and local justice of the peace, are buried here. Gifts and purchases of additional land have enlarged the cemetery to over 47 acres. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 3.2 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 17 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 32 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Navarro Rifles — 2.4 mi
• 15th Texas Infantry Companies E and G — 2.4 mi
• Magnolia Oil Refinery — 2.4 mi
• Corsicana State Home — 2.6 mi