Hebrew Cemetery

Brownsville's Jewish community was small, so each burial here was a community event. The first Jew buried in the town was Joseph Moses, a New York merchant who died in the 1858 yellow fever epidemic, and his grave was moved from the city cemetery in 1868 or 1869. Joseph Alexander, a prominent dry goods merchant, was shot and killed by a bandit on the road to Rio Grande City in 1872, and he was among the first buried here. The deed passed to a cemetery association in 1929, and Sam Perl led services from 1926 into the 1970s.

What the plaque says

Hebrew Cemetery Jewish settlers came to the Brownsville/Matamoros area in the mid-1840's. In 1868 one half acre of land next to the city cemetery was purchased by the Hebrew Benevolent society from Charles Stillman for $1. Victims of an 1858 yellow fever epidemic, who were originally buried in the city cemetery, were later reinterred here. This was the only Jewish burial ground to serve the lower Texas Valley and Matamoros until 1950. Among the many civic and business leaders buried here are immigrants from Europe and Veterans from every American War since 1845. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stillman House Museum — 0.7 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 6.6 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — 22 mi
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.

More markers nearby

• J.T. Canales — 0.4 mi
• Convent of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament — 0.5 mi
• Cameron County — 0.6 mi
• Home of Charles Stillman, 1810-1875 — 0.7 mi