Locklin Cemetery

San Gabriel's numbers swing hard. Jesse and Peter Mercer built cabins on the river in 1843 or 1844, a post office came in 1850, and by the mid-1880s there were 130 people, a gristmill-gin, a church and two schools. The Handbook of Texas then gives estimates running from 25 residents in 1890 to 350 in 1929, falling to 200 in the early 1940s and 75 by the late 1950s. The school joined Thorndale's district in 1960 and the post office closed in the late 1960s. Two churches, a business and a hall were left on the 1980s map.

What the plaque says

Locklin Cemetery Abigale McLennan Fokes acquired a Mexican land grant here in 1835. Peter M. Mercer established a blacksmith shop in this area in the early 1840s. His burial in 1844 is the first recorded in this cemetery. Fokes later set aside this site for cemetery purposes. The cemetery is believed to be named for the extended family of early area settler William Lawson Locklin. It presently contains about 400 burials including many of this area's frontier settlers and their descendants and veterans of the Texas revolution and Republic of Texas Army. It continues to serve the area. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 17 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• Apache Pass River Crossing — 3.4 mi
• Site of the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria — 4.3 mi
• Urban Cemetery — 4.4 mi
• St. John Lutheran Church — 4.5 mi