Old Hawley Cemetery

The man behind the cemetery's name was no senator. Robert Bradley Hawley was a Galveston merchant and Republican congressman, born in Memphis in 1849 and buried in Galveston after dying in New York in 1921. Jonathan Pierce renamed the cemetery for him, in 1898 by one account and 1900 by another, and the post office became Hawley in 1899. Local history says Hawley had helped win Pierce's son Abel an appointment as a naval officer in the Spanish-American War. The first burial was Sarah E. Moore, on June 16, 1855, following an 1854 deed from Norman Savage.

What the plaque says

Old Hawley Cemetery Known 1838-1899 as Deming's Bridge Cemetery. Second post office in Matagorda county was located nearby in 1858. Two acres donated by Emelius Savage and his son Norman for the cemetery and Tres Palacios Baptist Church, founded 1852. More land given by Jonathan E. Pierce, who in 1900 named area Hawley, honoring United States senator Robert Bradley Hawley. Buried here are the brothers Jonathan E. and Abel H. ("Shang") Pierce and many other famous early cattlemen; also, more than 50 veterans of Civil War and all U.S. wars since 1865. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 32 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.

More markers nearby

• William Walter "Pudge" Heffelfinger — 0.7 mi
• Deming's Bridge Community — 0.8 mi
• Blessing Library Association — 2.9 mi
• St. Peter's Catholic Church — 2.9 mi