Phillip John Burrow

For about 149 years Phillip Burrow's grave sat between County Roads 104 and 105, and the road work that endangered it also made it a landmark. His great-great-great-grandson Allen Burrow began the search in 2016. Ground-penetrating radar proved inconclusive, but an October 2017 dig found the skull, buried far shallower after decades of grading and traffic. The county refused a permit, a 2019 title search identified the landowner, and excavation followed that September. The remains were reinterred in Fairview Cemetery in 2020, after a funeral in Floresville attended by Texas Rangers and former Rangers.

What the plaque says

Phillip John Burrow Born in Guilford County, North Carolina, Phillip John Burrow was the oldest of seven children. His father, Ishmael, was a farmer and operated a mill house. In 1806, he and other family members moved to Tennessee. Around 1819, Phillip Burrow married (wife's name unknown). The couple had their first child in 1821 and seven more children before moving to Missouri in 1838, all the while farming and ranching. In 1844, Phillip's first wife died and he decided to take advantage of land opportunities in the Republic of Texas, moving in 1845. He sought a Mercer Colony Land Grant in Navarro County and received it in 1850. While there, Burrow met and married Martha Ellender Moore in 1853. Perhaps because of ongoing land disputes or poor agricultural land, the Burrow family sold their property and moved to Parker County by 1857 on Ash Creek Tributary near the small community of Veal's Station. In 1861, Burrow and his oldest son, William Henry Burrow, volunteered for service with the Parker County Minutemen Militia. His other two sons, Philip Sterling and Zachariah (Zachry) Sr., joined the Texas State Troops in 1864. As a Private, Phillip J. Burrow was a ranging scout from May through September 1861 at age 77. After the Civil War, Burrow, his three sons and their families moved to Wilson County where they settled on the waters of the Borrego Creek in 1866. Phillip J. Burrow died at age 86 and was buried in the far northeast corner of his Picosa Creek homestead with red sandstone boulders surrounding the headstone. Over the years, the story of Phillip J. Burrow circulated in this part of Wilson County and his gravesite became a local landmark. Due to road construction, Phillip J. Burrow's remains were reinterred at Fairview Cemetery in 2020. (2020)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Longhorn Museum — 12 mi
  Atascosa County in one roadside museum: longhorn-and-mustang ranching, a moved railroad depot and caboose, a horse-drawn hearse and the town that calls itself the birthplace of the cowboy.
• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 18 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.
• Atascosa County Courthouse — 18 mi
  The only surviving Mission Revival courthouse in Texas, built in 1912-13 on Jourdanton's town circle after a county seat vote that some residents still call a theft.
• Mission San Juan — 19 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.

More markers nearby

• Fairview Methodist Church — steps away
• Verdi — 5.3 mi
• Camp Ranch Community — 7.6 mi
• Robert E. Neill — 7.7 mi