Slave Burial Ground in Old Round Rock Cemetery

Nobody kept burial records here, so the ground's identity survived by word of mouth. Myreta Matthews wrote for the county historical commission in 1979 that after the Civil War the formerly enslaved and their children had neither the means nor the schooling to mark graves, and that the Black community kept the place's identity alive anyway. She called it unusual: many Black cemeteries exist in the area, but none known to be only for the enslaved. Her notes also record broken gravestones and a pile of discarded footstones. The Black Cemetery Network dates its founding to the mid-1850s.

What the plaque says

Slave Burial Ground in Old Round Rock Cemetery Near the gravesite of outlaw Sam Bass, one-half acre of Old Round Rock Cemetery was set aside for slave burials. Enclosed by cedar posts and barbed wire, sites are marked head and foot with large limestone rocks. Some rocks are hand-grooved with names and dates. White graves here are dated as early as 1851. The first marked grave of a freed slave is dated 1880. Although there are 40 to 50 known burial sites of freedmen and the burial ground is still in use, no interments of former slaves occurred after the turn of the century. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 0.6 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Inner Space Cavern — 6.2 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 8.3 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Mount Bonnell — 14 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Round Rock Cemetery — steps away
• Education in Round Rock — 0.4 mi
• The Round Rock — 0.6 mi
• In Memory of The Pioneer Builders — 0.9 mi