Phillips Memorial Cemetery

Phillips Memorial Cemetery. A Historic Texas Cemetery. The Phillips Memorial Cemetery began with the death of Kneeland Britton in the 1870s. It was situated on the Kneeland and Sylvia Britton land next to the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad. Priscilla Britton Phillips and her husband Albert Phillips retained the Britton land behind the cemetery. Many pioneers of the 1867 Settlement, a freedmen community, were buried here. The founding families were very close and their children married into the Bell, Britton, Caldwell, and Hobgood families who were Black Cowboys who trailed cattle up the Chisholm Trail. These pioneers established their settlement on the 320 acres of land that Judge William J. Jones set aside for purchase by freed slaves after the Civil War. , The 1900 Storm brought new families from the city of Galveston and after the turn of the twentieth century the industrial growth at Texas City brought new jobs to the rural agricultural area. This cemetery was the only African American cemetery on the Galveston County mainland for decades. , In 1927, the state of Texas rerouted Highway 6 to the cemetery's side of the GH&H tracks. The new highway went through the oldest section of the cemetery, and tragically the bodies were taken from their caskets and placed in a common grave behind the latest grave sites. Later this highway was renamed to State Hwy 3. In 1991, during an additional highway expansion, the Texas Department of Transportation workers exposed more graves in the highway right-of-way. Archeological field crews from Texas A&M University worked on the site locating and removing the remains of bodies and caskets until 1992. This time the remains of forty-four graves were moved to a burial site in the Mainland Memorial Cemetery. A granite monument with associated meditation benches was erected in honor of the relocated individuals. , The history of the 1867 Settlement community and this cemetery was compiled through oral interviews with descendents of the pioneering families. , Descendants - Left to Right , Robert "Sam" Williams , Sophie Bell Warden , Pearl Bell Dorsey , Vander Caldwell Haynes , Christine Britton Way , Vera Bell Gray and Erma Williams Johnson , Background photo: Men from the community cleaning Phillips Memorial Cemetery, c. 1940