Old Bayview Cemetery Informations

Old Bayview Cemetery is a cemetery located on a small hill in downtown Corpus Christi, Texas on Ramirez St. at Padre St., bordered by the I-37 access road. It is the oldest federal military cemetery in Texas. Owned by the City of Corpus Christi, it presently comprises three and a half acres as a Historic Texas Cemetery and a State Archaeological Landmark of the Texas Historical Commission.

Bayview Cemetery originated in 1845 during the occupation of Corpus Christi, or "Kinney's Ranch", by General Zachary Taylor. Taylor commanded the troops that were sent to the region when Texas joined the United States. Mexico claimed the Nueces River as Texas' southern border, while Texas and the United States claimed the Rio Grande as the border. In 1846 Taylor's forces marched south to Mexico.

Since Corpus Christi Bay was too shallow for troop ships, these anchored at what's now Port Aransas and troops were ferried to the military camp on the city bayfront. On 13 September (some versions say 12 September) 1845 the steamboat Dayton left Corpus Christi heading toward St. Joseph's Island (AKA San José Island, north of Port Aransas). On board were Captain Crossman, Lieutenants Thaddeus Higgins, Benjamin A. Berry, Graham, and Woods of the Fourth Infantry, Lieutenant Gordon of the Third Infantry, a Dr. Crittenden, and several others. At about 12:30 PM near McGloin's Bluff, present day Ingleside, a boiler burst.

Eight persons were killed including Higgins and Barry and a Private Hunt. Seventeen others were injured, among them Graham and Crossman. Woods, Gordon, and Dr. Crittenden were uninjured. The Dayton sank. According to the Nueces County Historical Society, two of the injured later died and a body was recovered, apparently after a day or so.

Colonel Henry Kinney, the founder of the city of Corpus Christi and the main landowner, donated a hill overlooking the shoreline and the Nueces River and probably a vista of woods and meadowland to the west, as the cemetery. Due to "delays" the military funerals were held after sunset, with the services read by lamplight and three volleys fired over the graves. Taps was played and the company left to fife and drums.

The Dayton casualties may not have been the first buried there. The Corpus Christi Caller Times for 14 September 1884 published an interview with a soldier who'd been in Taylor's army, John Henderson, who stated that during the summer several soldiers got sick with diarrhea from "impure water" and that one who died, a German named Engenspiehl, was buried on the same hill. It is certain that other soldiers who died before Taylor's army left lie there.

Known as "The Graveyard" and "old Military Cemetery" before becoming Bayview, the cemetery replaced an older one at Nuecestown, some fifteen miles (24 km) upriver and also founded by Kinney.

Local historian Leila M. Webb, as quoted in the cemetery's website, wrote in 1957 that "No lots were ever sold in this cemetery, which served as the only burying ground for almost half a century." She noted that it "was said to have resembled a regular 'potters' field' and everyone who died was buried there, regardless of color, race, or creed." Relatively unusual for the times, black, hispanic, and white persons were laid to rest together.

The cemetery was fenced by the 1860s, according to one account to keep Texas longhorn cattle out. In 1868 one Doswell donated some land and in the 1870s a new fence was constructed. Family plots were fenced by those who could afford to do so. Each family took care of its own area, showing up for all day meetings and dinner when they came to clear weeds and do any needed restoration.

Originally a military cemetery, Old Bayview is the final resting place of about eighty veterans of five wars who hail from fourteen different countries and twenty-six U. S. states.There are veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution, the Mexican–American War, both sides of the American Civil War, and the Spanish–American War as well as of conflicts between the settlers and Indians.

Texas Revolutionary soldiers include George W. Hockley, who was Inspector General of the Texas Army during the Battle of San Jacinto and Texas Secretary of War in 1838, and William Gamble (or Gambel) (1808–1877), who was in Sam Houston's army before becoming a rancher and judge in Live Oak County. Some who were with Taylor's army returned to live in Corpus Christi and are buried there. Texans who fought on both sides of the Civil War are buried there and so are Henry Chapman and William Warfield, black Union soldiers who arrived with the Federal occupation.

During the time of the cemetery's greatest usage most people in Corpus Christi could be described as pioneers. Alejo Hernandez (1842–1875) was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico and became the first Methodist minister to preach in that country. Tito P. Rivera (1843–1894), who was captured by Comanches at age nine and forced to be an interpreter till released at age twelve, fought in the Civil War and became a leading merchant. Captain Henry W. Berry (1818–1888) came with Taylor's army and became the first Nueces County sheriff before being Tax Collector-Assessor, then Mayor from 1857 to 1862. Matthew Nolan was orphaned in childhood, fought in the Mexican–American War, and then became sheriff in which job he was shot to death in 1864. Mrs. Matilda Roscher Darby (1880–1911) is described as a "member of pioneer families". Mary Guilmenot is described as a "negro woman" who was born in Matagorda, Texas and moved to Indianola then Corpus Christi. There she married George Guilmenot, Jr., had a large family, and died at age 80 in 1938.

Of black persons during that time when racial segregation was being legislated, some of the earliest buried having been slaves of white cemetery occupants, about forty are thought to lie there, the last interred in the 1980s. Also buried here is a Buffalo Soldier, George Owens, who played a part in the Union army, and was honored with a historical marker in February, 2019.

Many individuals prominent in the little-known history of south Texas are buried there. Captain John W. Fitch (1832–1910) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and came to Texas in 1850. He was the first sheriff in Bee County before moving to Nueces County, and worked for Richard King of King Ranch fame. He was a captain in the Confederate forces under John Salmon Ford ("Rip" Ford) and a Texas Ranger. In 1877 he bought a ranch in Nueces County, moved to San Antonio in 1899 where he lived until 1905 when he sold his business to live in Boerne. In 1868 he married Avaline Byington of Banquette, Texas and raised a large family. Dr. T. Somervell Burke (1836–1891) was a Confederate veteran born in Mississippi who for many years ran the quarantine station at Port Aransas. His "funeral cortage was one of the largest ever seen in Corpus Christi" says his obituary, and businesses closed for the service.

Felix Anton von Blucher (1819–1878) is the great-nephew of the Field Marshal von Blũcher who led German forces at the Battle of Waterloo. (In Texas records the spelling is usually anglicized.) He was born in Poglow, Mechlenburg, Germany, studied engineering, learned four modern languages plus Latin in addition to his native German, and served in the Prussian army before immigrating. In 1845 he was at New Braunfels, Texas where he helped draft a treaty with the Comanche before going to Mexico. In 1849 he came to Corpus Christi where he surveyed school lands for Nueces County, helped draft the City Charter and inserted the amendment requiring a ship channel to Aransas Pass. He selected the site for and built a water tank to deal with droughts (drafting an ordinance to keep hogs out of it), and in 1853 surveyed the military road to Eagle Pass, Texas. In the Confederate army he planned and oversaw the defense of Corpus Christi, which endured artillery barrages by Federal gunboats. He worked in Mexico in 1865, returning in 1873; in 1875 he surveyed Zapata County.On a trip to Germany in 1849 he married Maria Augusta Emme (1827–1893), an aristocratic and wealthy girl who accompanied him to become a pioneer woman, albeit of the local elite. She taught classes in music and Spanish and bore six children. Her letters and other writings, edited by Bruce S. Cheeseman, were published in 2002 as Maria von Blũcher's Corpus Christi.

Benjamin Franklin Neal (179? - 1873) was the first mayor of Corpus Christi. Born in Virginia between 1792 and 1796 and trained as a lawyer, he arrived in Refugio County in 1838. In 1839 he sided with the Mexican Federalists whom he helped conquer Monterrey. He was Chief Justice of Refugio County 1840 to 1845, where he bought the San Luis Advocate, moving it to Galveston in 1841 and bought the Galveston News. In 1846 he moved to Corpus Christi, founding and publishing the Nueces Valley 1852 to 1870. About 1850 he married Eleanor Rebecca O'Neil, who bore one child and died of yellow fever in 1852, after which he married Azubah Haines. He practiced law and was elected mayor of the newly incorporated city in 1852 and 1855. From 1859 to 1860 he prospected gold in what's now Arizona and returned wealthy in time to command the local artillery battery as a Confederate major and to serve as a judge. During Reconstruction he was deposed, restored, and deposed from that position before becoming judge of the Nueces-Karnes County District until 1870.

Biographical notes on most identified cemetery occupants are available online at the links given below.

The Old Bayview Cemetery's website lists several large-scale events that apparently contributed occupants. The Mexican–American War is the first and most obvious since the cemetery was established for soldiers who died during the initial occupation.

Corpus Christi was the site of small-scale Civil War action. Historian Eugenia Reynolds Briscoe gives a fairly detailed account of this, beginning with the tightening of the Federal naval blockade in January 1862. Corpus Christi was central to commerce with Mexico that the Union needed to stop. Under Lt. S. W. Kittredge Union forces took Port Aransas and Mustang Island in July, using the yacht Corypheus and steamship Sachem. Able to enter Corpus Christi Bay, these ships shelled the city during attempts to take it. The struggle moved back and forth for the remainder of the war, with the federals now loosening and now regaining their grip, holding Mustang Island, while engaging in actions in Corpus Christi and Flour Bluff to the southeast and on Mustang Island. Federal troops now and then entered the city, a few times landing and fighting the Confederates in what's now downtown Corpus Christi. Kittredge appears an ineffective commander, especially considering that he was captured by the Confederates and replaced by Lt. T. F. Wade, and operations appear to have remained indecisive. The Confederacy progressively weakened as communications and commerce broke down while its armies suffered defeats in the eastern theater. Corpus Christi endured increasing shortages and constant anxiety between confrontations.

Not mentioned on the site are conflicts of Anglo and Hispanic settlers with Indians, usually Comanche or Tonkawa, and raids by outlaw gangs. These small-scale incidents are mentioned, more or less in passing, in memoirs and histories but their losses added up. Casualties of these fights, excluding Indians and the outlaws who seem to have been left where slain or hanged and buried wherever expedient, were interred at the city cemetery; an example is Texas Ranger Captain Michael E. van Buren, who died in 1851 as a result of wounds suffered during a fight with Indians.

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