In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the Chamberlain Cemetery will be recognized with an official Texas Historical Marker by the Texas Historical Commission on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 1 p.m. The public is invited to come out and help celebrate this momentous occasion for the City of Kingsville.

The 40-acre Chamberlain Cemetery lies on the south side of West Caesar Avenue at the edge of the City of Kingsville in Kleberg County, Texas. Across the street, the Kingsville Independent School District owns the property on which Memorial Middle School is located. Catty-cornered from the cemetery is William Thompson Park, a popular city park. These two establishments add stability and vitality to the resting place of 10,810 residents of the cemetery. The back side (or South) is bounded by farm and ranch land originally owned by Ernest A. Wernecke. To the East is an easement belonging to the City of Kingsville, and on the west side is Santa Gertrudis Memorial Cemetery, formerly owned by the King Ranch.

In April, 1852 Richard King, a steamboat captain on the Rio Grande in partnership with Mifflin Kenedy, rode horseback through the Desert of the Dead (later called the Wild Horse Desert), a wild unpopulated area between Brownsville and Corpus Christi. He was on his way to the Lone Star Fair in Corpus Christi. The abundant grassland must have sparked thoughts of grazing cattle, and a new venture was growing in his mind. The next year he returned to set up a cow camp on Santa Gertrudis Creek near present-day Kingsville to form the King Ranch which eventually became one of the largest and most productive in the world.

In 1853 King acquired 15,500 acres (or three and one-half leagues) from a Spanish land grant, the Rincon de Santa Gertrudis. The grant had been awarded to Juan Mendiola in 1830 by the state of Tamauilpas, Mexico. Mendiola died, the land was abandoned, and the estate was willing to be rid of the land. King bought the land for less than two cents an acre. This transaction began his collection of land grants to enlarge his holdings. King would turn this useless, bandit-ridden, desert property into a profitable business. The land where Chamberlain Cemetery rests today is a small part of the Mendiola Grant.

In 1885 King died leaving his ranch to his widow, Henrietta Maria Morse Chamberlain King. She became instrumental in bringing the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway through the ranch area to the Mexican Border in 1904. Through her influence the headquarters for the railroad were established in the new town of Kingsville platted under her direction. Both the railway’s general office and the service and repair shops were located here. With a quickly growing population, the town required the amenities of civilization — schools, churches, businesses, waterworks, and eventually a burial park. (Park was an appellation used in those days for a cemetery).

With her son-in-law, Robert J. Kleberg, Mrs. King formed the Kleberg Town and Improvement Company, a vehicle for providing many of the town’s needs. The company sold a 40- acre tract of land on March 7, 1908 to the Kingsville Cemetery Association. On April 20, 1909 the tract was platted into lots and blocks for cemetery purposes. Charles H. Flato Jr., president of the association, sold lots from his business, the Kingsville Hardware Company.

Before the Kingsville Cemetery Association acquired the land, many earlier burials had taken place in the southwest corner. Most of the 2,944 unmarked or undocumented graves today are the result of poor record keeping, weather, neglect, passage of time, and demise of families. Probably among these graves are cowboys who wandered through this ranching area in their transient lives.

Among the early burials was Sylvia Knight, daughter of R.S. and Myrtle Knight. She was born March 4, 1905 and died March 5, 1905. A small brass marker reveals her place. R.S. Knight of a railway family remembered paying 10 dollars for a lot.

Lewis Bartlett, the first undertaker in Kingsville, in 1905 set up his undertaking parlor in a little wooden building on South Fifth Street. There are no records to be found on burials his business conducted. He sold his business, mainly stock of a few pine coffins, to Jordt-Allen Furniture Company which operated until 1924. Jordt sold it to Allen Furniture Company. A record ledger of burials from 1904-2004 housed at the South Texas Archives in the Jernigan Library on the Texas A&M Kingsville University Campus, contains essential information such as names, death date, places, attendants, or funeral homes, cemetery lot number. Not all entries are complete, but this ledger is invaluable for research.

After the Kingsville Cemetery Association opened the cemetery in 1909, Clyde M. Allen (Born October 21, 1887-Died October 4, 1973), who came to Kingsville in 1908 as a merchant, became a non-paid manager of the cemetery for the next 50 years.

Records show on May 31, 1909, Mrs. H.M. King bought 12 blocks, which later became part of adjoining Santa Gertrudis Cemetery. In 1911 the Masonic Lodge bought 35 blocks. Although many monuments with the Masonic or Order of the Eastern Star emblems engraved on them exist, there is no certain area designated. Another section was laid off as a Catholic cemetery, and several lots were sold but there is no evidence of its existence as a segregated entity. Joseph Sanka, a farmer living south of the cemetery, bought Lot 8, block 202 in this section, and the death records show that he buried two children there, one in 1914 and one in 1916. Among other interments in the Catholic section was J.I. Toner, publisher of a local newspaper. He was later moved to another area.

The year the cemetery was established O.S. Watson (born January 30, 1850-died December 31, 1908) was buried in Chamberlain. He came to Kingsville in 1904 with the work trains when the railroad was built. In tents pitched between tracks and Fifth Street, Kingsville’s first main street, his wife cooked and fed the railway workers. He was the first Justice of the Peace, a great fiddler, and an astute poker player.

Originally, Kingsville was a town of railway workers: those who managed the business; engineers, conductors, and brakemen who supplied the transportation element; and those who provided the skilled and manual labor for operation. Other residents came to supply the needs of the population. In 1925 a college, now Texas A&M Kingsville University, opened and brought a new segment to the town. Farm and ranch families surrounded the town. The community over the years developed a diversified economy and with it a diversified populace that reflected, of course, in burials at Chamberlain Cemetery. In addition to the pioneer families were U.S. Military personnel, many government and civic leaders, and notables as well as ordinary citizens.

Each person in Chamberlain Cemetery has a history and contributed to life in his or her own way. Alex Fillia (1869-1951), one of the first draymen, hauled freight, provided transportation from his stable, and became a beloved figure for his outgoing personality. Uriah Lott (Born January 30, 1842-Died March 29, 1915), the visionary railway builder who brought lines through Central and South Texas, is interred in Chamberlain. In front of the Kingsville Depot on Kleberg Avenue stands a THC marker honoring Lott. H.H. Kendall (1867-1915), engineer on the first train of the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway to pull through Kingsville in 1904, was killed when bandits derailed his southbound train near Brownsville on October 18, 1915. He was president of the school board. School was dismissed for his funeral, and 900 school children attended the service.

Kathryn E. Pickens (Born October 19, 1917-Died March 22, 1919) is buried in the old north section. At the time of her death, “Chamberlain Cemetery was nothing but a mud hole with no grass or trees,” according to a family narrative. Her mother assuaged her grief by organizing a cemetery beauaccomplishments tification program. She planned moneymaking projects, had brick pillars erected for the wrought iron entrance gates, and assisted in laying out streets. After five years of diligent work, Mrs. Pickens was honored with a dinner and presented a gift of a beautiful table cloth and napkins. The townspeople attended to show their appreciation. There is no tangible proof, but the construction of the matching wrought iron gates has been attributed to the metal shop of the railway.

Henrietta Maria Morse Chamberlain King (Born July 21, 1832-Died March 31, 1925), the matriarch of King Ranch, was buried in Chamberlain Cemetery, named for her father an early Presbyterian minister in Brownsville.

She had brought the ranch from 500,000 acres at her husband’s death to almost a million acres. Her legacy was vast. Wearing their ranch clothes and astride their range horses, 200 cowboys accompanied La Patrona to her grave.

Captain King, a son, and a daughter were brought from San Antonio in the fall of 1925 and reinterred in Chamberlain cemetery under the tall shaft of granite inscribed: KING. Other prominent ranching families have members buried in Chamberlain including the Easts, the Turcottes, and the Armstrongs.

The following decade saw many other well-known citizens join the early pioneers. Dr. Robert Bartow Cousins (Born 1861-Died 1932), a noted educator serving three terms as State Superintendent of Public Schools and holding leading positions in colleges throughout Texas, came to Kingsville as first president of South Texas State Teachers college in 1925.

He guided the college through its formative years. Today it has expanded to Texas A&M University-Kingsville. John N. Shaw (Born August 16, 1840-Died June 17, 1933), a Civil War veteran, private in Co. I 19 Regiment, Mississippi Infantry of the Confederate States of America, literally built the town when he came here in 1903 with the railway builders. He contracted to construct the depot, the first office building, section houses, and other railroad structures as well as some private residences.

Not all went peacefully in death. Game Warden Dawson Murchison (Born 1887-Died 1938), was killed by poachers on the King Ranch spotlighting deer on the night of December 20, 1938. A THC marker was placed by his grave in Chamberlain Cemetery in 1968.

Sheriff Thomas William Moseley (Born 1884-Died 1940) was shot and killed by William M. Bolin on Friday, February 2, 1940 while seated at a table in the White Star Cafe on Kleberg Avenue. Moseley, a controversial man, had served Kleberg County from 1922 to 1935 when he resigned. He is interred in Chamberlain. Markers indicate that Chamberlain is a microcosm of a small city in Texas.

Behind the front fence between the two wrought iron entrance gates is the area where many of the town’s earliest settlers were buried: doctors, bankers, merchants, local officials, ranchers, and railroad families. The stones are time-worn. Several are made of brick. Most are simple in form and design. On the west side the monuments become more elaborate with religious statuary prevalent. Marble and granite prevail as material choice.

To the back of the forty acres in the southwest section, a field of crosses in different styles and materials cover the landscape. The roads that wind through the grounds are asphalt without curbing. Some of the roads curve through areas while others run in a straight line. As a result, the grave stones are not always in a symmetrical position. There is no curbing between lots. A map is useful for locating specific burials. Information can be found at the small office situated midway between the two front gates.

Also at this building is a storage place for tools and machinery used in grounds keeping. Near the west gate is a flagpole used on special occasions.

Native plants are used throughout the cemetery because they can survive the hot summer climate and the erratic rainfall pattern of South Texas. Ground cover is Bermuda or San Augustine grass. The trees include the sprawling mesquite, anahuac, hackberry, ebony, and oak.

The trees provide a shady respite for the birds that travel the migratory fly-way over this area. The cemetery has become a bird sanctuary that attracts bird watchers.

The section of the cemetery where Mexican families originally chose lots is always colorful with bright synthetic flowers. (Deer from nearby ranch land like to eat fresh flowers!) During special holidays, such as the Day of the Dead in October and Christmas, this part of Chamberlain is a riot of color.

The Chamberlain Cemetery Board is responsible for the operation of the cemetery.

There are eight directors, elected at the annual meeting in January open to members who own plots. Two full-time employees work in the office and on the grounds. A part-time employee maintains the financial books.

Chamberlain Cemetery is a significant part of the area’s history. It provides a record of the people who came to settle and develop this new frontier over one hundred years ago. It is a place where the community’s heritage is written on stones. An official Historic Texas Cemetery Marker for Chamberlain Cemetery would inform and educate the citizens as well as inspire them.