glenny
Junior Member
while out detecting the other weekend, I had a gentleman holler at me from over a fence separating a football field and a cemetery, wondering if I found anything worth keeping? Just a few coins and plenty of can-slaw, I ask him if they were getting ready for a funeral. His reply was no, we are waiting for the archeologist to show up from Texas A&M so we can start the dig. 
To make a long story short, this cemetery dates back to the early 1800's and was a site where several soldiers and early settlers are buried. oddly enough, no one was ever buried in the center of the cemetery due to the belief that there once was a mass grave at this site. local history has either about 200 solders from the tex-mex are buried here and then had civil war solders added at a later date, Some stories have that Karankawa Indians that were massacred by settlers are also buried here. Short Texas history lessen, West Columbia as it is known today was the site for the first capital of Texas. Sam Houston himself rallied and gathered troops there for the tex-mex war effort. In addition, a hospital was built to treat wounded soldiers and people suffering from yellow fever. Once the yellow fever ran rapid, they started buring the dead in a mass grave. Thus no head stones. Some old residents of the town say that they or older relatives remember seeing several small white crosses at the spot where the dig is now going on. After the archie started digging, they found what he called burial dirt about four feet down, which he said was the top of the burial site. They have since trenched out the outskirts of the burial pit (his words) and are waiting for students to return from their Christmas breaks to resume the dig. I have a few photos of the dig. I was even lucky enough to get my picture in the local newspaper 
To make a long story short, this cemetery dates back to the early 1800's and was a site where several soldiers and early settlers are buried. oddly enough, no one was ever buried in the center of the cemetery due to the belief that there once was a mass grave at this site. local history has either about 200 solders from the tex-mex are buried here and then had civil war solders added at a later date, Some stories have that Karankawa Indians that were massacred by settlers are also buried here. Short Texas history lessen, West Columbia as it is known today was the site for the first capital of Texas. Sam Houston himself rallied and gathered troops there for the tex-mex war effort. In addition, a hospital was built to treat wounded soldiers and people suffering from yellow fever. Once the yellow fever ran rapid, they started buring the dead in a mass grave. Thus no head stones. Some old residents of the town say that they or older relatives remember seeing several small white crosses at the spot where the dig is now going on. After the archie started digging, they found what he called burial dirt about four feet down, which he said was the top of the burial site. They have since trenched out the outskirts of the burial pit (his words) and are waiting for students to return from their Christmas breaks to resume the dig. I have a few photos of the dig. I was even lucky enough to get my picture in the local newspaper 
here are somemore pic's.
