In her final Regent’s report to the 1957 General assembly, Mrs. Albert Earl Hudspeth mentioned the placement of the Texas Society’s latest historical marker:

 

At the suggestion of the Chairman of Marking Memorial and Historic Spots, Mrs. Richard Haines, we marked old Ft. Griffin at [near] Temple, Texas. Mrs. Haines has presented a splendid list of 80 places available and suitable for marking. Most of these were taken from Howard’s “Original Guide to Texas,” and will provide an excellent beginning for successive regimes.

 

Mrs. Haines, in her report to the national chairman of the Memorials and Marking Historic Spots Committee, commented on the Fort Griffin Cemetery marker:

 

On October 5, 1956, upon vote of the May Assembly, the Old Fort Griffin Cemetery, Bell County, Texas, was appropriately marked with a bronze marker suitably inscribed and set in concrete. The State Highway Department erected the marker for our society. Three members attended the simple but beautiful ceremony conducted by our State Chaplain, Mrs. O. L. Fletcher…..

 

The Fort Griffin Cemetery, located six and one-half miles southeast of Temple, took its name from the picket fort built in November, 1836, by George B. Erath and twenty Texas Rangers as a haven against Indians. The stockade was near the Little River Community and was known variously as “Fort Smith,” “Little River Fort,” and “Fort Griffin.” Though abandoned as a military post before the Santa Fe Expedition camped in its shelter June 24-29, 1841, the fort was used by settlers for many years afterward as a place of defense against the Indians.

 

Land for both the fort and nearby cemetery was donated by Moses Griffin from his headright league grant from the Mexican government. Believed to be the earliest cemetery in Bell County, the 140 by 160 foot cemetery plot contained fifty to sixty graves dating from 1839 to 1896, but only thirteen original tombstones remained in 1956. Before the marking ceremony, two granite markers were erected at the graves of Mrs. Omar Lester Fletcher’s grandparents, and three other markers were restored by Mrs. Fletcher. Fort Griffin itself had long since been destroyed, and all that remained of the stockade were a few timeworn timbers. A common grave for twelve soldiers of Texas militia, presumably killed in the Indian Wars, had also been destroyed and the neat rock fence which marked its location had been shattered. The cemetery also served as the final resting place for victims of the Bird Creek Indian battle, including Maximo Moreno, the Spanish land-grant empresario of the Bell County area.

 

The DAC bronze plaque was placed beside a granite 1936 Texas Centennial Marker commemorating Fort Griffin, and located on the road from Belton to Little River, State Highway 436, about 200 yards north of the entrance to Old Fort Griffin Cemetery, which has been owned by members the Hartrick family since they first settled near Little River Community in the days of Fort Griffin’s use. In later years a curve was removed from the old road near the two markers, and the new road passed to the south, concealing the markers from public view. The Texas Centennial Marker was subsequently moved to the edge of the improved road, but the DAC plaque has remained at its original location.

05 Oct 1956—OLD FORT GRIFFIN CEMETERY

 

BELL COUNTY,  TEXAS

Texas State Historical Markers