The Ira Malcolm Camp Family Cemetery, located within a mile of downtown Navasota in Grimes County, is possibly the only mid 1850s early family cemeteries in the region featuring a mausoleum.  It is located about one half mile off Highway 90 on top of a tree clustered hill across from the Beard Navasota Veterinary  Clinic.   Eight Camp family members rest in the mausoleum.

Another story within itself, however, is burial in the cemetery of Miriam Beck Forrest Luxton, mother of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.   In 1863, during the peak of the Civil War, General Forrest had his mother and her two younger children escorted from Tennessee to the safety of their long time friends’ Ira and Eliza Camp Inn, where Sam Houston often was a guest.    

Miriam Beck was born about 1800 in South Carolina to strict Presbyterian Scots with her parents moving to Caney Springs, Tennessee around 1810 settling on Duck River.    She married William Forrest about 1820 with a set of twins as their first born children on July 13, 1821 – son Nathan and daughter Fanny.   Several subsequent children were born and in 1834 the Forrests moved from Tennessee to Tippah County, Mississippi.   Three years later William Forrest died and Miriam also lost two sons and all three of her daughters to ‘pestilent fevers.’  With her son, Nathan, and five other surviving sons, the family cleared and drained swampland for farming.  In late December 1841, Miriam married Joseph M. Luxton.  Three more sons were born as well as a daughter.   By the time of the beginning of the Civil War Miriam’s 2nd husband was dead and she owned and operated a successful plantation near Memphis, Tennessee.   During the Civil War, family history claims that all but one son fought for the Confederacy, with Nathan becoming a somewhat controversial but heralded General.

Miriam’s safe haven was the Camp family’s inn.   Following the Civil War, a son of her 2nd marriage, James Madison Luxton, sought refuge in Grimes County for an ‘undescribed’ crime he committed in Tennessee.  He reportedly  became a deputy sheriff under a sheriff by the name of Charles Gibbs.  In the fall of 1867 James fell seriously ill and Miriam rushed by carriage to his aid.   As she stepped off the carriage in Navasota a nail penetrated her foot.  She subsequently suffered blood poisoning and died at Camp Inn on November  15, 1867.  Her son, James, survived and later raised a family in Uvalde County, Texas.

In 1924, the Hannibal Boone Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed Marker #523 on her grave in honor of her son General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Ira Malcolm and Eliza Collins Camp arrived in Grimes County in 1846 from Mississippi.  They built a rock home and Inn just east of present day Navasota.   Three of their children had died and were buried in Mississippi.  It is believed there are thirteen burials in the Camp Family Cemetery.   

The first, according to recorded dates, was a son John W. Camp, born January 9, 1840, who died January 22, 1852.  Others are:

                  Daughter Mary E. Camp, born March 24, 1839; died July 9, 1854;

                  Benjamin G. Camp, born November 19, 1857; died December 13, 1860;

                  Cornelia G. Camp, born February 28, 1863; died December 11, 1866;

                  William B. Camp, born September 5, 1855; died November 24, 1874;

                  Moses M. Camp, born March 24, 1839; died July 8, 1888, a Confederate veteran;

Their parents:  Ira Malcolm Camp, born July 11, 1811; died January 21, 1895; and Eliza (Collins) Camp, born February 15, 1820; died August 4, 1889.  All of these family members are in the mausoleum.

Other burials are: 

                  Eliza L. (Hutton) Camp, born December 30, 1808; died May 15, 1868, wife of J. P. Camp, brother of Ira Malcolm Camp and mother of Ira S. (F.) Camp, born about 1839.

                  Zeroe Ann Horn (Harn), born August 22, 1873; died December 17, 1874, infant daughter of Dr. Alvin D. and Josephine Camp Horn (Harn).  Josephine was daughter of Ira Malcolm and Eliza Collins Camp;

                  Miriam (Beck) Forrest Luxton, born 1801; died November 15, 1867, (Mother of General N. B. Forrest);

                  Josephine Luxton, unknown birth; unknown death;  and

                  Levi Jake Hibbard, born April 22, 1839; died October 15, 1910, Private, Company A, 35th Texas Cavalry, Brown’s Regiment, Confederate States of America.  Hibbard is probably the last burial in the Camp Family Cemetery.


(Camp Photo Courtesy of Clifton Palmer McLendon)