From legendary Moses Evans, “wild man of the woods,” to Lombardi Award Professional Football player Wilson Carl Whitley, Jr., old Washington Cemetery is their burial place.   With graves dating from the 1830s to present time, this historic cemetery is in need of help.

Efforts are presently underway to restore the grounds that herald the many souls of those who founded early Texas and on into today.  Old Washington Cemetery is located on Cemetery Road a short distance from the entrance to Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park and Republic of Texas Museum.  Many notables whose names are indelible in the history of Texas are interred in many graves now hidden in the overgrown trees and brush.  The cemetery was rededicated early in March 2012.  It is hoped that grant money and donations can be obtained to help with restoration.


WILSON CARL WHITLEY, JR., was born at Brenham, Texas on April 28, 1955.  Twenty-two years later in 1977, after winning the coveted football Lombardi Trophy as a defensive college player at the University of Houston, Whitley was drafted 8th in the first round of the NFL by the Cincinnati Bengals.  Whitley had graduated from Brenham high school as a three-time all state player and two-time All-American to become a freshman starter at U of H.   In 1976, U of H’s first year in the Southwest Conference, Whitley starred in his final collegiate game in an upset victory over previously unbeaten Maryland at the Cotton Bowl.  He was named Southwest Conference Defensive Player of the Decade to go on to garner the Lombardi Award presented to him by President Gerald Ford.

Whitley played seven NFL seasons at Cincinnati including a Super Bowl in 1982.  He ended his professional career in 1983 with the Houston Oilers.   Whitley died at the age of 37 on October 27, 1992 of a heart attack at Marietta, Georgia.   He was then survived by a wife, Norma, and two daughters, Wynter and Jordan, and a stepson Jerome.

Whitley was posthumously a 1998 inductee into U of H’s Hall of Honor and after being a perennial candidate for the National College Football Hall of Fame he was selected in 2007.

Whitley’s slab covered grave in the Washington Cemetery is near Cemetery Road.

Moses Evans

Moses Evans, who became a legend living at Washington-on-the-Brazos in the 1830s until his death there in October 1853, was a Kentuckian born in 1812.  He claimed a place in Washington County history and all of Texas as a land surveyor.   Called “Mose”, he is said to have advertised his surveyor services with the following comments:  “He will be found at his residence in Washington, at all times, except when absent on a “land stealing expedition.”   Moses’ supposed fee for land surveying was from “one-third to one-half of the land surveyed.”  Though it was said he was unable to read or write he accurately could locate and describe the surveys.  He eventually owned a vast amount of land.

Evans rode into the land that would become Texas well before 1836.  Previous to his duties in the battle of San Jacinto where he was placed in charge of guarding the sick and baggage,  he had served as a 2nd lieutenant in Captain Joseph Bell Chance’s company of Major Robert McNutt’s regiment.  He was granted 320 acres of land for his early service and another 640 acres for the San Jacinto event.  He again served at the outbreak of the Mexican War.   It was during these guerrilla services that he was wounded in the shin, unable to travel, and abandoned.  Evans managed to survive by hiding in the woods and brush to walk out and join Benjamin McCulloch’s company.

Evans was known to wear a trademark item – a rattlesnake vest.  Odds are he was buried in such a vest. His name is also associated with the “wild woman of the Navidad” legend.  Read about that in Dr. Robin Montgomery’s “Wild Man of the Woods,” item under this website’s “Stories.”