The Dunham-Wood CemeteryBy Betty Dunn
The early Dunham-Wood Cemetery located on the historic Jared Groce league in the southwest corner of Grimes County is in the process of being restored by descendants. The above photo taken five years ago in 2007 no longer depicts the cemetery. Some trees as well as brush have been removed and broken tablet slab grave covers have and are being renovated along with other markers. It will eventually be fenced off from grazing cattle. This cemetery is located off Grimes County Road 323, south of Highway 2. The cemetery is on private property well off the road. No trespassing is allowed. The cemetery became lost and possibly unknown sometime during the early 20th century as the land became overgrown with thickets and trees. In the 1930s, the Grimes County Heritage and History book published in 1982 states that Joe Bass was searching for a lost cow in the then overgrown pasture and stumbled across the grave stones rediscovering the cemetery. In 2009, descendants of the Dunham and Wood families began the restoration of this historic cemetery. Lourania/Lewrania Dunham, widow of Daniel A. Dunham, is the earliest burial found in the cemetery. She died December 26, 1844, at about age 60 years. Her husband, Daniel A., purchased the Jared Groce property shortly after Groce’s death in November of 1836. Dunham then returned to Tennessee to get his family. The Grimes County History of 1982 states that on the family’s way to Texas Daniel died in Louisiana. The family, that included eight of their nine children, continued on to Texas. A neighboring family named Wood intermarried with the Dunhams. This cemetery became the families burial grounds. (Groce, himself, was buried at his Bernardo Plantation south of Hempstead, according to the Handbook of Texas.) On an historical note, Robert H. Dunham, son of Daniel and Lourania/Lewrania Dunham, was captured by the Mexican Army in March 1843 as a member of the Meir Expedition at Salado Creek in Mexico. He was one of the seventeen Texans to draw a black bean and executed on the 25th. A letter Robert wrote to his mother on the eve of his execution survives and is reportedly in the Alamo Archives in San Antonio. The event, historians believe, was partly the cause of Lourania’s/Lewrania’s early death shortly afterwards in 1844. Robert’s remains, as well as all the sixteen others executed of the Meir Expedition, were eventually removed from Mexico and buried in a concrete vault at Monument Hill just outside of LaGrange. An eldest son, Daniel T. ‘Tom’ Dunham, is listed as the first postmaster of the nearby Retreat Post Office established following the forming of the Republic of Texas. This recorder is unable to learn more about him except that he is listed in the Texas Census in 1846. In the 1850 U. S. Census he is recorded as living in the household of his brother Joseph H. Dunham and at that time was 36 years of age. No death or burial records have been found. Descendants continue to search for his records. |
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