Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post

The Colored People’s Section of Der Stadt Friedhof was approved for a Historic Texas Cemetery Marker and an official plaque will arrive in the coming weeks.

Der Stadt Friedhof became a State Historical Cemetery in 2000 and this new designation will emphasize Section C’s history, specific to the early African American community in Fredericksburg.

“It’s about the cost of not making information known to Gillespie County and Fredericksburg residents,” Dr. Paul Phillips III said about applying for the marker. “We thought it was definitely worth us coming up with $2,500 [for the marker].”

After Phillips began researching Section C at the cemetery eight years ago, he was advised by John Benedict to apply for an official marker from the State of Texas.

As it was not one of the 10 sites selected by the Texas Historical Commission to receive grant funding, Phillips, Benedict, the Gillespie County Historical Society and other individuals donated funds to receive the designation.

The 10-page historical narrative included in the application for the marker was written by Benedict, who was instrumental in helping people of color in Kerrville receive a marker at Center Point Cemetery for African Americans who were buried in enslavement, or shortly following emancipation.

Susan Stroeher, current president of the cemetery, and Carey Bonn, previous chair, are supportive of the marker to better identify the African American section. Glen Treibs, former Gillespie County Historical Commission Chairman, also sent a letter of support.

Since 1846, when the cemetery was laid out by Hermann Wilke, it was managed by Bethany Lutheran Church, Holy Ghost Lutheran Church and Zion Lutheran Church.

Fredericksburg United Methodist Church has since joined the management team and helped to establish the cemetery as a nonprofit 501(c)13, providing protections for the site.

An ongoing investigation

Phillips and a group of historians are investigating the 39 graves, eight of which are of unknown individuals. Additional unmarked sites along the creek at the western side of the grounds could exist.

Dr. Mary Brennan, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Texas State University, led a team conducting ground-penetrating radar scans of the space between where the cemetery for Black people appears to end and where there are other graves. Findings from the survey conducted three years ago will reveal more information about who may be buried there.

To best maintain histories not only of the physical grounds, but the memories of the people buried in Section C, Dr. Phillips said, “it needs to be written.”

“In this project,” Phillips said, “everyone has been adamant about learning who the people were.”

The inscription on the marker will explain the burial ground as a final resting place for the dead, providing for the living reminder of the challenges the generations faced.

The Historic Texas Cemeteries (HTC) designation states that to become a historical site, the cemetery “must be deemed worthy of recognition for its historical associations.” And goes on to say, “The very nature of a cemetery being a landmark of a family’s or community’s presence is considered to validate the criteria of historical associations.”

Benedict wrote that the history of the first African Americans living in Gillespie County is significant because
“it is the story of a people’s struggles to be free, to marry, to have families, to freely worship, to become educated and contribute to society — to build a meaningful and peaceful life!”

In the narrative, he emphasized the unusual nature of Der Stadt Friedhof burying people from both Black and white communities in the same cemetery, before emancipation. Section C represents freedom from institutional racism, he said.

The earliest known gravesite in the section is that of Amelia “Millie” Tinker in 1933. Born into enslavement, her bill of sale is the most reliable proof of her birth, which estimates that she was born in either 1813 or 1831. Whether she actually lived 120 years or not, it is recorded that Millie was given 100 acres of land in the will of her owner, John Doss.

Later, the “colored” school was built on the land that was purchased by Millie’s husband, James Tinker, for $75 and the land for the African American church for $80. At one point, a bridge over the creek connected the cemetery grounds and church.

Phillips and his cousin, Gary Hunter, completed restoration of the historic Christian Methodist Episcopal Church at 602 East Main Street, from disrepair in 2020. Although regular services are not held, the church is used as a venue for meetings and weddings. Their continued work aims to revitalize the historic spaces for Black people to use today.

Though there has not been a burial in Section C since 1989 — for Ernest Washington — the cemetery is still used. Phillips says, like the restored Black church, he’d like the section to be used again.

Reclaim and remember

There are about 5,000 known graves at Der Stadt Friedhof, according to the Texas Historical Commission. The question is not whether there are more, but how many more unmarked graves remain. The city, county and local historians still do not know the location of the mass graves used during the flu pandemic in the 1910s and ’20s. In time, nature has reclaimed them.

Reclaiming the burial grounds has become a project so immense, Phillips and Benedict connected with Ruby Oram, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of History at Texas State University. She tasked one of her classes in the fall of 2022 with tracing the lineage of five families identified in the section of the grounds as a semester-long project.

“As anyone who has taken a deep dive into census records knows, much of the process is interpreting inconsistent data and omissions, reading between the lines and drawing from multiple sources to paint a fuller picture,” a student wrote.

The Texas State University class “came up with a lot of information,” Phillips noted.  “But they also came up with a lot of questions like where did the rest of the families go? Where are the descendants? We hit a wall, you know?”

Oram wrote in an email that many students found historic street names, neighborhoods and specific addresses for family members in the cemetery dating back to the 19th century. Another group of students have been assigned archival research of streets and addresses and will find them on contemporary maps.

“There were still many questions unanswered and there is much still to discover,” Phillips later said in an email about the ancestry work.

“It’s more than just the Phillips family. For me, it’s about every family who has a member that’s buried there in the colored people section,” he said. “I would love to be able to find those descendants and tell them that this is what we’re still doing for your great-grandfather, your great-great-grandfather and grandmother, who are buried here.”

The board and those involved continue to investigate the site and look for descendants of the Tinker, Fasselman, Washington, Burnam (or Burnm) and Duering (or Dearing) families.