Rosedale Cemetery

John Kettle Armstrong and his wife Sarah were among the first settlers here when they bought 160 acres in 1844. After Sarah died in 1856, Armstrong set aside this tract for a cemetery, and tradition says the Armstrong slaves were interred outside the grounds. Following Armstrong's death in 1860, his second wife Margaret Fisher married a Mr. Stewart, and for years the Armstrongs and Stewarts allowed everyone to use the graveyard, which was called Stewart Cemetery. After the railroad started the town of Gladewater, a cemetery association organized in 1911, changed the name of the graveyard to Rosedale, and purchased an additional five acres from J. K. Armstrong and his wife. Burial permits were sold instead of lots, a policy that allowed all surface and mineral rights to remain with the association when the East Texas oil boom began. In 1932, two oil wells were drilled on the burial ground, and the association used the profits to build a caretaker's cottage, roads, a rock fence, and to landscape the grounds. In 1973, after 41 years, the wells were plugged. Still in use, the burial ground has about 265 unmarked and 750 marked graves, and many of the older plots are covered with large red rocks.

Gladewater, Texas · United States