St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery

Catholics in the Brushy Community, a rural settlement that developed beginning in the 1830s along Brushy and Supple Jack Creeks, first organized a church around 1847 and built a log sanctuary. In 1869, under the direction of Father John Anthony Forest, third Bishop of the San Antonio Diocese, area Catholics began building St. Joseph Parish, completed in 1876 on property donated by John H. and Stephen Dunn. Known by settlers as Brushy Church, St. Joseph served Lavaca and bordering counties until a new church was built in 1912 to accommodate the growing community, and the Brushy Church was destroyed by fire in 1932. St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery continued to serve the area, with the earliest known burial that of John B. Vollentine, who died in 1871. Many buried there were ranchers, farmers, or sharecroppers, reflecting the rural character of the area, and notable interments include Pat May, a founder of Yoakum, as well as members of fraternal organizations and veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War. Religious statuary and iconography reflect the cemetery’s Catholic identity, and its features include curbing, obelisks, vertical stones, and five mausoleums for above-ground burials. St. Joseph Parish maintains the cemetery, which remains open for descendants of the original parishioners and continues to link the area to its former rural communities and the Catholics who lived near Brushy Creek.

Texas · United States