George Bernard Erath (1813–1891)

    George Bernard Erath, soldier, surveyor, and legislator, was born on January 1, 1813, in Vienna, Austria, and attended Vienna Polytechnic Institute, where he studied English and Spanish. He sailed for America after graduation and landed in New Orleans on July 8, 1832, then moved upriver to Cincinnati, where he established his home. On March 22, 1833, he moved to the Republic of Texas, where he became a surveyor in Tenoxtitlán, in Robertson's colony. In 1835 he joined John H. Moore's ranger company to deal with marauding Indians, and on March 1, 1836, he enlisted as a private in Capt. Jesse Billingsley's Company C of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, Texan Volunteers, for service in the Texas Revolution. After fighting in the battle of San Jacinto he joined Capt. William H. Hill's ranger company and continued surveying. He platted the town of Caldwell in 1840. By 1841 he had become the captain of the Milam County minute company. In 1842 he participated in the botched Somervell and Mier expeditions but was on guard duty on the Rio Grande during the battle of Mier and thus escaped capture.

    As a member of the House of Representatives of the Eighth and Ninth congresses of the republic, 1843-1845, Erath represented Milam County and was energetic and effective in his support of the annexation of Texas to the United States. After statehood, he was elected to the First Legislature. In 1846 he returned to surveying and laid out the towns of Waco and Stephenville. He was elected to the Senate of the Seventh Legislature in 1857 and subsequently reelected to the Eighth and Ninth. On January 20, 1858, Governor Hardin R. Runnels was authorized to recruit a force of 100 Texas Rangers under Capt. John S. Ford for the protection of the frontier. According to the Austin State Gazette, "To the untiring exertions of Senator Erath, whose sympathies were warmly interested in the measure, are they more indebted than to any one else for the passage of this much needed act." In 1861 Erath resigned from the Senate in order to serve on a committee of two chosen to arbitrate disagreements between the state and its reservation Indians.

    At the outbreak of the Civil War Erath raised a company for Col. Joseph W. Speight's Fifteenth Texas Infantry regiment, but was discharged due to ill health and returned to his home at Waco. In 1864, however, Governor Pendleton Murrah appointed him to the command of a regiment in the Second Frontier District with the rank of major. This regiment, recruited in Brown and Coryell counties, was responsible for the defense of its home region. Erath returned to the Senate for the final time in 1874, to represent the Nineteenth District in the Fourteenth Legislature. He married Lucinda Chambers of New York in December 1845. Erath dictated his memoirs to his daughter Lucy in 1886; they were first published in 1923 in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and later that year in an edition of about 100 copies by the Texas State Historical Association; they were reprinted in Waco in 1956. They provide one of the most important sources on the Texas Revolution and on pioneer days in the 1830s and 1840s. He died on May 13, 1891, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco. Erath County is named in his honor. Source   

Block 11
Oakwood Cemetery
Waco

COORDINATES

31° 32.248, -97° 06.727

Joseph Smith Edgar (1818-1837)

    Edgar was born in 1818 to James and Selah Smith in Maury County, Tennessee. In late 1835, Joseph went to Texas and enlisted as a member of Capt. Robert Calder's Infantry Company K, 1st Regiment, Texas Volunteers, which he fought alongside at the Battle of Jacinto. As a veteran of the Texas Revolution, Joseph was awarded a donation grant of 640 acres for his service at the Battle of San Jacinto and a bounty grant of 320 acres for his service in the Texas Army in general. Joseph died before he ever saw any of the land he had earned. He passed when he was 19, on July 9, 1837 at the home of a family friend, Capt. James Gibson Swisher, on the Swisher Farm near the Old Gay Hill community in Washington County. Source

Note: His grave is unmarked but believed to be somewhere in the area shown below.

Old Independence Cemetery

Independence

COORDINATES

N/A

Richard Arlen "Bud" Marshall (1941-2009)

    Bud Marshall, born September 12, 1941 in Carthage, Texas, was an American football defensive lineman in the National Football League for the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, and Washington Redskins, as well as for the Houston Oilers in the American Football League. He played college football at Baylor University and Stephen F. Austin State University and was drafted in the tenth round of the 1965 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi. He was part of the team when the Packers won the 1965 NFL championship, then later in the year traded to the Washington Redskins. He was traded again that year by the Redskins to the Atlanta Falcons. In 1967, Marshall was traded yet again, this time to the AFL Houston Oilers, with whom he finished his football career. His career stats state that he played a total of 48 games over five years. He died on July 16, 2009, in Pasadena, Texas, five years to the day after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke.

Section E
Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 43.744, -095° 18.178

Joseph "Joe Tex" Arrington (1935-1982)

    Soul singer Joseph Arrington, better known as Joe Tex, was born at Rogers, Texas, on August 8, 1935. He was the son of Joseph Arrington, Sr., and Cherie (Jackson) Arrington. He moved to Baytown at age five with his mother after her divorce from his father and attended school there. While in Baytown, Arrington performed song and dance routines to enhance his business as a shoeshine and paper boy. He also sang in the G. W. Carver school choir and the McGowen Temple church choir. During his junior year of high school Arrington entered a talent search at a Houston nightclub. He took first prize over such performers as Johnny Nash, Hubert Laws, and Acquilla Cartwright, an imitator of Ben E. King. He performed a skit called It's in the Book and won $300 and a week's stay at the Hotel Teresa in Harlem, where he performed at the Apollo Theater. During a four-week period he won the Amateur Night competition four times. After graduating from high school in 1955, he returned to New York City to pursue a music career. While working odd jobs, including caretaking at a Jewish cemetery, he met talent scout Arthur Prysock who paved the way for him to meet record-company executive Henry Glover and get his first record contract with King Records. Arrington, now known as Joe Tex, introduced a style of music that has been copied by Isaac Hayes, Barry White, and others. In songs and ballads in particular, he slowed the tempo slightly and started "rapping," that is, speaking verse that told the story in the middle of the song before repeating the refrain and ending the song. The biggest hits of Joe Tex included Hold On To What You Got, Skinny Legs and All, and Soul Country, an album of country songs; his biggest seller was I Gotcha. 

    In 1972 Arrington gave up show business and began a three-year speaking ministry for the Nation of Islam which he joined in 1968. He became known as Yusef Hazziez or Minister Joseph X. Arrington. He said he was through with singing, and he would follow Allah and Elijah Muhammad. But after Muhammad's death in 1975, and with the approval and blessing of the Nation of Islam, Arrington returned to show business in order to deliver the Nation of Islam's message to his fans. He enjoyed moderate success with no hit singles until the 1977 smash hit I Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman) put him back on the top of the charts. After that single he left the music scene and performed at local clubs and benefits. Arrington died on August 12, 1982, of heart failure at his home in Navasota. He was survived by his wife, Belilah, and their six children. Source


Dennis Bryant Cemetery
Navasota

COORDINATES

30° 21.799, -096° 02.395