Carl Nettles Reynolds (1903-1978)

    Carl Reynolds was born into a farming family in LaRue, Texas, on February 1, 1903, the third child born to Robert and Ann (Nettles) Reynolds. He attended the local schools there, batting a reported .500 in high school. He went on to Lon Morris College, named the outstanding student there, and continued his education, earning a B.A. from Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas. He was captain of the football team, was All-Conference, MVP on the basketball team, and excelled at track and baseball. On the diamond, Reynolds played shortstop, with occasional work at third base and on the pitching mound. He was discovered by accident by White Sox scouts in June 1926 and signed up with the team for the 1927 season. Reynolds worked out for about a week with the White Sox and was assigned to play for the Palestine Pals, in the Lone Star League. Palestine finished first in league standings, and Reynolds - who mostly played outfield for them - led the league in base hits (180 in the 124 games he played), and in batting average, with .376. He also stole a league-leading 32 bases. The White Sox finished in fifth place that year, 12 games behind fourth-place Detroit.

    They decided to give Reynolds a look in the majors and called him up in September. His major-league debut came on September 1, where he was hit by a pitch. He appeared in 14 games, playing left field exclusively, with a .214 average and seven runs batted in. It was 10 years before he returned to the minors. Beginning in 1931, he was traded to a new team every year - the Washington Senators (1931), the St Louis Browns (1933), the Boston Red Sox (1934-1935), back to the Washington Senators (1936) and finally, the Chicago Cubs (1937-1939), with whom he stayed the rest of his career. After a brief turn as a scout/coach for the Pacific Coast League California Angels in 1941, he retired from the game for good. After baseball, Reynolds retired to Wharton, Texas, where he had purchased a farm back in 1934. In 1971 Reynolds was enshrined in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in its first year of existence. In 1990 he was inducted into the Southwestern University Hall of Honor. Carl Reynolds suffered from myelofibrosis and myeloid metaplasia for the last three years of his life, and acute blastic crisis the last six weeks. He died on May 29, 1978, at Methodist Hospital in Houston.


Wharton City Cemetery
Wharton

COORDINATES

29° 18.601, -096° 05.490

Fielding Grundy Secrest (?-1840)

    Secrest came to Texas in 1835, some time prior to May 2. He enlisted in the Texas army as a member of Captain Henry W. Karnes' Company early in 1836, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, then enlisted in the Washington Cavalry, commanded by his brother Washington H. Secrest, from June 25 to December 25, 1836. Early in 1838, he was issued one-third of a league of land in Brazoria County where he married Eliza H. Sneed on September 25. He moved to Harrisburg County in 1839, where he received two-thirds of a league and one labor of land for his military service. Eliza Secrest died in Houston in 1839, leaving behind her husband and an infant daughter, Elizabeth, who died two months later. Fielding himself died in Houston on June 1, 1840 of unknown causes, possibly of yellow fever.

Note: This is a cenotaph. Founders Memorial Park, originally founded in 1836 as Houston's first city cemetery, was rapidly filled due to a yellow fever epidemic and closed to further burials around 1840. The cemetery became neglected over a period of time, often vandalized and was heavily damaged by the 1900 hurricane. In 1936, despite a massive clean up effort, a century of neglect had taken its toll. The vast majority of grave markers were either destroyed or missing and poor record keeping prevented locating individual graves. Several cenotaphs were placed in random areas throughout the park in honor of the more high-profile citizens buried there, but a great number of graves go unmarked to this day.


Founders Memorial Park
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.434, -095° 22.740

John Slayton (1807-1882)

    Johann Frederic Schlobohm, also recorded as John Slaburn, John Slayton, John Slighton, John Sleightson, John Slader and John Sladon, was born December 10, 1807 in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany. As was the case with Henry Tierwester, his last name was easily misspelled, so he was given various names in his legal and military records, making him somewhat difficult to track. What is known as fact is that he arrived in Texas in 1825 and settled near the Liberty/Harris County line. He enlisted in the Texian army on March 6, 1836 (where the muster rolls listed him as John Slaburn, John Sleightson and John Slighton) and was assigned to Captain William Mitchell Logan's Company of Liberty Volunteers (where the company rolls listed him as either John Slayton or John Slighton). He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21 and left the service on June 6, 1836. Three days later, he reenlisted for a period of seventeen months, leaving the army for good on November 4, 1837. He was awarded several land grants for his service, most of which he sold off to an A. B. Grant, and settled in what is now eastern Harris County. Schlobohm died at his home on September 25, 1882. His gravestone records his last name with the correct spelling.


Schlobohm Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 54.992, -095° 19.679

John Rabb (1798-1861)

    John Rabb, early settler, son of Mary (Smalley) and William Rabb, was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1798. The family moved successively to Ohio, Illinois, and then Jonesboro (i.e. Jonesborough), Arkansas, where John married Mary Crownover on October 2, 1821. He came to Texas in 1822 as one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists and lived for a time near San Felipe de Austin. He was given title to a sitio of land now part of Fort Bend and Austin counties on July 8, 1824. He finally settled on Rabb's Prairie in what is now Fayette County, where he and his father received a bonus of land for building a grist and saw mill. 

    Rabb went on an Indian campaign under John Henry Moore to Fort Tenoxtitlán in 1835 and in 1840 was again in military service when he joined a company under his brother, Thomas J. Rabb. After joining the Methodist Church in 1834, Rabb gave land to the missionary society of the church and to Rutersville College, for which he was treasurer in 1840. He also contributed the lumber for building the first Methodist church in San Antonio. In 1845 he was vice president of the Fayette County Temperance Society. Rabb later moved to Hill County and, in 1860, to Travis County, where he helped to settle Barton Springs. He died there on June 5, 1861, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery. Source

Section 1
Oakwood Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 16.559, -097° 43.611