Texan Magazine
70 YEARS OF TEXAS HISTORY AND FAMILY RESEARCH
By Marshall E. Kuykendall
My family of Kuykendall’s have been in America since the beginning of the Dutch West Indies Company colonization of the upper Hudson River Valley of New York in the early 1600’s.
We have been in Mexican/Texas since 1821. Our family was granted entry into this region under the provisions laid out under the Charter of Colonization for 300 Anglo Families to enter under an Agreement from the Mexican Governor and Moses Austin dated 26 December 1820. Later, said Charter was perfected after the death of Moses Austin by his son, Stephen F. Austin.
The Kuykendall family group led the way into Mexican/Texas in November of 1821, where they reached the Brazos River on the afternoon of the 26th of November and camped on the east side. Only Andrew Robinson and his family preceded the Kuykendall’s and that group were camped on the west side of the river.
The Kuykendall family consisted of three brothers and their families, Abner, Robert and Joseph. Without looking in my files, Abner and his wife, Sally Gates, had some 7 children; Robert and his wife, Sarah Gilleland had 6 children, and Joseph and his wife, or consort, Rosanna, had none.
That accounts for some 19 individuals. Of those 19 family members, I have found only two graves after 70 years of searching:
TO WIT:
Sarah Gilleland Kuykendall Tone, wife of Robert, buried in the Old Hawley Cemetery at Blessing, Matagorda County Texas and Rosanna Kuykendall, shown as “Consort” of Joseph Kuykendall, buried in an unmarked grave on the Jane Long/Joseph Kuykendall league boundary line located near “Crabb’s Switch,” just outside of Richmond, FT. Bend County, Texas.
JOSEPH KUYKENDALL
About 50 years ago when I was looking around in all the state records, I got a call from a lady in Richmond, Texas, whose name escapes me. She asked me if I knew or had ever seen the grave of Joseph’s wife, Rosanna, who was buried near Crabb’s Switch south of Richmond? I told her “No, I knew nothing about it.”
Seems that many years ago some researchers in Ft. Bend County had been digging around in the records there and found a handwritten note with a map attached showing the location of Rosanna’s grave and the lady asked if I’d like to have a copy of it? (Do a bear do it in the woods?)
She sent me the map showing the location of the grave. I then whistled up my bro-in-law, Jim Kirkpatrick, who lives nearby in Sugarland. He and I went out to big Crab’s Switch. We found the dirt road down an old fence line that showed on the map to be the actual Spanish League Line between
JANE LONG AND JOSEPH KUYKENDALL.
We crawled out of my truck and began to work our way north toward the Brazos River. We made our way through all kinds of brush and brambles. Soon we came to an area where we found several old bricks which we knew were the remains of the burial crypt noted on the map for Rosanna. We also had been told that the headstone which had fallen down had been hidden from grave-stone thieves and was buried under dirt and deep leaves about 10 feet to the east.
Well, the league line ran north and south, so that was fairly easy. I crawled over to my right about 10 feet and found a small area with no brush which I figured had to be where the head-stone was hidden. Sure enough, I scratched around there on my hands and knees until I hit something slick, and there it was: Rosanna’s stone-about two by five feet and about two to three inches thick. I was beyond thrilled. The stone is completely intact thanks to those women who long ago had found it and then hid it from grave vandals.
THE GRAVESITE
That must have been at least 30 years ago and ever since then I have reached out to any and everybody in FT. Bend County who might help me get permission to clear the area and look for Joseph’s grave, since I figured his second wife would have buried him close by after he died in 1873.
I finally was contacted by an old man who knew all about the grave and he, too, wanted to see if the area could be cleared and searched. Sadly to date, no one ever approached the joining owners nor the county, to my understanding AND no had ever offered a thin dime to help.
Well, not trying to be a smart ass, I told the old man I’d be happy to pay for the clearing, if he would get permission, and that’s where everything stopped. This has to be 15 years ago.
Then last year I get this phone call out of the blue from the old man hollering, you won’t believe what has just happened! The state and the county have built an expressway right down the league line, dodging around the grave so it is now exposed to the whole world. He was worried that all would be lost.
Now, being a tad bit of a hot-head, I jump to 19 different conclusions (mostly wrong) and started hollering at everyone in Ft. Bend County, namely the Commissioner, accusing them of desecrating my ancestor’s grave without consulting me, etc!
Well, what the old fart didn’t tell me was he’d been contacted several years previously when the highway department project hit the local papers and he knew ALL about it. The county had indeed, done an in-depth environmental study and had been unable to find any other graves. However, in clearing the extensive row, the grave and one lone tree are now in the middle of the row with no protection whatsoever.
Again, I jump in my faithful truck and roar down there to meet up with about 11teen county people including the Commissioner’s Chief of Staff, who is not very happy with some outsider SOB stomping around in THEIR county business. He became more unhappy when I told them they had bulldozed too damn close to the grave and hadn’t even leveled up their work.
Knowing that hollering at them probably was not in my best interest, which was preserving the location, cleaning up and setting the stone, fencing the whole kit and kabutal , AND erecting a Historic Plaque, I then told the Chief of Staff I’d be more than happy to contribute to the project. In fact, I told them, you let me get my crew of ranch workers in there, and I’ll have the whole thing finished in five working days—as in Monday to Friday—You kapeech that?
That was about three years ago. To date-not a peep. I’m sure by now my ole man friend has probably bit the dust. Which one does from time to time when one gets very old-like me.
So, where was I going with this story? Hell, I don’t know, maybe just to say that I have crawled through lots of brush and bramble between here and Conway, Arkansas looking for THAT lost family tombstone and it ain’t been easy, nor very fruitful.
Some different history today form MEK-Texas Historian
