186-year-old headstone to be center of attention
Texas Historical Marker soon will be dedicated in Deer Park, near what may be the oldest headstone in Harris County
What will be taking place next month in Dow Park began some 90 years ago and relates to two people who died in 1834.
During construction of the Shell Chemical Co. in 1928, a headstone was discovered. The inscription described a brother and sister who died within weeks of each other. Little is known about William Wilson and Mary Wilson Jackson, except that they were settlers from Massachusetts.
Mary W. Jackson died July 24, 1834, at the age of 33. William Wilson died Oct. 7, 1834, at the age of 25.
It is presumed that Mary was associated with Humphrey Jackson’ s family, based on a judgment recorded in Harris County records in 1852. William apparently purchased property from Thomas Earle Grant in what would become Deer Park near what is now the Shell refinery.
Shell treated the site with reverence, but the headstone was in the way when the company began to expand its operation during the 1970s and needed to establish a basin to meet water quality regulations.
So, through a court order and permission from the Texas Historical Commission, the marker and some dirt from under it was moved to Dow Park, its final resting spot, or so we thought.
Without City Council’s knowledge, the tombstone was moved to Heritage Park about 13 years ago. But a symbolic casket, filled with dirt, remained in Dow Park. However, through efforts of council member Sherry Garrison, who chairs the city’s historical committee, the headstone was returned to Dow Park in November 2013.
A ceremony is planned at 4 p.m. Oct. 20 in Dow Park, where a Texas Historical Marker will be formally dedicated next to William and Mary’s headstone, possibly the oldest one in Harris County.
“This achievement ensures that the history of the individuals memorialized by the headstone will live on,” stated Garrison in a press release.
This will give the city about four historical markers. The most wellknown one is at The Battleground GolfCourse. It is for the Pratt Truss Bridge, which opened in 1891 in Coryell County.
The bridge was transported 150 miles to Deer Park where it has found new life, handling golf cart traffic. It was moved here because about the same time that Simeon Henry West was founding Deer Park, this bridge over the Leon River was finished and operational. It’s also the last bridge built by the Clinton Bridge and Iron Co. of Iowa.
For the last 23 or so years, it has had a historical marker next to it.
Now William and Mary, settlers from Massachusetts, are just a few weeks from getting their own historical marker.