Hartman Cemetery 
Mont Belvieu, Chambers County,Texas
Cemeteries of Texas Coordinator: Dolores I. Bishop

Information provided by the State of Texas Atlas Site

Location: 
on south side of the end of Woodland Lane, .5 mi. west of intersection with FM 1409 in Old River Winfree 

Marker : 
Robert Wiseman immigrated to Texas in 1825 and received a land grant in 
1831 on the banks of Old River in what is now Chambers County. Wiseman sold his land in
1853 to Dr. Edward G. Hartman. Dr. Hartman's wife, Mary Francis Hartman, died about 
1853 after giving birth and was probably the first person buried in the family cemetery.
Dr. Hartman later remarried and moved to Galveston, where he lived until his death in 1867, 
but the Hartman children remained at their home on Old River. The small, largely unmarked 
graveyard was used by the families who owned the land and is an example of rural Texas 
burial customs. Shallow depressions, along with two brick-covered crypts and two small 
modern tombstones, are the only physical evidence of the graveyard. Soft handmade bricks 
over the graves probably were manufactured at the 1870s Pierre Almeras Brickyard about 
three-fourths of a mile downstream on Old River. There are ten known burials in the
Hartman Cemetery. Although there is no visible evidence, a separate slave cemetery 
is thought to exist on land adjacent to the family graveyard. (1991)