From Descendants of Olivewood - The official website of the Historic Olivewood Cemetery Houston, TX
About Olivewood Cemetery
Nestled against a bend of White Oak Bayou, and surrounded by rich Houston history, lies Olivewood Cemetery, the city’s first incorporated African American cemetery. For years it remained a jungle – the headstones buried under massive carpets of vegetation while only the larger mortuary architecture rose above the undergrowth hinting at Olivewood’s location. Extending over an estimated 8 acres, only the front quarter of the cemetery had been successfully cleared of the seemingly endless foliage.
As more acreage of the cemetery receives regular maintenance and care, we will be pursuing a program of plot and walkway beautification. Time, nature and vandalism have taken a toll on the historic headstones of Olivewood. Their restoration is of primary importance to us. While we improve the grounds, we will be working to raise the funds necessary to professionally restore these artifacts of Houston’s history.
Descendants of Olivewood, Inc. is dedicated to the reclamation of this cemetery for the benefit of present and future generations of Houston, Texas. We are committed to restoring, preserving and maintaining Olivewood Cemetery as a historic, educational, charitable, religious and cultural site of importance.
History
Olivewood was incorporated in 1875, a mere 10 years after emancipation arrived for Texas slaves when, on June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger debarked in Galveston and made the official announcement a couple of months after the actual end of the war. The cemetery, the people who incorporated it and the people now resting in it are part of a much larger history of Houston and its African American community. A number of Houston’s prominent African Americans are buried in Olivewood, including:
Elias Dibble, the first black ordained Methodist minister in the country and founder of Trinity Methodist Church. Dibble began life as a slave and arrived in Houston as one of the many freed slaves seeking opportunity.
Wade Hampton Logan, also an early pastor of Trinity and a presiding elder for the Navasota and Marshall Districts of the Methodist Church.
James D. Ryan, philanthropist, educator, and community leader, was born in 1872 and served as the Dean of Education in Houston.
Dr. Charles B. Johnson, also known as The Singing Dentist and author of Houston’s Bicentennial song ‘Houston is a Grand Old Town,’ written in 1927 but performed in 1976.
Each of these men are accompanied by the remains of hundreds of their fellow community members who lived and worked alongside them as shopkeepers, seamstresses, laborers, educators, preachers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and soldiers. For more information on these men and women, visit our Cemetery Records database.
A Texas Historical Marker adds:
Olivewood Cemetery
This Cemetery served the early African-American community in Houston for approximately 100 years. The Olivewood Cemetery Association Incorporated in 1875 and purchased 5.5 acres of this property that same year from Elizabeth Morin Solcomb. The Organization bought two adjacent acres in 1917. Also known in its early years as Olive Wood, Hollow Wood and Hollywood, it is one of the oldest known platted cemeteries in the city. The original 444 family plots comprising over 5,000 burial spaces were laid out along an elliptical drive. The burial ground contains several hundred marked graves, in addition to an unknown number of unmarked graves.
Interred here are pivotal leaders of Houston’s post-emancipation African-American community, including the Pastor of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, The Rev. Elias Dibble; Businessman James B. Bell; Alderman and landowner Richard Brock; Attorney J. Vance Lewis; Educator James D. Ryan; Physician Russell F. Ferrill; and Dentist Milton A. Baker. Also buried here are ex-slaves, laborers, sororal and fraternal organization members, and Military Veterans.
This Cemetery features Obelisks, Statuary, Curbing and Interior Fencing. The burial ground also includes examples of pre-Emancipation burial practices, including upright pipes (symbolizing the path between the worlds of the living and the dead), ocean shells as grave ornaments and text containing upside down or backwards letters (as used in some West African cultures to signify death). Today, Olivewood Cemetery remains as a key historical site in Houston, serving as a testament to the foresight and perseverance of the cemetery founders.
Texas Historical Cemetery - 2006
Marker is Property of the State of Texas