The Davidson - Littlepage Cemetery

Ever driven to Austin Bergstrom Airport? Or, for that, matter driven away from that airport heading NorthWest/West? Chances are you have driven past The Davidson – Littlepage cemetery located on the Bastrop Highway coming toward Austin from the direction of the airport. Once the airport moved to Bergstrom, I became more and more interested in finding out why this cemetery is where it is, and who is buried there. My imagination ran wild and finally, because of an interest in posting some entries relating to the history of various parts of Austin (and the places we all drive by), I went to the Austin Historical Library on Guadalupe. The woman who assisted me was great, the material is awesome and my time was very quick in attaining my goals for this mysterious cemetery. Thanks to the reporting by Tom Barry of the Austin American Statesman, here is the findings (not exactly so exciting, but I can at least check this question off my list). The most exciting discovery was this piece of real estate could still be claimed by a relative….

“…This little graveyard hosts 5 markers with potentially 6 gravesites. When the highway department’s survey crew were surveying the mesquite pasture to make a place for the improved Bastrop Highway (completed in 1959), they came upon this little graveyard, its headstones tumbled to earth by time and neglect, completely obscured by grass and weeds. It was on the right-of-way, but it was not in the way of progress so saving it they did. All efforts to locate relatives of the long forgotten dead were in vain, so Texas Highway Department made an ‘’exception’’ in its right-of-way purchase, put up the current chain link fence, righted the headstones and cleared away the weeds. The dead of the little graveyard have been there, some of them, for more than a century. They may have been forgotten for almost that long. They are names like any other names, but pronouncing them means nothing, for who the people were, how they lived and died – all are as obscure as if the dead had never lived. A widely known historian of Travis County, Mrs Fred C. Barkley, knows quite a bit about the history of this county and tried for years to find out something about the little cemetery. Mrs Barkley could only report on rumor and speculation, but little else, the graveyard was originally Spanish land, part of the Del Valle grant. Some of the land was possibly deeded to people named Caldwell by a Spaniard, who deeded over the land in lieu of a law fee which resulted from the legal defense of his son in New Orleans by a lawyer name Caldwell…”

Inside the old iron fence are buried;
Martha Littlepage, who lived from 1837 to 1868
Susan V. Littlepage, born April 23, 1804 died Jan 21, 1870
A rugged, hand-hewn block of granite markes the grave of L.O. Davidson Campbell, wife of J.E. Campbell; Died November 1857
Another gravestone, shaped like a bishop’s mitre, marks the resting place of two persons-
Martha E.A., wife of A.M. Davidson, Born May 3, 1816 Died Apr.12, 1864
James A., Eldest Son of A.M. and M.E.A. Davidson, Born Aug 8, 1836, Died Dec. 8, 1856