Biographies of Oakwood Cemetery Residents
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SCHOCH SR, EUGENE PAUL (1871-1961) Buried in Sec 2, lot 822
Eugene Paul Schoch, engineer, was born in Germany on October 16, 1871. His parents were U.S. citizens in temporary residence in Berlin and ten years later moved with him to Texas. He grew up on a farm near Seguin. He entered the University of Texas and became its first graduate in civil engineering. He then earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago. Returning to Austin, he helped develop the chemistry department at the University of Texas. He was a registered professional engineer and designed the municipal water-treatment plants for a number of cities around the state. His studies in thermodynamics led directly to the legal distinction between oil and gas wells. He was a pioneer in the development of processes to utilize natural gas rather than to dispose of it by flaring. The campus building housing the Chemical Engineering Department was named for him. He was an accomplished violinist and he organized the University Orchestra and performed in it. Sensing the need for an institutional band, he organized the Longhorn Band in 1900, buying the first instruments with his own funds from local pawn shops. His wife was Clara Gerhard, and their home, the Schoch-Gerhard House, built in 1887, has been designated a historical landmark by the City of Austin and the State of Texas. He died in Austin on August 15, 1961. Source
www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SEIDERS, EDWARD (1813-1892) Buried in Section 3, lot 792
Edward Seiders was born Feb 27, 1813 in Maine. He married Louisa Maria White in 1846. (Her father, Gideon White, was killed by Indians in 1842 and was one of the first people buried in Oakwood Cemetery.) In 1858 he married Lettia Lewis. The Seiders first lived in White’s cabin at the springs, which became known as Seiders Springs, and the nearby oak grove as Seiders Oaks. The Seiders family was among Austin's first residents. In 1865, General George Custer and his men camped under the sheltering live oaks at Seiders Springs. Seiders was engaged in the livery and grocery businesses in Austin. At the age of 79, he was buried in Oakwood on June 18, 1892. SAC member
SIMMONS, DAVID ANDREW (1897-1951) Buried in Sec 1, lot 350
David Andrew Simmons, president of the Texas and American Bar Associations, was born in Galveston on May 31, 1897. He entered the University of Texas in 1914, was interrupted by a stint in the Air Force during World War I, and graduated with highest honors in 1920. He was then admitted to the Texas bar. He served as assistant U.S. attorney and practiced law in Houston. During that tenure he was one of the youngest attorneys to appear before the U.S. Supreme Court when he successfully argued a Texas-Oklahoma boundary dispute involving an oilfield. Simmons became the youngest president of the American Bar Association in 1944, and served in many varied legal Associations. He was awarded the Freedom Foundation Award in 1950. He was credited with starting the first effort to draft Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for the nomination for the presidency of the United States. He later bought and partly restored old Fort Davis in West Texas as a hobby and in furtherance of his devotion to Texas history. He died March 24, 1951. Source
www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SIMONDS, FREDERIC WILLIAM (1853-1941) Buried in Section 2, lot 825
Frederic William Simonds, geologist and teacher, was born in Massachusetts in 1853. After receiving a Ph.D. degree, he was an instructor in geology and paleontology at Cornell and professor of geology, zoology, and botany at the University of North Carolina, Following other teaching assignments, he joined the University of Texas faculty in 1890.He was made professor of geology in 1895 and held that position until his death in 1941. He was a member of several scientific associations during his lifetime. Simonds was an inspiring teacher, notable for clearness in exposition and beauty of drawing. He could draw with both hands at the same time. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SNEED, THOMAS ESKRIDGE (1932-1901) Buried in Section 1, lot 341
Thomas Eskridge, lawyer and Civil War soldier, was born in Arkansas in 1832. The family moved to Travis County, Texas, when Sneed was sixteen and a few years later, he studied law at an office in Austin. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 and began his practice in Austin. Here he was elected mayor in 1856 and district attorney in 1860. He joined the Confederate Army in 1862 as a private and was later promoted and authorized to raise a company. He served in Texas, Arkansas, and Indian Territory. He died in 1901. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SPARKS, SAM (1873-1933) Buried in Section 3, lot 1056
Sam Sparks, public servant and banker, was born in Bell County, Texas in 1873. He was educated in Belton, Texas, and succeeded his father as sheriff of Bell County in xxxx. During the time Sparks was Texas state treasurer, 1906-1912, he established residence in Austin. He embarked on a career in finance in 1912 and organized what later became the Texas Banking and Trust Company in 1922. He was chairman of the board of directors of the firm at the time of his death. While president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Sparks helped bring grand opera to the city, and also assisted in the merger of the United Telephone Company with Southwestern Bell. This move provided residents with one of the lowest telephone rates in the country. He led drives for funds for building Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas and the University Methodist Church. He died in Austin on July 6, 1933. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
STEDMAN, NATHAN ALEXANDER (1854-1927) Buried in Section 3, lot 884
Nathan Alexander Stedman, railroad lawyer and judge, was born in 1854 in Henderson, Texas. He attended Washington and Lee University, 1870-73, studied law in his father's office, and was admitted to the bar. After becoming a district judge in Fort Worth, he served on the Railroad Commission. He returned to private practice in 1897. He was a railroad attorney in Palestine and later in Austin. Stedman was a regent of the University of Texas from 1912-1915. Stedman died in Austin on September 14, 1927. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
STEINER, JOSEPHUS MURRAY (1823-1873) Buried in Section 2, lot 745
Josephus Murray Steiner, soldier, physician, and state official, was born in September, 1823, in Maryland. After attending medical school, he joined the United States Army. Dr. Steiner first came to Texas with troops during the Mexican War. In 1853, Steiner's commanding officer had him arrested. In a dispute which followed, Steiner killed the officer. A court martial of thirteen officers assembled in Austin for the purpose of trying him, but attempts on the part of the army to place him under arrest were unsuccessful. However, he surrendered himself later and in the trial that followed was acquitted. Steiner's name was dropped from the army rolls in 1856. In 1859, Steiner was appointed Indian commissioner. He died at Marietta, Georgia, on May 20, 1873, and was buried there, but his body was later moved to Oakwood. Steiner and Steiner Valley in Hill County were named for him. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
STRAIN, MAHALA MURCHISON (1829-1912) Buried in Section 4 lot 50
Mahala Murchison Strain was born about 1829 in South Carolina and came to Austin in 1839 as a 10 year mulatto girl with the Alexander Murchison family. It is thought that her mother was a daughter of a Native American Indian and a Negro man and her father was white. The family lived near where the Congress Avenue bridge is now, first in tents as there were only two log houses in Austin at that time. She had six children who were fathered by a white man. He wanted to buy her and marry her and asked permission of her master to do so. Mr. Murchison agreed, but Mahala chose to remain with her owners. Most of her live she lived with her son Frank Strain on Speedway. She died June 22, 1912 at the age of 91. For some time she was thought to have been the first Black person in Austin. Mahala’s son Frank, his wife Phoebe and two of their daughters are also buried in this lot. SAC member
SUBLETT, HENRY WILLIAMS (1817-1859) Buried Section 1, lot 74
Henry Williams Sublett, lawyer, jurist and legislator, was born in Kentucky in 1817. He moved to Texas in 1835 and settled near San Augustine. He was a lawyer by profession. He represented San Augustine in the House of the First Legislature, and moved to Travis County, which he represented in the Senate of the Fifth Legislature. At one time, Sublett was a law partner of Oran M. Roberts. He died on October 3, 1859. The name on the tombstone being spelled Sublitt. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SWISHER, JAMES GIBSON (1794-1862) Buried in Section 4, lot 127
James Gibson Swisher, early Texas patriot, was born in Tennessee in 1794. His father, a German immigrant, participated in the organization of Tennessee Territory as a state. In the War of 1812, he served as a private in the Tennessee militia. Swisher participated in the two battles of New Orleans. In 1833, he arrived in Texas with his brother and he and his family settled in Robertson's colony. He successfully led a retaliatory attack after a Comanche Indian raid on the settlement. Swisher was one of the petitioners who requested a separate municipality for the area that later became Washington Municipality. Swisher was elected captain of a military company at the beginning of the Texas Revolution. His company participated in the siege of Bexar in 1835. He remained with the revolutionary army until he was elected one of four delegates from Washington Municipality to the Convention of 1836. Swisher signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. After the convention, he accompanied his family in the Runaway Scrape and assisted in the evacuation of Washington-on-the-Brazos. In 1846, Swisher moved to Austin where he operated a tavern, a hotel, and after 1852, a ferry. He was a member of the building committee of the First Presbyterian Church in Austin in 1851. He was one of five members of a vigilance committee formed by the Austin vigilante movement in 1854 to enforce slave-control laws. After Swisher's death in 1862, his wife continued to operate the important ferry link on the Austin-San Antonio Road... Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
SWISHER, JOHN MILTON (1819-1891) Buried in Section 1, lot 28
John Milton Swisher was born on May 31, 1819 in Tennessee. In 1833, he came to Texas. The family lived in Washington County until they moved to Austin in 1846. At 16 years old, John Swisher was the youngest soldier who fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. He served in the last Congress of the Republic of Texas and in the Constitutional Convention of 1845. In 1846, he was elected Colonel in the Texas Militia. After serving Texas as a soldier, civil servant, and financier, Swisher continued his auditing and banking career in Galveston and Austin. By 1870, he formed the Austin Street Railway Company to construct the city’s street railway system. He developed Austin’s first platted neighborhood south of the river with the 1877 Swisher Addition off South Congress Ave from lands on the family farm. Swisher’s home, designed by architect Abner Cook in 1853, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The “Swisher-Scott House” is still standing on Sweetbrush Avenue in Austin. He was married three times. His wives were Maria Sims (from 1844 to 1870), Nellie Nickerson (1873-75), and Bella French Swisher (1878-1891). Swisher died in Austin on March 11, 1891 and is buried in his family plot, along with his first two wives and several of his children who died young. His grave is marked: “San Jacinto soldier and a man who had the interest of Texas over heart.”“Swisher Memoirs” published in 1932 captured his memories of early Texas Republic and the Battle of San Jacinto. Source
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online
