The 6th Annual Voices from the Past Cemetery Tour presented by the Montgomery Historical Society has become a fall season tradition in the historic city of Montgomery.
The tour, which began as an educational event for the seventh-grade history students in the Montgomery school district in 2019, has now become an entertaining and educational event for everyone interested in the history of the area. The History Taskforce assists the Society with this event.
The tour includes the 1832 Old Methodist Churchyard Cemetery on Pond Street and the 1868 New Montgomery Cemetery on Old Plantersville Road. When visitors arrive at these burial grounds, they will be escorted in small groups by docents to the burial spots of numerous interesting people in the area’s history. Actors, representing these people and costumed by Historical Society member Eva Rains, will recount to visitors the stories of their lives.
The historic cemeteries will be open for the tour on Saturday, October 18 from noon to 3 pm.
Among these early residents of the city that will be represented this year are Charles B. Stewart, the designer of the Texas Lone Star flag, and his wife; Owen Shannon, Revolutionary War soldier from Georgia; and Norman “Red” Branch, represented as a young baseball player at the local high school and as the member of the New York Yankees that he became later.
Visitors will also meet Martha Addison Gandy and her son Bowe, who had a bullet removed from his intestines in surgery on her kitchen table after a hunting accident. Even after having his intestines put on a platter while the doctor worked and without antibiotics that had not yet been invented, Bowe lived to serve in WWI and died at age 85. He became known as the “Montgomery Miracle” and now rests in the New City Cemetery.
One of those making his appearance in the tour is State Representative Reuben Jonathan Palmer, a prominent early lawyer born in Virginia in 1829 who came to Texas in the 1850s. He represented District 57 which included Montgomery, Grimes, and Brazos counties during the Civil War period from 1861-1863.
Tickets for the Tour are available online at www.MHS-tx.org and may also be purchased on the day of the event at the Nat Hart Davis Museum at 14263 Liberty Street in Montgomery or at the entrance of each cemetery.
Information and maps will be available at the museum on the day of the event. Students under 15 get free admission. Tickets for students ages 15-18 are $5 and for people over age 18 tickets are $10. All the proceeds of this event go to the Montgomery Historical Society for their programs.
According to Bea Rouse, Historical Society event coordinator for the tour, people who have attended this event in previous years said the tour was a good day trip for people to bring their children for a fun educational event. Ladies’ groups come to the tour for the day to shop and have lunch in the many shops in the historic district of the town. New residents of the area also come to learn the background of their new community.
More information can be found at www.MHS-txx.org.