Concrete

CONCRETE, TEXAS (Guadalupe County). The Concrete community was located in southwestern Guadalupe County alongside the present Farm Road 775 approximately two miles north of the town of La Vernia, between the communities of La Vernia and New Berlin. The community was originally called Bethesda but was later called Concrete because of the old rock church built there about 1858. The old rock church that once stood on the site was also used as a school and meeting hall for the Bethesda Masonic lodge. The New Berlin road ran past the church and on Sundays the road was lined with ox carts carrying both whites and blacks to church. The church was the site of many old fashioned camp meetings with both whites and blacks attending. The community was founded by James Henry Newton who came to the area about 1851 and owned a plantation on the north bank of the Cibolo Creek. The lumber as well as other supplies to construct the buildings were hauled by the slaves with ox teams from Port Lavaca. Lumber was so scarce that the homes of the first settlers were built of logs, and the floors were made of flat stones. The land for the Concrete Cemetery, which is all that presently remains on the site, was donated as a public cemetery by James Newton in 1856; an early burial was of his brother Joel Wooten Newton on January 16, 1856. Concrete Cemetery is also the burial site of Claiborne Rector , who fought at the battle of San Jacinto in the Texas Revolution .