Changes and Upkeep
As early as 1857 there were newspaper editorials urging the upkeep and beautification of the cemetery. Unavoidable damage and vandalism early took their toll. As late as 1942 Corpus Christi, A History and Guide noted that Benjamin F. Sotherville's gravestone showed damage from Federal artillery. The Corpus Christi Daily Gazette for 22 April 1876 claimed that "dastardly acts committed by some ghoul"—apparently digging up plants—required an "ordinance attaching a severe penalty to this outrageous crime." In May 1892 there were similar complaints about stolen flowers.
In 1881 newspapers described the fence as being down in sections and that fences around individual graves and family plots were in "tumble down condition". By 1886 houses surrounded the cemetery. Editorials urged that this situation required a new burial ground and led to the opening of New Bayview Cemetery to which some remains were relocated. Not far away and similarly situated in the Hillcrest area between Kennedy and Peabody streets, it also became surrounded by homes.
A 25 April 1874 essay in the Nueces Valley described the need for an association to "take care of and beautify" the cemetery. On 1 May 1881 E. H. Wheeler wrote in the Semi-Weekly Ledger that he would start a subscription to repair the fence and keep the grounds. The Weelly Caller for 19 May 1893 reported that Mrs. E. J. Kilmer, a local GAR member, had received fourteen tombstones she'd ordered for United States soldiers buried there.
The first Bayview Cemetery Association, founded by newspaperman Eli T. Merriman and his wife, was organized in 1896. The annual meeting was held in January and regular meetings were reported in the newspapers since at least 1898. Mrs. F. J. Weymouth was the Association secretary.
In 1898 the Association entered a contract to "encircle" with a "plank and wire fence" having two gates an area holding 6 acres (24,000 m2), four belonging to the Association, one to the Masonic Lodge, and one to the Knights of Pythias. Lots would be sold and a "free" burial ground lay outside the fence. In August 1906 the Daughters of the Confederacy erected a granite monument to Confederates buried there.
Corpus Christi had already passed the point at which citizens could know one another at least by sight and the number of those who could remember early struggles was diminishing. The first Association continued its work into the twentieth century, gradually tapering off as the original members died. Merriman himself oversaw the cemetery for about ten years until shortly before he died in 1941. Both he and his wife Ellen repose there.
Read more about this topic: Old Bayview Cemetery