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In 1835, after learning that General Santa Anna had abolished the Mexican Constitution of 1824, Lorenzo de Zavala, the future first vice president of Texas, left his post as minister to France and moved to Texas. He purchased land on Buffalo Bayou, across the water from what would become the San Jacinto Battleground, and established a home and family cemetery.

The first person to be buried in the cemetery was General Manuel Castrillón, head of the Mexican artillery, a friend of Zavala’s, and the only Mexican soldier to get a proper burial after the battle.

Lorenzo de Zavala himself was buried in the family cemetery in November 1836, and members of his family continued to be buried there for the rest of the century. By the 1930s, however, the family was no longer living on the property, and in 1934, they officially transferred the cemetery to the state to be retained “as a memorial to the heroes of Texas whose bodies lie therein.”

By the early 1960s, a combination of subsidence, erosion and dredging had left portions of the cemetery underwater, and debris from the ship channel littered the remaining dry land. In 1970, the cemetery was relocated across the channel to the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. No coffins or human remains were found, so only the intact gravestones were moved. The plaque in front of the cemetery lists the thirty-one known burials.