Brown Cemetery is a small historic community cemetery located adjacent to Twin Creeks Road in Manchaca, Travis County, Texas, not far from Live Oak Cemetery. Set within the rural landscape of the historic Manchaca area, the cemetery represents an important part of southwest Travis County’s cultural heritage, particularly its African American and early settlement history.

The land was purchased in the early 1900s by Smith Morris Sorrells, who cared for and maintained the cemetery grounds until his death. That responsibility was later entrusted to his granddaughter, Floris “Flo” Sorrells, who continues to steward and protect the cemetery today. In addition to the cemetery tract, the Sorrells family maintains more than 100 acres of adjoining ranch land, making them among the longest continuous landowning families in the Manchaca community.

According to longstanding oral history, the site had served as a burial ground even prior to its formal purchase in the twentieth century. Community tradition holds that Indigenous people were interred there before European colonization, and that the land later became a resting place for enslaved individuals and emancipated African Americans following the Civil War. While surviving written documentation is limited, such patterns reflect the broader history of rural Texas, where small community cemeteries preserved the memory of individuals whose lives were often absent from official records.

Brown Cemetery is also the final resting place of American veterans spanning multiple generations of service, from post-Civil War through the Korean War. Their presence underscores the enduring contributions of the community’s sons and daughters to the nation’s military history.

Today, Brown Cemetery stands as a quiet testament to generations of local history — Indigenous presence, the era of enslavement and emancipation, military service and sacrifice, and the enduring legacy of families who remained rooted to the land.