Two eerie sites near West Sandy Creek Winery, one infamous across Texas for its paranormal legends, one rooted in the deep pioneer history of the land the winery itself calls home.

Walker County has always had a talent for ghost stories. Its pine forests go dark fast, its back roads are unmarked, and its history runs deep, all the way back to the Republic of Texas. Two sites stand out for anyone staying at West Sandy Creek Winery who wants to venture beyond the tasting room into the stranger side of the Piney Woods: Bowden Road and its infamous Martha Chapel Cemetery, and the quiet but historically charged Faris Cemetery, the last remnant of the chapel community that once flourished on the very land where the winery stands today.

Bowden Road (Demon’s Road) and Martha Chapel Cemetery

Officially named Bowden Road, this winding rural stretch of gravel outside Huntsville has carried a darker nickname for decades: Demon’s Road. The road ends at Martha Chapel Cemetery, a small, overgrown burial ground that is all that remains of what was once the Robinson Settlement, a pioneering Methodist community established in the 1830s in western Walker County.

Robinson’s Settlement and Martha Palmer

Martha’s Chapel, also known as Robinson’s Settlement, dates back to the era of the Republic of Texas. A Methodist camp, church, and school were established here seven miles southwest of Huntsville, serving as a center of community life for early East Texas settlers. The cemetery takes its name from the first person believed to have been buried there: Martha Palmer. The church congregation eventually dissolved, and by the 20th century the building was gone. All that remains today is the cemetery, marked by the Walker County Historical Commission and surrounded by towering oak and pine trees, with old brick ruins crumbling at the site of the former chapel.

The cemetery made international news in 2018 when eerie figures were spotted in a Google Maps Street View image of the site, a moment that brought fresh waves of paranormal investigators to a place that serious ghost hunters had been visiting for years.

What People Report

The legends attached to Bowden Road and Martha Chapel Cemetery are among the most intense of any location in Texas. Visitors report a catalog of phenomena that ranges from eerie to deeply unsettling:

• Mysterious red lights seen hovering along the road after dark
• Large, unexplained handprints appearing on vehicles parked at the cemetery
• A child’s apparition with glowing eyes, reportedly seen riding a tricycle near the graves
• A faceless figure spotted moving along the tree line
• Sudden, severe temperature drops at specific points inside the cemetery
• The sound of hoofbeats on the gravel road when no horses are present
• Cars that lose power, stall, or resist acceleration while on the road
• Hands reaching up from the earth, said to grab at the ankles of those who linger

The most repeated warning from locals is a serious one: do not provoke the spirits. Many who have visited claim to have brought something home with them, an unexplained series of misfortunes following in the weeks after their visit.

“We heard voices on the Ghost tracker app, and they told us to leave. The dogs went crazy. I stayed in the car.” — Visitor account, TexasHauntedHouses.com

 

Finding Demon’s Road

Bowden Road is a gravel and dirt road without a sign to mark it, so GPS is essential. It lies off Robinson Creek Road in western Walker County, roughly a 20-to-25-minute drive from the winery. The cemetery sits at the dead end of the road. Even in daylight, the setting is deeply atmospheric: the canopy is dense, the grasses are overgrown, and the old grave markers of early Texas settlers stand amid rampant poison oak and ivy.

Visitors note: This is an active cemetery still used by descendants of those buried there. Please be respectful of graves, markers, and the surrounding property. Trespassing at night has led to encounters with local landowners. Visit in daylight hours.

Faris Cemetery and the Legacy of Faris Chapel

For guests staying at West Sandy Creek Winery, the Faris Cemetery carries a particular weight: the community it belongs to once stood on the very ground where the winery’s 360-acre ranch exists today. This is not just a nearby historical site. It is the deep past of the land itself.

Hezekiah Faris and the Sandy Creek Settlement

The story begins with Hezekiah Faris*, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who received a headright land grant from the Republic of Texas in 1838 after the Texas War for Independence. He settled along West Sandy Creek, the same creek that runs through the winery’s land today, and in 1841, together with his brother William and their neighbors, built a church on the north bank of West Sandy Creek. The building served multiple denominations: Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians all held services under one roof, a reflection of the frontier spirit of the early settlement.

The community that grew up around Faris Chapel was known alternately as Robinson’s Settlement and later simply as Faris Chapel. After the Civil War the Baptists built their own separate building, and the Methodist congregation carried on. In 1880 a new church building was erected to replace the original structure. The chapel moved at least twice over the following century as the community shifted, and Faris Chapel United Methodist Church in Richards finally closed its doors at the end of 2022 after nearly 180 years of continuous worship.

What remains of that original settlement’s burial ground is the Faris Cemetery, recognized by the Walker County Historical Commission alongside more than 100 other historic cemeteries in the county.

Sacred Ground Beneath the Vines

The Roberts-Faris log cabin, built in the mid-1840s by Allen Roberts, stepson of Hezekiah Faris, stood for generations along West Sandy Creek, fifteen miles west of Huntsville, on land that encompasses the winery’s ranch. The cabin remained in the Faris family for six generations before being donated to the City of Huntsville in 2001, dismantled by Sam Houston State University history students, and rebuilt on the courthouse square in downtown Huntsville, where it stands today as the Cabin on the Square.

When you walk the trails of West Sandy Creek Winery at dawn or sit on the back deck of your cabin watching the forest, you are standing on land that Hezekiah Faris, a man who helped capture Santa Anna at San Jacinto, called home. The Faris Cemetery is the quiet, enduring marker of that presence.

“The cemetery was named after Martha Palmer, who is believed to be the first person buried in the new church’s cemetery. The cemetery is the middle of what was the settlement.” — Ghost Texas

A Place of Quiet History

Unlike Bowden Road, the Faris Cemetery is not a destination for thrill-seekers. It is a place of genuine historical significance, quietly tended and unmarked on most tourist maps. The Walker County Historical Commission lists it among the county’s recognized historic cemeteries. It is a place for those who want to stand in the footsteps of the people who first broke ground on this part of East Texas, whose descendants may still be among the neighbors of the winery today.

Visitors note: The Cabin on the Square in downtown Huntsville, the restored Roberts-Faris log cabin, is open as a local craft shop and is an excellent companion stop for anyone interested in the Faris family history. Look for the historical marker erected in 2007.

Walker County wears its history openly, in its pioneer cemeteries, its haunted back roads, and in the land itself. Whether you come looking for ghost stories on Demon’s Road or quiet reflection at the Faris Cemetery, you are tracing the same thread: the people who settled this stretch of East Texas pine forest nearly two centuries ago, and the stories they left behind. Your cabin at West Sandy Creek Winery sits at the center of all of it.

* Faris was the spelling of the family name in Hezekiah’s time. It later changed to Farris, as it is known today. We have chosen to honor him with the original spelling. Source: The Walker County Historical Commission