Abston Cemetery
Lavon, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
John Abston (1761-1856), a soldier in the American Revolution, was a native of Virginia. In the 1830s Abston and his family moved to Missouri. In 1853 he moved to Collin County, Texas, with the family of his son Jesse. Following Jesse's death that year, the family moved farther south in the county. John Abston and Jesse Abston's widow, Sarah, purchased land in this area in 1854. A small plot of land was set aside as a family burial ground. John Abston's burial here in 1856 was the first in the cemetery. There are thirty-seven marked graves, including those of several generations of the Abston and related families. All but one of the stones bear 19th-century death dates. According to family tradition, Sarah Abston at one time gave a small house and a parcel of land to a former slave, Elias Bellew, with the agreement that he would maintain the cemetery. As a result, the graveyard has also been referred to as the Old Bellew Cemetery. Descendants of those interred in this cemetery still reside in Collin County. The graveyard stands as a reminder of the area's heritage. (1988)***
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Abston, a Virginia-born veteran of the American Revolution, followed his family west across a lifetime — to Missouri in the 1830s and finally to Collin County, Texas, in 1853, when he was already past ninety. After his son Jesse died, the family set aside a small burial ground here, and Abston's own interment in 1856 was the first. By family tradition, Abston's daughter-in-law Sarah later gave a house and land to a former slave, Elias Bellew, in exchange for tending the graves — giving the site its other name, the Old Bellew Cemetery.
Why it matters
This quiet plot ties the Revolutionary generation to the settlement of Texas and, through Elias Bellew's caretaking, to the complicated legacy of slavery and freedom in the postwar South.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
John Abston's life spanned an unusual stretch of American history. He was born in colonial Virginia in 1761 and was old enough to fight in the War for Independence. He then lived through nearly the whole first era of the new republic. When he died in 1856, the nation he had fought to create stretched to the Pacific and included the state of Texas.
The Abston family's moves followed the country's westward drift. Like many Virginia families of that era, they moved inland in stages. The marker says they went first to Missouri in the 1830s, then to North Texas in 1853. Texas had joined the Union only in 1845, and Collin County was still lightly settled farm country, drawing families from the Upper South who wanted land.
That migration also carried slavery into Texas, and the Civil War and emancipation followed within a decade of John Abston's burial. The marker's mention of Elias Bellew, a formerly enslaved man, ties this family graveyard to the hard aftermath of slavery in the years after freedom came.
People & events
The story starts with a very old man making a very long move. John Abston was in his early nineties when he came to Collin County in 1853 with the family of his son Jesse. Few people of that time lived to that age, and fewer still set out for a new frontier at it. That same year Jesse died, leaving his widow, Sarah, to take charge of a household in a new country.
The family moved farther south in the county. In 1854 John and Sarah together bought land in this area, a partnership between a Revolutionary veteran and his widowed daughter-in-law. They set aside a small plot as a family burial ground. When John died in 1856, he was the first person buried there. Over the following decades, several generations of Abstons and related families joined him. The marker counts thirty-seven marked graves, all but one with nineteenth-century death dates.
Then there is Elias Bellew. Family tradition holds that Sarah Abston at some point gave him, a former slave, a small house and a piece of land in exchange for his promise to care for the cemetery. The marker presents this as tradition, not documented record, and many details are unknown, including exactly when it happened and what Bellew's own life was like. But the story lasted long enough that the graveyard is also known as the Old Bellew Cemetery. The name of the man who kept the graves stayed attached to the place.
Its place in the American story
Graves of Revolutionary War veterans are scattered across the country, often far from where those soldiers fought. John Abston's grave in North Texas shows how far the founding generation spread. A man who served in the Revolution lived to see Texas become a state and was buried in its soil. His life links two eras that usually feel far apart.
The cemetery also tells a second, more complicated story. Elias Bellew's connection to it is a reminder that families moving west brought slavery with them, and that emancipation did not end the relationships formed under it. Freedpeople in the postwar South often struggled to gain land and security. Whatever the exact terms of the arrangement remembered here, a house and land tied to care for a cemetery reflects the uneven bargains of that time.
The fact that the cemetery carries Bellew's name as well as the Abstons' matters. Family burial grounds like this one usually record only the people buried in them. This one also remembers the man who looked after it.
If you visit
This is a small, quiet family graveyard, not a monument park. Come in a reflective mood. Look for the oldest stones, and remember that the first burial here was a man born before the Declaration of Independence. Weathered nineteenth-century markers reward slow, patient reading.
Please treat it as what it is: a family cemetery whose descendants, the marker says, still live in Collin County. Walk carefully, leave everything as you found it, and respect any posted access rules or private land around it.
It makes a good stop on a drive through the farm country east of Dallas, near Lavon and the lake that shares its name. Pair it with other historic sites in Collin County for a day spent tracing how North Texas was settled, and who did the work of building and keeping it.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John Abston
- · Jesse Abston
- · Sarah Abston
- · Elias Bellew
Themes & tags
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