Brinlee Cemetery
Melissa, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1824, Hiram Brinlee (1807-1885) and his brother George traveled with the Collin McKinney family from Kentucky to Texas. On that wagon train was Elizabeth McKinney (1813-1889), niece and ward of Collin McKinney, who later signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Hiram and Elizabeth married in 1832 and moved in 1834 to Pecan Point in present-day Bowie County. In 1844, after a flood on the Red River, the Brinlees moved to present-day Collin County on the western bank of Sister Grove Creek, just east of Melissa. Hiram Brinlee built and ran a general store and operated a blacksmith shop in a community known as Stony Point or Chambliss. Brinlee Cemetery is located east of the family homestead and is one of two cemeteries that served the early Chambliss community. Hiram Brinlee set aside land for a burial ground with members of his family interred in the northwest section. The earliest marked grave is that of a child, J.C. Osborn, buried in 1874. However, a child of Hiram and Elizabeth, Collin A. Brinlee, died in October 1849, so the cemetery may have been in use well before the 1870s. Many of the graves are for young children and for accidental deaths, a reflection of the challenges of early Collin County settlers. Hiram and Elizabeth Brinlee are buried here along with many of their descendants. Two other pioneers buried here are Josiah Nichols and his wife, Elizabeth (Fitzhugh) Nichols. The cemetery contains about 70 marked graves and includes a number of veterans. There may be unmarked graves, some of them Brinlee slave burials, although descendants believe they were buried closer to the Brinlee house. The Brinlee Cemetery is one of the last tangible reminders of the early rural community of Chambliss. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2020
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1844, after a Red River flood, Hiram Brinlee moved his family to present-day Collin County, building a general store and blacksmith shop in a community called Stony Point, or Chambliss. His wife Elizabeth was the niece and ward of Collin McKinney, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The family set aside a burial ground east of their homestead; among its roughly 70 marked graves are many children and victims of accidents—stark reminders of how hard early frontier life could be—along with a number of veterans and, likely, unmarked burials of enslaved people.
Why it matters
It is one of the last tangible traces of the vanished pioneer community of Chambliss, preserving the founding families—and the hardships—of early Collin County.
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Related people
- · Hiram Brinlee
- · Elizabeth McKinney Brinlee
- · Collin McKinney
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stony Point Church and Cemetery
Melissa, TX
In the 1870s and 1880s Stony Point was a bustling farm community with a cotton gin, gristmill, molasses mill, store, and school. Residents organized the Stony Point Baptist Church in 1878, and it grew into a spiritual hub—ordaining ministers and helping plant congregations in neighboring settlements—before declining population closed its doors in the late 1950s. Its cemetery, older than the church itself, still hosts funerals and an annual decoration day.
Stiff Chapel Cemetery
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Jesse Stiff arrived from Virginia in 1835 and claimed thousands of acres in what became Collin County, and a community called Stiff Chapel grew up around the family's homesteads. When his son James, serving as a Texas Ranger, died in 1847, he was buried near the family house on land that became this two-acre cemetery — most of its graves dating from the 1800s, with the last burial in 1935.
Highland Cemetery
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The Highland community grew up in the mid-1800s as a stop on the stagecoach route between Buckner and Bonham, and in 1858 settler Charles H. Wysong gave three acres for a church, school, and cemetery. The oldest marked grave, dated 1861, belongs to Robert Strother, and generations of north central Collin County pioneers rest here. A cemetery association organized more than a century ago still cares for the grounds.
First Baptist Church of Melissa
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This Collin County congregation was organized in October 1884 as the Melissa Baptist Church of Christ, beginning with twenty-two charter members under first pastor Levi Dunn. For years it met only monthly, moving to twice-monthly services in 1898 and weekly worship by 1948. A 1921 tornado leveled the original building, but the congregation rebuilt by 1924 and has anchored community life in Melissa ever since.