Buckner Cemetery
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The land surrounding this historic cemetery was part of a grant obtained by John McGarrah, a member of the Peters Colony who arrived in this area in 1843. McGarrah founded a trading post near this site, and soon the Fort Buckner settlement was established. It would later become the first county seat of Collin County. David William O'Brien (1808-1885) came to Collin County with his family in 1857. He eventually acquired the part of the McGarrah land which included this site. The Buckner Cemetery, which was established on the O'Brien land, has also been referred to as O'Brien Cemetery over the years. Although there may be earlier unmarked graves, the oldest documented burial is that of Franklin O'Brien (1851-1870). Many early pioneers of Collin County are interred here, including victims of a smallpox epidemic in the 1870s. According to local tradition, a Kiowa Indian named Spotted Tail also lies here in an unmarked grave. The only physical remnant of the Buckner community, this cemetery serves as a reminder of the early history of Collin County. (1988) [Historic Texas Cemetery medallion added 2001]
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When John McGarrah arrived with the Peters Colony in 1843 and set up a trading post, the Fort Buckner settlement grew around it and briefly served as Collin County's first seat. This burial ground on land later owned by the O'Brien family holds many of the county's earliest pioneers, including victims of a smallpox epidemic that swept through in the 1870s, and by local tradition a Kiowa man remembered as Spotted Tail. It is the last physical trace of a frontier community that has otherwise vanished into the North Texas prairie.
Why it matters
Pioneer cemeteries like this one preserve the human record of frontier settlement long after the towns themselves disappear, anchoring a county's origins to a specific patch of ground.
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Related people
- · John McGarrah
- · David William O'Brien
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Buckner
McKinney, TX
John (Jack) McGarrah and his family came from Tennessee in 1842 and opened a trading post here, becoming among the first settlers of present-day Collin County and defending their family fort against raids. When the county was created in 1846, its seat was laid out here as Buckner, where citizens elected their first officials on the Fourth of July and raised a company for the Mexican War. Found to sit outside the county's legal limits, the seat was moved to nearby McKinney by 1848, and Buckner reverted to farmland.
Muncey Massacre
Plano, TX
McBain Jameson and Jeremiah Muncey settled this vicinity in the early 1840s, when North Texas was still a dangerous frontier of scattered cabins. Late in 1844, hunters came upon the slain bodies of Jameson, the Muncey family, and a small child, along with signs of an Indian raid; a nearby settler's son named Rice was killed as well, and two Muncey boys vanished forever. Remembered as the last such raid in Collin County, the marker was moved to this site in 1998, about a mile from the actual home and graves.
First Presbyterian Church of McKinney
McKinney, TX
Organized in 1874 at the home of local physician Dr. E.N. McAuley, this was the first congregation in Collin County tied to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, a Southern denomination born during the Civil War. From eighteen charter members it grew steadily, outgrowing a modest frame chapel and a brick sanctuary before settling into its present home in 1966, still ringing a bell cast for the fellowship in its earliest years.
Scott Cemetery
McKinney, TX
Scott Cemetery began in the 1850s on the land of pioneer James Preston Scott, whose two-year-old granddaughter, Mary C. Taylor, was the first person buried here. Among its more than 200 graves — at least 30 of them unmarked — are two enslaved people, Jake and Rhoda, laid to rest in the northwest corner. Scott himself, who died while serving in the Texas Legislature, was buried here in 1858, and the ground still serves the surrounding rural communities.