Cannon Cemetery
Van Alstyne, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Elijah Cannon, his eleven sons, and slaves moved from South Carolina to Texas in 1852 and settled nearby. In 1874 the family graveyard was included in land deeded by O. M. Cannon as a community burial place. The oldest documented grave is that of ten-year-old Nancy J. Bowen in 1857. An adjacent section was established for former slaves, and the earliest known burials are those of Billy and Glory Boyd in August 1880. Among the more than 700 graves are those of pioneer settlers, veterans of several wars, and members of fraternal organizations. The cemetery continues to serve the area.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Elijah Cannon brought his eleven sons and the people he enslaved from South Carolina to Texas in 1852, settling this corner of Grayson County. In 1874 the family graveyard was formally deeded as a community burial ground; its oldest documented grave is that of ten-year-old Nancy J. Bowen from 1857. A separate section was set aside for formerly enslaved people, beginning with Billy and Glory Boyd in 1880, and today the cemetery holds more than 700 graves of pioneers and war veterans.
Why it matters
The cemetery's divided ground is a quiet record of both frontier migration and slavery in Texas, marking how the enslaved and their descendants remained a distinct community even in death.
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Related people
- · Elijah Cannon
- · O. M. Cannon
- · Nancy J. Bowen
- · Billy Boyd
- · Glory Boyd
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Town of Cannon
Van Alstyne, TX
Elijah Cannon founded this Grayson County settlement in 1852, arriving from South Carolina with his children and enslaved workers to develop 700 acres. The community built a church, cotton gin, grist mill, and wagon factory and by 1885 had an academy and 400 residents—but when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad bypassed it, the town swiftly faded in the 1890s.
Lindsey-Randolph Cemetery
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Tennessee native Thomas Lindsey brought his family to Fannin County in 1837 and, in the late 1840s, gave four acres for a school and cemetery — the first burial here being one of his enslaved workers, a stark reminder of slavery's reach into the antebellum Texas frontier. The one-room schoolhouse beside the graves doubled as a community church, and when the railroad town of Randolph rose in 1887, a wooden sidewalk linked it to the old grounds. Pioneers, farmers, doctors, a church-founding minister, and veterans of several wars all rest here.
Younger Scott McKinney Home
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In 1857 the Texas statesman Collin McKinney—one of the men who helped shape the young republic—deeded this Grayson County land to his son Younger Scott McKinney, a Kentucky-born farmer and Methodist Episcopal preacher who had grown up on the Red River frontier. He raised a family of six here with his wife Sarah while also serving as county surveyor, one of the essential jobs of a settling country still being measured and mapped. The homestead stayed in McKinney hands for more than seventy years, until 1928.
James P. Dumas
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