Carter Cemetery
Canton, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Martha and John Pate Carter brought their family to Van Zandt County about 1851 and were among the first settlers in this area. Although local oral tradition holds that the first person buried in the cemetery was a nine-year-old son of the Carters, the oldest documented grave is that of H. H. Meeks (d. 1859). The Carter family later donated the land for a public cemetery, and the burial ground has served residents of a number of small communities in this area. A cemetery association formed in the 1960s maintains the historic graveyard. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Among the first families to settle this stretch of Van Zandt County around 1851, the Carters put down roots that would outlast them in the ground they set aside for burial. Oral tradition remembers a young Carter son as the first laid to rest here, though the oldest documented grave dates to 1859. The family later deeded the land as a public cemetery, and a local association has cared for it since the 1960s.
Why it matters
Pioneer cemeteries like this one map the arrival and endurance of the small farming communities that settled frontier Texas.
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Related people
- · Martha Carter
- · John Pate Carter
- · H. H. Meeks
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Little Hope Baptist Church
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Farming families from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia settled the Mt. Pisgah area in the 1860s and 70s, and their first shared institution was Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, organized about 1870. In 1877 Wade H. Walters deeded land for a church building and a school, and a cemetery grew up beside the church to serve the neighborhood for generations. Like so many rural communities, Mt. Pisgah thinned out when residents left for wartime employment during World War II.
Cox Cemetery
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Robert K. Gibbs and his family settled this Van Zandt County land in the early 1850s, and the earliest documented grave — an infant Gibbs daughter — dates to 1853. When Robert Daniel Cox acquired the property in 1880, he opened the small family plot as a community cemetery, which grew through later land additions. Some of the unmarked graves are believed to hold enslaved people, and five generations of the Cox family rest here.
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