Chinn's Chapel Cemetery
Copper Canyon, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Elisha and Mary Stowe Chinn purchased this site in 1853 and donated 10 acres atop the hill north of Lockhart Spring. As deaths occurred among the early settlers to this area, services were held in the log cabin chapel, and graves were placed nearby. Travel to the cemetery was difficult, especially for those living outside the community. The wagon trail through the valley connected Denton with Lewisville, but a westerly road leading to the nearby commercial center at Waketon was needed. In 1885 a road connecting Chinn's Chapel community to Waketon was built, incorporating the old wagon trail. It was named Chinn Chapel Road. This cemetery features a variety of grave markers. Among the oldest markers are those of limestone, while other early graves were marked simply with rocks. Often a larger stone was placed at the head and a smaller one at the foot of the grave. Some family plots display mounds of earth outlined with shells, a folk tradition brought to America by African slaves. Many tombstones are carved from native sandstone, while later monuments display ornate decorations, such as columns, urns, pediments and round-topped finials. This cemetery continues to serve the community. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Elisha and Mary Stowe Chinn bought this hilltop north of Lockhart Spring in 1853 and gave ten acres for a chapel and graveyard, where early settlers were buried as deaths came to the young community. A road built in 1885 finally connected the isolated cemetery to nearby Waketon, following an old wagon trail. Its markers range from rough fieldstones and native limestone to ornate later monuments, and some plots bear shell-outlined earthen mounds — a folk burial tradition brought to America by enslaved Africans.
Why it matters
The mix of grave forms here, including African-rooted folk traditions, makes the cemetery a quiet record of the diverse hands that shaped early North Texas.
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Related people
- · Elisha Chinn
- · Mary Stowe Chinn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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This area was known as Holford's Prairie for the pioneer Halford brothers who claimed 640 acres through the Peters Colony, and Basdeal Lewis platted nearby Lewisville in 1853. Thomas and Elizabeth Smith bought farmland here in 1859, and after their 20-year-old son died in 1862 the family began a burial ground that in 1881 became a community cemetery. Its 400-plus graves carry the surnames of Denton County's pioneer families, and oral tradition holds that some unmarked graves are those of people once enslaved by the Fox family—a poignant record of the era's harsh realities.
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Chinn's Chapel Methodist Church
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In 1846, pioneer settlers of the Peters Colony gathered in a log church-and-school building on land the Chinn family donated for a chapel and cemetery. Admitted to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1872, the congregation soon moved to freshwater springs that had drawn early camp meetings, raising a sanctuary and a tabernacle for summer revivals. For generations it doubled as lodge hall, school, and social hub before declining after World War II — only to be revived and renovated in the 1990s.