Chisholm Cemetery
Rockwall, Rockwall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Enoch P. Chisholm, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, brought his family to this area in the 1860s. The community which grew up here was named in his honor. Chisholm donated land for this graveyard in 1871, and in 1875 he became the first person interred in it. A chapel, also named for Chisholm, was built that same year on the cemetery grounds. At its peak, the town of Chisholm boasted a school, post office, Masonic Lodge, cotton gin, and stores. Many early pioneers were interred in the Chisholm Cemetery, and some of their descendants still reside in the area. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Enoch P. Chisholm, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, brought his family to this area in the 1860s, and the community that grew up here took his name. He donated land for a graveyard in 1871 and, fittingly, became its first burial in 1875, the same year a chapel named for him rose on the grounds. At its height the town of Chisholm had a school, post office, Masonic lodge, cotton gin, and stores β a settlement now vanished but for the cemetery where its pioneers rest.
Why it matters
The cemetery is the last trace of a vanished frontier town, preserving the memory of the circuit rider and pioneers who built and then outlived it.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- Β· Enoch P. Chisholm
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Blackland Cemetery
Fate, TX
In 1882 William and Cassandra Harvey gave land to the Blackland farming community for a school, church, and cemetery, which absorbed the older Bost family plot and its 1879 graves. The burial ground holds veterans reaching back to the Civil War, along with fraternal emblems, a zinc obelisk, and weathered upright stones. Today it stands as one of the few tangible reminders of the vanished Blackland settlement.
Heath Methodist Church
Heath, TX
Founded in 1890 as Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, South, this congregation began just south of the young town of Heath before picking up and relocating into it around 1909β1910. For years traveling circuit-riding ministers rode out to serve its scattered members, a hallmark of frontier Methodism in rural Texas. Rebuilt by 1916 and again in 1974, the church grew from an itinerant preaching stop into a settled community anchor with its own full-time pastor by 1981.
Sterling Rex Barnes
Heath, TX
Virginia-born Sterling Rex Barnes brought his family to this area from Mississippi in 1846, settling the community of Black Hill, now Heath. A charter member of a local Masonic lodge and the area's justice of the peace, he operated a toll bridge over the east fork of the Trinity River at a site now beneath Lake Ray Hubbard. Five of his sons and a son-in-law went on to serve the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Chandler Cemetery
Heath, TX
Kentucky natives Henry and Martha Chandler were among the earliest Anglo settlers of the Rockwall County area, established here by 1860. Their small family burial ground opened in sorrow in 1869 with the death of their nine-year-old daughter Mary, and grew to seven marked graves β six of them Chandlers, plus a neighbor's daughter, Hattie Harvey. Henry was laid to rest in 1904 and Martha in 1908, the last known burial.