Cochran Chapel Cemetery
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery began in 1853 with the burials of Sarah Jane and William M. Cochran, the infant daughter and husband of Nancy Jane Hughes Cochran. Among the many Dallas County pioneers buried here are four of Nancy Jane's sisters and their husbands who came from Tennessee in the 1840s and 1850s: Thomas C. and Sarah Williams, Obadiah and Serena Knight, George and Amanda Record, and John B. and Margaret Bachman.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Cochran Chapel Cemetery began in 1853 with the burials of Nancy Jane Hughes Cochran's infant daughter and husband. Among those laid to rest here are many Dallas County pioneers, including four of Nancy Jane's sisters and their husbands who had come from Tennessee in the 1840s and 1850s. The cemetery preserves the memory of the interlinked families who first settled the area.
Why it matters
The graveyard is a tangible record of the Tennessee migrant families whose settlement helped found Dallas County.
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Related people
- · Nancy Jane Hughes Cochran
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
W. P. Cochran Homeplace
Dallas, TX
Built in 1895 amid cultivated fields, this frame Victorian was home to William P. Cochran, son of a family that bought the land in 1851 and whose matriarch, Nancy Jane Cochran, had donated ground nearby for Cochran Chapel Methodist Church in 1856. The house sheltered Cochran, his wife Amanda, and their large family before passing to the adjacent church in 1964.
Cochran Chapel Methodist Church
Dallas, TX
In 1856 the widow Nancy Jane Cochran deeded the first land in Dallas County set aside for a Methodist church; two years later the men of the congregation raised a modest frame sanctuary from lumber hauled 150 miles by wagon from Jefferson. Rebuilt across the generations, the congregation traces its Sunday School to 1879.
F.A. Brown Farm Home
Dallas, TX
Standing on a Peters Colony land grant of 1854, this frame Victorian farmhouse was built before 1885, when Francis Asbury Brown bought it with 200 acres of farmland. His son Ernest later ran a dairy farm from the home, and the family preserved it against the tide of Dallas's growth. It survives as a rare rural homestead amid the modern city.
Merrell Cemetery
Dallas, TX
Elder Eli Merrell, a Disciples of Christ minister born in 1787, settled 640 acres near Bachman's Branch in 1844, and his was the first marked grave in this cemetery on his own land. It became the resting place of pioneers from the surrounding area, including members of the historic Peters Colony. The Strait family, who arrived in 1853, are also buried here; their sons rode with Merrell's in the 19th Cavalry during the Civil War, and their descendants served Dallas as commissioners and police chief.