Cox Cemetery
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A reflection of the pioneer heritage in this part of Dallas County, Cox Cemetery contains more than 400 marked graves and an estimated 100 unmarked burials. The oldest tombstone dates to 1848 and marks the grave of Margaret Frances Dixon, the two-month-old daughter of Solomon and Lydia Dixon. Located near White Rock Lake on the John H. Hyde headright, the cemetery was set aside permanently for that purpose by Absalom Humbard (1835-1909), who came to Texas with his wife, Mary (Cook) (1835-1900), and family after he had been wounded and imprisoned during the Civil War. The Humbards settled near other families, some of whom had arrived in this area as early as 1843, including the Glovers, Lavenders, Mccommases, Coxes and Donagheys. They came to Texas from other parts of the United States and from Germany, and their family names appear on tombstones in this cemetery. Others buried here include Abraham (1822-1913) and Elizabeth (Ray) (d. 1900) Hart, who received one of the earliest marriage licenses in Dallas County in 1848. The cemetery served several early area communities, including Fisher (later known as Calhoun) and Reinhardt, railroad towns that later were absorbed into the city of Dallas. Members of the Fisher family, for whom that community was named, are buried in this cemetery. Vandalism and the effects of time have rendered some of the stones illegible, but they continue to be cared for by members of the Cox Cemetery Association, which has served for many years as the primary caretaker for this historic graveyard. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Cox Cemetery holds more than 400 marked graves and perhaps 100 unmarked burials, its oldest stone from 1848 marking a two-month-old child. Absalom Humbard, who came to Texas after being wounded and imprisoned during the Civil War, permanently set the ground aside for burials near White Rock Lake, where it served pioneer families—Glovers, Lavenders, Coxes, Donagheys and others who had arrived from across the United States and from Germany. It also served the vanished railroad communities of Fisher (later Calhoun) and Reinhardt before they were absorbed into Dallas.
Why it matters
Its weathered stones are a roll call of the American and immigrant pioneers who built Dallas County out of open prairie.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Cox Cemetery is a window onto the very founding of Dallas County. Its oldest stone dates to 1848 — a time when this was raw frontier, open prairie near what we now call White Rock Lake, and the county itself was only a few years old. The families gathering here were pioneers in the fullest sense, arriving to claim land under the headright system that granted acreage to settlers willing to come and stay.
The mid-nineteenth century was the great age of American westward expansion, and North Texas sat near its leading edge. Settlers poured in from older parts of the United States, and — as the names on these stones show — from as far away as Germany, part of the wave of German immigration that shaped so much of Texas in this era.
These newcomers didn't settle in isolation. They clustered into small farming and railroad communities with names now nearly forgotten — Fisher, later called Calhoun, and Reinhardt — settlements that lived, served their people, and were eventually swallowed whole by the growing city of Dallas.
People & events
At the center of this ground stands Absalom Humbard (1835–1909), the man who set the cemetery aside permanently for burials. His story carries the weight of his generation: he came to Texas with his wife, Mary Cook Humbard (1835–1900), and their family after he had been wounded and imprisoned during the Civil War — a man who had seen the worst of the age and came west to build something lasting.
The oldest grave belongs not to a patriarch but to a baby: Margaret Frances Dixon, the two-month-old daughter of Solomon and Lydia Dixon, whose 1848 stone is the cemetery's earliest. Around her gathered the founding families of the district — the Glovers, Lavenders, McCommases, Coxes, and Donagheys — some of whom had reached this area as early as 1843.
Other lives here are landmarks in themselves. Abraham Hart (1822–1913) and his wife Elizabeth Ray Hart (d. 1900) received one of the earliest marriage licenses in all of Dallas County, back in 1848. Members of the Fisher family, for whom that vanished community was named, lie here too. More than 400 marked graves and perhaps 100 unmarked ones fill the ground, tended for many years now by the Cox Cemetery Association.
Its place in the American story
A frontier cemetery is a founding document written in stone, and this one records the American story of the mid-1800s in miniature. The headright land grant that placed these families here was the mechanism by which a young nation pulled settlers westward and turned open country into farms, towns, and counties.
The roll call of names captures the national character of that migration. Some families came from other parts of the United States; others came from Germany — a reminder that the American frontier was built by immigrants as much as by native-born settlers, and that Texas in particular drew a large and lasting German population in these decades.
Absalom Humbard's biography folds the Civil War into the settlement story: a wounded, once-imprisoned veteran seeking a fresh start in the West was a figure repeated tens of thousands of times across the postwar country. And the fate of Fisher and Reinhardt — railroad-era communities absorbed into a booming city — is the story of American urban growth itself, the way great cities rose by quietly consuming the small towns around them.
If you visit
Walk this ground and read it as a directory of the people who made Dallas County out of prairie. With more than 400 marked graves, the surnames come at you in clusters — Cox, Glover, Lavender, McCommas, Donaghey — and each one was a household that helped settle this corner of Texas.
Seek out the 1848 stone of little Margaret Frances Dixon, the oldest marker here; there's a particular poignancy in knowing the cemetery's story opens with an infant only two months old. Nearby lie the Harts, who took out one of the county's first marriage licenses that same founding year. Time and vandalism have worn some stones past reading, so look closely and patiently.
The cemetery sits near White Rock Lake, which makes it an easy and rewarding detour on a Dallas outing. It endures because the Cox Cemetery Association has cared for it across the years, so treat it as the working memorial it is — respect the stones, and let the weathered names remind you that a great city stands on the labor of ordinary pioneers.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Absalom Humbard
- · Margaret Frances Dixon
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pierre Dusseau
Dallas, TX
Born in Carcassonne, France, in 1800, Pierre Dusseau brought a passion for horticulture to Texas in 1855 as the gardener for La Réunion, Victor Considérant's utopian socialist colony near present-day Dallas. He arrived with his daughters and son-in-law and tended the colony's gardens for two years until the idealistic venture collapsed. In failing health, he spent his final years in Dallas with his daughter's family.
St. Paul's Evangelical and Reformed Church
Dallas, TX
Five charter members founded this congregation in 1889, with help from Fort Worth pastors, to serve Dallas's growing German-speaking population as St. Paul's German Evangelical Church. A German Presbyterian congregation soon merged in, and the church built and rebuilt sanctuaries as it grew across the decades. Worship was conducted entirely in German until World War I, and in 1934 the congregation took the name St. Paul's Evangelical and Reformed Church.
Flag Pole Hill Park
Dallas, TX
Church Goforth owned and farmed this White Rock Creek land from 1888 to 1911, growing cotton in the fertile bottomlands that would later lie beneath White Rock Lake. Dallas bought his 464 acres in 1909 to build the reservoir, and between 1935 and 1939 the Civilian Conservation Corps raised a picnic pavilion and a flag-pole-crowned overlook that gave the hill its name. For decades it hosted WRR radio broadcasts, Goforth family reunions, concerts, protests, and snow-day sledding, becoming a beloved urban gathering place.
Zion Lutheran Church
Dallas, TX
As German Lutherans settled in Dallas in the 1870s, they gathered for worship—first in borrowed Baptist facilities—and in 1879 organized under Rev. G. Birkmann, who served as both pastor and schoolteacher. That same year the congregation built a structure holding a sanctuary, parsonage, and school. The church dropped German-language services in 1940, took the name Zion Lutheran in 1944, and still serves the city's spiritual and educational needs.