Harrington, Cassady and Clark Cemeteries
Little Elm, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Harrington, Cassady, and Clark Cemeteries are three separate historically African American cemeteries all located on 1.77 acres in Denton County. The land was originally owned by the Harrington family and is the site of the Harrington cemetery. Cassady and Clark Cemeteries were moved to their current location adjoining Harrington Cemetery in 1953 when the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the Garza Little Elm Dam. The reinterred cemeteries have twelve foot boundaries around the perimeters. An entrance gate is located on Lloyd Road at the northeast corner of the cemeteries. Lloyd, an early farming community, dates back to 1850 and was named for A. P. Lloyd, Denton County’s first county clerk. Most graves in Harrington are marked with headstones of marble, granite, sandstone and concrete. Fieldstone and funeral home steel-plates mark many Cassady and Clark graves. The three burial grounds have approximately 170 graves. The only African American owner of the Harrington land was E. L. Lugrand. His brother’s father-in-law, Nick Oldem, was the first documented burial in Harrington Cemetery (1872). The sites of the original Cassady and Clark cemeteries were on land owned by African Americans. Jacob Cassady (1808-1908) purchased the Cassady cemetery land near Garza in 1872. He and his wife, Melinda (1821-1904), are buried in this family cemetery. Zack Rawlings and George Clark purchased the Clark Cemetery land west of Garza in 1876. The oldest legible marker is Nancie Rolling (1879). Present-day Lewisville Lake covers the area where these cemeteries were first established. Meggs & Son Funeral Home deeded Cassady and Clark Cemeteries to Denton County after relocating the burials. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Harrington, Cassady, and Clark Cemeteries are three historically African American burial grounds now sharing 1.77 acres in Denton County. Founded in the 1870s on land owned by Black families — Jacob Cassady bought his plot in 1872, and Zack Rawlings and George Clark theirs in 1876 — the Cassady and Clark grounds were relocated in 1953 when the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Little Elm to create Lewisville Lake. Roughly 170 graves, marked in marble, granite, fieldstone, and funeral-home plates, record the community of the vanished farming settlement of Lloyd.
Why it matters
These cemeteries testify both to African American landowning families building community after slavery and to how mid-century public works displaced even the graves of the rural poor.
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Related people
- · Jacob Cassady
- · George Clark
- · Zack Rawlings
Related events
- · Construction of Garza-Little Elm Dam
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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