High Cemetery
Canton, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first burial in this public cemetery, that of Nancy Jane Hubbard, took place in 1859, six years after the High community was first established. More than 100 graves date from the 19th century. Many members of the High family, including Samuel A. High (1809-1894), first permanent landowner in the area and original donor of land for the cemetery, are buried here. Also interred in the High cemetery are veterans of the Civil War and members of other pioneer families and their descendants. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
High Cemetery opened in 1859 with the burial of Nancy Jane Hubbard, six years after the High community took shape in Van Zandt County. More than a hundred of its graves date from the nineteenth century, including that of Samuel A. High, the area's first permanent landowner and the man who donated the ground. Civil War veterans and generations of pioneer families rest here, making the cemetery a roster of the settlers who built the community.
Why it matters
A pioneer burial ground like this one preserves, name by name, the ordinary settlers and Civil War soldiers whose lives knit together frontier East Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1850s, East Texas was filling fast. Texas had joined the United States in 1845, and families from the older Southern states moved west in large numbers looking for cheap, fertile land. Van Zandt County, organized in 1848, was part of that rush. It was country of small farms, rolling woods, and newly cleared fields.
Communities in this part of Texas often started as a few families clustered around a landholder, a church, or a crossroads. The High community took shape in 1853 in just that way. For settlers far from established towns, the first public institutions were basic ones: a place to worship, a school, and a place to bury the dead.
Only a few years after the first burial here, the Civil War came. Texas joined the Confederacy, and men from rural counties like Van Zandt went to war. Those who came home, and those who didn't, would become part of the story this ground keeps.
People & events
The cemetery's story begins with a loss. In 1859, six years after the community was founded, Nancy Jane Hubbard became the first person buried here. The marker gives no more detail about her, but her grave marks the moment a young settlement decided it needed a permanent resting place for its people.
Samuel A. High, born in 1809, was the first permanent landowner in the area and gave the original land for the cemetery. It is fitting that the community carries his family's name and that he, along with many relatives, rests in the ground he donated. He died in 1894, after living through the frontier years, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
More than a hundred graves here date from the nineteenth century. Among them are Civil War veterans and members of other pioneer families, and their descendants continued to be buried here after them. Taken together, the stones form a kind of family tree for the whole community, showing who arrived, who stayed, and who carried the place forward.
Its place in the American story
Across nineteenth-century America, the rural cemetery was one of the clearest signs that a frontier settlement meant to last. Pioneer families went on making the same choice to give land for burials as they moved west. This cemetery is one small example of how the country was settled, one community at a time.
The Civil War veterans buried here connect a quiet East Texas hillside to the largest crisis in American history. Soldiers from rural counties made up most of the armies on both sides. Many returned to farms like the ones around here and lived out their lives in communities that seldom appear in history books.
The marker was placed as part of the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986, when communities across the state marked 150 years since Texas independence. That effort recorded many local places like this one that might otherwise have gone unrecognized.
If you visit
Walk slowly and read the stones. In the older sections you may see weathered markers from the 1800s, family plots grouped together, and names that repeat across generations. Watch for the High family graves and any stones that show military service.
Please be respectful. This is an active community cemetery, and families still visit their loved ones here. Stay on paths where you can, don't touch fragile old stones, and leave everything as you found it.
High Cemetery pairs well with a wider drive through Van Zandt County and the town of Canton, the county seat. A trip through these East Texas back roads gives you a real sense of the landscape the pioneer families worked to settle.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Samuel A. High
- · Nancy Jane Hubbard
Themes & tags
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