HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Horton Cemetery

Dallas, Dallas County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Enoch and Martha Horton left Virginia with their ten children and settled here as members of the Peters Colony in 1844. Family history recounts that their son, James Horton, set aside this site as a family cemetery in 1848. Enoch (d. 1851) and Martha (d. 1850) are believed to be buried here in unmarked graves. James and his sister, Sarah Horton Cockrell, operated one of the first grist mills in this area, and James donated land for a school and railroad right-of-way. Many Horton family members and other early settlers are buried here. The last interment was in 1951. Incise on reverse: Gift of Screna Horton Campbell, Barney C. Jones

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Enoch and Martha Horton came from Virginia with their ten children as members of the Peters Colony, settling this North Texas land in 1844. Their son James set aside a family cemetery here around 1848, and the couple are believed to lie in unmarked graves among the earliest burials. James and his sister Sarah Horton Cockrell ran one of the area's first grist mills, and James gave land for a school and a railroad — the kind of civic seeding that built the community around them.

Why it matters

The Peters Colony grants opened North Texas to Anglo settlement, and this cemetery holds the pioneers whose mills, schools, and railroads became the foundations of Dallas County.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Enoch Horton
  • · Martha Horton
  • · James Horton
  • · Sarah Horton Cockrell

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionFrontier HistoryLandmark

Nearby & related markers

Kit Community

Irving, TX

John W. and Jestine Gorbit farmed here by 1850, and a settlement called Gorbit grew up around them as a stop on a pre–Civil War postal route. After Ike Story opened a store and post office in 1889, confusion with a similarly named town led to the settlement being renamed Kit in 1894, and residents added a cemetery and schools. When the railroad town of Irving was founded nearby in 1903, Kit's businesses, churches, and post office drifted to the new townsite, and by the 1940s the community had faded into the growing metropolis.

Old Kit Cemetery

Irving, TX

Near the forks of the Trinity River, mid-1800s settlers built the little community of Gorbit, later renamed Kit, complete with a store, a post office, and the merchant-postmaster Ike Story. The cemetery began in 1896 when a family passing through buried their sick child in a grove on David Britain's land, and Britain donated the ground for a community burial place and an adjoining church lot. Early settlers stepped off their own plots by eye, and today Civil War–era veterans, immigrant French, German, and Belgian families, and pioneers like Aunt Kit King rest here as Irving has grown up around them.

The Hord Log Cabin

Dallas, TX

When Judge William H. Hord hauled his family west from Tennessee by covered wagon, he built this hand-hewn log cabin in 1845 — the first permanent structure on the west bank of the Trinity in what became Dallas. Hord served as county judge in the late 1840s, and the property later passed to Oak Cliff developer T.L. Marsalis. Rescued by the Weiss family and given to an American Legion post, the restored cabin opened as a museum in 1976.

Union Bower Community

Irving, TX

Drawn by fertile land along the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, settlers reached this area by the mid-19th century, and after William and Virginia Smith arrived in 1879 the families here built what became the Union Bower Community. They hauled cotton, corn, and produce to Dallas markets, organized a Sunday school in 1885 that grew into a Methodist church, and established schools and a community cemetery. When Irving was founded on the railroad in 1903, Union Bower's rural population declined, and by the time Irving annexed it in 1956 little of its farming character remained.