Keenan Cemetery
Farmers Branch, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Thomas (1808 - 1879) and Sarah McCallister Keenan (1807 - 1872) came to this area as members of the Peters Colony in 1842. When their two-month-old son, John, died on November 11, 1843, they buried him at this site, establishing one of the earliest cemeteries in present-day Dallas County. The large number of early infant graves are testimony to the hardships endured by the area's pioneer settlers. Thomas and Sarah Keenan and many of their descendants are buried here. The area's first Baptist Church, Union Baptist, was organized in the Keenans' log cabin in 1846 by the Rev. David Myers, who was buried here in 1853. The church, which erected a sanctuary nearby, was closely associated with the cemetery and in a deed executed by John R. West conveying 1.5 acres to the church in 1875 the cemetery was legally set aside. The Farmers Branch (Keenan) Cemetery Association was established in 1938 to maintain the grounds. The cemetery covers three acres and contains about 600 marked and an estimated 100 - 200 unmarked grave sites. Among the people buried here are many of the area's earliest settlers and their descendants and verterans of conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Vietnam Conflict.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Thomas and Sarah Keenan came to this area with the Peters Colony in 1842, and when their two-month-old son John died in 1843 they buried him here, founding one of the earliest cemeteries in present-day Dallas County. The many infant graves testify to the brutal hardships of pioneer life. The Keenans' log cabin also hosted the area's first Baptist congregation in 1846, and those buried here include settlers and veterans of conflicts from the Civil War to Vietnam.
Why it matters
The Keenan Cemetery holds the founding generation of Peters Colony settlers who opened North Texas to Anglo settlement, and its infant graves are a stark record of what that pioneering cost.
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Related people
- · Thomas Keenan
- · Sarah McCallister Keenan
- · David Myers
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
David Myers
Farmers Branch, TX
Born in Kentucky in 1797 to a Virginia family that had pushed west a generation before, David Myers became an ordained Baptist preacher in Illinois before the lure of free land carried him and three generations of his family across the Red River on Christmas Eve, 1845. Settling on a Peters Colony grant northwest of Dallas, he organized Union Baptist Church in May 1846 — the oldest continuing Baptist congregation in Dallas County — and helped plant several more before pneumonia took him after a cold ride home from preaching.
John Keenan
Farmers Branch, TX
John Keenan lived only two months in the autumn of 1843, but he is remembered as the first child born to settlers in the area that would become Dallas County. He was the son of Farmers Branch founders Thomas and Sarah Keenan, who opened this cemetery to bury their infant. The tiny grave thus marks both a family's grief and the very beginning of settled life in the region.
Texian Land and Emigration Company
Farmers Branch, TX
This site marks the first agency, opened in January 1845, of the colonization venture better known as Peters' Colony. Under a contract secured from the Republic of Texas in 1841, William S. Peters and his associates introduced more than ten thousand settlers across seventeen counties of North Texas, seeding communities like Farmers Branch.
First Baptist Church of Farmers Branch
Farmers Branch, TX
Thomas and Sarah Keenan settled at Farmers Branch in 1842, during the Republic of Texas era, and began a family cemetery here after burying their infant son the next year. With the Rev. David Myers they helped organize a Baptist congregation in 1846; when that group moved on, twelve members reestablished Baptist worship in 1870 as the Farmers Branch Missionary Baptist Church, first meeting in the local school. Growing steadily across the following century, it took the name First Baptist Church of Farmers Branch in 1951.