Lisbon Cemetery
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1870 Samuel Sloan (1811-92) and E. A. Gracey (1837 - 1915) donated five acres of land near the center of the pioneer town of Lisbon, now part of Dallas, as a church and cemetery site. The oldest known grave is that of James J. Dowd, who died Oct. 24, 1871. A community church and school was erected in 1871; later separate churches were built. After the school was closed in 1917 and the churches were moved to other locations, the property was used only for burials. Descendants of the town's early settlers formed the Lisbon Cemetery Association in 1948 to restore and maintain the site. Marker Sponsor: Lisbon Cemetery Association
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1870, two landowners gave five acres for a church and burial ground at Lisbon, then a small pioneer town south of Dallas. A combined church and school rose the next year, and after the school closed and the churches moved away, the site endured purely as a cemetery. Descendants of the founding families organized to preserve it in 1948.
Why it matters
Lisbon's cemetery is one of the last physical traces of a vanished pioneer settlement long since absorbed by the growth of Dallas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1870, Dallas was still a modest town, and the land around it was dotted with small pioneer settlements. Lisbon was one of them, a farming community that stood on its own, well before the city grew out to meet it. Texas was in the middle of Reconstruction after the Civil War, and rural communities were rebuilding their lives and institutions.
In places like Lisbon, a single building often did the work of several. A church on Sunday could serve as a schoolhouse during the week and a meeting hall in between. Land for such a building, and for a burial ground beside it, was usually donated by local families who saw it as the foundation of a real community.
Everything changed for the Dallas area in the early 1870s, when railroads arrived and turned Dallas into a major commercial center. Over the following decades the city expanded outward, and many small surrounding communities were absorbed. Lisbon was one of them, and today it is part of Dallas.
People & events
The story begins with a gift. In 1870, Samuel Sloan, who lived from 1811 to 1892, and E. A. Gracey, who lived from 1837 to 1915, donated five acres near the center of Lisbon for a church and a cemetery. It was an act of generosity and of faith in the town's future, setting aside ground for worship, learning, and remembrance all at once.
The oldest known grave belongs to James J. Dowd, who died on October 24, 1871. A year later, the community had put up a building that served as both church and school. In time, separate churches were built, a sign that Lisbon was growing and its congregations were finding their own paths.
But the town's world was shifting. The school closed in 1917, and the churches later moved to other locations. After that, the old property was used only for burials. By the middle of the twentieth century, the descendants of Lisbon's early settlers decided their ancestors' resting place deserved better care. In 1948 they formed the Lisbon Cemetery Association to restore and maintain the grounds, and the association later sponsored this marker.
Its place in the American story
All across the United States, growing cities swallowed the small towns around them. The farms, schools, and churches of those communities were often replaced, and the towns' names faded from maps. Lisbon's story is a local version of that national pattern, and its cemetery is one of the few physical traces of the town that remains.
The site also shows how closely religion and education were woven together in pioneer communities. A shared church and school building was common on the American frontier, where families pooled their resources to create the institutions they needed. The five acres donated here once held all of that.
Finally, the Lisbon Cemetery Association is an example of how ordinary Americans preserve history. Long after the town was gone, its descendants organized to protect the graves of their forebears. Much of the country's local history survives only because families and volunteers decided it was worth saving.
If you visit
Walk the grounds slowly and look for the oldest stones, which reach back to the early 1870s. Family names repeated across rows tell you about the web of kinship that held a small pioneer community together. Try to picture the five acres as they were: a church and school building standing among the graves at the center of a rural town.
Remember that this is still a cemetery cared for by descendants, so treat it with respect, stay on paths where they exist, and leave everything as you find it.
The contrast is part of the experience here. Today this ground sits inside a major city, surrounded by modern Dallas. Standing among the graves, you can sense how much the landscape has changed, and how this small plot has held onto the memory of a town that the city otherwise absorbed. It's a thoughtful stop to add to any exploration of Dallas beyond its downtown.
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
- · Samuel Sloan
- · E. A. Gracey
- · James J. Dowd
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frank Reagh
Dallas, TX
Frank Reaugh moved from Illinois to Kaufman County in 1876 and, sketching the cattle around him, became the artist who immortalized the Texas longhorn. Trained in St. Louis and Europe, he returned to the prairie for inspiration and settled in Dallas by 1890, where his teaching made him a force in Texas art. His pastels of frontier cattle, prized by historians, hang in museums across the state, and he built his studio-home 'El Sibil' in 1928.
Miller Log Cabin
Dallas, TX
Hewn from cedar logs in 1847 and caulked with clay, this cabin was the first Texas home of settler William B. Miller, who later built the antebellum mansion Millermore. In its single room, a dozen local girls and their teacher gathered for one of the earliest schools in the Dallas area, boarding under the same roof. Moved to its present site in 1964, it survives as a rare glimpse of pioneer Dallas.
Town of Lancaster
Lancaster, TX
Kentucky-born A. Bledsoe settled here in 1846 and, with the Rawlins family, laid out this town around 1852, naming it Lancaster after the Kentucky town his grandfather had founded. Stores, churches, a school, and mills soon clustered on the one-square-mile townsite, and during the Civil War a Confederate pistol factory operated here. The town weathered repeated fires and the rise and fall of Randolph College, living for a century as a cotton-market town whose fortunes rose and fell with the crop.
Pleasant Mound Methodist Church
Dallas, TX
This congregation grew from a shared frontier meeting house in the farming hamlet of Scyene, a two-story building that doubled as store, Masonic lodge, and school where several denominations worshiped side by side. The Methodists built a log sanctuary in 1876 and relocated to the Pleasant Mound community in 1878, replacing their buildings repeatedly as membership grew. The tradition of shared worship gave way to separate congregations after 1900, but neighbors still gathered for annual homecomings for decades.