Marystown Cemetery
Burleson, Johnson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
MARYSTOWN CEMETERY FAMILIES MOVED TO THIS AREA IN THE 1850s, SETTLING AMONG THE BEAUTIFUL TREES SURROUNDING QUIL MILLER CREEK AND ITS SPRINGS WHICH RAN ALMOST YEAR-ROUND. ONE OF THE EARLIEST SETTLERS, CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER J. S. WILSHIRE, FARMED WITH HIS WIFE AND SEVEN CHILDREN BY 1853. IN 1869, THOMAS W. HOLLINGSWORTH OPENED A MILL AND A LARGE MERCANTILE STORE. THE TOWN WAS NAMED MARYSVILLE FOR HIS WIFE, MARY, THE COMMUNITY’S FIRST SCHOOLTEACHER, WHO TAUGHT IN HER HOME JUST WEST OF THE CEMETERY. A POST OFFICE OPERATED FROM 1874-1901 WITH THE NAME OF MARYSTOWN, SINCE TEXAS ALREADY HAD A MARYSVILLE. ONLY THE BAPTIST CHURCH AND CEMETERY REMAIN FROM THE HISTORIC SETTLEMENT. MARYSTOWN CEMETERY COVERS MORE THAN TWO ACRES OF THE 1859 SURVEY OF ISAAC A. JACKSON. ABOUT 1860, HE SET ASIDE THE LAND FOR USE AS A CEMETERY WHEN HE BURIED A FAMILY MEMBER WHOSE GRAVE IS NOW UNKNOWN. THE OLDEST MARKED GRAVE IS FOR MARTHA JANE (LEDBETTER) WARE, WHO DIED ON MARCH 13, 1864. ABOUT 15 BURIALS ARE DIPHTHERIA VICTIMS FROM A PASSING 1870s WAGON TRAIN. PIONEER SETTLERS BURIED HERE INCLUDE ISAAC AND FANNIE JACKSON, THOMAS AND MARY HOLLINGSWORTH, AND ROBERT AND WILLIAM BILLINGSLEY, TWO SIGNERS OF THE 1854 PETITION TO CREATE JOHNSON COUNTY. MANY VETERANS OF U.S. MILITARY CONFLICTS DATING TO THE CIVIL WAR ARE INTERRED HERE. SEVERAL HEADSTONES DEPICT FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS INCLUDING WOODMEN OF THE WORLD AND MASONS. THE GENERAL LANDSCAPE IS TRADITIONAL IN NATURE. ENTRANCE IS THROUGH A HISTORIC WROUGHT IRON ARCH GATE. FAMILY PLOTS ARE MOSTLY CURBED OR FENCED. THE MARYSTOWN CEMETERY ASSOCIATION FORMED IN 1987 TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE AND OVERSIGHT OF THIS HISTORIC BURIAL GROUND AND ITS GRAVES WHICH PROVIDE A RECORD OF AREA FAMILIES AND A PIONEER RURAL COMMUNITY.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Families settled along spring-fed Quil Miller Creek in the 1850s, and by 1869 Thomas W. Hollingsworth's mill and store gave rise to a town named Marysville—later Marystown—for his wife Mary, the community's first schoolteacher. The cemetery, set aside about 1860, holds pioneer settlers, county founders, Civil War veterans, and some fifteen diphtheria victims from a passing 1870s wagon train. Only the Baptist church and cemetery survive of the once-active settlement.
Why it matters
Marystown Cemetery preserves the memory of a vanished pioneer community, its curbed family plots and fraternal emblems offering a rare, intact record of frontier settlement in North Texas.
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Related people
- · J. S. Wilshire
- · Thomas W. Hollingsworth
- · Mary Hollingsworth
- · Isaac A. Jackson
Themes & tags
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