Mattox Cemetery
New Diana, Upshur County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Several families from Alabama and Georgia settled in this area in the 1850s. According to oral history, slaves were interred around this site. The first recorded burial was that of Milla Ann Greer Oliver, who died in 1861. The graveyard became known as the "Old Family Cemetery." William and Martha Greer deeded land including this site for a church and cemetery in 1887. A cemetery association was formed in 1970. Members of the Covin, Jones, Loyd, Mattox, Oliver, Williams, and Willeford families are interred here. Of the more than four hundred burials, several are those of veterans of U. S. and international conflicts from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. The Mattox Cemetery remains a chronicle of the pioneers of Upshur County. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Families from Alabama and Georgia settled this area in the 1850s, and oral tradition holds that enslaved people were among the first buried here, with the earliest recorded grave that of Milla Ann Greer Oliver in 1861. Deeded for a church and cemetery by William and Martha Greer in 1887, the "Old Family Cemetery" holds more than four hundred burials, including veterans of every conflict from the Civil War to Vietnam. A cemetery association formed in 1970 to care for the grounds.
Why it matters
The cemetery chronicles both the pioneer settlement of Upshur County and the enslaved and free generations, and the many wars, that shaped it.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Milla Ann Greer Oliver
- · William Greer
- · Martha Greer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Smyrna Cemetery
Harleton, TX
Pioneer physician John Chadd received an 1845 land grant here and the following year donated ground for a church, school, and cemetery, choosing the biblical name Smyrna for the community. The burial ground dates to 1850, with its earliest surviving headstone from 1859, and grew alongside the Methodist congregation Chadd later helped endow. Among its 675-plus graves rest early settlers and veterans of every American conflict from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Union Grove Cemetery
Gladewater, TX
This East Texas burial ground began on land Haden Harrison Edwards bought from the Republic of Mexico in 1835 and later sold to James Riley Phillips, whose family homesteaded it from 1857. The graveyard opened with the burial of young Florence Phillips and grew alongside the Union Grove community, taking that name to serve neighbors beyond the founding family. Edwards himself was a soldier, legislator, and delegate to the 1861 Secession Convention, and veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam rest here.
New Providence Cemetery
Longview, TX
This Gregg County cemetery grew up around the New Providence Missionary Baptist Church, founded in the 1880s, with its first recorded burial in 1896. Fire, windstorm, and lightning destroyed the church, and the congregation disbanded—reorganizing only briefly to tend the graves. Among the fifty-eight burials rest veterans of five American wars, a former county judge, and a former district judge.
Iron Bluff Cemetery
Lone Star, TX
Livingston Skinner brought his family from Georgia to this corner of Texas in the early 1840s, and the burial ground began at the edge of their land with a daughter's grave in 1853. Over generations it filled with the Skinners and their neighbors from nearby Lone Star, and once shared its ground with the Iron Bluff Schoolhouse. Those buried here served in nearly every American conflict — Skinner himself a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Creek Wars, alongside later Confederate, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam veterans.