McCurley Cemetery
Lewisville, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The McCurley family of Illinois settled in Denton County in 1852. George Collins McCurley set aside land for a burial ground, church, and school. A traveling stranger may have been the first burial, but George's brother, Abraham, who died in 1871, was the first family member buried at the site. The first marked graves date from 1877, when the plot began to be used by neighbors. In 1951 the 106 graves which then comprised the cemetery had to be relocated because of the construction of Lewisville Lake. They were moved here, adjoining Old Hall Cemetery, burial place of George C. McCurley. (1984)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The McCurley family came from Illinois to settle Denton County in 1852, and George Collins McCurley set aside land here for a burial ground, church, and school. His brother Abraham, who died in 1871, was the first family member laid to rest, and by 1877 neighbors were burying their dead here too. When Lewisville Lake was created in 1951, all 106 graves had to be relocated to this spot beside Old Hall Cemetery, where George McCurley himself is buried.
Why it matters
The cemetery reflects both frontier family settlement and the mid-century reservoir projects that literally moved the resting places of the dead.
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Related people
- · George Collins McCurley
- · Abraham McCurley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Hall Cemetery
Lewisville, TX
In the 1840s the Republic of Texas granted colonization contracts to promoters like W. S. Peters, whose Peters Colony drew families into what became Denton County. Among the 1844 arrivals were the Holford families of Missouri, who settled the prairie that took their name, and by 1855 a two-story hall there housed a Masonic lodge above a floor used for school and church. The adjoining Old Hall Cemetery holds more than 125 nineteenth-century burials, many of them infants and children.
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