Medlin Cemetery
Roanoke, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1847 Charles Medlin (1807-1864) and his wife Matilda (Allen) migrated from Missouri with their household and 20 other families to take up land grants on Denton Creek. Also in the wagon train and colony were Charles Medlin's widowed mother and his brother Lewis. Floods broke up the first Medlin settlement, at times called "Garden Valley." Moving to higher grounds in this vicinity, the settlers formed a new neighborhood that was to grow into the town of Roanoke (1.5 miles west). Charles Medlin's daughter Mittie Ann (Born 1828) admired the beauty of this hill, saying she would like to be buried here. The cemetery was opened at her death in April 1850. Her parents, 13 brothers and sisters, and many other close relatives also rest here along with neighbors and others from the locality. This is one of the oldest cemeteries in Denton county. In 1900 James W. Medlin, son of the original land donors, Charles and Matilda Medlin, enlarged the area to more than ten acres, and began selling lots to bring in maintenance funds. Medlin Cemetery Association was formed in 1947. A new access boulevard and other improvements were provided for this cemetery in the 1970s. (1977)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1847 Charles Medlin and his wife Matilda led a wagon train of some twenty families from Missouri to claim land grants on Denton Creek. After floods scattered their first settlement, the group moved to higher ground and seeded the town that became Roanoke. When Charles's daughter Mittie Ann died in 1850, she was buried on a hill she had admired, opening one of Denton County's oldest cemeteries—where her parents, thirteen siblings, and generations of neighbors now rest.
Why it matters
The Medlin cemetery marks the wagon-train migration and land-grant settlement that planted Anglo communities across North Texas in the years of the young republic and early statehood.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1840s, North Texas was a frontier on the very edge of Anglo-American settlement. The Republic of Texas was young, statehood was only just arriving, and the land along the creeks of what would become Denton County was open prairie, offered up through land grants to families willing to come and stay. It took nerve: this was exposed country, far from established towns, where a settlement's survival was never guaranteed.
Into that country in 1847 came Charles Medlin, his wife Matilda, and a wagon train of some twenty families out of Missouri. Group migration like theirs was the frontier's answer to isolation and risk — you traveled, claimed, and built in numbers because a lone family stood little chance. They came to take up land grants on Denton Creek, staking their futures on ground none of them had seen.
Nature quickly reminded them who was in charge. Their first settlement, remembered fondly as 'Garden Valley,' was broken up by floods, forcing the colony to higher ground — the ordinary, grinding trial-and-error of turning wilderness into a home place.
People & events
Charles Medlin, born in 1807, led not just his own household west but brought his widowed mother and his brother Lewis along in the same wagon train — three generations of one family moving as a unit. When flooding scattered their first try at settlement, the survivors regrouped on higher ground in this vicinity and seeded the neighborhood that would grow into the town of Roanoke.
The cemetery owes its existence to a daughter's wish. Mittie Ann Medlin, born in 1828, is said to have admired the beauty of this hill and told her family she would like to be buried here. She died young, in April 1850, and her wish opened the ground. It became one of the oldest cemeteries in Denton County.
Around Mittie Ann came to rest her parents, her thirteen brothers and sisters, and a wide circle of relatives and neighbors — an entire pioneer family and its community gathered on one hillside. Decades later, in 1900, her brother James W. Medlin enlarged the grounds past ten acres and began selling lots to fund the upkeep, and in 1947 neighbors formalized their care as the Medlin Cemetery Association.
Its place in the American story
The Medlin story is the story of how the American frontier line actually advanced — not by decree, but by wagon trains of ordinary families claiming land grants and betting everything on unbroken country. The migration of Southern and border-state families like the Medlins from Missouri into North Texas planted the towns that still dot the map today, Roanoke among them.
There is something quietly telling in the fact that this community's most enduring landmark grew from a young woman's fondness for a hilltop view. Across the settling of America, cemeteries were often a frontier neighborhood's first permanent institution — the first ground a scattered people held in common, and frequently older than the churches and courthouses that followed.
That one family could account for parents, thirteen children, and countless kin in a single cemetery speaks to the scale of these pioneer households and the tight, interwoven communities they formed. To read the Medlin plots is to watch a founding American family put down roots that outlasted them all.
If you visit
Stand on the hill and you'll understand the choice. Mittie Ann Medlin picked this spot for its beauty, and a visit is partly about seeing the land the way a young pioneer woman saw it — reason enough to pause and take in the setting before you start reading stones.
This is one of the oldest cemeteries in Denton County, so look for the earliest markers and for the remarkable concentration of a single family: parents, more than a dozen siblings, and generations of relatives resting together. Tracing those shared surnames across the rows is like reading a founding family's genealogy carved in stone.
The grounds have been cared for continuously — enlarged in 1900, tended by an association since 1947, improved with a new access boulevard in the 1970s — so you'll find a well-kept, welcoming place rather than a forgotten one. Roanoke lies about a mile and a half east, which makes this an easy, meaningful detour: a chance to visit the resting place of the very family whose flooded-out first settlement moved uphill and became the town.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Charles Medlin
- · Matilda Allen Medlin
- · Mittie Ann Medlin
- · James W. Medlin
Themes & tags
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