Merrifield Cemetery
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
John Merrifield (1792 - 1873) was the patriarch of a Kentucky family who migrated to the Dallas County area in the late 1840s. In 1851 he purchased a farm here which included this site. It was first used as a cemetery in the late 1860s. The only marked graves are those of Merrifield and his second wife Elizabeth (1802-69). The unmarked gravesites here are estimated to number over twenty. As the burial ground of a pioneer area family, the Merrifield Cemetery provides a vital link to those who were among the first to open the Dallas region to settlement.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Merrifield led a Kentucky family west to the Dallas County area in the late 1840s and bought this farm in 1851, part of which became a family burying ground by the late 1860s. Only he and his second wife Elizabeth lie beneath marked stones, but more than twenty unmarked graves surround them. The little cemetery survives as a tie to the pioneers who first opened this region to settlement.
Why it matters
Modest pioneer cemeteries like this one anchor the memory of the ordinary families whose migrations turned open prairie into the settled Dallas region.
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Related people
- · John Merrifield
- · Elizabeth Merrifield
Themes & tags
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