Midlothian Cemetery
Midlothian, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
What would later become Midlothian began as part of the Peters Colony, which brought settlers to Texas from 1841 to 1848. W.A. and Anna Hawkins and their extended family arrived in 1848, in time to receive acreage for their new home. Their son Benjamin Franklin Hawkins set aside part of his land for a church, and the adjacent land became the community's cemetery. Although earlier unmarked graves most likely exist, the earliest marked grave, that of Mary Elizabeth Hawkins, dates to October 1873. Two of her young children, who died shortly after her death, are buried nearby. In 1874, John W. and George W. Hawkins deeded four acres including the burial ground to the Methodist church; the community has added surrounding land over the years to increase the cemetery to its current size. The city of Midlothian incorporated in 1888. W.A. Brundage, Sr., the city's first mayor, is among the many notable area residents buried here. The cemetery is also the burial place of military veterans, pioneers, farmers, ranchers, paupers and many others, representing the community's long and rich heritage. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2003
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Midlothian grew out of the Peters Colony, an ambitious 1840s effort to draw settlers onto the north-central Texas prairie. The Hawkins family arrived in 1848 and set aside land for a church and, beside it, a cemetery whose earliest marked grave belongs to Mary Elizabeth Hawkins in 1873. As the town incorporated in 1888 and prospered, the burial ground grew alongside it, gathering mayors, pioneers, ranchers, farmers, and the anonymous poor into one shared record of the community's life.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a cross-section of a Texas farm town's whole society, preserving the memory of colonists who turned an empresario land grant into a permanent home.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1840s, the Republic of Texas was an independent nation with plenty of land and too few people to defend or farm it. To attract settlers, the Republic made contracts with empresarios, land agents who promised to bring in colonists in exchange for land. The largest of these ventures was the Peters Colony, which brought families to the prairies of North Texas from 1841 to 1848.
Colonists who arrived in time received free land grants, a powerful lure for farm families from the older states. They came by wagon to a region of rich blackland prairie, still largely unsettled. Texas joined the United States in 1845, partway through the colony's life, and the flow of settlers only grew.
In the decades that followed, the area that would become Midlothian slowly grew from scattered farmsteads into a community. The railroad era of the 1880s brought towns across North Texas to life, and Midlothian incorporated as a city in 1888. Its cemetery grew alongside it, from a small family burial ground into the resting place of a whole town.
People & events
W.A. and Anna Hawkins arrived with their extended family in 1848, just in time to receive land as Peters Colony settlers. They put down roots in what is now Ellis County, and their family shaped the community for generations.
Their son, Benjamin Franklin Hawkins, set aside part of his land for a church, and the land next to it became the community cemetery. The earliest marked grave belongs to Mary Elizabeth Hawkins, who died in October 1873. Sadly, two of her young children died soon after her and are buried nearby, a heartbreaking glimpse of how quickly illness could sweep through a frontier family. There are likely even older graves here, unmarked and now unknown.
In 1874, John W. and George W. Hawkins deeded four acres, including the burial ground, to the Methodist church. Over the years the community added more land. After Midlothian incorporated in 1888, its first mayor, W.A. Brundage, Sr., was among the many well-known residents eventually buried here. Alongside them rest veterans, pioneers, farmers, ranchers, and paupers. The cemetery became a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2003.
Its place in the American story
The Peters Colony is an important chapter in the story of how Texas, and the American West, filled with settlers. Like the Homestead Act that came later at the national level, it used free land to draw families into new territory. Many of today's North Texas cities, including the Dallas-Fort Worth region, trace their earliest settlers back to it.
Midlothian Cemetery shows that story in human terms. One family arrived on a land grant, gave land for a church, and then gave land for a cemetery. In a single generation a homestead turned into a community, and the community turned into a town. The same pattern played out in thousands of places across America.
What makes this cemetery especially meaningful is that it holds everyone. A town's first mayor lies in the same ground as its poorest residents, its farmers, its ranchers, and its veterans. Taken together, it is a cross-section of an American small town, a record of the whole community rather than just its leaders.
If you visit
Midlothian Cemetery lies within the city of Midlothian, in Ellis County just southwest of Dallas. Even though the town around it has grown, the cemetery keeps the calm feeling of an old community burial ground, with mature trees and stones spanning more than a century and a half.
As you wander, look for the Hawkins family name, which ties the cemetery to its founding colonist family. Seek out the 1873 grave of Mary Elizabeth Hawkins and the small graves of her children nearby. You may also find the grave of W.A. Brundage, Sr., Midlothian's first mayor, and the stones of veterans, ranchers, and farmers. Notice how the older sections differ from the newer ones as the cemetery expanded.
Remember that this is an active cemetery, so please be respectful. Midlothian is an easy side trip from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and fits nicely into a drive through Ellis County's historic towns. Check locally for visiting information before you go.
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
- · W.A. Hawkins
- · Anna Hawkins
- · Benjamin Franklin Hawkins
- · Mary Elizabeth Hawkins
- · W.A. Brundage, Sr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church of Midlothian
Midlothian, TX
Methodist worship reached this stretch of Ellis County in the late 1840s, when settlers met in homes and were served by circuit-riding preachers who rode out from Waxahachie. Congregations gathered in pioneer schoolhouses and in early settlements like Hawkins and Lebanon before the flock consolidated in the growing railroad town of Midlothian in 1883. A permanent sanctuary rose in 1902, replaced by a new house of worship in 1966, and many members still descend from those first pioneer families.
Midlothian Presbyterian Church
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In the decades after the Civil War, American Presbyterianism was split between a northern branch (PCUSA) and a southern one (PCUS), and small Texas towns often supported a congregation of each. Midlothian brought its two together in 1911, and the united congregation raised a sanctuary just before the First World War. Generations of members have anchored the town through cooperative charities like Manna House and through national and global mission work.
Site of Old Hawkins Springs
Midlothian, TX
In May 1848 William Alden Hawkins and his large family arrived here from Indiana as the first settlers in what became Ellis County, part of the Peters Colony land-grant scheme. In a frantic 28 days they cut and hauled cedar logs to raise five houses and secure claims to some 2,500 acres, drawing water from the spring beside the family home. When the county organized in 1850, Hawkins was appointed its first chief justice, and much of Midlothian later grew up on the family's surveys.
Newton Cemetery
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This family plot holds the Newtons, Peters Colony pioneers who reached the Ovilla area in the 1840s. Patriarch Larkin Newton, born in South Carolina in 1794, was a War of 1812 veteran who fought at the Battle of New Orleans and served as a county commissioner in three states before settling in Ellis County, where he built a schoolhouse for his family. The oldest grave is his own, from 1858, joined over time by his wife, children, and grandchildren.