New Salem Cemetery
Honey Grove, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneers began settling this area in the mid-1840s, and Philip Greenleaf Williams was among them. He arrived in 1844 and established a water-powered gristmill south of Bois D'Arc Springs. He left for Virginia to bring his wife and family to the area in 1848, but he drowned in the Red River on the return journey. Williams' family buried him here, where a young boy had reportedly already been interred. Williams' gravestone bears the earliest date. Several of his family members, including his wife, Nancy (Chaney), remained in the area and are also interred here. The names of many of the area's pioneer families are found on the grave markers in New Salem Cemetery. These include members of the Self family, for whom the surrounding community is named. Other families represented here include Broadfoot, Craddock, Dobbs, Denison, Elam, Gilbert, Jones, Newberry, Pitts and Shipman. Today, a cemetery association maintains the burial ground, which serves as a link to the dispersed community that formed in this area in the era when Texas transitioned from Republic to statehood. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2003
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers reached this Fannin County area in the mid-1840s, among them Philip Greenleaf Williams, who built a water-powered gristmill near Bois D'Arc Springs. When he drowned in the Red River in 1848 while bringing his family from Virginia, they buried him here beside a child said to already rest at the spot—his stone bears the cemetery's earliest date. The grave markers of the Self family, for whom the community was named, and many other pioneer households fill the burial ground.
Why it matters
New Salem Cemetery is a tangible link to the founding families who settled North Texas as it passed from independent republic to statehood.
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Related people
- · Philip Greenleaf Williams
- · Nancy Chaney Williams
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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In the 1840s New Jersey natives John W. and Tamson Finley Jones settled in Fannin County, later joined by kin who had served as missionaries to the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. A community grew up around the family's flour mill and cotton gin, though decades later a rival mill built by the Self brothers shifted the population, and eventually nearby Honey Grove eclipsed them all. Today the Jones' Mill community survives only in its historic cemetery, with headstones reaching back to 1850.
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