Oakland Community Cemetery
Canton, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The oldest marked grave in Oakland Cemetery is that of Oscar Lee who was born and died on the same November day in 1882. The earliest recorded school building at Oakland was erected in 1885. It served as a non-denominational church on Sundays and was located just north of the cemetery. During a brush arbor revival, the preacher's infant child became ill and died. This is believed to be the first unmarked grave in Oakland Cemetery. In 1887, M. M. Burks deeded one acre for a cemetery; by 1896 the site held about forty graves among cedar trees. Early settler Lizzie Currey McMahon deeded two acres of land for a Methodist church in 1894. The Methodist congregation was organized in 1901; a Baptist church organized in 1904. In the early 20th century the Oakland community included the cemetery, school and churches, and a cotton gin owned by Lizzie's father John T. Currey. A prominent citizen, Currey served in the Texas House of Representatives four times. The Oakland School District was established in 1905. By 1913 there were 42 students from the earliest level to the 7th grade. The school was consolidated with Grand Saline schools about 1938. Other early settlers buried on this site include Joseph and Sabrina Reid and members of their family. Sabrina is believed to have been of American Indian descent. The Adkins, Boyer, Burks, Carpenter, Chambless, Downs, Fincher, Gillespie, Kennedy, King, Lee, McMahon, Stephens, Skinner and Wheeler families are represented, as well. Additional acreage was deeded to the cemetery in 1954 by the Metzger and Morgan families. The Oakland Cemetery continues to serve as a chronicle of the past. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The oldest marked grave at Oakland belongs to Oscar Lee, born and dead on the same November day in 1882, and the community's story is written in the deeds that followed: a schoolhouse in 1885 that doubled as a Sunday church, a cemetery acre from M. M. Burks in 1887, and Methodist church land from Lizzie Currey McMahon in 1894. In its prime Oakland held churches, a school, and a cotton gin owned by John T. Currey, a four-term member of the Texas House. The dozens of family names on its stones — and Sabrina Reid, believed to be of American Indian descent — make the cemetery a running record of who lived and worked here.
Why it matters
Oakland Cemetery is a chronicle of an entire rural community written in gravestones, preserving the names and connections of the families who built East Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Oakland took shape in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, in the years historians label Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Out here in Van Zandt County, far from the industrial cities that gave the Gilded Age its name, that meant something plainer: cedar-dotted farmland, cotton, and a scattering of families turning raw acreage into a settled community.
The rhythm of life was agricultural and deeply local. A cotton gin, a school, a church, and a burying ground were the institutions that mattered, and a place was considered real once it had them. Oakland acquired all four within a couple of decades, and the dates are preserved not in a town charter but in the deeds and the gravestones.
This was also the era of the open-air revival. Before congregations could afford proper buildings, worshipers gathered under "brush arbors" — rough shelters of poles and cut branches — for days of preaching and singing. One such revival at Oakland left its own quiet mark on the cemetery, a reminder of how intertwined faith and grief were in frontier life.
People & events
The oldest marked grave belongs to Oscar Lee, born and dead on the same November day in 1882 — a life measured in hours, and the first name in the community's long roll. The first unmarked grave, by tradition, holds a preacher's infant child who fell ill and died during a brush arbor revival, a loss that turned a gathering of worship into a gathering of mourning.
The community built itself deed by deed. A schoolhouse went up in 1885 and doubled as a nondenominational church on Sundays. In 1887 M. M. Burks deeded an acre for the cemetery, which held some forty graves among the cedars by 1896. Lizzie Currey McMahon gave two acres for a Methodist church in 1894; a Methodist congregation organized in 1901 and a Baptist one in 1904.
The Currey name runs through the story. Lizzie's father, John T. Currey, owned the community's cotton gin and served four times in the Texas House of Representatives — a prominent citizen in a small place. And among the early settlers were Joseph and Sabrina Reid; Sabrina is believed to have been of American Indian descent, one of the many quiet complexities a cemetery preserves when a town's other records are lost.
Its place in the American story
Oakland Cemetery is a chronicle of an entire rural community written in stone. The names carved here — Adkins, Boyer, Burks, Carpenter, Chambless, Downs, Fincher, Gillespie, Kennedy, King, Lee, McMahon, Stephens, Skinner, Wheeler, and more — are the census, the social register, and the family tree of a place that otherwise left few records. This is how much of America remembers itself: not in archives but in graveyards.
The deeds tell a story repeated across the country in these decades — how ordinary neighbors, giving an acre or two at a time, assembled the institutions of civic life from the ground up. A schoolhouse that was also a church, a cemetery from a single farmer's gift, a gin owned by the man who also went to the statehouse: this is small-town democracy in its most tangible form.
And the arc ends the way thousands of others did. When Oakland's school consolidated with Grand Saline around 1938, the community's institutional life dispersed. What remained — and still remains — is the cemetery, doing the work it has always done: keeping the names.
If you visit
This is a place to walk slowly among cedars. The cemetery is the community's last standing institution, and its stones are meant to be read as a record: look for Oscar Lee's 1882 marker, the oldest here, and let the recurring surnames sketch the families who intermarried and farmed this ground together.
Stand where the schoolhouse once sat just to the north and picture it doing double duty — desks on weekdays, pews on Sundays. The additional acreage given by the Metzger and Morgan families in 1954 shows a burying ground that kept growing long after the town around it thinned.
It fits naturally into an unhurried drive through Van Zandt County toward Canton or Grand Saline. Bring a respectful curiosity rather than an itinerary; a rural cemetery like Oakland gives its history to visitors who are willing to slow down and read the names one by one.
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
- · John T. Currey
- · Lizzie Currey McMahon
- · M. M. Burks
- · Oscar Lee
Themes & tags
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