Oakwood Cemetery
Denton, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery was established soon after Denton was settled as the new seat of government for Denton County in 1857. Land for the community burial ground was donated by pioneer settler Hiram Cisco, who had earlier conveyed property for the townsite. The earliest grave is that of a Mrs. Wilson, who died during childbirth while traveling through the area in a covered wagon. Her newborn infant daughter died several days later and was also buried here. Other interments at this site include those of Jesse M. Blount, who helped plat the town of Denton and later served as county treasurer, county judge and state senator; Col. Thomas Gynn Cosbey Davis, a cousin of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a friend of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; and many prominent early leaders of the town and county. Two interesting graves are those of Andrew and George Brown. On a change of venue from Montague county in 1879, they were convicted of murder and hanged in Denton. Their tombstones bear the inscription "Executed." Officially named Oakwood Cemetery in 1931, this burial ground now serves as a historic reminder of the pioneers who first settled here and who led in the development of the area. (1982)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Oakwood Cemetery took shape soon after Denton was chosen as the county seat in 1857, on land donated by pioneer settler Hiram Cisco, who had also given ground for the townsite. Its earliest grave belongs to a Mrs. Wilson, who died in childbirth crossing the area by covered wagon. Among those resting here are town founder Jesse M. Blount and other early leaders—along with two men hanged for murder in 1879 whose stones simply read "Executed."
Why it matters
The cemetery is a physical record of the pioneers who founded and led a North Texas town, preserving the human story of frontier settlement in its rows of graves.
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Related people
- · Hiram Cisco
- · Jesse M. Blount
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church of Denton
Denton, TX
Organized by Rev. William E. Bates in 1857—the very year Denton itself was founded—this Methodist congregation first met in the log courthouse before sharing a Masonic building that doubled as school and meeting hall. From a white frame church in 1873 the congregation grew to a red brick sanctuary in 1899 and, by 1925, a building seating 2,400. Its history tracks the growth of a North Texas county-seat town from raw frontier settlement to established community.
John B. Denton
Denton, TX
Born in Tennessee in 1806, John B. Denton came to Texas in 1836 and worked as a Methodist circuit-riding preacher and pioneer lawyer. He was killed on May 24, 1841, in the Village Creek fight against Native people in what is now Tarrant County—an expedition led by Gen. Edward H. Tarrant, for whom that county is named. Both the city and county of Denton later took his name.
Site of Lacy Hotel
Denton, TX
Charles Christian Lacy came from Kentucky with his wife Sarah in 1854 and helped plat the Denton townsite the following year, opening what is remembered as the city's first hotel here around 1858. For nearly a quarter century the Lacy Hotel served travelers on the young frontier town's dusty streets. In a footnote that later loomed large, a teenage Sam Bass worked here briefly as a livery stable boy before turning outlaw and becoming one of Texas's most notorious train robbers.
Denton County Courthouse
Denton, TX
Completed in 1896–97, this is Denton County's fifth courthouse, following earlier seats at Alton and Pinckneyville and a Denton predecessor burned in a crime blamed on the Sam Bass gang. Architect W.C. Dodson designed it in a free mix of Victorian styles, with French Second Empire pavilions and ogival domes, using native limestone walls and Burnet County marble columns. It remains a landmark of frontier-era Texas civic architecture.