Olds Cemetery
Jasper, Jasper County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established as a family cemetery, Olds Cemetery is located on part of the original homestead property of David and Sally Dunn. David Dunn and Sally Rayburn were married in 1830 in Mississippi and had ten children before settling in Tyler county by 1860. Eventually, the family settled permanently in jasper county on Spring Hill Road by 1870. The first marked burial in the cemetery dates to 1874, when one of their children, Morgan Dunn, passed away at an early age of 20. The next to be buried there were David Dunn in 1889 and Sally in 1897. Their son John Dunn and his wife, Martha, buried five of their infant children prior to 1902, actual dates unknown. Their graves are marked by a single marker. David and Sally Dunn’s daughters, Melinda, Nancy, Martha, and Rhoda, were also buried here in 1908, 1914, 1918 and 1919, respectively. Melinda and her husband James Perry Olds’ only child, David Amy Olds, was buried here in 1936. In the years following the death of David Amy Olds, the children of David and Lucy Jane (Morse) Olds took over the homestead and the cemetery, with the cemetery being commonly referred to as Olds Cemetery. As of 2017, there are over 60 interments at Olds Cemetery. Its graves are oriented to face east. The oldest graves, those of the Dunn family, can be found in the first row, except for the infant children of John and Martha Dunn, and are marked with wooden crosses and name plates have been added. David Amy Olds’ grave is the first to be marked with a headstone. The cemetery continues to be maintained and operated by descendants of the Dunn-Olds family. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2015
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
David and Sally Dunn married in Mississippi in 1830 and made their way west with a growing family, settling permanently in Jasper County by 1870 on land along Spring Hill Road. When their son Morgan died young in 1874, they opened a family burying ground that would hold David, Sally, and generations of their descendants. Marked at first by wooden crosses, the graves face east in the old custom, and the family's Olds descendants still tend the ground today.
Why it matters
Family cemeteries like this trace the westward migration of Southern families into the Texas piney woods and the tight kinship networks that settled the land.
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Related people
- · David Dunn
- · Sally Rayburn Dunn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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