P.A. Watson Cemetery
Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mrs. Micajah Goodwin was buried here in 1846, soon after her family came to this area. They constructed a coffin from their wagon bed and burned brush atop the grave to hide it from Indians. When Patrick Alfred Watson (1810-1894) of North Carolina bought the land in 1853, he set aside a one-acre cemetery. In 1870 Watson gave land and a structure was built for Watson Community's first school and church, later West Fork Presbyterian Church. In 1956 Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike was routed around the cemetery and the church was relocated.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The first burial here came in 1846, when a newly arrived family fashioned a coffin from their wagon bed and burned brush over the grave to hide it from Indian raiders. When Patrick Alfred Watson bought the land in 1853, he set aside an acre as a cemetery, and by 1870 he had donated ground for the community's first school and church, later West Fork Presbyterian. When the Dallas–Fort Worth Turnpike was routed past the site in 1956, the church was moved but the graves remained.
Why it matters
This modest burial ground preserves the raw realities of frontier settlement in North Texas, from wagon-bed coffins to the churches and schools that followed.
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Related people
- · Patrick Alfred Watson
- · Micajah Goodwin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
P.A. Watson Log House
Arlington, TX
Patrick Alfred Watson raised this dwelling in 1855 near present-day Arlington to house the six children left after his first wife's death; he later remarried and fathered six more. A surveyor, educator, and religious leader, Watson gave land for a community cemetery and for an early church-and-school building whose congregation endures today as West Fork United Presbyterian Church. Descendants lived in the enlarged house until 1961, and it was moved to this site in 1976.
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Elisha Adam Euless left Tennessee for Tarrant County in 1867 and became one of the men whose enterprise shaped its rural map. A successful cotton-and-corn farmer and elected constable and later sheriff, he bought land around a two-story grange hall whose lower floor served as school and church, and later acquired a tract with a cotton gin. The community that grew up around the gin and grange took his name, and a post office opened as Euless in 1886.
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