Perry Cemetery
Carrollton, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery opened with the burial of Sarah Huffman (Mrs. A. W.) Perry in 1896. Nearby was the Union Baptist Church, which stood on land given by A. W. Perry. On Feb. 18, 1897, he deeded land for this cemetery -- the first burial ground associated with the town of Carrollton. After it opened, a few burials were brought from private sites and reinterred here. The Union Church land was added to the cemetery about 1911, after the church moved away. The Rev. John M. Myers, a son of Union's founding pastor, is buried here with his wife. Most of the 482 graves are for pioneer families.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Texas prairie town of Carrollton was still finding its footing, the death of Sarah Huffman Perry in 1896 gave the young community its first true burying ground. The next year her husband, A. W. Perry, deeded the land beside the Union Baptist Church, and scattered graves from private plots were gathered here to rest together. Most of its 482 graves belong to the pioneer families who broke this ground in North Texas.
Why it matters
A frontier community's first cemetery is where its settlers become permanent — the record in stone of the families who chose to stay and build a town.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the late nineteenth century, the blackland prairie of North Texas was filling up fast. Dallas County had been settled by farm families since the 1840s, and by the 1880s and 1890s railroads were tying its small communities into national markets for cotton and grain. Towns that had been crossroads and church grounds began to take on a more settled shape, with stores, depots, schools and, eventually, cemeteries of their own.
Carrollton was one of those communities, growing in the northwestern corner of the county. In the 1890s it was still a small farming town, nothing like the large suburb it is today. Until this cemetery opened, local families often buried their dead on private land: a corner of the home place, a family plot under a tree. That was common on the Texas frontier, where land was plentiful and formal cemeteries were few.
A town's first public burying ground marked a real change. It meant the community expected to last, and that it would bury its dead together rather than scattered across individual farms. Perry Cemetery is that moment, preserved in stone.
People & events
The cemetery began with a loss. In 1896 Sarah Huffman Perry, wife of A. W. Perry, died and was buried here. Hers became the first grave in what would become Carrollton's first cemetery. Soon after, on February 18, 1897, her husband formally deeded the land for the burial ground. It is easy to read that as an act of grief turned into a gift: the place where he had laid his wife to rest became a resting place for the whole community.
A. W. Perry was already a benefactor of local life. The Union Baptist Church stood nearby on land he had given. Church and graveyard sat side by side, as they so often did in rural Texas, and together they formed a center for the community's faith and its memory. After the cemetery opened, some families moved earlier burials from private sites and reinterred them here, so that loved ones could rest in common ground.
Around 1911, after the Union Church moved away, its former land was added to the cemetery. One of the people buried here ties the two institutions together: the Rev. John M. Myers, son of Union's founding pastor, who lies here beside his wife. Of the 482 graves, most belong to pioneer families, the people who farmed the prairie and built the town.
Its place in the American story
The story of Perry Cemetery repeats in thousands of American towns: a community decides to stop burying its dead on scattered farms and creates one shared ground. It sounds like a small thing, but it marks a town moving from frontier settlement to established community, with land set aside for the public, a deed of record, and a shared commitment to remembrance.
It also shows the central role churches played in settling the American West and Southwest. Congregations like Union Baptist were often a community's first institution. They gave land, labor and leadership to schools, cemeteries and civic life long before formal local governments took hold.
Today Carrollton is part of one of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the country. Perry Cemetery is a reminder that beneath modern suburbs lie the stories of families who broke the prairie sod generations ago. Places like this keep that earlier America visible in the middle of the new one.
If you visit
Perry Cemetery is a pioneer graveyard in the middle of a modern city, and that contrast is part of its charm. Step through and the noise of North Texas traffic seems to fade. Look for the oldest stones, among them the grave of Sarah Huffman Perry, whose burial began it all, and notice how family names repeat across rows and generations.
Keep an eye out for the grave of the Rev. John M. Myers and his wife. Their presence connects the cemetery to the Union Baptist Church that once stood alongside it. Try to picture the church building on the land that later became part of the cemetery, and the congregation that gathered there when Carrollton was still a prairie town.
This is a quiet, respectful stop that pairs well with exploring Carrollton's older town center and other early Dallas County sites. Please treat the grounds with care: walk gently, don't disturb stones or decorations, and remember that for many local families this is still a place of personal memory.
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
- · Sarah Huffman Perry
- · A. W. Perry
- · Rev. John M. Myers
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Union Baptist Church
Carrollton, TX
Organized in a pioneer cabin on May 10, 1846 — the very year Texas joined the Union — Union Baptist Church was the earliest Baptist congregation in Dallas County. A handful of settler families gathered under the Rev. David Myers, who served until his death in 1853, and built their first meeting house on land donated by Thomas and Sarah Keenan. Over the following decades the congregation followed the growing settlements, moving through several sanctuaries before becoming today's Highland Baptist Church.
Alex W. and Sarah Perry Homestead
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In 1844 Alexander Wilson Perry and his wife Sarah left Illinois to join the Peters Colony, buying this North Texas land and raising a simple frame house by the late 1850s. The Perrys became civic pillars, donating ground for a church, a cemetery, a school, and the railroad. Their son later reused the old home's lumber and stone to build the surviving residence, which his family gave to Carrollton as a museum and park in 1975.
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