Roanoke I.O.O.F. Cemetery
Roanoke, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Although few records exist of the Roanoke I.O.O.F. (Independent Order of Oddfellows) Lodge No. 421, it is known that lodge members purchased land at this site in 1897 for use as a burial ground. Consisting of approximately five and one-half acres, the cemetery always has been maintained as a public graveyard and never was limited to the families of lodge members. Memberships in the Roanoke Lodge eventually were transferred to Denton along with those of other rural I.O.O.F. Lodges. The first person buried here was James DeWitt Pressley, who died in 1897. One tombstone bears an earlier date, however. Mrs. Calvin Abner Sams was buried on family property upon her death in 1882, but she was reinterred in the Roanoke Cemetery in 1914. Near the trunk of the "Hanging Tree" in the northeast section of the graveyard is the burial site of an alleged horse thief, who was hanged there in 1906. Another section was reserved for the families of the crew who worked on the railroad here during the 1920s. A reminder of the area's early history, the cemetery contains the graves of many pioneers, including members of the Sams, Fanning, Cowan, Seagraves, Buell, Lassen, Boutwell, Taylor, Mitchell, and McMahon Families. (1985)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1897 members of the local Independent Order of Odd Fellows lodge bought this five-and-a-half-acre tract as a public burial ground, open to all rather than reserved for their own families. Its stones tell the story of a young North Texas community — pioneer families, a railroad crew's section from the 1920s, and even an alleged horse thief hanged from a tree here in 1906. James DeWitt Pressley, who died in 1897, was the first laid to rest.
Why it matters
A pioneer cemetery is a town's most honest archive, preserving in one quiet acreage the names and hard fortunes of the ordinary people who built rural Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James DeWitt Pressley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Roanoke
Roanoke, TX
When the Texas & Pacific Railroad pushed through North Texas in 1881, a surveyor homesick for Roanoke, Virginia gave this new depot town its name — though settlers had been working the land here since the 1840s. Sitting halfway between Fort Worth and Denton, Roanoke thrived as a shipping point where ranchers loaded cattle for northern markets and farmers sent out wheat and cotton. By 1890 it had four churches, a school, and a cotton gin; by the early 1900s a newspaper, bank, and grain elevator. Notably, the property of John and Almedia Jones served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Medlin Cemetery
Roanoke, TX
In 1847 Charles Medlin and his wife Matilda led a wagon train of some twenty families from Missouri to claim land grants on Denton Creek. After floods scattered their first settlement, the group moved to higher ground and seeded the town that became Roanoke. When Charles's daughter Mittie Ann died in 1850, she was buried on a hill she had admired, opening one of Denton County's oldest cemeteries—where her parents, thirteen siblings, and generations of neighbors now rest.
Pioneer Stone Burial Cairns (at Mount Gilead Cemetery)
Keller, TX
Scattered through many old Texas cemeteries are burial cairns—mounded structures of native stone raised by early settlers over their dead. Varying in design and craftsmanship, these surface memorials reflect burial customs carried west from the American South in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though their precise purpose remains debated, the cairns endure as vivid examples of pioneer tradition and folk memory.
Mount Gilead Cemetery
Keller, TX
This burial ground served a cluster of related families who came to North Texas from Missouri in 1847 as members of the Peters Colony, an empresario land grant meant to draw settlers to the young state. The group was led by the widow Permelia Allen, who lies here in an unmarked grave alongside her sons-in-law who first owned the tract. The homemade grave markers still reflect the hardscrabble pioneer life of the settlement.