Scott Cemetery
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established on the land of area pioneer James Preston Scott, this cemetery dates to the 1850s. The first person buried here was Scott's granddaughter, Mary C. Taylor (1852-1854), child of Scott's daughter Tabitha and her husband A.J. Taylor. Of the over 200 burials here, at least 30 are unmarked, including those of two family slaves, Jake and Rhoda, buried in the northwest corner of the graveyard. The cemetery serves the Bloomdale and surrounding rural communities. James Scott, who died while serving in the Texas Legislature, was buried here in 1858. (1988)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Scott Cemetery began in the 1850s on the land of pioneer James Preston Scott, whose two-year-old granddaughter, Mary C. Taylor, was the first person buried here. Among its more than 200 graves — at least 30 of them unmarked — are two enslaved people, Jake and Rhoda, laid to rest in the northwest corner. Scott himself, who died while serving in the Texas Legislature, was buried here in 1858, and the ground still serves the surrounding rural communities.
Why it matters
The graveyard preserves the intertwined lives of frontier settlers and the people they enslaved, a candid reminder of slavery's presence in antebellum Texas.
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Related people
- · James Preston Scott
- · Mary C. Taylor
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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