Smith Cemetery
Lewisville, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This area of Denton County was known as Holford's Prairie in the mid-19th century, named for brothers John and James Halford (Holford), pioneer settlers who obtained 640 acres of land as members of the Peters Colony. Basdeal W. Lewis platted the town of Lewisville in 1853. Thomas Morgan (1814-1887) and Elizabeth A. (1815-1883) Smith purchased 318 acres of land here in 1859. They sold two and one-half acres of their farmland to the Lewisville Masonic Lodge in 1881 for the establishment of a community cemetery. The site had been used as a burial ground since 1862, when the Smiths' 20-year-old son, James J. Smith, died and was buried on the family farm. His is the earliest marked grave in the Smith Cemetery. Among the pioneer Denton County family names that can be seen on gravestones here are Herod, Sherrill, Clayton, Skillern, Cobb, Jenkins, Temple, Bourland, Hamilton, Fenlaw, Oliver and Fox. John Moore (1834-1922) and Ann Eliza (1849-1923) Fox had the sad task of burying six children here between 1863 and 1882, a testament to the often harsh conditions of pioneer life. Local oral history records suggest that some of the unmarked graves in the Smith Cemetery are those of former slaves of the Julius Kane Fox family. The Smith Cemetery Association, organized in 1950 to maintain the historic graveyard, purchased the site from the Masonic lodge in 1972. Currently containing more than 400 marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked ones, the cemetery remains in use by the community and by descendants of the pioneer families interred here. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This area was known as Holford's Prairie for the pioneer Halford brothers who claimed 640 acres through the Peters Colony, and Basdeal Lewis platted nearby Lewisville in 1853. Thomas and Elizabeth Smith bought farmland here in 1859, and after their 20-year-old son died in 1862 the family began a burial ground that in 1881 became a community cemetery. Its 400-plus graves carry the surnames of Denton County's pioneer families, and oral tradition holds that some unmarked graves are those of people once enslaved by the Fox family—a poignant record of the era's harsh realities.
Why it matters
Smith Cemetery preserves the founding families of Lewisville and, in its unmarked graves, the often-erased presence of the enslaved on the Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · Thomas Morgan Smith
- · Elizabeth A. Smith
- · Basdeal W. Lewis
Related events
- · Peters Colony
Themes & tags
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