Starr Cemetery and School
Canton, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
James F. Starr, acting as attorney for Sarah F. Clapp, executed a deed donating two acres of land at this site for a community school on September 14, 1886. Burials occurred here as early as 1889, and in 1911 a cemetery was officially established when A. C. White and his wife sold two adjoining acres. The earliest marked grave is that of B. A. and Ora Monroe's infant son, who died February 18, 1889. Veterans interred here include Civil War soldier Joseph Staley. The cemetery and the school served residents of the Starr, Todd Hill, and Wentworth communities. (1991) Incise on base: Shirley Ann Fuller, Researcher Historian
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1886 James F. Starr, acting for landowner Sarah F. Clapp, deeded two acres here for a community school, and within a few years the ground was also serving as a burial place — the earliest marked grave being the infant son of B. A. and Ora Monroe, who died in 1889. A formal cemetery followed in 1911 when A. C. White and his wife sold the adjoining land. The school and cemetery knit together the scattered Starr, Todd Hill, and Wentworth communities, and among those laid to rest here is Civil War soldier Joseph Staley.
Why it matters
A single deed for a schoolhouse that became a cemetery captures how rural Texans built their institutions of learning and remembrance on the same few acres, out of the same neighborly cooperation.
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Related people
- · James F. Starr
- · Sarah F. Clapp
- · Joseph Staley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wentworth Community
Canton, TX
Milo and Martha Manning came from Kentucky in 1858 with eight children, one of them a boy named Wentworth who would give the community its name. The neighborhood grew around Starr School — the area's first free school, opened in 1886 and doubling as an early house of worship — and later added Todd Hill School, general stores, churches, a grist mill, a cotton gin, and a sawmill. Consolidation drew the school into Canton in 1949, and when the Kennedy store closed in 1952 the community's commercial heart went quiet.
Oakland Community Cemetery
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The oldest marked grave at Oakland belongs to Oscar Lee, born and dead on the same November day in 1882, and the community's story is written in the deeds that followed: a schoolhouse in 1885 that doubled as a Sunday church, a cemetery acre from M. M. Burks in 1887, and Methodist church land from Lizzie Currey McMahon in 1894. In its prime Oakland held churches, a school, and a cotton gin owned by John T. Currey, a four-term member of the Texas House. The dozens of family names on its stones — and Sabrina Reid, believed to be of American Indian descent — make the cemetery a running record of who lived and worked here.
Corinth Baptist Church and School
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In the piney farmland of Van Zandt County, Corinth grew up in the mid-1800s as a self-contained frontier community, complete with gin, grist mill, blacksmith, sawmill, stores, and a log schoolhouse that also sheltered the Baptist congregation. A school stood here as early as 1849, and a post office served the town from 1888 to 1906. Today only the church and cemetery remain, the latter holding early settlers and several Civil War veterans, including the congregation's first recorded pastor, Rev. Thomas McAdams Post.
Mt. Pisgah
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Farming families from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia settled the Mt. Pisgah area in the 1860s and 70s, and their first shared institution was Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, organized about 1870. In 1877 Wade H. Walters deeded land for a church building and a school, and a cemetery grew up beside the church to serve the neighborhood for generations. Like so many rural communities, Mt. Pisgah thinned out when residents left for wartime employment during World War II.