Thompson Cemetery
Copeville, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Collin county pioneer Abner Thompson came to this area about 1850 and settled on land that was originally part of the Silvester Williams Survey, deeding a portion of it to be used as a cemetery. The first burial, that of Thompson himself, took place in 1852. His grave is marked with two large square stones which have deteriorated through time and have become nearly illegible. Tall posts of Bois d'Arc, which mark the nearby grave of one of Thompson's employees, have stood the effects of weathering for more than one hundred years. Also buried here are Miles and Emily J. Graves who, in 1862, donated over an acre of land to the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, which was organized five years earlier. When the congregation divided in the early 1880s, that land was given to the Thompson Cemetery, which was enlarged several more times in later years. A Memorial Day service has been held at the Thompson Cemetery each year since the early 1950s, bringing together people from the nearby communities of Lavon and Copeville. There are over 800 graves here which are given perpetual care by the Thompson Cemetery Association. (1983) Historic Texas Cemetery (medallion added to post 2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Collin County pioneer Abner Thompson arrived about 1850 and set aside part of his land for a burial ground; fittingly, his own 1852 death brought its first grave, still marked by two weathered square stones. Nearby, bois d'arc posts have guarded an employee's grave for more than a century. As the Mount Pleasant Baptist congregation divided in the 1880s, its land passed to the cemetery, which grew to more than 800 graves and still draws neighbors from Lavon and Copeville to an annual Memorial Day service.
Why it matters
Thompson Cemetery preserves the memory of the pioneer families who first broke the Collin County prairie and the community bonds that outlasted them.
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Related people
- · Abner Thompson
- · Miles Graves
- · Emily J. Graves
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bear Creek Cemetery
Nevada, TX
In the mid-1800s, settlers built the community of Empire and organized the Bear Creek Methodist Episcopal Church, whose graveyard took its first marked burials in 1873. Interred here are a Confederate veteran, physician-minister J.L. Brockman, and community leaders, their headstones bearing Masonic and Woodmen of the World emblems. Though Empire's boarding school and church are long gone, the cemetery and the relocated Masonic lodge endure as the settlement's last reminders.
Copeville
Copeville, TX
Kentucky-born John Miles Cope settled in Collin County in 1848 and helped organize this farming community—first called Black Spot—in the 1850s, becoming its first postmaster in 1878. When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1886, the town shifted a mile northeast to trackside, becoming a shipping point for farm produce and prized bois d'arc timber. Copeville grew to about 300 residents and in 1921 gained one of the nation's early female postmasters, Elizabeth Pearce.
Lavon
Lavon, TX
Drawn by the rich Blackland Prairie soil and Bear Creek's water, settlers reached the Lavon area in the 1850s, and the town proper took root when the railroad arrived in 1886. Originally called Thompson or Thompson Switch after early postmaster and merchant Elbert Thompson, it was renamed Lavon for his son to avoid confusion with another town. WPA crews built a school here in the late 1930s, and in the 1950s Lavon Dam turned the area into a fishing and boating retreat—one restaurant even appeared in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
First Baptist Church of Lavon
Lavon, TX
Long before it had a building of its own, the Baptist congregation in Lavon shared the two-story schoolhouse with Presbyterians, Methodists, and Pentecostals, taking turns on alternating Sundays. Formally organized in 1949, the First Baptist Church of Lavon grew from the memory of three vanished country churches reaching back to 1857, and members raised their sanctuary using salvaged lumber, pews, and even the old pulpit from those closed congregations.