Tomlin Cemetery
Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery was first used in the 1870s by the Wilkinsons, a pioneer family whose graves are marked by clusters of rock. Members of the Angel family are also buried here. The oldest dated gravestone is that of Virginia native Soloman Tomlin (b. 1825), a horseman and farmer who migrated with his family to Texas in the 1860s. He died on July 9, 1884. His son James Tives "Buck" Tomlin (1852-1934), a noted breeder of fine racing horses, bought the cemetery property in 1888. It has since been designated to serve the descendants of the Tomlin Family.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
First used in the 1870s by the pioneer Wilkinson family, whose graves are marked by clusters of rock, this burial ground also holds members of the Angel and Tomlin families. Its oldest dated stone belongs to Virginia native Solomon Tomlin, a horseman and farmer who brought his family to Texas in the 1860s and died in 1884. His son James Tives "Buck" Tomlin, a noted breeder of racing horses, bought the property in 1888.
Why it matters
Small family cemeteries like this one preserve the memory of the anonymous pioneer households who first settled the North Texas prairie.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years after the Civil War, the rolling prairie between Dallas and Fort Worth was still thinly settled farm country. Families were arriving from the older Southern states, many of them looking for fresh land and a new start after years of war and upheaval. They built log and frame houses, broke the tough prairie sod, and raised cattle, corn, cotton and horses.
In a place like that there were few churches with churchyards and no town cemeteries nearby, so families buried their dead on their own land or on a neighbor's. Burial grounds like this one grew up that way, a few graves at a time, and they were used by whichever households lived close by.
By the 1870s and 1880s, the railroads were changing North Texas. New towns grew up along the tracks, and the farm families scattered across the countryside were slowly drawn into a larger market economy. This quiet cemetery comes from that moment of change, when the frontier was giving way to settled farm communities.
People & events
The first people laid to rest here were members of the Wilkinson family, pioneers who marked their graves with clusters of fieldstone rather than carved headstones. Stones like that were common on the frontier, where a carved marker was an expense many families couldn't manage. Their names may be lost, but the stones show that someone cared enough to mark each grave. The Angel family buried their loved ones here too.
The oldest dated gravestone belongs to Solomon Tomlin (the marker spells it "Soloman"), who was born in Virginia in 1825. He was a horseman and a farmer, and in the 1860s he brought his family west to Texas. That was a long and uncertain journey during a troubled decade. He died in the summer of 1884, and his carved stone is the earliest date written in this ground.
His son, James Tives Tomlin, known to everyone as "Buck," carried on the family's love of horses and became a well-known breeder of fine racehorses. In 1888 Buck bought the land holding the cemetery, which gave his family lasting care of it. Buck lived until 1934, so his life ran from the frontier years into the age of automobiles. The cemetery is still set aside for Tomlin descendants today.
Its place in the American story
The story of the Tomlins, Wilkinsons and Angels is repeated in countless small cemeteries across the country. After the Civil War, huge numbers of Americans moved west from the older Southern states, and Texas was one of their main destinations. Those migrations filled the land between the big cities with farms, families and graves.
The Tomlins' horses tie into a larger American story as well. In the late 1800s, breeding and racing horses was both a business and a passion across the South and the West, and gifted breeders earned real reputations. Buck Tomlin's career is a reminder that frontier families built skilled trades as well as farms.
Places like this also show how history survives at all. The rock-marked Wilkinson graves have no names or dates, and yet they still count. Family cemeteries hold the only lasting record of many of the ordinary people who settled America.
If you visit
Today, Arlington is a busy city in the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so a small pioneer cemetery here feels like a pocket of another century. As you walk, look for the difference between the rough clusters of rock over the earliest graves and the carved, dated stones that came later. That difference tells you a lot about how life here changed over the years.
This is a family burial ground set aside for descendants, so please treat it as the private and sacred place it is. Keep to the paths, don't touch or rub the stones, and leave everything as you found it.
The cemetery makes a thoughtful short stop on any drive through the Metroplex. Pair it with Arlington's museums and parks, or with the historic districts of Fort Worth and Dallas, to see how the prairie became one of America's great urban regions.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Solomon Tomlin
- · James Tives "Buck" Tomlin
Themes & tags
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