Van Winkle Cemetery
Princeton, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground has served the residents of Climax since the mid-1800s. The Climax community dates to 1851, when Williams Warden, a farmer from Missouri, settled here with his family. The rural community grew and by the 1890s, it had two cotton gins, a grain elevator, a school, a church, a blacksmith shop and a general store. Most residents of the community were farmers who established small, family-owned farms that produced mostly wheat and corn. Climax reached its peak population around 1910, when about 100 residents lived here. Afterwards, the settlement declined, though it continued to serve as a retail point for local farmers into the late 1960s. This cemetery is named for David Van Winkle, who surveyed property lines in the area around Climax; the Texas government compensated him with land, a small portion of which became the Van Winkle Cemetery. The earliest marked grave here is of M.L. Warnburg (d. 1867), an infant. However, there are multiple unmarked graves in the cemetery, and oral tradition states that the earliest interment was of a slave. Other individuals interred here include Abraham Recer (d. 1870), who built and operated a toll bridge that crossed Sister Grove Creek, and W.K. Long (d. 1932), a local business owner. Van Winkle Cemetery also contains graves of military veterans. Features include vertical stones, obelisks and curbing. In 1974, the Van Winkle Cemetery foundation organized to care for the burial ground. Additional property was added in 1976 and 2007. Today, Van Winkle Cemetery continues to serve the residents of the Climax community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2008
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground has served the vanished community of Climax since the mid-1800s, when a Missouri farmer named William Warden settled the Blackland Prairie in 1851. At its peak around 1910 Climax held some hundred residents with cotton gins, a school, a church, and a store, but the settlement slowly dwindled to memory. The cemetery honors surveyor David Van Winkle, and among its graves lie a toll-bridge builder, a slave remembered in oral tradition as the earliest burial, and military veterans.
Why it matters
It preserves the full arc of a Texas farming community—its founders, its enslaved and forgotten dead, and its slow disappearance—in a single burial ground.
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Related people
- · David Van Winkle
- · William Warden
- · Abraham Recer
Themes & tags
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