White Rose Cemetery
Wills Point, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The town of Wills Point was established in the early 1870s on the Texas and Pacific Railroad. It was named for the log cabin/trading post established at a nearby site on the Dallas-Shreveport Road by early settler William Wills. This cemetery began with the burial of Wills on family land in 1864. Wills' widow, Mary Ann (Phillips), set aside eight acres here in a grid pattern and sold lots for community burials. Although the graveyard was known as the Wills Point Cemetery in 1874, the White Rose Cemetery Association was formed that year to maintain the grounds. In 1886 Mary Wills retained the family burial plot and deeded the remainder of the eight-acre graveyard to the Wills Point Cemetery. The White Rose Cemetery Association fenced the grounds and erected a gate with a connecting archway at the graveyard's west entrance in 1901. In 1909 the association obtained a state charter and officially renamed the graveyard White Rose Cemetery. The cemetery was enlarged over the years and by 1964 covered about 45 acres. Among the cemetery's approximately 31,500 burials are many of the area's pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995 Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Wills Point grew up in the early 1870s along the Texas and Pacific Railroad, taking its name from William Wills, who kept a log-cabin trading post on the old Dallas–Shreveport Road. The cemetery began with Wills's own burial on family land in 1864; his widow, Mary Ann, later platted eight acres in a grid and sold lots for community graves. Organized as the White Rose Cemetery Association in 1874 and formally chartered under that name in 1909, the grounds grew to some 45 acres holding roughly 31,500 burials — pioneer settlers, their descendants, and veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a layered record of a Texas town's whole life, from its founding family to the generations of citizen-soldiers who served in a century of American wars.
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Related people
- · William Wills
- · Mary Ann Wills
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William A. Wills
Wills Point, TX
Tennessee native William A. Wills moved his family to Texas in 1847 and settled along the Dallas–Shreveport Road, where the Wills home became a welcome stop for travelers. He served the young county as tax assessor-collector, road overseer, and commissioner, and by 1855 court records were already calling the area around his property 'Wills Point.' When the town was laid out along the Texas and Pacific Railroad in 1873, it took his name for good.
County Seat War
Wills Point, TX
A surveyor's error in 1850 placed Van Zandt County's seat on private land, and by 1877 discontent boiled over into a full-blown "county seat war." When Judge Cadwell Walton Raines ordered the records moved from Canton to Wills Point, some 200 armed men marched in protest, and Governor R. B. Hubbard had to send militia to keep the peace. Bloodshed was averted, the records went back to Canton in 1878, and the seat stayed there for good.
Dallas-Shreveport Road
Wills Point, TX
This route began as a trail blazed by Caddoan peoples and later followed by French traders. By the mid-1830s it had become a principal road bringing emigrants and cargo into North Texas from the river port of Shreveport, and Van Zandt County's first courthouse rose along it in 1848. Used heavily for Civil War troop movements, the road carried ox teams and settlers into the 1900s.
McKain Family Home
Wills Point, TX
Thomas J. McKain came to Texas from Florida in 1870 and, four years later, built this house for his bride Mattie Cornelia Bagby — the first couple married in the young town of Wills Point. The lumber traveled by ox-wagon all the way from Longview. A merchant who promoted immigration to Texas, McKain served repeatedly as mayor along with stints as alderman and school trustee, helping shape the community in its formative decades.