Young Cemetery
Plano, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Sam Young (1814-1891) and Patience Cornell Young (1814-1847) came to Collin county from Illinois in 1842. More Illinois settlers came to the area in 1845. Young bought land from the Baccus Land survey and founded a school on his property. He established this cemetery when Patience died in 1847. Eleven pioneer families are represented in the 51 known graves: Abbott, Baccus, Bankston, Crenshaw, Dennard, Finley, Jackson, McConnell, McQuerry, Teel and Young. Veterans buried here are Thomas Finley, who served in the War of 1812, and Jacob P. Houts and Jacob Baccus, Jr., who fought in the Civil War. (1996) Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sam and Patience Young came to Collin County from Illinois in 1842, part of a wave of Midwestern settlers drawn to North Texas farmland. Young bought land, founded a school, and opened this cemetery when Patience died in 1847. Eleven pioneer families rest among its fifty-one known graves, including veterans of both the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
Why it matters
A single family plot preserves the names and service records of the settlers who first turned the Collin County prairie into farms and schools.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Sam and Patience Young arrived in Collin County in 1842, North Texas was still raw frontier. Texas was an independent republic, eager to attract settlers who could farm the land and make the young nation more secure. Through generous land offers, the republic drew families from the American Midwest and South to the blackland prairies near the Trinity River.
Many of those newcomers came from states such as Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. They brought farming habits, churches and a strong belief in schooling. As the marker notes, more Illinois settlers followed in 1845, the year Texas joined the United States. Collin County was organized soon afterward, in 1846.
Life on the prairie was hard. Families built homes from what they could find or haul in, broke the tough sod for crops, and faced illness with little medical help. Early deaths were common, especially among women, and family burial plots often started with sorrow, as this one did.
People & events
Sam Young and Patience Cornell Young were both born in 1814 and came from Illinois as a married couple in 1842. Young bought land from the Baccus survey, named for another early settler family, and did something that says a lot about his priorities: he started a school on his own property. On a frontier with no public school system, that was an investment in the next generation.
Patience did not live to see the community grow. She died in 1847, about five years after reaching Texas, and Sam set aside this ground for her grave. Sam lived on until 1891. In that time the frontier settlement he had helped start grew into the farming community that would later become the city of Plano.
Over the years the plot became a resting place for neighbors as well as family. Fifty-one graves are known, belonging to eleven pioneer families: Abbott, Baccus, Bankston, Crenshaw, Dennard, Finley, Jackson, McConnell, McQuerry, Teel and Young. Among them are veterans of two wars. Thomas Finley served in the War of 1812. Jacob P. Houts and Jacob Baccus Jr. fought in the Civil War. Together those graves span much of the nineteenth century in American history.
Its place in the American story
Young Cemetery is a small example of a huge national movement: the westward migration of farm families in the decades before the Civil War. People who had already moved from the East to Illinois kept moving to Texas when good land became available. They carried their institutions with them, especially the school, the church and the family burial ground.
The veterans buried here link this quiet prairie plot to the country's larger conflicts. A War of 1812 veteran resting in North Texas shows how far the generation that fought Britain a second time eventually traveled. The Civil War veterans show how the nation's great crisis reached even recently settled frontier counties.
Today this cemetery sits within one of the fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the country. That makes it a valuable link to the region's origins. Its 2004 Historic Texas Cemetery designation reflects a statewide effort to protect burial grounds like this one before development erases them.
If you visit
Come to Young Cemetery prepared for a moment of stillness in the middle of suburban North Texas. Its quiet stands in contrast to the busy city around it, and that contrast is part of what makes the visit worthwhile. Please treat the grounds with care. Stay on paths where they exist and leave the old stones as you find them.
As you walk, look for the family names listed on the marker, and think about how they reflect a whole community, not just one household. Older stones may be weathered or hard to read, and some graves may have no surviving marker at all. That is common in pioneer cemeteries, and it is a reminder of how fragile these records are.
For a road trip focused on early North Texas, pair this stop with other historic sites in and around Plano and Collin County. Together they show how a prairie settlement grew into a modern city, and how much of that story began with families like the Youngs.
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
- · Sam Young
- · Patience Cornell Young
- · Thomas Finley
Themes & tags
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