Horton Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Enoch and Martha Horton packed up ten children and left Virginia behind, joining the Peters Colony and putting down roots right here in 1844. Ten children.

You think about that wagon, that journey, that leap of faith, and you start to understand something about the kind of people who built this part of Texas. Family history recounts that their son James Horton set aside this ground as a family cemetery in 1848. He looked at this spot and decided it would hold the people he loved.

He wasn't wrong. Martha Horton passed in 1850, and Enoch followed in 1851, and both are believed to be buried here, in unmarked graves. The founders of all that followed, resting quietly in ground their own family consecrated.

Now James didn't just tend to the dead. He and his sister Sarah Horton Cockrell operated one of the first grist mills in this area. He donated land for a school.

He donated a railroad right-of-way. A man who understood that a community needs roots and roads and the means to feed itself. Many Horton family members and other early settlers found their final rest here over the years.

The last interment was in 1951, more than a century after James first set this ground apart. This cemetery was a gift, in a very real sense, passed down through the generations, and the marker itself acknowledges that, crediting the gift of Screna Horton Campbell and Barney C. Jones.

Some places hold a family. This one holds a whole piece of what became Dallas County.

What the marker says

Enoch and Martha Horton left Virginia with their ten children and settled here as members of the Peters Colony in 1844. Family history recounts that their son, James Horton, set aside this site as a family cemetery in 1848. Enoch (d. 1851) and Martha (d. 1850) are believed to be buried here in unmarked graves. James and his sister, Sarah Horton Cockrell, operated one of the first grist mills in this area, and James donated land for a school and railroad right-of-way. Many Horton family members and other early settlers are buried here. The last interment was in 1951. Incise on reverse: Gift of Screna Horton Campbell, Barney C. Jones