McCree Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the one lucky enough to tell it. Now, out here in Dallas County, there's a piece of ground that was holding people before it was even officially a cemetery. That's the kind of place McCree Cemetery is: older than its own paperwork.

The story starts in 1866, when a woman named Mahulda Bonner McCree granted the first land for this burial ground. That's the moment the place got its formal beginning. But here's the thing; the ground had already been doing its quiet work.

Two souls were laid to rest there before Mahulda ever signed that deed. John Henry Jones, gone in 1862. Elizabeth McCullough, gone in 1864.

Two people, two years apart, buried in a cemetery that wouldn't officially exist for another two years after the second of them. The land didn't wait on the lawyers, I suppose. Over the years, that original grant grew.

The cemetery expanded until it covered more than three acres; more than enough to hold the weight of what Dallas County carried in its early decades. And who's out there? Peters colonists, for one (folks tied to one of the most ambitious land settlement ventures this part of Texas ever saw).

War veterans. And a whole gathering of men and women connected to the early Methodist and Baptist churches of the area, the kind of congregations that stitched communities together when everything else was still being figured out. Mahulda Bonner McCree gave the land.

John Henry Jones and Elizabeth McCullough were already there waiting. And now, more than a century and a half on, McCree Cemetery still stands as an important part of the recorded history of Dallas County. Some places earn their name before they're even given one.

What the marker says

The first land for this cemetery was granted by Mahulda Bonner McCree in 1866. At least two burials, for John Henry Jones (d. 1862) and Elizabeth McCullough (d. 1864), occurred before the graveyard was formally deeded. Over the years, the cemetery has been enlarged to cover over 3 acres. It contains the graves of Peters colonists, war veterans, and many persons associated with early area Methodist and Baptist churches. McCree Cemetery remains an important part of the recorded history of Dallas County.