DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every community has a place where it keeps its history — not in books, not in courthouses, but in the ground itself. For the Melissa Community up in Collin County, that place is the Melissa Cemetery, and it has been the primary burial ground for generations of folks who called this corner of Texas home.
The marker traces its origin to the pioneer Sherley and Shirley family, though it's honest enough to admit nobody knows the exact date it all began. And there's something fitting about that — a place this old doesn't always come with paperwork. What it comes with is graves.
The oldest ones belong to William M. Sherley, who was laid to rest in 1856, Lewis Sherley in 1867, and Albert Shirley in 1879. Now, those dates stretch back well before the cemetery was formally established, and here's where the story gets interesting.
It's believed those three may have originally been buried in a family cemetery on the nearby farm of Lewis Sherley — and that when the Melissa Cemetery was formally established in 1889, they were relocated to this very site. A family moving its dead to a new ground. That's not just history — that's devotion.
And there's more to that original family cemetery. Also buried there were a number of family slaves. That ground became what is now the nearby St.
Paul Cemetery — a fact the marker states plainly, and one worth sitting with for a moment. Different people, different histories, different ground. The Melissa Cemetery itself took in a number of residents before it was ever officially designated a public burial ground in 1889.
Local tradition holds that a railroad worker who died in 1872 is buried somewhere within it, in an unmarked grave. No name. No stone.
Just the word of the community keeping his memory from vanishing entirely. Among those interred here are veterans of the Mexican War, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II — generations of Texans who went off to fight in conflicts spread across more than a hundred years of American history. Confederate Captain Thomas M.
Scott rests here too, among the many pioneer residents who shaped this community. Today the Melissa Cemetery Association tends to this historic ground, making sure that what the community has kept for generations doesn't slip away. Out here on a Texas road, it's easy to drive past a cemetery fence without a second thought.
But every now and then, a marker reminds you — the real story of a place isn't always in the living. Sometimes it's right there in the ground.
What the marker says
This cemetery has been the primary burial ground for members of the Melissa Community for generations. Its origin can be traced to the pioneer Sherley/Shirley family, although the specific date of its founding is unknown. The oldest graves in the cemetery are those of William M. Sherley (1856), Lewis Sherley (1867), and Albert Shirley (1879). They may have originally been buried in a family cemetery on the nearby farm of Lewis Sherley and relocated to this site when the Melissa Cemetery was formally established in 1889. Also buried in the Sherley Family Cemetery were a number of family slaves, and that site became the nearby St. Paul Cemetery. A number of Melissa residents were interred here prior to the official designation of the cemetery as a public burial ground in 1889. According to local tradition a railroad worker who died in 1872 is buried here in an unmarked grave. Many pioneer residents of Melissa are interred in this cemetery, including confederate Captain Thomas M. Scott and veterans of the Mexican War, Civil War, World War I, and World War II. The Melissa Cemetery Association cares for the historic graveyard. (1989)