Pleasant Mound "Public" Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Pleasant Mound Public Cemetery has to say — and friend, there's more Texas history packed into this one patch of ground than most folks ever stop to notice. The survey that holds this cemetery once stretched across a full 1,640 acres, and it belonged to a man named James Jackson Beeman, born in 1816. Now Beeman was the uncle by marriage of John Neely Bryan — the first settler in Dallas — which already tells you something about the kind of company this man kept.

Beeman came here from Illinois in 1840, and he did not come to sit still. He helped cut the very first road through the Trinity bottoms. Then in 1841 came the naming of Turtle Creek.

And in 1842, he helped plat the city of Dallas itself. One man, a handful of years, and a mark left on a city that millions of people call home today. But here is where the story turns quiet.

On March 8th, 1848, James Jackson Beeman buried his wife, Sarah Crawford Beeman, on the northeast corner of his land. And after that, he opened that ground to his neighbors, let them lay their people to rest beside her. Out of grief, a community cemetery was born.

By 1887, the cemetery had its first formal trustees — J. W. Miller, James Pruitt, and J.

H. Shannon. The marker says it plainly: the pioneers buried here set the course for the greatness of Dallas.

This marker was donated by Mildred Boone Haden — Mrs. Joel Haden — great-granddaughter of Sarah Crawford Beeman, the very first person buried here, and by the Ada Bruton Garden Club of Dallas. Sarah Crawford Beeman was laid in that northeast corner long before Dallas was anything much at all.

Turned out, she was just the first in a long line of people whose lives made that city worth building.

What the marker says

In 1640-acre survey of James Jackson Beeman (1816-88), uncle by marriage of John Neely Bryan, first settler in Dallas. Beeman came here from Illinois in 1840, helped cut first road in Trinity bottoms; name Turtle Creek, 1841; and plat city of Dallas, 1842. On March 8, 1848, he buried his wife Sarah Crawford Beeman on northeast corner of his land, and later allowed neighbors to bury their dead here. Cemetery's first (1887) trustees were J. W. Miller, James Pruitt, and J. H. Shannon. Pioneers buried here set the course for greatness of Dallas. Marker Donated By: Mildred Boone (Mrs. Joel) Haden, great- granddaughter of Sarah Crawford Beeman, first person buried in this cemetery, and by the Ada Bruton Garden Club of Dallas.