Routh Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, when you're drivin' through Collin County and you start wonderin' who put down roots in this corner of north Texas before there was much of anything here to speak of, the answer, a big part of it anyway, goes back to one family name: Routh. Brothers Jacob, George Washington, Joseph, and Thomas Jefferson Routh, along with their sister Elizabeth Routh Thomas.

Five siblings whose cousins, the Vance family, held the original land grant that took in this very site. So when Jacob Routh came looking to plant himself in Texas soil, he wasn't exactly a stranger to the ground. In 1851, Jacob acquired the four-hundred-and-forty-acre J.

V. Vance survey. And he didn't come alone.

He brought his mother and other relatives all the way from Tennessee. Jacob was a Baptist minister, born in 1818, and he had the kind of disposition that builds things, communities, not just homesteads. The Routh family got to work.

They helped organize a school, a church, a store, and a family cemetery. That's a civilization right there, assembled piece by piece on land their cousins had once claimed. But here's the thing that gives you pause when you really sit with it.

When Jacob set aside one acre as a family burial ground, that ground was not empty. Already resting there was Nancy De Lozier Beverly, born in 1806 and died in 1851. And a seven-year-old boy named William Klepper.

And one more soul, a child, whose parents had been camping nearby at the time of his death, whose name nobody recorded. Three people already waiting, as it were, when the Routh family arrived to consecrate the place. The first of Jacob's own kin to be laid to rest there was his mother, Elizabeth Mashman Routh, born in 1788.

She died in 1852, soon after her arrival in Texas. She'd made it all the way from Tennessee only to find her final home in Collin County ground. Jacob himself, along with his wife Lodemia Ann Campbell and two unmarried daughters, Rose and Clara, are buried not in the main cemetery at all, but in a private plot several hundred yards to the north.

Of the approximately two hundred graves in Routh Cemetery, fewer than one hundred are marked. Two hundred lives. Fewer than a hundred names to show for it.

The last burial recorded here was Serefta Ellen Campbell Miller, born in 1836, died in 1922. She got the last word, so to speak. The marker puts it plainly, and plainly is exactly right: Routh Cemetery continues to serve as a record of the pioneers of north Texas.

A cemetery that started with strangers, grew into a family plot, and ended up holding an entire community's memory. That's north Texas. That's how it was done.

What the marker says

Brothers Jacob, George Washington, Joseph and Thomas Jefferson Routh, and their sister Elizabeth Routh Thomas, were cousins of the Vance Family which held the original land grant that encompassed this site. Jacob Routh (1818-1879), a Baptist minister, acquired the 440-acre J. V. Vance survey in 1851, and brought his mother and other relatives from Tennessee to Texas. The Routh family were instrumental in the establishment of the community surrounding their land. Routh family members helped to organize a school, church, and store in addition to the family cemetery. Early Collin County settlers Nancy De Lozier Beverly (1806-1851)and seven year old William Klepper, along with an unknown child whose parents were camping nearby at the time of his death, were already buried on this site when Jacob Routh set aside one acre as a family burial ground. Jacob's mother, Elizabeth Mashman Routh (1788-1852), died soon after her arrival in Texas and was the first family member to be interred here. Jacob Routh, his wife Lodemia Ann Campbell, and two unmarried daughters, Rose and Clara Routh, are buried several hundred yards north of the cemetery in a private plot. Of the approximately two hundred graves here, fewer than one hundred are marked. The last burial to occur here was that of Serefta Ellen Campbell Miller, who was born in 1836 and dies in 1922. The Routh cemetery continues to serve as a record of the pioneers of north Texas. (1998)