Scott Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it to you straight as I can. Way out in Collin County, on land that once belonged to an area pioneer named James Preston Scott, there's a cemetery that's been holdin' the stories of this corner of Texas since the 1850s. That's where we begin.

Now, the first soul laid to rest in that ground was not some weathered old-timer who'd seen the frontier come and go. It was a child. Mary C.

Taylor, born in 1852, died in 1854, just two years on this earth. She was the daughter of Tabitha Scott and her husband A.J. Taylor; Tabitha being James Preston Scott's own daughter.

There's something about that, isn't there. A man gives his land to become a place of rest, and the first one carried through that gate is his granddaughter, barely old enough to have a memory of summer. The cemetery grew.

More than two hundred burials over the years, and at least thirty of those graves have no marker standing over them. Among the unmarked are two family slaves, Jake and Rhoda, buried in the northwest corner of the graveyard. Their names survived.

That matters. A lot of history tried real hard to make sure names like theirs didn't. The cemetery served the Bloomdale community and the surrounding rural families, and it kept serving them through the years, through loss after loss.

And then there's James Scott himself. The man whose land this was, the pioneer whose name the cemetery carries. He died while serving in the Texas Legislature, and in 1858 he was brought home and buried here, in the ground he'd set aside.

Over two hundred souls. One piece of land. And the man who gave it resting in it himself.

That's Scott Cemetery.

What the marker says

Established on the land of area pioneer James Preston Scott, this cemetery dates to the 1850s. The first person buried here was Scott's granddaughter, Mary C. Taylor (1852-1854), child of Scott's daughter Tabitha and her husband A.J. Taylor. Of the over 200 burials here, at least 30 are unmarked, including those of two family slaves, Jake and Rhoda, buried in the northwest corner of the graveyard. The cemetery serves the Bloomdale and surrounding rural communities. James Scott, who died while serving in the Texas Legislature, was buried here in 1858. (1988)