Smith Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Smith Cemetery, out in Denton County. Now, before there was a Smith Cemetery, before there was even a town of Lewisville to speak of, this stretch of Denton County went by a different name altogether. Folks called it Holford's Prairie, named for brothers John and James Halford, sometimes spelled Holford, pioneer settlers who came into the country as members of the Peters Colony and obtained 640 acres of land between them.

That's how this piece of North Texas started finding itself on maps. Then in 1853, a man named Basdeal W. Lewis platted the town of Lewisville right out here on that prairie.

And not long after, in 1859, Thomas Morgan Smith and his wife Elizabeth A. Smith purchased 318 acres of this land. Thomas was born in 1814, Elizabeth in 1815, and together they set about making a life on that farmground.

Now here is where the story takes its first hard turn. In 1862, the Smiths' twenty-year-old son, James J. Smith, died and was buried on the family farm.

That was the beginning of something the family couldn't have planned for. His is the earliest marked grave in what we now call Smith Cemetery. A family farm became, quietly, a burial ground.

Nearly two decades later, in 1881, Thomas and Elizabeth sold two and a half acres of their farmland to the Lewisville Masonic Lodge, so that the site could be formally established as a community cemetery. The ground had already been holding the community's dead for nineteen years by then. The paperwork, you might say, was catching up to the reality.

And what a community it was. You walk through Smith Cemetery today and the gravestones read like a roll call of pioneer Denton County. Herod.

Sherrill. Clayton. Skillern.

Cobb. Jenkins. Temple.

Bourland. Hamilton. Fenlaw.

Oliver. Fox. Names that built this part of Texas, and names that stayed in it.

Of all those names, the Fox family's story is one that asks you to stop and stand still a moment. John Moore Fox, born in 1834, and Ann Eliza Fox, born in 1849, buried six children here between 1863 and 1882. Six children.

The marker calls it a testament to the often harsh conditions of pioneer life, and that is exactly the right word. Testament. Not accident, not tragedy to be explained away.

Just the weight of it, laid down in stone. And then there are the graves that carry no stone at all. Local oral history records suggest that some of the unmarked graves in Smith Cemetery are those of former slaves of the Julius Kane Fox family.

No markers to read. No names to speak aloud. But the ground holds them all the same.

The Smith Cemetery Association was organized in 1950 to maintain this historic graveyard, and in 1972 they purchased the site from the Masonic lodge. Today the cemetery contains more than 400 marked graves, and an unknown number of unmarked ones. It remains in use, by the community and by descendants of the pioneer families buried here.

Over 400 marked. An unknown number not. That gap between what we can count and what we cannot is its own kind of history, right there in the soil of Denton County.

What the marker says

This area of Denton County was known as Holford's Prairie in the mid-19th century, named for brothers John and James Halford (Holford), pioneer settlers who obtained 640 acres of land as members of the Peters Colony. Basdeal W. Lewis platted the town of Lewisville in 1853. Thomas Morgan (1814-1887) and Elizabeth A. (1815-1883) Smith purchased 318 acres of land here in 1859. They sold two and one-half acres of their farmland to the Lewisville Masonic Lodge in 1881 for the establishment of a community cemetery. The site had been used as a burial ground since 1862, when the Smiths' 20-year-old son, James J. Smith, died and was buried on the family farm. His is the earliest marked grave in the Smith Cemetery. Among the pioneer Denton County family names that can be seen on gravestones here are Herod, Sherrill, Clayton, Skillern, Cobb, Jenkins, Temple, Bourland, Hamilton, Fenlaw, Oliver and Fox. John Moore (1834-1922) and Ann Eliza (1849-1923) Fox had the sad task of burying six children here between 1863 and 1882, a testament to the often harsh conditions of pioneer life. Local oral history records suggest that some of the unmarked graves in the Smith Cemetery are those of former slaves of the Julius Kane Fox family. The Smith Cemetery Association, organized in 1950 to maintain the historic graveyard, purchased the site from the Masonic lodge in 1972. Currently containing more than 400 marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked ones, the cemetery remains in use by the community and by descendants of the pioneer families interred here. (2001)