Wylie Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker's the word I'm goin' by, and here's how I tell it. In 1889, a company called the Wylie Cemetery Company sat down and made a business decision that most folks prefer not to think about too long. They purchased several town lots from the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, totaling about five acres, and on that ground they established the Wylie Cemetery.

Now, the ink on that transaction was barely dry when the ground itself was called into service. According to local history, the daughter of an indigent family became the first burial there, before the cemetery was even completed. The land wasn't finished being a cemetery yet, and already it was doing its work.

That detail has a weight to it that no amount of fanciful tellin' could improve upon. Then came a marker that still stands as the earliest marked grave on the property, and here's where the story turns just a little ironic. The man buried beneath it is William M.

Housewright, president of the very Wylie Cemetery Company that founded the place. He died in 1889, from pneumonia, the same year the ground was purchased and the whole enterprise began. The president of the cemetery company was among its first residents.

Other founders followed him to that ground in time. Dr. John F.

Butler is there. Frank L. McCarty is there.

William Thomas Brown is there. The men who built the place are part of it now. And the cemetery holds more than founders.

Veterans are buried there, from the Civil War all the way through the Vietnam War, generation after generation of service laid to rest on those five acres in Collin County. The Wylie Cemetery Association tends that ground today, keeping faith with everyone in it. Five acres purchased from a railroad.

A company that outlasted its own founders. A cemetery that was already a cemetery before it was finished being built. Some stories write themselves.

What the marker says

IN 1889, THE WYLIE CEMETERY COMPANY PURCHASED SEVERAL TOWN LOTS, TOTALING ABOUT FIVE ACRES, FROM THE GULF, COLORADO & SANTA FE RAILROAD AND ESTABLISHED THE WYLIE CEMETERY. ACCORDING TO LOCAL HISTORY, THE DAUGHTER OF AN INDIGENT FAMILY WAS THE FIRST BURIAL BEFORE THE CEMETERY WAS COMPLETED. THE EARLIEST MARKED GRAVE IS THAT OF WYLIE CEMETERY COMPANY PRESIDENT, WILLIAM M. HOUSEWRIGHT, WHO DIED IN 1889 FROM PNEUMONIA. OTHER WYLIE CEMETERY COMPANY FOUNDERS ARE BURIED HERE INCLUDING DR. JOHN F. BUTLER, FRANK L. McCARTY AND WILLIAM THOMAS BROWN, AS WELL AS VETERANS FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO THE VIETNAM WAR. THE WYLIE CEMETERY ASSOCIATION MAINTAINS THIS HISTORIC CEMETERY. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2003