By Frances James (1922 – 2019)
The Glover Cemetery is on the south side of the 6600 block of Military Parkway between a Baptist Church and a Methodist Church. The Churches had no connection with the cemetery as the cemetery had been in use for over seventy-five years before the churches were organized and built on the east and west side of the cemetery.
The first settlers in this area took advantage of the three necessary assets, fertile soil, plentiful water and adequate trees available near White Rock Creek. Some of those pioneers in Dallas County are buried here as well as neighbors and friends who farmed or operated dairies in the community. Scyene, about two miles to the east was the nearest post office and trading center for this area. A look at Sam Street’s Map of Dallas County shows that surrounding the cemetery many of the families who lived close by are buried here, including Lagow, Hunnicutt, Bagley, and Beeman.
There are over seventy burials in this cemetery, some without markers of any kind. The first burial was a little girl, Sarah Jane Beeman (1852-1857). The last burial was W. P. Gray (1860-1951).
The one acre cemetery is on a portion of the S. G. Stockton Survey. Peters Colonist Samuel G. Stockton and his wife Missouri native, Martilla Bobbit Stockton came to Texas in 1843 and received a Peters Colony certificate for 640 acres. They lived near the settlement of Farmers Branch and had no children before Stockton died soon after coming to Texas. His widow eventually inherited the 640 acres that consisted of several parcels around the county. The tale about Stockton’s early death has been attributed to wild mustang grapes. Stockton was out hunting in August near Farmers Branch and got very thirsty. Finding no water he did find a grape vine and ate grapes to quench his thirst. These wild mustang grapes made him sick and he died from chills and fever.
George Glover came to Texas as a single man from Alabama in 1844. He received a certificate for 320 acres but after he met and married widow, Martilla Stockton, he turned that certificate back in. One of the Stockton parcels was on the east side of Dallas County adjacent to the large Thomas Lagow League and that is where Martilla and George Glover moved. This parcel by White Rock Creek is where the Glover Cemetery is located. There was a lawsuit between the Lagow descendants and the Glover descendants in 1892 concerning the metes and bound of the land and cutting the timber.
Martilla and George eventually had a large family and operated a dairy nearby. The cemetery is named for their son, William Wald Glover. William claimed to be the first white child (July 31, 1846) born, after Dallas County was created in 1845.
Julia Lanham, the daughter of B. G. and his first wife, Emma Clark Lanham, was William Glover’s wife. Two children Edgar Lanham (1905-1906) and Virgie Pearl Lanham (1902-1910), grandchildren of the Lanhams, are buried here. B. G. Lanham’s second wife was Mary Beeman, daughter of Sam and Polly Beeman. They lived near Orphan’s Home Road, which is now Samuell Blvd.
Richard Lagow (1831-1885) and his wife Nancy Murchison (1843-1887) Lagow are buried in the Glover Cemetery. Richard was one of four sons who inherited a portion of the league and labor of over 4400 acres of bounty land in Nacogdoches County that Thomas Lagow, his father, had received from the Republic of Texas for his contribution in the War with Mexico in 1836. In an unmarked grave Richard’s brother Silas Lagow’s wife, Elizabeth Murchison Lagow (1847-1876) is also buried in this cemetery.
Thomas Lagow and Sarah Bennett the daughter of Armstead and Faith Bennett were married in 1830 in Illinois The Lagows and the Bennetts came to Texas in 1835 and settled in Houston County. There were six children in the Lagow family only four lived to be adults. Richard was born (1841-1900) in Texas and was raised by his grandfather Armstead Bennett as both of his parents had died by the time he was four years old.
Richard Lagow and his brother Silas served in the Confederacy. When the Civil War ended Richard and Silas were in Atlanta, Georgia and released to make their way home as best they could. They were both sick with measles and coming through Louisiana Richard collapsed and Silas thought he was dead. He did not have the strength or any means of digging a grave to bury him but covered him with leaves and branches. Silas was so weak he barely managed to get back to Houston County himself. He told the family that Richard had died. A few days later Richard’s little boy saw a stranger in a raggedy Confederate uniform approaching the house and ran to tell his mother. Nancy Lagow came out to tell the man not to steal anything and realized it was her husband!
They moved to Dallas County in 1879 and lived very near Fair Park on land Richard had inherited from his father, Thomas. Richard was active in the Grange, he donated land for a school, he sold ninety acres of land to Fair Park and it has been said he was paid a yoke of oxen and a wooden plow for it. Richard and Nancy are buried in the Glover Cemetery.
Near the front entrance of the cemetery in a short, wrought iron fenced plot is a marker for Catherine and Younger Meredith. The story that makes them special concerns a young family that had made its way to Texas and settled on a farm in the vicinity. They found a small cabin on the farm to live in. The father died and the owner of the farm told the mother she had to leave. She had no one to help her and no place to go. Younger and Catherine Meredith heard of the situation and went over and gathered up the family and its few belongings and brought them to their own farm to live. They had six children of their own, but were willing to help this family.
The Hunnicutt family has several members buried in this cemetery. This family was among the first to move into Illinois in 1817. South Carolina natives Hartwell Taylor Hunnicutt born in 1782 and his wife Margaret Cunningham Hunnicutt born in 1783 had eleven children when they loaded up two wagons and left South Carolina. Three more children were born in Illinois, the twins William C. and Patience were among the first children born in Illinois.
The oldest daughter in this Hunnicutt family was Anna who married William Bolin Cox in 1820. Hulda married William Moore in 1821, Patsy first married Abed Bates in 1823, and when he died, she married Solomon Silkwood. Emily married John Beeman in 1823, Betsy Polly married James Dawdy. Thomas Hunnicutt married Ruth Silkwood and William C. Hunnicutt married Nancy Beeman in 1840. All of these members of the Hunnicutt family, Anna (Cox, Moore), Hulda, William C. and Nancy are buried in this cemetery.
In 1841 travelers who had been in Texas told the families in Illinois about free land in Texas. A family member purchased a land certificate from someone who had been to Texas and they decided to move to Texas. Among the first to leave for Texas was the John and Emily Beeman family. The long difficult journey by wagon and oxen was slow and tedious. They went to the settlements in Red River County of Texas and to Bird’s Fort in what is now Tarrant County. At the invitation of John Neely Bryan they settled in Dallas County. Their daughter later married John Neely, the founder of Dallas.
After hearing of the success of John and Emily, a large group of the Beemans and Hunnicutts left Greene County, Illinois in 1842 and came to Texas. They found land and farmed in several sections of Dallas County. In 1852, Anna Hunnnicutt (Moore) bought two lots of what is now the southwest corner of Main and Austin Streets in downtown Dallas!
One parcel that William C. Hunnicutt received a patent for was adjacent to the Stockton Survey on the north. William founded the Hunnicutt School on this land in 1856 with six children attending. The school has moved several times, but has been in continuous operation. It is now in the Dallas Independent School District and is known as the Bayles Elementary School on Telegraph Avenue.
Columbus Haught was only three when he was buried in the Glover Cemetery in 1876. He was the first born son of Adam and Mary Ann Gray Haught who married in 1866. Several other members of Mary Ann Gray’s family are buried in the Glover Cemetery. Emily Hunnicutt Gray (1845-1914) wife of John M. Gray was the daughter of Nancy Beeman (1821-1914) and Wm. C. Hunnicutt (1818-1868).
Irish natives James Garret, and his wife Clarissa left Hocking County, Ohio in 1855 with four children and came to Texas. One more child, Silas was born in Dallas County. The Garretts purchased 160 acres of land near the intersection of what is now Samuell and Buckner. When James died in 1873 he was buried in the Glover Cemetery. Clarissa went to Clay County to be near her sons L. J. and Jasper and that is where she is buried. The farm in Dallas County continued to be operated for several years by Robert Ellis, the husband of the Garrett’s oldest daughter, Betty Elizabeth. The impressive bronze Garrett marker in the Glover Cemetery lists the name of the five Garrett children.
Other relatives of the Ellis/Garrett family buried in the Glover Cemetery are Sarah Garrett wife of L. J. Garrett. Sarah’s first husband was Dan Badgley. Nathan Badgley was probably a brother of Dan and there is a marker for a Badgley infant. The descendants of the Garrett family are generous in their support of the maintenance fund for the cemetery.
In 1983, a Historical Marker was dedicated for the cemetery. Eighth generation Dallas Texans, Christy and Jason Sullivan, who are descendants of Anna Hunnicutt Moore, unveiled the marker at the dedication ceremony.
In 2005 vandals drove through the cemetery from the back fence through the front and destroyed a large portion of the wrought iron fence that had been erected in 1976 for the American Bicentennial. The participants for that project in 1976 held bake sales, sold tickets for a drawing for a quilt and ever other legal thing they could think of to raise the funds for the fence, so it has heartbreaking to find it twisted and lying on the ground. In early 2006, vandals knocked over several of the tombstones. Thanks to an anonymous donor and the funds provided by the families of those buried in here, a replacement fence was provided. The entire fence was then painted and boys from Boy Scout Troop 325 repaired the tombstones, mowed and cleaned vines from along the entire fence line. This cemetery is maintained by donations from these early Dallas pioneers’ proud descendants.
Frances James, “Dallas County History – From the Ground Up, Book II,” 2009.
