Endures Coercion, Violence, Neglect, Two Lawsuits End With Triumph for the People
by Kathy Ann Reid (Gleaned from Frances James’ Lagow Cemetery File)
November, 2021
One acre of the Lagow League, donated in 1883 by Richard Lagow to the people in School Precinct No. 62, was mentioned in many obituaries with the words, “the funeral will be from the family residence to the cemetery.” The residences were on the streets of the same names that today surround the cemetery. We can picture grieving families walking along with a horse-drawn hearse to the cemetery. The current street address of Lagow Cemetery is 3510 Carpenter Ave., Dallas, Texas.
From the surveys of the cemetery, only three persons were interred by 1891, including Joseph Milligan (February 28, 1823-October 5, 1887). An 1891 newspaper article entitled, “A GRAVE YARD FIGHT, ONE FACTION ANXIOUS TO CONVERT IT INTO A CALF LOT, The Other Contends It Should Be Used Only for the Sacred Purposes For Which It Was Dedicated”(1) told the story of the petition for the first lawsuit. Although the donation was ratified by Mr. Lagow’s heirs, “one of the heirs was induced under false threats to deed” to the named defendant, Sydney Evans, “for the paltry sum of $60.”(1) This action was noticed by the named plaintiff, Sarah Milligan, when she attempted to visit her husband’s (Joseph’s) grave and “was violently set upon by defendants and threatened and commanded not to go there upon and was prevented from doing so.”(1) Mrs. Milligan and other plaintiffs came to understand that “the defendants moved by a mercenary and avaricious desire to speculate over the graves of the buried dead, and to oppress and outrage the people of the community, determined by unhallowed means to oust them from the use of the grave yard.”(1) The judgment of June 12, 1891,(2) included the legal description of the one acre and stated that the five-man jury found that “the land in question…be not declared a nuisance.” Also: The title was “vested in the people…for burial purposes,” the defendants were “enjoined from in anywise interfering with the free and full use by the people,” and the acre was to “be preserved intact for burial purposes.” The plaintiffs were to reimburse $60 to defendants and defendants were to pay all court costs.
Pictured: Gravestone of Sarah Milligan
In 1905 the area was open fields and wooded tracts. Metropolitan Ave. was a country lane when Mrs. G. W. (Lucinda) Purcell opened her general store at the corner of Lagow St. and Metropolitan Ave.(3) On October 30, 1925, The Dallas Morning News (DMN) reported that the Commissioners Court voted to cease burying paupers at the cemetery. A DMN article of March 7, 1932, says, “Boy Scouts Tending Neglected Graves in Old Lagow Cemetery.” We can assume there was peace in the cemetery for some years, because it was not until 1946 that Mrs. Purcell and the Lagow Cemetery Association got riled up.
The City Directory shows in the early 1930s, 4408 2nd Ave. (the acre adjoining the cemetery) was home to McGaugh Hosiery Mills. A controversy began to brew on April 4, 1946, when Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Kent conveyed the land containing the cemetery to a minor, C. C. McGaugh, Jr. (Dallas Co. Deed Records, Vol. 2666, P. 382). In January of that year, construction on the expansion of the Hosiery Mill facilities began. Apparently someone connected with C. C. McGaugh, Sr. was interfering with the free and full use of the cemetery by the people. Mrs. Purcell, an officer of the Lagow Cemetery Association, J. T. Floyd, Mrs. C. E. Lyles and more than 100 named others donated (from $2.50 to $25 each) to hire Eric Eades, Jr. (Eades & Eades, Attorneys-At-Law, 507 Thomas Building, Dallas, Texas) to take action in a suit entitled, “J. T. Reese, Et Al VS C. C. McGaugh, Jr., Et Al” (20042, No. 3953-D/A). The defendants were C. C. McGaugh, Jr. (with Calvin C. McGaugh, Sr. acting as guardian ad litem for the minor McGaugh) and the Kents (who conveyed to McGaugh, Jr.). A newspaper article(4) said the suit sought to restrain defendants from trespassing on the deed and restoration of title to the Lagow Cemetery land to the people. The judgment rendered on February 1, 1950, by Sarah T. Hughes, Judge of the 14th Judicial Dist. Court of Dallas Co., Texas included “establishing the right of the plaintiffs…[to] the full free and uninterrupted use and enjoyment of the property…for a cemetery…and all title…be vested in the plaintiffs…[T]he purported deed…is hereby canceled, annulled and held for naught, and all clouds cast upon the title is removed…and decreed to be vested in the plaintiffs.” The April 26, 1951, letter of Eric Eades, Jr. says the settlement of the Kent judgment was concluded and a check for $375 was enclosed for the plaintiffs. The judgment did not order Mr. McGaugh to pay money to the plaintiffs.
Up until the 1970s, the Lagow Cemetery Association was in existence with many of the original 1946 plaintiffs actively donating for the upkeep. A 1973 letter to Nora Combs (a 1946 plaintiff) from the daughter of the late Norman R. Mathews (a 1946 plaintiff) included $25 dues to the Lagow Cemetery Association. Mr. Mathews had contributed $25 for the 1946 lawsuit. In 1977 Mildred Bradfield’s accounting of expenses and members paying dues, included notations of many members’ deaths. A handwritten note tells the story of many neglected and forgotten cemeteries, “All old ones about gone, some grandchildren paying.” The last donation noted was in 1978 and in 1982 the association’s bank account was closed.
In 1984 the elderly, faithful Mrs. Bradfield wrote to Frances James asking her to get the grave yard cleaned. She included a list and continued: “These are people who have given money for lawyer fees in 1946 and for cleaning …twice a year…I believe this was known as Lagow School House Grave Yard in June 1891.” Also in Frances’ file were notes Frances mailed to Mrs. Bradfield concerning work completed, sometimes successful searches for volunteers and suggested searches for descendants. A 1995 letter, from Kathlyn Gilliam of Clean South Dallas,thanked Frances for her donation toward cleaning the cemetery. Frances wrote to encourage all who volunteered, including Kody Followwill who in 2006 (for his Boy Scout, Eagle Badge) organized a cleaning and a survey of the 33 stones that remained. A WFAA.com article dated August 15, 2009, entitled “Whites-Only Cemetery Saved by Black Neighborhood,” says that 50 volunteers from Dallas Leadership Foundation cleaned the cemetery.
The cemetery has been described as a dump and is a depressing influence in the neighborhood. A few years ago, City of Dallas Code Compliance searched for descendants of Richard Lagow to ask if any would be interested in taking care of the cemetery. There are no Lagows known to have been buried in the Lagow Cemetery. Richard Lagow (1841-1885) and wife, Nancy Ann Murchison (1843-1887), are buried in the W. W. Glover Cemetery along with Beeman and Hunnicutt friends and relatives.
The people to whom the cemetery was donated have long lain in their graves. Frances James, Kathlyn Gilliam, Mildred Bradfield and the members of the Lagow Cemetery Association have gone on to eternity. At the conclusion of this page, we can consider, “What part will I play in the continuing story of the Lagow Cemetery?”
Note:
Seven instruments filed in the Official Dallas County Deed Records were included in Frances James’ file: beginning with 9 acres in 1882 and ending with the cemetery acre described in the certified copy of the judgment (filed as the Deed of Record in Dallas County, Texas, No. 3953 D/A, 12327 on February 8, 1950). Perhaps the cemetery was included in the 9 acres in the 1882 deed and then there was no deed of record that described the one acre given by Mr. Lagow in 1883. A close comparison of legal descriptions could be done to possibly answer this question.
1) Dallas Daily Times Herald, 8/17/1889, P 8, Col 1
2) Sara Milligan, Et Al VS Sydney Evans, Et Al, Cause No. 7536, June 12, 1891, 14th Dist. Court, Dallas County, Texas, Vol Z, P 586
3) The Dallas Morning News, 10/6/1963
4) The Dallas Morning News, 9/12/1946
