By Frances James (1922 – 2019)
Garvin/Smith Hall Cemetery
The Garvin Cemetery, also known as Smith Hall, is located in the 4000 block of W. Northwest Highway. It is one of the Cemeteries in Dallas that has been designated a Landmark for the City. The cemetery consists of approximately a three acre tree lined green space fronting W. Northwest Highway to the north with a residential neighborhood (Cochran Heights) to the east and an apartment complex (Sherwood Apartments) to the west. The southern boundary of the cemetery extends into a private back yard and City of Dallas Greenspace property. The original boundaries of the cemetery exceed the small pocket of marked graves (3,583 square feet) currently now dedicated for cemetery usage. An additional 52,080 square feet of property, to the north, south, and east of the 3,583 square feet, was designated as cemetery until 1990 when a private individual (not associated with the cemetery nor its descendants) successfully petitioned a Judge who did not understand Texas Cemetery Law, to gain title to the property. The 52,080 square feet is now a taxable property zoned R 10. Numerous maps and inventories of the property, dating from 1949 through 2002, indicate the existence of graves on the 52,080 square feet of now non-dedicated property. At least one grave marker and many surface artifacts support these records.
A sample of this land was studied in an archaeology scraping in the summer of 2007 and an additional twelve graves were found.
Additional graves associated with the early African American community in Elm Thicket settlement and other settlements of Dallas County are also indicated in several maps to the south of the Garvin Cemetery.
Garvin Cemetery was established in 1874 by Missouri native James G. Garvin (1830-1897) . Mr. Garvin was educated in the subscription schools in Howard County, Missouri. He married Catherine Tompkins in 1850. In 1861, James enlisted in Colonel Nat Burford’s regiment and served until the end of the Civil War participating in many battles and raids.
Garvin came to Dallas shortly after the Civil War and began to buy land, build a house, opened a grocery store and had residential houses he rented out. Catherine died in 1875 leaving five children. James married again in 1876 to Mollie Hedrick but she just lived two years. His third marriage was to Lula Smith in 1879, and they had one child before she, too, died in 1882. James Garvin’s last wife was Ann Eliza Haines, who he married in 1883. From these various marriages with six known or listed children it is not known how or if any of them ever claimed the property the cemetery is on. A will has never been located.
An article in the Dallas Times Herald describes the death of a five-year-old boy, Clint (Floyd) Sparkman, living near Cochran Chapel who met a horrible death. Mr. Sparkman and his employees were preparing to slaughter hogs and a great iron kettle filled with boiling water hung on a crane over a blazing fire near the slaughtering pen. The little boy was playing nearby, missed his footing, and plunged into the scalding water. This was January 1, 1890.
Three of the wives, sons and daughters of the Garvin family are buried here. As a burial ground for the community there are several members of the Travis, Gaines, as well as the Swor, Mayes, Mathis, and Morris families all buried here.
Through the years some of the markers with the names of Hughes, Smith, Mowat, Mackey, Lively have disappeared. Some small concrete markers with metal strips attached remain in a few instances to note the graves of a Mackay, Lively, Quillen, West, or Ferree. The first known grave was 1875 and the last marked site was 1912.
The cemetery was in the Wilson Baker survey. Governor J.P. Henderson signed the grant for 640 acres of land to Baker on December 20, 1847. The agent for Baker, J.P. Farquhar, of Washington County sold 300 acres to N.R. and G.B. Granberry from Madison County Mississippi in 1848. By 1849 the Granberrys had sold to Perry Dakan. Dakan did not keep it very long as he sold it to Wm. M. Cochran in 1851.
For $75.00 in 1874, Nancy Jane Cochran, wife of Wm. M. Cochran, sold three acres to James G. Garvin. These 3 acres became the cemetery and has been used by families and friends of the community all this time.
Other Civil War Veterans buried in this cemetery are Tennessee natives William Robert Swor, and his second cousin Pleasant G. Swor with his wife, Martha Winn.
It was formally deeded as a cemetery in April 1897, a short time before Mr. Garvin died in July 1897. The deed states that this was a “described and dedicated property and shall be a burying ground for the people of Smith’s Hall neighborhood in Dallas County as a resting place for the dead.”
There was a James A. Smith Masonic Lodge No. 395 on this property. The Lodge formed on “Mound Prairie” near the John Cochran homestead during the 1870s. John Cochran (1838-1928) joined this Lodge in 1875, soon became Secretary, then Worshipful Master in 1884. Members of the Lodge were buried in the cemetery and some were moved through the years when the Lodge itself moved to Farmers Branch/Carrollton area ca. 1898.
Through all these years the site has been desecrated several times and it has been necessary to go to court by various families to keep nearby businesses from taking over the land. At one time there was a barn and fence for a farmer’s cattle. Another time trees and other debris from a landscaping business were dumped on this land. Developers have even tried to take over the site and get their plans approved by the City of Dallas to build a gated community.
Jesse Swor (1912-1986) and his brother attempted to maintain the site. Jesse Swor was a descendant of one of the families buried in this cemetery and was the principal caretaker until his death. Jesse was a twin and his baby brother is buried in this cemetery. He provided a hand drawn map of the graves he was able to find. He applied for and received a Texas Historical Marker. He contacted Dallas County and tried to get the land accepted by the County. He contacted the Park Department for the City of Dallas, asking for help. There was a Cemetery Association formed at one time, but as those people, who were interested, died the cemetery was completely abandoned by 1986.
If this portion of land to the southwest of the Garvin Cemetery has an address, it too would be at 4006 Northwest Highway. For many years there were three distinct sections of land on the Dallas County maps and records all denoted as cemetery and called the Garvin or Smith Hall. City Blocks No. 5077 and 5088 contain these sites. Two of these parcels, landlocked from any street, were shaped like triangles and were where the African Americans who lived in this area of Dallas County buried their loved ones. They had been given the land by John Cochran.
William P. Cochran (1841-1906), one of John’s brothers, also joined the James A. Smith Lodge serving several years as Secretary and/or Worshipful Master between 1877 and 1889. The house still standing near the Cochran Chapel United Methodist Church was built by William in 1895 on the family farm that he had inherited from his mother.
A map drawn by John R. West, County Surveyor, depicts the section used by the Lodge and the location of their Hall, close to what we now know as Northwest Highway. This map also locates a bam that was built on the cemetery by a neighbor at some time in the past.
This same map shows the area given to the blacks by Mr. Cochran for a graveyard. The information is very vague as to who is buried in the two sections south and southwest of the area we know as the Garvin Cemetery. A list of names retrieved from death certificates and Internet sources showing they were buried in the Garvin cemetery also mentioned some of the same names mentioned (below) in Cynthia Jones’ account that her grandfather told her about.
In 1962 a teacher, W. R. Conger, at Sunset High School assigned a student, Robert Haley, the Garvin Cemetery for a project. Haley drew a map of the area and inventoried the legible head stones. The map shows the John Lee family homesite and the Negro slave cemetery. In his write up, Haley spoke with Mrs. John Lee, who lived close by about the cemetery. Robert Haley and Mr. Conger explored the woods to the southwest that contained graves of slaves and other Negroes. He concluded that the grave-sites were so spread out and so many not marked properly, they could not make a record of this section.
In 1992 Cynthia E. Jones, sent a letter and a map of the “Old Negro Cemetery.” She stated that her great, great grandparents as well as others from the Elm Thicket area, namely the Greens, Turners, and Shepards, etc. were buried in this black cemetery. Her grandfather who was 96 years old and still living at the time had told her that Mr. Cochran had given the land to the blacks to be used as a cemetery. Her hand drawn map, which had been described to her by her grandfather, also showed the John Lee home site adjacent to the Garvin Cemetery nearer Northwest Highway.
About twenty names from various sources have been found of black people buried in their cemetery. One name that is very interesting was of Mary Jane Cooper who was buried from the Peoples Funeral Home and Dr. M.C. Cooper was the contact person for this burial in 1909. This bit of information came from Appendices to the Freedman Cemetery research done by Geo Marine in 1998. A copy of the log that had been kept for a few years by the Peoples Funeral Home was discovered. The biography of Dr. Cooper, first licensed Black dentist in Dallas, mentions that he was born on a portion of the land that the W. Caruth family farmed. The Lively family owned property and had a dairy in this area, and Dr. Cooper’s mother, born before 1865, was Sallie Lively. It is very difficult to find documentation on these burials as this was not in the city limits and few records were kept.
Attorney and Mrs. G.H. Kelsoe moved from their home in Rowlett to their lovely home on Cochran Chapel Road in 1998. Their back yard is adjacent to the Garvin Cemetery. Inside their yard is an area enclosed by a wrought iron fence, which she and her husband erected. It is believed this small plot contains the graves of slaves. This area possibly containing ten graves had been marked with metal driven into the ground said to be a custom of marking slave graves.
In 1998 and 1999 this African American Cemetery property that is adjacent to the Kelsoe property on the west side was claimed by Dallas Attorney Frank Finn who had no previous involvement with the land. He was following up on a questionable court case. He proceeded to sell the section previously used as a graveyard to G.H. Kelsoe who now lived adjacent to this site. Since Mr. Kelsoe’s death in 2003, Mary Kelsoe (Mrs. G.H. Kelsoe) has spent $36,000.00 to clean up the wooded area, purported to be the graveyard. She has kept it maintained each year thereafter with the same yard crew that keeps her own property.
Mary Kelsoe has expressed the desire that this section of land be denoted as a Landmark for the City also so that at no time in the future will the final resting place of so many early black citizens of Dallas ever be disturbed.
Since 1986, many Boy Scouts have earned an Eagle Badge by keeping this site maintained. From 2003-2007 boys from the Texas Youth Commission, who have been assigned community service hours, have seen that the site has been maintained.
A bronze plaque has been set in concrete with names on the plaque compiled from various inventories made during the last 100 years.
Frances James, “Dallas County History – From the Ground Up, Book I,” 2007.
African American and Anglo Burials in Garvin Cemetery, by Marilyn Kosanke
