PLANO MUTUAL CEMETERY - PLANO
18th Street
33.025N
96.683W
Cemeteries of Collin County, Texas, Joy
Gough
This cemetery is quite large with about
2000 graves. There is a fence on 3 sides. The part facing 18th street has steel
bars and brick pillars. There are houses on 2 sides of the cemetery. The Dickey
Funeral Home is on the south side of the street. There are stones dating back
into the 1880's at least. William Foreman I was buried in the Plano Mutual
Cemetery in 1856. Many of the very early stones seem to have disappeared. The
cemetery is well taken care of and is still in use.
This was near the original location of the town of Plano. The William Foreman
family came to the area around 1850. They started a gristmill, a distillery, a
sawmill, and a cooperage on a small stream nearby. The first post office for the
area was out of their home. The town later moved south to be near the railroad.
The Foreman family is the one who gave the land for the cemetery. There are
several deeds pertaining to this cemetery. The deed listed in Vol 145, p 433,
made in 1907, shows that the cemetery was divided into sections for the Masons,
International Order of Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World, Knights of Pythias,
and the Mutual Cemetery Association of Plano. Those sections are no longer
evident. The old part of the cemetery was on the northeast. There is a later
deed for the Ladies Mutual Cemetery Association.
The cemetery has a historical marker.
Historical
marker, 1996
PLANO MUTUAL
CEMETERY
AMONG THE
EARLIEST GRAVEYARDS IN COLLIN COUNTY, THIS
CEMETERY
TRACES ITS BEGINNINGS TO 1852 WHEN DR. LILLIE
WAS BURIED ON
LAND BELONGING TO HIS UNCLE WILLIAM
FORMAN. A
KENTUCKY NATIVE, FORMAN CAME TO TEXAS ABOUT
1850 AND
BOUGHT 640 ACRES IN 1851 FROM SANFORD BECK.
LILLIE'S DEATH
PROMPTED A MEETING OF PIONEER SETTLERS
TO DECIDE THE
LOCATION OF A GRAVEYARD. THE OWNERS OF
FOUR SECTIONS
OF LAND THAT CONVERGED TOGETHER PROM-
ISED EQUAL
PORTIONS FOR THE CEMETERY. HOWEVER, MOST OF
THE EARLIEST
GRAVES ARE LOCATED ON FORMAN LAND.
BY THE 1870s
THE FORMAN FAMILY CEMETERY WAS COMBINED
WITH CEMETERY
TRACTS PURCHASED BY THE LOCAL MASONIC
AND ODD
FELLOWS LODGES. A GROUP OF LOCAL WOMAN ORGA-
NIZED THE
LADIES MUTUAL CEMETERY ASSOCIATION IN THE
1890s TO
MAINTAIN THE SITE. THEY BEAUTIFIED THE GROUNDS,
PROVIDED A
PAVILION AND DOUBLED THE SIZE OF THE CEME-
TERY DURING
THEIR NEARLY 40 YEARS TENURE.
BY 1907
ADJOINING TRACTS OF LAND WERE BOUGHT BY THE
MUTUAL
CEMETERY ASSOCIATION, WOODMEN OF THE WORLD AND
KNIGHTS OF
PYTHIAS ORGANIZATIONS. THE PLANO MUTUAL
CEMETERY
ASSOCIATION WAS FORMED IN 1928 AND CONTINUES
SERVICE TO THE
SITE. BURIED HERE ARE MANY EARLY PIO-
NEERS AND
THEIR DESCENDANTS, WAR VETERANS, AND ELECTED
OFFICIALS.
Foreman Family
Plano
CEMETERY INDEX
Recommended
citation:
Plano Mutual Cemetery - Plano," CEMETERIES OF COLLIN COUNTY." Collin County,
Texas History and Genealogy Webpage by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries,
Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13, 2004].
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