Abston Cemetery

Long before the lake, this grave was already a monument. In 1913 the Richard Royal chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution marked the grave of John Abston, and the Handbook of Texas says he fought at the battle of King's Mountain. Lavon began as a railroad flag stop in 1888 and took its name from the postmaster's son. Lavon Lake was built in 1952 and 1953, two miles west of town, and boaters, fishermen and picnickers replaced farmers as the usual visitors. The cemetery now sits in a public picnic area off US 78.

What the plaque says

Abston Cemetery John Abston (1761-1856), a soldier in the American Revolution, was a native of Virginia. In the 1830s Abston and his family moved to Missouri. In 1853 he moved to Collin County, Texas, with the family of his son Jesse. Following Jesse's death that year, the family moved farther south in the county. John Abston and Jesse Abston's widow, Sarah, purchased land in this area in 1854. A small plot of land was set aside as a family burial ground. John Abston's burial here in 1856 was the first in the cemetery. There are thirty-seven marked graves, including those of several generations of the Abston and related families. All but one of the stones bear 19th-century death dates. According to family tradition, Sarah Abston at one time gave a small house and a parcel of land to a former slave, Elias Bellew, with the agreement that he would maintain the cemetery. As a result, the graveyard has also been referred to as the Old Bellew Cemetery. Descendants of those interred in this cemetery still reside in Collin County. The graveyard stands as a reminder of the area's heritage. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 8.3 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 13 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 20 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 25 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.

More markers nearby

• Lavon — 1.5 mi
• Lavon School — 1.6 mi
• First Baptist Church of Lavon — 1.7 mi
• Copeville — 2.4 mi