Edgewood Cemetery

Edgewood's graveyards follow its three beginnings, the Handbook of Texas explains. The first was at Barren Ridge, the settlement of the 1840s to 1870s about two miles southeast. A second dates from roughly 1870 to 1890. Oak Hill belongs to the years after 1890, when settlers arrived from Mississippi and Alabama. Northside, on land Robertson gave in 1896, is the one that lost its deed and fell out of use. The depot deal was a sale: in November 1875 Robertson and W. S. Herndon sold 100 acres to the Texas and Pacific Land Company for $1,000.

What the plaque says

Edgewood Cemetery District Judge-Elect John C. Robertson (1824-1895) and his partner, W. S. Herndon (1837-1903), gave land in 1878 for a railroad depot. This started Edgewood community. Citizens of Canton moved their shipping here from Wills Point due to the Van Zandt County Seat dispute. The earliest gravestone in this community cemetery is that of Bruce Echols (1888-1889). Judge Robertson gave this site to the town in 1896, but the deed was lost and burials declined. The last interment was in the 1920s. Recently restored after long neglect, this plot is also known as Northside Cemetery. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 22 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.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 25 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 26 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.

More markers nearby

• Dallas-Shreveport Road — 6.2 mi
• County Seat War — 6.2 mi
• White Rose Cemetery — 6.3 mi
• First Christian Church of Wills Point — 7.1 mi