Greathouse Community, Church, and Cemetery

Many Greathouse families left for Maypearl, and the Handbook of Texas explains the town they joined. It began as Eyrie, with a post office from 1894 to 1903, and was renamed on June 25, 1903, for the daughters of two officials of the International-Great Northern Railroad, which had just reached the settlement. Maypearl incorporated in 1910. By 1914 it had two banks, a weekly paper, four churches and twenty-five businesses. The Handbook's own Greathouse entry is short: in the 1930s, a church, a cemetery and scattered dwellings.

What the plaque says

Greathouse Community, Church, and Cemetery Greathouse Community, Church, and Cemetery Archibald and Mary Greathouse, who settled in this area in 1848, gave their name to a creek and rural community that grew up here. The church, school, and cemetery that formed the focal point of community life were located on land deeded in 1881 by Ezekiel M. Brack, and on property deeded later by Martin Judy Dawson and George W. Whitefield. John Edward Dawson hauled lumber from Waxahachie by oxcart to erect the Greathouse Missionary Baptist Church building. Other early church leaders included Martin Judy Dawson, Jr., Caswell R. Tirey, and Thomas A. Tirey. The Rev. John Bailey was the first pastor. In the 1890s, a school was begun in the church building. Oldest known grave in the cemetery is that of Nancy Caroline Sims (1828-1881). When the railroad reached nearby Maypearl in 1904, many residents moved there and Greathouse began to decline. The school closed in 1912 and the church about 1927. The frame building was razed in 1958. A cemetery association, formed in 1974, maintains the burial ground. This community produced four Christian ministers: the Rev. Joseph M. Dawson (1879-1973), a prominent Baptist leader; the Rev. Everett H. Tirey; the Rev. J.W. Whitefield, Jr.; and the Rev. Austin Woodard. Another resident, Judge Jake Tirey, served on the Texas Court of Civil Appeals. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 8.4 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Hill County Courthouse — 23 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 23 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.

More markers nearby

• Bethel Methodist Church — 2.0 mi
• Maypearl Cemetery — 4.2 mi
• Shawnee Cattle Trail — 4.3 mi
• Cotton Industry in Ellis County — 5.1 mi