Highland Cemetery

Highland was a stage stop that lost its people to a railroad. When the Houston and Texas Central arrived in 1872, a new town was laid out two and a half miles south, and the Handbook of Texas says the residents of Highland moved there. The town was named Melissa, probably for a daughter of railroad official George A. Quinlan or of C. P. Huntington. A post office followed in May 1873. The ground Charles Wysong gave in 1858 stayed behind, and the burial ground is still cared for.

What the plaque says

Highland Cemetery The Highland community was established in the mid-1800s as a stop on the stage route between Buckner (approximate 3 miles west of the present site of McKinney) and Bonham. An early settler, Charles H. Wysong, donated 3 acres of land for a community church, school, and cemetery in 1858. The first marked grave, that of Robert Strother, is dated 1861. Many north central Collin county pioneers and their descendants are buried here. The graveyard is cared for by the Highland Cemetery Association, organized more than one hundred years ago. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 11 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.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 27 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Dr. William Edward Throckmorton — 1.1 mi
• Melissa School — 1.8 mi
• Coffman Cemetery — 1.9 mi
• Melissa Cemetery — 2.0 mi