Marker [001]
Old Cedar Community
(3 mi. SE of Sherman)
| Settled in 1848 by Grayson County pioneers, who reclaimed land from wilderness. Raiding Indians and hardships
of frontier life soon created need for a cemetery, established the same year. The plots were free to any person.
Many noted settlers are buried there, including one Union and 18 Confederate veterans of the Civil War. Of some
400 graves, half are marked. After community was well established, a school—Cedar Academy—was organized in 1871. D. H. Dumas gave the land for a 3-acre campus. Enrollment reached 79 in 1872. Here, besides the usual subjects, students learned how to make ink and split goose-quills for pens. Later name was changed to Cedar High School. It merged with the Tom Bean district in 1937. Cedar Methodist Church was organized in 1871. The congregation worshipped in a log house on property deeded by J. G. Vestal and Col. J. R. Cole. A half-mile south of church on White Mound-Decar Road, a 7-acre tract donated by Mr. and Mrs. B. M. Carr was used as campgrounds for revivals. Each summer people would come for miles, pitch their tents there and attend services under a brush arbor. A frame church built in 1891 was destroyed by a tornado in 1960. The present structure was dedicated in October, same year. |