The White Rock Cemetery is a hidden oasis in a sea of apartments that surround it. There is so much history associated with this cemetery and it is certainly worth a visit. The cemetery is tightly associated with the White Rock Chapel Church, the oldest black church in North Texas. While there are a few markers for white settlers, most of the graves are of formerly enslaved pioneers and farmers including some of Dallas County's prominent early Black families. The cemetery contains more than 420 of Dallas' sons and daughters.
Several decades ago developers claimed the cemetery was abandoned and tried to develop the property. A company called OKC claimed that they had purchased the land including the cemetery and began building fences to keep the familes of those interred in the cemetery out claining that the cemetery had been abandoned. After a number of lawsuits and restraining orders the Graveyard Association won a reprieve just in time to clear a path for the burial of Mary Allen. The keepers of the cemetery have secured a historic cemetery designation and a state historical marker to help ensure the ongoing preservation of this 170 year old piece of Dallas history.
The cemetery was part of a freedman's town settled after the Civil War by former enslaved individuals from the nearby Coit, Caruth and Obier plantations as well as migrants from other states. The abundance of cheap, rich farmland for cash crops like cotton, corn, wheat and oats allowed generations of Black families to make good livings in what was still "the country" north of Dallas. But, as farming played out and post-WWII development accelerated, many sold their lands while others were pushed out.
Some of the people buried here include:
- Anderson Bonner a former slave who became one of the biggest landowners north of Dallas by the early 19th century. He was born in Alabama and sent to Texas as a wedding gift for his owner's daughter. He died in 1920 at the age of 86. Anderson Bonner Park was created in his honor and is located just south of 635 along White Rock Creek.
- George Coit a former slave who was born in North Carolina. He died in 1903 at the age of 84. His marker is still visible in the cemetery. George purchased land to expand the cemetery from a white settler, Samuel Scott. George was also instrumental in founding the White Rock Chapel. Coit Rd is named for him.
- Henry Keller a former slave born on a Tennessee plantation. After emancipation he and his wife Mary Jane moved to Collin County, but finiding that Collin County did not allow Blacks to buy property, they moved to Addison in Dallas. Purchasing land with a natural spring that they generously shared with many others at no cost. The road bordering their farm became known as Keller Springs Rd. Their son John Wesley Keller was among the founders of the Colored Union Cemetery - later renamed to White Rock Cemetery - Garden of Memories.
- Willie Mae Sowell - who owned the land where the Galleria stands and was instrumental in securing the land where the original White Rock Chapel Church was built.
- Naomi Turner - who created the city's first Black Seventh-Day Adventist Church
- Margaret McKamy - the oldest grave in the cemetery (1852). In the original Scott Cemetery
Please treat this location and the people buried here with the respect they deserve.