|
This website contains
the best available accounting of the graves within the Melissa Cemetery
located in Melissa, Texas as of November 2013. Updates will take place as
needed.
 The
City of Melissa is located 6 miles north of McKinney, the county seat of
Collin County. It can be reached by driving north from McKinney on
State Hwy 5 or US Hwy 75. Melissa Cemetery is located on Melissa
Road approximately 1.5 miles west of Melissa between State Hwy 5 and US
Hwy 75.
Melissa Cemetery is both a recognized State of
Texas Historical Cemetery and a recognized Historic Texas Cemetery which
contains approximately 1146 marked graves and an unknown number of
unmarked and lost graves. To date, there are 88 veterans buried in
Melissa Cemetery documenting The Mexican American War, Civil War,
Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War
and the Iraq War. There are also stones recognizing 14 Masonic Members,
3 Eastern Star Members and 11 Woodsmen of the World.
The oldest graves in the cemetery are those of
William M. Sherley (1856) and Lewis Sherley (1867) who may have been
originally buried in a family cemetery on the nearby farm of Lewis
Sherley,(which later became the St. Paul Cemetery) and relocated west of
Shirley creek to this site when the Melissa Cemetery was formerly
established in 1889.
Many of Melissa’s first residents came from the
Highland Community approximately 2 miles north of the present day
Melissa which virtually vanished around 1872 with the coming of the
Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) railroad through Collin County. Some
of the cemeteries that served Melissa prior to the 1889 formation of
Melissa Cemetery were Highland, Orenduff, Stony Point, Throckmorton, St.
Paul and numerous small family cemeteries.
The Melissa Cemetery is an active cemetery and is
cared for by the Melissa Cemetery Association. Family histories,
historical documentation or copies of family deeds may be sent to the
Melissa Cemetery Association, P.O. Box 222, Melissa, TX 75454.
View our policies
 |
