Melissa Cemetery – Melissa Texas – Collin County
Melissa Cemetery is both a recognized State of Texas Historical Cemetery and a recognized Historic Texas Cemetery which contains approximately 1244 marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked and lost graves. To date, there are 105 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 16 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.
History
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.
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