A Guide to the History of Richardson, Texas: Cemeteries

Return to Home Page or Historic Sites or Outside Downtown NORTH CENTRAL TOUR

Historic Cemeteries in or near Richardson

BLEWETT CEMETERY

Blewett Cemetery

From the forthcoming book, RICHARDSON: A History of One of the Biggest Small Cities in Texas

Although the Blewett family was for decades one of the most prominent early families of Richardson, today the only tangible evidence of their presence is the old Blewett family cemetery, located on the northwest corner of present-day East Arapaho Road and Grove Road/Alma Road in East Richardson. According to an article in The Richardson Echo, the first person buried there was "Uncle Baxter Blewett, who was killed near the end of the war between the States and [his body] returned here for burial." A Texas Historical Commission marker on the site contradicts this statement, saying that the Blewett Cemetery was established earlier, when George and Nancy Blewett's daughter, Ann, died on March 14, 1855, which seems to be verified by Ann's grave marker in the small, one-acre plot, where George L. Blewett, his wife Nancy, and eight more of their children are interred, along with members of other prominent pioneer families. As it happens, neither the newspaper nor the historical marker are correct.

In truth, the Blewett Cemetery was not established until 1887 when James R. Blewett arranged for the bodies of his father, his older brother, and six other people to be exhumed from their original graves in the old Spring Creek burying ground, a.k.a. the Routh Cemetery or Stagecoach Cemetery, and then reburied where they lie today. A report in The Dallas Weekly Herald described, in rather graphic detail, how this was done:

Mr. Jas. R. Blewett, yesterday, went with Undertaker Smith to the old burying ground at Spring Creek to superintend the removal of the bodies of his father's family from the old Spring Creek grave yard to the new burial place near Richardson. Altogether, eight bodies were moved.

Rev. G. L. Blewett, father of the family, was buried there about three years ago. His coffin and remains were found much more decomposed than those of one of his sons buried two years before the father having been buried in a walnut coffin, which was entirely gone, while the poplar coffin of the son was in a good state of preservation. A daughter, Miss Elizabeth, was buried in 1882, and while the wood was all decayed, the silk trimmings of the dress were perfect in form and color. With the bones of Baxter Blewett, buried in 1865, were found horn buttons, but no sign of clothing or wood. A young son of Mr. Thomas H. Skyles [sic] now living in that neighborhood, was interred there in 1872, and about the bones was the broadcloth coat, all that remained of the burial suit; the coat being in a good state of preservation. The first of the family buried there was a child of 8 or 10 years, buried thirty-two years ago last March. The coffin was entirely gone, only the rusted nails remining with the bones in the well-protected vault.

This is one of the oldest burial grounds in the county, and Rev. Mr. Blewett was one of its pioneer preachers. The hand that drove the nails in the first coffin, the nails that were all that remained of the burial case, is still living, Mr. Thomas Skelton, of the Spring Creek neighborhood. The vault had been covered with Burr oak boards, and were yet perfectly sound, leaving the vault in exactly the same condition as the day of burial, except that there was not the slightest trace of clothing or wood, nothing remaining except the nails and the skeleton. In removing the skull, the shell of a tooth dropped off of a newer and perfect one, the latter having grown and pushed the decayed member out of its place after death.

LOCATION: The Blewett Cemetery is located on the northwest corner of E. Arapho Road and Alma Road. Because of its location at a busy intersection, it's best to park in the nearby DART light rail station parking lot, which is just off Alma Road a block past the cemetery, and then walk over to the cemetery if you want to take a closer look than you'll get from passing by in a car. The gate is usually locked but due to the samll size of this ceemtery, mott of the marker inscriptions can be read from outside the fence. If you go around to the Arapaho Road side, BE CAREFUL, there's not much space between the roadway and the cemetery on which to walk, and cars are going by at 40 m.p.h.!