David Elliott, who died in 1909 and for whom Elliott Cemetery is named, was a pioneer settler in the southern part of Grayson County. Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1817, he joined the crew of a boat on the Mississippi River at an early age, later served as a riverboat captain, and was eventually ordained as a Baptist minister. In 1847, two years after Texas became a state, the Rev. Mr. Elliott migrated to this area and settled on land at this site, where he found evidence of earlier pioneers, including several graves with crude markers made of a sandstone not common to the area and bearing no inscriptions or identifying marks. When his daughter, Virginia F., died in 1855, he buried her near those pioneer graves. As more settlers moved into the area, the Elliott family cemetery was opened for use as a public burial ground. From 1905 until 1950, Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church, which the Rev. Mr. Elliott helped organize, maintained it. The cemetery also contains the graves of longtime residents, early teachers, and military veterans, and it remains in use as an important reminder of the individuals and families who opened this area for settlement.