Lee Cemetery

North Carolina natives Benjamin Lee, his wife Alice, and their family came to this area about 1853 and soon acquired more than 1,230 acres of land, where they operated a large cotton plantation with the help of their ten children and enslaved laborers. Benjamin Lee became a community leader and was elected county commissioner one year after arriving. This cemetery began in 1856 with Benjamin Lee’s death as a small family burial ground. Alice Lee was the second person buried here, and their graves lie in the oldest section within the Lee family plot, surrounded by an iron fence. The graves of the four Lee sons, all of whom served in the Confederate army, are also in the family plot. Though established as a family graveyard, it expanded to include neighbors’ graves and gradually became a public community cemetery. Now covering more than thirteen acres, it contains many kinds of stones and grave markers, including one above-ground brick vault burial, and includes the graves of community members such as banker Charles H. Morris, mayor and state legislator William D. Suiter, doctor John B. Goldsmith, and newspaper publishers Homer R. and Mae O. Weir.

Texas · United States