WILSON FAMILY CEMETERY
Tarrant County, Texas

Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by Margaret R. Bates 
(mrbates@swbell.net)

This is a small reconstructed cemetery located about five miles east of 
Mansfield on Lynn road (County Road 2012).  Charles N. and Ophelia 
(West) Wilson lived on this property when she died in 1872.  This part 
of the Wilson land was known as the Polo Ranch.  It is now owned by the 
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and is part of the Joe Pool Lake project.

Ophelia Wilson was buried here with her infant daughter, and the graves 
were marked with oak saplings.  In the 1930s, another Wilson daughter 
returned to the site and placed two headstones and a wrought iron 
fence.  The small graveyard was vandalized in 1980 and the markers and 
fence removed.  The Corps of Engineers located the stolen Wilson 
markers, placed a marker for the Bowlin infant and replaced the wrought 
iron fence.  The site was designated as a Recorded Texas Historic 
Landmark in 1986.  The marker carries the inscription:

Wilson Cemetery
This pioneer cemetery dates to 1872, when Charles N. Wilson buried his wife and 
infant child here.  Ophelia E. West Wilson (1853 - 1972) and her newborn 
daughter died as a result of complications during childbirth.  The third grave 
in the cemetery, that of the Bowlin infant, is unmarked.  James W. and Mattie C. 
Bowlin buried their son here, since a public graveyard was not readily 
accessible to their home.  The Wilson Cemetery contains only these three graves, 
but it is an important reminder of the ways of life in 19th Century Tarrant 
County.  Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986.

Note that there is an error in the inscription.  The grave of the Bowlin infant 
is now marked.
Published by the Mansfield Historical Society, 1986.  Used by permission.

WILSON Ophelia & Child, 1853 - 1872
BOWLIN Male, No Dates, son of James W. & Mattie (Curry) Bowlin

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