Cobb Cemetery

Cobb Cemetery is located off of Box Church Road three miles northeast of Thornton on LCR 778 in Limestone County, Texas, on land donated by Pinkney Cobb and his wife, Mary Ellen Davis Cobb.¹

In 1833 Brinkley Davis brought his family to Texas from Indiana and settled approximately one and one-half miles southeast of the location of the Cobb Cemetery.  In 1835 Brinkley Davis received a Mexican land grant of approximately 4500 acres and the area became known as Davis Prairie. ^{2, 3}

Pinkney Cobb, born in Alabama, moved to the Davis Prairie area of Texas in the early 1840’s.  In 1845 Pinkney Cobb married Mary Ellen Davis, the daughter of Brinkley Davis.  They built a log house on a hill about one-quarter of a mile northeast of the present location of the cemetery.  The remains of the house are still visible.  Pinkney and Mary Ellen Cobb had nine children. ⁴

The cemetery was established in the 1850s on approximately an acre of land donated by the Pinkney Cobb family.  The earliest marked grave is that of Brinkley Davis, who died in 1852. Five sons of Pinkney and Mary Ellen Davis are buried in the cemetery.  They are William Neri Cobb, who died November 11, 1855; George Levi Cobb, who died January 11, 1872, Francis Marion (Bud) Cobb, who died October 15, 1928; Pinkney Cobb II, who died in 1927; and Brinkley Stancil Cobb, who died December 20, 1930.   Pinkney Cobb died April 11, 1866 and Mary Ellen Cobb died February 1, 1894.  They are buried together with a wrought iron fence enclosing their graves. ⁵ Near their graves are several graves of children marked only with a rock or brick.  While this cemetery began as a family burial plot, it soon became a community cemetery.  There are 227 unmarked graves. ⁶

In 1887 county Judge L. B. Cobb donated a parcel of land joining the west side of the cemetery.  Other parcels of land were added to the south side of the cemetery in 1964 and 1978. ⁷

Also buried in Cobb Cemetery is Nathaniel G. Hudson who came to Texas in 1836.  He joined the Santa Fe Expedition June 10, 1841 and was captured September 25, 1841 at Anton Chico Mexico.  Hudson was held prisoner at St. Jugo, Mexico until liberated January 1843.⁸

Confederate Veterans buried in Cobb Cemetery are T. J. Herod, J. S. Burditt, J. S. Wingard, C. C. Hudson, Leonidas Rasco, John (Jack) Rasco and Solon Rasco. ⁹ Nathaniel Porter Hudson, a veteran of the Spanish-American War is also buried in the cemetery. ^{10, 11}

The annual memorial service was started when Annie Ellis and other women would bring their lunch and hoe the cemetery.  As more people were buried here, others began helping the ladies.  People came, spread lunch on the ground and joined in singing.  Local churches took turn furnishing the speaker.  In 1946 a tabernacle was moved to the cemetery from the Davis Chapel Church of Christ by men of the community.  The cemetery was worked by volunteers each year before the memorial service in July.¹²

After World War II, it became necessary to hire people to maintain the cemetery.  The Cobb Cemetery Association was formed to see to the upkeep of the cemetery.  Memorial services are held each year on the second Saturday in June.4

Endnotes

¹  Limestone County Historical Museum,  A Family History of Limestone County, Volume 1. (Taylor Publishing, nd.), p. 16.

²  Limestone County Deed Records, 207, p. 366-370.

³  Ray A. Walter, A History of Limestone County  (Austin:  Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1959), p. 10.

⁴  Jack Rasco.  Cobb Cemetery.  (Unpublished, 2000), p. 1.

⁵  Rasco, p. 1

⁶  Virginia J. Bounds and Imogene C. Barham.  Limestone County, Texas Cemetery Survey, Volume I, Part I.  (Texas: Limestone County Historical Museum, 1988), p. 41-50.

⁷ Limestone County Deed Records, Volume B, p. 431.

⁸ John Edward Weems, Dream of Empire (New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1971), p. 186-190, 193-206.

⁹  Patricia Bennett McGinty, United Confederate Veterans of Limestone and Freestone Counties, Texas (Westminster, Maryland:  Heritage Books, 2001), p. 121.

¹⁰  Limestone County Historical Museum, p. 16.

¹¹  Bruce Jordan, Survey of Cobb Cemetery.

¹² Rasco, p. 2.