Titus County, Texas Cemetery Search

Mount Pleasant's major African-American cemetery has ultimately become known as the Cortznes Cemetery. Previously, it was commonly called Old West City Cemetery, Searcy Cemetery, Sheppard Cemetery, and Reed Cemetery. Confusion about the cemetery name resulted from the cemetery being composed of essentially 5 separate cemeteries. Lynch Harper's "Cemeteries of Titus County " gives a complete description of these deeded cemeteries. Since the cemeteries are indistinguishable to the casual observer, this database treats them as a single entity. The Masonic Cemetery was established for burial of "white people only" when the Cortznes / Sheppard / Searcy / Old West City Cemetery (which was used for burials of all races) became unmanageable. The Old West City cemetery became the primary burial site for other races.

Determining a meaningful count of the number and quality of grave markers was made impossible due to numerous rocks, bricks, pieces of concrete and marble scattered throughout the cemetery. Additionally, numerous depressions that normally indicate a possible grave are difficult to differentiate from the irregular terrain. Some of the more significant of numerous inconsistent burial markers encountered while conducting this survey were 18 unreadable funeral home markers; only flowers marked 11 sites; a marble slab was lying flat; a concrete slab inscribed with only "5-22-1931", a concrete block; a ring of concrete building blocks around a tree stump and an unreadable funeral home marker; a piece of granite marker inscribed "Larty"; a buried marble slab; a block made of mortared brick; a large granite marker lying face down; a funeral home marker that had "1891-1967" only; a large concrete slab; a marker that has "Sister" only; a concrete slab that has "Feb. 15, 1879 - Dec. 30, 1954 Age 75 - 3 Mo" only; a heart shaped concrete block inscribed "Love Always"; a marker whose face rests against a tree and is therefore unreadable; a flat slab with missing letters but "UTEN D-SS August 5, 1984" remains; and a new grave with no identifying information.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS FROM THE TITUS COUNTY COURTHOUSE:

Drive 0.5 mile West on West First Street to the intersection of Ferguson Road (U.S. Highway 271). Veer left and cross the intersection at the traffic light onto South O'Tyson Street (Texas FM 127, locally known as the Monticello Road). Continue south approximately 0.3 mile (near the end of the 300 block of South O'Tyson). The cemetery entrance is marked by a granite sign erected by the City of Mount Pleasant on the right of South O'Tyson Street.

GPS COORDINATES: 33°09.178'N 094°58.775'W

DECORATION DAY: None

MARKED BURIALS INDEXED IN TCS DATABASE: 1,432 (2008-04-01)

FREE BURIAL INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE FOR THIS CEMETERY.

SEE "HOW TO REQUEST BURIAL INFORMATION" PAGE FOR DETAILS.

(NOTE: This cemetery contains many un-marked burials and several others marked by irregular makers like natural stones and other methods that could not be included in the Titus Cemetery Search database.)

LAST TCS PHYSICAL SURVEY: 2006-03-31

Historical information for this cemetery was provided by and used with the permission of David Horton, and was compiled from Mr. Horton's work and the earlier work of Lynch Harper.