Cress is an old family cemetery located in rural south-central Titus County, but was also used for public burials. A family member said that since the cemetery was once located beside the Pittsburg highway that sometimes when people died while traveling that they would be buried there. Members of the Cress and Carpenter families, as well as others are buried in the cemetery.
It was once said to be a large cemetery, but has long been abandoned and is essentially lost. There is no trace of any graves except for a single marker for A.M. Cress. Lynch Harper's "Cemeteries of Titus County" lists family members believed buried here and states that one monument carries this name and inscription on it:
The Cress marker was originally photographed on July 22, 2005. The cemetery is located in extremely thick woods and underbrush about 50' from a fence line East of an abandoned house at the end of CR 2222. Underbrush has so completely overgrown the cemetery and surrounding woods that it was difficult for five people to locate the marked grave when standing as near as 20' to it.
Someone has enclosed the A.M. Cress gravesite with a nice fence made of welded square steel tubing, but the grave and cemetery are otherwise abandoned, over-grown, and practically lost. The family member said that other family members have become aged and can no longer maintain the cemetery.
The monument inscription reads (from top down):
In My Father's House
Are Many Mansions
A.M. CRESS
Died March 8, 1882
Aged
40 Yr.
At Rest
The base is inscribed:
CRESS
A marble footstone marks the grave's foot.
Local residents who live adjacent to the cemtery said that it was originally much larger than the single marked grave and was fenced. Remnants of wooden fence posts and wire were found near the A.M. Cress grave, but the fence fell down long ago and the remaining posts have almost rotted into the ground. They said that the cemetery once contained several other graves marked by inscribed bricks and natural stones, but someone moved all those markers to an adjacent fence line when they bush-hogged the property about 30 years ago. No attempt was made to locate other graves due to the thick underbrush and the fact that they are no longer marked.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS FROM THE TITUS COUNTY COURTHOUSE:
Travel 0.3 miles South on Madison Street to Ferguson Road. Turn left (East) on Ferguson Road (which becomes Texas Highway 49) and travel 0.1 mile to the intersection with South Jefferson Street (U.S. 271).
Turn right (South) onto Jefferson Street and proceed 3.8 miles to the intersection with Texas FM 3417. Turn right (West) onto FM 3417 and travel 0.2 mile to the intersection of County Road (CR) 2200.
Turn left (South) onto CR 2200 and travel 0.6 mile. Turn right on County Road 2222 and follow it until it dead-ends at a house. The cemetery is located approximately 50 feet east of the fence line bordering the east side of the home site.
