Baccus Cemetery was originally considered the Cook Cemetery. It was started in 1847 by Henry cook, who buried his son, Daniel, on family land. In time, Henry Cook's daughter, Rachel, acquired the land and in 1878 she deeded it to the heirs of Henry Cook for church and cemetery purposes. In about 1915, the cemetery association made the name Baccus Cemetery. This was in recognition of the fact that Rachel had given the cemetery land, and doubtless also the fact that Rachel had by that time given an additional tract for the neighboring Christian Church. A number of family members including several Baccuses regret the name change and think the cemetery should have continued being known as the Cook Cemetery. In the 1950's, a committee from the cemetery association comprised of Tandy Haggard, John Thomspson, and Claud Thompson, asked Earl Baccus to pay for a sign which was needed by the cemetery, but for which there were no funds. Earl Baccus agreed to pay for the sign with whatever name the association might specify. It was at that time that the sign went up with Baccus Cemetery clearly spelled out.
The cemetery is located five miles south of Frisco, Texas, one mile south of State Highway 121 and 1.3 miles west of State Highway 289. It was established by Lieutenant Henry cook near his home just two years after he came to Texas in 1845. Henry Cook was a Peters Colonist and the cemetery was on one of the two 320 acre tracts which he acquired as a colonist and patented in southwest Collin County. The cemetery, like Cook's home, was located on the Shawnee Trail, and old cattle trail preceding the Chislom Trail by many years.
The first recorded burial is that of Henry Cook's son, Daniel. Daniel was born on December 27, 1831 in Carrollton, Illinois and was the seventeen year old son of Henry and Sarah Kincaid Cook. Nothing is known of the circumstances of his death. In spite of his youth, he is listed by Seymour Connor as a Peters Colonist. After Daniel's death, his father as administrator of his estate, patented his 320 acres in Denton County. This is not as distant as it sounds, as Henry Cook's home was not overly far from the county line. Moreover, Seymour Connor lists a David Cook who located in Denton and sounds from his description exactly like Henry Cook's son by a former marriage.
The second burial is that of George W. Martin, son of J.B. and M. Martin. George was born on April 1, 1849 and died on August 17, 1850. George's mother was Martha Cook, the eldest child of Henry Cook and his last wife, Sarah Kincaid Cook. Martha married John B. Martin in Collin County in 1848. The cause of the little child's death is unknown. He lies next to his Uncle Daniel.
The cemetery land was deeded to the heirs of Henry Cook by his daughter Rachel Cook Baccus on March 16, 1878. Apparently it was recorded on January 20, 1899 on which day her signature was witnessed by B.S. Shelburne, a prominent doctor in the Lebanon community. This lapse of time was not unusual at that time. The land was a part of the original headright of her father, Henry Cook. Henry's will shows that he left to his son Lewis the residence on his own headright including the farm and improvements coupled with the condition that Lewis maintain his mother and father in comfort and respectability during their lives. Henry died in 1862 with his wife Sarah surviving. Rachel came into a little money after the death of her first husband, William Bridges, who died the same day as her father. While she was married to her second husband, Joseph Baccus, she bought from her mother, Sarah, and her brother, Lewis, a combined total of 480 acres. The portion which Lewis sold Rachel included the cemetery. Although Rachel stipulated in her deed that the cemetery was for the heirs of Henry Cook, there were in time many non-heirs buried there. Also, although Henry Cook had stipulated that Lewis care for his mother, when Lewis left the state and sold his property, it was Elizabeth Cook Heustis's home that Sarah chose to go to live out her days.
The person who actually started the cemetery, however, was Henry Cook himself. Most of the early settlers were stout hearted young men, but Henry Cook came to Texas when he was seventy, and came not as someone' s aged father, but as the head of a family. Henry Cook was born in Fincastle, Castle County in the Province of Virginia (now West Virginia) on May 28, 1775. His parents brought the family to Green County, Illinois in 1786. He served in the war of 1812 as a lieutenant, and was a French and Indian interpreter. Henry had married Alcy Nix and had six children. After Alcy's death, he married Sally Kincaid and had six more children. According to Ira Baccus of San Antonio, Sally was actually his fourth or fifth wife, so two or three other wives and their children may have preceded Alcy and Sarah. In 1845 Henry brought his current family to Texas in a caravan of seven covered wagons, three belonging to him and one each for the John Nix, John McCann and Bill Miller families. (Mrs. Bill Miller was a twin sister of Mrs. Josh McCann.) A stop was made at St. Louis to secure a Way Bill and a cook stove. Mr. Cook had already brought such tools as a fraw for making shingles and a broad ax to smooth logs - also a few pigs and chickens.
The group camped at Trinity Mills near Carrollton where the Perry families and Pres, Pleas and Hamp Witt had already settled having come from Illinois. Mr. Cook thought this area too low and wet to be healthy so he brought his family back to White Rock Ridge and patented land as a Peters Colonist. He selected land in two separate tracts, one on the prairie with a good water supply and the other with adequate wood supply, both being vital necessities. The family lived in a tent the remainder of the winter and in the spring of 1846 built the first log cabin. This home was located a few yards west of where the old Baccus home now stands just north of Baccus Cemetery. This log cabin was added to in time and was a social center, being used for school and square dances and wedding dinners. It was an early center for Christian worship and Liberty Church, the oldest Baptist Church in continuous service in Collin County, was organized in this home. This log cabin home was also a landmark on the Shawnee Trail - a trail marker by day, and a lighthouse by night, visible in all directions because it was located on a little crest.
The children of Henry Cook by his marriage to Sarah Kincaid were Martha, who married John B. Martin, Elizabeth who married Henry Heustis, Rachel who married first William Bridges and then Joseph Baccus, Daniel who died at seventeen, Lewis who married Ellen Maria McIntyre and moved to Idaho, and Sarah Jane who married Nicholas Dudley and had a niece Etta Salmon.
Henry Cook's children by his previous wife, Alcy Nix, apparently all also came to Texas, a fact which emphasizes the strong solidarity of the family. Alcy's eldest child was John who married Rebecca Finley and after her death, Mrs. Alice P. Wims. He came to Texas in 1849 and is listed in the Collin County Census of 1850. He was one of the charter members of Liberty Baptist Church which was organized in his father's home. He is buried in Baccus Cemetery.
Jake married Christina Armitage. Mary Ann married Henry Miller and is said to have come with her husband to settle in Trinity Mills, Texas in 1845. David Cook came to Peters Colony as a single man and settled in Denton County probably in 1845. It will be noted that Henry Cook lived near the Denton County line. David married a girl by the name of Mary B. Henry is said to have died in Mexico in 1845 and never married. All of Alcy's living children are mentioned in Henry Cook's will in ways to suggest that they lived in the vicinity.
Henry Cook died June 10, 1862 and was buried in the family cemetery. His widow applied to Washington for a pension as a widow of a veteran of the war of 1812. It took a long time for the pension to be granted because the name had been spelled Cooke on the muster roll (and is indeed the spelling on the 1850 Collin County Census), but the signatures were compared and Sarah finally was granted a pension of $700 a year. She spent a great deal of it for a large and imposing bronze marker with the letters LT. HENRY COOK. The monument appears as new today as it did when it was erected.
Families buried at Baccus Cemetery which are descended from Henry Cook are the Cook, Heustis, Martin, Dudley, Baccus, Miller, Bishop, and Pearson families. Neighboring families are the Calverley, White, Collinsworth, Marcy, Haggard, Bruce Covington, Williams, Lunsford, Dunafan, Thompson, Ashlock, Bozeman and many others. There is a total of 285 marked graves plus some that are unmarked.
For a period of years Baccus Cemetery was neighbor to a Christian Church by the same name. The Church of Christ at Lebanon in Collin County, Texas was organized on February 8, 1885 by Elder Horn. In 1885 Lebanon had a population of 500 people but in 1902 the railroad went through Frisco bypassing Lebanon, and the city's population scattered mostly to Frisco and dropped to 225 by 1919. The Lebanon Church building was moved and rebuilt south of Baccus Cemetery and Baccus Christian Church was organized on July 1, 1908. On May 8, 1909 Rachel Baccus conveyed to certain elders of Baccus Christian Church a tract of land for the sum of one dollar for the purpose of a church site for the Baccus Church or one of any Protestant denomination. Should the tract described cease to be used for such a purpose, the land was to revert to her estate. The church is thought to have been dissolved in the early 1930's and the building remained empty until it was razed some years later. The tract of land in question went back to the estate.
The church building was typical of local country churches and resembled Bethany and Liberty Church of that time. The church faced east so that the congregation faced west. The roof came to a point over the front porch. There was a central entry door at the front and one door at the back at the left rear. A congregation of about one hundred people could be accommodated. The church is remembered affectionately as being rather large for a county church and being comprised of many wonderful families who worked very diligently. Among these were the Baccuses, Bishops, Haggards, Grahams, Heustis, Martins, Thompsons and Bunsfords. Many of these names are recognizable as being families descended from Henry Cook, and many of them have members buried in the cemetery.
The condition of the cemetery is good. Mr. E.B. Haggard had a chain link fence built around the cemetery before his death in 1961 and this helps keep a neat appearance. In order to keep the grass mowed and the cemetery clean, a small savings account is kept, and the interest from this is used for maintenance. There is a Libby Pearson Memorial Fund to be used to restore many of the markers. There are several that are broken and several that need to be straightened. Mr. Carr of McKinney Memorial is in charge of the work. Any money left from this fund will be put in the Permanent Fund for future maintenance.
This cemetery is of particular interest because of its age. The earliest marked grave is 1847 and if there is an earlier marked grave in the Plano area or even in all of Collin County, we would like to know its location because we have scanned the cemetery records in vain. There are a number of graves dating back to the 1850's, and there are accounts of deaths in the 1840's, but most graves that early were marked with bois d'arc stobs that are now gone or illegible. After all, Daniel Cook's grave goes back to the time even before the county seat was moved from Buckner to what was to become McKinney in 1848. Daniel was buried in the wilderness not far from his father's newly built log cabin which had an animal skin for a front door. Perhaps Daniel's grave was given a permanent marker when Sarah Cook got her government pension. It seems likely that when Sarah marked her husband's grave she did not fail to remember the resting place of her seventeen year old son.
Submitted by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Pearson - Frisco, TX
and Mrs. John D. Wells - Plano, TX