Denton County commissioners discussed visitation hours and the amount of money the county has put into maintaining St. John’s Cemetery near Pilot Point during Tuesday’s morning meeting.
The land is the burial ground of hundreds of Black Denton County residents, and some of the graves are estimated to be more than a century old. Several individuals have voiced their concerns about how the county maintains and preserves the cemetery due to boundary issues.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Ryan Williams said Denton County has spent about $107,000 to maintain St. John’s between 2016 to 2023. Denton County commissioners approved the cemetery’s maintenance in 2016.
“Those funds are what we paid out,” Williams said. “That does not take the amount of man-hours of the county employees that aren’t paid based on this [funds], which is a considerable amount.”
Activists Willie Hudspeth and Chelsea Stallings have asked county commissioners to allow public access to the cemetery, which sits between privately owned land and gated rights of way on Hub Clark Road near Pilot Point.
On Tuesday, commissioners presented a section of the Texas Health and Safety Code regarding access to the cemetery.
According to Section 711.041, any person who wishes to visit a cemetery or private burial grounds lacking public ingress or egress has the right to access the burial grounds, but only for visitation during hours determined by the landowners, and the person must provide written notice to the landowners.
For St. John’s Cemetery, private landowners agreed to visitation hours from 9 to 11 a.m. on the first Saturday of every quarter — January, April, July and October. If a special event is being requested, an individual should contact Peggy Riddle, director of the Denton County Office of History & Culture.
“It’s a gated community,” Hudspeth said, referring to the requirement to provide written notice to landowners. “We can’t get to the homes, which is their right.”
Hudspeth and Stallings hosted a cleanup event Saturday and filled dozens of trash bags with leaves that covered and surrounded tombstones.
Williams said that while he appreciates the efforts of individuals who have voiced their concerns about the cemetery, certain rules have to be respected by visiting the cemetery and clarifying how the county is maintaining it.
Denton County Judge Andy Eads said the cemetery is surrounded by private land and is not county property; Eads and Williams said the county still maintains the cemetery even if it’s not county property.
The cemetery belongs to the descendants of the individuals who purchased the land.
“The right to access extends only to visitation during the hours determined by the owner or owners of the land — the county is not the owner,” Eads said.
Saturday’s cleanup aftermath
Williams presented photos of the county visit showing the maintained cemetery from last week.
Tuesday’s presentation included photos from after the cleanup, showing that trash bags had been left at the cemetery.
Williams criticized the effort because the bags had been left behind and county workers had to pick them up.
“If you’re going to go clean something up, please do it correctly,” Williams said. “You left junk behind — bags of trash behind. So you know who had to go and pick up that [trash bags] up? The county had to go pick this up, not on a scheduled routine basis.”
As for the leaves, Williams addressed the issue of leaves being left in the cemetery.
“The reason you want to have a little bit of leaves on the ground is leaves also help feed trees and allow water to be absorbed and filter slowly down to the layers of the soil in the trees,” Williams said. “The process of slow biodegrading of nature’s natural forest for materials feeds the trees, which allows the forest to maintain a healthy balanced ecosystem.”
Regarding the leaves and trash bags left behind, Hudspeth told the commissioners the leaves were all over the tombstones in the cemetery.
“When the Commissioners Court voted to set aside $20,000, one specific provision of that vote is that the trash that we accumulated would be hauled off at the county expense from the $20,000 in 2016 to pay for that for the removal of the leaves and fallen trees,” Hudspeth said. “That’s what we understood.”
Speaking to Williams, Hudspeth said he noted “some negativity in your comments, that by us cleaning it up and leaving the bags, somehow that was worse than all the leaves that were out there.”
Additionally, Stallings told the commissioners they still haven’t recognized the research paper published by Jessica Luther Rummel, a researcher and activist, explaining the events that led to the cemetery becoming landlocked and inaccessible to the public for more 80 years.
Her research claims fraudulent land transactions between 1918 and 1938 resulted in the cemetery becoming landlocked and inaccessible.
County historical plaque for St. John’s
Also during Tuesday’s meeting, Williams presented a mockup of a proposed new gate for the cemetery and a request for a historical context sign.
“This is kind of a mockup that I’ve asked to be put together,” Williams said. “And I’m not sure how we’re going to fund it. But I want you to realize that is something that’s on my to-do list.”
Riddle said the request for a historical context sign was approved in January.
“We will be able to get a medallion that says ‘historic cemetery,’” Riddle told the commissioners.
