Denton County commissioners voted to discontinue the county’s maintenance funding of St. John’s Cemetery on Tuesday. The cemetery, near Pilot Point, is where hundreds of Black residents were buried, some more than 100 years ago, but getting to the site to maintain and preserve it has proved difficult due to boundary issues.
For months, activists Willie Hudspeth and Chelsea Stallings have voiced their concerns about how the county maintains and preserves the cemetery, which sits between privately owned land and gated rights of way.
“We do not fund any other cemetery within the county,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Ryan Williams said Tuesday. “I think it’s right for us not to be paying for something that we don’t pay [for others in the county].”
Denton County commissioners approved funding to support the cemetery’s maintenance in 2016. Since then, the county says it spent about $107,000 to maintain St. John’s between 2016 to 2023.
County Judge Andy Eads said in March that the cemetery is surrounded by private land and is not county property. The cemetery currently belongs to the descendants of the individuals who purchased the land.
Stallings has told commissioners in previous meetings about research on events that led to the cemetery becoming landlocked and inaccessible to the public for more than 80 years.
Both Stallings and Hudspeth participated in a cleanup effort in March that led to a back-and-forth with Williams. The commissioner then presented visiting hours and a proposed county historical plaque for St. John’s Cemetery after the cleanup.
Williams said Tuesday it will now be up to the activists and individuals to maintain the cemetery.
“If they decide they want to put together, you know, efforts, I would be happy to help out personally as the commissioner ... that’s responsible for that area, but I totally agree with taking the funding away,” Williams said.
Stallings declined to comment to the Denton Record-Chronicle on the commissioners’ decision to discontinue funding for the cemetery. Hudspeth could not reached by phone by Tuesday afternoon.