Odom Cemetery - Grandview, TX - Worldwide Cemeteries on Waymarking.com

On November 2, 2019, the Johnson County Historical Commission dedicated a plaque here, affixed to the cemetery sign. While there is no historical marker with text, the Historical Commission's News and Events page provided some good reading:

Rev. Simeon Odom and family moved from Mississippi to Texas in 1845 eventually settling approximately 5 miles east of Grandview in January 1851. Rev. Odom erected a house and small log school used also as a church. He is said to have preached the first Methodist sermon in Johnson County, Texas.

Rev. Odom later donated land for a church and cemetery and did the same for nearby Auburn. He served on Johnson County's first Grand Jury which met under a mesquite tree as no building was available.

Simeon and Sarah Odom's youngest daughter Rebecca (1859-1862) is the earliest marked grave in Odom Cemetery.

In 1864 during the War Between the States, Rev. Odom left for Louisiana intending to visit his wounded son. Simeon Odom made it only as far as Nacogdoches County where he became ill, died and is buried there.

Find A Grave lists 201 memorials inside Odom Cemetery with several others nearby across the road on private land. Surnames of larger families buried there include Bennett, Bean, Edwards, Ellis, Foster, Kiker, Kirkland, Laird, Ledbetter, Odom, Roden, Terry, and Thacker.

Odom's 2 most interesting stones likely depict the same event - the hanging of 28-year-old Robert Tucker from Missouri. 3 newspapers date the event around Sept. 11, 1860 "in the presence and with the approval of 300 delegates of Vigilance Committees" from Johnson and 6 surrounding counties. Stories refer to Tucker as a "notorious horse thief" and state that he not only confessed but also "implied many citizens of fair reputation". One stone at Odom states he was "hung…about 1/2 mile due east of here in a big oak tree."

More recent burials at Odom include Leonard "Jay" Beal III (1944-2010) and his father Leonard Jackson "Big Bear" Beal, Jr. (1923-2012) both of Native American descent, military veterans and appointees to the Johnson County Historical Commission. The Big Bear Native American Museum west of Cleburne is named for the elder Beal and houses much of his collection of artifacts.

Odom Cemetery is under the supervision of the Grandview Cemetery Association for perpetual care and maintenance.

Johnson County Historical Commission is proud to recognize Odom Cemetery as a Designated Historic Landmark in Johnson County, Texas.

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Actually, a walk of the cemetery reveals that the earliest dated headstone in the cemetery belongs to Thomas Howard, who died in 1857. The reference to Rebecca Odom, as well as the grave of the horse thief, probably means that the grounds were used for burials prior to Simeon Odom's officially granting the property for cemetery use.

City, Town, or Parish / State / Country: Grandview, TX Approximate number of graves: 200+ Cemetery Status: Active Cemetery Website: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   07/30/2020 QuarrellaDeVil visited it