Turnbow Cemetery

Kentucky native Chesley Turnbow wed Sabra Rose of Tennessee in 1827. They lived in Tennessee and later in Arkansas before moving to Texas in the 1850s. By the 1870s they had settled on land at this site. The cemetery began as a family burial ground in 1879 with the interment of their grandchild, Henry Lee Rose, the infant son of Granville and Mary (Turnbow) Rose. In April of the following year Dovie Powell, the daughter of Louis Blake and Louisa (Chaddock) Powell, was buried in a nearby grave. That same month Chesley Turnbow, patriarch of the Turnbow family in Erath County, died and was buried near his grandson. Seven of his ten children are also among those buried here. Although the cemetery was established by the 1880s, it was not formally set aside until 1940. The donors were the heirs of William and Lettie Fox, Tennessee natives who moved to Erath County about 1870 and later purchased the Turnbow property. Individuals buried at this site include members of the Turnbow family, other pioneer settlers and their descendants, longtime residents of the surrounding rural community, and veterans of military conflicts, beginning with the Civil War. (1988).