Cope Cemetery - Tarrant County

Tarrant County Section

The small Cope Family Cemetery in Tarrant County can be reached by traveling east on Broad Street, over Highway 360, to Day-Miar Road. At the end of Day-Miar Road, the old Loyd Burchill's place, the cemetery is located about 500 feet north of the barn in a pasture. Old barbed wire fencing surrounds the site and a small white wooden cross was on the site. There are no visible headstones or grave markers.

There are four known burials at the cemetery:

  • Nick Wisrock
  • Mary Wisrock
  • The infant daughter of Patrick and Eliza Culley Day
  • Jennie Crisman

This small cemetery is representative of the burials of the early settlers of the area and is likely eligible for a Texas Historical Cemetery Designation.

Johnson County Section

Iddo Anderson Cope owned considerable land south of the community of Retta, just inside the Johnson County border. It was here, just northeast of his log cabin that he gave a portion of land for the Cope Cemetery. The first graves there are of two small children. They had eaten poke berries and became ill and died. Iddo Cope decided at once to give a plot of ground where family and community folk could be laid to rest. This was around 1850. Only brown sand rocks identify those first graves, and the graves of Tom and Betty Cope. Their daughter, Bessie and son Charles, have marked graves.

Just a few weeks before his death, Iddo Cope "stepped off" the large plot in order to provide an abstract for the land. The cemetery is surrounded by a fence. Ada (Cope) Garner and her husband worked with others in the community to keep the cemetery maintained. Pearl Timmons is largely responsible for the fence and worked tirelessly for the benefit of the cemetery. It was, and still is, strictly understood that no burial plot is to be sold. Iddo Cope expressed plainly that it is to be family and community burials. The rule is adhered to as he specified.

Twice a year, on the first Saturdays in June and October, "old-timers" and community residents held a general upkeep for the cemetery. Just outside the entrance gate is a dedication marker honoring Iddo Anderson Cope for his generous donation to the community.

The earliest known burial is that of Nick Wisrock.

Return to Local Cemeteries.