Submitted by: Jean Hancock
Last surveyed: Spring 2003
The Hancock Family Cemetery, is located one mile west of Mexia, Limestone Co.,
Texas on U.S. Hwy 84.
It is owned and maintained by the Hancock Family Cemetery Association.
It was first used by the Pioneering Hancock family in 1865 and was last used in
1939. There are several marked graves with no headstones,
with just rocks or pipes stuck in the ground.
The Hancock Cemetery was established about 1860 and the oldest grave is that of Frances Frankye Adams Hancock who was buried April 23, 1865. Frances, mother to 16 children, was the mother of Limestone County pioneers Charles Jackson, Bluford Jordan, and Lewis R. Hancock. Frances, her sons and their families, moved to Missouri from Sycamore Creek, Tennessee shortly before coming to Texas in a wagon. Two great-uncles of the Hancock brothers had gone from Boonesborough to help settle parts of Missouri with Daniel Boone.
At the time they had reached the Red River, the trails of the emigrants converged at the river crossings. where they used the welcome respite to repair their wagons, shoes, and harnesses and to spend a day or two trading among themselves. Upon reaching Cedar Island, Limestone Co., Texas on a bleak fall afternoon October 26, 1854, they pitched their tents a few miles west of present day Mexia, Limestone County, Texas and unloaded their household goods in a field. A few days later they found an old abandoned log house, which had neither floor, door nor chimney where they remained during that cold winter.
It was near this site that they built their first cotton gin, after the Civil War. The tank dam that retained water for the boiler is visible as a dirt mound today. Pressure in the press that compacted the 500 pound bale was applied with a mule. Later they built a gin at Cedar Island, about four miles west. They wanted to expand even more, so they bought considerable black land north of present day Coolidge, Texas. They built a cotton gin and a community sprang up around it. This settlement was known as "Hancock" and is so called today, even though the only evidence of the settlement is the mound of dirt that forms the gin tank.
Lewis Ross Hancock was postmaster of Hancock, Limestone Co., Texas January 25,
1886. Bluford Jordan Hancock was co-owner of the
Hancock & Adamson mercantile. Their brother Charles was a cattleman and ran the
family-owned cotton gin.
The last person buried in the cemetery was Lucinda C. Bennett Hancock, wife of Lewis Ross Hancock, on April 22, 1939.
There are many Hancock descendants still living in Limestone County and
surrounding counties today and carry on the family traditions
of being stockmen, merchants, and educators. The cemetery is still owned and
maintained by the Hancock Family Cemetery Association today.
(The left side, below, gives the person's info and the right side tells what else is on tombstone---information in parentheses, under person's name, is info from Hancock family files)
A. C. Hancock 5-4-1826/11-17-1904 wife of C. J. Hancock
(neé Archasia Clementine Warren)
(Charles Jackson Hancock)
C. J. Hancock 1-18-1823/11-20-1903
(Charles Jackson)
Lucinda Hancock 10-15-1857/4-22-1939 wife of Lewis R.
(neé Lucinda C. Bennett)
(Lewis Ross Hancock)
DOUBLE MARKER
L. R. Hancock, Sr. 5-25-1829/5-21-1893
(son of C. J. and A.C. Hancock)
Mary Hancock 6-15-1838/3-11-1895
(neé UNK)
Hellen Blanch Hancock 5-7-1886/1-20-1887 Dau. of B. F. and J. A. Hancock
(Benjamin Franklin and James Anna Smith Hancock)
William C. Hancock 12-31-1874/9-5-1876 son of L.R. & L.C. Hancock
(William Charles Hancock)
(Lewis Ross & Lucinda Bennett Hancock)
Frances Hancock 1-8-1794/4-23-1865 "Mother"
(neé Frances Frankye Adams, wife of Lewis Hancock--not Lewis Ross)
DOUBLE MARKER
Ollie Hancock 3-4-1835/6-5-1876
(neé Olivia Adamson, wife of Bluford Jordan Hancock)
B. J. Hancock, Sr. 2-17-1833/11-11-1898
(Bluford Jordan--there is no evidence that there was a B. J. Jr. even though he
did have a nephew named after him who is buried in the Coolidge
Cemetery.)
Lillie M. (Maude) Hopkins
2-3-1886/10-17-1890 dau. of M. E.&N. F. Hopkins
(Marvin Dee and Nancy Frances Hancock Hopkins)
Lila M (Myrtle) Hopkins 2-17-1882/5-16-1893 dau. of M. E.& N. F.Hopkins
(Marvin Dee and Nancy Frances Hancock Hopkins)
The rest of the graves are not direct Hancock family members as far as is known
although some of them may have been related by marriage.
The family was told that Bluford and Frances Hancock allowed others (from
Datura and Coolidge) to be buried there as they did not have their own
cemetery.
William P. Odom 4-3-1887/4-29-1887 son of W. N. & S. A. Odom
Isham B. Cogdell 3-30-1854/1-10-1894
Maria R. McCullough 4-5-1848/8-7-1897 wife of George McCullough
S. M. Bond 1-1-1860/12-26-1900 wife of S. M. Bond
Carl N. Henderson 7-14-1905/3-9-1907 son of T. A.& N. L. Henderson
A. J. Hayes 5-16-1833/12-27-1892
Eliza C. Lowe 6-16-1862/7-15-1894 Wife of J. B. Lowe