Volunteers lead revitalization of Fort Worth’s oldest cemetery as historic site turns 175

by David Moreno, Fort Worth Report
November 16, 2025

Sam Cantey IV, 84, remembers visiting the Pioneers Rest Cemetery for the first time while on a sixth grade field trip and feeling an instant pull to the historic place. 

The cemetery stands as Fort Worth’s oldest burial ground, containing the graves of the city’s founders and some early settlers. 

Cantey and his classmates spent most of the visit running across the cemetery looking through the gravestones, he said. 

“One of my classmates said ‘Stop, stop you’re walking on my ancestors,’” he recalled with a chuckle.

That memory stuck with Cantey for over seven decades and serves as a foundation for why he’s found his way back to Pioneers Rest as one of several volunteers leading revitalization efforts at the 175-year-old cemetery.

For Melanie Smith, president of the cemetery’s association, it’s important to keep the historic place alive as Fort Worth continues to grow, especially after the city’s population surpassed 1 million residents. 

“We have to look back where we came from to know where we’re going,” she said.

Reminder of city’s past

Pioneers Rest is nearly as old as the military outpost of Fort Worth itself. 

In 1850, Dr. François Ignace Gouhenant donated about 3 acres of land to Maj. Ripley Allen Arnold — the city’s founder — as a burial site for his two deceased children, Sophie and Willis. 

Eleven soldiers from the Fort were also buried at the site around the same time, according to a Texas Historical Commission marker inside the cemetery’s main gates. 

As the city grew, the cemetery became the final resting place for many of its early settlers, including Arnold and the county’s namesake Gen. Edward H. Tarrant, who was a former commander of troops at Fort Worth. 

The cemetery gained another roughly 3 acres in 1871. 

Pioneers Rest now encompasses approximately 7 acres, which are bounded by a set of railroad tracks toward the back of the burial grounds and apartment buildings and townhomes near its entrance on Samuels Avenue. Interments at this site are no longer frequent. 

In early 2021, some burial descendants noticed the neglected grounds had become overwhelmed with tall grass, overgrown trees and deteriorating infrastructure. 

Smith stepped up to lead the Pioneers Rest Cemetery Association with a mission of making it a prime destination for North Texas community members and anyone interested in learning about early settlers. 

“There had been members who really thought the best thing for the cemetery was to fly under the radar and not bring any attention, but there were several of us who were able to come in and change that,” said Smith, who has several relatives buried on the site. 

One volunteer, Teresa Wilson, oversees efforts to digitize the cemetery’s records. Others, like Todd and Marcia Norris, live in a townhome across the street and serve as the site’s guardians to ensure no one vandalizes the property. 

By August 2023, the group began placing QR codes next to certain graves in Pioneers Rest to provide visitors with biographies and photographs of the people buried there. The project was supported by a $2,000 grant from the Tarrant County Historical Society.

“It makes a cemetery a much more human place,” archivist and volunteer Shelley Gayler-Smith previously said. “It’s not just some spooky place that you should never go into. It’s a place that is very human.” 

The following year, Fort Worth council members approved a $50,000 contribution to the group as part of a $153,000 project to restore the cemetery’s front gate and preserve The Sexton’s Cottage built around 1920. 

Still, the Pioneers Rest Cemetery Association knows there is more work to be done to return the site to its former glory. 

Restoring more of the site

The association is in the midst of fundraising to replace several broken headstones and repair broken fencing throughout the burial grounds. Restoring those can be a challenge as some families step away from financially supporting the gravestone of a relative they don’t know, said Smith. 

“You have third great-grandparents that are so far removed in generations that families have quit telling their children about tending the graves,” she said. “It’s hard to get those families to feel compelled to donate.”

Volunteers also hope to secure funds to complete a full ground penetrating radar survey to help them fill in the blanks in their records. A survey of the entire 7 acres would be around $8,000, said Smith. 

Some burial sites may extend beyond the site’s current borders with other unmarked graves yet to be discovered, said cemetery volunteer Cecelia Rollins Van Donselaar. 

“There’s no telling what all we would find,” she said. “It would give us a more accurate picture of other artifacts.”

Despite the list of projects left to complete, Smith and members of the cemetery’s association are proud of the progress they’ve made. They frequently see people either stop to take a look at the historic markers or take strolls through the grounds.

“A lot of people are really interested in the cemetery, because it’s visible and we’re visible,” Smith said. “It’s a major difference from several years back.” 

It’s important because, who knows: The next child who visits the cemetery might walk away with a deeper understanding of Fort Worth’s early settlers — the same way Cantey did all those years ago. 

David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.

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