WHERE DID THIS CEMETERY COME FROM???

                                                          BUCKNER CEMETERY
                                                             McKinney, Texas

Who knew?  Deak and I were out driving around this past Sunday and we stopped at Garden Center just off Hwy 380 just before you get into McKinney, Texas.  Now, the Garden Center was closed so we just parked the car and was walking around looking at their trees and plants they had for sale.  There is nothing but concrete around and behind the Garden Center because McKinney has a big Trade Days open to the public every 3rd Monday and this Garden Center is located right in front of the Trades Day lots.

So, we walk toward the back of the lot and MUCH TO MY SURPRISE what do you think I see......right in the middle of this parking lot there is a cemetery!!!!   HOLY COW!!!!  Who would ever guess there would be a cemetery right in the middle of this big parking lot!!!!  It is the strangest thing to see a cemetery with just a few graves in it, a couple of trees and a small fence around it.  Now is it haunted???  I don't know.... but you can bet I will find out!  It just sits there minding its own business with a few trees around it, like ...this is my place and I am NOT moving know matter what is around me, I was here first!!! LOL   And I have to tell you...it was a little sad to me to think that soooo many people visit this area every month and know one takes care of the cemetery.  The stones are all broken.  Some have been laid against trees but most are just laying on the ground.  You can tell, it needs a lot of TLC.

Now, this looks like an old map to me but
I tried to circle where the cemetery is.  But now,
when we were there, it seems that the Trades Day
has expanded the area and is all back behind the cemetery now.

You can clearly see concrete surrounding the cemetery.
 

So, what do you think the FIRST thing I did was when I got home???? You guessed it!!! I was on the internet looking up any and everything to do with Buckner Cemetery.


Now, I will say I couldn't find a lot on it, but the things I did find out, were VERY interesting.  Now, here's what I do know in summary...

Buckner was the first town in Collin County. It was named by John McGarrah for his home town of Buckner, Arkansas. When Collin County was formed in 1846 by the state of Texas, the residents were told to pick a county seat within 3 miles of the geographic center of the county and name it "Buckner." The residents picked the existing town of Buckner because it was the only town in the county. However, it was 7 miles from the center of the county. The exact center of the county is on the East Fork flood plain. Two sites were picked for the county seat. Eleven residents voted on the location of the county seat with 10 picking the present-day McKinney square location. They tried to name the county seat Buckner as instructed, but the post office said the name "Buckner" was already in use. The residents named the county seat "McKinney" after the man who was in the state legislature from this area, Collin McKinney. The stores in Buckner were literally dragged to the square in McKinney and the town of Buckner disappeared. There was a Kiowa Indian tribe that lived near Buckner. It was led by a chief named Spotted Tail. As long as the Kiowas lived there, no other Indians attacked the area.

The ancient McGarrah-O’Brien Cemetery is slightly Northeast of the site of Old Ft. Buckner, the first County Seat of Collin County, and is a part of John McGarrah’s headright. According to the Peters Colony book, “John McGarrah, a family man, came to Peters Colony in 1842 and claimed his headright of 640 acres. His patent was number 981.” He built a little store or trading post, primarily to trade with the Indians who brought in furs to trade for goods he sold in the little store. He is listed in the 1850 census of Collin County as a family man, age 45 and came to the area from Fayetteville, Arkansas, where the family migrated in 1821.

Only a few headstones remain in the old cemetery, but according to J. B. Wilmeth who was an elected official at the first election in 1846, it once had a large number of graves marked with Bois d’Arc slabs. (I know, I didn't know what Bois d' Arc slabs were either.  It is a type of wood that was very resilient to weather conditions.  It was often used as a marker for a grave and sometimes could even be carved into different shapes).

 

Those listed as buried there include:

Edna Fallis, wife of B. J. O’Brien, 1816 - 1897
Jane, wife of George W. O’Brien, Jan. 27, 1905 - Dec. 17, 1871
David O’Brien, March 4, 1808 - Nov. 1, 1885
Parmelia, wife of David O’Brien, June 27, 1823 - July 12, 1870
Franklin, son of David and Parmelia, July 23, 1853 - July 12, 1870
George W. O’Brien, Dec. 8, 1799 - June 30, 1876
Lorenzo J. Graves, 1818 - 1886
Reily, son of T. F. and A. F. Darnell, 1829 - 1880
Laurence, son of A. G. and N. J. Donaldson, 1879 - 1899
Mary Jane Donaldson, 1854 - 1886
Polly T. Graves, Sept. 22, 1822 - July 31, 1898

Then, too, the old Indian who lived with his small tribe near Buckner and is credited with saving the settlement from invasion of Comanche tribes is buried in an unmarked Christian grave at his own request (Kiowa chief, Spotted Tail). Chief Spotted Tail  has been called a hero because he helped bury people in the middle of the night so others would not have to who died in a smallpox epidemic in 1873. He died from smallpox himself  shortly after and was buried at the Buckner cemetery. He was given a white man's burial.

 

You can bet there will be a PART 2 to this story.  I will let you know what I find out about if it is haunted or not after I do an investigation.  CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

If you would like to read more about this cemetery here is a link:
http://www.oocities.org/heartland/estates/4167/cemeteries/bucknercem.htm
 

A small fence around several small graves
inside the main fence.

An infant grave inside the fence.

I think this may be the Bois d' Arc Slabs.

You can clearly see the parking lot
around the cemetery.

 

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A REAL FULL BODIED APPARITION??? I HAVE!!!

The Londoner which now
the Churchhill Pub.

Now, I have been investigating the paranormal for more than 30 years!!!!  Yes, I know....I was only 3 when I started....(LOL ok not really) but you get the point that I have done this for many years!!!  Long before there was a TV show on every channel, and the media was full of "reportedly" pictures of ghost....I was in my room as a teenager reading everything I could about the paranormal and going alone to cemeteries and haunted locations because if you told ANY of your friends what you were doing they would think you were NUTS!!!!

As you know, ghosts don't JUST APPEAR on command and they don't ALWAYS re-appear as you wish they would, unfortunately some of them seem to have a mind of their own!  Over the years, I can say I HAVE seen MANY, MANY strange things.....like...... countless shadows, unexplainable sounds, things moving on their own and SOME THINGS I wished I hadn't seen.....BUT the one thing that I can say for certain is...... I have only seen ONE, yes I said....... "only ONE" ......full bodied apparition!!!  It was not transparent.....it was not white or foggy.....nor did it scare me in any way! My apparition was a very beautiful young lady.  I will NEVER forget it as long as I live!!!

I had just moved to Lake Dallas, and really didn't have any friends in the area so I looked up a local ghost group to join.  I found a group in McKinney and loved them!  I started trying to attend their monthly meetings and investigations.  I am sorry, I can't remember the group name it was so long ago but I do remember the main leaders name being Windell. Now, from what I could tell, Windell and his wife had been doing this for some time and had even earned a little local notoriety.

It was sometime in early Oct. about 20 years ago and we had been contacted by, the then owner, of the Londoner, a pub/restaurant on the square in McKinney, Tx.  From a brothel in the late 1800's to the current day Pub/Restaurant with many twists along the way and full of local history it seemed we couldn't go wrong with this place.  The owner had complained of some paranormal activity and a local TV channel had gotten word of it and wanted to do a Halloween story on it.  So we were going to go do an investigation while a TV crew filmed us.  Sounded fun to me!!!!  Get to be on TV!!!!  I'm going to be a SUPER STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ok.....NOT!!!!!!!!!!!! 

The stairs up to the second floor.  Even they
look creepy!

Windell had tons of really cool equipment.  Some things I had never seen nor heard of, so I was sooooo excited about the investigation that I could hardly stand it!  So, we loaded up Windell's van and off we go.  As we arrive just around dusk....the owner was standing outside the Pub waiting on us.  I was on the equipment crew, so my job was to help unload the equipment and set up.  Windell and his wife were the lead investigators and they went on into the Pub and started interviewing the owner about his experiences.  Some of his reported paranormal activity was...that upstairs in his office(now the ladies restroom) he had a little pug dog that he let wonder around the restaurant after the Pub closed.  For whatever reason, this little dog would run and play all around the Pub but would REFUSE to come into the manager's office.  The owner said he had tried everything, picking him up and holding him as the owner sat at his desk...but the dog would just go crazy trying to get down and get out of his office!!!  The man said that the dog sometimes would even lay just on the outside of the door BUT NEVER came in! hhhuuummmm

 

He also told about a couple of the bartenders that were getting creeped out because they would put up clean glasses in the wire holder above the bar and all of the sudden.....these glasses would just START FLYING off the wire rack and crash into the floor!!!  This happened on more than one occasion!  Also, the people that would be staying late cleaning up at night, would say the doors would be locked(so no patriots would come in) and when they would go to leave for the night all the doors would be UNLOCKED!!!!  One employee even experienced as she was walking to the door to lock up for the end of the night the door FLEW OPEN all by itself!!!  It SCARED her so bad..... she ran out another door leaving the front door wide open, although the next morning, the morning staff said the door was locked and closed as it always was when they came in!

Now, let me tell you............this place is MOST DEFINITELY HAUNTED even today!!!!  I just ate there as recent as a couple weeks ago and was talking to the wait staff about the haunts and the young man I was talking with said, "oh yes!  We have stuff happen here all the time!"  And he proceeded to tell me a couple personal encounters he had had personally with the ghost or at least one of them.

Now, back to my story.  The first claim we wanted to check out was the report that the owners little Pug dog wouldn't come into his office.  The owner was even willing to give an uncooked STEAK from the kitchen to entice the dog with.  Well, right off the bat......the camera crews equipment was failing right and left.....either the batteries would suddenly be dead or their camera's would malfunction.  Now, we all know what THAT means!!!!  Anyway, the camera crew was really getting frustrated trying to film and having so much trouble.  We went upstairs where there is another dinning section, bar, over sized chairs  and a pool and dart board area.  Windell and his wife placed the steak on the floor right beside the manager's desk and ask the owner to set at the desk and call the dog.  Well...........just like the owner had said...........the little dog started barking and jumping around like he REALLY REALLY wanted to go in but just wouldn't!!!!  Our EMF meters were going off along with a couple of other pieces of equipment I can't recall, but I remember hearing Windell say......"that was one of the STRANGEST things he had ever seen!!  That dog WILL NOT go in!"  What could be the reason for that....

The bar and bar stools.

This is where I walked by the bar stools
and they were all in a roll up against
the bar like they should have been.

One of the MOST AMAZING experiences I can remember......was that we were all around the manager's office and I needed to go get some more batteries....I know that is hard for you to believe that a ghost hunter would need MORE batteries LOL....but I walked ALONE down to the other end of the bar on the second floor as we had left all our bags on the far end of the bar out of the way.  I turned around and walked pass the bar where there wasn't ANYONE but me in this area....and walked pass the bar stools sitting upright nice and neatly up against the bar itself........and in less than 3 minutes literally...........I grabbed a hand full of new batteries and turned around to walk back.................and I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW!!!!!

I tried to draw how the bar stools were
so you guys could understand a little better.

The view looking back toward the pool tables,
and where the old manager's office was.
 

ALL the bar stools were ON TOP of the bar standing upright!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  There probably was 6 to 8 bar stools all nicely sitting on TOP of the bar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  THERE WAS NO WAY THIS WAS POSSIBLE!!!!!!  I yelled at Windell and said "LOOK at the bar stools! They weren't like that just  a few minutes ago and there was NO ONE here but me!!!!!! No one could believe it because they were all on the other end and for someone to do that, first of all..... the chairs are very heavy and it would have taken someone some time to get all of them up on the bar!!! It wouldn't have been easy!!!  CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!


The boots "the lady in blue" had on looked similar
to these.

I looked and looked and this was as close
to the dress that "the lady in blue" wore.

After a long night it was time to pack up and head out so I started caring out the equipment to the van.  As I walked out to the van which was parked up the city square a bit....  it was just me and I had my hands full trying to make it to the van without dropping anything!  I put everything in the van and turned around and started to walk back to the Pub.  As I walked back I looked up  and saw this lady, a very pretty lady, sitting on a bench, sitting very straight and very proper with her hands slightly crossed one over the other wearing white gloves with a small beaded bag or purse that had a string that was wrapped around one of her wrist as the purse draped over her dress.   Her dress was baby blue with a white panel insert that almost looked like an apron. I could see her shoes sticking out from the bottom of the lace on her dress which looked like a black boot with shoe laces that crisscrossed down the center of the boot.  Her hair was very dark and was up in a bun.  She NEVER looked at me....she just sat there smiling..............looking across the street.  It seemed that she was unaware that anyone or anything was around her.  She looked very pretty just sitting there on the bench.  I remember STOPPING DEAD IN MY TRACKS because I had been back and forth to the van may times that night and NEVER saw or NOTICED her before!!!  Now, it wasn't like a flash.....I was able to STUDY her appearance as I was confused thinking that it was one of those "lifelike" sculptures that you sometimes see made out of concrete that sit on the outside of historical buildings.  But the funny thing was..... I JUST didn't remember seeing her before and I think I would have noticed that there was a figure like that on the bench?????


This is not "the lady in blue".  But it kinda
looks like the way I remember her just a little.

The bench where I saw "the lady in blue".



I probably looked at her for 10-15 seconds thinking HOW lifelike she looked!!!  Then I just went on into the Londoner.  When I got back inside Windell was standing in the doorway talking to the owner and I said " that sure is a pretty figure of a lady on the bench outside".  The OWNER looked at me with such a funny look!!!!  He said, "we don't have a figure of a lady sitting on a bench outside".  I said, "yes you do........ I just now saw her".

The owner suddenly had a little quirky smile on his face and said, "what color dress did she have on?"  and I said "blue why?"  He said that was a spirit that is seen quit often sitting on that bench, but we didn't tell you guys about it because we were focusing on the Pub.  I couldn't help it!!!  I RAN back outside COMPLETELY CONVINCED that I was still going to see a lady in a blue dress sitting quietly on a bench......BUT............... as I looked to the corner..............I saw the bench............BUT NO LADY IN BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!  I just couldn't believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!



McKinney, Tx

The best I can so NO COMMENTS, I tried
to draw how I remember my first experience
with a full bodied apparition.

The owner told me that  "the lady in blue" is believed to be the wife of a cotton farmer that died.  They used to bring their cotton crop to town to sell on Sundays.  So, is she just picking up where he left off?  For whatever reason, she sits quietly on the bench, I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to met her.

The ladies bathroom where they had to screw the picture to the wall because it would fall down all the time all on its own.


These are the same bar stools that I
saw mysteriously standing on top of the bar!!! 

The ladies bathroom where reports they
had to screw the picture to the wall because
it would fall down all by itself.  This is where
the old manager's office was that we couldn't
get the little dog to come into.








The now Churchhill Pub.