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We preserved 28 headstones at the L. Butler Nelson
Cemtery (a large black cemetery) located next to Lincoln
High School. Along with repairing these headstones Frances James
shared the history of some very interesting African American that
are interred here at this cemetery. So, we will also share
their history with you on this page. Both of these headstones were
repaied by NTCP in this project.
Benjamin
F. Darrell
1856-1919
Benjamin
Franklin Darrell was born in Winchester, Tennessee in 1856. He was educated
in local schools and was fortunate to attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. This University was
founded in 1866 by the American Missionary Association as a liberal
arts institution committed to educate the newly freed slaves.
Darrell was a graduate of Fisk University with both a
Bachelor and Masters Degree from this institution. While enrolled in
this University, Benjamin Darrell took an active part in the choral
organizations. The Jubilee Singers toured the United States and Europe, in 1871 and again in 1873. The money
the eleven singers raised during these concerts was used to erect
the first permanent building on the campus.
After
teaching for several years in Tennessee, Benjamin Darrell came to Dallas. He
lived on State
Street and in 1908. B.F. Darrell became
principal of Colored School No. 1, an elementary school located at
Santa Fe and Canton
Street near downtown Dallas. This
was one of the original frame schools built in 1884 when free public
schools were first organized in Dallas. This school was later named
Wright
Cuney School.
B.F.
Darrell had a rich tenor voice and his interest in music and his
voice training that had developed when he was in college was quite
impressive. He led the children in Sunday School at the St. James
A.M.E. Church.
In 1917
he became the principal of Booker T. Washington High School and died
mid-semester in 1919.
When a new elementary school was built in the 1980s at
4730 Lancaster
Road, it was named for B.F. Darrell.
There is a headstone for B.F. Darrell on the ground at the L. Butler
Nelson Cemetery that says Fred Douglas Temple 707 Dallas, Texas.
Claypools in Dallas
In the
L. Butler Nelson Cemetery east of the concrete culvert that divides
the cemetery near Hatcher Street is a broken
stone that says Claypool. One of the great, granddaughters of Robert
H. Claypool, who lives in Fresno,
California inquired over the
Internet if there was any information about the Claypools at
Woodland Cemetery. There is the name
Claypool noted on the inventory made by the Boy Scouts in 2003,
described as a broken base with the name Claypool inscribed on
it. When the California
descendant was contacted with this information she sent some
documentation she had about Robert H. Claypool. Since the inventory
was completed, next to this base is another headstone that has just
been found that had been covered with dirt and grass for a very long
time that says, Harriet Claypool, August 18, 1840 to February 20,
1910. This is the headstone for Robert Claypool’s mother who was
born in Kentucky. (NTCP has now repaired this
headstone as seen in the picture above.)
Robert
H. Claypool was born in Dallas in 1862. His mother, Eliza
Harriet Fisher Claypool, and father, Mason Claypool, had come to
Texas from Kentucky.
Mason Claypool worked as an engineer at the cottonseed mill near the
Trinity River in 1870. Robert Claypool
married a widow, Sallie Kimber Clark who had one son, Willie Clark
born in the January 1885. Sallie and Robert did
not have children of their own, but Robert adopted Willie as his own
and helped raise his grandchildren.
Robert
Claypool was aware of the Oklahoma Land Rush and went to Oklahoma to
see what he could do. He did not participate in acquiring any of the
five portions of the Cherokee holdings that had been guaranteed by
treaty in 1838. After the Civil War, white settlers and the
railroads wanting to sell land along their right-of-way pressured
the Federal Government to open up this federal land for settlement.
A method was devised to give each Indian in the thirty or more
tribes, eighty acres each and the remaining land would be opened up
for pioneers in 160 acre sections. The first Land Rush was April 22,
1889 and the last was 1893. Robert Claypool
purchased 160 acres of land in Iowa Township, Lincoln County, Oklahoma from someone in 1901. His
name appears on the county records in 1903 as a landowner. The land he purchased
was from the original landowner.
Robert
farmed his acquisition growing many types of crops to sell and feed
his family. He also raised horses and cattle, the older members of
the family would talk about riding horses when they visited their
grandfather. He donated land for the railroad when it passed by
their community. Robert donated land for a church and had a school
house built for the children. Sallie who was born in
1866 died in 1927 in Dudley, Oklahoma and is buried in a small
cemetery. Her headstone is still visible. Dudley as a town has disappeared, but, this
cemetery remains.
Through
the years Robert would leave the farm to seek work elsewhere, while
Sallie stayed on the farm. Dallas City Directories listed him in
1894-95 as the driver for M.D. Garlington who was in the wholesale
fruit and vegetable business. Other Claypool family members lived in
a house owned by Robert at 2321 Munger. He stayed here while working
in Dallas.
Robert
H. Claypool had lived for the last fourteen years of his life in
Dallas and in 1943 after many years
of very hard work, spent two days in the Pinkston Clinic in August
but died of diabetes at 81 years of age. He had had this
disease for nine years.
His will describes the land
he owned in Oklahoma and Dallas and who
he left it to. An eighty-acre tract in Oklahoma is
still owned by his great, grand children and has now been in the
family for 103 years. This Texas Historical
Grave Marker placed next to his broken headstone at the L. Butler
Nelson Cemetery will explain to all what a life he led and the
legacy he left.
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