Elusive Elizabethtown

Coming from Denton I’ve passed the Buc ee’s and turned down highway 114 on more than one occasion. Off to the south of this highway I’ve

Highway sign

noticed a hotel, a gas station or two, and some apartments. What I didn’t know is that this was once the location of Elizabethtown, Texas. On a lovely, but cold and windy Monday Dave and I decided to go exploring.








Elizabethtown was originally located on the north side of Elizabeth Creek. As with lots of little Texas towns, it was initially settled by folks from Peters Colony in the early 1850s. The little settlement was a supply

Elizabeth Creek

station for cowboys driving their herds north to Kansas. At one time the town boasted a church, homes, a business, a school with twenty-five students, six saloons, a hotel, and a post office. The town was founded by Peter and Anna Harmonson. They, along with George Harper, the doctor and postmaster; Amos Bullard, Newton Chance, and M. H. Smith, the blacksmiths; Sewell Brown, a merchant; James Snyder, a wagon maker; and Robert Wright, a carpenter laid the groundwork for establishing a thriving community. Two issues, however, kept Elizabethtown from becoming wildly successful: the Civil War and the path of the Texas and Pacific Railway.

During the Civil War, the west frontier went largely undefended from Indian attack and Elizabethtown sat on the edge of that boundary;

Top and bottom: Doorstep headstones

families were moved farther east into Denton County for safety. However, once the war was over the town began growing, adding general stores, a hotel and livery stable, Baptist and Methodist churches, and a Masonic lodge. Camp meetings were a popular pastime, when weather permitted, drawing large crowds. On one such evening the lights from the meeting drew so many bugs that the preaching was stopped; for a while Elizabethtown was nicknamed ‘Bug Town’. The final blow to the little settlement came in 1881 when the railroad bypassed it by two miles, making Roanoke the train depot. Residents moved two miles east, leaving Elizabethtown abandoned.

The Elizabeth Cemetery, which is still active, is all that remains of what was the first town in southwest Denton County. Land for the cemetery was donated by William Petty Harmonson, the youngest son of the

Citizen of the Republic of Texas medallion

founders of Elizabethtown, although this acreage had been in use as a graveyard some years before his parents’ deaths. The earliest identified graves are from 1862 and 1863; the Harmonsons died in 1865 and 1867. Currently there are about 300 well marked graves in the Elizabeth Cemetery with perhaps 190 more that are marked but illegible, unmarked, or lost entirely. We did find an interesting set of medallions on some of the headstones. The ‘Citizen of the Republic of Texas’ marker is used to indicate graves or commemorative markers of people who lived in The Republic of Texas prior to February 19, 1846 (Texas became a state on December 29, 1845). These are furnished by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.  Another practice that I hadn’t noticed in other graveyards is the recording of wedding date on some of the tombstones. The man’s and woman’s birth and death dates were listed under their names, but their wedding date was placed between them on a common headstone. As with many early cemeteries, there are lots of graves for children; infant mortality was high in the 19^th century. There are also markers for veterans of our many wars. Would that we never again had a reason to honor their sacrifice. 

Top L to R: World War II markers, Plaque for a Deputy
Bottom L to R: Korea veteran, Vietnam veteran

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