Nestled between an apartment complex and a neighborhood of single-family homes — unnerving and intriguing generations of neighborhood children — lies a 3-acre swath of land that serves as a final resting place for early farmers and settlers to northeast Dallas. Whites on one side, blacks on the other. Several Jackson family members are buried on the white side (see Ardelia p. 24). A freed slave named Bonner rests on the other — he is known to have purchased little pieces of land as he could afford them, and he became a millionaire after Medical City Hospital compensated him for certain parcels. (Hence, Bonner Park, north of Central). According to local historian Frances James, it was Bonner’s onetime owner, Mahulda Bonner McCree, who donated the land in 1866 that became the public McCree graveyard. The two are, of course, buried on opposite sides of the fence.
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