Oak Ridge Cemetery

Oak Ridge Cemetery. . Beginning as part of a rural community under the leadership of Arthur McFarland, S.D. Johnston and Joel Hulsey, who served as trustees for land purchased on June 19, 1874, Oak Ridge Cemetery was first established by the Hulsey family. Two acres of land were conveyed by Joel Hulsey's son, John Wesley, and his wife, Naomi E. (Burnett), for use as a school and a cemetery. A school and church were soon built in 1879. The school closed in 1940, but the church known as Oak Ridge Church of Christ remains to this day. , Initially known as the Hulsey Cemetery, the Oak Ridge Cemetery contains the graves of several early Fannin County Hulseys, including Joel T. Hulsey and his sons, John Wesley, Wiley, Simeon, and William. Though the land was dedicated as a cemetery in 1874, records show that the land had already been used as a burial ground with the oldest burial being from 1860. The first document with the Oak Ridge Cemetery name to have been used was in 1939. The cemetery has grown through the years with the Russell family, also descendants of the Hulsey family, having donated parcels of land both in 1972 and 1993. Many veterans from the Civil War, world war one, world war two, Korea, and Vietnam wars are buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery. A veterans memorial granite marker was dedicated near the iron gate in 2006 in their memory. , The Oak Ridge Cemetery Association formed in 1958 to provide maintenance for the burial grounds. Many of the Hulsey descendants still attend the Oak Ridge Cemetery annual homecoming on the first Saturday in May.