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SHACK CEMETERY - McKINNEY

VFW Hall, Church Street

In a thicket just west of the current VFW Hall there was a cemetery some 20 feet square that contained about 10 graves. The graves were marked with bois d'arc markers, or unmarked. For years the graveyard stood out in the middle of a plowed field. Someone finally plowed it under. No one knows who was buried here. It is thought to have been a colored cemetery. This is about the same area as Shack's hanging. Both cemeteries were written about by Capt. Roy Hall.

Shack Culwell was an 18-year-old black man who was hanged for killing a white man on August 18, 1882. He thought his boss, W. R. Norvell, had cheated him out of $3.10, so he killed him. The whole county attended the trial and they all went to watch the hanging. Shack was taken to a dead oak tree on the north side of town in a wagon with his coffin. He was supposedly buried at the foot of the tree where he was hanged. His grave was marked for a long time by a rail pen that was 10 feet in diameter. The sight of his grave is said to be about were Joe Ledbetter had his store. There are several historic accounts of Shack's hanging. Time was measured by Shack's hanging, whether things happened before or after the hanging.
Cemeteries of Collin County, Texas, Joy Gough