Dedication of Antioch Life Park Historical Cemetery Marker

by Jim Gaspard

On Saturday, June 25, 2022, a ceremony was held in Grand Prairie to dedicate a Texas Historical Cemetery marker for the Antioch Life Park Cemetery. The dedication was attended by descendants of the Jordan family, as well as Pastor Angela-Luckey Vaughn, State Representative Yvonne Davis, Grand Prairie City Council members Jorja Clemson and Jacquin Headon, Thom Aldredge, Dallas County Historical Commission members Elizabeth Gunby & Jim Gaspard, and numerous community residents.

The Antioch Cemetery was first established in 1881 when 200 acres of land were sold and one acre was reserved for a cemetery. The cemetery was shown to be adjacent to the Mose Jordan, Sr. cemetery for the formerly enslaved.

Mose Jordan, Sr., an African American enslaved person, came to the Grand Prairie area with his enslaver David Jordan in 1852. As early as the late 1850s, part of David Jordan’s land was used as a cemetery for enslaved people of the Jordan Plantation. After the Civil War, the Jordans freed their remaining nine enslaved people and divided fifty acres of land among them. Mose Jordan, Sr., along with two other families, established Freetown, also known as “The Line.” Freetown was a community of African Americans just east of Grand Prairie under what is now Mountain Creek Lake. The lake was impounded in the 1920s, and the Freetown Community resettled to the town of DalWorth.

The Antioch Baptist Church was built on the property in 1891, and over time, the cemeteries became one. It was an early gathering place for the Freetown Community, and the Live Stone Masonic Lodge was nearby. There are various historic-age monuments throughout the Antioch and old cemetery sections. Many burial sites in the old cemetery commemorate members of the Jordan Family. One known burial is Mose Jordan, Jr. These sections are surrounded by the new sections of what became to be known as American Memorial Park Cemetery. There are 89 known U.S. Armed Forces veterans buried in the cemetery who are recognized in ceremonies on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Renamed in 2016 to honor its historical roots, Antioch Life Park Cemetery is the final resting place for many named and unnamed earliest members of the Freetown and Dalworth Communities.

Reprinted with permission from the Summer 2022, Volume 21, Issue 2 edition of the Dallas County Chronicle, Dallas County Historical Commission.