Merritt Cemetery is one of several in Titus County that must, at this time, be considered lost. According to Lynch Harper in his “Titus County Cemeteries” there once was a standing monument but this research failed to rediscover it. None of the locals interviewed recalled the cemetery. According to Harper the cemetery was found on land found in Abstract A-568, the W. B. Taylor Headright Survey once owned by J. K. McKinnon. No deed mentions the cemetery. He further states that about the turn of the century (1898) there was a race riot in Cookville with several killed on both sides. As a result of the killings, the African-Americans abandoned the area and congregated further north, forever abandoning the cemetery and the Cookville community. The monument Harper located was for one, Hattie Eaton, wife of Horace Eaton who died June 5, 1886. It had the inscription “Gone to Rest”.