Bradley Cemetery
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Edward Bradley, his wife Nancy, and their family came to this area from Kentucky in the 1840s as members of the Peters Colony. They built a log home on a branch of Wilson's Creek in the southwest part of present McKinney. A hillside near the Bradley home became the site of a family graveyard. The original cemetery covered about an acre of land. Though begun as a family cemetery, other members of the small community were eventually interred here. Eleven original headstones remain in the cemetery. There are believed to be a number of unmarked graves, as well. South of this plot a slave cemetery was located in a wooded area, the graves marked with bois d'arc wood markers. The oldest documented grave is that of Edward Bradley (1787-1855). Nancy Bradley (d.1880), and their son and daughter-in-law, Thomas T. (d.1881) and Sarah J. (d.1876) Bradley, are also buried here. Others interred in the cemetery include Dr. David Maclay (d.1859), six-month-old William B. Pulliam (d.1863), and Susan R. Parrish and her child, who died within months of each other in 1861. The historic Bradley Cemetery serves as a reminder to Collin County residents of their area's heritage. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Edward Bradley brought his family from Kentucky in the 1840s as members of the Peters Colony, building a log home on a branch of Wilson's Creek in what is now McKinney. A nearby hillside became the family graveyard and then a community cemetery, holding eleven marked headstones and many unmarked graves — including, in a wooded plot to the south, an enslaved people's cemetery marked with bois d'arc wood. The oldest documented burial is Edward Bradley himself, who died in 1855.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves both a pioneer family's story and the segregated resting place of the people they enslaved, a stark record of frontier settlement built on slavery.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1840s, North Texas was frontier country. Texas was an independent republic for most of that decade, and it was eager to fill its open lands with farmers. To attract settlers it granted large tracts to colonization companies, which recruited families and offered them land.
The Peters Colony was one of the best known of these ventures. It covered a large stretch of what is now the Dallas–Fort Worth region and the counties north of it. It drew settlers mainly from the Upper South and Midwest, including many from Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, who came looking for free or cheap land.
Those settlers brought their own way of life with them, and for some that included slavery. Texas joined the United States in 1845 as a slave state, and enslaved people were part of the settlement of Collin County. Their labor and their lives are woven into the region's early history, even when the records about them are thin.
People & events
Edward Bradley, his wife Nancy and their family left Kentucky in the 1840s to join the Peters Colony. They built a log home on a branch of Wilson's Creek, in what is now the southwest part of McKinney. A log cabin was the standard first home on the Texas frontier, built from whatever timber grew along the creeks.
On a hillside near the house, the family began a graveyard. Edward himself, born in 1787, is the oldest documented burial; he died in 1855. Nancy died in 1880, and their son Thomas T. Bradley and his wife Sarah J. are buried here too. Over time the cemetery grew beyond the family. Neighbors were laid to rest here as well, including Dr. David Maclay, a six-month-old boy named William B. Pulliam, and Susan R. Parrish and her child, who died within months of each other in 1861. Each of these graves holds a story of frontier hardship and loss.
Only eleven original headstones survive, and there are believed to be unmarked graves as well. To the south, in a wooded area, was a separate cemetery for enslaved people. Their graves were marked with bois d'arc wood, a hard, rot-resistant wood from the Osage orange tree that grows across this region. Their names are not recorded on the marker, and that silence is part of the story.
Its place in the American story
Bradley Cemetery is a small window onto how the American frontier was settled. Families like the Bradleys moved west in waves, carrying their households, their customs and often their enslaved workers into new territory. Family plots like this one were common across rural America before towns established public cemeteries.
The separate slave cemetery is especially important. Across the South, enslaved people were often buried apart, in graves marked with wood or fieldstone that weathered away or were lost over time. Many such burial grounds have vanished entirely. The fact that this one is recorded on a marker at all helps keep the memory of enslaved Texans from disappearing.
The marker was placed during the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986, when communities across the state marked 150 years since Texas independence. Its message, that this place is a reminder of local heritage, invites visitors to remember everyone buried here, recorded or not.
If you visit
Cemeteries are places of rest and remembrance, so visit respectfully. Look for the surviving headstones and notice the dates on them. Many fall in the 1850s through 1880s, the generation that settled this part of Collin County.
Keep in mind what you can't see. The marker notes unmarked graves, and the enslaved people's cemetery to the south was marked only with wood. Standing here is a chance to think about the lives that left no written trace.
The cemetery fits well into a day exploring McKinney, whose historic downtown square is a short drive away. Together they show how a frontier family's log cabin on Wilson's Creek eventually became part of a busy North Texas city.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Edward Bradley
- · Nancy Bradley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
George McGarrah Cemetery
McKinney, TX
George McGarrah brought his family to this corner of North Texas in the 1840s as a member of the Peters Colony, having already left his mark as a builder in Fayetteville, Arkansas. On his own land he set aside a small family burying ground, becoming its first occupant in 1879. Its ten graves hold three generations of his family—and, in an unmarked plot, a person he had enslaved.
Scott Cemetery
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Scott Cemetery began in the 1850s on the land of pioneer James Preston Scott, whose two-year-old granddaughter, Mary C. Taylor, was the first person buried here. Among its more than 200 graves — at least 30 of them unmarked — are two enslaved people, Jake and Rhoda, laid to rest in the northwest corner. Scott himself, who died while serving in the Texas Legislature, was buried here in 1858, and the ground still serves the surrounding rural communities.
Plano Cemetery
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This graveyard lies on a Peters Colony land grant held by Joseph Klepper, an Illinois immigrant who reached Collin County around 1845. It holds the graves of five Peters colonists and their families alongside other early settlers, and over time became the community's only burial ground for its Black residents. The cemetery has long been tied to the First Methodist Church, which once stood on adjacent land Klepper deeded.
Huson Cemetery
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