Cade Cemetery
Streetman, Freestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground originally served the pioneer Cade community, which was established near this site in the 1870s. Named for Cade Hayes, an early area resident, the settlement included the surrounding farmland of southern Navarro County and northern Freestone County. The cemetery was first used in 1876 when a Mrs. Nelson, the widowed sister of Cade settler Andrew Smith, was buried here. Ansel Coleman (d. 1883) and his wife Alice (d. 1910), who are interred here, deeded the property to trustees of the local Missionary Baptist Church in 1883 for the establishment of the burial ground and for the construction of a church building and a Masonic Hall. The earliest marked grave is that of John Watson (b. 1882), who died in 1884. Cade began to decline in population in the early 1900s when construction of a Trinity and Brazos rail line bypassed the area. After the church closed in 1932 the burial ground was neglected until a group of local women formed a cemetery association in 1947. An early project of the organization was the addition of a frame chapel for the site. Reorganized in 1966, the association holds an annual luncheon and business meeting the first Sunday of each June.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Cade community sprang up in the 1870s across the farmland where Navarro and Freestone counties meet, named for early resident Cade Hayes. Its cemetery opened in 1876 and the settlers built a church and Masonic hall on land deeded by the Coleman family. When a rail line bypassed the area in the early 1900s, Cade faded, but local women revived and still tend the burial ground.
Why it matters
Cade's rise and decline is the quintessential Texas story of a farm hamlet made and unmade by the railroad, kept alive only through the devotion of its descendants.
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