Bradley Cemetery

Edward Bradley was a surveyor, and a Collin County history page says that skill is what drew him: a Peters Colony grant of 640 acres, taken up in 1842 after he left Missouri. The page puts him at 55 with five grown children on arrival. At 59 he volunteered as a private for six months in the Mexican War, riding the frontier west of Fort Worth. Some reports say he lost a leg, which the page calls more legend than fact. A 1921 McKinney newspaper columnist found the hilltop graveyard abandoned, about 400 yards southwest of Finch Park.

What the plaque says

Bradley Cemetery 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

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 1.9 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 20 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Fanny Finch Elementary School — 0.4 mi
• Governor James Webb Throckmorton — 0.5 mi
• Pecan Grove Memorial Park — 0.5 mi
• The Birthplace of Rebekah Baines Johnson — 0.8 mi