Angel statue in southeast corner

Cemetery sign April 2024

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 of 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 headstone 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, Texas Historical Commission.