This burial ground originally served the pioneer Cade community, established near this site in the 1870s and named for early area resident Cade Hayes, whose settlement included the surrounding farmland of southern Navarro County and northern Freestone County. It was first used in 1876 when Mrs. Nelson, the widowed sister of Cade settler Andrew Smith, was buried here. Ansel Coleman and his wife Alice, who are interred here, deeded the property in 1883 to trustees of the local Missionary Baptist Church 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, born in 1882 and dead 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, and after reorganizing in 1966, the association has held an annual luncheon and business meeting on the first Sunday of each June.