Parsons' Trading Post

Wadeville, near Farm Road 309 three miles south of Kerens in southeastern Navarro County, was among the earliest settlements in the county. Around 1846 J. T. Parsons established a store on the south bank of Rush Creek, and a small community known as Parsons' Trading Post grew up. David Sherrill built a gin there around 1856, and a post office was established in the store in 1861. After Parsons died in 1871 the post office was moved to a general store run by Mack Wade, and the community was renamed Wadeville. At its height around 1880 Wadeville had a school, a gin, a drugstore, a Masonic lodge, a Presbyterian church, and a cotton gin. The population in 1880 was 152. When the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway was constructed through the area in 1881, it bypassed the town. The merchants and most of the residents moved to the newly established town of Kerens on the railroad, and within a short time Wadeville was a ghost town. In the early 1990s no trace of the former community remained.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.