MCADAMS, TEXAS. McAdams was on the path of present Farm Road 1696 fourteen miles northwest of Huntsville in eastern Walker County. It was probably named for John McAdams, Jr., an early settler in the area, who served as a member of the St. Augustine Volunteers under Captain Bradley in the Texas revolutionary army. The McAdams home became the center of a rural community, and the village soon supported a church and school. Sam Houston^qv is reported to have been a frequent visitor in the McAdams home. A McAdams post office opened in 1888 with Mary Frances McAdams, second wife of John McAdams, Jr., as postmistress. The Texas Gazetteer estimated the 1896 population of McAdams to be near fifteen; in 1914 the community had a population of sixty, two cotton gins, and three general stores. The post office closed in 1917. In 1936 a schoolhouse, a church, and a cemetery remained. County maps of 1990 indicate only a cemetery at the site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D'Anne McAdams Crews, ed., Huntsville and Walker County, Texas: A Bicentennial History (Huntsville, Texas: Sam Houston State University, 1976). Walker County Genealogical Society and Walker County Historical Commission, Walker County (Dallas, 1986).

James L. Hailey