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William Frederick Bradford (November
29, 1850 - March 2, 1904) was one of the
many descendants of Governor William
Bradford of Plymouth Colony. His
grandfather, Absalom Bradford, moved with
his family from North Carolina to Bedford
County, Tennessee, early in the 19th
century, later settling on a farm in Gibson
County, Tennessee, near the present town of
Bradford.
During the War
Between the States,
William Frederick, too young to serve in the
Confederate army, helped his father,
William, on the family farm and periodically
took supplies by horseback to his uncles
serving in West Tennessee.
William Frederick,
a Freemason, who owned the Bradford Place,
four miles east of Coleman, came to Coleman
County in 1890, after residing in Denton
County, about twenty years. In Denton
County he was acquainted with Sam Bass, who
was to become the legendary nemesis of the
railroads. According to family
tradition, he rather liked Sam Bass, with
whom he sometimes discussed a mutual
interest, horse racing.
After serving for
several years as foreman of a ranch leased
in the southern part of Coleman County by
three entrepreneurs from England, the
Hassard brothers, William Frederick moved
his family from the Rock House at Leaday
(which now bears the Texas Historical
Building medallion) to his stockfarm east of
Coleman, where he lived until his death in
1904.
In the Lewisville
township of Denton County, William Frederick
had met the young woman, who on January 28
1875, was to become his wife, Adelaide
Eugenia Card (November 20, 1854 - March 3,
1946). She had come to Texas in 1872
with her widowed mother, Jane Monroe Tamplin
Card, two brothers and four sisters from a
small, ruined plantation near Loachapoka,
Alabama, to a farm near Palestine, and then
to Denton County. Mrs. Bradford, who
in business transactions, used the name Mrs.
A. E. Bradford, remained on the farm east of
Coleman, managing it until 1920, when she
leased it out and moved to Coleman.
During the remainder of her widowhood, she
lived in the verandaed frame house at 416
East Elm Street, where government apartment
units now stand (written in 1983). The
W. F. Bradford children were:
(1)
William Elmo (1875 - 1940), married Lora
Hanson, 1902;
(2)
Alice Gertrude (1877 - 1958), married E. W.
Parker, 1905;
(3)
Margaret Ann (1879 - 1963), married M. A.
Hudson, 1898;
(4)
Martin Luther (1882-1927), married Eva Byrd,
1910 (see J. M. Byrd);
(5)
Tina Faye (1884-1954), married J. F.
McCutcheon, 1906;
(6)
Myrtle Lucy (1887-1912), married G. L.
Callan (see Johnson-Callan);
(7)
Carey Crutcher (1889-1957), married Ann
Hart, 1924;
(8)
Bertha Lorena (1891-1970), married F.E.
Jackson, 1911;
(9)
Harriet Pearl (1893- ) married Chester C.
Clark, 1918;
(10)
Jimmie Lynn (1898-?), married Roland
McGregor, 1920.
Names of the grandchildren are as follows:
Velma (1899), Early Cope (1907), and
Josephine Hudson (1910); Hassard (1903-48),
Freddie Lucinda (1904-38), Martin (1906-39),
and W.E. Bradford, Jr. (1913); Russell
(1907), Aston (1912-42), and E. W. Parker,
Jr. (1915); Marion Bradford (1907), and
Adelaide Eugenia Callan (1911); Cecil
(1908-47) and William Perry McCutcheon
(1911); Josephine Jackson (1912); Charles C.
(1919), William Carey (1921), and Robert
Bradford Clark (1925); Joseph (1925), Myrtle
Eugenia (1921), Robert Dean McGregor (1927),
and Mary Lynn McGregor (1930).
Mrs. Bradford told
her grandchildren stories concerning the
Bradford Place in the 1890's and the early
1900's, e.g., how a gray wolf (not a coyote)
was sighted a number of times in the
vicinity of the tepee rings along Bradford
Draw, on the west side of the farm.
Her daughter, Harriet, remembers that in
this period, when government agents were
reported to be in the area searching for
horses that bore Mexican brands, her
brother-in-law, Anthony Hudson, took it upon
himself to remove to a distant pasture,
Prince, a beautiful spirited little sorrel
gelding that Mrs. Bradford had bought from a
horse trader who had passed through the
area. Prince had become something of a
family pet.
Intelligent and
compassionate, a devout Baptist, and a
staunch Democrat, Mrs. Bradford remained
interested in local, national, and world
events till the end of her days.
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