Thomas Bradford

Born [date unknown] in Chowan, North Carolina, British Colonial America

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1786 in Granville, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

Thomas Bradford performed Patriotic Service in North Carolina in the American Revolution.

Thomas Bradford was born in 1720 ^[1] or maybe 1731 possibly in Chowan County, North Carolina. He was the son of Philemon Bradford, Sr. and Mary Byrd Bradford

In 1754 and 1755, Thomas served in Captain Sallis's Company, of Col. William Eaton's Militia Regiment in Granville, North Carolina. This muster roll is generally considered to be the first true accounting of all able-bodied men in Granville County. Those men in this regiment are believed to range in ages from young (teens) to much older (perhaps even some grandfathers!).

Between 1750 and 1781, Thomas Bradford's name appears in a number of Granville County property deeds.^[2] His wife, Mary Bradford, is also named in several deeds -- the earliest being 1774.

In 1769, Thomas's father, Philemon Bradford, Sr., died in Granville county. Philemon's will leaves a nominal bequest to Thomas "Five pounds proclamation money" and names him co-executor of the estate with Thomas's brother, Philemon, Jr.

He is included in the DAR list of patriots as rendering patriotic service. In 1778, Thomas Bradford took the oath of allegience to the State of North Carolina -- against King George III. Also taking the oath were two of his sons, Thomas, Jr., and Philemon, as well as his brothers Richard and Philemon.

He died in May 1786 at the age of 55 in Granville County, North Carolina. Date of death has also been found as 1785.

His will is dated 22 March 1785. It lists the following family members as beneficiaries:

wife, Mary Bradford

sons, Philemon Bradford; Thomas Bradford; David Bradford; Ephraim Bradford

daughters, Elisabeth (Bradford) Prewit; Mary (Bradford) Lovet; Sealey(?) Bradford; Sarah Bradford

Will of Thomas Bradford

Granville County, NC

March 22, 1785

In the Name of God Amen I Thomas Bradford of Granvil County of the State of North Carolina being weak in Body but of perfect mind & Memory do make appoint & Ordain this my last will & Testament that is to say first & principally I give & Recommend my Soul into the hand of Almighty God who at first gave it me & my body to the Earth to be buried at the Discretion of my Executor here after named & as for such worldly Estate wherewith it hath pleased God to bless me with in this life my just debt & funeral charges being first paid I Give & Dispose of in manner & form following -

Item I Lend to my Daughter Elisabeth Prewit an Negro Girl named Betty During her Natural life & after her Death She & her Increase to be Equally Divided amongst all her Children Also one cow & calf to them & their heirs forever

Item I give to my Daughter Mary Lovet fifty pounds apiece to her & her heirs forever

Item I give to my Son Phillemon Bradford one Negro Man Named Bass likewise two parts out of nine of a Negro woman named Nan one part being given me & the other bought of Phillemon While which he is to have after the Death of Sarah Reed Also half my Mill & the other half to my Son David Bradford to be used Between them to him & his heirs forever

Item I Lend to my Beloved & Lawfull Wife Mary Bradford one hundred & Seventy Eight Acres of Land be the Same more Or less Being the Land that formerly belonged to James & Charles HeflIn During her Natural life Also one Negro Girl Named Jenny three Cows & Calves one featherbed & furniture one Iron pot Six plates & my Chest & my black Mare Two Dishes & one bason & two Sows & Thirteen Shotes that  ? ? on Quicksand

Item I give to my Son Thomas Bradford one Negro boy Named Demps? & one hundred & Seventy Eight Acres of Land that I lent to my Wife after her Death to him & his heirs forever

Item I give to my Son David Bradford one Negro Girl named Jenny after the Death of his Mother likewise four hundred Fifty acres of Land Including the plantation whereon Whereon I now life To the East Side for Complement Adjoining David Bradford & John Bradford & joining his Brother Phillemon Bradford's home to Include his Compliment Two Cows & Calves Two Sows & pigs five head of Sheep one featherbed & furniture one Iron pot to him & his heirs forever.

Item I give to my son Ephraim Bradford four hundred & Eighteen acres of Land Joining My Son Phillemon Bradford & my Brother Richard Bradford for Compliment Likewise four hundred acres of Land I purchased of Edward More on the South Side of the Adkin & Lying on Rials? Creek three head of Cattle five head of sheep one featherbed & furniture one Iron pot Two Sows & piggs & one Negro Woman named Aggy & her Increase to him & his heirs forever

Item I give to my Son Benjamin four hundred & fifty acres of Land being the place where he formerly Lived including the Chappell adjoining Lewis Taylors line & Jeremiah Blalocks & Joining Quicksand Creek for Compliment one Negro Boy Named Peter to him & his heirs forever

Item I give to my Daughter Sarah Bradford one Negro Girl Named Anna five head of Cattle, five head of sheep, one desk one iron pott after the death of her mother likewise one Sorrell filley to her and her heirs forever

Item I Give to my Daughter Sealy Bradford one featherbed & furniture one Iron pot one Negro girl named Milley five cattle & one bay horse I lately purchased Edward Moore& my chest after the Death of her mother to her & her heirs forever

My Will & Desire is that the Remainder of my Estate not given Be Sold & Equally Divided amongst all my Children my will & Desire is that if Any of my Children should die without Lawfull Issue their part of my Estate to be Equally Divided amongst my surviving children I appoint my Beloved & Lawfull Wife Mary Bradford & my Son Philemon Bradford whole Executor & Executrix of this my Last Will & Testament hereby Revoking & Disanulling all other Wills heretofore made appoint this only to be my last will xxxxxx

In witness hereunto I have Set my hand & Seal this Twenty Second Day of March one thousand seven hundred & Eighty Five

Thos Bradford (SEAL)

Teste: Simon Clement
Benjamin Morgan
Mary (her mark) Priddom
Mark Clement

Probate
Granville Co. Dist. May Court AD 1786

This will was duly proved by the oath of Simon Clement & Benjamin Morgan and ordered to be ? . Then Mary Bradford quallified as Executrix and Philemon Bradford quallified to be Executor of said will.

Teste: Reuben Searcy, C.C

Wife's Identity

There is a 1774 reference to Thomas Bradford and Mary Bradford, his wife ^[3]. Sources disagree as to Mary's maiden name.

1. Mary WHITE. "Spouse: Mary White. Mary White and Thomas Bradford were married in 1751 in Granville County, North Carolina. Children were: Elizabeth Bradford, Mary Bradford, Philemon Bradford, David Bradford, Thomas William Bradford, Benjamin Bradford, Ephraim Bradford, Sarah Bradford, Sealy Celia Bradford, William B. Bradford." (found on this profile. The source for this may be Rootsweb.com infomation that is currently -- 23 Jun 2018 -- unavailable. This marriage does not appear in Marriages of Granville County, North Carolina, 1753-1868; it was outside that time frame.

There is a sister of Thomas, Mary (Bradford) White who is left a bequest in the will of their father, Philemon Bradford, Sr. in 1769.

2. The DAR Genealogical Database cites his wife's name as Mary LAVAT. It looks as though this might be the "Mary Lovet" in Thomas's will -- his daughter and not his wife.

3. Also on this profile "Spouse: Mary HARGRAVES. Mary Hargraves and Thomas Bradford were married before 1750." But this seems to be a second marriage, in 1782, if it belongs to this profile

Marriages of Granville County, North Carolina, 1753-1868 shows two marriages in the year 1782 for a (or multiple?) Thomas Bradford:

Bradford, Thomas & Eve Kerney, 2 April 1782. Booker Bradford, bm (bondsman), Bennet Searcy, wit.

Bradford, Thomas & Polley Hargraves (#3), 12 Aug 1782, Nath. Hunt, bm., Bennet Searcy, wit.

Thomas Bradford

John’s oldest brother, Thomas, also left plenty of footprints between his birth in 1731 and his death in 1785. He and his wife Mary had nine children:

1. Elizabeth Bradford (who married John Prewitt in 1769);
2. Mary (who married a Mr. Lovet);
3. Philemon Bradford (who married Susan Clopton on March 25, 1779);
4. David Bradford (who married Mary [Kearney, the sister of Eve Kearney who married David's brother Thomas, Jr.] on August 2, 1784, and who is referred to as David Bradford Jr. in Granville County records);
5. Thomas Jr. (who married in Polly Hargraves on August 12, 1782, and is believed to have married a second wife, Martha Garrison, on February 13, 1804); {other researchers say Thomas Bradford, Jr. (who was b. about 1762 in Granville Co., NC and married Eva Kearney, as indicated above)
6. Ephraim Bradford;
7. Benjamin Bradford (who married Polly Smith in 1783, before moving to Tennessee and, later, Louisiana);
8. Sarah Bradford (who married Jones Fuller in 1786); and
9. Celia "Sealy" Bradford (who married Coleman Reed White in 1786). 247

Thomas, the oldest of Philemon’s children, like his father, actively snapped up available land in Granville County. Hence, Thomas was granted 640 acres on the Lick Creek branch of Flatt River on March 25, 1752. He was granted 412 acres on the north side of Fishing Creek on March 10, 1761. Finally, also on March 10, 1761, he was granted 430 acres on both sides of Fort Creek “joining Philemon Bradford’s line.” Thomas sold that last tract to his father for ten pounds on November 11, 1961. 248 Eight years later, as mentioned earlier, Philemon passed that land to his son John Bradford I — my great, great, great, great, great grandfather.

Thomas also served in the Granville County militia. Hence, Thomas appeared at that militia’s general musters on October 8, 1754 and September 6, 1755. 249

Thomas died in Granville County in 1786. His will, dated March 22, 1785, was proved in the Granville County court in May 1786. James Heflin delivered the sermon at Thomas’s funeral. 250 Thomas, like his brother Philemon Jr., has a number of descendants who have actively traced his branch of the Bradford family tree. 251

Notably, two of Thomas’s sons (Philemon, ca.1755-1824, and Thomas Jr., ca.1750-ca.1835) reportedly moved to Greenville County, South Carolina, in 1797. Thereafter, in 1814, the descendants of those two sons reportedly all moved from South Carolina to Alabama. 252 Indeed, a wealth of information on the descendants of Philemon’s descendants can be found in the Asheville Library and Archives in St. Clair County, Alabama. Most informative is a large descendancy chart, going all the way back to the first Philemon Bradford, which lists over a hundred Bradford descendants. 253 That chart, created by Earl Massey of Trussville, Alabama, has information on a host of descendants of Philemon who moved to Alabama, including, most tantalizingly, the Presley family (i.e., a Mary Bradford married William R. Presley in Alabama in about 1840) — whether or not that makes the Bradfords related the “King of Rock and Roll” Elvis Aaron Presley (who was born in nearby Tupelo, Mississippi ninety-five years later), I do not know. I leave that to another researcher to discover. 254

Finally, I cannot move on without passing on a story, recorded in a researcher’s notes that are housed in the Asheville (Alabama) Library and Archive, of one Bradford’s involvement in handling Civil War bushwackers. According to that report, there was a shady group of renegades in St. Clair County, Alabama, who, during the Civil War, joined neither side in the war but, instead, “preyed upon the defenseless old men, women and children, terrorizing them at night by burning their homes and robbing them of all their possessions, even kill[ing] many disabled men. Those pillagers called themselves “Tories.” One night the Tories went on a rampage in Springfield, Alabama. First they beat, robbed and left for a dead a Mr. Louis Hening. Next they grabbed Mr. Wiley Truss who they would not allow to dress since, as they told him, they planned to kill him. Truss was taken to a briar patch where he was to be killed with neighbor John Bradford after the Tories seized Bradford. When the Tories went to Bradfords house and demanded his surrender, Bradford responded with gunfire, killing one of the bushwackers and shooting the finger off of another. The Tories beat a hasty retreat and the dead Tory, still wearing the boots and ring he had stolen from Hening earlier that night, was buried in Bradford’s turnip patch. Reportedly, that night ended the Tories’ reign of terror.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ DAR Ancestor A013423
2. ↑ Bradford Deeds, Granville County
3. ↑ Bradford Deeds, Granville County
4. ↑ [1] David Thomas Bradford, The Bradfords of Charles City County, Virginia, and Some of Their Descendants, 1653-1993

• Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Genealogical Research Databases [2] accessed 22 Jun 2018.

Name: BRADFORD, THOMAS Ancestor #: A013423

Service: NORTH CAROLINA Rank: PATRIOTIC SERVICE

Birth: CIRCA 1720 CHOWAN CO NORTH CAROLINA

Death: ANTE 5- -1786 GRANVILLE CO NORTH CAROLINA

Service Source: CLARK, STATE RECS OF NC, VOL 22, P 173

Service Description: 1) SIGNER OF OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

RESIDENCE: 1) County: GRANVILLE CO - State: NORTH CAROLINA

SPOUSE 1) MARY LAVET

CHILDREN (Associated Applications and Supplementals)

Philemon Bradford (married Susannah Clopton)

Benjamin Bradford (married Polly Smith)

Elizabeth Bradford (married John Prewitt or Pruett)

• Muster roll for the Granville County Militia, Eaton, William, October 08, 1754. Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, [3] accessed 23 Jun 2018. Citing Volume 22, Pages 370-380

Under list of Capt. John SALLIS's company (page 375)

11. Thomas BRADFORD

• Muster roll for John Sallis' company of the Granville County Militia, including cover letter from Sallis to Arthur Dobbs, September 06, 1755. Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, [4] accessed 23 Jun 2018, citing Volume 22, Pages 365-366

Thos Bradford (14th name on the list)

• Will of Philemon Bradford (Sr.), 25 Aug 1769, Granville County Loose Wills 1749-1771 1769, Early Granville County Wills, Transcribed by Deloris Williams. Granville County, North Carolina GenWeb [5] accessed 23 Jun 2018, © 2012 by Deloris Williams for the NCGenWeb Project and/or individual contributors. No portion of any document appearing on this site is to be used for other than personal research. Any republication or reposting is expressly forbidden without the written consent of the owner. Last updated 11/19/2013

Bequest to son Thomas Bradford, names him co-executor.

• Bradford Deeds, Granville county, (1750-1781) Granville County, North Carolina GenWeb [6] accessed 23 Jun 2018. ©2002, 2003, 2007 by Nola Duffy, Deloris Williams, Tina Tarlton Smith, and/or individual contributors. No portion of any document appearing on this site is to be used for other than personal research. Any republication or reposting is expressly forbidden without the written consent of the owner. Last updated 08/08/2012

• List of inhabitants of Granville County who took the oath of allegiance to North Carolina, including oaths; May 22, 1778 - August 02, 1778; Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, [7] accessed 23 Jun 2018. Citing Volume 22, Pages 168-179

pg 173, County of Granville, District of Bever (Beaver) Dam

Thos. Bradford, Sr. -- also --

Thos. Bradford, Jr.

Richard Bradford

Philemon Bradford, Sr. (district list continues on pg 174)

Philemon Bradford, Jr.

• Marriages of Granville County, North Carolina, 1753-1868, database and images of text (typescript) on-line. Ancestry.com Operations [8]. Original data: Holcomb, Brent H. Marriages of Granville County, North Carolina, 1753-1868. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003. Thomas Bradford, page 40 of 438.

• Granville County North Carolina- Original Wills- Volume 1 1749-1810, abstracted by Timothy R. Rackley; FHL - US/CAN 975.6535 P2r., Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT.

Image of Title Page [9]

Image of Page 1 of Thomas Bradford's will transcription [10]

Image of Page 2 of Thomas Bradford's will transcription [11]

• 1731; Birth state: VA. Family Data Collection - Individual Records [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.

((http://person.ancestry.com/tree/26518438/person/26053322498/facts))

• http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bradfordfamily/

A great deal of research has been done by various researchers

• http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=lavere&id=I238

• A book has been by David Bradford, for a few generations most our Bradford stay together in and around Charles City County Virginia.