Bradford, William (Captain)

Died: 1826-10-20 Indian Territory

Bradford moved from his native Virginia to Kentucky, settling in country that would eventually become Muhlenberg County. He held several local offices and represented Muhlenberg County in the state legislature in 1801, 1803, 1810, and 1811. When the War of 1812 commenced, Bradford received a commission as captain of the Seventeenth Infantry, U.S. Army. In 1814, he was promoted to major. He continued to serve in the army after the war, and in December 1817, he founded Fort Smith, Arkansas at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers. In 1824, he resigned his commission and became a sutler for Fort Towson in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

Gravestone, Fort Smith National Cemetery, Fort Smith, AR; Anderson C. Quisenberry, Kentucky in the War of 1812 (Frankfort: Kentucky History Society, 1915), 112; Otto A. Rothert, A History of Muhlenburg County Kentucky (Louisville: John P. Morton, 1913), 15; History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1889), 489, 751.