Peter Rainsford Brady
History of Arizona,  Thomas Edwin Farish, Vol. 2 1915, pg. 283

Peter Rainsford Brady came on his paternal side from good old 
Irish stock.  His mother, Anna Rainsford was from Virginia.  
He was born in Georgetown, District of Columbia, August 4, 1825; 
received his education in part at Georgetown College, later 
entering the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland from which 
he was graduated 1844.  After cruising around the Mediterranean 
Sea in the U.S. vessel Plymouth he resigned from the navy and 
left his home October 26, 1846 for San Antonio Texas where he 
enlisted as a Lieutenant in the Texas Rangers and served with 
distinction in the Mexican War.  After the war Mr. Brady joined 
a surveying party under Colonel Andrew B. Gray, who made a 
survey from Marshall, Texas to El Paso, thence across the 
country to Tubac and from the latter point made branch surveys, 
one to Port Lobos on the Gulf of California and the other to 
Fort Yuma and San Diego.  Mr. Brady served as a captain on 
this expedition and was prominent in many Indian fights.  
When the work was completed, the company disbanded at San 
Francisco.

Mr. Brady was of an adventurous spirit and in his younger 
life preferred the wilderness to civilization.  In 1854 he 
came to Arizona and settled in Tucson.  After the organization 
of the Territory he held several public offices  and was 
sheriff for two terms.  He was married in 1859 to Juanita 
Mendibles and had four children, all boys.  She died in 1871 
and he married Miss Maria Ontonia Ochoa of Florence Arizona 
by whom he had three boys and one girl.  He settled in 
Florence in 1872 and made it his home for twenty seven 
years.  He engaged in farming, mining and stock raising 
and in 1881 he received $60,000 for his half interest in 
the Vekol Mine.

"In 1894," says his daughter, Miss Margaret A. Brady, "my 
father was appointed as Special Agent for the Interior 
Department in the U.S. Private Court of Land Claims, and he 
obtained valuable information in behalf of the Government in 
the Peralta-Reavis land fraud. His notes are very humorous 
relative to the ridiculous claims of Reavis and his wife.  
I can say that it was greatly due to my father's information 
that the Government was able to identify the fraud."

In 1898 he served for the last time in the Upper House of the 
Territorial Legislature.  In 1899 Mr. Brady moved with his 
family from Florence to Tucson where he lived up to the time 
of his death, May 2, 1902 at the age of 77.  All his children 
are still living and have their residences in Arizona.  His 
second wife died August 14, 1910.

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