Tehama-Trinity-Sacramento County CA Archives Biographies.....Bradbury, Josephus 1825 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 18, 2007, 10:13 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

JOSEPHUS BRADBURY. - The gentleman, whose name heads this sketch, came to
California in 1849, and has seen as much of pioneer life as any man in the
State. He is a native of England, born March 4, 1825. His parents, both English
people, brought him to America in 1826. They first settled in Philadelphia, and
afterward removed to Wheeling, Virginia. He is one of a family of nine children,
of whom only he and his sister, Mrs. Frank Hawkins, of Steuben, Ohio, are now
living. His brother John was a Union soldier, and lost his life at Island No. 10.

  Mr. Bradbury spent ten years of his youth in Ohio, where he attended school
and, in part, learned the carpenter's trade. In 1844 he went to New Orleans,
and, in 1849, at the age of twenty-four years, came to California, crossing the
plains in a company of thirteen. With one of this company, Jacob Holander, he
formed a partnership, when they stopped at Weaverville, California, and began
mining operations. Mr. Holander worked in the mines while Mr. Bradbury went to
Sacramento for supplies. He purchased a four-mule team, for which he paid $600.
He loaded them with provisions and took the load to Weaverville. In Placer
County Mr. Bradbury built the first house. Before the roof was on, they had a
dance in it, each dancer paying an ounce of gold, without supper. At that dance
there were only six women-all Norman women. When his house was completed, Mr.
Bradbury kept a hotel and supply store. He paid a man and his wife $400 per
month to cook and do the work. The price par meal was $2. He also built and
equipped a blacksmith shop. While at Sacramento, he saw a set of blacksmith
tools on one of the boats, and, as the owner wanted to sell it, he gave $300 for
the set. As soon as it was landed he could have sold it for $600. He purchased a
mule team and two hours later he sold it, and made $200 by the transaction. Such
occurrences were very common in those times. The scythe they used in crossing
the plains, he sold in Sacramento for $50 to some parties who were wanting to
make hay of wild oats, below the town. There was not a scythe in Sacramento.

  At their store and hotel they took their pay in gold dust. It was weighed on
the head of a whisky barrel, and the dust was scattered about in the dirt around
the barrel. From one shovel full of the dirt that they cleaned up, they got $7.
Mr. Bradbury continued in the hotel business until 1851. In 1850 he learned that
the emigrants in Carson Valley were out of provisions. He packed ten mules with
flour, bacon, beans, sugar and coffee, and at once set out for that place. His
flour sold for $2.50 per pound, and other things in proportion. Ten pounds of
flour he traded for a two-horse carriage and a good set of double harness, that
was new when it left the States. Their stock had died and they had no more use
for the carriage and harness, and were obliged to have something to eat. When he
returned, he made a second similar trip.

  In 1851 Mr. Bradbury followed a trail up through Tehama County, and went to
Weaverville in Trinity County. The people on the Salmon River were reduced
almost to starvation. Mr. Bradbury and his party encountered many dangers in
making the journey at this time. The snow was very deep, at some places twenty
feet, and they were obliged to make roads by cutting spruce bushes, so that the
mules could travel. Three nights the mules had nothing to eat except rushes. At
one place they found twenty dead mules. Upon reaching their destination they
sold nine head of cattle for $2,700, but they were selling mule meat at one
dollar per pound, the people being reduced to that kind of meat. They crossed
the north fork of the Trinity River twenty-three times in one day. Mr. Bradbury
sent his mules back the way they had come, and he went on to Yreka traveling on
snow-shoes, which were made of bent willows with sacking stitched over them.
They rode down the hills on their shovels, swam the rivers, slept in the snow,
and Mr. Bradbury says be had to change positions in the night to take his head
out of the water. On arriving at Yreka he took up a mine there, mined a short
time, and then sold his claim for $1,000. He then got a pack train and went to
Portland, Oregon, and that summer packed from Portland to Scott's Bar on Scott's
River, and to the Klamath River.

  He returned to Sacramento and was there the night of the great fire, in 1852,
when nearly all the town was consumed. He had just purchasd a team, and with
that he began hauling goods out of reach of the fire. For this work he was paid
fifty dollars. After teaming there a year he went to San Juan and took up a
ranch. Ranching was to slow for him, so he left that property and went to
Nebraska City, Sierra County, were he erected a building in Jim Crow Canon, and
kept store there two years. At the expiration of that time he sold out and came
to Tehama County, purchased 800 acres of land and engaged in sheep-raising. In
1865 he came to Red Bluff and began to deal in stock, and has continued that
business ever since. He does a large business in Colusa, Shasta and Tehama
counties, and supplies Trinity County with hogs. Mr. Bradbury has two valuable
mines, one at Maddox and the other on Whisky Creek. He has realized $400 from a
ton of the rock, and expects larger returns.

  Mr. Bradbury purchased four lots on North Main Street, Red Bluff, and built a
nice and commodious dwelling for himself and family. Notwithstanding he
withstood the darts of Cupid many years, he was finally married, in 1880, to
Miss Theresa Hagelman, in Weaverville, Trinity County, where she was born and
reared. Their union has been blessed with two sons, Charles E. and George
Thomas. Mr. Bradbury is well known throughout Northern California and, in fact,
over the whole State. Politically he is a Republican. His pioneer experience and
many adventures through which he has passed, if written up, would fill a volume.
He relates the following:

  In 1863 a party of renegade Gun Indians were lawlessly raiding through the
county. They had killed a white man and his horse and a half-bred Indian boy.
The white men who pursued them had given up the chase and had returned to their
homes. At Thomas Creek the Indians killed an ox that belonged to a mill there,
and then encamped in a ravine below the mill. About twenty men -ranchers, miners
and the miller-gathered together and decided to attack the red men. Mr. Bradbury
was one of the party. They made the attack just at daylight. Two of the white
men were shot, and every Indian was killed, except two who escaped, and one of
them, they believed, was wounded. The white men killed were Shannon and Ford.

  At another time, Mr. Bradbury relates, he was instrumental in saving the life
of a man who was about to be hung. Mr. Bradbury had pitched his tent back of a
building that proved to be a gambling house. In the night, after they had been
playing, an Irishman and a gambler got into a row, and the gambler was going to
cut the Irishman to pieces. A third party interfered and rescued the Irishman.
He, being drunk, turned upon the man who saved him. The man who came to the
rescue then jerked the Irishman down and kicked him in the face, and made his
escape. A party followed him, brought him back, put a rope around his neck and
were going to hang him. Mr. Bradbury then interfered, told the lynchers that he
had seen the whole difficulty and told them how it was, after which they set the
man at liberty.

  Mr. Bradbury says they had plenty of money and carried it in belts about their
waists, with straps over the shoulders. Sometimes at night they hid it in the
brush. For the first year or two there was very little stealing. Every thief
knew that if he were caught he would have to die. The miners often left their
gold in cans where they dug it. The prospectors would come along, take up the
can, see how much there was in it, and put it down again arid pass on. Soon,
however, that state of things changed; and there was murder and robbery and
immediate retribution if the culprit were found.

  Forty fleeting years have passed since then, and now (1890) none more vividly
realize the changes that have come over this country than does the pioneer. Then
Mr. Bradbury slowly trudged on foot or with his pack mules among the mountains
of California, and at night slept in the snow; now he rushes through the country
after the "iron horse," and, from the window of his palace car, he catches a
view of the mountains, the well tilled fields, and the cities and towns that dot
the hill-sides and valleys. Every night he sleeps in a first-class hotel, or in
his own luxurious home in Red Bluff. It is with pleasure he recalls the days of
'49, and says that if he were a young man now, he would go to the wilds of
Africa and help to develop another grand country.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.


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