WILSON COUNTY TN - BIOGRAPHIES - Mary Jane "Polly" Bradley ********************************************************************************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Glynn McCalman ********************************************************************************************************** The following paper was produced for the annual "Conway Days" celebration at Bradley, AR on the last weekend of March. It honors Tennessean James Sevier Conway, first governor of Arkansas. His wife, Mary Jane "Polly" Bradley of Wilson Co., TN is the primary subject of this paper. "POLLY" BRADLEY: LITTLE GIRL ON A FLATBOAT Glynn McCalman, April, 2003 One of the most interesting and valuable cargoes to ever pass through, to, or from Lafayette County, Arkansas arrived on Long Prairie aboard a few flatboats184 years ago. One member of the "cargo" was nine year old Mary Jane "Polly" Bradley, who would one day become the first "first lady" of Arkansas. Her grandfather, John Bradley (c1738), an immigrant from Ireland, and his wife Martha had moved from Raleigh, North Carolina to become some of the earliest settlers of Middle Tennessee. In 1819 most of their surviving children would become pioneers again, this time in what would eventually become Roane Township of Lafayette County, Arkansas. Some reports have not included the Bradleys among the "first" flatboaters to Long Prairie, and it is not our purpose here to argue about who was "first". But substantial evidence indicates that the Bradleys arrived either with the earliest, or on separate boats at about the same time. It is appropriate that the nearest town to her home is called Bradley. No family had greater influence on the first century of the area than the children, cousins and husband of Polly Bradley. Historic commemorations in the area usually center on Governor James Sevier Conway, Polly Bradley's husband. This, too, is appropriate. Conway, his relatives, and friends were the dominant political force in Arkansas from territorial days to the Civil War. But apart from their connection to the governor, the Bradleys deserve commemoration on their own merits. Wilson County, Tennessee In order to understand the early history of Long Prairie and Lafayette County it is helpful, perhaps essential, to know something about Wilson County, Tennessee. If Lafayette County has a genealogical "mother county" it must be that one a few miles east of Nashville. Virtually all of the first white settlers of Long Prairie had close connections with Wilson County. Bradleys, Dooleys, Crabtrees, Dutys, Herndons, Beards, Woodwards, Wooldridges, Seviers, Conways. All had either been residents of Wilson County before coming to "the prairie", or married current or former Wilson County residents. Several circumstances bound these families together to become the Long Prairie "colony". Besides the circumstance of geography, most, if not all of the adult men in the group, had served in the recent War of 1812 as neighbors of its premier general, Andrew Jackson. And Jackson was well acquainted with the Bradleys. He had moved his family to the "Hermitage" plantation in 1804, though the mansion of that name would only be constructed 15 years later. It lay on the south side of the Cumberland River and just west of the Wilson County border. [The invocation of Jackson's name is no mere "name dropping" on behalf of the flatboaters, but a clue on how they were bonded and why they migrated to Long Prairie, the (then) western boundary of the country.] Andrew Jackson's profession was law. And though his home was on the Davidson County side of its border with Wilson, he participated regularly (much of the time as a judge) at court sessions in Lebanon, the seat of Wilson County, and just a few miles east of the Hermitage. He also owned considerable acreage in the county. And during all of the 14 years Jackson had lived at the Hermitage the Sheriff of Wilson County was Thomas Bradley, Polly's uncle. We believe that the Bradley "flatboaters", at least some of them, actually began their trek to Long Prairie from a site upriver from Jackson's home in 1818. We further believe that it would have been entirely in character for Jackson to join relatives and other friends of the Bradleys to wish them well as they started the long hard journey. It would have been typically Jacksonian for him to have even welcomed them for a brief stopover sendoff at his home before they continued their trek down the Cumberland. As evidence for this assertion let's consider the following. The Bradleys of Wilson County It is inconceivable that Jackson, a "Superior" Judge, would not be well acquainted with the family of Wilson County's chief legal official. Two of Sheriff Bradley's brothers and three of his sisters were among the flatboaters. For that reason alone, Jackson would have been interested in the Bradleys. Indeed, Tom Bradley's tenure as sheriff continued from 1803 to 1825 except for a hiatus from 1819 to 1821. Could this mean that the sheriff may have followed his siblings to Arkansas and then decided to return to Wilson County? We don't know. What we do know is that Polly's father, John Bradley, Jr. (c1778-1810) (previously named erroneously as James Bradley) had married a daughter of Colonel Sam Barton, another prominent acquaintance of Jackson in Wilson County. Barton had signed the Cumberland Compact in 1780, the original basis of government in Middle Tennessee. The county seat was built on part of his 21,000 acres. Polly's mother was Col. Sam's daughter, Jane Barton. Polly's father died in 1810, when she was an infant, and her mother married William Woodward in 1812, when Polly was three years old. The Woodwards would also come to Long Prairie, presumably with the other flatboaters. But aside from the official, political or social status of Polly's Uncle Tom Bradley and her "well-married" father and aunt, Polly's other Bradley kin who boarded the flatboats for Long Prairie, would have gotten Jackson's attention on their own merits. They included the following: Uncle James Bradley (c1759-1822), Polly's uncle, and probably the oldest of the children, had also signed The Cumberland Compact in 1780, and served with Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. He, too, had "married well". His wife was Jane Davidson, a descendant of the North Carolina Davidsons so important in early Carolina history, and for whom Davidson County, Tennessee (Nashville's county) was named. James would become the ancestor of those who bore the Bradley name on Long Prairie after 1826. Children of James and Jane who presumably accompanied them included: a. Martha Bradley, Polly's first cousin, married Fleetwood Herndon, a native of Frederickstown, Virginia, where his family had been substantial citizens since the 1600s. At least one of his relatives was intermarried with the prestigious Randolphs of early Virginia history, and we believe that Herndon was a relative of Merriwether Lewis, the personal secretary of Thomas Jefferson and leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. And the Clark of the Expedition is credited with having encouraged the Wilson Countians to settle on Long Prairie. Herndon, too, was a veteran of the War of 1812. The marriage of Martha to Herndon was recorded at Natchitoches, Louisiana for October 1818. That date is part of the evidence that the Bradleys arrived at Long Prairie either in the early winter of 1818 or the early spring of 1819, possibly choosing to winter in the relatively comfortable town of Natchitoches. By 1823 Herndon had become a magistrate in Roane Township, succeeding Tom Dooley (below), who was elected Sheriff. Later, he would be one of the three officials who would select the site and plat (old) Lewisville to be the seat of the new Lafayette County. In the 1830s, recognizing the advantages of the upland in the Walnut Hill area, he purchased several hundred acres along the Old Shreveport Road between Walnut Hill and Louisiana. He was Postmaster for Walnut Hill in the early 1840s. b. Davidson Bradley married Eliza Crabtree, a daughter of William Crabtree, whose purchase of land in the prairie was the first recorded in Roane Township. William's father, James Crabtree, had owned 640 acres on the north bank of the Cumberland River in1785, just a few miles north of the future "Hermitage" of General Jackson. James was the first member of the court for nearby Robertson County. However, by 1804, the year that Jackson moved to the Hermitage, William, James, Joseph, and John Crabtree all owned land in Wilson County, and were neighbors of Sam Barton (above). We can almost certainly assume that William also served in the War of 1812. He was a near neighbor of James and Polly Conway in1830, and a magistrate in Lafayette County in 1835. Davidson's granddaughter, Leila Booker, married William B. Worthen, who became owner of the Arkansas Gazette, the state's foremost newspaper since 1819. He also founded Worthen Bank, the state's largest. c. John M. Bradley was a lieutenant in the Hempstead County Militia in 1820. (Lafayette County was not yet formed.) His wife was Sarafina Scobey, probably a sister of Matthew Scobey, also of Wilson County, who was a Justice of the Peace in Roane Township in 1821, resigned in 1825, and was elected again in 1827 and 1829. The Dooleys We do not know that Col. Tom Dooley (1778-1829) accompanied the Bradleys to Long Prairie, but we do know that he arrived at about the same time, and that he was closely linked to them. He was promoted to captain while serving with General Jackson in the War of 1812. He was with him in the Battle of New Orleans, and in the Indian Wars, having sustained a wound which resulted in his eventual death in Roane Township. We are informed that Tom Dooley's name is found several times among President Jackson's papers at the Hermitage. He married Elizabeth Barton, a daughter of Col. Barton (above), around 1803, the year that Long Prairie was purchased from France, and just a few months before Jackson settled east of Nashville. In 1808 Dooley purchased 640 acres not far from the Hermitage, from Polly's uncle, Wilson County Sheriff Thomas Bradley (above). In the following year,1809, he was named as executor for the estate of his wife's brother-in-law, another of Polly's uncles, John Bradley, Jr. There is some evidence that Tom Dooley had already visited Long Prairie at least as early as 1816, the year he sold land in Wilson County. He was a Hempstead County (pre-Lafayette) magistrate in 1819, Colonel of the County Militia in 1823, and Sheriff in 1824-1826. At least a century and a half after the Dooleys and Bradleys became friends, the friendship continued in the relationship at Walnut Hill between Francis "Frankie" Sevier Dooley, widow of Col. Dooley's grandson, and her neighbor, Maria Bradley McCalman, a great granddaughter of Davidson Bradley. Those two, perhaps more than any others, worked together to maintain Walnut Hill Methodist Church in its final years. It was also Maria and her husband Willie who donated the old Conway/Bradley land which became Governor Conway State Park at Walnut Hill. The Dutys George G. Duty (c1775-c1837) was also born in North Carolina, and served in the War of 1812 from Tennessee. He married Elizabeth Thomas in 1798 in Sumner County (across the river from Wilson County) and purchased land there in 1805). They, too, may have accompanied the Bradleys. Their other connection with the flatboaters may have been his relationship to the Bartons (above), who had intermarried with the Bradleys and Dooleys. We do know that one of his sons, Robert Barton Duty, married one of the Dooley daughters. The name Barton reappears among their descendants for several generations. In 1833 George represented Lafayette County in the Arkansas Territorial Legislature, and the Duty name remained prominent in Walnut Hill and Lafayette County into the twentieth century. Two descendants were involved in the Walnut Hill Bank when it opened in 1906. One of them, Richard, was also an early mayor of Bradley, and Sheriff of Lafayette County. Descendants with a more familiar name are from the marriage of George's daughter Mildred to Morgan Cryer, an ancestor of all Roane Township Cryers. Woodward It seems reasonable to assume that Polly's step-father William Woodward and her mother were among the flatboaters in 1819. If not, they arrived at about the same time. Woodward served in various capacities in the Arkansas territory, including as commissioner for negotiating the Choctaw Treaty, which established the western boundary of Arkansas. Polly's sister Margaret, about 14 years old in 1819, would have also been with them, and would later marry Joshua Morrison. Morrison became the first sheriff of Lafayette County in 1827 and, as a partner with James S. Conway and Richard Collins, would "open a road" from Washington, Arkansas to Jackson (Jacksonport ?), Arkansas in 1831. That road was the basic route which would later become what we know as US Highway 67, paralleling part of Interstate Highway 30. The Bradleys Separate We cannot declare with total certainty why all of Polly's Bradley kin except her father's descendants moved away from Long Prairie in 1826, but we pose a possible reason. Because of the very fertile soil the families on the prairie had probably prospered, but it was prosperity in a very difficult environment. The military post at the Indian "factor" on the mouth of Sulphur River was not capable of guaranteeing the safety of the settlers. There were frequent raids, sometimes provoked by opportunist settlers with different objectives from the Bradleys. There were floods, and the health problems contributed by mosquitos and other problems associated with the prairie swamps. James Bradley, the "big brother" of the group had died in 1822, and Polly's uncle, Tom Wooldridge, a few months afterward. All of Polly's surviving uncles and aunts finally decided to get out. They would become the pioneers for whom Bradley County, Arkansas was named. Their names are: 2. Captain Hugh Bradley (1783-1854), another of Polly's uncles, was married during the War of 1812 and chose to accompany the other flatboaters to "the prairie". He served as a magistrate on Long Prairie before moving in 1826 to what would become Bradley County, Arkansas, his namesake. Three of his sisters accompanied him, namely: 3. Elizabeth "Eliza Jane" Bradley (1788-1850+), Polly's aunt, married her childhood sweetheart, Thomas Wooldridge (c1785-1823). Both were born in Raleigh, North Carolina, married in Tennessee and, we believe, were among the flatboaters. They settled on Long Prairie, where their youngest child was born and named for her dying brother, James. But Thomas also died on the prairie a few months after her brother James. She decided to migrate 100 miles eastward with her younger brother and sisters to what would eventually become Bradley County. 4. Margaret "Peggy" Bradley, another aunt, married Alexander Beard, probably in Tennessee, and settled on Long Prairie, where Alex was a magistrate in 1823. They also moved to (future) Bradley County. She became a charter member of First Methodist Church at Warren, Arkansas. 5. Mary Bradley (c1766-c1851) yet another aunt, also accompanied her brother and two sisters to (future) Bradley County and was also a charter member of First Methodist Church at Warren. She apparently never married, and was living with her brother Hugh and his family in 1850. True Pioneers We can only imagine the hardships, dangers and other drama in a flatboat journey from Wilson County, Tennessee to Long Prairie on Red River in 1818/1819. From a few miles east of the little town of Nashville the migrants drifted westward and north into the Ohio River above Paducah, Kentucky. They passed Cairo, Illinois, and entered the Mississippi toward Memphis, Arkansas Post, Vicksburg and Natchez. They may have detoured to New Orleans, pausing to adjust (or exchange) their boats for the final, and probably most difficult challenge of the journey, namely, the struggle up Red River to Natchitoches and finally, Long Prairie. That final trek through Louisiana required pushing, pulling and poling the clumsy crafts upstream through the late summer, then winter miles, including through the "The Great Raft" logjam. Polly Bradley's Contribution We can also only imagine how difficult it was for Polly, her family, and neighbors to survive those first years of heat, floods, winters, and disease on primitive Long Prairie. Of course, some of them didn't. Her father died on the prairie a few months before she became a teenager. Her uncle, Thomas Wooldridge died shortly after she became thirteen. In the year that Polly became seventeen all of her aunts and uncles on the prairie moved one hundred miles eastward to what they hoped would be a healthier environment, leaving only her immediate family and their neighbors, the Dooleys, the Crabtrees, Herndons, Dutys, and a few others to "civilize" the area. At age 17, seven years after arriving on Long Prairie, Mary Jane "Polly" Bradley would marry James Sevier Conway, and thereby eventually become the state's first "First Lady". Conway was probably not aboard the Bradley boats in 1818/1919. However, his connections with middle Tennessee were many, and he was probably acquainted with some of the boaters. He was a relative of Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier. The Seviers had been closely associated with the Conways for generations, and the association would continue. Two of Governor Sevier's sons married Conways, and two of Governor Conway's daughters would marry Seviers. Further, young Conway's uncle, William Rector was Surveyor General for all lands of the Louisiana Purchase, and was responsible for the disbursal of those lands, including those to which the Bradleys were coming. The significance of Conway in Arkansas history is well documented and needs no further description here. Marriage to Conway didn't resolve all of Polly's hardships, of course. Several of her children died before they became teenagers, and another died at age fourteen. Five of her children were either not yet, or barely teenagers when her husband died at Walnut Hill. Nevertheless, she was strong enough for the challenges. Finally, in the winter of 1878, almost six decades after she first stepped from a flatboat to the soil of Long Prairie, she died at age 68, having contributed what she could to the civilization of Long Prairie, Walnut Hill, and Arkansas. She was buried across the road from her home at Walnut Hill, beside the remains of her husband, several children, and a few other kin.