Dear Clevelanders and Rutherfordites-- First, let me say that this is a long posting, and I apologize in advance for its length. I am at a particularly difficult place in my research, and I need to see if anyone can shed some light on some particularly thorny problems I've run across. If you are interested, please bear with me--I'll try to keep the story interesting--and if you aren't, please feel free to use your delete key. I have been researching my family's history--BRADLEY, BRADLY--for many years, and they are an especially difficult bunch to learn much about, as they seem to have been extremely adept at keeping their identity and origins a secret. And probably for good reason, since in the 19th century being a "free colored person," "mulatto," or "Indian" (members of the family were designated as such in the census records from 1830 through 1880) was a most difficult life to lead in the South. Family legend, what little of it I have been able to unveil and confirm in official records, says that my ancestors were indeed native American. Given the area of North Carolina where we are from--first Rutherford, near the High Shoals/Henrietta area, and later Cleveland, after the formation of the Cleveland County--we have assumed that we are Cherokee, but the specific tribal relationship is less important to me than just understanding where our people came from, and all the reasons they were so inte! nt on keeping their history a secret. That said, what I know is this: my great-grandmother's generation, as well as her children's generation--she was born in 1857) is identified as "Indian" on the 1880 census. In prior years, the same families were listed as "mulatto" (there was no designation on earlier census records for "Indian") and in 1830, as "free colored persons." Winney Bradley, who was shown on the 1830 census, was listed this way. She was a relative of some of my great-grandmoter's ancestors, Thomas and Henry Bradley, both hammermen in the forge of High Shoals Iron Works, which was located at the site where Henrietta #1 was later located. Thomas and Henry are both my ancestors, as I believe that some of their children intermarried, as was common in those days. I think my great-grandmother (Esther) and great-grandfather (Benjamin) were probably first or second cousins. They probably married sometime in late 1880 or early 1881. My grandfather, born in 1885, and his four siblings, were the children of Esther Bradley (her maiden name) and Benjamin Bradley. I have been unable to locate a single census listing showing Benjamin, who would have had to be of marriageable age in 1881 or so (Esther is shown as single in 1880, but my great-uncle was born in 1882). As we know, there are no census records for 1890, so my Bradley family is invisible between 1880 and 1900, when I find them in Cherokee County, South Carolina, among other Bradley relatives, with my grandfather and his siblings living with their widowed mother, Esther. Esther died in 1910, and is buried in the cemetery in Clifton, SC. The children worked in cotton mills in Ware Shoals and other locations before moving on to Atlanta around 1914. All the siblings moved to Atlanta--my grandfather and his wife, my grandmother, their children, and his sisters and two brothers. Other Bradley relatives, cousins of my grandfather and his siblings, remained in North Carolina and some of those who had lived across the border in South Carolina later moved back to North Carolina. There was little or infrequent connection or visiting between the two branches of the family--the Atlanta branch which is my family, and the other branches who lived in Rutherford and Cleveland, and whose descendants probably still do live in the area. My mother, who was born in 1920, and some of her siblings, were always curious about their origins, and asked their father and/or his siblings, primarily and aunt who was very close to them, where they came from. She would always say, "You don't want to know." This line was repeated over and over throughout the years. At one time, she actually revealed, when her own son asked her, "Mother, are we Indians?" that indeed we were, but never to ask about it again. I have connected with a few descendants of the Henry Bradley side of my family in the past five or so years, and their stories are similar. One descendant, a relative of the wife of a Bradley, who was herself "Indian," used to ask her mother the same questions my mother asked her father and aunts and uncles, and the response was the same. "You don't want to know." I know from this Bradley descendant that as late as the 1920s, one of her aunts was turned away from the Harris School by those who did not want her there. "You are an Indian," they told her, "and you can't go to school here." Apparently this branch of the family was very careful not to reveal their heritage for fear that they would lose title to the land they owned. Even as late as 1996, an elder of the family who was about 95 or so, insisted on keeping quiet about the family's history, and she managed to take these secrets with her when she passed away. I assume that my grandfather and his siblings left North Carolina to work in the mills in South Carolina and later Georgia in part due to discrimination they must have faced there, for if as late as the 1920s a child was turned away from school in the Rutherford area for being "Indian," then in 1890 or 1895, my ancestors must have faced as difficult or more difficult a situation. Also, there was some rumor in my family that there is a murder in our history, of whom or by whose hand I have no idea. So that is a scandal that has been covered up pretty well, whatever the truth of the story, and has become part of the reason none of mine or my mother's generation has been able to uncover anything about our history. I have tried to find marriage records of Esther and Benjamin Bradley in North Carolina and South Carolina for the years they would have married, in searches of the many online resources we have available to us, as well as through letters to every courthouse in North Carolina and the most likely counties in South Carolina (Cherokee and Spartanburg). Nothing turns up. There are no coroner's records showing a violent death in South Carolina, where my great-grandfather probably died between 1894 and 1900. Though I have a burial location for Esther Bradley, and have visited her grave in Clifton, SC, I have been unable to find the place of burial for my great-grandfather. He seems never to have existed. Even census records do not show him. And the fact that Esther and Benjamin have the same last name hasn't helped. The somewhat well-known narrative, by Rev. Christenberry Lee, published in the Forest City Ledger in 1895, has confirmed much information that was only known in whispers and legend in my family. He refers to my ancestors Tom and Hal Bradly [sic], hammermen in the forge at High Shoals, both sons of Tom Bradly, Sr., who was also a hammerman in Peter Fisher's original forge, the forge later bought by Reuben Cooper, and soon sold to Achillis Durham. Lee also notes that "it was generally understood that the Bradly family was not of the Anglo-Saxon race," and that "old Aunt Winney" bore "marks" that were striking in their resemblance to the "Indian race," and that "the ancestors of the Bradly family claimed to be full-blooded Indians." Amazing material, really. Old Aunt Winney is the same who is listed in the 1830 census, and who is no longer living in 1840 because, according to Lee's narrative, she committed suicide. Apparently the home where this occurred was a place children we! re reluctant to pass as they were frightened by the event that took place there. I recently uncovered some snippets of this narrative, and was helped along with a full typescript of the material provided by a descendant of Achillis Durham, the owner of the High Shoals Iron Works. So I am asking if anyone who is researching Bradley or Bradley, or who is related to this branch of the family, or who may have come across newspaper articles, land records, or any records even mentioning anything about the Bradleys, can share what they know with me, or can point me to someone who is involved in research on this family. I am trying to find out what happened to my great-grandfather, if indeed he was named Benjamin, if there was scandal in the family, if he was killed, or killed someone, or what exactly happened. I can only speculate at this point about all the details I don't know, and I just know that someone out there must know something that I don't! Any help appreciated, and all moral support gratefully acknowledged! Thanks! Kit McChesney (Researching Bradley, Bradly, and especially those Bradley folks who are listed as "free colored persons" in the 1830 census, as "mulatto" in the 1840, 1850, 1860, and 1870 census records, and as "Indian" in 1880, in the Rutherford/Cleveland areas). Also interested Walker, Painter, Panther, Strikeleather, Stikeleather)