Hello Fellow Rutherfordites! This is a long one. If you're not interested in the Bradleys, in possible scandals, murder mysteries, or in the native american/Cherokee connection, feel free to move on to the next message! Thanks! I am a descendant of the brothers Thomas Bradley (born c. 1807) and Henry Bradley (born c. 1805), in Rutherford County, NC, both hammermen in the forge of Peter Fisher, and later Achilles Durham, in Rutherford County, NC, in the High Shoals, later Henrietta, area. My grandfather, John Bynum Bradley, born 1885, was the son of Esther Bradley (born 1857, daughter of Martha "Patsy" Bradley and possibly granddaughter of Thomas Bradley) and Benjamin Bradley (possibly son of Henry Bradley, though I am not sure). Our Bradleys are related to the various Bradley families descending from the Thomas and Henry lines--the Christopher Columbus Bradleys, Thomas Jefferson Hardin Bradleys, Blake Burnam Bradley, Baker Bradley, and so forth. This branch of the Bradley clan is very secretive about their past, since it is now known that they were at least partly native american, possibly Cherokee. The Reverend Christenberry Lee's 1895 reminiscences mentions that the Bradleys were not "of the Anglo-Saxon race," and that they had full-blood Cherokee ancestors. As well, most of our ancestors must have been dark-skinned enough to have prompted census takers to record their "race" as "free colored persons" in early census records, "mulatto" in the mid-1800s, and in 1880, "Indian." Add to this a possible scandal about my great grandfather, Benjamin (rumor has it that he may have been involved in a murder, either as a victim or worse), and it makes for pretty difficult searching. As for factual information about him, all I have is his name on a few death certificates of his children--my grandfather, great aunts and uncles--and beyond that, he seems not to exist in the census records. He and his wife Esther (I believe the! y were cousins) were married after the 1880 census, and their first child was my great uncle, William Cleastus Bradley, born 1882. My grandfather came along in 1885, his sister Mary Cornelia in 1887. Sometime between 1887 and 1891, the family moved, along with some of their cousins, to Cherokee County, SC, Morgan Township. My great aunt Martha Belle was born in Gaffney (or nearby) and my great uncle, Thomas Walton Bradley, was born in 1894, in Spartanburg (so says his death certificate). By 1900, Esther Bradley is a widow, and in 1910, she lives long enough to be enumerated on the census, and soon after, died, and is buried in the Clifton Cemetery in Clifton, South Carolina. I can find absolutely no trace of Benjamin Bradley. No burial, no record of death, no record of his marriage to Esther, nothing. And of course, the ill-fated 1890 census probably holds the golden information that I seek. If anyone has come across any public records (land transfers, wills, newspaper accounts, sheriff's records, anything) that refer to a Benjamin Bradley who was probably born around 1860 (plus or minus 10 years) and who likely died in that area of North or South Carolina between Rutherford/Cleveland and Cherokee/Spartanburg Counties, SC, or who may know anything from family legends, stories, ANYTHING, please let me know (if we're related, let's get in touch for sure). I have hit a huge brick wall with this one, and it is unbelievable to me that I can trace one line back to the 18th century and can barely break the surface of the 19th with this one individual. Many thanks in advance. Kit McChesney