New River County was created on December 21, 1858 by an act of the Florida Legislature. December 6, 1861 New River County was divided into two counties. The new county was named Baker County and New River's name was changed to BRADFORD County in honor of Captain Bradford who was killed in the Civil War.
In the 1860 New River population was 3820 In 1861 the population was virtually halved by the carving of Baker from New River. The 1870 Bradford County's population was 1325 people and the decrease was not due to a massive migration away from the area, but due to Bradford having been split into several Counties.
Research Tip
According to the Map Guide to U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920, by Dollarhide and Thorndale, present day Bradford County was part of the following counties in the following cenuses.... 1830 - Alachua / 1840 - Columbia / 1850 - Alachua / 1860 - New River / 1870 to present - Bradford.
The 1925 map below shows the cities, towns and communities of that time:
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Bradford County Map
From Florida Old and New
Copyright 1925 Rufus R. Wilson
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We would like to thank the former County Coordinator Jim Powell, Jr. for all the hard work and the data that he placed on this website. Jim Powell was the first County Coordinator for Bradford County from 1996 to 2008. He left me with tremendous shoes to fill.
Jim, as an employee of the Alachua County Clerk is responsible for coordinating the effort to use volunteers to index, extract and transcribe all the Alachua County Clerk's old records and place them online to facilitate genealogical and historical research. He has won many awards, the most recent from the Florida State Genealogical Society for those efforts! It was certainly well deserved. THANK YOU JIM!