Cherokee County, Alabama, was the native home of W. H. Bradford who came to this county in 1860, settling in the vicinity of what is now Brazos.  He was born in 1828 and he married Mary Lawson and both were Baptists.  He with his wife and child, C. R. Bradford, came to Texas in 1854, stopping at Black Jack Grove (now Crumbie) in Hopkins County for a time.  Later they moved to Campbell in Hunt County where three other sons were born and Mrs. Bradford died in 1857.  That was 100 years ago.  After the death of his wife, Bradford decided to go west and stopped for a few months where Oak Cliff, Dallas, is now located, and after a time he traded his oxen for horses and went as far as Buffalo Gap, Taylor County, where he stayed for a short time, returning east and landing in the South Fork of Palo Pinto creek south, south of the present town of Strawn, in 1860.

When the Civil War broke out, he and the Cowden families and two other families forted up in the bend of South Fork of Palo Pinto creek.  Bradford remarried after the war and four boys and five girls constituted this family.  One of the daughters, Mary Ann Bradford, now lives in Palo Pinto and another daughter, Mrs. Stella Hines, lives at Mesa, Arizona.

Grandchildren are O. B. Bradford and J. H. Bradford (now 82) of Santo; Mrs. Jay Roquemore, Mrs. J. T. Cantrell, Mrs. Ellen Butler and Louise Bradford all of Mineral Wells, and there are many other descendants scattered over the 48 states.