By Terry Munderloh
(This is the first part of a two-part article regarding William Bradshaw)
William David Bradshaw's exploits were well known in the mining districts of California long before he discovered the Arizona mountains that would later bear his name.
William was born in Tennessee around 1826. His presence in California is first chronicled in Horace Bell's REMINISCENCES OF A RANGER when young Bill was employed by the Mexican commander at Sonoma, Capt. Salvador Vallejo, early in 1846, before the outbreak of the Mexican War. Bell's narrative relates that while Bill was building a fence, Capt. Vallejo came along and, displeased with the way the work was going, struck Bill across his bottom with the flat of his sword. Bill promptly knocked the Captain down with a redwood picket, seized Vallejo's toledo and pounded it into pot-hooks with his axe. Upon realizing what he had done, Bradshaw saw that he must immediately choose between instant flight or a Mexican prison, so he hurriedly retrieved his rifle from his temporary lodgings and struck out for the Sacramento Valley.
After the United States' declaration of war against Mexico on May 13, 1846, Bill returned to Sonoma as a member of the Bear Flag party which captured Vallejo's garrison on June 24, 1846. When Salvador recognized the picket-wielding hero in the ranks of his captors, he allegedly told the Bear Flag commander, "now I suppose I will be murdered, finding this assassin in your force," pointing to Bradshaw. But Bill responded that an American never strikes an enemy when he is down, shook Vallejo's hand and promised him his friendship.
On October 6, 1846, William Bradshaw was appointed First Lieutenant, Captain Sear's Company D, Mounted Riflemen, in John C. Fremont's California Battalion and was honorably discharged April 17, 1847.
Bill spent some time around Los Angeles but when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, he turned to gold mining. In 1851, the Governor of California appointed Bill to command a detachment of militia to combat a threatened revolt of the French miners of Mokelumme Hill, and Bill successfully brought about a settlement without bloodshed. He was also a member of the miners committee that drew up laws regulating mining at Vallecito Camp in Calaveras County in June of 1853.
Bell characterizes Bill Bradshaw as being a polished gentleman of true born chivalry: brave, witty and generous yet eccentric and "in simple truth a natural lunatic. In manly form and physical beauty, perfect; in muscular strength, a giant; in fleetness of foot and endurance, unequaled."
When news of Pauline Weaver's discovery of the wealth of the Plomosa placer mines at La Paz, Arizona in 1861 reached California, the adventurous Bill decided to explore those gold fields for himself. At that time two arduous routes existed for travel from Los Angeles to La Paz. One way was to go to Fort Yuma over the old Sonora Road or by way of Smith's Survey through San Gorgonio Pass to Yuma and then proceed overland or by river steamer up the Colorado River to La Paz. The other option was to travel from San Bernardino across the Mohave Desert to Fort Mohave and then continue down river to La Paz, a more hazardous route owing to the scarcity of water, lack of habitations and raiding Paiute Indians.
In the spring of 1862, leading a party of eight men, Bill set off for the Plomosa mines determined to locate a shorter route. Bradshaw's party traveled the existing trail over San Gorgonio Pass and made their way southeast to the Salton Sink where several Cahuilla villages were located. Here Bill was befriended by Old Cabezon, a Cahuilla Chief, and a Cocmaricopa Indian mail runner from Arizona who was visiting the villages. The two Indians provided Bradshaw with a map of an ancient Halchidoma Indian trade route through the Colorado desert complete with the location of springs and water holes.
Using the Indians' map, Bradshaw's party journeyed on to Dos Palmas, crossed the then almost unknown desert between the Orocopia and Chocolate Mountains in an easterly direction reaching the Colorado River at Providence Point. There they built a raft and after swimming their animals, traversed themselves and their gear across the river. A travel of four more miles up the east river bank brought them to Laguna de La Paz, the immediate base for the mines.
Bill stayed a few days in La Paz visiting with the settlement's two merchants and the miners while observing the quantity of gold loads being brought in from the mines. Seeing other lucrative business potentials in addition to mining, Bill struck up a partnership with William Warringer to open a ferry service at Providence Point.
Returning to Los Angeles, Bill announced in the Los Angeles Star his new found straight line trail from San Gorgonio Pass to Providence Point and the establishment of the Warringer and Bradshaw Ferry at the trail's termination. Almost immediately upon the announcement's publication, travelers, freight and stage lines began using the Bradshaw Road, and it came to be part of the U.S. Mail route between La Paz and Santa Fe. Today's Bradshaw Road is a part of the Mojave Heritage Trail system, and portions of it are still accessible to off-highway travelers.
Next week: the questionable death of William Bradshaw
Terry Munderloh is a volunteer at the Museum's Archives. She is also an active member of the Historic Trails Committee of the Yavapai Trails Association.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (citn162pb). Reuse only by permission.
William Bradshaw first visited La Paz (not far up river from Ehrenberg, Arizona on the California border) in 1862. He remained there and established a ferry service across the Colorado River. This photo taken in the late 1920s show La Paz, once the seat of Yuma County, after it was completely abandoned and had fallen to ruins.