Andrew Jackson Bradley enlisted on 30 April 1838 at Valley River, Cherokee County, North Carolina as a private in Captain Thomas Angel's Company, 3rd Regiment of North Carolina Militia for six months duty. He participated in rounding up the Cherokee Indians and starting them on the westward journey to a new reservation in Oklahoma. This was the "Cherokee Trail of Tears." He was discharged on 6 July 1838 at Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina. His personal description at enlistment was: 5 feet 8 inches in height, grey eyes, auburn hair, and fair complexion.
Andrew Jackson Bradly was married to Mary Elvira Trentham by Reverend Richard Evans.
Prior to 26 December 1850, Andrew Jackson Bradley bought 100 acres of land from Solomon & Peter Milsaps. This land was located "on the right hand fork of the west fork of Little Pigeon River, it being part of an Entry made by David Millsaps including the land where Solomon & Peter Millsaps formerly lived..." Then on 26 December 1850, Andrew Jackson Bradley sold this tract of land to James Wesley Huskey.
There is a family story of the Civil War days. Uncle Isaac (Ike) Bradley often told the narrative as it is given below.
"Way back in times of Civil War - that was before my days - in time of the Civil War they drove them out of here. The Rebels, you know they drove the Rebels out, and they got so hard on my mind they wouldn't let them make nothing. They moved them to North Carolina. They got started across there and they aimed to go thru on the second day out but they got water-bound and they couldn't get to them. They had to stay there about five days.
"Five days. They lived on three pounds of sheep's tallow. Mutton tallow, they called it. They ate that mutton tallow and kept alive, five days until the water runned out.
"I can't dispute it because my mammy's told it, my brothers have told it and my brother's fussin' got to 'em when the river got out.
"My daddy owned, in time of Civil War, he owned Trentham property over by the forks of the river. He owned two or three hundred acres there, but they run him out. He was in the Rebel army and they runned him out. He owned all that. He got it to take care of his mammy-in-law, my grandmother, and when they runned him out he gave it to his other brother-in-laws - Uncle Robert and Uncle Isaac Trentham. He gave it to them to take care of their own, so he just turned it over to them."
After his Confederate service in Civil War, Andrew Jackson Bradley received a grant of 100 acres of Colonel William Thomas. The land was located in the area of Tow String Creek, Swain County, North Carolina (now Great Smoky Mountains National Park). The original hand-written document by Colonel William Thomas is still in existence and in possession of one of Andrew Jackson Bradley's descendants.
Andrew Jackon Bradley was listed in the 1850 through 1880 Federal Census of Sevier County, Tennessee.
He was buried in the Trentham family cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Source: Smoky Mountain Clans, Volume 3, Donald B. Reagan, 1983, p 16, 21, 77. Smoky Mountain Clans, Volume 2, Donald B. Reagan, 1983, p 102, 105, 139, 150. Smoky Mountain Family Album, Gladys Trentham Russell, 1984, p 248. In the Shadow of the Smokies, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, 1993, p 719. Smoky Mountain Historical Society Journal, Summer 1995, Vol XXI, No. 2, p. 31. Sevier County, Tennessee, and Its Heritage, 1994, p 162. Mountain Ways, Gene Aiken, 1983, p 50.
