Woodburn Independent, July 21, 1904
Death of an Old Pioneer.
Bradford S. Bonney, a pioneer of 1846, died at his home in Woodburn, July 10, 1904, after a short illness.
Mr. Bonney was born near Sandusky, Ohio, August 30, 1825. He moved to Illinois with his parents, when small, where he resided until 1845, when he crossed the plains with an ox team, being in the first train to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California and one of the first to pack over the trail from California to Oregon in 1846.
While in California he was foreman for Suter, the Spanish Governor, with headquarters at Suter Fort, and it was through him that Fremont received fresh horses and his dispatch carriers warned of any impending danger. Mr. Bonney often carried the dispatches from one part of the State to another while gathering stock. He was present when Fremont raised the flag in California, and he and his sister Marney were in the party that rode around and saluted the first American flag on California soil.
Mr. Bonney was also one of the first to boat on the Willamette River. He built a large flat boat at Butteville in the Spring of 1847, where it was loaded with wheat and floated to Oregon City. Fifty or sixty Indians would be employed to row the boat back up the river. It was by this means that the early settlers in the Willamette Valley largely received their supplies.
In 1847 he took up a donation landclaim (on a part of which the city of Woodburn now stands) where he has lived for the past fifty-five years, during which time he has only been out of the State three times.
When gold was discovered in California in 1848, he sold his boat and went back there and dug gold from underneath one of the old camps where he used to rodiera cattle. He again left this State in 1852 when he went back on the plains to meet friends and relatives, among whom were C. O. Boyington and family of this city, and pilot them to Oregon, and once to visit his old home in Illinois.
He was married June 29, 1847, to Miss Alzina C. Dimmick, who died April 2, 1897, to whom were born ten children, nine of who survive him, one dying in infancy. Those still living are A. A. Bonney of Tygh Valley, Ore., G. T., C. T. and J. M. W. Bonney of Woodburn, Mrs. Carrie Young, Mrs. Laura Shaw and Miss Ina Bonney of Woodburn. Besides these there are 39 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. The funeral was held at 11 o'clock in the M. E. Church of this city, services being conducted by Rev. D. H. Leech, interment being made in Belle Passi cemetery.
Contributed by Royce E Hostetler, Forest Grove, Oregon