John Bradford, Kentucky's pioneer journalist, was born near Warrenton, Virginia, in 1749. He saw service in the Revolutionary War, and came to Kentucky when thirty years of age. He fought against the Indians at Chillicothe, and, in 1785, brought his family out from Virginia to Kentucky, locating at Cane Run, near Lexington. Two years later he and his brother, Fielding Bradford, founded The Kentucke Gazette, the first issue of which appeared Saturday, August 18, 1787—the second newspaper west of the Alleghanies. The following year John Bradford published The Kentucke Almanac, the first pamphlet from a Western press; and this almanac was issued every twelvemonth for many years. Fielding Bradford withdrew from the Gazette in May, 1788, and "Old Jawn," as he was called, carried the entire burden until 1802, when his son, Daniel Bradford, assumed control. In March, 1789, under instructions from the Virginia legislature, Bradford discarded "Kentucke" for "Kentucky," one of the many interesting facts connected with the Gazette. John Bradford was the first state printer; and the first book he published was the laws passed by the first Kentucky legislature, which assembled at Lexington in 1792. The Bradfords published many of the most important early Western books, and a "Bradford" brings joy to the heart of any present-day collector of Kentuckiana. The column in the Gazette devoted to verse, headed "Sacred to the Muses," preserved many early Western poems; but the little anecdotes which seldom failed to be tucked beneath the verse, were nearly always coarse and vulgar, giving one a rather excellent index to the editor's morals or the morals of his readers. Bradford appears to have taken a great fancy to the poems of Philip Freneau (1752-1832), the first real American poet, for he "picked up" more than twenty of them from the Freeman's Journal. The most complete files of the Kentucky Gazette are preserved in the Lexington Public Library, though the vandals that have consulted them from time to time have cut and inked out many valuable things. John Bradford was a public-spirited citizen, being, at different times, chairman of the town trustees, and of the board of trustees of Transylvania University. He was a profound mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, his contemporaries tell us, and in proof thereof they have handed down another of his sobriquets, "Old Wisdom." Though his fame as the first Kentucky editor is fixed, as an author his reputation rests upon The General Instructor; or, the Office, Duty, and Authority of Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Coroners, and Constables, in the State of Kentucky (Lexington, Ky., 1800), a legal compilation; and upon his more famous work, Notes on Kentucky (Xenia, Ohio, 1827). These sixty-two articles were originally printed in the Gazette between August 25, 1826, and January 9, 1829. Upon this work John Bradford is ranked among the Kentucky historians. At the time of his death, which occurred at Lexington, Kentucky, March 31, 1830, he was sheriff of Fayette county.

Bibliography. No biography of Bradford has been written, but any of the histories of Kentucky contain extended notices of his life and work.

NOTES ON KENTUCKY. SECTION I

[From the Kentucky Gazette (August 25, 1826)]

This country was well known to the Indian traders many years before its settlement. They gave a description of it to Lewis Evans, who published his first map of it as early as 1752.

In the year 1750,[2] Dr. Thomas Walker, Colby Chew, Ambrose Powell and several others from the counties of Orange and Culpepper, in the state of Virginia, set out on an excursion to the Western Waters; they traveled down the Holstein river, and crossed over the Mountains into Powell's valley, thence across the Cumberland mountain at the gap where the road now crosses, proceeded on across what was formerly known by the name of the Wilderness until they arrived at the Hazlepath; here the company divided, Dr. Walker with a part continued north until they came to the Kentucky river which they named Louisa or Levisa river. After traveling down the excessive broken or hilly margin some distance they became dissatisfied and returned and continued up one of its branches to its head, and crossed over the mountains to New River at the place called Walker's Meadows.

In the year 1754 James McBride with some others, passed down the Ohio river in canoes, and landed at the mouth of the Kentucky river, where they marked on a tree the initials of their names, and the date of the year. These men passed through the country and were the first who gave a particular account of its beauty and richness of soil to the inhabitants of the British settlements in America.

No further notice seems to have been taken of Kentucky until the year 1767, when John Finlay with others (whilst trading with the Indians) passed through a part of the rich lands of Kentucky. It was then called by the Indians in their language, the Dark and Bloody Grounds. Some difference took place between these traders and the Indians, and Finlay deemed it prudent to return to his residence in North Carolina, where he communicated his knowledge of the country to Col. Daniel Boone and others. This seems to have been one of the most important events in the history of Kentucky, as it was the exciting cause which prompted Col. Boone shortly afterwards to make his first visit to the Dark and Bloody Grounds.