Juan Davis Bradburn

Duane's take

Now, what I'm about to tell you comes straight from the official marker, and I'll let the record speak for itself. This is the story of Juan Davis Bradburn, and it is something else. He started life as John Davis Bradburn, born in Virginia in 1787, raised up in Kentucky.

Two names, two countries, one restless man. By the time 1817 rolled around, he was marching into Mexico with Francisco Mina's army, taking up the cause of Mexican independence against Spanish colonial forces. That is a long way from Kentucky, in every sense of the word.

Bradburn didn't just pass through. He put down roots. He became a naturalized Mexican citizen.

In 1821, he married into an aristocratic family. A Virginian by birth, a Kentuckian by raisin', and now woven into the fabric of Mexican society. The man had range.

In 1828, he hired a fellow named Henry Austin to operate a steamboat on the Rio Grande. Whether that was shrewd or simply ambitious, the marker doesn't say, but it fits the pattern of a man who kept movin' and kept building. What history remembers him most for, though, is Anahuac.

From 1830 to 1832, Bradburn served as the Mexican commander at Anahuac, and those years were marked by what the marker plainly calls disturbances. Tensions, confrontations, the kind of friction that gets written down and remembered. In 1832, he was promoted to general.

The same year those disturbances were still burnin'. He died in 1842. And here is where the story gets its quiet mystery.

The exact location of his grave is unknown. But there is a hill nearby, and he reportedly rests somewhere on it. A man who crossed continents, changed nations, and commanded armies, and the ground that holds him keeps its secret.

John Davis Bradburn. Virginia to Kentucky to Mexico, 1787 to 1842. Somewhere on that hill.

What the marker says

John Davis Bradburn (1787-1842) was born in Virginia and reared in Kentucky. He entered Mexico in 1817 with Francisco Mina's army to help upset Spanish colonial forces in the War of Independence. He became a naturalized Mexican citizen and in 1821 married into an aristocratic family. Bradburn hired Henry Austin to operate a steamboat on the Rio Grande in 1828. Best known as the Mexican commander at the Anahuac disturbances in 1830-32, he was promoted to general in 1832, and died in 1842. The exact location of his grave is unknown; he reportedly is buried on the hill nearby. (1996)