Indiana historians are undecided whether Bonney is actually buried in this cemetery, however since a stone dedicated to his Civil War service is located in this cemtery and the cemetery is indirectly named after him I am placing this bio for him here.
Son of Jethro M. Bonney and Laurana Webster.
Married 17 Jan 1832 Maria L. Van Frank in Homer, NY.
He moved to Washington Twp, Elkhart Co, IN about 1833. There he patented three parcels of land totaling about 120 acres from the US Land Management Office, the papers for which were dated in Washington in 1836 and 1837. There he built a state-of-the-art flouring mill and a saw mill. His ambition was that the 'Bonneyville Mill' would serve as a focus for a new community to grow around it, based on either a canal or a railroad also being built through Bonneyville. Neither happened and the community never came to being. The mill is yet functioning and is a major focus of interest in a small State Park there.
After his dreams of a community failed, Bonney owned a tavern-hotel there until he left for Nauvoo, IL in the early 1840's. Stories that he fled the Elkhart County area due to impending Federal charges of counterfeitng are, at best, unsubstantiated. In Nauvoo, the Mormon Independant State within Illinois, Bonney came to be friends with Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders, tho he was never a Mormon himself. After the death of J. Smith, Bonney moved again, this time across the Mississippi, to Lee County, Iowa where he operated a livery stable and began a career that has made him a controversial figure among historians to this day.
Bonney became a bounty hunter & quasi-detective. His exploits of his man-hunts were written by him in a book titled "The Banditti of the Prairies, or, The Murderer's Doom !! A tale of the Mississippi Valley". This book, first published in 1850, reprinted eleven times before 1900, run serially in newspapers after 1910, and again reprinted with a new inroduction in 1963, is his biographical tale of tracking down two sets of murderers in 1845 - 1846. The book is available today for a modest price at internet used book stores and is considered one of the better sources of life as it was then on the Mississippi River frontier.
Of Bonney himself, much is said in his book extolling his virtues as a bounty hunter and being a simple man attempting to make life safer along the River for the common good. At times he posed as a counterfeiter, horse thief, and a common criminal, a man of "the right stripe". His arms, he wrote, consisted of a pair of rifle pistols, a revolving six-shooter, a bowie knife and a dirk (sword) cane.
He himself was indicted twice, once on charges of murder, putting off counterfeit coins, and assisting in murder. This case never came to trial because of lack of witnesses. The second indictment, in a US District Court of Illinois, was for counterfeiting. On this charge he was acquited by a jury and the Governor of Illinois, with whom he was friendly, agreed that Bonney was inncocent (as told by Bonney in the final chapter of his book).
He was a man who put many men into prison and caused several to be hanged. The very nature of his activities made him a man of mystery and earned him many enemies.
After his book was printed he fades into the background although there is evidence he was still man-hunting well into the 1850's. In the 1850's he moved several times, going further north in Illinois, until he was living in Chicago by about 1860.
In the 1863 Chicago Directory his occuaption is that of 'soldier'. He enlisted in the Union Army, Co. G, 127th Illinois Infantry, in Chicago on 22 Oct 1862. He was 55 years of age at the time. He was given a disability discharge 23 Dec 1863. He died two months later in February of 1864 at an unknown location.
A search on the Internet will bring up much information about him, much of which is of questionable accuracy.
No one will ever know whether he was the 'Protector of the Mississippi' he made himself out to be or whether he was a little too close to many of the dozens of outlaws he knew and claimed feigned friendship with. Probably somewhere between the two by our standards today, but he lived in a different world on the unruly Mississippi edge of the frontier.
Son of Jethro M. Bonney and Laurana Webster.
Married 17 Jan 1832 Maria L. Van Frank in Homer, NY.
He moved to Washington Twp, Elkhart Co, IN about 1833. There he patented three parcels of land totaling about 120 acres from the US Land Management Office, the papers for which were dated in Washington in 1836 and 1837. There he built a state-of-the-art flouring mill and a saw mill. His ambition was that the 'Bonneyville Mill' would serve as a focus for a new community to grow around it, based on either a canal or a railroad also being built through Bonneyville. Neither happened and the community never came to being. The mill is yet functioning and is a major focus of interest in a small State Park there.
After his dreams of a community failed, Bonney owned a tavern-hotel there until he left for Nauvoo, IL in the early 1840's. Stories that he fled the Elkhart County area due to impending Federal charges of counterfeitng are, at best, unsubstantiated. In Nauvoo, the Mormon Independant State within Illinois, Bonney came to be friends with Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders, tho he was never a Mormon himself. After the death of J. Smith, Bonney moved again, this time across the Mississippi, to Lee County, Iowa where he operated a livery stable and began a career that has made him a controversial figure among historians to this day.
Bonney became a bounty hunter & quasi-detective. His exploits of his man-hunts were written by him in a book titled "The Banditti of the Prairies, or, The Murderer's Doom !! A tale of the Mississippi Valley". This book, first published in 1850, reprinted eleven times before 1900, run serially in newspapers after 1910, and again reprinted with a new inroduction in 1963, is his biographical tale of tracking down two sets of murderers in 1845 - 1846. The book is available today for a modest price at internet used book stores and is considered one of the better sources of life as it was then on the Mississippi River frontier.
Of Bonney himself, much is said in his book extolling his virtues as a bounty hunter and being a simple man attempting to make life safer along the River for the common good. At times he posed as a counterfeiter, horse thief, and a common criminal, a man of "the right stripe". His arms, he wrote, consisted of a pair of rifle pistols, a revolving six-shooter, a bowie knife and a dirk (sword) cane.
He himself was indicted twice, once on charges of murder, putting off counterfeit coins, and assisting in murder. This case never came to trial because of lack of witnesses. The second indictment, in a US District Court of Illinois, was for counterfeiting. On this charge he was acquited by a jury and the Governor of Illinois, with whom he was friendly, agreed that Bonney was inncocent (as told by Bonney in the final chapter of his book).
He was a man who put many men into prison and caused several to be hanged. The very nature of his activities made him a man of mystery and earned him many enemies.
After his book was printed he fades into the background although there is evidence he was still man-hunting well into the 1850's. In the 1850's he moved several times, going further north in Illinois, until he was living in Chicago by about 1860.
In the 1863 Chicago Directory his occuaption is that of 'soldier'. He enlisted in the Union Army, Co. G, 127th Illinois Infantry, in Chicago on 22 Oct 1862. He was 55 years of age at the time. He was given a disability discharge 23 Dec 1863. He died two months later in February of 1864 at an unknown location.
A search on the Internet will bring up much information about him, much of which is of questionable accuracy.
No one will ever know whether he was the 'Protector of the Mississippi' he made himself out to be or whether he was a little too close to many of the dozens of outlaws he knew and claimed feigned friendship with. Probably somewhere between the two by our standards today, but he lived in a different world on the unruly Mississippi edge of the frontier.
Indiana historians are undecided whether Bonney is actually buried in this cemetery, however since a stone dedicated to his Civil War service is located in this cemtery and the cemetery is indirectly named after him I am placing this bio for him here.
Son of Jethro M. Bonney and Laurana Webster.
Married 17 Jan 1832 Maria L. Van Frank in Homer, NY.
He moved to Washington Twp, Elkhart Co, IN about 1833. There he patented three parcels of land totaling about 120 acres from the US Land Management Office, the papers for which were dated in Washington in 1836 and 1837. There he built a state-of-the-art flouring mill and a saw mill. His ambition was that the 'Bonneyville Mill' would serve as a focus for a new community to grow around it, based on either a canal or a railroad also being built through Bonneyville. Neither happened and the community never came to being. The mill is yet functioning and is a major focus of interest in a small State Park there.
After his dreams of a community failed, Bonney owned a tavern-hotel there until he left for Nauvoo, IL in the early 1840's. Stories that he fled the Elkhart County area due to impending Federal charges of counterfeitng are, at best, unsubstantiated. In Nauvoo, the Mormon Independant State within Illinois, Bonney came to be friends with Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders, tho he was never a Mormon himself. After the death of J. Smith, Bonney moved again, this time across the Mississippi, to Lee County, Iowa where he operated a livery stable and began a career that has made him a controversial figure among historians to this day.
Bonney became a bounty hunter & quasi-detective. His exploits of his man-hunts were written by him in a book titled "The Banditti of the Prairies, or, The Murderer's Doom !! A tale of the Mississippi Valley". This book, first published in 1850, reprinted eleven times before 1900, run serially in newspapers after 1910, and again reprinted with a new inroduction in 1963, is his biographical tale of tracking down two sets of murderers in 1845 - 1846. The book is available today for a modest price at internet used book stores and is considered one of the better sources of life as it was then on the Mississippi River frontier.
Of Bonney himself, much is said in his book extolling his virtues as a bounty hunter and being a simple man attempting to make life safer along the River for the common good. At times he posed as a counterfeiter, horse thief, and a common criminal, a man of "the right stripe". His arms, he wrote, consisted of a pair of rifle pistols, a revolving six-shooter, a bowie knife and a dirk (sword) cane.
He himself was indicted twice, once on charges of murder, putting off counterfeit coins, and assisting in murder. This case never came to trial because of lack of witnesses. The second indictment, in a US District Court of Illinois, was for counterfeiting. On this charge he was acquited by a jury and the Governor of Illinois, with whom he was friendly, agreed that Bonney was inncocent (as told by Bonney in the final chapter of his book).
He was a man who put many men into prison and caused several to be hanged. The very nature of his activities made him a man of mystery and earned him many enemies.
After his book was printed he fades into the background although there is evidence he was still man-hunting well into the 1850's. In the 1850's he moved several times, going further north in Illinois, until he was living in Chicago by about 1860.
In the 1863 Chicago Directory his occuaption is that of 'soldier'. He enlisted in the Union Army, Co. G, 127th Illinois Infantry, in Chicago on 22 Oct 1862. He was 55 years of age at the time. He was given a disability discharge 23 Dec 1863. He died two months later in February of 1864 at an unknown location.
A search on the Internet will bring up much information about him, much of which is of questionable accuracy.
No one will ever know whether he was the 'Protector of the Mississippi' he made himself out to be or whether he was a little too close to many of the dozens of outlaws he knew and claimed feigned friendship with. Probably somewhere between the two by our standards today, but he lived in a different world on the unruly Mississippi edge of the frontier.
Son of Jethro M. Bonney and Laurana Webster.
Married 17 Jan 1832 Maria L. Van Frank in Homer, NY.
He moved to Washington Twp, Elkhart Co, IN about 1833. There he patented three parcels of land totaling about 120 acres from the US Land Management Office, the papers for which were dated in Washington in 1836 and 1837. There he built a state-of-the-art flouring mill and a saw mill. His ambition was that the 'Bonneyville Mill' would serve as a focus for a new community to grow around it, based on either a canal or a railroad also being built through Bonneyville. Neither happened and the community never came to being. The mill is yet functioning and is a major focus of interest in a small State Park there.
After his dreams of a community failed, Bonney owned a tavern-hotel there until he left for Nauvoo, IL in the early 1840's. Stories that he fled the Elkhart County area due to impending Federal charges of counterfeitng are, at best, unsubstantiated. In Nauvoo, the Mormon Independant State within Illinois, Bonney came to be friends with Joseph Smith and other Mormon leaders, tho he was never a Mormon himself. After the death of J. Smith, Bonney moved again, this time across the Mississippi, to Lee County, Iowa where he operated a livery stable and began a career that has made him a controversial figure among historians to this day.
Bonney became a bounty hunter & quasi-detective. His exploits of his man-hunts were written by him in a book titled "The Banditti of the Prairies, or, The Murderer's Doom !! A tale of the Mississippi Valley". This book, first published in 1850, reprinted eleven times before 1900, run serially in newspapers after 1910, and again reprinted with a new inroduction in 1963, is his biographical tale of tracking down two sets of murderers in 1845 - 1846. The book is available today for a modest price at internet used book stores and is considered one of the better sources of life as it was then on the Mississippi River frontier.
Of Bonney himself, much is said in his book extolling his virtues as a bounty hunter and being a simple man attempting to make life safer along the River for the common good. At times he posed as a counterfeiter, horse thief, and a common criminal, a man of "the right stripe". His arms, he wrote, consisted of a pair of rifle pistols, a revolving six-shooter, a bowie knife and a dirk (sword) cane.
He himself was indicted twice, once on charges of murder, putting off counterfeit coins, and assisting in murder. This case never came to trial because of lack of witnesses. The second indictment, in a US District Court of Illinois, was for counterfeiting. On this charge he was acquited by a jury and the Governor of Illinois, with whom he was friendly, agreed that Bonney was inncocent (as told by Bonney in the final chapter of his book).
He was a man who put many men into prison and caused several to be hanged. The very nature of his activities made him a man of mystery and earned him many enemies.
After his book was printed he fades into the background although there is evidence he was still man-hunting well into the 1850's. In the 1850's he moved several times, going further north in Illinois, until he was living in Chicago by about 1860.
In the 1863 Chicago Directory his occuaption is that of 'soldier'. He enlisted in the Union Army, Co. G, 127th Illinois Infantry, in Chicago on 22 Oct 1862. He was 55 years of age at the time. He was given a disability discharge 23 Dec 1863. He died two months later in February of 1864 at an unknown location.
A search on the Internet will bring up much information about him, much of which is of questionable accuracy.
No one will ever know whether he was the 'Protector of the Mississippi' he made himself out to be or whether he was a little too close to many of the dozens of outlaws he knew and claimed feigned friendship with. Probably somewhere between the two by our standards today, but he lived in a different world on the unruly Mississippi edge of the frontier.
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