Edward William Bonney
Adventurer, Detective, Bounty Hunter, and Author (1807-1864)
Edward William Bonney: Frontier Detective and Adventurer
Edward William Bonney was a 19th-century adventurer whose remarkable life encompassed roles as miller, hotel keeper, city planner, counterfeiter, livery stable keeper, bounty hunter, private detective, postmaster, merchant, soldier, and author. He is best known for his undercover work exposing the "Banditti of the Prairie" and investigating the torture-murder of noted Illinois pioneer Colonel George Davenport.
- Founded Bonneyville, Indiana in 1835, building a mill and hotel
- Served as aide-de-camp to Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo Legion (1844)
- Infilitrated the Banditti of the Prairie as an undercover detective (1845-1846)
- Published The Banditti of the Prairies (1850), which went through eight editions
- Served in the Union Army during the Civil War, participating in the Siege of Vicksburg
Portrait of Edward William Bonney (1807-1864), adventurer, detective, bounty hunter, and author.
Early Life and Frontier Ventures
Edward William Bonney was born on August 26, 1807, in Essex County, New York. His father, Jethro May Bonney, was a soldier stationed near the border of Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) at the time of his birth. His mother was Lucinda Laurana Webster, a relative of Daniel Webster. In 1816, the family moved to Cortland, New York, where Edward spent his formative years.
After getting married, Edward Bonney moved to the frontier in Elkhart County, Indiana, in 1835, with the ambitious intent of creating the city of Bonneyville, named after himself. He built the Bonneyville Mill for grinding grain into flour and also constructed a saw mill. Bonney purchased 80 acres for his planned city and built a hotel. However, when Bonneyville failed to grow rapidly from a sleepy farm town into a bustling city, Bonney sold most of his land holdings in 1841. Present-day Bonneyville Mill County Park is all that survives of Bonney's dream, and the mill itself continues to operate as the oldest continuously operating grist mill in Indiana.
On July 9, 1842, Bonney was arrested on suspicion of counterfeiting along with Henry Kellogg and Obadiah Cooley in Gustavus Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. Authorities found "about half a bushel of base coin, half dollars and Mexican dollars" in their log cabin shop. At his August 4 arraignment, he pled not guilty and posted bail of $1,000, but he failed to show up for his November 1, 1842 trial in Ohio. When Bonney fled Indiana for the Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois, in February 1844, he may have been just ahead of the extradition warrant issued by the state of Ohio.
Mormon Affiliation and Offices Held in Nauvoo, Illinois
Bonney eventually settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844, a Latter Day Saint community on the Mississippi River. Between March 14 and April 11, 1844, he was chosen by Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to be a member of the Mormon theocratic "Council of Fifty." He was one of three non-members on the Mormon Council that made important government and community decisions for the Nauvoo Saints.
Bonney was chosen by Smith to be his aide-de-camp in the Nauvoo Legion from June 18 to June 27, 1844, until the murder of Smith. After the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844, Bonney, who as a non-Mormon was considered an outsider by the Nauvoo church elders, lost his influential status among the Council of Fifty. He was released from his Council duties on February 4, 1845, and he left for Iowa.
Bounty Hunter and Amateur Detective in Montrose, Iowa Territory
In 1845, Edward Bonney moved across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo to Montrose, Lee County, Iowa Territory (now Montrose, Lee County, Iowa), where he operated a livery stable. During the next several years, he worked with law enforcement agencies in Montrose and Lee County to hunt down various criminals in the area as a sort of freelance bounty hunter. Bonney gradually attained a reputation as a skilled detective, adept at "piecing together odd bits of information and rumor," although he was often subject to suspicion and persecution for his Mormonism.
Investigations of the Banditti of the Prairie and Publication
The criminal investigations of Edward Bonney into the criminal activity occurring along the vast mid-river area of the Mississippi between 1843-1848, attributed to the organization known as the "Banditti of the Prairie," were claimed by Bonney to being carried out by outlaws who considered themselves "self-styled" Mormons conveniently seeking refuge in Nauvoo as persecuted "Saints" where they headquartered their criminal activities unhindered by law enforcement.
It was not until going undercover within the organization, posing as a counterfeiter, that he was able to connect the gang to the torture-murder of Colonel George Davenport. After a four-month chase through Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio, he finally brought most of the murderers to justice. Of the eight men taken into custody, three of the four men involved in Davenport's murder—Granville Young and brothers John and Aaron Long—were convicted and hanged. The fourth man, Robert H. Birch, agreed to turn state's evidence and later escaped from jail. After learning "crime doesn't pay," Birch finally became an honest man and twelve years later was one of the founders of the Pinos Altos gold mining camp in 1858 in the New Mexico Territory.
In 1850, Edward Bonney wrote and published a sensational account of the Banditti of the Prairie, titled The Banditti of the Prairies: or, The murderer's doom, a tale of Mississippi Valley and the Far West, which was an immediate success and went through eight editions until 1858. Although it is thought Bonney may have been assisted by a ghost writer, most likely Henry A. Clark, the book, though poorly written by an amateur writer, is considered remarkably accurate when compared with official court records and other official evidence. The Bonney book was not specifically anti-Mormon, but reflected his criticism of organized religion.
An illustration of Edward Bonney at 38 years old, sitting, wearing a top hat and holding a walking cane, from his self-written 1850 book, The Banditti of the Prairies: or, The murderer's doom, a tale of Mississippi Valley and the Far West. Bonney was a bounty hunter and amateur detective who in 1845 posed as a counterfeiter, ironically having been arrested in Indiana for counterfeiting himself a few years earlier, to infiltrate a faction of the "Banditti of the Prairie" and track down the infamous murderers of Colonel George Davenport.
Later Career
Following the trial and execution of Granville Young and the Long brothers, Edward Bonney returned to Lee County, Iowa Territory the following year and was indicted by the local district court for murder and later acquitted. Bonney lived in Rock Island, Illinois for a time and before moving to Chicago in Prospect Park in DuPage County where he was appointed as the second postmaster of the town, before settling in Aurora, Illinois around 1852. In 1862, Edward Bonney was living in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, and continued working as a bounty hunter and detective, applying the investigative skills he had developed during his pursuit of the Banditti of the Prairie.
Civil War Service and Death
During the height of the American Civil War, Bonney, at age 56, enlisted into Captain John S. Williams' Company G, 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Union Army and participated in General Grant's Mississippi River Campaign, which included the Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he received a paralyzing leg wound. He was sent to the U.S. Marine Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, to recover from his severe wound.
Private Edward Bonney was medically discharged from the Union Army on December 23, 1863, and went back to Chicago, dying on February 4, 1864, as the result of his crippling leg wound. Bonney was buried in Bonneyville Cemetery, Bristol, Elkhart County, Indiana, near the mill and town that he once owned.
Legacy
Edward William Bonney's life represents one of the most colorful and adventurous chapters in the Bonney family history. From city founder to counterfeiter, from Mormon aide-de-camp to detective, from bounty hunter to Civil War soldier, his story captures the complexity and dynamism of the American frontier. His book The Banditti of the Prairies remains a valuable historical document of crime and law enforcement in the early American West, and his investigative work helped bring justice to one of the most notorious crimes of the era.
Read More: Bonneyville Mill | Revolutionary War Service Records | Family History Timeline
Sources: Wikipedia - Edward Bonney; The Bonney Family by Charles L. Bonney (1898); The Banditti of the Prairies by Edward Bonney (1850); Joseph Smith Papers; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls Database; Historical records from Elkhart County, Indiana, and Lee County, Iowa.