William Bolander Santa Fé County, New Mexico

William Bolander, a pioneer harness maker of Santa Fé, who came to this city in 1867, arrived in the Territory in 1866 as a saddler for the government at Fort Marcy. He made the journey with a train to Albuquerque and cast in his lot with the pioneer settlers of this portion of the country. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, and his first western experience was with the wagon train to Utah in 1861. Returning to the middle west, he enlisted in the Nineteenth Indiana Battery, which was assigned to the Fourteenth Army Corps, and he participated in the campaigns in Tennessee, Kentucky, and the march to the sea, being mustered out at Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1866 he went to Albuquerque with an overland train, but later returned to the east and came with another train in 1867, when he became a saddler at Fort Marcy, and was such until 1867, when he started a business of his own. He was with the army until 1865. He was a charter member of McRae Post, G. A. R. which was the first post organized, but which later ceased to exist. Afterward he joined the present post, Carlton, at Santa Fé, and he has also been an Odd Fellow since 1861, in which order he filled every office.

Back | Santa Fe County Biographies

Source: History of New Mexico, Its Resources and People, Volume II, Pacific States Publishing Co., 1907.