Peter Rainsford Brady (August 4, 1825 – May 2, 1902) was an American military officer, surveyor and politician. Following a short service in the United States Navy he joined the Texas Rangers, where he served during the Mexican–American War and along the western frontier. From Texas he moved westward where he became an early settler and political office holder in Arizona Territory. Background Brady was born to Peter and Ann (Rainsford) Brady on August 4, 1825, in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. His mother was a Londoner. She married a citizen of Georgetown at age 21. Besides Peter they had two daughters, Margaret Ann and Mary Ellen. Peter was educated at Georgetown College, starting at age 12. This event is not to be judged by today's educational system, which did not then exist. There was no distinction between secondary and college education. The "college" at that time was more of a boy's private school. It included both primary and secondary education. Naval foray Modern attempts to deal with his naval service are similarly confounded; notably, Texas Ranger handbooks and sites claim various things, that he graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1844, and after a year's service resigned from the navy, or that he served as a midshipman, but not at the Academy. The Academy was founded in 1845. The most credible report has him being a midshipman 1844–1846, graduating with the first class ever to graduate from there, Class of 1846, and resigning to fight in the Mexican–American War with the "Texas Rangers," then the military arm of the new State of Texas. One may speculate as follows. Originally student naval officers, or midshipmen, began their careers in a more practical vein aboard a sailing ship of war. After an apprenticeship at sea they took an examination, passing which they were termed "passed midshipman," a term that persisted in the early Naval Academy. The rank of Lieutenant then had to be earned. The rank of Ensign as it exists today was not created until the Civil War, when it was resurrected from an earlier use. "Passed midshipman" was dropped in its favor. In 1834 a Naval School was created, but it had to be placed in the Philadelphia Naval Asylum at Naval Square, Philadelphia, which it shared with a hospital and a naval retirement home. This fine building bore a resemblance to the