... John Bradford served as Ensign in Fauquier County Militia (Gwathmey's Virginia Militia in the Revolution). He lived for a while on some of his father's land in Culpeper County, but his abilities needed a larger field and Kentucky was the solution. From an article in The Kentucky Press of February, 1937, he first visited "the western country" in 1775 as a deputy surveyor under Col. William Preston, By 1785 (Reg. of Kentucky State Historical Society, 40:126) he was established permanently in his new home.
Somehow John Bradford had acquired a good education, he was by nature enterprising and intelligent. Seeing the need for a newspaper in Kentucky, he with his brother Fielding journeyed from Lexington, Kentucky to Philadelphia to purchase a small printing press. Returning with it to Pittsburgh, they stopped to buy a supply of type from John Scull who had recently started the Pittsburgh Gazette. They then proceeded down the Ohio and overland to Lexington. The first issue of the Kentucky Gazette hurriedly printed appeared August 11, 1787, and for years thereafter varied publications came from this press. The first booklet printed was the Kentucke Almanac for 1788, of which no known copy is extant. There are two known copies of the 1794 Almanac, one of which is in the Virginia State Library. (See illustration, overleaf.)
The services of John Bradford to Kentucky were numerous and valuable ; he was a member of the House of Representatives, a trustee of the town of Lexington, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Transylvania University, the first college established west of the Alleghanies. ...
