Person:James Bradford (11)

BIOGRAPHY: http://www.concentric.net/~pvb/GEN/jhbrad.html James Henry Bradford* (1836-1913) was the third of four children and the only son born of the marriage between Moses Bradstreet Bradford* (1799-1878) and Ascenath Church (Dickman) Washburn Ewers* (1796-1840). At the age of nine months, he was described by his mother as her "crying baby who is growing [up to be] a better boy and diverts himself on the floor now..." in a letter to her father dated May 19, 1837. Until he was 17 years old he lived on his father's farm in Grafton VT where he was born. Apparently, his youth was spent in an abundance of home grown food and religion. His mother's letters show that there was always plenty to eat and his father was the pastor at the Congregational Church of Grafton VT from 1828-1859. At the age of 17, in 1854, James Henry went to Charleston SC under the employ of his brother-in-law, William G. Bancroft, proprietor of one of the largest dry-goods houses in the South. He came down with yellow fever, but recovered, and returned, at age 20, in 1857, to New England where he entered the Williston Seminary at Easthampton MA, to prepare for Yale. He entered Yale in Sept. 1859 in the class of 1863 as a candidate for the Bachelor of Divinity degree. While at Yale, he and three other students formed a quartet that became Yale's first "Glee Club", since known as the "Wiffenpoofs". While in his Sophomore year, war had begun and he "drilled about the college grounds with the boys". He was invited to serve as Chaplain for the 12th Connecticut Volunteers by Captain Dick, and a week later, on February 12, 1861, after buying a uniform, becoming ordained (in a ceremony conducted by his own father), and settling his affairs, he reported for duty. Apparently, he never received a degree from Yale, because of the interruption by the Civil War, however his class held reunions for many years, and he wrote extensively for the yearbook of his class' 40th reunion in 1903. His name does not appear among Yale graduates in the General Catalog of Yale University 1701- 1924. This catalog shows that the first Bachelor of Divinity degree was not issued until 1867. In his own words, as he wrote in his 40th reunion yearbook: "...I was...one of the three 'Church Committee' of my Class, who would be Deacons in the Senior year [emphasis added]; Secretary of the Glee Club of 1863; rooming in Athenaeum and South College.". Apparently, these would have been, were it not for thr Civil War. Under a commission from Governor Buckingham, he and his unit sailed from New York for Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico. He saw "skirmishes and battles", at New Orleans, Camp Parapet, Tibideaux, and twice participated in the taking of Brashear City. He was furloughed for 30 days in CT, then returned to Fort Monroe, Washington DC, Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. He was mustered out in Dec., 1864. He once lost his prayer book in an "up-country" Louisiana church, which was returned to him 39 years later in Washington DC. After the war, he was Chaplain of the James A. Garfield Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.), from its inception and for 31 years thereafter, and in 1904 became the Chaplain-in-Chief of the entire G.A.R. It is for this service that he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. James Henry married Ellen Jane Knight* (1839-1899) in August, 1865. She was known familiarly as "Nellie". Although Nellie was born in Ypsilanti MI, she had been educated at the Williston Seminary in Easthampton MA, where her uncle was a Trustee. James Henry met her during his preparatory education at the Williston Seminary (probably in 1859), where she was a few years younger but possibly in the same class. Ellen Jane was the daughter of Sylvester Knight, Jr. (1803-1876) and Joan Sophia Bonnell (1807-1860), however after her mother died in 1860 she was raised by her uncle, Horatio Gates Knight (1819-1895), just as he was embarking upon his political life. Shortly after his marriage, James Henry and his new bride went west to Hudson WI, where he served as Pastor of the First Congregational Church until March, 1867. Their first child, Sophia Bradford, was born there, but was born premature (and died, or was stillborn) as the result of a an accident involving a broken carriage and a runaway horse. In the following Sept., 1867, they returned East where he became Asst. Superintendent and Chaplain for the State Reform School at Westboro MA. This is where their daughter, Mary Knight Bradford, was born in 1868. After two years they moved to Middletown CT where he was Superintendent of the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls during 1869-1873. This is where Harry Bonnell Bradford (1870-1952) and Ruth Bradford (1871-1873) were born. Ruth died, in her second year, of pneumonia. Then he taught for a year at Russell's Military School at New Haven, and next founded the "Bradford's Student Home" in Middletown CT, where he spent a year or two. Their son, Horatio Knight Bradford (1876-1914), was born there. For the next three years he taught at the Palmer State Primary School at Palmer MA, where he cared for nearly 700 boys and girls, during 1876-1879. Then he went to New York City for 6 months to work with the Howard Mission, an organization that functioned as an advisory group and later as an orphanage for African-American and Indian children, founded by Gen. Oliver Howard, best known for his role in the founding of Howard University in Washington DC. During that time his family moved to Rochester NY where Faith Bradford was born in 1880. Finally, in 1881, James Henry, and his family, went to Washington DC, where he went to work, first as an accountant, and later as an auditor for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Dept. of Interior. He worked there until retirement 28 years later, in 1909. He and his family had no less than 10 different addresses in Washington DC until he finally settled at Chevy Chase MD with his unmarried daughter, Faith Bradford in 1909. James Henry spent most of his free time, many days of uncompensated work time, and substantial amounts of his own money supporting numerous charities for the poor and unfortunate, including people who suffered from diseases, racial discrimination, criminal pasts, wounds as veterans of the Civil War, or mental illness. He served frequently as a lay minister at the First Congregational Church in Washington DC. He survived a mild stroke in 1873 while at Middletown, which may have slowed down his mental processes. He died at Chevy Chase MD of Bright's Disease and is buried (under a common headstone with his son, Horatio Knight Bradford, a veteran of the Spanish American War in the Philippines) in the Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, who died in 1899, is buried in Middletown CT, with her daughter Ruth.

A History of the Class of 1863 Yale College New York 1889 - Page 135 James Henry Bradford, son of Rev. Moses Bradford and Ascenath Dickman (Ewers) Bradford, was born at Grafton, Vermont, August 24, 1836. He pursued he preparatory studies at the Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass., and was admitted to the Class October 5, 1859, leaving it at the end of the first term of Sophomore year. He then entered the Yale Theological Seminary, where he remained until February 12, 1862, when he was appointed chaplain of the 12th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, and served with it two years and ten months, and was mustered out of service with his regiment December 9, 1864. After leaving the army, he studied theology with his father in Vermont, and went West in May, 1865. He afterward became pastor of the First Congregational Church at Hudson, St. Croix County, Wis., remaining there until March, 1867. In September, 1867, he became assistant superintendent and chaplain of the State Reform School at Westboro, Mass., continuing in that office for two years. From 1869 to 1873 he was superintendent of the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls at Middletown, and in 1874 became vice-principal of the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven. In December, 1876, he became superintendent of the Massachusetts State Primary School at Monson. He remained there several years, and, after a few month's connection with the Howard Mission in New York City, went to Washington, D.C., where he was employed upon the census in the department of schools and churches. In 1883 he entered the Indian Bureau, where he now is. He was married August 19, 1865, to Nellie J. Knight, of Easthampton, Mass.

MILITARY: Source: Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War, published by L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893, 419 pgs.

Chaplain James Henry Bradford, U.S.V.

Chaplain James Henry Bradford, son of Rev. Moses Bradstreet Bradford, was born in Grafton, Vermont, August 24, 1836. On his father's side he was descended from pure Pilgrim stock, being the eighth in direct line from Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, and through him reaching back three generations more to Rev. John Bradford, chaplain to the queen, afterwards burned at the stake for his religion, at Smithfield, in 1555, with Rogers, Latimer, and others.

Chaplain Bradford's grandfather, Rev. Moses Bradford, was thirty-seven years minister of the town of Francestown, New Hampshire. He was the fifteenth child in a family of twenty, coming from Canterbury, Connecticut. His father also preached nearly thirty years in Grafton. Both of them were men of exalted character and sound common sense. His grandfather on his mother's side, Thomas Dickman, was the first printer and publisher and postmaster in Franklin County, at Greenfield, Massachusetts; founder of the Springfield Gazette, and afterwards of the Hampden Federalist, of Springfield.

James Henry attended the district school and worked on his father's farm in Grafton until about seventeen years of age, when he went to Charleston, South Carolina, into the dry-goods establishment of his brother-in-law, William G. Bancroft, and remained three years under the strict discipline of that princely merchant. One incident of life there was having the yellow fever in 1854.

To acquire a better education he entered Williston Seminary, at East Hampton, Massachusetts, and thence Yale College, and was in the first year of his theological course when the war broke out. He was much interested in the Thirteenth Regiment, quartered in New Haven, but being invited to visit the Twelfth, at Hartford, he was elected chaplain, securing every vote cast. The Twelfth was the only three years' regiment from Connecticut that had but one chaplain.

Chaplain Bradford endeared himself very much to the men of his regiment by closely looking after their welfare. Possessing an excellent constitution, he shared the exposure with the men. When they lived in tents, he did. If they had none, he slept on the ground under the open sky. As a matter of fact, he hardly slept in a bed during the almost three years of his service. He had charge of all mail and express matter, and furnished reading for the men; raised money for a band and purchased the instruments; visited the sick daily, buried the dead, and marked and recorded their resting-place; sent the money home for the boys, at one time at great personal risk, carrying several thousand dollars on his person through the enemy's country to the express office.

His service was in the Department of the Gulf and with the Nineteenth Army Corps, under General Sheridan, in the Valley. He was in the contests in Louisiana, at Port Hudson forty-two days; at Winchester and Fisher's Hill in the Valley; was never sick, captured, or wounded, but had several narrow escapes. His regiment was the first to ascend the Mississippi River and land at New Orleans; the first to re-enlist for the war, at which time the chaplain was requested to accept the colonelcy, but declined, preferring his old position. He was a thorough believer in liberty, and was the first man in the Department of the Gulf to apply for authority to raise a colored regiment, which was refused on the ground that the colored people were needed to gather the crops.

After the war Chaplain Bradford took charge of a Congregational church at Hudson, Wisconsin, at which time he married Miss Ellen J. Knight, of East Hampton, Mass., a niece of Lieutenant-Governor H. G. Knight. After two years in the pastorate he accepted the position of assistant superintendent and chaplain of the Massachusetts State Reform School; afterwards started the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls, and for four years made it the best school of the kind in the country. He was then called to superintend the Massachusetts State Primary School, where he showed excellent judgment in managing its six hundred and fifty inmates and forty officers. After a few months' connection with Howard Mission, New York, he was called to Washington to assist in the religious statistics of the Tenth Census; thence to the Indian Bureau, where he has remained. He was one of the early members of Garfield Post, G. A. R., and has always been its chaplain; served one year as chaplain of the Department of the Potomac; is also chaplain of the Loyal Legion. Chaplain Bradford preaches almost every Sabbath in some vacant pulpit. He has four children living, two sons and two daughters. Mrs. Bradford has become widely known from originating and conducting the famous "Ben-Hur Tableaux."

MEDIA: D0012 - James Henry Bradford http://www.concentric.net/~pvb/GEN/jhbphoto.html