Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/186

This page needs to be proofread.

180 BRADFORD manufacture, both in yarn and in piece. There are also numerous cotton mills, founderies, and manufactories of combs and machinery. A custom house and inland bonding warehouse have been established here. A handsome and commodious town hall was commenced in 1870, to cost 74,000, including 30,000 for land. The town is situated at the union of three extensive valleys, surrounded by pictu- resque scenery, and has the advantage of many ancient and excellent schools. The Airedale college, for the education of Independent minis- ters, is at Undercliffe, near Bradford, and a Wesleyan seminary for ministers' sons at Wood- honse Grove. BRADFORD, Alden, an American author, born at Duxbury, Mass., in 1765, died in Boston, Oct. 26, 1843. He was descended from Gov. Brad- ford, graduated at Harvard college in 1786, and was settled as pastor of a Congregational church at Wiscasset, Maine, for eight years. He after- ward engaged in the book trade in Boston, and from 1812 to 1824 was secretary of state of Massachusetts. He published a history of Mas- sachusetts from 1764 to 1820, a " History of the Federal Government," and many miscellaneous pieces at different times. BRADFORD, John, an English martyr, born at Manchester about 1510, burnt at Smithfield after a long imprisonment, July 1, 1555. He was appointed chaplain to Edward VI. in 1552, and became one of the most popular preachers in the kingdom. In the reign of Mary he was tried on a charge of sedition and heresy, and sentenced to death. The Parker society pub- lished his theological treatises in 1848. BRADFORD, William, second governor of Ply- mouth colony, born in Yorkshire, England, in March, 1588, died May 9, 1657. At an early age he emigrated to Holland for the sake of re- ligious liberty, and, having joined the English congregation at Leyden, sailed for America in 1620, in the Mayflower. Upon the death of Gov. Carver in 1621, he was elected to supply his place. One of his first acts was to adopt measures to confirm the league with Massasoit, who afterward disclosed to the colony a dan- gerous conspiracy among the Indians, which was suppressed. The first legal patent or char- ter of the colony was obtained in the name of John Pierce ; but in 1630 a more comprehensive one was issued in the name of William Bradford, his heirs, associates, and assigns. In 1 640 the general court requested him to deliver the pat- ent into their hands, and upon his complying immediately returned it into his custody. He was annually elected governor as long as he lived, excepting five years at different intervals, when he declined an election, holding the office 31 years. Though without a learned education, he wrote a history of Plymouth colony from 1602 to 1647. On the retreat of the British army in 1775, the MS. was carried away from the library of the Old South church in Boston, but was recovered and printed entire by the Massachusetts historical society in 1856. A large book of copies of letters relating to the affairs of the colony was also lost; but a fragment of it found in a grocer's shop at Halifax has been printed by the same society. BRADFORD. I. William, the first printer in Pennsylvania, born in Leicester, England, in 1658, died in New York, May 23, 1752. Being a Quaker, he emigrated in 1682, and landed where Philadelphia was afterward built. In 1686 he printed an almanac. In 1692, having printed the alleged seditious writings of George Keith, he was tried for libel. The justice hav- ing charged the jury to find only the fact as to the printing, Bradford maintained that they were to find also whether the paper was really seditious, and that " the jury are judges in law as well as the matter of fact." He was not convicted, but having incurred the displeasure of the dominant party in Philadelphia, he re- moved to New York in 1693, and in that year printed the laws of the colony. On Oct. 16, 1725, he began the first newspaper in New York, called the " New York Gazette." In 1728 he established a paper mill at Elizabeth- town, N. J. For more than 50 years he was printer to the government of New York, and for 30 years the only one in the province. II. Andrew, an American printer, son of the pre- ceding, born in, Philadelphia about 1686, died Nov. 23, 1742. He was the only printer in Pennsylvania from 1712 to 1723. On Dec. 22, 1719, he commenced the " American Weekly Mercury," the first newspaper in Philadelphia ; and he gave employment to Benjamin Franklin on his arrival there in 1723. In 1732 he was postmaster. In 1735 he kept a bookstore at the sign of the Bible in Second street ; and in 1738 he removed to No. 8 South Front street, to a house which in 1810 was occupied as a printing house by his descendant, Thomas Bradford, publisher of the " True American." BRADFORD, William, an American lawyer, born in Philadelphia, Sept. 14, 1755, died Aug. 23, 1795. He graduated at Princeton college in 1772, and was admitted to the bar in 1779. In 1776 he joined the militia, and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel ; but in consequence of ill health he resigned at the end of two years. In 1780 he was appointed attorney general of Pennsylvania, a judge of the supreme court in 1791, and attorney general of the United States, Jan. 28, 1794. In early life he wrote some pastoral poems in imitation of Shenstone ; but his principal production was an "Inquiry how far the Punishment of Death is necessary in Pennsylvania." BRADFORD, William, an American painter, born in New Bedford, Mass., about 1830. Ho is of Quaker extraction, and was educated for commerce ; but failing in business, he took up painting, and soon acquired facility in making portraits of ships. He practised marine paint- ing for several years at Fairhaven, Mass., and thence made excursions along the New Eng- land coast, and northward as far as Greenland, in quest of subjects. His works relate ex-