The
Vol. IV.
No. 4.
Green
BOSTON.
Bag
April, 1892.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY. By Frank W. Hackett. T HAVE been asked to prepare a sketch was attested by the small but well-selected of the late Mr. Justice Bradley, of the library that he owned, consisting mainly of Supreme Court of the United States, who historical and mathematical works. " My died at his home in Washington on the grandfather," says the Justice, in notes upon 22d of January last. In complying with the Bradley genealogy, " had followed the the request, I am not unmindful that the joint trade of tanner, currier, harness and scope of this publication admits of present shoe maker. He dug and built tan vats as ing but little more than the merest outline soon as he had settled his farm. We always of what he was as" a lawyer, a judge, and tanned our own leather, and some for our neighbors. We made our own harness and a man. Joseph P. Bradley 1 came of a line of shoes." After alluding to sundry other sturdy English ancestry. The earliest of means of self-support that marked the lot of the farmer of that day, he concludes sig the name in this country was Francis Brad ley, the date of whose coming from England nificantly : " I presume that very few men is said to be 1638. From the records of the can look back to such absolute indepen New Haven Colony, it appears that in 1650 dence as this. Of course, such a variety Francis Bradley was a cadet in the family of •of employment occupied almost every hour Gov. Theophilus Eaton. In 1 660 he removed of the year; and the devil could very to Fairfield. He was married to Ruth, seldom find idle hands on our farm for his daughter of John Barlow, an ancestor of Joel purposes." His great-grandfather was a soldier of Barlow, the poet. The subject of this sketch was the fifth in descent to bear the name of the Revolution, and his grandfather served in the War of 1812. They both reached a Joseph. In 1791 his grandfather removed from hearty old age, and the Justice could re Connecticut to Berne, a little town in Al member them well. His mother was Mercy, bany County, N. Y., about eighteen miles daughter of Daniel and Hannah (Hovvland) southwest from the city of Albany, in the Gardiner, of Newport, R. I. .She was a region of the Helderberg Hills. Here on woman of superior mental endowments. an elevated spot, situated amid beautiful The son touchingly says of her : " The scenery and in sight of the Catskills, the charm of our home depended greatly on future Justice was born, Manch 14, 1813. His the good sense, native shrewdness, sweet father, Philo Bradley, was a farmer well-to- temper, and unalloyed goodness of my do in circumstances, whose liking for books mother." Mr. Justice Bradley loved to tell his children how, when discouraged over a 1 His baptismal name was Joseph. The letter " P he adopted by way of distinction; it is not the initial letter lesson, she would gently draw him to her side, and With a word or two start him on of a name. . . '9
