Below is a link to the PDF version of my Senior Thesis at Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo Michigan for my BA in History in June of 1976.  It focuses on three Bradley ancestors by way of biographies with genealogical material included.  The first is William Bradley (1619 to 1691) who fought with Cromwell in the English Civil War and emigrated from Yorkshire, England to Connecticut in 1644.  He was a farmer and the first resident of North Haven, Connecticut.

The second biography is of Deacon Captain Jesse Bradley (1736 to 1812) who moved to western Massachusetts and fought in the American Revolution.  He was also the author of  “A Narrative of Two Excommunications Upon Jesse Bradley (for Conscience’s Sake) by the Congregational Church in Lee” telling of his punishment of social ostracism in the town of Lee, Massachusetts for his disagreement with the local minister.

The third biography is of my great, great grandfather Henry Martin Bradley (1824 to 1918) who moved to Ohio as a young boy and remembered the danger of wolves in his Autobiography written in 1907.  He then moved to Bay City, Michigan where he was the first street commissioner and his brother Nathan Ball Bradley was the first Mayor (and later Congressman for two terms).  They were both in the lumber business.  As an older man he moved to Duluth, Minnesota where he made his fortune in mining.  Besides his Autobiography he published the Genealogy of 1898.

Henry’s descendants benefited from his mineral interests which were passed down in the HM Bradley Trust, which paid for the printing of 500 copies of this family history pamphlet in 1977.   You can view or download this PDF from the Downloads page or by clicking here: Moving with the Frontier

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Henry Martin Bradley