Eber Bradley - Chapters I, II and III

Chapter I

1648-1761

Where Eber ⁵ Bradley's line of Bradleys originated in England is conjecture. A popular idea is that they came from Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire, near Leeds on the River Aire. Perhaps this notion is made attractive by the names of two villages in the vicinity, High Bradley and Low Bradley, a mile apart, near Skipton, known as Bradleys Both.

The source of the name is from the Anglo-Saxon, compounded of the words "brad", "broad ".and "lea", a field or meadow, or from "braden leagan", a broad clearing in the forest. Many places in England bear the name. ¹

Whatever the derivation, we inherited no coat of arms, that "engaging nonsense" as it has been termed. A coat of arms is not granted to a family name, only to a particular family or person.

Largely from two of the more plausible accounts of the family's earliest years in the Colonies, we can construct the probable family line from about 1648 to 1761.^2,3

Elizabeth Bradley, widow, came to New Haven, Connecticut from England about 1648 with or at approximately the same time as her children and stepson:

William, possibly a stepson, died in 1690 or 1691;

Ellen, married John Ailing or Allin;

Daniel, died about 1658;

Joshua, born about 1637;

Nathan, 1638-1713;

Stephen¹, 1642-1701.

The name of the childrens' father is not known, nor the name of his first wife.

In America, Elizabeth Bradley married John Parmelee in 1653; after his death in 1659 she married John Evarts in 1663. He died in 1669. Parmelee and Evarts were from Guilford, Connecticut. Elizabeth died in January 1683.

Captain Stephen ¹ Bradley's first wife was Hannah Smith of New Haven whom he married in 1663. Seven children were born of the

marriage. After the death of Hannah, he married Mrs. Mary Leete, widow of William Leete, Jr. Stephen¹ was representative from Guilford to the General Assembly eleven times between 1692 and the year of his death, 1701.

Third-born among the Captain's children was his namesake, Stephen ² of East Guilford, born in 1668, who married Sarah, daughter of Andrew Ward of Killingworth, in 1693. They had four children including Stephen³ who was born in 1696.

This third Stephen married Jemima Cornwall (also reported as Cromwell, Cornwall, and Cornell) of Long Island in 1718. She died in 1787 after having eleven children between 1720, Joseph, and 1743, Eber.

Their fifth child was still another Stephen, ⁴ born in 1729. He married Ruth, daughter of Deacon Timothy Meigs, in 1755. Stephen ⁴ died July 31, 1803, his wife in 1814. Their son Eber, ⁵ born March 4, 1761, the subject of the title of this paper, had nine siblings:

Samuel Cornel, 1756-1834, married Abigail Brownson;

Miner, sometimes reported as "Mina," 1758-1777;

Stilman, born 1763, married Elizabeth (Betsey) Cook of Guilford;

Molly, 1765-1806, wife of Timothy Lewis;

John French Meigs, born 1768, married Sally Titus of Covington, Vermont;

Joy, 1771-1846, married Sally Howe;

Ruth, 1774-1817, married Captain Jacob Sherwin;

Harding, 1776-1819, married Rebecca Brady;

Miner, 1779-1803, never married.

Chapter II

Vermont and Revolution

By Eber ⁵ Bradley's account, in his declaration to obtain a pension for Revolutionary War services, he was born in "East Guilford (now Madison) in the County of New Haven and State of Connecticut on the 4th day of March 1761." The statement went on:

My father and family moved when I was about thirteen years of age from Connecticut to Sunderland (New Hampshire Grants) in the now County of Bennington and State of Vermont, ¹

In May 1773, the Connecticut Courant of Hartford published an advertisement for 45,000 acres of land for sale by the fledgling Onion River Company organized by Ethan, Ira, Heman, and Zimri Allen and cousin Remember Baker. Fishing was fine, according to the ad, excellent wheat land in the higher areas, first-class bottom lands, navigation and markets available. Still, they did not sell much land before the Revolution.²

Whether Stephen, ⁴ Ruth, and their seven or eight children made the journey about 1774 from East Guilford to Sunderland by water, using available waterways as much as possible, or followed the blazed trails through the forests, the move was arduous in the extreme.

They may have moved their belongings on a horse-drawn sled or, if they had no horse, by hand. Wagons were not practical on the rough trail, covered as it was with fallen trees, underbrush, and boulders. Whatever heroic means migrating families used, they tried to bring with them corn meal, pork, seed corn, an ax and a few other basic tools, musket with powder, fishing equipment, and the ever-popular jug or jugs of rum.³

When the Bradley family got to their new home, they found Sunderland was a frontier settlement, not large enough to be called a principal center or even a settled community.⁴

Corn was the staple of the newcomers' tables so an early effort was made to sow that invaluable crop. Pumpkins were easily grown and when dried lasted into the winter. Later on,

vegetables, oats, rye, and wheat were added. Hunting and trapping provided variety for their meals. Plenty of game was usually available including quail, turkeys, wild pigeons, and bears for stews and roasts.⁵

In the 1770's, male attire in the Grants favored butternut-dyed brown coats and breeches, wool stockings, and tough leather boots.⁶

Dwellings were primitive. The log house, chinked with clay, usually had a bark roof, a stone fireplace for both heating and cooking with a stone chimney or merely a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. Windows were covered with greased paper or blankets.⁷

Why did our ancestors make such a move? That they expected to improve their lot in life, whether by real estate speculation, farming or business, goes without saying. Too, the New Hampshire Grants represented the enticing "West" which had attracted previous generations and was to attract the next generations of Bradleys to Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska and California.

At about the time Stephen and his family moved to the Grants, Thomas (One-Eyed Tom) Chittenden, later a long-time governor of Vermont, and the Ethan Allen clan also moved in from Connecticut. Chittenden, Ethan, and the shrewd Ira Allen made their homes for years in the vicinity of Sunderland and Arlington.

Violence was rife throughout the area as New York Staters battled with the holders of grants from New Hampshire over land ownership. The Bradleys may well have been involved. The Allens and the Chittendens were in the thick of things, on the side of the New Hampshire claimants and to protect their own extensive land speculations.

Ethan Allen, verbose, profane, and lover of the "flowing bowl", aided by his brothers, Seth Warner, Tom Chittenden, and what one jaundiced New Yorker described as "twelve or fifteen of the most Blackguard Fellows", kept excitement high. Allen's paramilitary group protected the settlers who had acquired their land from New Hampshire and, not at all incidentally, protected the Allens' own investments against the claims of the hated "Yorkers".

One Yorker, granted several thousands of acres on a stream near the Onion (now the Winooski) River, was attacked by a group

of Allen's people In August 1773. An employee of the landowner reported:

Our Houses are all Burnt Down...The Mill Stones Brock and Throns in To the Crick, the Corn is all Destroed by There Horses and.. .they threatened to Bind some of us To a Tree and Skin us alive.

The report ended with the understandable conclusion, "Therefore we think its impossible To us To Live hear in Peace."⁸

Not long after Stephen and his family arrived in the Grants, the Revolutionary War was upon them. Eber's brother, Samuel Cornel (his spelling in a deed of 1781, although many records used "Cromwell" and "Cornell")Bradley, older by five years, had volunteered from Sunderland in June 1775, the month of Bunker Hill and two months after Lexington-Concord. He was a private, a fifer, as Eber was to be later, in a company commanded by Captain Gideon Brownson. The regiment was under Seth Warner.

Samuel marched to Ticonderoga (taken in May that year by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold), then to the siege of St. Johns, a British military base on Canada's Sorel River which surrendered to the Americans under General Richard Montgomery on November 2, 1775. From there, as he stated in his pension papers, "to Laprairie, hence to Longueuil (across the St. Lawrence from Montreal) and there had a skirmish." Samuel Bradley was among Montgomery's troops that took possession of Montreal on November 13th.⁹

Montgomery moved on from Montreal to attack Quebec. Colonel Warner, considering an attack on Quebec to be foolhardy, insisted that he and his troops be discharged. As Warner and his men returned south, Montgomery moved against the Canadian stronghold where he was killed in action, in a military disaster for the Americans, on December 31st.

Samuel left the service when his six-month enlistment expired in December. Fifty-eight years later, Eber recollected the length of his brother's service, "(Samuel) went away in warm weather and did not return till winter." ⁹

In June 1776, Samuel served for at least twenty-seven days as a corporal in Captain Gideon Brownson's Company "for the Defence of the frontiers of the New Hampshire Grants." ⁹ In the

spring and summer of 1776, British General Burgoyne was on his way south on Lake Champlain. Soon, it was again a British lake and the Onion a British river. Settlers fled south leaving their hard-won farms to the Red Coats, Indians, and the inclement elements.

On January 15, 1977, representatives of towns in the Grants declared their independence, assuming the name "New Connecticut." The derivative name lasted until June 4 when the Windsor Convention adopted the name "Vermont" and established an independent republic with its own postal service, coinage, and militia, but without recognition from the U.S. Congress until becoming the fourteenth state in 1791.

In '77, at Hubbardton, Colonial forces—and Vermonters, continued to fight side-by-side with the other colonies despite their "Independent Republic "-which had abandoned Ticonderoga to the British on July 6, were beaten in a bloody, forty-minute battle on July 7th. On July 20, Samuel again volunteered. He served as a sergeant in John Warner's Company of Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Herrick's Regiment of Rangers, organized that year and financed by sale of Tories' property. ¹⁰

In his pension application, Samuel recalled, "I was at the battle at Bennington Vermont at that place we had two battles in one day," a casual enough reference to the history-making Battle of Bennington on August 16.⁹ That American victory over Burgoyne's Germans, Tories, and Indians foreshadowed Gentleman Johnny's surrender at Saratoga two months and one day later.

Incidentally, a favorite family story in a few local histories has been that there were four Bradley brothers at the Battle of Bennington. Good alliteration, poor history. The only soldiers there bearing the family name were Samuel of the Connecticut-Vermont family and Private Philbrick Bradley of New Hampshire, according to the records of the Bennington Museum.

Eber was still at home and Samuel on this tour of duty when their brother Miner, in his late teens, died on August 9, or as a notation in an old family record places the date, "seven days before Battle of Bennington." (A later-born son was also named Miner.)

From Bennington the Rangers moved to Pawlet, Vermont before Samuel completed this enlistment on December 3, 1777 after 137 days. His pay was four pounds, eleven shillings, four pence. ⁹

On March 4, 1778, Eber reached his seventeenth birthday and it was his turn. That spring three men were called from Sunderland: Eber, Elon Lee, and Gerah Paine. "We enlisted for seven months and were ordered to Rutland. I enlisted as a musician, a fifer and always served in that capacity whenever I was called into the army." ¹ Elon Lee, a year or two younger, became a musician too, a drummer.

The fifer and drummer were important in the organization of Revolutionary War armies. Each company was supposed to have at least one of each. These musicians, particularly the drummer, sounded signals from reveille to tattoo, called the troops together, ordered the march, provided music for formal marches, and announced meals and church services.

Eber probably had an ordinary wooden fife. Boxwood was a favorite material although a few were made of iron. If—it is a big if-he had a uniform, it supposedly followed the European custom of having the uniforms of musicians the reverse of those of the regiment. ¹¹

About the time his younger brother was called up, Samuel again volunteered, in April 1778, serving until July in the Rangers under Ebenezer Allen, a distant cousin of Ethan's. The month after, in August, he enlisted for one year as a "minute man in the Militia."

From his brother's experience, Eber knew that a soldier's pay was uncertain at best. Although Vermont's Board of War eventually ordered militiamen paid five pre-war shillings daily, payment was up to the towns so a militiaman rarely got more than one shilling a day. ¹²

Worse, to quote Eber's statements, he "received my pay, if pay it could be called in depreciated continental money." Furthermore, "I never received any pay except for the seven months at Rutland." Something else he never received was a formal discharge, simply being "dismissed after serving out our time."

Fort Ranger at Rutland to which Bradley, Lee, and Paine were sent in 1778, had been erected that year after inhabitants of the

northern frontier demanded that the Council of Safety protect them from incursions of British and Indians from Canada. The fort was the strongest of those built as a result of the settlers' outcries, serving as headquarters for the troops on that frontier ¹³

If comparable to others in the area, Fort Ranger was surrounded by a moat five or six feet deep into which the Vermonters sunk tree trunks rising sixteen or eighteen feet above ground, erected closely together and sharpened at the top. Inside the tall pickets was a dirt-and-logs breastwork six feet high and six feet at the base. Loop-holes between the pickets were big enough for a musket barrel to pass through. The forts were generally square, covering an acre or more.

Fifty-four years later, the veteran recalled that during his seven months at Fort Ranger, May 1 to November 30, his captain was Nathan (actually, William) Hutchins. Higher up, Major Whitcomb was commander. Eber also remembered, "Capt. Thomas Sawyer commanded a company at the fort this summer (1778)¹

The fifer had an unhappy reason to remember Sawyer. "In the summer of 17 791 was called out in a classification of the Militia of Vermont. I served twenty days under the command of Capt. Thomas Sawyer in the fort at Rutland, Vermont—after our time of 20 days had expired Capt. Sawyer refused to dismiss us but kept us some days after, but how long I cannot recollect." ¹

Sawyer, now commanding at Ranger, received orders in May of 1779 from Thomas Chittenden, Captain General, instructing him that the Fort's purpose was to "prevent the incursion of the enemy on the Northern Frontiers and to annoy them should they come within your reach...You will keep out constant scouts towards the lake, so as to get the earliest intelligence of the motion and designs of the enemy." ¹⁵

Soldiering on the frontier was deadly serious work. Sawyer's Company lost three young men in May 1779, captured by British scouts, who did not get home until an exchange of prisoners in 1782. ¹⁶

Eber and Samuel had a first cousin in service, Lemuel Bradley (1750-1800), whose father, Joseph (1720-1810), was an older brother of their father's. In November 1779, Lemuel was on duty for three days on "an Alarm at Neshobe." ¹⁷

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A militia act was adopted by the General Assembly in 1779 for drafting troops for frontier service. Men of each militia district were separated into groups, each of the groups to provide soldiers as needed.

Samuel was a Lieutenant in the militia in 1779, his commission signed by Thomas Chittenden himself.9 He was frequently called out as was Eber, who served two or three weeks in the autumn of

1779. as well as he could remember it years later, at Castleton where he was under the command of Captain Eli Brownson.1 His memory of his captain and the year may have been wrong; other sources say Captain Dan Comstock and the year 1780.

Castleton was on the frontier which extended east on a line from Castleton to the crest of the Green Mountains, NE to Newbury on the Connecticut River. The line was sparcely occupied by poorly equipped, often hungry, militiamen. In the spring of 1780, Castleton's garrison, if it deserved the name, amounted to nineteen. ¹⁸

While at Castleton, Private Eber was among thirteen or fourteen men under Major Isaac dark who were sent to the British ship "Moriah" near Crown Point on Lake Champlain. The announced purpose was the exchange of prisoners.¹

In fact, this service and prisoner exchange probably took place in October 1780, not 1779. In August 1780, Chittenden wrote to Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of the Province of Quebec and Commander of the British forces in Canada, suggesting a cartel for the exchange of prisoners. This was the beginning of highly secret, complicated negotiations between Vermont's leaders and the British known as the Haldimand Affair, in which Major Isaac Clark, a son-in-law of Chittenden's, was an insider.

One-Eyed Tom and the Allens appeared to offer cooperation to the British, hinting that becoming a British colony under certain conditions was not completely unattractive. The imbroglio of diplomatic feints and fakes by the Vermont side tantalized and stalled Haldimand long enough to save the little Republic from invasion, a load of post-war debts, and permitted Ethan Allen and his fellow negotiators (or conspirators) to send their militiamen home to their families with only occasional call-outs. ¹⁹

War or no war, we know where Samuel was on February 28,

1780. He was in Sunderland, marrying Abigail Brownson. Eber was there, certainly Stephen and Ruth, the Brownson family, and

the bridegroom's several siblings Including teen-aged Stilman. Half a century later, Eber had not forgotten that transportation on the memorable day was by a horse-drawn sleigh. ⁹

The next month Eber was in service for a while in Daniel Comstock's Company, March 22 to 26. His pay-plus-mileage (seventy miles) came to less than two pounds.. ^

Demands for military service by Vermonters diminished as a benefit of the Haldimand business although the army required Eber for duty ' 'a great number of times during the war for two or three days at a time." These included three more weeks at Castleton "but cannot distinctly recollect what year it was in or what season of the year but I remember it was the time Cornwallis was taken (October 19, 1781)."¹

The two Bradleys never forgot their meeting during this period of service. They had been together at Castleton "three weeks or more (and) on their return on the shore of Wells Pond (a dozen miles from Castleton, now Lake St. Catherine) first heard the news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and had firing on the occasion."⁹

Stilman, their younger brother, eighteen years old, was in the same Company at Castleton although not mentioned in their pension statements. ²⁰

The paths of the various Bradleys crossed often during the war. The names of Eber, Samuel, Stilman, Lemuel, and Joseph frequently appear on the same 1778-1782 payrolls.

Even after Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, there were short duty assignments for Eber. In December 1781, in Captain Eli Brownson's Company, Colonel Ira Allen's Regiment, he responded to "an allarm to the westward" for four days. ' In that alarm, Cousin Lemuel, now a captain, headed a company of militia in the regiment. ¹⁷

The following month, Eber marched to Castleton in Ira Allen's militia. Eleven days of service plus forty-five miles of travel paid one pound, ten shillings, and a half-pence.¹

One day was served in May 1782 in the "retaking of Lt. Wm. Blanchard, Taking of Tories, and etc.”¹ ‘Blanchard had been captured near Arlington by a Loyalist officer from Canada and seventeen Americans he had recruited for the British forces. Colonel Ira Allen ordered a party of Vermont militia to waylay

the Loyalists at a mountain pass where they succeeded in freeing the Lieutenant. Captain Lemuel was also a part of this expedition. During the same month, Eber served two days under Lieutenant David Holt as "a Guard that went to Bennington with some prisoners to Goal.”¹

Chapter III

Farmers, Merchants, Pensioners

Once the Revolutionary War was over in 1783, settlers felt safe in moving north to the Onion River area. Samuel and Abigail moved to Essex in Chittenden County where they were among the earliest settlers. Eber and Stilman moved to Williston in the same county. A long-time friend, Nathan Allen, placed the time of Eber's move at "about the year 1788”¹ the year after Chittenden County was established.

Eber⁵ married Diantha ("Dianthy") Judson (1762-1826), daughter of Micah and Esther Judson, in 1785. Their children arrived in this order:

Phoebe, born in 1786, became the wife of Colonel John L. Corning;

Timothy Meigs, named after Ruth Meigs Bradley's father, born in 1788;

Stephen, 1790;

Polly, 1792, married Major Ezbon Sanford;

Eben, probably named after his mother's brother, Eben (1779-1814), born in 1794, married Mary Paine;

Ell Judson, named for his mother's younger brother Eli (1764-1802), born on June 27, 1803, when his father was forty-two and Diantha forty.

In his pension papers, Eber stated that "since the war have always resided in Williston my present place of residence," so probably all of their children except Phoebe and possibly Timothy Meigs were born in Chittenden County.

The first Census of the United States, in 1790, reported Eber and family in Williston. His household consisted of one free white male of sixteen or upward (Eber), two free white males under sixteen (Timothy and Stephen), and two free white females (Diantha and Phoebe).

There were other Bradleys reported in Williston: Stilman (married to Betsey Cook in 1788), Elisha, and Joseph were heads of families. The Census listed Elisha, Stilman, and Eber almost consecutively, indicating that the three veterans were close neighbors. Samuel was not far away; Stilman estimated his own home to be about seven miles from Samuel's in Essex.

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Elisha and Joseph Bradley, brothers and veterans of the Revolution, lived in the Williston neighborhood all of their lives after the war. Although they were not related to Eber's family or, if at all, very remotely, they were remarkable in their own right. Elisha refused to file for his pension because of his religious opinions. His brother also refused to file, saying he had been "in the devil's service then, and served him faithfully, but (have) a better master now."

Eventually, with or without his cooperation, Elisha was awarded an annual pension of $48.33 annually in 1848, the year he died at ninety-two. Joseph died in 1847 without applying for his. His survivors, however, were paid his accumulated 1831-1847 pension, at $25.53 a year, in 1856.²

In 1793, Nathl. C. dark—a neighbor, friend, or relative of the Bradleys?-died; his "List of Rateable Estate" finally wound up in the Bradley family papers. For what it tells of family valuables in the 1790's, it is interesting that his watch was listed at eighteen pounds; two oxen at six pounds; three cows at the same value;

three horses at nine pounds; one acre of plow land at four; four acres of pasture at one pound, twelve shillings; ten acres of meadows at three pounds, fifteen shillings; three acres uninclosed at six shillings; and eight acres of bush pasture at sixteen shillings. A wooden clock was reported at a pound; a silver watch at one pound and ten shillings; and two scythes and five snathes (shafts or handles) as a unit at eighteen shillings, nine pence.

British money, legal currency up to 1796, was widely used until 1807 when official conversion to lawful U.S. currency was made. In many areas, including Vermont, pounds, shillings, and pence were used for years after that date.

The 1800 Census did not report Eber's family in Chittenden County although Samuel, Stilman, Elisha and Joseph were recorded. Nevertheless, Eber and Diantha certainly were in Williston on the 23rd of January 1800 when they were named among those organizing the Congregational Church. This was a combined church-civic function, Vermont towns having the legal duty, until 1807, for certain religious responsibilities including locating a place for the meeting house. The leading denomination for decades, Congregationalist,³ already had churches in

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Jericho, Hinesburgh, Charlotte, and Essex according to Hemenway's Gazetter.

By 1810, his family appears again on the Census sheets. One male was under ten, Eli Judson; three males between sixteen and twenty-six were Eben. Stephen, and Timothy Meigs; one male over forty-five, Eber 5 The two females under forty-five were Phoebe and Polly, the one over forty-five was Diantha.

In that year there was a near-tragedy which remained vivid to Timothy thirty-three years later. He wrote in his journal for

January 2, 1843:

I seemed to get my terrible sickness by taking care of (brother Stephen) in Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1810 near 20 days and nights in succession. I feel sure I did not sleep at all my mind was in such agitation on account of friends at home that I lost the desire, the wish, or appetite for sleep.

They were in their early twenties at the time, Timothy older by two years.

The War of 1812 was unpopular in Vermont, but two of Eber's sons participated briefly. Eben, nineteen, was called out about the first day of October 1813 to serve in a Company commanded by Captain Roswell Morton in the Third Regiment under Colonel George Tyier of the Vermont Militia. He was honorably discharged at Burlington about the sixteenth of the same month. ⁴

In a letter in 1853 Timothy attributed about three months of military service to Stephen during the War of 1812, as a drummer at Swanton, Vermont. Although official records are lacking, Timothy's reliability is persuasive on family facts, names, and dates.

Eben's efforts to obtain bounty land for his service were turned down by the Government in 1855 and 1856 which is difficult to under stand because 1812 veterans with vague records and even less service were awarded 160 acres of bounty land.5 His service, however, is officially recorded on bis memorial stone in the Rupp Cemetery, Whitehouse, Ohio:'' Eben Bradley-3 Vt. Mil. -War 1812".

A "Timothy Bradley" served from Vermont as surgeon or

Surgeon's Mate. There is no reason to think this was Timothy Meigs Bradley if only because he never filed an application for pension or bounty land which dollar-wise Timothy certainly would have done if he had been in service.

At some time during the hostilities, he went visiting in "East Guilford New Haven County" Connecticut. Writing to "Dear Parents" on October 5, no year shown, he reported on his health:

I am able to walk further and further almost every time I undertake. I have been almost laid up for nearly a fortnight with a bile but I am now as tar recovered as to think of walking to the old town soon.

Then family news:

Uncle Timothy has gone for Wallingford. He with his family and the rest of your relations in this town. Uncle Zimri (possibly brother of Stephen, * 1741-1821) and Capt. Lee are well.. .1 want to hear from you often but I must inform you that if you write by mail you must pay the postage for my pecuniary resources are circumscribed indeed.

Timothy had talked with a sailor from New York:

He was impressed in the year 1804 and had been in slavery ever since in the British Navy, until he entered the Cartil at Chatham in England the 24 of July last and was landed at Newbedford in Massachusetts about the last of Sept...He informed me he had been an hand of 20 different ships of war since he was first impressed which removals effectually eluded the search of his friends. Not long since a barge with 14 men escaped from the Acasta frigate (which belongs to the Blockading squadron off New London) and went or came into Stonington, sold the barge and went where they pleased... Since Commodore Rodgers arrived at Newport R.I. the number of British ships at New London has been greatly augmented apparently to keep Commodore Rodgers and Decatur from forming a junction.

In 1813 Timothy's father engaged in a number of financial transactions which were sizeable for the time. He sold land to William Blood and William Blood Jr., at eight dollars an acre, coming to $500 total, of which $400 was in notes to be paid in annual installments, 1813 through 1818.

On April 23,1813, Richard Lamson signed three notes for fifty dollars each and one for a hundred dollars promising "For value received we severally and jointly promise to pay Eber Bradley" those amounts in "good merchantable neat Cattle on the fifteenth day of October next." Lamson was one of the Justices of the Peace in nearby Essex.

Five years later, 1818, Town Records of Williston show family members performing public services. Eber was a Grand Juror, Phoebe's John L. Corning was Fence Viewer. The next year Timothy was chosen as a Lister.

In 1820 the Census taker found Eber the head of a reduced household of only three: himself, Diantha, and their youngest, Eli Judson Bradley, close to his seventeenth birthday.

The oldest son, Timothy Meigs, who celebrated his thirty-second birthday in 1820, had started his business career which was to preoccupy him until near the end of his active life. Buying and selling, with occasional excursions into local politics, never lost their charm. He left for his family descendents an abundance of his business papers.

He and Samuel Smith went into several joint ventures. The earliest business paper in the collection, dated 1821, is in Smith's name recording the sale of one keg of butter at L1.9.4, three kegs of butter at L4.3.1/2, and freight on a "puncheon of Spirrits from Quebec.''

By June 1 of the year, Timothy had taken on the business style of "T.M. Bradley & Company", in dealing with a wholesaler, Orson & Healey, for spirits, mess and prime pork, and butter totaling L69.4.6. The "& Company" probably were Samuel

•Smith, Ira Smith, and brother-in-law John L. Corning. All four of them signed a note on October 16, 1821 to Richard P. Hart and Company, Troy, New York, for $400 as part of a transaction involving brandy, Bohea (Black Chinese) tea, tobacco, copperas (used to set black dye), brown shirting, candlewick, calico, white silk gloves, and steam loom shirtings.

Other purchases that year from the Hart Company included coffee, pimento, pepper, ginger, brown and lump sugar, cognac brandy, rum, snuff, indigo, Hyson (Green Chinese) tea, soap, molasses, and four boxes of seven-by-nine glass.

Troy, where the Hart company was located, was the principal merchandising point for western Vermont during this period, Boston for eastern Vermont. ⁶

Along with his mercantiling life, Timothy became one of the Justices of the Peace in Williston in 1822, holding the office through 1825.7 His duties were varied as he, like the other Justices, rendered verdicts based on his own ideas and sense ol fair play.

The Justices' fees were not exorbitant. A subpoena was 6 cents; judgment on each action tried, fifty cents; if a verdict of a jury, sixty cents; deposition, thirty-four cents. ⁸

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The Williston town meeting in 1825 selected Timothy to serve as Town Treasurer. John L. Corning was selected as one of the two pound keepers.⁹ Perhaps, as town officials, they even had the privilege of speaking with General Lafayette when he visited Williston that year as part of his triumphant tour of the United States.

While Timothy was J.P., brother-in-law Ezbon Sanford, Polly's husband, was Deputy Sheriff, often collecting modest travel allowances for performing his official duties. Later, he was sheriff for a number of years,' 'a very pleasant, kind-hearted man." ¹⁰

Sanford was also quartermaster in the Vermont Militia and Corning a lieutenant colonel in the Militia's Third Division in 1824. " The militia was broadbased, including all able-bodied men, with few exceptions, from eighteen to forty-five.

No official duties, however, could keep Timothy from his business. Typical correspondence from his suppliers was addressed to "Mr. Timothy M. Bradley, Merchant, Williston, Vermont. "The usual 13x8 letter paper was folded to 3x5, a seal affixed, and the amount of postage written in the upper right hand corner.

French & Hart, wholesalers in Troy, informed Timothy of the market prices for wheat, corn, rye, and pot ashes. On October 2, 1823, they conveyed the news,

Business getting pretty brisk with us. The Western canal will open on the 8th. Boats may then pass from Rochester to the Hudson. The Northern canal (Troy to Whitehall, N.Y.) is in fine operation.

His brother Eben wrote to Timothy from North Hero Island, a few miles off the Vermont shore in Lake Champlain, on November 17, 1823 about one of their business ventures. Mr. Dodge, Eben wrote, felt morally but not legally bound to make Timothy and his father some recompense for "that mare". What complicated the offer was Dodge's insistence that he pay in "opodeldoc (liniment), Pills, Bitters and Such like". Perhaps as evidence of good faith, he left Eben half a dozen boxes of the pills and a supply of bitters for Timothy to sell.

Eben's bad news continued with his report of Mr. Hyde, who was getting nasty about a new wagon he had purchased from them. Hyde sarcastically said that the next wagon he bought should have

oak hubs that had not been cracked or "fitted up with putty." How the brothers resolved the perplexities does not appear.

Merchant Timothy received an invoice (June 9, 1824) from Hart & Pitcher, Troy, for twenty-four pounds and eighteen shillings for nearly fifty items of merchandise including ink powder, awl blades, trunk locks, currycombs, knives and forks, iron candle sticks, gilt coat buttons, Brittania tea and table spoons, and suspenders. The same month, dealing with another Troy supplier, A. & W. Kellogg & Company, he was billed in dollars, not pounds, for new rum, wine, snuff, and cod fish in the total amount of $161.60. Shipment to Burlington was five dollars a ton "on board Canal Boat Enterprise, Capt. Anderson."

Wood ashes, used for a variety of purposes, were an important commodity in Vermont and in Timothy's ledgers. In October 1824 he bought ashes from Amendes Bradley, Harvey Brownell, Ira Smith, Lucius Bradley, and Sylvester Bradley (Elisha's son), among others, in quantities from two bushels to twenty-seven bushels. In one transaction, he sold $280 worth of ashes to Lockwood & Redfield, Troy.

Selling ashes provided a welcome source of cash for many Chittenden Countians. Acres and acres of valuable hardwood trees were burned by the settlers for ashes; the residues from fireplaces and logging heaps were carefully conserved. They were leached and the resultant lye boiled down to potash used to make soap, glass, fertilizers, bleaches, and in England's wool Industry.

Making soap was no child's play. Consider the meticulous directions for cold hard soap that Timothy wrote out in his notebook:

The leach tub must be covered at the bottom with straw & sticks, then put in a bushel of ashes, then 2 or 3 quarts of lime upon which you must pour 2 quarts boiling water to excite fermentation & slack the lime. Put in another bushel of ashes & then as much more lime and water & continue to do it till your vessel is full, put in hot water till you draw off the lie after which the heat is not of much consequence. You must heave in at least two-thirds of a bushel of lime to a hogshead if you wish your soap. One hogshead of ashes will make 2 barrels of soap. When you draw off the lie you must keep the firs ttwo pail fulls by themselves, the next two in another vessel, the third two pail fulls in another vessel still. Then weigh 29 pounds of strained grease, put it into a kettle with three pounds of Resin, then pour over it one pail full of lie from the first drawn vessel & one pail from the second drawn, put it over the fire and let it boil 20 minutes. Be careful to add no lie over the fire but swing off the crane if it is in danger of boiling

over. When it has really boiled 20 minutes put it in your barrel and put in one pailful of lie from the third drawn vessel & give it a good stir. Then weigh your grease for another barrel A take the lie in the vessels in the same manner as for the first barrel, then draw off the weak lie as fast as possible remembering to put half in each barrel that they may be equally strong. If your bach runs thru fast you may have your barrels full in an hour and (so) hard you can hardly stir them. (You) must stir it after you begin to pour the lie till the barrel is full...

Important as ashes were domestically, they were at least that important as a cash crop. When Congress passed an Embargo Act in 1807 prohibiting boats owned in the USA from trading with Canada, Vermonters in the Onion River area elected to disregard the law, smuggling potash to Canada quite profitably. ¹²

Whether dealing in ashes or rum or suspenders, Timothy was not reluctant to handle wholesale lots, having nothing in common with an early merchant in Essex who, when a customer wanted to buy a couple dozen buttons, refused the offer: "I don't wholesale!" ¹³

Retailing or wholesaling, there were problems for the Williston merchant. On January 4, 1825, A. & W. Kellogg & Company acknowledged his "esteemed favor of 25th Ult inclosing one hundred dollars," apologized for a dunning letter that had ruffled Timothy's feathers, and assured him of "more civil treatment hereafter." The recipient dryly noted on the communication, "A. &W. Kellgg's polite letter."

Another supplier, Pierce Sackett & Company, let him know (December 16,1825) how much they would appreciate payment of his bill:

We can assure you that nothing you can do will be less apt to ' 'displease'' us than to send us money. Indeed, we are so crowded for it that we would almost submit to be flogged every morning if it would bring us $50 at night.

Timothy Bradley & Company was not punctilious about paying bills on time. A year later, December 5, 1826, Pierce Sackett & Company was after him to pay a note dated June 11, 1824 in the amount of $30.42 plus interest of $5.32 as well as a bill of the same age for $50. A plaintive line from Pierce Sackett reminded, "The Note you will remember was given for goods bought in Feb. and Nov., 1822!!"

On the other hand, by December 1826 he himself held over $960 in over-due notes against seventy-eight customers or borrowers. A one-time partner owed him over $190 and John L. Corning about

twelve dollars. James Talcutt's debt of fifty cents was also recorded.

He had taken judgments against another twenty-one debtors for amounts from $0.84 to $37, totalling nearly $250. A list of '' Ledger Debts" included even his father $15.22.

Eber had lost Diantha on July 17, 1826. All of their children were married except Timothy. Phoebe and John L. Corning, Polly and Ezbon Sanford, were living in the vicinity of Williston. Eben had married Mary Paine. Stephen and his wife Clarina had moved to LeRoy, New York in 1828. Timothy had been especially close to Stephen, writing in his journal in 1843 of the "many kindnesses he has done me, the love I bore him."

Eber and Diantha's youngest, Eli Judson, had married Sarah (Sally) Cooley. That brings up a family mystery: Who were Sally Cooley's parents and where and when was she born?

Some Census reports show her birthplace as Vermont, others as New Hampshire. Many years later, perhaps around 1895, her son Eber wrote a rambling account clearly giving her birthdate as February 14,1797 instead of the generally reported 1801 and apparently saying that her parents had fallen overboard to their deaths in Lake Champlain when Sally was four years old. According to this version, Sally had been brought up by cousins. In her old age, Sally Cooley Bradley said her parents left her with a cousin when they went west where she did not know what happened to them.

All in all, a tempting little family puzzle which is probably a hundred years or more beyond solving.

Reading was important in Timothy's life. He subscribed to the Niles Register, the newsmagazine of his time albeit deadly dull reading by Time and Newsweek standards. He swapped reading material with his neighbors, even donated a book, The History of the District of Maine, to the University of Vermont for which he received a handsome thank-you card.

He listed the books in his father's collection. There were eleven volumes including (Timothy's bookkeeping compulsion?) their costs or values. One large Bible at $3.00, Zion Herald bound $2.50, Life of Bramwell, Perry's Dictionary, Tracts of Whitefteld, John Fletcher by Benson, a psalm book, and a

Methodist hymn book.

20
Eli ⁶ Judson and Sally started their family with the birth of Eber i on March 20,1828. Myron Winslow Bradley was born on August 25 the following year, named after a local missionary and celebrity, Myron Winslow, D. D., LL. D., at missions in India for forty-five years, buried at the Cape of Good Hope where he died on route back to America in 1864. The Reverend Winslow was a hero around Chittenden County, as were his brothers. Another Bradley family in Williston named a son after Myron Winslow, a second son for his brothers Hubbard and Gordon, and a third son for the very town in India where Missionary Myron served, " Ceylon Winslow Bradley."

The rest of Eli and Sally's children came in rapid succession:

Harmon Howe in 1830, John Corning 1832, Charles Sanford 1833, Hiram Beales 1835, Diantha lived less than a month in 1836, Martha (Minnie) Marian 1837, Albert E. 1838, and finally, Henry M. in 1841. In the family of eight boys and one girl, the daughter admitted that she was always treated as a very special sibling.

In 1830 the Census listed Eber living next-door to Polly and Ezbon Sanford. Stilman lived nearby.

Eben Bradley moved to Genesee County, N.Y. with his wife Mary before 1832. Their children included Cornelia born in 1826, John Wesley in 1828, Roscious J. 1832, Thomas, Edward, Horace, Phoebe L., and Lydia.¹⁴

Under an Act of Congress of June 7, 1832, Eber began filing statements on September 3rd of that year for a Revolutionary War pension. He filed supplemental information in July 1833, still more in October. In November, Timothy Meigs sent a comprehensive letter to the Acting Commissioner of Pensions evaluating the numerous statements by his father and others proving his Revolutionary War service.

Finally, on November 27, 1833 the Washington bureaucracy under President Andrew Jackson gave up, awarding seventy-two-year-old Eber his pension of $32.88 a year, retroactive to September 4,1833.

Payment was sent to "T. M. Bradley, Williston" who obviously was handling at least part of his father's affairs at this point. ¹

There is no evidence of political pressure in the approval of the pension although his son-in-law Ezbon Sanford had forged ahead

in politics, achieving the honor of being State Representative for Willistoninl836. 15

In 1837, Timothy formally listed debts he figured were due him by at least his brother Eben and his father, computing the obligations to the last half-penny.

His father owed his son for a number of things, according to the itemization, including a long spade at $.87 1/2, one-half barrel of flour, four bushels of corn, an iron pot, shoeing a horse for $.70, and "Thread, 10 cts, tobacco for Miss Sloan - .33," all adding up to $19.65.

Aging Eber Bradley, into his late seventies, suffering from asthma and a widower for a decade, had apparently hired a housekeeper. Whatever her other virtues and faults, she was apparently a dedicated smoker. In November 1837 she was paid $10.00-$9.20 in cash and $.80 worth (four pounds) of tobacco. Two months later another reckoning— $6.00 cash, $3.17 worth of sewing materials, and two pounds of tobacco at $.40.

In the 1840 Census, Timothy headed his household including his father, misreported as "Ebenezer," identified as a "Pensioner for Revolutionary or Military Services.''

Eli Judson Bradley and family had left Chittenden County for. Johnson, in adjacent Lamoille County, by 1840. Although a town of only 1410 inhabitants, Johnson could boast of being the home of one Academy or Grammar School with 100 "scholars," twelve primary and common schools with 492 attending.

Someone in Eli's family was running one of the schools that year. The Census report for his household, under the heading "Primary & Common Schools," showed "1" with the "No. of Scholars" as twenty-five. Their oldest child was only twelve or thirteen so Eli or Diantha was the teacher, most probably the former.

Old Eber 5 Bradley died on August 31, 1841, full of years at eighty with most of his family nearby as well as friends and neighbors of over half a century. The stone in the Williston cemetery reads simply, "Eber Bradley died AE 80." Next to it is the memorial for "Dianthe wife of Eber Bradley died July 17, 1826 AE 62." (The spelling other name with a final "e" is clearly legible.)

Elon Lee, fellow musician from Sunderland days and Revolutionary War pensioner, outlived him by a few years, dying

In Jericho in 1844 at eighty-one. Eber's brother, Stilman, eighty-five, died in Williston in 1849; Timothy's 1843 journal mentioned many visits with his Uncle Stilman.

The cold Vermont winters of 1842 and 1843 prompted Timothy, having little else to do, to keep brief journals. Most of the entries were weather reports. "Extremely cold & clear . . .Tremendous south wind last night . . . Cold morning, wind north ... I am pinched and cramped with cold ...

On March 15,1843 he wrote:

There was an Earthquake said to be about nine o'clock at night. At first I thought it was thunder but the sound continued more uniform than thunder. I perceived no jar as is common in very heavy thunder. The noise seemed to be like the passing of a large number of waggons very swiftly over a smooth road without stones.

He inserted a little history on February 22, 1843.

"Old Mistress Fay of Richmond (Vermont) died this evening. She was the daughter of Col. Safford of the Revolution.''

Mixed reflections on his life:

March 20,1843.1 am this day 55 years of age. I have lived long in the world and done but very little good. I have been decrepid over 33 years. Have had ~ much sickness and pain. I feel sometimes as I had deserved it all. May the rest of my life pass more smoothly. I ought to be thankful that my reason is left and that my health is so good.

The unique cane he used to get about, perhaps inherited from his father, was made by a grape vine winding around a small tree and imbedded in it three-quarters of an inch. The straight deer-horn handle that fits into the palm of the hand has one short horn onto which the finger may be hooked for a firmer grip. ¹⁶

While Timothy was writing his journal, a preacher and self-educated farmer, William Miller, predicted the day and time of the end of the world. Timothy noted on April 3, "This is said to be the day set by Miller and others for the world to end' it is a solemn thought.'' The next day, with the world still intact:

Eben says he feels sure the month cannot go out before the Saviours second appearing. There is a great meeting night over at Essex by the following of Mr. Miller.. .The 2nd day of April having failed he has set the 12th day so I heard. A thirteen-year-old nephew's school report: "Eber gets along

pretty well in arithmetic. Is most in difficulty with vulgar (mixed) fractions.''

Over seven pages of the notebook contain his longhand copy of "The Ballad of Chevy Chase," forty-three stanzas, the fifteenth

century English ballad describing the Battle of Otter-burn in 1388 between the Percys and the Douglases.

Terse as his journal entries were, they seem downright wordy compared with diary notations of an anonymous Vermont farmer whose well-thumbed copy of Walton's Register and Farmer's Almanac for 1837is in the author's collection. His one entry for the entire month of November read,' 'put my horse in barn.'' And during the next month the only event he considered worth recording was, "took it out."

By 1842, after his father's death, the domestic assistance of a housekeeper was presumable dispensed with. In February be paid a neighbor, Mrs. Rachel Bassett, for making "thick pantaloons" at seventy-five cents, light cloth pants seventy-five cents, cotton pants fifty cents, and a cotton coat at one dollar.

About this time in the early 1840's, he told Zadock Thompson, an acquaintance of his and an historian (History of Vermont), a report he had from Gilbert Bradley (a first-cousin, Lemuel's brother) of Sunderland of how Ethan Allen had celebrated, every May 3rd, the anniversary of his release by the British in 1778. According to the Gilbert-Timothy version, Allen (1738-1789), dressed up in his best togs, did no work at all, and regaled friends with re-telling of his favorite stories and drinking toasts.¹⁷ John Pell used the story in his excellent 1929 biography of Allen.

Nothing, of course, deterred Timothy from his merchandising. In 1845, Mrs. Moses W. Hall was a credit purchaser of sixteen and one-fourth yards of white flannel at $6.09. He rented land to Mr. Hall, a section "east of road, "for $18 a season. His account with the Hall couple continued into 1850 when they sold him ashes at twelve cents a bushel, Mrs. Hall made three shirts, and Mr. Hall fetched a load of something from Burlington which Timothy complained parenthetically was'' too little.''

On July 31, 1850, the Census reported Eli J. Bradley, 46, and family still living in Johnson. He was farming, 18-year-old John C. was teaching, and Charles S., 16, was farming. Both boys had attended school "within the year." Hiram, 14, Martha M., 13, Albert, 11, and Henry M., 8, all had attended school that year. Their brother Harmon, 19, was reported as part of the household of Stephen Dow, "Manufacturer," in Johnson. Eber, 22, and Myron, 20, had left the family nest.

There were several other Bradleys reported in Lamollle County, all of them from Ireland.

Back in Williston in April 1850, Timothy was deep in business, leasing a farm to Lester Hall for, as the legal style of the time expressed it, "as long as wood grows or water runs." He reserved the right, however, to use the premises as a site "for the shop now on it or as a store, gro., J Shop, cooperage. Saddlery Shop" or any other business.

He and the Terence McAuleys engaged in a few business dealings during the year. She did his washing for nineteen weeks for $1.13 total. Mr. McAuley rented him, for thirty-four cents, a "horse to Burlington" which, Timothy added, was "in rain."

The 1850 Census for Chittenden County reported Timothy, sixty-two, as a farmer and the owner of real estate valued at $700. John L. and Phoebe Corning had $1000 in real estate.

Stephen Bradley had died in LeRoy, New York, about 1840 according to Timothy's journal. His widow and children had moved to Illinois by the early 1850's. One of their sons, J. M. Bradley, wrote to his Ohio relatives from "Peorisville, Illinois" on the third of January 1853. He was in the "mercantile trade."