Harding Bradley,1776-1819, Guilford to Essex, VT

Harding Bradley is the least studied member of the family of Stephen Bradley and his wife Ruth Meigs. The primary source for Bradley material is the collection of family genealogies produced by Alvan Talcott. Alan Talcott (1804-1891) was a doctor in Guilford, CT. and its environs. His passion was genealogy. In his travels he collected and compiled a genealogy dictionary for the families of Guilford. His highly regard work has been published by the Genealogical Society of Connecticut. It is titled Families of Early Guilford Connecticut. ------------ One of the families he recorded in detail was the Bradley family. In his collection he recorded the family of Stephen Bradley and Ruth Meigs. The oldest child in the family was Samuel. Talcott wrote, ”Samuel Cornwall, b 16 March 1756; died 30 June1834, mar Abigail Brownson.” Of the eighth child in the family he wrote, “Harding, b 5 July 1776; died October 1819, Mar Rebecca Brady.”------------- Talcott included a separate entry for Harding’s family, “Harding Bradley, son of Stephen Bradley and Ruth Meigs, Was born 5 July 1776 and died October 1819. He married Rebecca Brady. Lived in Vermont. Children: Clarissa, Maria, Eben.”------------- Another major source for Harding material comes from the family of his brother, Eber, titled, Eber Bradley (1761-1841) and some of his descendants. The book is available online. Eber detailed the family’s move from Guilford to Sunderland, Vermont on the American frontier. Eber wrote in detail about his older brother Samuel’s exploits in the Revolutionary War. He also records the move by the Bradley brothers to Chittenden County, Vermont where they settled in the communities of Essex and Williston.-------------- We find Harding living in Essex near his brothers, Samuel and Joye, in the 1800 and 1810 census records. His name is also prominent in the ledgers containing the land deeds. But as with his brother Samuel and the other early settlers of Essex there is a very faint documentary trail for the birth of his children. There are no birth, death or marriage records for any of Harding’s children in the surviving records for Essex. In fact the only record for their existence is found in the baptismal records of the Congregational Society. Under the name Harding Bradley be find listed, Rebecca, Clarissa, Mariah, Heber Muzzy, Minerva, Mary. Tradition dictates that the list is based on family chronology. ------------ We have subsequent found a definitive date of birth for Eber and Minerva. Based on those dates and census records we can estimate the date of birth for the other children. The 1800 census notes that the family included two female children. Those hints suggest a birth order, Rebecca 1796, Clarissa 1798, Maria, 1800, Eber July 6, 1802, Minerva January 31, 1806, Mary 1808.---------------- There is a reference to Harding in the, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol 57 page 138 that notes that his wife Rebecca Brady was born in Ireland. That is the only bit of information we have for Rebecca who simply disappears after Harding’s death on 1819. The same is true of his daughter Rebecca.------------- A person identified as Clarissa Bradley, the wife of Duran Huntley, appears in the genealogical websites such as Ancestry.Com. The Huntley family histories record that Clarissa Bradley married Duran Huntley. Duran Huntley was 30 years older than Clarissa. Early documentary evidence suggests that she was his third wife. The family lived in Milton, Chittenden, Vermont. The census data supports the difference in their ages. While there is no direct documentary evidence that identifies Clarissa Huntley as the daughter of Harding Bradley but there are strong hints that such is the case. The first is that Milton is next door to Essex. It was a rich tradition in New England for a wife to give her maiden name to one of her children. Clarissa named a son Bradley Huntley. In the definitive Huntley family history, John Huntley of Boston & Roxbury, Massachusetts and Lyme, Connecticut, 1647-1977 and some of his descendants. The wife of Duran Huntley is listed as Clarissa Bradley. The date and locations for her birth given in the 1850 census records is a match for Harding’s daughter Clarissa. The history places Duran’s date of birth in 1764 in Lyme, CT and his death in 1842 in Milton. All of the Huntley sources places Clarissa’s death on March 14, 1859 in Colchester, VT where she appeared in the 1850 census. Most Huntley histories mistakenly list Clarissa as the mother of most of his children. The birth dates suggest that her children were; Bradley V. , 1827-1908, Edgar Porter, 1830-1909, Mary, 1832, Almeda 1837- after 1870, and Henry 1840-1913.---------------- Maria is listed in the Talcott history. The Congregational records use the old world spelling of Mariah. The last record for her is the 1810 census.----------------- The Congregational records give us the name Heber Muzzy. To those familiar with the spellings used in those ledgers the name was more likely, Eber, a traditional Bradley family name. We have traced an Eber M. Bradley from Vermont to Ohio then on to Iowa ending up in Kansas. He is referred to as Eber M. or E. M. Bradley, whichever the case he always retained the middle initial. Working backward from hints we find the marriage of Eber in Hamilton, Butler, Ohio, “Married on the 30th day of October 1827 by James Crawford esquire a Justice of the Peace in and for the county aforesaid Eber Bradley to Elsea Rynearson.” The 1840 census finds the family in Milford, Butler, Ohio with 7 boys in the family. Using the two names for clues you can trace Eber to a number of towns in Des Moines County, Iowa, Benton in 1852 with 7 sons recorded, Huran in 1856, Yellow Springs in 1860. The couple had a large family, Eber, John, Frank, Fernando, Jacob, Abraham, Garrett, William and Stephen. You can track the family based on the same names appearing in the various census records. In the 1880 Census taken in Arcade, Phillips, Kansas you find Eber M. Bradley, age 77, born in Vermont, listed as “father” in the household of William Bradley whose demographics are a match for the William in the earlier census records. Eber is buried in the Fairview Cemetery in Phillipsburg, Phillips, Kansas along with sons William and Jacob. His headstone includes the dates July 26, 1802 and August 29, 1883. The cemetery records place his birth in Chittenden County, Vermont.---------------------- There are a number of genealogy pages that list the wife of Lyman Matthews Graves as Minerva Bradley. One of the hints that she is Harding Bradley’s daughter is the fact that she named a son Harding Bradley Graves. The census records place her birth in about 1806 in Vermont. The Graves family history places their marriage on December 24, 1829. The family is in Bath, Summit, Ohio in 1850; Lyman age 44, Minerva age 44, Mary, Marcus, Bradley, Susan, William, Cecelia, Charles. Their daughter Electa Ann, 1841-1845 is buried in the Morris Chapel cemetery in Bath. Her headstone notes , “Daughter of Lyman and Minerva Graves”. By 1860 the family is in Royalton, Ohio. The family finally settled in Lorain County, Ohio living in the communities surrounding the town of Oberlin. It is not always easy to document the maiden name for women but in our case we have at least one excellent document. The Ohio Death Record for their son, William Sterling Graves, lists his parents as Lyman M. Graves and Minerva Bradley. The Graves family history includes a date of birth for Minerva on January 31, 1806 and a date of death on February 1, 1856 in Oberlin. We get some confirmation for that death date in a marriage record for Lyman. Lyman married Mary Malvina Ward on December 30, 1857.---------------- The only record we have for Mary is her name in the Congregational records.