BRADFORD (of the Bradford Descendants book Bradfords) this is my paternal line through my father and his father. I have a lot on this line already but if anyone can break the brick wall of who Samuel Bradford aka Sam Braford's parents were or which of the three Fitzgerald girls he first married it would be very nice to know. So far it seems from DNA testing that the Bradford line I am a part of is of Scots-Irish origin and not English as was long believed to be the case nor as we related to William Bradford of the Mayflower.
What is known is that Sam Braford was living in Snowhill Maryland with his family before 1776 (his second son Adam was two when Paul Revere made his famous ride).
Sam's sons Peter and Adam left Maryland and went west, stopping in Kentucky where Peter or maybe both together gave their name to Bradfordville on account of the lumber mill that they build there upon which the town later grew from. Peter and Adam parted with the elder later dying in Pennsylvania and the younger, Adam taking his family to Missouri where he also breathed his last. Adam's son Isaac Neely Bradford was likely born in Bradfordville but was raised in Missouri. There Isaac had a large house which still stands to this day.
It is not clear how many slaves Adam owned and sources differ on if his father Sam owned slaves or not, but it is a very clear that Isaac owned thirteen slaves if not more.
According to one of Isaac's former slaves, a man he had owned since infancy, it was said by this old man that his former masters were good people. Now one could say that the man was biased which would be true, and one could say that he knew no other life than slavery for so long that he might not be correct in saying his former masters were good people. This may be, but there are many accounts of former slaves saying good about their former masters and many where they even if born into slavery have said terrible things about their position in live and those that owned them.
What is clear to me is that there were people that owned other people as slaves and treated them well for the times they lived in and those that treated them badly. What little that has been said about Isaac Neely Bradford on this topic is that he was by at least one of his former slaves counted as one of the good sort of people that had owned slaves.
I am not proud that my great great great grandfather and those before him owned slaves nor am I ashamed of it.
I [i]am[/i] proud of Isaac N Bradford for building a very nice school (long since burned down) and importing teachers from the east so that his children and his neighbor's children would have a good school to attend.
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