William Bradford (politician, 1729)

William Bradford

William Bradford (born November 4, 1729 in Plympton , Plymouth County , Province of Massachusetts Bay , †  July 6, 1808 in Bristol , Rhode Island ) was an American politician who represented the state of Rhode Island in the US Senate .

William Bradford, born in what is now Massachusetts , was the great-great-grandson of the governor of the same name of the Plymouth Colony in the 17th century. He later became the father-in-law of US Senator James De Wolf . He studied medicine in Hingham and then worked as a doctor in Warren . He later moved to Bristol, where he lived on Mount Hope Farm , now on the National Register of Historic Places . It was there that his political career began when he was first elected to the colonial parliament in 1761, to which he belonged with brief interruptions until 1803. During this time he also completed a law degree, was inducted into the bar in 1767 and began practicing in Bristol. From 1775 to 1778 Bradford served as the Deputy governor . In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress, but he renounced this mandate.

When the British Navy bombarded the city of Bristol on October 7, 1775, Bradford's house was among those that were destroyed. He later negotiated a truce on one of the warships.

After the United States government was established, William Bradford was elected to succeed Joseph Stanton in the US Senate. He took up his mandate as a federalist from March 4, 1793 and became president pro tempore on July 6, 1797 ; in October of the same year he resigned as senator. Bradford returned to Bristol, where he died in 1808.

Web links

• William Bradford in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William Bradford in the database of Find a Grave (English)