USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 63
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Commandery four years; Supreme Herald four years ; Chairman of the Committee on Revision of the Laws four years and Chairman of the Board of Supreme Trustees two years, and was elected Supreme Treasurer in May 1887, but resigned in August of the same year. In the Independent Order of Good Templars he is a charter member of Old York Lodge, and a Past Chief Templar and Representative in the Grand Lodge of Maine ; has been many years a State Deputy, and has been District Templar of York District Lodge. In 1888 he was made Chairman of the Committee on Enforcement of the Prohibitory Law of the Grand Lodge, which position he held three years. In this capacity he made a thorough investigation of the liquor traffic in all parts of the state and his reports to the Grand Lodge were widely circulated by the newspapers. For five years he was Deputy Inter- national Templar for Maine, and in 1894 was a Representative to the National Temperance Con- gress which met in Philadelphia. In 1889 Mr. Stewart became a member of the Masonic fraternity, joining Naval Lodge, of Kittery, and in 1892 he became a charter member of Saint Aspinquid Lodge, of York, serving three years as its Secretary and Proxy in the Grand Lodge of Maine. He is a member and Medical Examiner, and has been Recorder and Trustee, of Georgeana Lodge Ancient Order United Workmen, and is a charter member of Lodge No. 1, of Maine, Workmen's Benefit Association. He is also a charter member, Past Chancellor, Keeper of Records and Seal, and Representative to the Grand Lodge, of Old York Lodge Knights of Pythias; is a charter member, Past Councillor and Trustee of Lincoln Council Junior Order United American Mechanics, and was the first State Councillor of Maine; was an incor- porator and for three years Vice-President of the York County Horse Breeders Association ; is a member of the Maine Society of Sons of the American Revolution and of the American Academy of Social and Political Science, and was eight years President of the York Association. In politics Mr. Stewart has always been an uncompromising Repub- lican, and has served eighteen years as a member of the Republican Town Committee, twelve of which were as Chairman ; has been a member and Secretary of the Republican County Committee ; and from 1876 to 1894, with only two exceptions, was a member of every State Convention. In ISSS and 1890 he was Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions of the York County Republican Con-
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vention. In the latter year he was nominated for State Senator and elected, receiving with a single exception the largest vote cast for any candidate, running sixteen ahead of Reed for Congressman and forty-seven ahead of Burleigh for Governor. In the Senate he served as Chairman of the Com- 4 mittee on Temperance and was a member of the . ommittees on Labor, Banks and Banking, Con- gressional Apportionment and Engrossed Bills. He worked hard to secure the passage of the Australian Ballot law, and was recognized by his associates as one of the best debaters in. the Senate In 1893 Governor Cleaves appointed him as one of the Commissioners from Maine to the Pan-American Medical Congress, held in Washington, District of Columbia. He first went " on the stump" in New Hampshire and Vermont in 1876, and has devoted more or less time to that work in every election since. In 1888 he was asked by the District Con- mittee to be a candidate for Delegate to the National Republican Convention, but declined. In 1891 and 1892 he was strongly urged by the more radical of the Prohibition Republicans to allow his name to be presented in the Republican State Convention as a candidate for Governor, but declined to 'so do, being entirely satisfied with the position of General Cleaves upon that question. Mr. Stewart received the degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College in 1876. He is unmarried.
BRADBURY, JAMES WARE, LL. D., Lawyer, Au- gusta, who bears the especial distinction of being the oldest living ex-United States Senator, was born in Parsonsfield, York county, Maine, June 10, 1802, eldest son of Dr. James and Ann (Moulton) Brad- bury. His father was a practising physician ; his mother was a daughter of Deacon Samuel Moulton, and widow of Samuel Moulton, a distant relative, who had died leaving a son afterwards a leading physician in New Hampshire. He is of the sixt . generation in descent from Thomas Bradbury, the common ancestor of the Bradburys in New Eng- land, who was born in Wicken Bonant, county of Essex, England, February 28, 1610, and came to Agamenticus (now York), Maine, about 1634, as an agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who claimed owner- ship of the Province of Maine. Thomas Bradbury was a man of mark and influence, and held impor- tant positions in his time. His ancestry is traced to and beyond William Bradbury, the nephew and heir by will of Sir Thomas Bradbury, Mayor of Lon-
don in 1509. James W. Bradbury attended the public schools of his native town, then for a term or two each at the academies at Saco and Limerick in Maine and Effingham in New Hampshire, and com- pleted his college-preparatory course at Gorham (Maine) Academy under charge of Preceptor Nason. Entering the Sophomore class at Bowdoin College in 1822, he graduated with high rank in the famous class ci 1825, among his classmates being Henry W. Longiellow, Josiah S. Little, Jonathan Cilley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John S. C. Abbott and George B. Cheever. Of this notable group Mr. Little took first place among all the students in scholarship ; of the three English orations assigned to the class at Commencement, Mr. Little had the valedictory, and Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Longfellow the two others. For a year after graduation Mr. Bradbury taught the Hallowell (Maine) Academy. Soon after, he com- menced the study of law with Hon. Rufus McIntyre of Parsonsfield. After a year he entered the office of Hon. Ether Shepley in Saco, where he completed his legal studies. He then, in 1829, opened a school in Effingham, New Hampshire, for a short time, for the instruction of teachers, which it is believed was the first normal school in New England. After ad- mission to the Bar, in 1830, he opened an office and commenced practice in Augusta, where he has ever since resided. At the Kennebec Bar were Peleg Sprague, Reuel Williams, George Evans and other famous lawyers of that time, and to gain a foothold in a field filled with such talent required great energy and ability. But in about four years from the date of his admission to the Bar, Mr. Bradbury had built up one of the largest law practices in the state, which continued to grow until his election a dozen years later to the United States Senate. In 1833 he formed a partnership with Horatio Bridges, and in 1835 he was appointed County Attorney by Gov- ernor Dunlap. In 1841 he took into partnership Richard D. Rice, who had read law with him, and the association continued until Mr. Rice was ap- pointed to the Bench of the Supreme Court in 1848. He then invited Lot M. Morrill to take charge of the business of his office, and the firm of Bradbury & Morrill was established, which continued for several years after Mr. Morrill had been elected United States Senator. In 1846 Mr. Bradbury was elected to the United States Senate for a term of six . years, beginning March 4, 1847. There he was asso- ciated with Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Cass, Douglass, Seward, Chase, and others of scarcely less ability and distinction. The Mexican War was then
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raging, and Mr. Bradbury gave President Polk his hearty support, though the voting of men and sup- plies for the army was stoutly resisted by the Presi- dent's opponents, and the ratification of the treaty of peace with Mexico was so strongly opposed that a change of two or three votes would have defeated it. Wh a bills for the organization of the territories acquired by the treaty were introduced, amendments were offered by the Abolitionists prohibiting slavery in all of them. This was resisted by the southern members. Intense and excited debate sprang up and continued day after day. The South urged that the territories were the common property of the whole Union, that they were owners in common with the North, and it would be a violation of their rights to deprive them of the right to move into them with their faniilies as constituted. The reply was that they had not a right to carry their local laws into the territories, and that the North was opposed to the extension of slavery. The excitement continued to increase and extended throughout the Southern States, and finally became dangerous. Threats of secession were made if the northern members in- sisted in applying the provision to all the territory. These threats were treated and believed by the Abolitionists as mere buncombe. In the midst of this excitement Mr. Clay returned to the Senate. A compromise was talked of. The conservative members of both parties, Democrats and Whigs, favored it. But every attempt at any compro- mise was resisted by the extreme North and the extreme South ; each demanded all. Jefferson Davis and John P. Hale voted together against every compromise. When Mr. Clay's compromise bill (as it is called) was reported by a committee, Mr. Bradbury acted and voted with the con- servatives in support of it. They kept advised of the movements of the excited South and were aware of the danger. In their conference meetings Mr. Clay met with them. . Mr. Webster was con- sulted. Both believed in the danger, and enough was known to warrant the belief. But the ultra Northern members and the people of the North did not believe there was the slightest danger. They regarded the threats of secession as the merest gasconade. Mr. Bradbury and the other conser- vatives who supported the compromise believed that its adoption would probably prevent any future attempt at secession ; and if not, it would postpone it until the relatively rapid increase of the strength of the North would give it such preponderance as to make any future attempt a failure. He regarded
Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay as acting throughout the struggle from high motives of patriotism, and wisely too, and Mr. Webster's 7th of March speech as one of the most patriotic acts of his life. He has ever been fully satisfied that he was right in his active efforts in support of the compromise of 1850. Senator Bradbury served on the Judiciary Com- mittee, the Claims Committee, and the Special Committee on French Spoliations. He saw the need of a tribunal to adjust claims for the Govern- ment, and he prepared and had an amendment to a pending bill adopted and passed by the Senate, which finally resulted in the establishment of the
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Court of Claims. The French Spoliation bill, to satisfy claims for damages committed by the French prior to 1800, was also championed by him and passed by the Senate. It was through his exertions that the first appropriation was made for improving the Kennebec River ; he always looked carefully after the interests of his constituents and of the public as well. Mr. Bradbury was an active, hard- working and prominent member of the Senate throughout his entire term, at the expiration of which, having declined a re election, he retired to private life and the practice of his profession. Politically Mr. Bradbury has always been a Demo- crat of the old school, and a patriotic American.
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He was a Delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1844, and threw the vote of Maine for Mr. Polk which resulted in his nomination. Subsequently he took the stump and aided materially in the election, and in the admission of Texas, which was an issue in the campaign. He was the first prominent member of his party to denounce the platform of the 1896 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and in response to a request from the New York Herald, wrote to that paper his reasons for so doing, using the following strong language : -
" In response to your request, I have to say that I am and always have been a Democrat from principle; I have uni- formly voted the Democratic ticket for seventy-three years, and I cannot with self-respect turn about and sustain a ticket nominated on a platform in direct conflict with the principles and practice of the Democratic party from its foundation to the present time.
"The Democratic party and its great leaders, from Jefferson and Jackson to the statesmen of to-day, have always stood for sound money. No paper money has ever been made and issued by any Democratic administration.
" The platform means a depreciated currency of silver and government-paper money worth the value of the silver neces- sary to redeem it.
" It means monometallism, as the coinage of silver at a ratio double its value would, of course, expel gold from the country, it being worth twice as much to send abroad to pur- chase silver; as to coin, none would be coined.
" It means the repudiation of fifty per cent of millions upon millions of one kind of property, held more largely by savings banks and literary institutions than any other - the savings of toil - and I am not a repudiator.
" It means a stain upon the character and credit of our republic, and I love her too well to fail to enter my protest against it.
" It means the reduction in an hour of the great volume of our currency from a gold to a silver basis, and I fear the disasters that would follow.
" Instead of bringing the promised prosperity, I am satisfied a depreciated, fluctuating silver currency, subject to the whini of Congress, would tend to paralyze enterprise and bring on business depression and disaster. .
" Instead of the implied censure, I think the President was entitled to the thanks of the convention and the country for using the necessary means .o sustain the public credit and employing the legitimate power of the government to suppress resistance to its laws, preserve the public peace and avert anarchy. These, in brief, are reasons why I cannot support the Chicago ticket."
He has also been, since 1846, an active member, and for the twenty years 1867-87 was President, of the Maine Historical Society, which tendered him a complimentary dinner on his eighty-fifth birthday, June 10, 1887. He has, among other honors, that of having advocated and secured the passage by the Legislature of the Act giving the charter for the first railroad in Maine, that of the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth, in 1835. At the present time Mr. Bradbury is still fairly vigorous, although he is near- ing his ninety-fifth birthday. He takes care of a large private business, is an attendant at the Congre- gational Church, of which he has long been a mem- ber, and at the meetings of the Maine Historical Society. His mind is still unimpaired and active, and his interest in the affairs of state and nation is as great as at any time during his long and useful life. Mr. Bradbury was married November 25, 1834, to Eliza Ann Smith, of Augusta. They have had four children : Henry W., born February 10, 1836, died June 10, 1884; James Ware, Jr., born July 22, 1839, died September 21, 1876; Thomas W. S., born July 24, 1841, died May 11, 1868; and Charles Bradbury, born March 31, 1846, residing in Boston. Mrs. Bradbury died January 29, 1879. Since her decease, and that of Henry W., his son, the latter's widow has kept the house and carefully cared for him. He has only one grandchild : Eliza Louisa, now sixteen years of age.
BRAGDON, FRED AUGUSTUS, M. D., Springvale, was born in Limington, York county, October 24, 1858, son of George and Amanda (Sawyer) Brag- don. His father, son of William Bragdon, who was a pioneer settler and successful farmer of Liming- ton, was born in Limington, acquired a good practi- cal education, and for many years was known as one of the most efficient educators in the county. He retired from the teaching profession some two years ago, and has since resided upon his farm in Limington. He has served the town as a member of the Board of Selectmen and has been prominent in public affairs. Fred A. Bragdon was educated in the public schools of his native town, and from the age of nineteen taught school in Limington, Cornish and adjoining towns for an uninterrupted period of five years. During that time he read
Mr. Bradbury has always maintained an active interest in his alma mater, Bowdoin College, and was elected a member of its Board of Overseers in . medicine with Dr. John T. Wedgewood of Cornish. 1846, was chosen one of its Trustees in 1861, and Subsequently he finished his medical studies at the Maine Medical School (Bowdoin College), from which he graduated in 1883, and in the following for nearly a quarter of a century has been Chair- man of the Finance Committee of the institution.
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July commenced the practice of his profession at Shapleigh, York county. In 1886 and again in 1891 he took a post-graduate course at the Post Graduate School in New York, and in the latter year, attracted by the wider field and greater opportunities for ad- vancement in his profession afforded by the flourish. ing m' nufacturing community of Springvale, he established himself in that place, where his applica- tion and skill as a physician and surgeon soon brought -i'm a successful practice, and where he has since resided. Dr. Bragdon is a member of Springvale Masonic Lodge, White Rose Chapter Royal Arch Masons of Sanford, and Ossipee Valley
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Odd Fellows Lodge of Cornish. He was married November 22, 1884, to Nellie Welch, daughter of Aaron Welch of Shapleigh, Maine ; they have four children : Blanche A., Lena B., Florence E. and Fred Ray Bragdon.
BONNEY, PERCIVAL, Judge of the Superior Court of Cumberland county, was born in Minot, Andros- coggin county, Maine, September 24, 1842, son of William Lowell and Adeline Lois ( French) Bonney. His parents were natives of Turner, Androscoggin county, Maine. He is of the ninth generation in lescent from Thomas Bonney, who came to this country from Sandwich in Kent, England, in the
Hercules in 1634 or 1635. He owned land in what is now Pembroke, Massachusetts, but lived in Dux- bury. Later the family seems to have settled in Pembroke, where the Bonneys are now quite numer- ous. On the twentieth day of June 1768, the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts granted "to the heirs of Captain Joseph Sylvester, for military services rendered in the invasion of Canada under Sir Wil- liam Phipps in 1690. a tract of land seven miles square on the west side of the Androscoggin River, on condition that the grantees within six years after should settle thirty families on the tract, build a house ft for public worship, settle a learned Protes- tant minister, and lay out one sixty-fourth part of said tract for the use of said settled minister, and one sixty-fourth for the ministry, and one sixty- fourth for a grammar school in said tract, and one sixty-fourth for the use of Harvard College in Cam- bridge." General Peleg Wadsworth, Captain Icha- bod Bonney and Peleg Chandler were the first persons who performed such settling duties as entitled them to three of the settlers' lots. This tract of land was known as Sylvester-Canada, but in 1785 was incorporated as a town under the name of Turner. Ichabod Bonney, Judge Bonney's great- great-grandfather, was the agent of the proprietors to carry out the provisions of the grant. He was a Captain of militia in Pembroke, and served in the Revolutionary War. He came to what is now Tur- ner, in September 1783, with his family, in company with Samuel Taylor, Daniel Oldham, John Briggs, William Hayford and Deacon Robinson, whose descendants still inhabit the town. He landed at North Yarmouth by vessel, and his earthly posses- sions were taken from there to Turner by ox-team ; his son Ichabod drove the team, and slept under the cart one night near what is now known as East Auburn. He afterwards became a prominent citi- zen of the town, serving several terms as Represen- tative to the General Court, was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace and went into the neighboring towns to solemnize marriages, there being very few at that time qualified to perform that duty. He built a house on what is now known as Lower street, where he died February 25, 1807, "greatly lamented," as the town historian declares. His son Ichabod, born December 14, 1762, was a private in his father's military company, and served in that capacity in the latter part of the Revolutionary War. He came to Turner as above stated with his father, and married Anna Merrill, daughter of Deacon Daniel Merrill, who moved from Salisbury to New
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Gloucester and became the first Deacon of the Congregational Church, of which the well-known Rev. Samuel Foxcroft was so long Pastor. He also had a son Ichabod, grandfather of Judge Bonney, who was a Colonel of militia, served in the state Legislature, was "a man respected by his towns- men," and died in 1860. His wife was Polly L well, a sister of Hon. James Lowell of Lewiston. Hon. Stephen Lowell of Sangerville and Hon. Wil- liam Lowell of Minot, who were members of the Senate of Maine in 1854, from Lincoln, Piscata- quis and Cumberland counties respectively. His son William L. Bonney, father of our subject,
PERCIVAL BONNEY.
settled in Minot, which town he served as Select- man for many years and as Representative to the Legislature. In 1864 he removed to Turner, and there remained until his death, September 2, 1893. The Bonney family is of Anglo-Norman origin, descended from one Godfrey De Bon, a Knight of
Normandy under William the Conqueror. The coat of arms seems to be five escallops in cross azure, field argent, the crest a square padlock, proper. Percival Bonney acquired his early educa- tion in the public schools of Minot, under various instructors - one, Oscar D. Allen, afterwards a Pro- fessor in Yale University ; another, Hon. S. G. Hil- born, now a member of Congress from California.
He prepared for college at Hebron (Maine) Acad- emy and the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston, and entering Waterville College (now Colby Uni- versity) in 1859, graduated therefrom in 1863. Among his classmates in college were Hon. W. P. Whitehouse, Judge of the Supreme Court of Maine, Governor M. L. Stevens of Florida, Judge J. C. Gray of California, Colonel F. S. Hesseltine of Boston and George B. Ilsley of Bangor. During his college course he taught school each winter in his native town of Turner ; and after graduation he taught in Bucksport, Maine. While in Bucksport he received an appointment to a clerkship in the United States Treasury Department at Washington, where he remained from November 1863 to May 1865. In addition to his clerical duties he read law more or less while in Washington, and upon returning to Maine in 1865 he entered the law office of Hon. Josiah H. Drummond in Portland as a student. In August 1866 he was admitted to the Bar, and at once began the practice of law in Bath. In November 1866 he removed to Portland and opened an office in that city. In April 1867 he formed a partnership with Daniel G. Harriman, which continued until September 1868, when Mr. Harriman removed to New York. Mr. Harriman is now Judge of one of the City Courts of Brooklyn. In December 1869, Mr. Bonney formed a partner- ship with Stanley T. Pullen, which continued until March 1872, when Mr. Pullen left the profession of law to enter journalism as Editor of the Portland Press. He continued practice alone until October 7, 1878, when he was appointed by Governor Con- nor to the Bench of the Superior Court of Cumber- land county, to succeed Judge Joseph W. Symonds, which position he still holds. Judge Bonney has been a Director of the Union Mutual Life Insur- ance Company of Portland since 1881, of the West- brook Trust Company since 1894, and of the Union Safe Deposit and Trust Company since 1895. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Colby University since 1876, was Secretary of the Board from 1878 to 1893, and since 1881 has been Treasurer of the Institution. He has also been since 1877 a member of the Board of Trustees of Hebron Academy, and President since 1880, and was President of the Maine Baptist Missionary Con- vention from 1892 to 1894. In politics Judge Bon- ney has always been a Republican. In 1869 he was elected a Representative to the Legislature front Portland, and was re-elected in 1870 for the sessions of 1870 and 1871, serving as a member of
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the Judiciary Committee during both terms. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, the Fraternity (literary) Club of Portland, the Phi Beta Kappa of Colby University, and while in college was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon frater nity. He has always been actively interested in the prosperity of Colby University and Hebron Academy. The latter, located within three miles of his birthplace, has grown under his Presidency from an ordinary country academy to one of the best- equipped and best-endowed institutions of learning in the state. Judge Bonney was married August 5, 1864, to Enzabeth H. Bray, daughter of Stephen Bray of Turner, Maine. They have two daughters : Adeline L. and Helen B. Bonney; the former a graduate of Wellesley College, class of 1894.
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