USA > New Jersey > New Jersey's first citizens and state guide, Vol. II, 1919-1920 > Part 8
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57
Bowen
Publication Association by the National W. C. T. U., whose headquarters are now in Evanston, Ill.
The state organization of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union came into being in 1874. Mrs. Bourne was the Recording Secretary, for ten years prior to her election as President, of the State Union, and for nineteen years thereafter she directed its energies. While in the office she secured the free lecture service of Miss Willard, promised to the state having the largest membership gain. Miss Willard's lecture was delivered in Jersey City, May 11. 1897. The other prize lecture offered by Miss Wil- lard was for largest gain in the number of Loyal Temperance Legions was given in New York City the previous night. Miss Willard died February 17, 1898; and these were the last two lectures given by her, except those which she delivered before the National Convention and at the World's Convention in October of 1897.
During the administration of Mrs. Bourne the state W. C. T. U. was incorporated (in 1894). The Scientific Temperance Educational Law was passed in the same year with only one opposing vote, the first attempt in this direction having been made by the W. C. T. U. in 1885. The Union also participated in the popular uprising against gambling, race-track book- making and lotteries led in after years by the Rev. Dr. Everett Kempshall, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth, and also in the movement for the framing of what is known as the "Bishops' Law" for the regulation of the liquor traffic of the state. In 1908 the State W. C. T. U. started. with $1,000, an endowment fund that gifts and bequests have since increased to $2,364.
The Woman's Home Mission Society of the M. E. Church gave to the Hospital built in Porto Rico (1915), the name Kellog-Bourne Hospital, in honor of both workers, besides Mrs. Bourne has always been identified with womens clubs since 1910. She has been an active member of the Women's Press Club of N. Y. City and the New York Federation of Women's Clubs.
Mrs. Bourne graduated from the Wesleyan Institute Newark and from the Newark Normal School. She was a teacher in the Newark schools for seven years, and for ten years later was engaged in the life insurance business. Her subsequent activities were devoted to the promotion of the temperance cause in connection with the W. C. T. U.
ORLANDO M. BOWEN-Greystone Park .- State Ilospital War- den. Born near Bridgeton, N. J., Feb. 24th, 1864; son of Joseph C. and Anna C. (Nebhut ) Bowen ; married at Shiloh, N. J., March 15th, 18SS, to Lucretia B. Seagraves, daughter of Johua B. and Mary M. (Davis) Seagraves of Bridgeton, N. J.
Orlando M. Bowen is the grandson of Joseph A. Bowen, a farmer whose acres were near Bridgeton, N. J. His grandfather on his mother's side was Peter G. Nebhut, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and came to this country in 1829, settling near Norristown, Pa.
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58
Brackett
With the exception of one year, Dec. 1, 1892 to Dec. 1, 1893, when he resided at Norristown, Pa., Mr. Bowen has lived all his fifty-five years in New Jersey. He received most of his education in that state also, attending the public schools until he was seventeen years old, and later, studying two years in South Jersey Institute, Bridgeton, N. J.
Until he was twenty-eight years old, Mr. Bowen lived on a farm near Bridgeton, and then at that age, spent one year at the State Hospital, Norriston, Pa., studying hospital management. After this, he took a position as private secretary and general manager of a large estate at Morristown, N. J. On April 15, 1909, he was appointed Warden of the New Jersey State Hospital at Morris Plains by the Board of Managers and he still occupies that position. A short time later he was also en- trusted with the treasury of the institution.
Mr. Bowen is much interested in agriculture and has improved and extended the farm. In recognition of this he was appointed as Agri- cutural Advisor to the Military District Board No. 2.
He has been active in several fraternal organizations, being Past Master of Morristown Lodge No. 188 F. & A. M., Past High Priest of Madison Chapter No. 27 R. A. M .. Past Commander of Odo St. Amand, Commandary No. 12 Knight Templars, and a member of Mecca Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles Mystic Shrine of New York. He was also Grand Tall Cedar of Morris County Forest No. 2, Tall Cedars of Lebanon for seventeen years and is now the Supreme Tall Cedar of the Supreme Forrest Tall Cedars of the United States.
GEORGE FREDERICK BRACKETT-Ridgewood. (164 Height Road ) .- Road Builder. Born at Minneapolis, Minn., Nov. 8, 1868; son of Frederick and Narcissa A. (Shryock) Brackett ; married at Washington. D. C., on October 28, 1892, to Elizabeth M. Rock, daughter of Joseph C. Rock and Rose Miner Rock. 2nd, at Ridge- wood, N. J., on June 26, 1912, to Helen Fink, daughter of Herman H. Fink and Lilla Roberts Fink.
Children : Elizabeth R., born Oct. 12, 1893; Joseph R., born Dec., 1897, (deceased), George F., Jr., born March 22, 1913; War- ner Windom, born June 24, 1915.
George Frederick Brackett is a descendant of a family which has lived in this country for ten generations. He is a direct descendant of Anthony Brackett, a Scotchman, who imigrated to this country in 1623.
His parents moved from Minneapolis when he was eight years old, and settled in Washington, D. C., where the mother still resides. In 1891 he moved to New York City, and resided there until 1895.
While at the National Capital Mr. Brackett received his education in the schools of that place.
Since 1890 he has been engaged in building roads and particularly the improved asphalt highway.
59
Bradford
At one time he was a member of the School Board of Ridgewood, and later was a member of the Board Village Trustees, and of which body he was afterward President.
He is a member of the Ridgewood Country Club, (the building of which was destroyed by fire the latter part of February, 1919), the Fi- delity Lodge of Masons, the Paterson Lodge of Elks, and also the Mecca and Hamilton Club of Paterson.
His business address is Clifton, N. J.
CORNELIA BRADFORD-Jersey City .- Settlement Worker.
Cornelia F. Bradford, founder and head worker of Whittier House Social Settlement, Jersey City, is the daughter of the late Rev. B. F. Bradford, D. D., and Mary Howe Bradford. Her father was a native of Rhode Island, her mother, of Massachusetts. She is the sister of the late Rev. Amory Howe Bradford, D. D., who for forty years was pastor of the First Congregational Church of Montclair.
Her father was the eighth in line from old Governor Bradford, the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Her Mayflower ancestry is something for which Miss Bradford is very thankful, and she always asserts she is pleased "that the old governor was an agriculturist, and not one of the nobility."
From her father she inherited her strong humanitarian propensities which led to the founding of Whitier House twenty-five years ago. In his young life he was associated with the so-called "underground railroad" for freeing negroes, was a noted Prohibitionist, Abolitionist, was asso- ciated with the first Suffrage party, and was a well known worker and lecturer in social reform. It was inevitable, theu, that Miss Bradford, with these inherited tendencies and with her strong passion for humanity, should select for her life work something wherein humanity itself should be considered. From the beginning the settlement idea interested her greatly. Its spirit of adventure, its life with the people, as well as its life of sharing, which is its basic stone, attracted her, and led her to choose it for her work. For this purpose she visited frequently Toynbee Hall, East London, the beginning of all settlements, and lived for some time in Mansfield House, Cannington, East London, studying and working under Mr. Percy Alden, at that time Warden of the Mansfield Honse Settlement for Men, since then, a member of the House of Commons. Upon her return to America she went directly to Hull House, Chicago, that she might learn to know Jane Addams and her wonderful work.
In December, 1893, in a little, unused, upper hall bedroom in the People's Palace, Jersey City, a room not large enough in which to "swing the proverbial cat," as it was described by one of the New York papers, Miss Bradford started the future Whittier House Settlement of Jersey City, the first, and still the only settlement of Jersey City, and the pioneer settlement of New Jersey. From this little room for four months she
60
Bradford
went daily among the people of the locality, visited factories, homes, schools, churches, talked to laborers and the children on the streets, intro- duced herself to the officials of the city, and its prominent citizens, while her nights she spent in a furnished room house, where almost nightly her apartments were the refuge of abused wives and crying children.
On the 14th of May, 1894, with a ten dollar bill and three articles of furniture, she moved into 174 Grand Street, when the "settlement" threw open its doors in a building of its own.
Today Whittier House owns two large houses adjoining one another, a summer camp at Pomona, New York, while it has a third house rented for it.
From its very beginning Whittier House has been constructive in its work. Repeatedly it has organized and carried on for a time activities only to give them over to the city or the state.
This was true of its Kindergarten, Its Legal Aid Association, the second oldest legal aid association in the United States; its Dental Dis- pensary, District Nurse, Playground. In 1896 it started the State Con- sumers' League, and in 1901, it made an important housing investigation which led to the State Tenement Housing Commission. In 1906, a meeting called by Miss Bradford, resulted in the forming of the Hudson County Tuberculosis Association, which resulted in the Laurel Hill Sanitorium. In 1909, it initiated the S. P. C. C., which later led to a home of its own, and still later to the Hudson County Parental Home. In 1912 Whittier House opened the first Milk Dispensary, which after two years was taken over by the city. The North American Civic League located in Whittier House, grew into the State Bureau of Immigration. It has at present the only Diet Kitchen in Jersey City, and is the only organization looking after sick babies at night.
Miss Bradford has been both pawnbroker, and chattel mortgagor. In 1918, a meeting was called for the organization of the Negro Welfare League, out of which has grown a colored Y. M. C. A. In the year 1918 the larger of the two houses of the settlement was converted into War Camp Community Club House. An old time club room of Whittier House is now a dormitory for soldiers and sailors ; another club room is used as a read- ing and writing room while the pool room, greatly enlarged, is a most at- tractive gathering place for these men where they can sit and play games, smoke and talk and have their pool contests.
During all these years, Miss Bradford has been a member of many important state committees, and is at present First Vice President of the State Consumer's League. She was the first woman member of the Board of Education of Jersey City, having been appointed to that office by Mayor Wittpenn. In 1914, when Whittier House reached its twentieth anniver- sary, the event was commemorated by a complimentary dinner given to Miss Bradford in the Scottish Rite Temple. Ex-Supreme Court Justice Gilbert Collins was the toast-master, Governor Fielder was one of the guests and speakers, as was also Mayor Fagan of Jersey City, and at the tables were many prominent officials of state and city, also men and women from prominent New York settlements and other organizations.
61
Bradley
Whittier House Social settlement is as broad and humanitarian in its belief, life and work as was the Quaker poet for whom it was named.
CHARLES BRADLEY-Newark, (18 James St.)-Brewer. Born at Newark, August 31, 1857 ; son of Joseph P. and Mary ( Horn- blower) Bradley ; married on April 12, 1882, to Julie E. Ballan- tine, daughter of Robert F. and Anne E. Ballantine.
Children : Charles Burnet, born 1883: Robert Ballantine, born 1886; Anne Brown, born 1894; Francis Barlow, born 1897.
Charles Bradley, the son of one of the most famous of American jurists, is an owner, and the chief executive officer of one of the greatest brewery establishments in the country. ,
The Bradley family traces its origin in this country back to an carlier day than that of the founding of the City of Newark. the 250th Anniversary of which, as one of the Citizens Committee of One Hundred, Mr. Bradley helped the city to becomingly commemorate in 1916. The earliest traces of its presence on this side of the ocean, tells of the settlement of Francis Bradley in Fairfield, Conn., in 1660. Joseph Bradley 2d was in 1701 a resident of Berne in Albany County, N. Y. Joseph Bradley 3d was born there. His son, Philo, married Mercy Gardner when both were but seven- tecn years of age; and the late Justice Bradley was the first fruit of the union.
Charles Bradley was cducated in Grants Private School in Newark, at Rutgers Preparatory school and at Rutgers College, graduating 1876, and became President of the Rutgers College Alumni Association. Two years after graduation he was given the law degree by Columbian Law School in Washington, D. C., where his father's judicial duties induced him to make his home. He began his business career in the draw-back division of the New York Custom House; and subsequently, from 1879 to 1883, was engaged with the firm of H. V. Butler, Jr., & Co., paper manufacturers. of New York City. His marriage to a daughter of the late Robert F. Ballan- tine eventuated in his association, in the following year with the great Ballantine brewery interests. He became Secretary and Manager of the company, and in 1905 was made its Vice President and Treasurer.
The exactions of his business have not prevented Mr. Bradley from participating in public and civic activities of various kinds. For nine years he was State Director in the United Railroads and Canal Company of New Jersey ; and he was one of the delegates from New Jersey who put the late Garret A. Hobart, of Paterson, as a candidate for Vice President of the United States, on the ticket with William McKinley, at the Republican Na- tional Convention of 1896. He is an active member of the Newark Board of Trade ; a Trustee, and the Treasurer, of the Newark Museum Association ; Trustce and Vice President of the New Jersey Historical Society, and of the Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary, and. in the Newark City Celebration Committee of One Hundred, was one of the leading factors.
His business connections are of course very wide and varried, besides being Vice President and Treasurer of the P. Ballantine & Sons Company. lic is a Director of the Murphy Varnish Co .; a Trustee of the New Jersey Brewers Association, a Trustee of the New York Brewers Board of Trade.
62
Bradley
Vice President and Treasurer of the Passaic Transportation Company, and officer and Director in several other affiliated businesses, a director in several banks, and Trustee of several private trusts.
His Clubs are the Essex. Morris County Golf, Morristown Club, Whip- pay River, Somerset Hills Country, the Down Town Association and the University Club of New York.
JAMES A. BRADLEY-Asbury Park .- Manufacturer. Born in Roseville. S. I., Feb. 4, 1830.
James A. Bradley is the "Founder" of Asbury Park. He had been successful in business as a brush manufacturer when in 1871 ill health forced him to seek recreation. He chose a wild spot by the sea on the Monmouth coast over run with brush, and thick with woods where the sanddunes permitted any growth at all, and invested in 500 acres of it. It was a most unpromising prospect but his prophetic eye saw the possi- bilities of its future, and lie immediately planned to build there a new mid-summer capital, tliat, unlike any other resort on the sea-coast, was to be free from the "rum curse." He laid the acres out in streets and lots, and began the construction of the new resort with the timber he fell to clear for the foundations. Mr. Bradley is a consistent church mem- ber ; and the devotional spirit prompted him to call it Asbury Park, after the famous Methodist preacher.
Saloons were banished from it and it came to be known as the temper- ance resort of the North coast of New Jersey. The sudden popularity of the resort made Mr. Bradley its guardian and protector through all of its history. Of late years he has been subjecting Bradley Beach to a like development.
Mr. Bradley went to the old Madison street school in New York until he was twelve years of age. Then he was put to work on the farm of William Davies in Bloomfield, as a boy of all work. Farm work was not pleasing to him, and he sought more active employment in New York. At twenty-one he was foreman in the brush factory of Francis B. Furnald, Pearl street, New York City, and six years later he went into the brush business for himself. Under his touch the business magnified until its plant covered many buildings and employed many hands.
Mr. Bradley had been a republican from the days of Fremont and Day- ton, but at the same time was an enthusiastic prohibitionist. At one of the Presidential elections he cut the Republican candidate for the Prohibition candidate. A temperance wave in Monmouth county, accentuated by the excitement following the "Jockey Legislatures" in New Jersey, brought him forward as a candidate for the state Senate: and he was one of several republicans elected to displace democrats in that which was to meet in Trenton in 1894. When they reached the State Capitol, the democratic holdover Senators refused to honor their credentials and barred the doors of the Senate Chamber against them. Senator Bradley was one of the most insistant of all in demanding recognition and participated in the
63
Brinkerhoff
historically wild scenes that followed. Senator Bradley was content with a single term in the Senate and did not seek re-election.
WILLIAM HI. BRIGHT-Wildwood .- Real Estate. Born at Bridgehampton, Michigan, October 21, 1863: son of Henry and Mary ( MeClintock) Bright, married at Stony Run, Pa., on Dec. 27. 1892. to Priscilla F. Buek, daughter of James Monroe and Prisca Buck of Berks county, Pa.
Children : Honor, Eloise, Joy. Noble, Ward and Cooper Bright.
William H. Bright is of English and Irish parentage. His father was born in Liverpool, but came to America in 1852, when he was twenty years of age. His mother was a native of Tyrone, Ireland ; her parents came to this country when she was a young child. Mr. Bright was edu- cated in the Philadelphia public schools and became interested on the Republican side of the politics of Cape May county. At the time of the Roosevelt demonstration against the renomination of President Taft in 1912. Bright was a delegate to both of the rival conventions and partici- pated in the excitements of that episode in American politics. He was a delegate-at-large four years later to the National Progressive Convention.
Mr. Bright was Collector and Treasurer of the borough of Holly Beach when he was nominated for Sheriff of Cape May county. While serving as Sheriff he organized the First National Bank of Cape May Court House and was made its President. He is also a director of the Marine National Bank of Wildwood. Sheriff Bright has made municipal government problems his special study.
WILLIAM BRINKERHOFF - Jersey City, (15 Exchange Place. )-Lawyer. Born in Bergen (Jersey City), July 19. 1843 ; son of John and Hannah Brinkerhoff. married at Jersey City in 1868 to Melissa. daughter of Allan and Melissa Clark.
Children : Lillie, who married Dwight M. Billings of Bridge- port. Conn., now of Amherst, Mass.
The Brinkerhoff name is woven all through the history of the old Dutch settlement on Bergen Hill, known, before its consolidation with Jersey City in 1874, as the City of South Bergen : and William Brinker- hoff has since made the name of a notable one in the public and profession- al life of the state.
Mr. Brinkerhoff began his education in the Public schools of the city and later attended Rutger's College. The Civil War broke out while he was a student there, and he left to go to the front in the Union cause. He served in the 21st New Jersey Volunteers, forming part of the 6thi Army Corp. Upon his return from the scene of conflict, he read law in the office of Jacob R. Wortendyke, was admitted to the Bar as an attorney in '65 and made a counselor in '69. He has since been engaged in the practice of his profession in Jersey City. He was Counsel to the Board of Chosen Freeholders from '68 to '72, and for three separate terms after 1884 held the position of Corporation Counsel of Jersey City.
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Brown
Like his father, who was for years Director of the Hudson County Board of Freeholders and afterwards a Judge of the Hudson County Courts, Mr. Brinkerhoff has a liking for public affairs. Early in life he was a member of the Bergen City Common Council, becoming the Presi- dent of the Board, and, when a vacancy occurred in the Mayor's office, be- came, at twenty-eight, the Mayor of the city. In 1870 he was a member of the New Jersey House of Assembly, and in 1873 was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, which framed a number of amendments that have helped to bring the constitution of 1884 abreast with the spirit of later times. From 1880 to 1883 he was a member of the Democratic State Executive Committee and in 1884 was elected to represent Hudson County in the New Jersey State Senate. Since the close of his term in 1887 he has given his entire attention to his private practice.
Senator Brinkerhoff is a Director of the Commercial Trust Company, a member of the Carteret Club and Jersey City Club, and one of the Trustees of the Holland Society of New York City.
OLIVER HUFF BROWN-Spring Lake .- Merchant. { Photo- graph published in Vol. 1-1917). Born at Farmingdale. Dec. 12th, 1852, son of Peter and Sarah Brown.
Oliver H. Brown began his life work as an employee of a country store at Avon. Two years later he was offered an opportunity by John A. Githen of Asbury Park, and was manager of the business for eight years. Many trips across the seas enlarged his business views and ex- periences ; and when he came back in 1881 he was ready to go into busi- ness for himself. He then established a unique business in the way of furniture, fine china, bric-a-brac glass, etc., in Spring Lake. The business grew rapidly and he subsequently opened branches in Lakewood and Asbury Park. Mr. Brown is much consulted as a commissioner in his line of business.
His activities and progressiveness in the community brought him the office of Mayor of the borough of Spring Lake, irrespective of politics ; and when Spring Lake, North Spring Lake and Como consolidated, he was elected first Mayor of the new borough and still continues to hold this office covering a period of twenty-six years. In 1896 he was nominated for a seat in the House of Assembly of 1897 and served one term. In 1902 the Republicans of the County named him as their candidate for the State Senate and he was renominated and re-elected in 1905, 190S and 1911, serving nine years in the Upper House. In the first two campaigns his democratic opponent was Dr. Hugh S. Kinmouth of Asbury Park, and the third campaign opponent was Judge Ruliff F. Lawrence of Freehold. He was also a delegate to the National Republican Convention in Phila- delphia that in 1900 renominated President McKinley, with Theo. Roose- velt on the ticket as the candidate for Vice President.
Senator Brown is President of the First National Bank of Spring Lake and a director of the Lakewood Trust Company, the First National Bank of Lakewood, the First National Bank of Bradley Beach and the New First National Bank of Farmingdale, and has large interests in other
Browning
Monmouth county enterprises. He is largely interested in The New Mon- mouth Hotel of Spring Lake and has always been its Treasurer ; the owner also of a number of hotels on the coast; is President of the New Essex & Sussex Hotel of Spring Lake aud of the New Montery Hotel of Asbury Park ; President and half owner of large property at Jefferson, New Hamp- shire, consisting of four hotels, one of these being the famous Hotel Waumbek, a number of cottages and a golf course that is said to be one of the best in the country.
MARY SPALDING BROWN, ( Mrs. Wm. Thayer Brown)-East Orange, (172 Prospect St. )-Civie Worker. Born at Byron, Ill., on Oct. 14th, 1854; daughter of James L. and Harriet Irene (Good- will) Spalding; married at Rockford, Ill., on Aug. 24th, 1875, to William Thayer Brown (died May 7th, 1916) son of Horace and Mary Thayer Brown, of Vermont.
Children : Horace, Harriet Irene, William Thayer Brown, Jr., and Elizabeth Eulalia.
Mrs. Mary Spalding Brown is interested in charitable and civic work. Her family traces its origin in this country back to 1630. She was educated in the schools and at the college in Rockford, Ill. She lived afterwards in Chicago ; and coming East resided in Springfield, Mass., before coming to New Jersey in 1900.
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