USA > New Jersey > Scannell's New Jersey first citizens : biographies and portraits of the notable living men and women of New Jersey with informing glimpses into the state's history and affairs, 1917-1918, Vol I > Part 7
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As a writer, Mr. Bobbitt won in 1916 the third prize in the Philadel- phia Public Ledger editorial contest on reasons why President Wilson or Mr. Hughes should be elected. He was one of the 459 editors from nearly
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every state in the Union, and all of the large cities to advocate Mr. Wilson's re-election in the prize-winning contest. He was one of the first to urge Governor Wilson for the Presidency, booming him as early as 1907. He is a thorough independent in politics, however, being, as he says, unable to say whether he has supported more Republicans or Democrats, from Presi- dent down, for office. One of his first notices to state departments. upon assuming the State Editorship, was to the effect that anything savoring of partisanship must be eliminated from all state literature.
DAVID BOSMAN - Rutherford. - Railway Officer. Born in Brooklyn, Dec. 13, 1864; married in 1892 to Emily Sloane, of Brooklyn, N. Y.
David Bosman, Mayor of Rutherford in 1910-11, is Vice-President and Secretary of the Erie Railroad Company, of the New York Susquehanna and Western Railway Company and of the New Jersey and New York Rail- road Company.
Having been educated in the grammar schools and the High School of Brooklyn, Mr. Bosman became in 1885 a clerk in a law office ; but two years later was called to a position in the Erie Railway service. He rose from a clerkship to be Assistant Secretary, then to be Secretary ; and afterwards become Vice President. He is a Trustee of the Rutherford Trust Com- pany, Republican in politics and attends the Congregational Church.
EMMA BOURNE-South Orange, (445 Richmond Ave. ) - Tem- perance Worker. Born at 28 New street, Newark, Sept. 5th, 1842 : daughter of John and Mary Gordon (Barnett) Hill; married at Newark, January 13, 1868, by the Rev. R. R. Meredith, to Henry James Bourne, son of Jacob Bourne, of Ireland.
Children : Mary Gordon Dexter; Elizabeth B. Dickinson ; Amelia Barnett Kinsey ; John Hill Bourne.
Emma Bourne's mother, Mrs. Mary G. Hill, was the first Presi- dent of the first Womens Christian Temperance Union organization in New Jersey - a local at Newark, in 1874-continuing in that office for eight years. In the early days Mrs. Bourne sought to aid the cause by the distribution of tracts; but the literature was ex- pensive. She and Mrs. Campfield, who was associated with her, were obliged to pay $3 per thousand for the leaflets; and, believing that they could be profitably produced for $1 per 1,000, they started a small publish- ing business, had their printing done by contracts with Newark printers and supplied their literature to all interested in the cause in all parts of the state. This they continued to do until the establishment of the Women's Temperance 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
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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 nine- teen years thereafter she directed its energies. While in the office she se- cured 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 Willard 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 Con- vention in October of 1897. During the administration of Mrs. Bourne the state W. C. T. U. was incorporated (in 1894). The Scientific Temperance Edu- cational Law was passed in the same year with only one oppos- ing 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 gamb- ling, 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 fram- ing of what is known as the "Bishops' Law" for the regula- tion 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.
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 busi- ness. Her subsequent activities were devoted to the promotion of the tem- perance cause in connection with the W. C. T. U.
CORNELIA BRADFORD-Jersey City .- Settlement worker.
Cornelia F. Bradford, who is a sister of the late Rev. Amory H. Brad- ford, of Montelair, has been Headworker, since its beginning, of the Whittier House in Jersey City, the first settlement house in New Jersey. In 1914 when the Whittier House reached its twentieth anniversary, the event was commemorated by a complimentary dinner to Miss Bradford at
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Scottish Rite Temple. Ex-Supreme Court Justice Gilbert Collins was the toastmaster of the evening. Governor Fielder was one of the guests, and at the tables were many prominent officials of state and city and women from New York settlements and suffrage organizations. In 1913 Miss Bradford was appointed a member of the Jersey City Board of Educa- tion and served in the Board for four years. It was because of her efforts that the old post office site was purchased and upon it a new primary school building erected with shower baths, gymnasium and audi- torium.
Previous to the opening of Whittier House Miss Bradford lived some time in Mansfield House, Cannington, East London. Upon her return from this English settlement, she went directly to Hull House, Chicago, to study under Jane Addams. Her opportunities while in East London for studying the conditions of that part of London were very unusual because of the great interest taken in her by Mr. Percy Alden, at that time Warden of the Mansfield House Settlement for Men, since a member of the House of Commons. In Chicago Miss Addams did everything in her power to ac- quaint her with settlement work methods and life.
Miss Bradford went to Hull House with the intention of starting a set- tlement in Jersey, knowing that lower Jersey City is one of the overlooked portions of the earth. In December of '93 Miss Bradford began to go about among the people of the locality, visiting the houses, talking to way- farers on the streets and to the children in the parks, introducing herself to the officials, learning to know the city and spending her nights in a fur- nished room house on Grand street, where her apartments were often the refuge of abused wives and neglected children. Her experiences in these rooms gave her a better understanding of, and a deeper sympathy with the conditions under which the people in whom she had interested her- self were living, and opportunities too for an acquaintance with the people themselves. She told them meanwhile that in time she hoped to have a home of her own in the neighborhood, when she wanted them to run in and see her have a cup of tea with her and be in every sense neighborly. A room in old Peoples Palace on Grand street was eventually placed at her disposal.
From its very beginning, the Whittier House movement was to be con- structive in its work. In the old Peoples Palace gymnasium Miss Brad- ford started the first kindergarten in the city, the Mothers Club, which was the first woman's club in the city; the only sewing school in the Lower City, and an evening Study Club for factory girls. She launched in a small way the pawn shop which proved a friend to many needy persons, in the unemployment winter of 1894. Only the legal interest was charged and in every case the article was redeemed. Later chattel mortgaging took the place of the pawn shop. It was upon these foundation stones that Whittier House was established, and on the morning of May 14th. 1894, with a tou dollar bill and three articles of furniture. the "settlement" threw open its doors in a building of its own at 174 Grand street. To-day Whittier House owns two large houses standing side by side, a third one adjoining is rented for it and it has a summer camp at Pomona. N. Y.
Whittier House has been a leader in social reforms, and many of the up-lift organizations of the city, county and state had their origin there.
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As soon as possible these activities have been given over to other organiza- tions. In 1894 it started the first kindergarten but later gave it to the public schools ; established the first Penny Provident Bank, still the only one in the city, and started "Legal Aid" giving it to the city in 1916-the second oldest legal Aid Association in the United States. In 1896 it established the District Nurse which led to the Municipal Nurses. In 1897 it opened the first Dental Dispensary which later led to the dental dispensary in public schools. In 1898 it opened in its back yard the first public play- ground in the city. In 1898 it helped to form the Organized Aid of Jersey City. In 1898 it started the Consumers' League. In 1901 it made some important housing condition investigations, which led to the State Tenement House Commission.
A meeting called by Miss Bradford in 1906 resulted in the forming of the Hudson County Tuberculosis Association which built the Laural Hill Sanatorium. In 1908 a City Betterment Club was formed to take upon it- self the study of moving pictures, of children's attendance at theaters and similar work. 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 it opened the first Milk Dispensary which after two years was taken over by the city. The North America Civic League, located in Whittier House, finally grew into the State Bureau of Immigration. It has also had the only Jersey City Advisory Bureau of Foreigners and also an Occupational one for boys and girls just out of school. It is carrying on at present the first and only Diet Kitchen, and the only Women's and Children's Dispen- sary in lower Jersey City, and it is the only organization looking after sick babies at night.
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 earlier 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
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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- teen years of age; and the late Justice Bradley was the first fruit of the Union.
Born in 1813, the late Justice taught while taking a course at Rutgers College, and graduated there in the class of 1836, made memorable in college annals by the number of afterwards famous men who were of it. Cort- landt Parker, a noted American lawyer, and Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, who became United States Senator and Secretary of State of the United States, were among his classmates. Both of Newark, they persuaded Joseph P. Bradley to seek his fortune in their New Jersey city and, after a period of study in the office of Archer Gifford, he entered upon the practice of the law there. His legal skill and learning gave him a first place among the lawyers of the country ; and in 1870 President Grant offered him a seat on the Bench of the United States Supreme Court, which he accepted. The father of his wife, the late Chief Justice Hornblower of the New Jersey Su- preme Court, was hardly less noted as a jurist than Mr. Bradley himself. Serving under five administrations, those of Grant, Hayes, Arthur, Cleve- land and Harrison, Justice Bradley remained on the United States Supreme Court Bench till his death in 1892.
Charles Bradley was educated in Grants Private School in Newark, at Rutgers Preparatory school and at Rutgers College, graduating in 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 it's 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 ; Trustee 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 varied. besides being Vice President and Treasurer of the P. Ballantine & Sons Company, he 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. Vice President and Treasurer of the Passaic Transportation Company, and
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officer and Director in several other affiliated businesses, a director in sever- al 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 Rossville, S. I., Feb. 4, 1830.
James A. Bradley is the "Founder" of Asbury Park. He had been suc- cessfull 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 per- mitted any growth at all, and invested in 500 acres of it. It was a most unpromising prospect but his prophetic eye saw the possibilities of its fu- ture, and he immediately planned to build there a new mid-summer capi- tal, that, 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 con- struction of the new resort with the timber he fell to clear for the founda- tions. Mr. Bradley is a consistant church member; 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 a very wealthy man ; and he has stood as 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 un- til 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 excitements 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 his-
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torically wild scenes that followed. Senator Bradley was content with a single term in the Senate and did not seek re-election.
CORNELIUS BRETT - Jersey City. - Clergyman. Born at New York City on Nov. 25, 1842; son of Rev. Philip Milledoler and Cornelia (Bogert) Brett ; married at New Brunswick on Oct. 10, 1865, to Helen B. Runyon, daughter of Clarkson and Matilda C. (Mundy ) Runyon.
Children : Maud Runyon, born Aug. 10, 1867, Philip Mille- doler, born Feb. 17, 1871.
Cornelius Brett is pastor of Bergen Reformed Church on Jersey City Heights, the oldest congregation in the state of New Jersey. The history of the church is coincident with the history of Jersey City from the days when it was known as the Paulus Hook settlement. The Rev. Dr. Brett has officiat- ed in its pulpit for more than 40 years. Prior to coming to the Bergen Church he had offi- ciated in other Reformed Dutch Churches - in Flatlands, L. I., in Newark, N. J. and Montgom- ery, N. Y.
The Rev. Dr. Brett has been a figure not only in the Church but in the social and civic life and even in the military life of Hudson County. For eight years he was Chaplain of the Fourth Regiment of the Nation- al Guard of the State, and is now a Chaplain of the Society of Colonial Wars of New Jersey.
Dr. Brett is of mixed lineage. His line runs back into England, Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Scotland. His father was al- so a Reformed Dutch minister, who went to St Thomas, West Indies, soon after Dr. Brett's birth, and lived there till 1846. Dr. Brett after- wards resided in New York City till '51, on Staten Island till '60. in Brooklyn till '65, Flatlands, L. I. till '70, in Newark, till '73, and Mont- gomery, N. Y., till '76, when he was invited to assume the pastorate of the Bergen Reformed Church. His education was acquired at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, at New York University and at the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick, where he graduated in 1865. Ursinus Col- lege conferred the D. D. degree upon him in 1889 and he received the same degree from Rutger's College in 1916.
Dr. Brett is a member of the Reformed Church Clerical Association New York City, of the Presbyterian Clerical Association of New York City and of the Gamma Sigma Clerical Association of Hudson County. Ke
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is also connected with the Hudson County University Club, the Hudson County Historical Society, the New York Historical Society and is a life member of the New Jersey Historical Society, of the Gamma Sigma Cleri- cal Association of Hudson County, the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Associa- tion of New York City, the Cosmos Club of Jersey City and the Society of the Colonial Wars of the State of New Jersey.
WILLIAM H. BRIGHT-Wildwood .- Real Estate. Born at Bridgehampton, Michigan, October 21, 1863; son of Henry and Mary (McClintock) Bright, married at Stony Run, Pa., on Dec. 27, 1892, to Priscilla F. Buck, 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 in 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 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 6th 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
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in '65 and made a counsellor 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.
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 occured 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.
HELEN DAWES BROWN-Montclair, (48 Elm St.)-Author. Lecturer. Born in Concord, Mass., May 15, 1857; daughter of William Dawes and Martha (Swan) Brown.
Helen Dawes Brown is a graduate of Vassar College, class of 1878. In 1890 she received the degree of Master of Arts. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Miss Brown has written "Two College Girls", issued in 1886: "The Petrie Estate", 1893; "Little Miss Phoebe Gay", 1895; "A Civilian At- tache", 1899; "Her Sixteenth Year", 1901; "A Book of Little Boys", 1904; "Mr. Tuckerman's Nieces", 1907; "Orphans", 1911; "How Phoebe Found Herself", 1912; "Talks to Freshman Girls", 1914. Her books are published by Houghton Muffin Company.
Miss Brown is a member of the Women's University Club, (New York), and Onteora Club, (Tannersville, N. Y.)
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