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John
Bradstreet
John Bradstreet was born in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia in 1714. He was the son of Lieutenant Edmond Bradstreet and his wife, Agatha De La Tour. Their family was small with only another boy who was named Simon. Edmond Bradstreet became ill and died in 1718 - leaving a widow and two young sons.
Agatha
Bradstreet re-married and her family remained in
Annapolis Royal where the boys grew up. In 1735,
she purchased commissions for both sons in the British
army. Bi-lingual John Bradstreet served at Louisburg
where he met and married the widow of his cousin.
Her maiden name was Mary Aldridge. The marriage produced
two daughters.
In
1746, now Captain Bradstreet was appointed Lieutenant
Governor of Newfoundland. He served until 1751 when
he went to England. Returning with General Edward
Braddock in 1755, he was sent to Oswego to support
the command of Governor William Shirley. In that
year, he received a New York commission to be the
commissary at Oswego - thus providing him with an
opportunity for profit. By the summer of 1756, he
was stationed in Albany and was living as the guest
of a young provincial officer named Philip Schuyler.
During
the Seven Years War, Bradstreet served at Oswego,
Halifax, and Ticonderoga. In 1758, he led an expedition
that captured Fort Frontenac (Kingston). His active
military career was distinguished and he reached
the rank of Colonel in 1762. He led an expedition
against the western Indians and negotiated a treaty
with them at Detroit in 1764.
His
family never joined him in New York. After living
in Boston, by 1765 Mary Bradstreet and her daughters
had removed to England. By that time, John Bradstreet
had settled permanently in Albany where he enjoyed
the hospitality of Philip Schuyler and the close
companionship of Schuyler's wife, Catherine. In 1761,
while Schuyler was in England, Bradstreet took charge
of the construction of Schuyler Mansion.
During
the 1760s, he began to acquire land in the colony
of New York. He secured a leasehold from the Van
Rensselaers on a prime strip of land located along Albany's southern border. Calling that parcel "Whitehall", he began to engage tenants to farm the bottomland that included "Patroon's Island." In 1768, he also took title to a large tract located between the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers - more than a hundred miles west of Albany. By the 1770s, he was looking to develop that land as well.
Except
for the Schuylers, Bradstreet had a more contentious
time with other Albany leaders in that he was clearly
identified with the British, complained about Albany
to his superiors, and brought actions against Albany
people in the local courts. At the same time, his
aggressive manner caused friction with Sir William
Johnson - the most powerful British adherent in the
entire regions.
Despite
considerable achievement, Bradstreet's ambition for
high station was undermined by an aggressive and
abrasive personality that kept him at arms from royal
officials who characterized his brashness as "all too peculiar to those born in America." Not until 1771 when he was sick with dropsy and broken by cirrhosis of the liver, was he promoted to the rank of Major General.
John
Bradstreet died in New York City in September 1774
and was buried in Trinity churchyard. His will left
his South Albany farm to his namesake, John Bradstreet
Schuyler.
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Notes: The life of John Bradstreet is CAP biography number
7410. This profile is derived chiefly from external
and community-based resources. Of particular note
is the definitive work on Bradstreet, William G.
Godfrey, Pursuit of Profit and Preferment in Colonial
North America: John Bradstreet's Quest (Waterloo,
Ontario, 1982). The best of the Internet biographies
appears in the Nova Scotia series. Additional information
online can be found in the so-called "Bradstreet
File."
The
dead cousin also was named John Bradstreet.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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