KENTUCKY: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin & Kniffin, 4th ed., 1887 Garrard Co. HON. WILLIAM O. BRADLEY was born March 18, 1847, near Lancaster, Ky., and is the youngest of eight children (two sons and six daughters) born to Robert M. and Ellen (Totten) Bradley. The former was born in Madison County in 1808, and was among the ablest lawyers in Kentucky. His father, Isaac Bradley (grandfather of our subject), came to the State in an early day, and settled in Madison County, but finally removed to Bath County, where he died. He was of Irish parentage, his father emigrating from Ireland to America prior to the Revolutionary war; a war in which he gallantly served to the close, being present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. His wife was Margaret O'Connell, a relative of Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish agitator and patriot. Robert M. Bradley (subject's father) married Ellen Totten, a daughter of Joseph H. Totten, whose father lived in Culpepper County, Va., and served in the Revolutionary war. He came to Kentucky and settled in Garrard County; was a prominent farmer and died at the age of eighty years. William O. Bradley, the subject of this sketch, is one of the brilliant young lawyers of central Kentucky, and although he has but attained the zenith of manhood's prime, the vigor of his intellectual life, he has already filled the measure of a just ambition--not so much on account of the public positions he has held, for he has been always upon the wrong side of the political fence to meet with success, but by the respect and confidence he has inspired in all men, political friends or foes. When he was quite young Mr. Bradley's parents removed to Somerset, Ky., where they resided until the breaking out of the civil war. He then, although but fifteen years of age, quit school and entered the Union army, first as a recruiting officer in Pulaski County, and afterward at Louisville as a private soldier. He remained in the army but a short time when he returned home and commenced reading the law with his father. Under a special act of the Legislature he was admitted to the bar at eighteen years of age--the first special act of the kind ever passed in Kentucky, the law requiring a man to be twenty-one when admitted to the bar. Upon receiving his license to practice, he entered into partnership with his father at Lancaster. In 1870 was elected commonwealth's attorney for his district, and in 1872 was presidential elector on the Grant and Wilson ticket; also made the race that year as the Republican candidate for Congress but was defeated. In the winter of 1875 he received the entire vote of his party in the Legislature for United States senator, and in 1876 he again made the race for Congress on the Republican ticket, but was again defeated, receiving, however, nearly 3,000 more votes than ever before received by a candidate of his party in the district. In 1878 and 1882 he was again nominated for Congress but declined; in 1879 he was nominated for attorney-general of the State, but declined on account of ill health. He was delegate for the State at large in 1880 to the Republican National Convention at Chicago; seconded the nomination of Gen. Grant, and was one of the famous 306; he was chosen the same year for a member of the National Republican convention of Kentucky, and made a number of speeches in Indiana, Ohio and New York. In 1884 he was again delegate for the State at large to the Republican National Convention, and chairman of the Kentucky delegation, and made a speech against the proposition to curtail Southern representation. He was selected in 1885 by President Arthur, just before the close of his term, to institute proceedings against the Star route thieves, and retired from the prosecution because the attorney-general hampered him and would not allow an impartial trial and prosecution. Mr. Bradley is a man of fine executive ability, personal daring and unflinching adherence to his principles. Though not disposed to be aggressive in his habits, he is a man who would make his mark in any great social or political movement. He was married July 11, 1867, to Margaret Robertson Duncan, a daughter of Dr. B.F. and Jane L. (McKee) Duncan of Lancaster, and a grand-niece of Hon. George Robertson, formerly chief justice of Kentucky. They have two children, George R. and Christine. Bradley Totten Cornwallis Grant Wilson Arthur Duncan McKee Robertson = Madison-KY Bath-KY Pulaski-KY Culpeper-VA IN OH NY Ireland http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/garrard/bradley.wo.txt