Bradbury Cilley
Joseph Cilley was a member of General Washington's staff, and was a colonel, of the New Hampshire regiment in the war of the Revolution. His son, Jonathan was the father of Bradbury, the subject of this sketch.
Jonathan was born March 18, 1763, came to the wilds of Ohio in Colerain, in 1803, having left his native State in 1802, but spending the winter in Wheeling, did not arrive until 1803.
Jonathan was in the service with his father as a servant, and after coming to Ohio was associate judge for some years.
Of Jonathan's sons, Benjamin Cilley was a farmer in Whitewater township; Joseph, who was the eldest son, was a lieutenant in the War of 1812, was wounded while rallying his men; and Bradbury Cilley lived on the old homestead near Colerain.
Bradbury was born in Nottingham, New Hampshire, May 16, 1798. When he was four years of age his parents, with their family of eight children, emigrated to Ohio. Their tedious journey over the mountains was made in a four-horse wagon and a two-horse carriage. At Wheeling they sent their horses by land, and the family came in a boat to Cincinnati, then a village, where they wintered.
In the spring of 1803, they purchased a section of land on the Big Miama, at what was then called DUNLAP'S Station, about sixteen miles from Cincinnati. This station was founded in 1790, by John Dunlap, and was the first settlement in the interior, back from the Ohio river.
The Indians gave the settlers so much trouble that General Harrison, at Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, sent for their protection a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Kingsbury. In 1791 the fort was attacked by about four hundred Indians, but being gallantly defended the Indians desisted, and after WAYNE'S treaty, in 1795, the garrison was dismissed.
Colerain was laid out by Dunlap, who named it after his native place in Ireland. The settlers who bought of him lost their claims for want of perfect titles to the land.
In 1807 Jonathan Cilley died of asthma, and left five sons and four daughters, who were taught the rudiments of an education by the eldest sister.
Bradbury went to study mathematics, but soon went ahead of his teacher. The most of his education was acquired in later years by acute observation and rough contact with the world. He early developed a taste for trading, and when twenty-one years of age built a flatboat, loaded it with farm produce and floated it down the Miami, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where he sold all and came back on horseback, a distance of eleven hundred miles. These trips he continued every year - sometimes twice a year - for fifteen years. If not suited with the New Orleans market he would go on to Cuba, where he would be almost certain to find a ready and also a profitable sale for his goods.
About this time he was captain of a company, and afterwards major of a militia regiment, but was never called into active service.
When a bachelor of thirty-six years he married a neighbor's daughter, who was twelve years his junior. He never held or coveted public office, preferring the retirement of a farmer's life. He was industrious and enterprising, and gathered around him considerable property. He had a strict sense of right and justice, was stern, unyielding, and almost unflinching, and quite unchangeable in his opinion.
Bradbury's wife was the daughter of Elias and Elizabeth Gasten Hedges, of Morristown, New Jersey. Of their children Mrs. James Poole (Groesbeck) is the eldest; Mrs. Mary Bedmyer and Mrs. Elizabeth Bedinger, of Boone county, Kentucky; Mrs. Harriet Turner, Sarah J. Morehead, and Agnes Cilley, of Venice, are living.
The Bedinger families living in Boone county occupied the land once owned by Daniel Bppme.
From History of Hamilton county, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881