VOTE!: Today is Constitution Day so we have an excuse to be a
little preachy. In just a few weeks, Americans go to the polls to
elect a new president. Are you registered to vote? The deadline is
Oct. 6. Few elections have been so critical so we encourage
everyone to register, and then vote on Nov. 4.
NAME GAME: We can now fill in some of the nooks and crannies in
how Bradford got its name, thanks to the Rev. Dominic Monti, who is
in town visiting his mother Alice Monti.
Father Monti tells us he put together a history based on a 1901
book his mother had and a brief history of McKean County from the
Smethport Centennial online:
“When McKean County was established in 1804, it was at first
divided into just two townships, Ceres (north) and Sergeant
(south). Then, ‘on the 19th of June in 1827, John F. Melvin and 14
others including Pike and Foster petitioned the court to divide
Ceres Township into east and west portions and asked that the
western part be called Bradford Township.
“Here we note the New England influence, as this was the name of
the town in New Hampshire from whence the Melvins and others came.
When the borough was incorporated in 1873, it took the name of
Bradford.
“So your intuition in Saturday’s Era about a New England
connection is correct. Bradford owes its name to a little town in
New Hampshire. It’s interesting that the name Bradford was given
first in 1827 to a large township (which then included the present
Corydon and Foster townships) rather than to a specific village
within it. So this name predates the settlement that eventually
became the City of Bradford.
“Most of the early settlers (Melvins, Fosters, etc.) lived down
in what is now Foster Brook and the ‘East End’ of Bradford (the
village of Kendall Creek).
“A ‘History of Bradford, Pa.,’ published in 1901, quotes from an
early settler, Loyal Ward: ‘I came to Bradford 50 years ago [c.
1850], and was engaged to teach the Kendall Creek or Tarport
School, now the 6th Ward of Bradford. Tarport was then the business
center of the Tuna Valley … what is now the 1st Ward [downtown] of
Bradford was then called Littleton, named after Col. L.C. Little,
the United States Land Company’s agent.'”
More tomorrow.
