1. Nathaniel Bradford of Accomack County, Virginia - Lower ...

By the end of his life Nathaniel Bradford had become one of the most prosperous men in Accomack
County. He began his life as a middling artisan with a 400-acre plantation and became a planter who owned
5000 acres in two different colonies. Building on his original profession as a currier in the leather trade, he
incorporated other aspects of the trade into the activities of his plantation, which thereby became a center of
manufacture. Evidence abounds of the scope and size of Nathaniel’s business. In 1689, a year before his
death, Samuel French confessed in Northampton County court that he owed Nathaniel for the cost of
making 59 shoes. 302 And in the inventory of Nathaniel’s estate, in addition to a “tanhouse”, tanning
implements and 315 hides, there was found a “shoemaker shop” containing “three old seats for
shoemakers” and “46 old lasts”. Forty six pairs of shoes were found elsewhere in the house. As Nathaniel
possessed 165 head of cattle at his death, it may be that he supplied himself with some of his own hides.
In addition to his engagement in the leather trade, there is evidence that Nathaniel engaged in other
mercantile activity. It seems that even after the Virginia Assembly’s subsidy for cloth manufacture was
discontinued many Virginians may have gone on producing it anyway, including possibly Nathaniel, who
died possessed of 57 sheep, as well as sheep shears, flax cards and linen wheels. In Nathaniel’s cellars
were found 28 cider casks and 990 gallons of cider, as well as 50 lbs of “Virginia cheese” and numerous
other staples, such as corn and salt, in amounts which hint that the items might have been intended for trade
and not just for the use of Nathaniel’s own plantation. Even the lack of tobacco in the inventory does not
necessarily mean that Nathaniel didn’t grow it on his plantation, since the harvest would have occurred
after or around the time of his death and the crop would have been sold by the time of the inventory in
June, at which point the next crop would just be under cultivation. Of the 17 casks found on Nathaniel’s
plantation, 10 were filled with cider and 7 were empty. It could be that these same casks had been recently
emptied of tobacco and that Nathaniel produced cider in the off-season between tobacco harvests. In
support of his plantation’s business, he employed half-a-dozen to a dozen servants and slaves. The diversity
and scale of activities evident from the inventory of Nathaniel’s estate was typical of the gentleman planter.
As Nathaniel’s “sole heir” by the law of primogeniture, William Bradford inherited Nathaniel’s servants
and slaves, as well as the home plantation at Bradford’s Neck, the 500 acres on Pungoteague and the 1200
acre plantation in Sussex County. Within a year, Nathaniel’s widow, Joan (Franklin) Bradford, married
Thomas Budd, 303 with whom she and John Bradford, her son by Nathaniel, went to live. For over a year
William Bradford, Joan and Thomas Budd handled suits of debt arising from the settlement of Nathaniel’s
estate. William sold off most of Nathaniel’s cattle 304 as well as the plantation in Sussex, 305 and completed
sales of land his father had initiated, but not completed, in his lifetime. 306
* * * * *
Nathaniel 1 Bradford was born in or before 1633 and died in Accomack County, Virginia between June and
November in 1690.
Nathaniel 1 and Alice (Smith) Bradford married before 1660 and were parents of the following 2 children:
2. i. NATHANIEL 2 BRADFORD, born before his baptism on 23 June 1661, probably on his
parents’ plantation at the head of Occahannock in Northampton County; died
without issue between 1687 and 1690 in Accomack County.
+ 3*. ii. WILLIAM 2 BRADFORD, born around 1663 in Accomack County, either at the head of
Occahannock or at Matchipungo; died 1735 at Matchipungo in
Accomack County. He married Bridget Fisher in Accomack County.
Nathaniel and Joan (Franklin) Bradford married around or before 1677 and had at least one child:
+ 4*. iii. JOHN 2 BRADFORD, born around 1677 at Matchipungo, died 1742-1753 in
Worcester County, Maryland. He wed first Tabitha Lecatt in Accomack County,
and second Margaret ___.
Page 56 of 74 Copyright 2008 Adam M. Bradford