FRANK STURGIS BRADLEY

Frank Sturgis Bradley, secretary and general manager of the West Haven Manufacturing Company, one of the important industrial concerns of the borough, was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, January 4, 1863. His parents, Fernando and Elizabeth   (Goodrich) Bradley, were born respectively in Naugatuck and in Wethersfield. In 1862 the father en listed for service in the Civil war as a member of the Sixteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry and was assigned to the commissary department. He was taken prisoner and for a considerable period was confined in Andersonville prison. He turned his attention largely to farming, which occupation he followed for the greater part of his life, however, for a considerable period after the war he worked in a factory in Collinsville.  His wife survives and resides with our subject.

Frank S. Bradley received a common school education, attending the schools of Wethersfield, Hartford and Unionville, Connecticut. When thirteen years he entered the shop of the Standard Rule & Level Company of Unionville and from that time to the present has been connected with manufacturing interests. He has always taken a keen interest in mechanical problems and as a boy and youth made it a point to acquire as much varied experience in shops as possible. With this end in view he worked first for one concern and then for another including the Hartford Machine Screw Company, Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company of Hartford, in which he was a tool maker, and Pratt & Whitney, in whose employ his work was that of fitting spindles. In 1881 he was with the Wetmore Machine Company of New Haven, manufacturers of the Bosworth Waxed Thread sewing machines. After leaving their employ he was for seven years expert machinist with the Henry G. Thompson Company, manufacturers of pamphlet-wiring machines. During his connnection with that con-cern he was sent by them to various places where an expert in that line was needed. From 1889 until 1896 he was with R. H. Brown & Company of New Haven, but in the latter year came to West Haven and organized what is now the West Haven Manufacturing Company. He had perfected and patented a number of new devices to be used in the manufacture of saws and established a business of his own in order to put these machines to actual use. For some time he worked unaided and seemed to make little progress but persevered and at the end of six years was able to demonstrate the practicability of his inventions. In partnership with C. E. Graham he established the West Haven Manufacturing Company, which in 1902 was incorporated under the same name. Mr. Bradley is secretary and general manager of the company and is in charge of the mechanical end of the business. He has invented and patented wire-stitching machinery and saw-making machinery and the frames used in hack-saws. The company manufactures a diversified line of tools and hardware specialties, employs from one hundred to two hundred men and has found a market for its products over the entire country. Mr. Bradley is also a director of the Orange Bank & Trust Company.

In 1889 occurred the marriage of Frank S. Bradley and Miss Clara Gardner, of New Haven, a daughter of John P. and Georgie Gardner, the father a well known music teacher. To Mr. and Mrs. Bradley have been born two children, Clara May and Florence Estelle.

Mr. Bradley is a stanch republican and has served as member of the board of burgesses of West Haven. He attends the Congregational church, although not a member thereof, and is generous in his contributions to its support. His wife is a leader in religious activities and prominent in civic clubs. He belongs to the Masons, the Winchester Lodge of the New England Order of Protection, of which he is a charter member and past warden and which he named, and is also identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, which he joined when employed. Along more strictly social lines he is connected with the Phoenix Club and also a member of the Union League of New Haven. He is always to be found with those who are working earnestly for the advancement of the community welfare and it is but natural that he should be an active member of the New Haven and West Haven chambers of commerce and he is also identified with the United States Chamber of Commerce. As a boy he determined that he would not remain an ordinary mechanic and as the years have passed he has accomplished all that he hoped and more, for now he is the guiding spirit of an important manufacturing concern and through his inventions has contributed to the world's progress along mechanical lines.