BRADLEY, William O’Connell, Congress, KY (1847-1914)

Senate Years of Service: 1909-1914
Party: Republican

BRADLEY, William O’Connell, a Senator from Kentucky; born near Lancaster, Garrard County, Ky., March 18, 1847; educated by private tutors and at a private school in Somerset, Ky.; during the Civil War entered the Union Army at the age of fifteen, but because of his youth served only a short time; studied law and was licensed to practice in 1865; prosecuting attorney of Garrard County 1870; appointed Minister to Korea in 1889 but declined; member of the Republican National Committee 1890-1896; Republican Governor of Kentucky 1895-1899; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1909, until his death in Washington, D.C., May 23, 1914; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice (Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses), Committee to Investigate Trespassers upon Indian Land (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Sixty-third Congress); interment in State Cemetery, Frankfort, Ky.

Bibliography Dictionary of American Biography ; U.S. Congress. Memorial Services for William Bradley . 64th Cong., 1st sess., 1915-1916. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917; Thatcher, Maurice Hudson, ed. Stories and Speeches of William O. Bradley ; with a Biographical Sketch by M.H. Thatcher . Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing Co., 1916.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present