Bradley, Alva

At his death, Alva Bradley was reported to be the largest individual ship-owner on the Great Lakes. A Western Reserve Historical Society tract called him the "most powerful figure in lake shipping."

Bradley was born in Ellington, Conn., and in 1823 moved with his family to Brownhelm in Lorain County, where his father, Leonard, was a farmer. The son left his father's farm when he was 19 to sign on as a sailor on the Liberty, a 50-ton schooner that sailed the Great Lakes. By 1839 he had risen to captain and in 1841 he and a partner, Ahira Cobb, built the 104-ton merchant schooner South America on the Vermilion River for $3,200. Bradley captained the South America briefly before Cobb built, and Bradley commanded, larger sailing ships before turning to steam-powered steel vessels. The shipyards of Bradley & Cobb were formally founded in 1853 in Vermilion.

Bradley retired as a captain in 1852, a year after marrying Milan native Helen M. Burgess. He lived in Milan for a time in the late 1840s.

Bradley & Cobb moved to Cleveland in 1859 and Bradley bought out Cobb. Between 1868 and 1882, Bradley & Cobb amassed a fleet of 18 ships on the lakes. Bradley's fleet captured so much of the early shipping of iron ore from Lake Superior down to Lake Erie that other shippers had to follow his lead on freight rates.

Bradley helped incorporate Case Institute of Technology and in the 1880s served with John D. Rockefeller on the local advisory committee of a group seeking to prohibit the sale of liquor in Ohio. He also invested in real estate, a business continued by his only son, Morris.

When Morris Bradley died in 1926, the family was considered the largest owner of downtown real estate. Grandson Alva Bradley II carried on the family business until 1941 when the company, then called the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co., was liquidated. By then the family was firmly entrenched in the real estate business. In addition, die young Alva Bradley had become principal owner of the Cleveland Indians in 1928. He sold the team to Bill Veeck in 1946.