♂Henry Bradt

Henry Bradt (died 1813) was an early settler of the town of Springfield, Otsego County, New York, who headed a household of twelve there in 1800 and in April 1813 left his land to “my three youngest sons” in a will he signed with his mark. He was the third great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his daughter Leah Bradt (1785–1845), whose place in his family rests on compiled genealogies rather than on a record.

Family

Henry was born no later than 1755, for the census of 1800 counted him as over forty-five. Nothing is known of his parents or his birthplace. His wife was Catharina, whose maiden name has not been found.

Springfield

A Henry Bradt, probably the same man, headed a household of nine in the town of Canajoharie, Montgomery County, in 1790. The new town of Springfield held its first town meeting at the meeting-house on 4 April 1797, and the county history of 1878 records that Henry Bradt was chosen there as one of its three commissioners of roads. The same history counts the Bradts among the pioneers of the east part of the town.

In 1800 Henry was at Springfield, listed next to Peter Bradt, at the head of a household of twelve: himself, a woman of between twenty-six and forty-four, five boys and five girls under sixteen. Indexes place him in Otsego County still in 1805, on a land assessment, and in 1810, when an H. Bratt was counted at Springfield.

His will

Henry made his will on 5 April 1813 as “Henry Bradt of Springfield”. Once his debts were paid, all his real estate was to be divided equally among “my three youngest sons”, whom he did not name; no other child is mentioned. He appointed Catharine Bradt, James Bratt and Samuel Brate his executors, and signed with his mark. He died within months. By 28 October 1813 Samuel Brate, as executor, was asking the surrogate’s court^W for leave to sell land, because the personal estate would not cover the debts, and the matter was still before the surrogate in December 1816.

Notes

The 1800 census and the will were read on the original pages. The 1790 and 1810 censuses and the 1805 land assessment are known from indexes only, and the executor’s petition of 1813 and the proceedings of 1816 from transcriptions of the surrogate’s records. The register entries for a child Jacobus at German Flatts in 1783 are known from a published transcription of the register.

The memorial website’s “before the Revolution” has not been confirmed: the 1878 county history gives no date for the family in Springfield earlier than 1797.

This Henry Bradt is not the Henry Bradt (1765–1841) who married Catharina Krembs at Stone Arabia in 1788 and died at Manheim; that man, born about 1765, was too young in 1800 to be the head of the Springfield household.

Leah Bradt

Leah Bradt, born 28 March 1785, married Johannes Walrath in 1806. No record names her parents. Compilations once made her the daughter of another Henry Bradt (1765–1841) and his wife Catharina Krembs, of Manheim, until that couple’s family Bible, printed in the 1930s in the genealogy column of the Enterprise and News of St. Johnsville, listed their children without her. A correspondent to the same column then wrote that “it looks as if we will have to give Jacobus and Lea Bradt to the Henry Bradt who lived in that part of the town of Canajoharie called Springfield”. The 1930s correspondents also gave this Henry a son Jacobus, born in 1783; the register entries for that child name no residence.

The column took her birth date from the Bible record of a Dr. J. H. Lepper. A history of Springfield, known only through a quotation on a memorial website, says that Heinrich Bradt and his wife were in the town before the Revolution and that their daughter Lea married John Walrod. Her place in this family rests on these compiled accounts alone.