William O'Connell Bradley

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William O'C. Bradley
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William O'C. Bradley

William O'Connell Bradley (March 18, 1847 - May 23, 1914) was a U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Born in Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky, Bradley was educated by private tutors and at a private school in Somerset, Kentucky. He entered the Union Army during the Civil War at the age of fifteen, but only served briefly due to his youth. He studied law and was licensed to practice in 1865, becoming the prosecuting attorney of Garrard County in 1870. In 1889, he was appointed Minister to Korea, but declined the job. From 1890 to 1896, he was a member of the Republican National Committee. He was the first Republican to serve as governor of Kentucky (1895 to 1899). His sister's son Edwin P. Morrow was also governor of Kentucky, from 1919 to 1923.

He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1909 until his death in Washington in 1914. During the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses, he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice. He was also chairman of the Committee to Investigate Trespassers upon Indian Land during the Sixty-first Congress, and the chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims during the Sixty-third Congress. He was buried in the state cemetery of Frankfort, Kentucky.

Preceded by
John Y. Brown
Governor of Kentucky
1895 - 1899
Succeeded by
William S. Taylor
Preceded by
James B. McCreary
United States Senator (Class 3) from Kentucky
1909 - 1914
Succeeded by
Johnson N. Camden, Jr.

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