John Green Brady

John (James) Green Brady (May 25, 1847 – December 17, 1918) was an American politician who was the Governor of the District of Alaska from 1897 to 1906, when he was forced to resign due to his involvement with the fraudulent Reynolds–Alaska Development Company.^[1] He was born in New York City.

Childhood in New York City

Brady was orphaned at an early age and found living on the streets of New York City by Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. a well-known and popular New York City philanthropist and the father of future US 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt. Many years later, as an adult, Brady would approach the younger Theodore Roosevelt then governor of New York, in 1900, at a conference in Portland, Oregon, warmly shake his hand and tell him the following story:

"Governor Roosevelt, the other governors have greeted you with interest, simply as a fellow governor and a great American. but I greet you with infinitely more interest, as the son of your father, the first Theodore Roosevelt." When greeted warmly by Governor Roosevelt and asked why and in what special way he had been interested in his father, Governor Brady replied, "Your father picked me up on the streets of New York, a waif and an orphan, and sent me to a Western family, paying for my transportation and early care. Years passed and I was able to repay the money which had given me my start in life, but I can never repay what he did for me, for it was through that early care and by giving me such a foster mother and father that I gradually rose in the world until I greet his son as a fellow governor of a part of our great country."

After being picked from the Orphan Train he lived with the family of John Green, of Tipton County, Indiana. He married Elizabeth Jane Patton in 1887 in Sitka, Alaska. Children: John Green Brady Jr., Hugh P. Brady, Sheldon Jackson Brady, Mary Anna Brady and Elizabeth P. Brady. He attended Yale University and graduated in 1874.

District of Alaska

Brady moved to Alaska Territory first as a Presbyterian minister, missionary, lawyer and co-founded what is now Sheldon Jackson College as a school for training Alaska Natives in 1878. Later he would be appointed Governor for three terms. He was introduced to the infamous Alaskan bad man Soapy Smith during the July 4, 1898 festivities in Skagway. Brady was made aware of Soapy's criminal activities and offered him a position as a deputy U.S. marshal in Sitka if he would quit Skagway. Soapy turned down the position and Brady noted it in a personal letter. Four days after meeting him, Soapy was killed in the famed Shootout on Juneau Wharf.

Brady died on December 17, 1918 and was buried in Sitka National Cemetery in Sitka, Alaska. He was interred in Section R, Plot 4 in December 1918. The monument at his grave bears the inscription: "A life ruled by faith in God and Man."

References

External links

• The Presbyterian Leadership in Pioneer Alaska:
• "We Are More Truly Heathen Than the Natives"
• John Green Brady at Find a Grave