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James was born and raised in Camden, Delaware. He probably left there early in life to serve an apprenticeship in coach-making, his eventual occupation. This may have happened in either Philadelphia or Burlington County, New Jersey, where his wife Rebecca was likely living before they married.
     Virginia Carpenter, my grandmother, was told that James and Rebecca "Kennard" married in Philadelphia. The Cox Family in America2 and private records3 identify her as Rebecca Redman Cox, the Kennards being both cousins and one of her brothers-in-law. They Cox family was living in Willingboro, New Jersey up to the time Rebecca married, but I can't find them after that. They may have moved to Philadelphia, which is a more likely place for a coachmaker to be, recently coming out of his apprenticeship.
     James and Rebecca moved to New York City after their marriage about 1812-1813. James first appears in New York city directories as a coachmaker in 1815-16, and continues to appear to the year he died. He's listed at the following addresses, which probably refer to his homes: Chapel (now West Broadway) near Lispenard (1815-16); 139 Chambers St. (1816-17); 253 Greenwich St. (1819-20 & 1820-21); 269 Greenwich (1822-27); 21 Duane (1828?); 593 Broadway (1830-31); 67 Spring St. (1835-36); 132 Spring St. (1836-37); 190 Chapel (1837-38) and his last home, 75 Ludlow (1840-41). The 1829-30 directory has him in partnership with Cornelius Barcalow at 119 Nassau Street, with yet another residence at 15 Frankfort Street.
      A census of New York City men eligible for jury duty in 1816 includes James, but exempts him on the basis of "artillery."4 Those serving in the military were exempt, so he may have been in one of the local militia companies. This census confirms that he was a coachmaker living on Chapel Street near Lispenard. James probably appears in the 1830 US census.5
     The New York Evening Post reported his death on 25 May 1840: "Yesterday morning, of consumption, in the 52d year of his age, JAMES BRADY, formerly of the State of Delaware. The friends of the family are requested to attend the funeral, this afternoon at 5 o'clock, from his late residence 75 Ludlow Street. Philadelphia papers please copy." On 1 April 1852 he was reinterred in a plot in Green-Wood Cemetery owned by his widow Rebecca.6 He had been buried in an unnamed Williamsburg (Brooklyn) cemetery, likely one for the Methodists, of which there was at least one.

children of James Brady and Rebecca Redman Cox:

i. Mary Kerr b. 13 November 1813
ii. ?James b. abt 1815, d. 21 December 1815
iii. Elizabeth Ann b. abt. 1818
iv. Rebecca Jane b. 1 May 1820
v. Anna Maria b. 25 April 1824
vi. ?James Abraham b. 15 July 1825, d. 14 Aug 1825
vii. William Wallace b. 3 August 1826
viii. George Washington b. 3 September 1829
ix. Robert O. b. (5?) April 1831
x. Benjamin Franklin b. 1832/33





vital records sources: see note 1 below.

1. evidence overview: Donald Odell Virden, in Some Delaware Pioneer Families (1977), gives detailed information about the family of a couple named Benjamin Bradley or Brady and Elizabeth Broadaway of Kent County, Delaware. Their children are named and a bit of biography for each is included, but no sources are given. Much of this information can be verified, and must have been provided by the family itself. No proof has been found connecting the parents to the children, but the evidence leaves it unquestionable. Regarding James specifically, his death notice in The New York Evening Post says he was originally from Delaware. Information probably given by Evelyn (Hoyt) Ellingwood, his granddaughter, to Virginia (Ellingwood) Smith Carpenter, my grandmother, says that James had a son Samuel who was a mayor of Baltimore. The mayor of that name was the same generation and was James' brother, according to Virden. Samuel and his father are buried in a cemetery near Baltimore, where they both died. The only Benjamin Brady of record in Delaware who could have been their father was the one who lived in Camden. .

2. Henry Miller Cox, etc., The Cox Family in America, etc. (New York:1912), 222.
3. courtesy Mary Stewart Kiritsis.
4. 1816 juror census (NYGBS microfilm), p. 81.
5. 1830 US census, 8th Ward, pg. 211.
6. Green-Wood Cemetery record, courtesy Mary Stewart Kiritsis.

all text and photographs © 1998-2020 by Doug Sinclair unless where otherwise noted