BRADFORD, WILLIAM (159o-1657), American colonial governor and historian, was born at Austerfield, Yorkshire, Eng land, of a well-to-do family, probably in March 1590. In early youth he joined the Separatists, and after a brief imprisonment emigrated to Holland in 1608. Bradford was one of the party that sailed in the "Mayflower." After the death of Governor John Carver in April 1621 he was elected governor of Plymouth colony, and served as such, with the exception of five years, until shortly before his death. His rule was firm and judicious, and to his guidance more than to that of any other man the prosperity of the Plymouth colony was due. In 1630 the council for New England granted to "William Bradford, his heires, asso ciatts, and assignes," a new patent enlarging the original grant of territory made to the Plymouth settlers. This patent Bradford in the name of the trustees made over to the body corporate of the colony in 1641. He died in Plymouth on May 9, 165 7.
He was the author of a very important chronicle, the History of Plimouth Plantation (until 1646), first published in the Proceed ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 1856 and several times re-edited. The manuscript disappeared from Boston during the War of Independence, was discovered in the Fulham library, London, in 1855, and was returned by the bishop of London to the State of Massachusetts in 1897. This work has been of inestimable value for the history of the Pilgrims, and was freely used, in manuscript, by Morton, Hubbard, Mather, Prince and Hutchinson. Bradford was also part author, with Edward Wins low, of the journal commonly known as Mourts' Relation, edited by H. M. Dexter (1865) and printed by Alexander Young in Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (1841). He wrote also a series of Dialogues, issued in the Massachusetts Historical Society's publications (1870).
See the quaint sketch in Cotton Mather's Magnalia (1702) ; Joseph Hunter, "Collections concerning the Founders of New Plymouth," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections (185 2) ; M. C. Tyler, A History of Ameri can Literature during the Colonial Time (vol. ix., 1897) ; a chapter in Williston Walker's Ten New England Leaders (19o1) ; also A. H. Plumb, William Bradford of Plymouth (192o).