The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1900-08-06
AN ILLINOIS
MANS LUCK.
Mr.. Bradley Of Sparta Gained
Wealth at Cape Nome.
FORMERLY He WAS DAY LABORER
Now His Lavish Expenditures Aston
Ish People on the Pacific Coast.
ONE OF Al FEW WORLDS PARvENUES.
TOdsy Bank Presidents Visit With the Man
Nho Once Cleaned Fish ln San
Francisco for a Living.
ONE OF AFEW WORLDS PARVENUES.

Benjamin f. Bradley. a native of Spar
Ia, Randolph county. Ill. has been aston
ishing California by his lavish display OF
wealth
The whirligig of fortune has created ex-
traordinary vicissitudes for severai hun
dred men in the Klondike, and especially
in the Cape Nome gold mining regions.
and II has done strikingly romantic
things with the career of Ben Bradley
Many people in ALASKA say that he Is
a signal illustration of the caprice OF for
tune in the frozen North.
At Monterey in San Francisco, and Los
Angeles, short. stout. carelessly-dressed
man has attracted attention.
IL is plain. 10 a casual observer that he
has been unused TO the ultra style and
swagger and dash of the rich hotel guests
about him. but he has been living ike
prince. He has driven daily about Mon
terey in a superb and snowy open car
riage, drawn by spanking team har-
messed In latest fashion.
He has made gold and silver gifts OF
great value to a few new acquaintances.
and the tips of considerable sums have
made him an observed person wherever
he goes.
Before going to Monterey he was
guest at the swellest hotel In San Fran
cisco, and among his daily callers were
bankers. brokers. mining magnates and
leading business men of the coast.
He has Just bought stock to the amount
of $1,000 In Denver street railroads. and
ne has made one or two Investments of
$4,000 and $4,000 in California crude oil
stocks and land.
A few years ago Bradley was laborer
in the coal mines at Belleville. ILL.,, and
today he is living like a tabled prince on
the best that thousands of dollars will
buy in San Francisco.
REMARKABLE RISE OF BRADLEY.
Yesterday, as 1t were. he was a foul
smelling cleaner of Shiny odorous fish on
the w<arves OF San Francisco, and today
he could spend 100000 and have a large
fortune left.
At the age of 40. and after twenty or
more years of hard. grinding poverty.
without a hope of ever getting more than
n rung or two higher up the ladder of
wealth and influence. fate suddenly
showed him a thing or two, and he went
flying up the ladder.
To drop metaphors, Ben Bradley, who
has been farm laborer in Southern flli-
nois and Missouri, a boatman on the Mis-
eral laborer in whiskey distillery at
Lexington. KY, and window washer.
hack driver, and fish cleaner In San Fran
cisco, II now the owner of three golden
placer mines on Cape Nome and the pos
SCISSOR OF money negotiable securities to
the amount of some $4,000.
Altogether heis sconservatively estimat-
cd as worth from 100000 to $4,000. Some
people at Nome, who know Ben Bradley's
mines, say he Is worth easily over $780,
900. Even $1,000 would have seemed, as he
says himself, a great fortune to him two
years ago.
His father was Joseph Bradley.a farmer
1T Sparta, Ill. The Bradeys always had
q Hard struggle. There was large fam
fly and a small mortgaged farm to sup
port the household.
The mother died after years OF illness,
and when the children were small and
the father hanged himself a year later.
when he realized that he was a failure I'm
life.
An uncle in Belleville took the children
and got them places where they could
work for their living. One of the girls,
Sally Bradley went down I'm the Indian
woman she married cowboy. who Is now
the richest cattleman in the Panhandle of
Texas. Ben Bradley has supported him
self since he was -. and he has had all
kinds of hard manual labor in his life, as
his cracked hands and stoop shoulders
show. 80
His longest term OF service was in the
soft coal mines at Beleville. but when
he found that his lungs were affected by
underground work he left the job. He
was then q and his sole capital was $l1S
Then he went to boating on the Miss
issippi and worked hard and endured bit
ter exposures for little money and his
board. "Oh. I've surely had my shave OF
poverty I'm this world" recently said the
Cape Nome miner telling OF those DAYS
For some months during lSSS he was en-