MORE: We promised some more on the history of Bradford from the Landmark Society.

From the society’s website:

“About 1837 Col. Levitt C. Little came with his two stepsons, P.L. Webster and C.D. Webster, and established himself at the forks of the Tunungwant in the log-house which had been built by Dr. W.M. Bennett, somewhere about No. 21 Boylston Street, as the agent of the United States Land Company.

“About the agency a little settlement gathered and began to be known as Littleton and interchangeably Littleville. Daniel Kingsbury, who was a stockholder of the Land Company, made a purchase from it in 1851, of an area of 60,000 acres in and around Bradford. He came to Bradford, established headquarters, offices and bank, and proceeded vigorously to develop this immense tract.”

A post office was necessary for the growing business, and it was moved in 1854 to the Old Red Store, and the name was changed.

“The name Kendall Creek could no longer be appropriately continued, nor could the name Littleton be taken without discrimination if not offense against John Melvin and the settlers of the East End. The population to be served was not alone that of Littleton, but that of Tarport or Kendall Creek as well, in fact of the whole township, and so the office was given the name familiar to the people chosen for the township by its pioneer citizen.

“This served, of course, to settle the name upon the village and so the common name for the post office, township and village was Bradford. It does not appear that the name Littleton was considered. If it had been it would have been linked in confusion with Littleville, which was also used. The resulting muddle rendered the adoption of either name impractible.”

In 1872, when it determined to have the village made into a borough, all agreed on Bradford.

“The petition in reciting the boundaries of the proposed borough refers to the road now called East Main Street as the road ‘running from Bradford village to the village of Tarport.’”