Bradley

“Welcome to Bradley, home of Leonard’s Mills”

Location Map for Bradley

Year	Population
1970	1,010
1980	1,149
1990	1,136
2000	1,242
2010	1,492

Population Trend 1840-2010

Geographic Data
N. Latitude	44:53:24
W. Longitude	68:36:17
Maine House	District 137
Maine Senate	District 8
Congress	District 2
Area sq. mi.	(total) 50.8
Area sq. mi.	(land) 49.6
Population/sq.mi.	(land) 30.1
County: Penobscot Total=land+water; Land=land only

[BRAD-lee] is a town in Penobscot County, incorporated on February 3, 1835 from the township T4, Old Indian Purchase.

Named for an early, prominent settler Bradley Blackman who arrived in the area in the early 1800’s, it annexed the adjacent unincorporated gore in 1859 to complete its current area.

Oliver Leonard graduated from Brown University in 1787 with the intention of practicing law and speculating in lumber in the new and growing Penobscot County. Leonard established a mill in the 1790s on Nichols Stream.

The Blackman Family operated a mill on the site in the late 1800s.  Nichols Stream was renamed Blackman Stream.*

With the coming of the Great Works Milling and Manufacturing Company in 1833, the local economy flourished, stores opened, and support grew for establishing a town government.

The population of 1950 (786) was essentially the same as that a century earlier in 1850 when it was 796. Bradley is located on the east side of the Penobscot River, across from Orono and Old Town and just south of Milford. The paper mill in Old Town dominates the landscape in certain sections of the towns.

Main Street & Fire Station (’05)

Paper Mill in Old Town from Bradley (2005)

Bradley Baptist Church (2005)

St. Ann Catholic Church (2005)

Form of Government: Council-Manager

Additional resources

Bradley, Maine History: Sesquicentennial, 1835-1985. Bradley, Me. Bradley Sesquicentennial History Committee. 1985.

Merrill, Midge. A Remarkable Man from Bradley, Maine. Old Town, Me. Penobscot Press. 1993.

*”Main. Forest and Logging Museum.” http://www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org/about-2 (accessed September 9, 2019)