Captain Alva Bradley

Alva Bradley was born in Connecticut in 1814, and moved with his family to Brownhelm Township, Lorain County, Ohio in 1823. At age 19, he began working on ships of the Great Lakes, and by 1839 he was in command of the schooner Commodore Lawrence. 

The famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison received his middle name in honor of Captain Bradley, as his parents Samuel and Nancy Edison were close friends. 

 In 1841 Captain Bradley, along with Ahira Cobb, built the ship the South America. He began building more ships, and by 1852 he gave up sailing in order to devote himself solely to constructing ships. The Bradley fleet of ships became the largest on the Great Lakes. W. Scott Robison wrote in his book History of the City of Cleveland, that Captain Bradley “owed his success entirely to his own efforts, to his Yankee grit and shrewd business sense.” Eventually Captain Bradley became a millionaire through his success as one of the Great Lakes’ best known ship owners. 

Alva Bradley married Helen Burgess, of Milan, in 1851. They had three daughters and one son. A grandson, also named Alva Bradley, was president of the group that owned the Cleveland Indians from 1927 until 1946.The younger Alva Bradley was successful in real estate, and served on the board of several businesses. 

  

Captain Alva Bradley and his family used to visit Lakeside during the summer months. After his death in 1885, his wife had the Bradley Temple built in Lakeside as a memorial to her husband, with the stipulation that it was to be used solely for children’s programs and Sunday School sessions.

Postcards from Lakeside

Lakeside had its beginnings in 1873, when land was cleared for the purpose of creating an area where religious meetings could take place. Soon Lakeside became involved in the Chautauqua Movement, an adult educational movement that provided cultural and educational events for the community. Several vintage postcards from Lakeside are housed in the historical postcard collection of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. With the popularity of passenger steamers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sandusky residents were able to visit Lakeside,  just a short distance away from Sandusky when travelling by water. As automobiles became popular, and especially after the construction of the Sandusky Bay Bridge, local residents could drive to Lakeside as well. 

Hoover Auditorium is still the site of concerts during the summer season of the Lakeside Association:

       

This vintage postcard shows the hotel, boathouse, and a portion of the dock at Lakeside:

     

The pavilion at Lakeside offers a lovely view of Lake Erie on warm summer nights:

       

Though the exact location was not provided, “Flirtation Walk” at Lakeside is the subject of this postcard:

     

Visit the SanduskyLibrary to find books on the history of Lakeside and other nearby areas. Lakeside continues the tradition of providing entertainment, lectures, and spiritual opportunities for its hundreds of visitors during the summer months.

Ohio Band Camp Held at Cedar Point, Performance at Lakeside

Members of the Ohio Band Camp, which met at Cedar Point, are pictured above in the early 1940s during a performance at Lakeside, Ohio. From 1932 to 1944, several students enrolled in the Ohio Band Camp which was held for several weeks throughout the summer. For many years the Ohio Band Camp was directed by Peter F. McCormick, an instructor at West Technical High School in Cleveland, Ohio. The student band members performed concerts at Cedar Point, Lakeside, the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home, and other locations around the Great Lakes region. At the summer band camp, students received instruction in band and orchestra, but also took trips to Ohio, Michigan and Canada. A newspaper article in 1942 reported that the Ohio Band Camp performed a concert at Lakeside when Eleanor Roosevelt was visiting the summer resort.

Contralto Marian Anderson Sang at Lakeside

On Saturday evening, August 4, 1956, Marian Anderson presented a concert at Lakeside in Hoover Auditorium, with Franz Rupp at the piano. During the first half of the program Miss Anderson sang classical selections by George Frideric Handel, Franz Schubert, and Camille Saint-Saens. Featured during the second half of Marian Anderson’s concert were “None But the Lonely Heart,” by Tschaikovsky, “The Ploughboy” arranged by Britten, and “Blow, Blow the Winter Wind,” arranged by Quilter, as well as four traditional spirituals. Mrs. Earl Abele donated the autographed program to the historical collections of the Sandusky Library.

Marian Anderson was the first African American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She sang for both President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s and President John F. Kennedy’s inaugurations. In January of 1939, when Miss Anderson was not allowed to perform at Constitution Hall, which was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R. On Easter Day, April 9, 1939, Marian Anderson gave a concert at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 75,000 people attended this historic event. Miss Anderson was commemorated on a United States postage stamp on January 27, 2005.

The concert given by Marian Anderson took place when the Lakeside Association was under the leadership of Dr. Herbert J. Thompson. James Allen Kestle wrote in his book This is Lakeside, that Dr. Thompson was known as “the Englishman who never lost his Scottish accent.” Three books about the history of the Lakeside Association can be found in the genealogy and local history section of the Sandusky Library.