Bradstreet, Martha, 1780-

Martha Bradstreet (1780- ).

Claimant to land in Utica (N.Y.); member of a family which was prominent in Ireland and New York State.

Martha Bradstreet (1780-1871) was the step-granddaughter of Major General John Bradstreet (1714-1774). She pursued legal claims to land inherited from him and other relatives in the Mohawk River Valley in New York State.

Martha Bradstreet was born on the island of Antigua in the West Indies. Her father, Samuel Bradstreet (died 1784), named her after his sister, Martha Bradstreet (died 1782). She married Matthew Codd from Ireland in 1799 and divorced him in 1816. Their marriage produced five children, Elizabeth Catherine (later Bennett), Sarah Mary Anne (later Sterling), Eleanor Cloney, John Bradstreet, and Edward Livius (born circa 1809). Through acts in the New York State Assembly, she regained her birth name in 1817 and applied the surname of Bradstreet to her children in March 1818.

Martha Bradstreet inherited land in the Mohawk River Valley of New York through the estates of her father, her namesake, and aunts, Agatha Bradstreet Evans (died 1794) and Elizabeth Bradstreet Livius (died 1795). Most of the land originally accrued through the estates of her step-grandfather, Major General John Bradstreet (1714-1774) and her grandmother, Mary Aldridge Bradstreet (died 1782). However, poorly drafted deeds of sales created uncertain titles to a portion of the land. The terms of the estate of Elizabeth Bradstreet Livius further complicated Martha Bradstreet's land claims because she had married without the approval of the estate's executor. Bradstreet subsequently discovered that much of the land she inherited from her aunt Martha was sold by the estate's executor, Charles Gould (1726-1806) through his son and attorney, Edward Goold (Gould). During the early nineteenth century she pursued litigation to cancel the land sales and gain title to the properties designated for her in the bequests. In 1831, the United States Supreme Court denied her claim to portions land in Cosby's Manor, a tract of land in and around Utica, New York, in James Jackson, Ex Dem. of Martha Bradstreet, v. Henry Huntington, 30 U.S. 5 Pet. 402 (1831).

Bradstreet continued to pursue her land claims in communities throughout the Mohawk River Valley until her death in Bennettsville, New York.