Can Any Good Thing Come From Northampton Heights?

Can Any Good Thing Come From Northampton Heights?

Can Any Good Thing Come From Northampton Heights?
By Dr. Ernest H. Smith (2010)

The Northampton Heights section of Bethlehem was considered to be the roughest and most out of order section of town. It contained the poorest of citizens who were from the various countries of Europe, such as Russia, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and Greece. The African-Americans came from states ranging from Maryland through to Texas. Washington Jr. High School was considered the worst school without any data to support that concept.

Yet, when one considers the scientists of the Scholarship club, Calvin and Oliver Wallace became engineers, William Brown became a chemist at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, Ernest Smith be-came a Pediatric Cardiologist, Geneva Smith a Masters Degree nurse, Ada Brady, Dorothy Brown, Isaiah Smith, Dorothy Lewis, Otelia Devilson, all teachers; James Smith, college professor, Pedro Boone, JD, Richard Jay, JD from Yale, and became principal at Freedom HS, David Jay, the Chief Administrator of Allentown State Hospital. Delores Williams Blue was assigned as a Secretary at the White House during Lyndon Johnson’s Administration.

These scientists, teachers, lawyers, administrators, professors, of the J. F. G. Scholarship Club were products of the Heights and Washington Junior High School. They proved the adage “it is not where you are, but who you are.”

In 1935, the J. F. G. Scholarship Club was ahead of its time. The students from the Heights were ahead of their time. Now is the time for the African-American students of today to follow those same footsteps and academic challenges of those children born during the worst economic depression and greatest social migration that the African-American has ever experienced in his sojourn from American slavery.

Could Any Good Thing Come From Northampton Heights?

Hiram Bradley

Hiram Bradley

Interview with Herbert Bradley, Hiram Bradley’s great grandson.

Herbert Bradley shares that his great-grandfather, Hiram Bradley (1814-1881), was the first Black person to arrive in Bethlehem in 1860, from Powhattan County, Virginia. He was an indentured servant to Tinsley Jeter, one of South Bethlehem’s leading entrepreneurs.

He wed Rachel Emma Walsh on June 25, 1862, at a Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Lehigh, Pennsylvania. They had eight children all who were baptized at the Pro Cathedral Church of the Nativity. In fact, Alfred Tinsley and Mary Jeter, the Bradley’s first children, were the fourth and fifth persons baptized in the newly consecrated Church of the Nativity, in 1865.

Hiram was himself baptized in 1877, with Tinsley Jeter standing as sponsor. Many of the children of these early Black families of Nativity later left Bethlehem to follow education and work in other places; others were instrumental in the founding of St. John African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, at 718 Pawnee Street, Bethlehem, PA, where they could worship and exercise leadership uninhibited; others, such as the descendants of Abram and Clara Lane, are now multi-generational parishioners of the Cathedral. Hiram also worked for Bethlehem Steel.

Herbert Bradley’s father’s name is Herbert Frank Bradley and worked at Bethlehem Steel and the Bethlehem Hotel. His mother’s name is Leila, from Easton, Pa.

The Bradley Children:
Alfred Tinsley Bradley – b. 1863 – d. 1929 -Stableman
Mary Jeter Bradley – b. 1864
Harry Bradley – b. 1866 – Driver
Hiram Bradley, Jr. – b. 1868
Elizabeth Bradley – b. 1871
Emma Theresa – b. 1874 – d. 1885
Frank Herbert Bradley- b. 1878 – d. 1965 Steelworker
Robert Bradley – b. 1878  Coachman/Steelworker
Joseph Montgomery Bradley – b. 1884 – d.1885

Vivian Butts

Vivian Butts

Vivian Williams Butts is the daughter of the late Wendell Curtis Williams and the late Catherine Lily Spruill Williams; born in Fentress, VA. Vivian joined the Bethlehem Police Department in 1964, becoming the city’s first female officer. Promoted to sergeant in 1980, she retired in 1989 after 25 years of service.

 

Ada Brady

Ada Brady


Ada Pauline Brady of Bethlehem, PA, was born in Newport News, VA, in 1922. Ada was the daughter of the late Redmond Brady and Julia (Jones) Brady-Williams. Ada was reared in Bethlehem and is a graduate of Liberty High School. She received her Bachelors Degree in Social Work from Hampton University and a K-3 Teaching Certificate from Bank Street College of Education. She worked as a Social Worker in New York City and was an elementary teacher in the Bethlehem School District for 21 years.

Ada was a community activist, serving with South Bethlehem Neighborhood Center, Bethlehem Branch NAACP and Church Women United. A devout Christian and active member of St. John A.M.E. Zion Church, she served as organist and Minister of Music, Class Leader, Trustee, Missionary and sang in two church choirs. She also served as the Local Life Members Chair of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society.

Maria P. Walton

Maria P. Walton

Mrs. Maria Palmer Walton, born 1894 in Virginia, was the local beautician/hairdresser in Bethlehem beginning in the late 1950s through the 1960s. With a college education from Hampton University, she was able to be proprietor of her own beauty salon located on Brodhead Avenue, South Bethlehem.

Maria was born in 1894 and passed away in 1978. Her husband was William M. Walton who was bus driver for the Bethlehem Steel plant in 1950. Maria is the sister to Olivia Palmer Clark.