Samuel Carey Bradshaw

Samuel Carey Bradshaw (June 10, 1809 – June 9, 1872) was an Opposition Party member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. He was born in Plumstead, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, where he spent his early years. Raised in a rural community, he attended the public schools, receiving a basic education that prepared him for advanced study at a time when formal schooling beyond the elementary level was not yet widespread.

After completing his early education, Bradshaw pursued medical training in Philadelphia. He enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, one of the leading medical institutions in the United States in the early nineteenth century. He graduated in 1833, earning his medical degree at a time when the profession was becoming increasingly formalized and regulated. Following his graduation, he returned to Bucks County and established a medical practice in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where he became a physician serving the local population.

Bradshaw’s professional standing in Quakertown and Bucks County provided a foundation for his entry into public life. As a practicing physician, he would have been a well-known figure in the community, and his work likely brought him into contact with a broad cross-section of local residents. In the politically turbulent decade of the 1850s, marked by the decline of the Whig Party and the realignment of national politics over issues such as slavery and sectionalism, Bradshaw became associated with the emerging Opposition Party, a loose coalition of anti-Democratic forces that included many former Whigs and others dissatisfied with existing party structures.

In this shifting political environment, Bradshaw was elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress. He served as a Representative from Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives during the term that convened on March 4, 1855, and extended through March 3, 1857. His service placed him in Congress during a critical period preceding the American Civil War, when debates over the expansion of slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and sectional tensions dominated the national agenda. Although detailed records of his individual legislative initiatives are limited, his affiliation with the Opposition Party situates him among those seeking an alternative to the dominant Democratic Party in the mid-1850s.

Bradshaw sought to continue his congressional career but was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1856. The election occurred amid rapid political realignment, including the rise of the Republican Party and the fragmentation of other opposition movements, developments that likely complicated his bid to retain his seat. After leaving Congress at the close of the Thirty-fourth Congress in 1857, he returned to Quakertown and resumed his medical practice, continuing his work as a physician in the community he had long served.

Samuel Carey Bradshaw remained in Quakertown for the rest of his life. He died there on June 9, 1872, one day short of his sixty-third birthday. He was interred in the Friends Burial Ground, reflecting his final association with the local community in Bucks County where he had lived, practiced medicine, and from which he had risen to national office.