John Bradford was born in Brunswick County, Virginia in about 1730. A resident of Halifax County, North Carolina when it was established in 1758, Bradford represented Halifax at the North Carolina Colonial Assembly from 1766 to 1768 and also at the 3rd, 4th, and 5th North Carolina Provincial Congresses in 1775 and 1776. A member of the Halifax Committee of Safety, Bradford was also a colonel in the Halifax County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia from 1775 to 1776 and a senator in the North Carolina State Senate in 1777. At some point an enslaved woman named Rose burnt down his barn to get back at Bradford for convincing Rose's enslaver to whip her for a previous crime. Bradford died in Halifax in about 1787.