John Green Brady

John (James) Green Brady (June 15, 1848 – December 17, 1918) was an American politician who served as the Governor of the District of Alaska from 1897 to 1906. Brady was forced to resign due to his alleged involvement with the fraudulent Reynolds–Alaska Development Company.

Childhood John Green Brady was born in New York City. Upon the death of his mother, his father remarried. Brady did not get along well with his step-mother, and at the age of eight ran away from home to avoid beatings from his drunken father. He was found living on the streets of New York City by Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. a well-known and popular New York City philanthropist and the father of future US 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt. Many years later, as an adult, Brady would approach the younger Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York, at a 1900 conference in Portland, Oregon. He warmly shook Roosevelt's hand and told him:

"Governor Roosevelt, the other governors have greeted you with interest, simply as a fellow governor and a great American. but I greet you with infinitely more interest, as the son of your father, the first Theodore Roosevelt." When greeted warmly by Governor Roosevelt and asked why and in what special way he had been interested in his father, Governor Brady replied, "Your father picked me up on the streets of New York, a waif and an orphan, and sent me to a Western family, paying for my transportation and early care. Years passed and I was able to repay the money which had given me my start in life, but I can never repay what he did for me, for it was through that early care and by giving me such a foster mother and father that I gradually rose in the world until I greet his son as a fellow governor of a part of our great country."

Brady was living at the House of Refuge on Randall's Island when he learned about the Orphan Train. The eleven-year-old Brady declared himself to be an orphan and, on August 2, 1859, boarded a train bound for Indiana. Over the course of the week-long journey, Brady forged what would be a lifelong friendship with Andrew Burke, another boy his age from Randall's. The boys got off the train at Noblesville, Indiana, where they were taken to "Aunt" Jenny Fergusson's hotel, fed and, in turn, put on display for prospective adopters. He was instrumental in the preservation and relocation of the totem poles from Old Kasaan village to Sitka shortly after Old Kasaan's abandonment.

In 1897, Brady was appointed to be Governor of the Territory of Alaska by Republican President William McKinley. He served for three terms and became involved in the Reynolds-Alaska Development Company which was under investigation for corruption. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock (Interior) (R) under Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, charged that Brady had acted improperly in his association with Reynolds-Alaska and public clamor soon led Brady to resign though he vigorously denied that he was guilty of any wrongdoing. Without charges, Brady was asked to resign in 1906 and went to work for Reynolds-Alaska. He was never convicted.

Brady died on December 17, 1918, and was buried in Sitka National Cemetery in Sitka, Alaska. He was interred in Section R, Plot 4 in December 1918. The monument at his grave bears the inscription: "A life ruled by faith in God and Man."