The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Finley, James Bradley

FINLEY, James Bradley, an American clergyman, born in North Carolina, July 1, 1781, died in Cincinnati, O., Sept. 6, 1856. He joined the Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1809. From 1816 to 1821 he was presiding elder of the Steubenville, Ohio, and Lebanon districts. In 1821 he was sent as missionary to the Wyandot Indians, where he remained six years. Retaining the superintendency of this mission for two years, he subsequently continued in the itinerant ministry as pastor and presiding elder till 1845, when he was appointed chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary. He retained this office till 1849. During his later years he acted as conference missionary and pastor of churches in southern Ohio. His chief works are: “Autobiography” (Cincinnati, 1854); “Wyandotte Mission;” “Sketches of Western Methodism” (1857); “Life among the Indians” (1857); and “Memorials of Prison Life” (1860).