Dr. Arthur Wellington Adams
The genealogy identifies the physician and inventor and records his marriage to Suzanne Slayback, daughter of Col. Alonzo W. Slayback.
Genealogy PDF page 112HISTORICAL LINEAGE ANNEX
The documented Adams–Ferris–Slayback line
The family connection comes first: the 1,009-page genealogy identifies Bradford Charles Adams by numbered entry and traces him directly to Dr. Arthur Wellington Adams and, through Suzanne Slayback, to Col. Alonzo W. Slayback. The historical episodes follow that documented chain.
← Return to the 13-ground identity analysis · Open the 1,009-page public genealogy · Open the source map
THE DOCUMENTED CONNECTION
The numbered line to Bradford Charles Adams
Arthur Wellington Adams II
Recorded as the seventh child of Dr. Adams and Suzanne Slayback.
Genealogy PDF page 127Arthur Wellington Adams Jr.
Recorded as the son of Arthur Wellington Adams II.
Genealogy PDF page 128Bradford Charles Adams
Recorded as the first child of Arthur Wellington Adams Jr. and Beatrice Huber.
Genealogy PDF page 128This is the connection the annex is demonstrating. The same genealogy identifies Suzanne Slayback's parents at the Dr. Adams entry, making Col. Alonzo W. Slayback the reported great-great-grandfather in this line. Open the public Scribd copy.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER · ADAMS BRANCH
Dr. Arthur Wellington Adams
With the family connection established, the historical record identifies an unusually consequential inventor and railway promoter. U.S. Patent No. 300,827, issued June 24, 1884, places an electric motor within a railroad-car wheel and axle. Patent No. 300,828 covers a related electric-motor and transmission arrangement.
The wheel-hub motor before Porsche
The patent drawings and text describe a concentric wheel-and-axle motor. The Ferdinand Porsche biography says the wheel-hub concept Porsche later built and raced had been developed by American inventor Wellington Adams; the separate wheel-hub motor history lists Adams's 1884 patent before Porsche's 1897 car. The Edison Papers catalog also preserves the issued patent.
Patent 300,827 · Patent 300,828 · MotorTrend's 2025 Adams–Porsche comparison
“Aspires to Monopoly” and a patent fight compared with Bell Telephone
On December 27, 1890, the Pittsburg Dispatch reported that Adams Electric planned infringement actions against the leading electric-railway companies. The article said the claims aggregated millions of dollars and predicted litigation second only to the Bell Telephone fight. An Edison Papers letter dated June 27, 1891 records that the St. Louis suit over Patent 300,828 was then active. A January 1892 litigation memorandum says the Adams company was vigorously pressing the case and had recently taken two weeks of testimony. The printed record appeared in 1893; the district court dismissed the suit in 1894, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed on October 26, 1896.
December 27, 1890 newspaper page, Library of Congress · 1893 case record · 1896 appellate opinion · Smithsonian archival record
The St. Louis–Chicago electric railway
The source report documents Adams's repeated promotion of a purpose-built electric railway between St. Louis and Chicago, including a claimed 100-mile-per-hour target. The project never advanced beyond promotion and planning.
Early X-ray experiments
The filing cites contemporary reporting that Adams worked with physicist Francis E. Nipher on efforts to focus newly discovered X-rays for more targeted imaging.
Other documented episodes
The source report also assembles an 1886 attempted-bribery indictment connected to electric-railway lobbying, an 1882 Washoe County death investigated after a man was crushed beneath a wagon Adams drove, and Adams's participation in an 1890 revival described by contemporary critics as fraudulent. These are historical proceedings and attributed accounts; they are not findings about Bradford.
GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER · SLAYBACK BRANCH
Col. Alonzo W. Slayback, the Veiled Prophet and the Pulitzer confrontation
The genealogy identifies Suzanne Slayback as Dr. Adams's wife and Col. Alonzo W. Slayback's daughter. Historical sources describe Slayback as a Confederate cavalry commander, lawyer and organizer of St. Louis's Veiled Prophet tradition. His law partner and close friend James Overton Broadhead became the first president of the American Bar Association.
Confederate cavalry
The assembled record describes Slayback raising and commanding a Missouri cavalry regiment and riding into Mexico with Gen. Joseph O. Shelby rather than surrendering at the Civil War's end.
Alonzo W. Slayback biography · Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Regiment
The Veiled Prophet tradition
The City of St. Louis history identifies Charles and Alonzo Slayback with creating the Veiled Prophet celebration. The genealogy identifies Suzanne Slayback as its first Queen of Love and Beauty. Later histories describe the organization as an instrument of St. Louis elite power and criticize its racist and exclusionary origins.
City of St. Louis history · Charles E. Slayback biography · Slayback reference index
Shot inside Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper office
After the St. Louis Post-Dispatch attacked Broadhead and Slayback, Slayback confronted managing editor John A. Cockerill inside the newspaper's offices. Cockerill shot and killed him. Contemporary accounts disputed whether Slayback was armed and whether the shooting was self-defense.
Contemporary newspaper page, Library of Congress · Joseph Pulitzer biography · Post-Dispatch history · Source report, PDF pages 11–16
GREAT-GRANDAUNT · WASHINGTON BRANCH
Marie Dupuy Adams, 2415 Foxhall Road and the World War II record
The 1,009-page genealogy identifies Marie Dupuy Adams at entry 1.1.3.1.4.4.1.6 as another child of Dr. Arthur Wellington Adams and Suzanne Slayback—making her the sister of Bradford's grandfather, Arthur Wellington Adams II. It records her marriage to Maximilian Hugh von Pagenhardt.
An academic history quoting a wartime British intelligence memorandum states that Jean Monnet moved into 2415 Foxhall Road NW in October 1940 and that the house had been “given up by Baron Maximillian Hugo von Pagenhardt in order that Monnet might occupy it.” The same source says von Pagenhardt, married to Marie Adams, was under surveillance because of a connection with the German naval attaché. The author expressly leaves the nature of any arrangement unresolved. Monnet's work in Washington helped mobilize American material support for Britain and later shaped the case for European integration. A later history of the address identifies former Secretary of State James Baker among its residents.
What the records establish: Marie's reported place in the family genealogy; her marriage to von Pagenhardt; Monnet's wartime residence at the address; and the memorandum's statement about von Pagenhardt giving up the house. What they do not establish: the purpose or terms of that arrangement.
FERRIS BRANCH
The Thompson and Hearst lines recorded in the same genealogy
The compilation records Electa Ferris at entry 1.1.1.4.8 marrying John Thompson, identified there as a founder and principal organizer of Chase National Bank. It later records their descendant Mary Astrid Thompson marrying George Randolph Hearst Jr. These entries show where the Ferris, Thompson and Hearst branches meet in the family compilation.
The annex presents this as a genealogical relationship. It does not treat a historical family connection as evidence of a present financial, editorial or operational relationship.
GROUND 6
The 1937 marriage-record comparison
This is the portion used directly in the 13-ground identity analysis. The submission places an April 1937 Oklahoma marriage record beside a newspaper report and genealogy entries. Across those sources, the woman is identified as Shirley Arvada Dillon, Tracy Westmoreland and Bernice. The application uses “A.W. Adams” and records his age as 36; the genealogy places Arthur Wellington Adams II's birth in August 1898, making him nearly 39.
The investigation treats the name truncation, age discrepancy and out-of-state marriage instrument as a family-record precedent. That comparison does not prove that two people committed the same conduct merely because they belong to the same family.