 David Bradford joined his brothers-in-law as a trustee of Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College) and was appointed a member of the building committee.He was instrumental in building McMillan Hall at Washington College, which is one of the oldest surviving educational buildings in the nation and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Bradford also became active in political affairs, and by 1791 he was becoming more and more absorbed in the escalating protest over a whiskey tax which had been levied by the federal government that year, and the general treatment of Western Pennsylvanians by the East.