From: "Biographical Review of Cass, Schuyler and
Brown Counties, Illinois 1892", by Biographical Review Publishing
Company, Chicago, Illinois; pages 357, a reprinted by Stevens
Publishing Co., Astoria, Ill., 1971, is sold by the Schuyler County
Historical Society, Rushville, Illinois.
William H. Brackenridge - The subject of this sketch was born in
Washington county, Ohio, November 28, 1835. His father, William, was
born in Scotland, in 1805, and came from his native land to Illinois,
in 1829, when twenty-four years of age. He was a farmer, and was
married to Margaret Harvey, who died February 11, 1845, leaving our
subject, the only child. She was a native of Scotland, and made a good,
faithful wife the short time she lived. Her husband was married a
second time, to Ellen Reid, of Virginia, by whom he had three children.
W. H. was reared on the farm, and like hundreds of other farmer
boys he received a common-school education. At the age of twenty-two he
entered a store in Missouri, as a clerk, where he remained four years,
and then came to Versailles, May, 1861. Here he volunteered in defense
of his country, August, 1862, entering the One Hundred and Nineteenth
Illinois Infantry, Company D, as a Second Lieutenant, being honorably
discharged after two years and four months of service, on account of
failing health. He then returned to Versailles and resumed his
clerking, after he had recovered his health.
Mr. Brackenridge was married, October, 1865, to Amanda C.
Vandeventer, daughter of Jethro Vandeventer and Jane Olford, natives of
Virginia.
Mr. Brackenridge began the mercantile business for himself, in
1866, and has continued doing a thriving business most of the time
since. In 1884, he was elected to the Legislature, and was one of the
immortal 103 who supported John A. Logan, whom he admired extremely and
whose memory he reveres. It is hardly necessary to add that Mr.
Brackenridge has been a Republican of the first order, maintaining the
principles of that party through thick and thin. He is a member of the
Masonic fraternity, being a Blue Lodge Mason. He and his estimable wife
are highly respected and esteemed throughout Versailles.
