Sidney Breese

Sidney Breese (July 15, 1800 – June 27, 1878), a lawyer, soldier, author and jurist born in New York, became an early Illinois pioneer and represented the state in the United States Senate as well as served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and has been called "father of the Illinois Central Railroad". Early and family life Breese was born in 1800 in Whitesboro, Oneida County, New York, the second son of Arthur Breese (1770–1825) and his first wife, Catherine Livingston (1775–1808). His maternal grandfather was Henry Beekman Livingston and a member of the Livingston family. His elder brother became U.S. Navy commodore Samuel Livingston Breese, and he also had elder sisters Sarah Breese Lansing (1795–1879) and Elizabeth Breese Sands (1796–1890) as well as a half-sister, Sarah Ann Breese Walker (1811–1882). Samuel Morse was a cousin. Education Breese's mother died when Sidney was eight, and although his father remarried, Rev. Jesse Townsend helped raise Breese. During this time, Sidney befriended his distant (and slightly elder) cousin Elias Kent Kane, also a member of the Schuyler family of New York. Under Townsend's guidance Breese entered Hamilton College at just 14 years old, then transferred to Union College in 1816. In 1818, he graduated third in his class of 64 and was a member of the New York Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa. In Illinois, as discussed below, Breese also read law under Kane in 1820. Family In 1823, Sidney Breese married Eliza Morrison (1808–1895), daughter of wealth merchant William Morrison. They did not own slaves and had fourteen children, including daughters Eloise Philips McClurken (1824–1885) and Elizabeth Breese (1841–1845), and sons William Arthur Breese (1826–1838), Charles Broadhead Breese (1828–1844), (Samuel) Livingston Breese (1831–1899; who served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, attaining the rank of Commander by war's end), Daniel L. Breese (1832-after 1860, who was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1860), Sidney Samuel Breese(1835–1891), Edward Livingston Breese (1837–1838), William Morrison Breese (1838-after 1860, when he was a land agent and living at home), James Buchanan Breese (1846–1887, who would serve as a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Guard during the Civil War), Elias Dennis Breese (1848–1851) and Alexander Breese (1850–1851).