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.