Perry County IL Archives Biographies.....Breese, Sidney 1800 - 1878
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 August 9, 2008, 9:52 am

Author: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary

BREESE, Sidney, jurist, was born in Whitesboro, Oneida county, N.Y., July 15, 
1800. He graduated at Union college in 1818, studied law, and removed to 
Illinois in 1821, where he was admitted to the bar. He successively filled the 
offices of town postmaster, assistant secretary of state, states attorney, and 
United States attorney for Illinois. He was a commissioned officer in the 
state militia and served as lieutenant of volunteers, during the Black Hawk 
war. He was appointed circuit judge in 1835, and judge of the supreme court of 
the state in 1841. In 1843 he was elected to the United States senate, as a 
democrat, serving until 1849, and during his senatorship, while chairman of 
the committee on public lands, he made a report favoring the establishment of 
a transcontinental railway. He was a member of the house of representatives of 
Illinois, and in 1850 was elected its speaker. In 1855 he was again appointed 
judge of the circuit court and was chief of the court. In 1857 he was elected 
justice of the supreme court of the state, and in 1873 became chief justice, 
holding the office during his lifetime. He was one of the originators of the 
Illinois Central railroad, and from 1845 to 1849 regent of the Smithsonian 
institution. He published a volume of Decisions of the Supreme Court (1829); a 
work on Illinois (1869); and another on the Origin and History of the Pacific 
Railroad (1869). He died at Pinckneyville, Ill., June 27, 1878.

Additional Comments:
Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.
Vol. I-X. Rossiter Johnson, editor. Boston MA: The Biographical Society. 1904.

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