Henry Marie Brackenridge

Biography

Henry Marie Brackenridge (May 11, 1786 – January 18, 1871) was an American writer, lawyer, judge, and U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. His career in law, diplomacy, exploration, literature, and public service spanned more than sixty years. Born in Pittsburgh, he was the son of the well-known writer and jurist Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who played a key role in his early education. He learned from private tutors, attended the Pittsburgh Academy (which later became the University of Pittsburgh), and went to a French academy in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, where he became fluent in French and familiar with frontier life along the Mississippi River. He studied law and joined the Pennsylvania bar in 1806, starting his practice in Somerset, Pennsylvania, before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked as a lawyer and journalist.

Brackenridge's interest in exploration and public affairs took him beyond the courtroom. In 1811, he traveled with fur trader Manuel Lisa up the Missouri River, becoming the first recorded tourist to what is now South Dakota. His account of that trip added to early American knowledge of the trans-Mississippi West. In 1812, he became deputy attorney general and district judge of Louisiana, and during the War of 1812, he worked in intelligence for the United States government, later writing a history of the conflict in 1814. In 1817, he was appointed secretary of a diplomatic mission to South America, which expanded his understanding of hemispheric affairs and led to more published writings.

Florida played a big role in his middle career. In 1821, Brackenridge started working for General Andrew Jackson, the first American commissioner of Florida after Spain ceded it to the United States. He then served as a U.S. judge for Florida from 1821 to 1832 and lived on the Naval Live Oak Area after President John Quincy Adams established it on January 18, 1829. In that time, he experimented with growing live oak trees for naval shipbuilding, making him arguably the first federal forester in American history. He became a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1818, acknowledged as much for his literary contributions as his legal ones.

Returning to Pennsylvania in 1832, Brackenridge bought a sizable piece of land near the Allegheny River and founded the town of Tarentum, which is near the borough of Brackenridge, named after him. He remained politically active, repeatedly running for office, and eventually won election as a Whig to the 26th United States Congress, filling the vacancy left by Richard Biddle's resignation. He served from October 13, 1840, to March 3, 1841. After his short time in Congress, he focused on literature and writing, pursuits he continued until his death. He died in Pittsburgh on January 18, 1871, and is buried in Prospect Cemetery in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.