Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Brayman, James O.

Flourished: 1854 to 1887 Illinois

James O. Brayman, editor and writer, was employed at numerous publications in his native Buffalo, apparently working at the Western Star and the National Pilot before serving as an editor of the Daily Courier from at least 1846 to 1849. Brayman was then an assistant editor of the Buffalo Commerical Advertiser before returning to editing the Daily Courier in 1852. He also edited a magazine for youth in at least 1853 and 1854. Brayman settled in Chicago in 1854 where he was an editor at the Chicago Democrat under John Wentworth. In 1857 he was accused of stealing letters and money from the U.S. Post Office, and he pleaded guilty in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois, with his attorneys apparently motioning to arrest sentencing on the grounds of insanity because Brayman had a “monomania for small pilfering.” He was sentenced in October 1857 to four years hard labor and began to serve his sentence at the Illinois State Penitentiary at Alton, then was transferred to the penitentiary at Joliet in July 1860. President Abraham Lincoln pardoned Brayman on May 2, 1861, after having been petitioned to do so by his legal associate, Mason Brayman, who was James’ older brother. The younger Brayman thereafter resumed his career in publishing, joining the staff of a Chicago religious weekly called The Standard. Brayman was involved in the temperance movement and was a member of the Sons of Temperance, and in religion, he was a Baptist. He married Eliza E. Warren in 1850, but had no children.

Albert Johannsen, The House of Beadle and Adams and its Dime and Nickel Novels: The Story of a Vanished Literature (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), 2:41-42; “Editorial Notes,” Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society 19 (1915), 327-28; Buffalo Morning Express (NY), 24 April 1850, 2:7; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward 5, Buffalo, Erie County, NY, 446; Illinois Department of Corrections & Predecessor Agencies, Register of Illinois Prison Records, Illinois State Prison (Alton), 4:457, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois Department of Corrections & Predecessor Agencies, Register of Illinois Prison Records, Illinois State Prison (Joliet), 1:25, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 22 August 1857, 1:4; 26 October 1857, 1:3; 30 October 1857, 1:2-3; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 27 August 1857, 2:1-2, 4; 8 October 1857, 3:3-4; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Joliet, Will County, IL, 530; Mason Brayman to Abraham Lincoln; Galena Daily Courier (IL), 2 May 1861, 3:1; The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), 1 November 1887, 1:7; Gravestone, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, IL.