Bryant, John H.

Born: 1807-07-22 Cummington, Massachusetts

Died: 1902-01-14 Princeton, Illinois

Flourished: Princeton, Illinois

John H. Bryant was a teacher, farmer, county government official, state legislator, newspaper editor, abolitionist, and federal government official. Born into the prominent Bryant family that included his brother, famous poet and editor William C. Bryant, John H. Bryant spent most of his childhood working on his family farm and dealing with temporary blindness caused by staring at an eclipse in 1811. He taught school part time in 1828 and 1829 and attended the Renselaer School during that same period. He returned to work on the farm in 1830, occasionally publishing poetry in newspapers. He was a censor that same year and returned to teaching part time. In 1831 Bryant moved to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he worked in a number of different jobs. The following year, he settled with his brother Cyrus Bryant in what would become Princeton. In 1833, he married Harriett E. Wiswall, with whom he had two children.

Bryant won election as justice of the peace in 1834 and began buying local land the following year. Bryant had personally petitioned for the establishment of Bureau County at the Illinois General Assembly and built an alliance with Stephen A. Douglas to achieve that goal. He served as censor for the county in 1840 and won election to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1842, representing Peoria, Stark, and Bureau counties. He was initially a Democrat but shifted his support to the Liberty Party by 1844. In 1847, Bryant became an editor of the Bureau Advocate, a position he held until 1851. As an abolitionist, Bryant also aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. In 1852, Bryant unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a member of the Free Soil Party. He was heavily involved in the creation of the Illinois Republican Party and attended the party's national conventions in 1856 and 1860. In 1858, Bryant again won election to the Illinois House of Representatives, representing Bureau County, and served as a member of the Bureau County Board of Supervisors. He also became editor of the Bureau County Republican until 1863. Abraham Lincoln appointed him collector of internal revenue for his congressional district in 1862, and Bryant remained in that office for four years.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Morgan County, 7 June 1833, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; H. C. Bradsby, ed., History of Bureau County, Illinois (Chicago: World, 1885), 155-169, 304, 314-16; Gravestone, Oakland Cemetery, Princeton, IL.