Eddy, Henry

Born: 1798 Vermont

Died: 1849-06-29 Shawneetown, Illinois

Flourished: Shawneetown, Illinois

As a youth, Eddy attended school in Buffalo, New York, and at sixteen he served in the New York militia during the War of 1812. He later moved to Pittsburgh, where he learned the printing trade and studied law. In 1818, after the Illinois territorial delegate to Congress promised him a government printing contract, Eddy and a partner purchased a printing press and moved to Shawneetown. There, Eddy published Illinois's second newspaper, Illinois Emigrant, and practiced law. In 1826, Eddy married Mary Marshall, a sister of Samuel D. Marshall. Eddy was a presidential elector for Andrew Jackson in 1824. Voters elected him to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1820 and again in 1846, the second time as a Whig. In 1835, Eddy served as a director of the State Bank of Illinois in Shawneetown, and one year later, he served briefly as the judge of the Third Judicial Circuit.

John M. Palmer, ed., Bench and Bar of Illinois: Historical and Reminiscent (Chicago: Lewis, 1899), 2:853-54; Carl R. Miller, "Journalism in Illinois Before the Thirties," Illinois State Historical Society Journal 11 (1918-1919), 149-50; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 32, 193, 431; History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887), 101.