Henry, Bushrod W.

Born: 1805-02-04 Culpeper County, Virginia

Died: 1879-08-20 Shelbyville, Illinois

Flourished: 1830 to 1860 Shelby County, Illinois

Bushrod W. Henry, a farmer and minister, became a Baptist and began preaching around the age of nineteen. Around 1825, Henry moved to Tennessee, where he united with the Free Will Baptists and continued to preach. He moved from Tennessee to Shelby County, Illinois, in 1830. He became a pioneering minister in the county, preaching and organizing churches, first as a Baptist and after 1836, as an advocate of Restorative Christianity. Henry also farmed and held county office, serving as a Shelby County commissioner in 1832. In 1850, Henry was a farmer in Shelby County, but by 1860 he was a minister in Sullivan, Illinois. At that time he had accumulated $12,600 in real estate and $3,000 in personal estate value.

Henry married Elizabeth Hudson in Chesterfield County, Virginia, in December 1826. Elizabeth died in 1835, and Henry married Susan (Susannah) Johnson in March 1836 in Shelby County. In 1850, Henry had five children. Susan died in 1859, and that same year Henry married Bulah Burton in Shelby. At his death in 1879, Henry had fifty descendants in children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Combined History of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, Illinois (Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough, 1881), 44, 64, 128; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Shelby County, IL, 117; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sullivan, Moultrie County, IL, 24; Virginia, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1740-1850, 6 December 1826, Chesterfield County (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 1999); Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Shelby County, 17 March 1836; Shelby County, 9 November 1859, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois, U.S., Select Deaths Index, 1877-1916 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2015); Gravestone (Elizabeth), Oliver Cemetery, Shelbyville, IL; Gravestone (Susan), Greenville Cemetery, Sullivan, IL.