Henry Brush

Henry Brush (February 12, 1777 – January 19, 1855) was an American lawyer, soldier, legislator, judge, and farmer who played a notable role in early Ohio political and legal history and served one term in the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Dutchess County, New York, the youngest son of Lemuel Brush and Mary (Per Lee) Brush. Little is recorded of his childhood, but he completed preparatory studies before turning to the law. Accounts of his personal life differ: some sources state that he married a woman named Frances and had several daughters, while at least one other source asserts that he never married. Contemporaries described him as a tall, thin man with a Roman nose and a highly nervous temperament, a figure well known in the legal and political circles of early Ohio.

Brush studied law after his preparatory education and was admitted to the bar in 1803. He then moved west to the new state of Ohio and commenced practice in Chillicothe, which was at that time an important political center and, for a period, the state capital. For a time he practiced in partnership with his brother, Platt Brush. His legal career quickly brought him into prominent public controversies. In December 1805 he appeared before the Ohio Senate as one of the lawyers testifying in the impeachment trial of Judge William W. Irvin, a circuit judge who had failed to hold several courts within his circuit; Irvin was ultimately removed from office. Brush also took part in significant election and constitutional disputes that helped shape the early jurisprudence of the state.

In August 1807, Brush appeared as counsel for Nathaniel Massie in Massie’s contest of the election of Return J. Meigs Jr. as governor of Ohio. Brush presented Massie’s case before the Ohio House of Representatives and then in a joint session of the House and Senate. The legislature ruled that Meigs, then serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was ineligible to serve as governor because he did not meet the residency requirements, a decision that underscored the importance of constitutional limitations on officeholding. That same year, Brush figured in the aftermath of the landmark Ohio Supreme Court decision in Rutherford v. M’Faddon, in which the court, following the reasoning of Marbury v. Madison, held a legislative act unconstitutional. The Ohio House impeached Judge George Tod on the ground that he had usurped legislative power by joining in that decision. At Tod’s trial before the Senate, Brush joined William Creighton Jr. and others in the judge’s defense. The vote for conviction fell one short of the two‑thirds required, and Tod was acquitted; among those voting for conviction was William Irvin, the previously impeached judge who by then had been elected to the Senate. Beyond the courtroom, Brush was active in civic and fraternal life, serving as Grand Secretary and then as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ohio from 1813 to 1817.

Brush’s public service extended to military duty during the War of 1812. In August 1812, after Governor Return J. Meigs Jr. received a desperate appeal at Marietta from General William Hull at Detroit for provisions and reinforcements, volunteers were called at Chillicothe to escort supplies from Urbana through difficult and hostile country. Between sixty and seventy men immediately stepped forward, and on the following day the company paraded at the Ross County courthouse and elected Henry Brush as captain. Lacking uniforms, the volunteers agreed upon a design, purchased cloth, and, with the assistance of local women, had their uniforms completed by evening. Citizens molded bullets and buckshot, prepared nearly two thousand cartridges, and provided canteens, knapsacks, blankets, and other equipment at private expense. Within twenty‑four hours, Brush’s company was fully equipped and marching toward Urbana. There his command was joined by additional volunteers, and he proceeded north with about 280 men, 100 head of beef cattle, and other provisions intended for Hull’s army.

As Brush’s detachment advanced toward the River Raisin, he sent word to General Hull that he needed reinforcement, as British forces and a confederate band of Shawnee and other Native American warriors under Tecumseh were believed to be attempting to intercept the supply train. Hull dispatched Major Thomas Van Horne with about 200 Ohio riflemen to meet Brush, but Van Horne’s force was surprised and routed by Tecumseh’s warriors at the Battle of Brownstown, the first skirmish of the War of 1812 in that theater, suffering heavy casualties and many missing. Hull then sent a larger force of about 600 men under Colonel James Miller to open communications with Brush. At the Battle of Maguaga, Miller’s troops, though outnumbered, defeated a combined force of British regulars commanded by Major Adam Muir and Native American warriors led by Tecumseh, Marpot, and Walk‑in‑the‑Water; both Muir and Tecumseh were wounded. Miller wished to push on to relieve Brush, but Hull peremptorily ordered him back to Detroit, which Hull surrendered to the British on August 16, 1812. On August 17, a British officer under a flag of truce notified Brush that Hull had capitulated and that Brush’s command was included in the surrender. Brush refused to recognize the surrender as binding upon him and, facing imminent danger from Tecumseh’s forces, withdrew with most of his men and stores back into Ohio. He later held the rank of colonel in the Ohio militia. Military service ran in the family: his brother John Brush was a general in the War of 1812.

Parallel to his legal and military activities, Brush pursued a political career in Ohio’s state government. He was elected from Ross County to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1810, participating in the legislative affairs of a young and rapidly developing state. In 1814, upon the resignation of William Creighton Sr. from the Ohio Senate, Brush was appointed to fill the vacant seat, thereby moving from the lower to the upper chamber of the General Assembly. His legislative experience and prominence as a lawyer and militia officer positioned him for national office in the postwar period, when Ohio’s influence in federal politics was growing.

Brush entered national politics as a member of the Republican Party, then commonly known as the Democratic‑Republican Party. In 1818 he was elected from Ohio’s 3rd congressional district to the Sixteenth United States Congress, serving a single term from March 4, 1819, to March 3, 1821. As a representative from Ohio during a formative period in the nation’s expansion and political realignment, he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents in the House of Representatives. During his term he served as chairman of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of War, overseeing and scrutinizing military spending in the aftermath of the War of 1812. He ran for reelection in 1820 but was unsuccessful, and his service in Congress concluded after one term.

After leaving Congress, Brush returned to Ohio and resumed his legal and judicial career. He was elected a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for the 1828–1829 term, joining the state’s highest tribunal at a time when questions of internal improvements, banking, and the balance of powers among branches of government were prominent. In early 1830, the legislature chose John Goodenow of Steubenville, a Jacksonian, for a seat on the Supreme Court, but Goodenow resigned because of serious eye trouble. Governor Allen Trimble then appointed Henry Brush to fill the vacancy, and Brush again served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio from 1830 to 1831. His repeated selection for high judicial office reflected the confidence placed in his legal judgment and experience by both legislators and the executive.

In his later years, Brush remained a figure of some local prominence. During the presidential campaign of 1840, when Whig candidate William Henry Harrison conducted an extensive tour of Ohio and was enthusiastically received across the state, a three‑day celebration was held in Chillicothe. Contemporary accounts reported that Henry Brush entertained as many as 2,500 people at meals in his home during the festivities, an indication of both his resources and his standing in the community. After the close of his active public career, he moved to a farm in Madison County, near London, Ohio, where he devoted himself to agriculture and lived a comparatively quiet life. Henry Brush died at his farm on January 19, 1855, and was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery, leaving a legacy as a lawyer, soldier, legislator, judge, and farmer who helped shape the early institutions of Ohio and contributed to the national legislative process.