Background
Mason Brayman was born on May 23, 1813 in Buffalo, the son of Daniel Brayman, a young pioneer from Connecticut, and his wife, Anna English, a native of Nova Scotia, who had lived in Otsego County, New York, before her marriage.
Mason Brayman was born on May 23, 1813 in Buffalo, the son of Daniel Brayman, a young pioneer from Connecticut, and his wife, Anna English, a native of Nova Scotia, who had lived in Otsego County, New York, before her marriage.
Mason Brayman early showed a bent for journalism and the year after he reached his majority, in the latter part of the Jackson administration, he became editor of the Buffalo Bulletin. In later years he edited several newspapers--among them the Louisville Advertiser and the Illinois State Journal. He chose the law as his profession, however, was admitted to the New York bar and, after removing to Michigan, served for a time as city attorney of Monroe in that state.
In 1842 he settled in Illinois and practised law there. His introduction to the Illinois Revised Statutes (1845) is a survey of the conditions under which Illinois legal machinery operated during the first quarter-century of the state's existence. Brayman held a special commission from Governor Ford to compose the difficulties between the Mormons at Nauvoo and their hostile neighbors, and censured the anti-Mormons for attempting to take vengeance on non-Mormon residents for defending Nauvoo from attack.
In 1847 during the session of the state constitutional convention, his journalistic aptitude was turned to good account in reporting the proceedings for the St. Louis Union. His daily letters, if preserved, would have made a unique record of the work of that important body, written from the standpoint of a trained observer, thoroughly informed as to the state's institutions.
Early in the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, Brayman acted as general solicitor of that corporation (1851 - 55) and secured its right of way.
In the first year of the Civil War, Brayman, although nearing his fiftieth year, volunteered, was at first commissioned major in the 29th Illinois, and was under fire at Belmont, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh. Gallantry in the field won him promotion.
After advancing to colonel and brigadier-general, he finally reached the rank of major-general of volunteers by brevet. He was put in command of troops at Bolivar, Tennessee, in the late fall of 1862 and remained there until the following June. While at that post he repulsed a Confederate attack led by Van Dorn, the last fighting in which he was engaged during the war. To him was assigned the task of reorganizing the Ohio regiments at Camp Dennison and he presided over a military court of inquiry in the case of Gen. Sturgis.
From July 1864 to the spring of 1865 he was in command at Natchez.
Later he served as president of a commission on claims at New Orleans. After the close of hostilities he tried unsuccessfully to revive several railroad projects in Missouri and Arkansas in which he had been interested before the war and then returned to journalism as editor of the Illinois State Journal, but in 1873 he removed to Wisconsin, where he continued newspaper work until 1876. In that year he was appointed governor of Idaho Territory by President Grant. During his term of office the Nez Percé and Bannock Indian wars occurred, in which Brayman's methods of providing for the armed defense of the Territory made him locally unpopular.
After the expiration of his term he moved to Wisconsin, where he had built a home on the shore of Green Lake, but after a few years he went to Kansas City where he remained for the rest of his life.
Brayman died in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 27, 1895.
At the time of an outbreak of the Civil War, Mason Brayman served as a lawyer for the Illinois Central Railroad, then he was appointed Colonel and put in command of the 29th Illinois Infantry Regiment. While in charge of the 43rd Illinois Infantry Brigade that participated in the Tennessee and Mississippi campaigns, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1862. For leadership and dedication to duty, he has brevetted Major General of United States Volunteers on March 13, 1865. After the war, he resumed legal practice and in 1876, President Ulysses Grant appointed him the seventh Governor of the Idaho Territory, serving until 1878. Another area of his professional interest was education, so for that reason he had been one of the regents of the University of Illinois in its early years, and a charter member of the Chicago Historical Society.
Brayman had long been a prominent layman in the Baptist denomination.
Mason Brayman was a member of the Chicago Historical Society.
Quotes from others about the person
Judge Elliott Anthony, president of the state bar association, described Brayman as "a most careful, painstaking lawyer, who understood real-estate law and our statutes relating to the same as well as any man I ever knew. "
Mason Brayman was married to Mary Williams of Chautauqua County, New York.
1786–1865
unknown–1855
1819–1883
1839–1923
1853–1881
1816–1886
1838–1904
1815–1887
1789–1867
