Freeborn Garrettson Jewett (1791-1858), Freeborn Woodbury Cressy (1839-1908), Freeborn Duane Brooke (1856-1935)

Portrait from the Medico-Legal Journal, 1903.

    Receiving his name in honor of prominent American Methodist clergyman Freeborn Garrettson (1752-1827), Freeborn Garrettson Jewett was born in Sharon, Connecticut on August 4, 1791, the fifth child of ten born to Alpheus and Abigail Sears Jewett. Freeborn would attend common schools in the Sharon area and began studying law at the age of twenty. Following his admittance, Jewett married in 1814 to Fannie Warner and the couple later had one son, William (born in 1816.) The Jewett family later relocated to Skaneateles, New York and it was here that he formed a partnership with a local attorney named James Porter.
   Jewett entered the political life of New York state in 1823 when he was elected as Onondaga County Judge. He would serve in that capacity from 1824-31 and during his term pulled political double duty when he won election to the State Assembly from Onondaga County in 1825. Serving in the session of 1826, Jewett would make his first move into national politics in 183o when he was elected as Jacksonian Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York, besting National Republican candidate William Jerome by a vote of 4,539 to 2,739. Shortly after leaving Congress in 1833, he was honored as the first President of the village of Skaneateles, which had recently been incorporated as a village.
   After his short stint on the national political scene, Jewett served one year (1838-1839) as the Inspector of Auburn State Prison. A brief term as Onondaga County District Attorney followed, and in 1845 continued his political ascent when he was named as an Associate Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. His time here proved to be short, due to his election to the New York State Court of Appeals in 1847. 
   Jewett was named as Chief Judge of the Appeals Court in the same year as his election and served as its head until 1850. His tenure on the court ended in 1853 when he resigned due to health concerns. He died on January 27, 1858, and was shortly thereafter interred in the Lake View Cemetery in his native town of Skaneateles. The rare photograph of Freeborn Jewett shown above was taken shortly before his death and appeared in the December 1903 edition of the Medico-Legal Journal, Volume 21.

Portrait from "Beverly: Garden City By the Sea", 1897.

    A two-term member of the Massachusetts General Court, Freeborn Woodbury Cressy was a well-to-do resident of Beverly, Massachusetts, and was a prominent leader in the civic and political life of his native city for decades. Years following his legislative service, Cressy was returned to politics in the twilight of his life, winning election as mayor of that city for one term.
   Freeborn Woodbury Cressy was born in Beverly on January 4, 1839, being the son of John and Johanna Ober Cressy. After attending local schools he began work in a shoe factory, continuing in that employ for several years. In 1873 he and a partner, Israel Lee, began developing their own furniture and upholstery company, which later underwent a name change to F.W. Cressy and William F. Lee. Cressy was also active in the local Fire King Engine Company and would serve as both a foreman and a member of its board of engineers.
   In May 1866 Freeborn Cressy married Sarah Godfrey, a native of New Hampshire. The couple would be married for over four decades and their union produced four children: Lewis W., Mary, John, and Willis. While still attentive to his business pursuits, Cressy ventured into local politics, winning election as a town selectman in 1869, an office he would continue to hold for nearly thirty years. During his time as a selectman, Cressy was an avowed leader in the development his native city's infrastructure, helping to design a new sewer system for the city, as well as bringing modern accommodations to the local fire department.
  Cressy continued his rise in Massachusetts political life with his election to the Massachusetts State House of Representatives in 1869 and two years later won a second term in that body. His service during the 1872-73 session saw him sit on the committee on the State Police, and had plenty of curiously named company amongst his fellow representatives, those men being Zoeth Snow, Southworth Harlow, Tisdale Sanford White, Liberty Dodge Packard, Eliphalet Loring Thayer, and Ludovicus French Wild!
    An "acknowledge authority in all that pertains to town and city forms of government",  Cressy was "handsomely elected" as Mayor of Beverly in 1896, serving a one year term beginning in 1897. He died in his office in Beverly on April 26, 1908, at age 69, and a burial location for him remains unknown at the time of this writing.

Cressy as he appeared during his second term in the legislature, 1872.

The Rev. Freeborn Duane Brooke.

  For many years a leading Methodist clergyman in Illinois, Freeborn Duane Brooke had fleeting involvement in politics in 1903 when he was nominated by the Prohibition Party for U.S. Representative from Illinois' 3rd congressional district. Born in Oregon, Ogle County, Illinois on December 27, 1856, Freeborn D. Brooke was the son of William and Paulina (Healy) Brooke.

 Little is known of Brooke's early life in Ogle County, excepting mention of his conversion at a Methodist camp meeting in the late 1870s. He began studying for the ministry shortly afterward and by 1882 was licensed to preach. Brooke married in 1882 to Elizabeth Bardell (1859-1921), to who he was wed for nearly forty years. The couple's union saw the births of five children, listed as follows in order of birth: Clark Harding (1882-1956), William Sullivan (1887-1937), Paulina Harriet (1889-1962), and Mae Evangel (1894-1964).

  During a ministry that extended over fifty years, Brooke traveled over two dozen circuits throughout Illinois, and in 1890 was elected as a district elder. This post saw him active in the Peoria and Joliet district for four years, and the Elgin district for six years. Beginning in the early 1900s he took office as secretary of the Old People's Rest Home at Woodstock, Illinois, and during this same period held the post of treasurer for the Chicago Industrial Home For Children, also located in Woodstock.

  In 1902 Brooke was called to politics by the Prohibition Party, and in that year received that party's nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives. One of four candidates vying for the seat, Brooke placed dead last on election day with 543 votes, polling over 13,000 votes behind winning Republican candidate William W. Wilson.

  Widowed in 1921, Freeborn D. Brooke remarried in 1925 to Bertha Wade, who survived him upon his death, which occurred in Belvidere, Illinois on January 6, 1935. He had been in ill health for some time prior to his death, and was later interred at the Memorial Park Cemetery and Crematorium in Skokie, Illinois.