Horatio Washington Bruce

Birth Date

1830-02-22

Death Date

1903-01-22

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

Jefferson County, Kentucky, attorney, educator, and politician. Lewis County, Kentucky, native. Son of Alexander Bruce and Amanda Bragg Bruce. Married to Elizabeth “Lizzie” Barbour Helm Bruce in Hardin County on June 12, 1856. Father of Lucinda Hardin Bruce, John Helm Bruce, and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Barbour Bruce. Educated in Manchester, Ohio. Taught two terms of school in Lewis County in 1849 and 1850. Studied law and admitted to the bar in 1851. Practiced law in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Member of the Whig Party, American “Know-Nothing” Party, and Southern Rights Party. Elected as an American “Know-Nothing” Party member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1855. Commonwealth’s attorney for the Tenth District from 1856 to 1859. Removed to Louisville, Kentucky in 1858. Formed the law partnership of Helm and Bruce with Ben Hardin Helm. Judge in Louisville in 1860. Owned five enslaved persons in Louisville in 1860. Member of the convention of the provisional government held at Russellville in November 1861. Member of the Council of Ten, chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and member of the Committee on the Judiciary for the provisional government of Kentucky. Member of the House of Representatives of the First and Second Confederate Congress from the Seventh Congressional District of Kentucky from 1862 to 1865.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Jefferson County, 7th Ward City of Louisville, p. 283B.
Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Jefferson County, 7th Ward City of Louisville, p. 283B (p. 51 of microfilm).
Ninth Manuscript Census of the United States (1870), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Jefferson County, 7th Ward City Louisville, p. 60A.
Kentucky Marriage Records, Madison County Courthouse, Richmond, Kentucky, Hardin County Marriages, Film #000390788, p. 261 of microfilm.
Find A Grave, "Horatio Washington Bruce (1830-1903)," Memorial 7094855, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7094855 (accessed January 18, 2017).
Ezra J. Warner and W. Buck Yearns, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 37-8.
Lewis Collins and Richard Collins, History of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Collins & Company, 1882), 353.
The Biographical Encyclopædia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong & Company, 1878), 56-57.
H. Levin, The Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1897), 191-193.
“Yields Up: Life That Was Filled With Honor, Judge H. W. Bruce Is Dead,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), January 23, 1903.
“Memorial Spread on the Minutes: High Tribute Paid to the Late Judge Horatio W. Bruce,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), January 28, 1903.

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