William Henry Brisbane

William Henry Brisbane Sr. (October 12, 1806 – April 5, 1878) was a Baptist minister of Antebellum South Carolina, who, having convinced himself of the immorality of slavery, freed and settled a group of slaves he had inherited, and became an active abolitionist.

His former home near Arena, Wisconsin, the William Henry Brisbane House, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Biography His father, Adam Fowler Brisbane (1783–1830) appears, from Brisbane's own writings, to have suffered from alcoholism. He was adopted by his rich childless uncle William Brisbane (1759–1821) (whom Brisbane later described as "tho' not remarkably pious, yet one of the most excellent men I ever knew, in whom was combined almost every quality worthy of admiration") and aunt Mary Ash Deveaux (1775–1845). He married 28 May 1825 at Lawtonville Glorianna Lawton (15 July 1805 – 17 February 1878), who bore him eight recorded children, of whom three survived to adulthood. He was especially disturbed by his inability to reconcile the values in the Constitution with those of the institution of slavery.

Because of his radical views on slavery for Antebellum South Carolina, he had to move north to Cincinnati. There he became the associate of prominent abolitionists, and a constant worker in their cause. In the decades of anti-slavery agitation before the American Civil War he was an active campaigner for abolition. was chief clerk of the state senate in 1857, and became pastor of the Baptist church in Madison. He was able to return to South Carolina (temporarily) as an officer of the victorious Yankees in 1864 as a tax commissioner.

Publications Slaveholding Examined in the Light of the Holy Bible (1847) The Bible Defended Against the Objections of Infidelity, Being an Examination of Scientific, Historical, Chronological and Other Scripture Difficulties (1855)