Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748 - 1816)

Hugh Henry Brackenridge

Hugh Henry Brackenridge was an American writer and poet, jurist and Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice.

Hugh Henry graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), learned Latin and Greek, and became a teacher. He later served in George Washington's army and published two verse dramas on revolutionary themes. He worked with the poet Philip Morin Freneau (1752-1832) on satirical and political publications.

Hugh Henry Breckenridge founded the Pittsburgh Academy, now the University of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Gazette, which is still published today.

Breckenridge is also known as the author of the first novel about frontier life in the United States after the Revolutionary War, Modern Chivalry. Considered one of the earliest American novels, this book was published in installments beginning in 1792 over a period of 23 years. In the latest edition, Captain John Farrago, along with his own Sancho Panza, Teague, leaves his farm in western Pennsylvania and sets out to find adventure in the big world.