Brandreth, Benjamin (Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography)
secondary literature · 1900
LINK
SUMMARY
Short contemporary-generation biographical entry (first published in the 1887-89 original edition; this citation is to the 1900 reprint volume 1, page 358, fetched directly from Wikisource, including its underlying page-scan transclusion). States: born Leeds, England, 9 January 1807; died Sing Sing, N.Y., 19 February 1880; grandson of 'Dr. William Brandreth, introducer of Brandreth's pills'; came to the United States in 1835 and established a laboratory in Sing Sing; in 1874 presented the building used by the Eclectic Medical College of New York to Dr. Robert S. Newton and associates. Used in this bundle for the birth date/place variant (1807, Leeds) and the grandfather/pill-origin claim, both of which are cross-checked against other sources that disagree on some details (a gravestone inscription gives a different birth year; another account calls the English relative a father-in-law rather than a grandfather); the disagreement is described in the case body rather than silently resolved.
NOTES
Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography is a standard late-19th-century American biographical reference. Its brief entry on Benjamin Brandreth (1900 reprint, vol. 1, p. 358, fetched directly from Wikisource) supplies this bundle’s earliest-generation claim that he was born in Leeds, England, on 9 January 1807, died in Sing Sing, New York, on 19 February 1880, and was a grandson of “Dr. William Brandreth, introducer of Brandreth’s pills.” It also records his 1835 arrival in the United States, his Sing Sing laboratory, and his 1874 gift of a building to the Eclectic Medical College of New York. Its 1807 birth year differs from a family gravestone inscription, and its grandfather account conflicts with an Adirondack Life account describing the English pill-holder as a father-in-law; the case records those disagreements rather than silently picking one account.