Biography - Adolphe Breuchaud
ADOLPHE BREUCHAUD is a dealer in grain and coal in Greenville, Bond County, and one of its leading business men. For a number of years he has been connected with its interests and the community recognizes in him one of its best citizens. He is widely known throughout the county and we feel assured that this record of his life will prove of interest to many of our readers.
Mr. Breuchaud was born in Switzerland, March 3, 1833, and is a son of David and Mary (Cuche) Breuchaud, who were also natives of Switzerland. The grandfather, Samuel Breuchaud, was also born in that country, but his ancestors were of French lineage, having been driven from France on account of religious persecutions. David Breuchaud immigrated with his family to America in the year 1849, landing in New Orleans, whence he made his way up the river to Illinois. He located first in Highland, Madison County, where he engaged in farming, having purchased one hundred and eighty acres of partially improved land. He made his home upon that farm until 1865, then sold out and came to Bond County, and located in Greenville, where he lived retired until his death in 1888, at the age of eighty-two years. The mother died in Madison County at the age of fifty-eight years. They had a family of seven sons and five daughters, of whom ten are yet living.
Adolphe Breuchaud, whose name heads this record, was highly educated in Switzerland; he also attended college in Germany for a year, and during vacations engaged in teaching. He was sixteen years of age when he came with his parents to America. During the first five years of his arrival he worked at farming, and after locating in Greenville followed any occupation that he could secure, whereby he might earn an honest dollar. He also learned the trades of a carpenter, bricklayer and plasterer and afterward engaged in business as a contractor and builder. He was very successful in this line and often employed as many as ten men. For fourteen years he carried on business as a contractor, and many of the buildings in this city and surrounding country stand as monuments to his handiwork and enterprise.
It was in 1855 that Mr. Breuchaud was united in marriage to Miss Rose Giron, of Switzerland, and unto them have been born four sons and a daughter, as follows: Henry, John, Robert, Dudley and Ada. The family is one of prominence in this community and its members rank high in social circles.
In 1870 Mr. Breuchaud began dealing in grain, and in 1880 purchased two and three-fourths acres of land bordering on the Vandalia Railroad, where he built an elevator, and then purchased another, for $3,500, after which he spent about $1,500 in repairs. These are run by a forty-horse power engine and have a capacity of eighty thousand bushels of wheat. He is doing an excellent business and furnishes employment to four men besides his two sons. He has built a fine office on Main Street and in addition to this and his home property owns a farm which he rents. In politics he is a stalwart Republican, and is a member of the Plymouth Church. Mr. Breuchaud is truly a self-made man, who by his own industrious efforts and strict attention to business has steadily worked his way upward to a position of wealth and affluence. He is a man of unswerving honesty, whose word is as good as his bond, and the confidence of the entire community is his.
Extracted 20 Dec 2016 by Norma Hass from 1892 Portrait and Biographical Record of Montgomery and Bond Counties, Illinois, pages 312-315.
