414
HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
wound received at Chickamauga. He was promoted successively to Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, and commissioned Second Lieutenant of his old company, of which his father was First Lieutenant for six months and until forced to resign on account of impaired health. Receiving his final discharge, June 28, 1865, he returned to the farm, where he remained until 1809, in the meantime being married to Miss Jennie E. Earle, in 1866, and teaching school one winter. In 1869 he was elected County Treasurer of Lake County on the Republican ticket, and re-elected in 1871; in January of the latter year, purchased an interest in "The Waukegan Gazette," with which he remained associated some fifteen years, at first as the partner of Rev. A. K. Fox, and later of his younger brother, H. E. Partridge. In 1877 he was appointed, by President Hayes, Postmaster at Waukegan, serving four years; in 1886 was elected to the Legislature, serving (by successive elections) as Representative in the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh General Assemblies, being frequently called upon to occupy the Speaker's chair, and, especially during the long Senatorial contest of 1891, being recognized as a leader of the Republican minority. In 1888 he was called to the service of the Republican State Central Committee (of which he had previously been a member), as assistant to the veteran Secretary, the late Daniel Shepard, remaining until the death of his chief, when he succeeded to the secretaryship. During the Presidential campaign of 1892 he was associated with the late William J. Campbell, then the Illinois member of the Republican National Committee, and was entrusted by him with many important and confidential missions. Without solicitation on his part, in 1894 he was again called to assume the secretaryship of the Republican State Central Committee, and bore a conspicuous and influential part in winning the brilliant success achieved by the party in the campaign of that year. From 1893 to 1893 he served as Mayor of Waukegan; in 1896 became Assistant Adjutant-General of the Grand Army of the Republic for the Department of Illinois-a position which he held in 1889 under Commander James S. Martin, and to which he has been re-appointed by successive Department Commanders up to the present time. Mr. Partridge's service in the various public positions held by him, has given him an acquaintance ex