Milton Alexander was born on January 3, 1796 in Elbert County, Georgia and he moved with his family to Tennessee, where his family settled in, of all places, a town called Lincoln.

During the War of 1812, Alexander served with the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers under General Andrew Jackson and eventually rose to the rank of first lieutenant remaining with Jackson until 1814. Later serving with Jackson during the First Seminole War, he was later discharged after becoming too ill for active duty. He returned to Tennessee, married, and after several years, moved to the Illinois Territory in 1823. Settling in Paris, Illinois, he became involved in farming and mercantilism before being appointed the town's first postmaster, a position he would hold for the next twenty-five years.

In February 1826, he would become appointed Clerk of the County Commissioner's Court. He would hold this position until September 1827, when he resigned to accept a commission in the Illinois Militia from Governor Edward Coles as a Colonel in the 19th Regiment Illinois Militia. He was later a hero of the Blackhawk War; he was noted for being instrumental in the strategic conclusion of the war and for his brigade only suffering a single wound, with zero casualties.

Lincoln had originally known Alexander during the Blackhawk War and had maintained this relationship. Not only did Lincoln stay at his home on occasion while riding the Eighth Judicial Circuit, but stayed there while giving speeches for presidential candidate John C. Fremont in 1856. Due to the disease he contracted as a soldier in Florida during his service for General Jackson in the War of 1812, he remained an invalid during the last ten years of his life. He eventually died on July 7, 1856.

Benedict was born on November 25, 1810, in Kent, Connecticut, but he did not attend Litchfield near where he grew up and the first law school in the American Colonies. Benedict instead studied law under John Anthony Quitman in Natchez, Tennessee, who taught him the law, as well as French and Spanish. His knowledge of Spanish served Kirby Benedict well when he became a Federal judge in New Mexico.

Benedict moved to Sangamon County in 1835 and then to Macon County in March of 1836 where he became Macon County's second resident attorney when he arrived in Decatur. Benedict enjoyed a successful law practice in Decatur while developing his friendship with Lincoln, who practiced in nearby Springfield. Lincoln and Benedict rode circuit together in the Eighth Judicial District.

He was a county probate judge from 1838 to 1843 and served a term in the Illinois Legislature starting in 1845. Benedict practiced law in Macon County until 1849 when he moved to Paris, Illinois, in Edgar County and continued his legal career. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him as a federal justice of the New Mexico territory. He also became Chief Justice of the territory and in later years, editor of a newspaper.

On February 28, 1874, well after he had stopped his voracious drinking, Kirby Benedict died as he was walking the streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is remembered in the state as New Mexico's most colorful judge.

Francis E. Bryant settled in the village of Bement in 1856. His was only the seventh family to arrive there. Bryant opened the village's first bank and store and began selling grain, coal, lumber, and salt. The aspiring businessman built his four-room cottage, which was thoroughly modern in its time, just one hundred feet from Bement's lifeline, the Great Western Railroad tracks. Francis E. Bryant arrived in the young town of Bement in 1856 with a small capital, which he quickly reinvested in general business development as a banker and storekeeper. He bought grain from pioneer farmers, and sold them lumber and coal in return.

Bryant was active in state and local politics. Francis E. Bryant served two terms in the Illinois legislature, one before and one after the Civil War. He first represented the Rushville-Quincy district, and later the Piatt- Champaign district when he moved to Bement. He served for a time as Bement's postmaster, and local residents elected him mayor. Bryant was part of a statewide network of small-town businessmen upon whom Douglas depended for support. The most striking evidence of Bryant's political prestige was his friendship with Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

The campaigning Douglas was at the time going southward to Bement, where he would spend the night in the Bryant Cottage. It was during this one-night stay that Douglas decided to accept most of Lincoln's challenge and debate him seven times. Douglas wrote Lincoln from Bement on the morning of July 30, suggesting that the two men debate in Ottawa, Illinois, Freeport, Illinois, Jonesboro, Illinois, Charleston, Illinois, Galesburg, Illinois, Quincy, Illinois, and Alton, Illinois.

Were it not for the Eighth Judicial Circuit and these men passing this particular way, one must wonder if the Lincoln-Douglas Debates would have occurred at all. The story is told that Lincoln actually met Douglas on the road just outside of Bement to confront the Senator regarding the proposed debates.

David Davis was born to a wealthy family in Cecil County, Maryland, on March 9, 1815, where he attended the public schools. After graduating from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, in 1832, he went on to study law at Yale University. Upon his graduation from Yale in 1835, Davis moved to Bloomington, Illinois, to practice law. He also served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1845 and a delegate to the Illinois constitutional convention in McLean County, 1847.

In 1844, Davis won election as a Whig to the Illinois legislature, and four years later was elected Judge of Illinois' Eighth Judicial Circuit, where he served on the bench during Lincoln's remaining years as an attorney on the circuit. From 1848 to 1862, Davis presided over the local judicial circuit, the same circuit where attorney Abraham Lincoln was practicing and they rode together for many years. The two became close friends, and Davis worked diligently as Lincoln's campaign manager at the 1860 Republican nominating convention in Chicago. In 1862, President Lincoln appointed Davis to the United States Supreme Court, where Davis wrote the majority opinion in Ex parte Milligan, a landmark decision restricting the rights of military courts to try civilians. In 1877, he resigned from the court after being elected to the United States Senate by the Illinois legislature. He retired from the Senate in 1883 and spent the remainder of his life at Clover Lawn. He died on June 26, 1886.

Davis had the distinction of being the largest landowner in Illinois. Although he was not as wealthy as the state's wealthiest businessman, Cyrus McCormick, Davis owned more land than any other man in Illinois. At his death, his estate was valued at between four to five million dollars-a huge fortune in his day. He is interred at Evergreen Cemetery and his home is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

Douglas was born in Brandon, Vermont on April 23, 1813. In 1834, at the age of 21, he was admitted to the bar of Illinois and one year later in 1835, he was appointed the State's Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit of Illinois. In 1836, he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature and was also made the Register of the Land Office in Springfield, Illinois all before the age of 24. During this time he argued several cases with and against a young Abraham Lincoln.

After a brief stint as the Illinois Secretary of State in 1840, Stephen A. Douglas was appointed to the Illinois State Supreme Court in 1841, as the youngest justice on the court at the age of 27. In 1843, Douglas was elected to the US House of representatives and stayed after two successful re-elections, until his appointment to the US Senate, where he spent the rest of his life.

Stephen A. Douglas was the Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860, but lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed series of debates. Nicknamed the "Little Giant" because of his short stature, Douglas was considered by his contemporaries to be a "giant" in politics-the cause for his nickname of "The Little Giant." Douglas was well-known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation.

As chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues. However, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question by the highly controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed the people of the new territories to decide for themselves whether or not to have slavery (which had been prohibited by earlier compromises). The protest movement against this became the Republican Party. When civil war came in April 1861, he rallied his supporters to the Union with all his energies, but he died a few weeks later death at the age of 48, on June 3, 1861, after contracting typhoid fever.

John Rice Eden was born in Bath County, Kentucky on February 1, 1826 and later moved with his parents to Indiana where he attended public schools and later studied law. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in June of 1853 and his examiners, appointed by Judge Davis, were Abraham Lincoln, Usher F. Linder and Samuel W. Moulton. The examination was conducted by Linder and Moulton because Lincoln was involved with a trial that day. However, Lincoln did sign the report of the other two members, and reportedly heartily congratulated Eden on his admission to practice. After a brief time spent at Shelbyville Mr. Eden moved to Sullivan in August, 1853. Sullivan was his home and the center of his enlarging professional business from that time forward with the exception of two years, 1870-71, spent at Decatur in the interests of his clients.

Eden rode the circuit, going from one county to another as the judge convened court in the various places. In these courts he met some of the most brilliant minds of the early Illinois bar, as noted in the other biographies. He served as prosecuting attorney for the seventeenth judicial district of Illinois from 1856 to1860.

During the Civil War he was an out-spoken leader of the Peace Democrats and was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-eighth Congress 1863 to 1865. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1864 to the Thirty-ninth Congress and was later an unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Governor of Illinois in 1868.

Eden was elected to the Forty-third, Forty-fourth, and Forty-fifth Congresses lasting from 1873 to 1879, during his last two terms, he served as chairman of the Committee on War Claims. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1878, so following this he resumed the practice of law in Sullivan, Illinois.Eden was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress in 1885, but lost his bid for re-election, so he once again returned to the practice of law. He died in Sullivan, Illinois, June 9, 1909. He was interred in Greenhill Cemetery.

Ellsworth was a lawyer and soldier, best known as the first reputed casualty of the Civil War. In 1860, Ellsworth went to Springfield, Illinois, and studied law in Abraham Lincoln's office, helping Lincoln with his campaign for president. Ellsworth went with Lincoln to Washington, D.C., when he was elected. President Lincoln nicknamed Ellsworth "the greatest little man I ever met." Ellsworth helped recruit soldiers after the secession crisis in 1861, raising the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment from among New York City's firefighters. On May 25, 1861, the day after Virginia seceded, Ellsworth led his men uncontested down the streets of Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington. He ordered some of his men to take the railroad station while he and a few other soldiers went to secure the telegraph office. While doing this, Ellsworth noticed a Confederate flag flying above the Marshall House Inn. He and four others quickly went up the stairs. Ellsworth cut down the flag and was on the way down the stairs when the owner, James W. Jackson, killed him with a shotgun blast to the chest. Cpl. Francis Brownell of Troy, New York, immediately killed the innkeeper. Brownell was later awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions.

Lincoln was reportedly deeply saddened by his friend's death and ordered an honor guard to bring his friend's body to the White House, where it lay in state in the East Room on May 25, 1861.

Thousands of Union supporters rallied around Ellsworth's cause and enlisted. "Remember Ellsworth" was a patriotic slogan, and a New York regiment of volunteers (the 44th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment) called itself the "Ellsworth Avengers" as well as "The People's Ellsworth Regiment."

Charles Emerson was born in North Haverhill, New Hampshire on April 15, 1811. Emerson moved to Jacksonville, Illinois in 1833, where he spent one term in Illinois College; before moving to Springfield, Illinois, and studied law under the instruction of Judge Keys. He moved to Decatur in 1834 and was made a Justice of the Peace, County Assessor, Probate Judge and School Commissioner in addition to maintaining a legal practice. In 1850 he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature.

Emerson sat as opposing counsel in more cases against Abraham Lincoln than any other attorney in Macon County, but occasionally worked with him on cases, as well, before becoming a judge. He and Kirby Benedict were the only two resident lawyers of Decatur at that time.

In 1847, Emerson moved to Paris only to return to Decatur in 1850 when he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature. He later became Circuit Judge when Macon County was removed from the Circuit in 1854 and was re-elected in 1855 for six years and in 1861 for another term and held that position until 1867. Near the end of his life he was chosen as a member of the State Constitutional Convention.

Although the circuit was strongly Democratic, voters three times elected Emerson, a Whig and later a Republican, as judge of the circuit court. Judge Emerson presided over more than 230 cases in which Abraham Lincoln was an attorney.

Charles Emerson died on April 16, 1870, in Decatur, Illinois.

A Bloomington, Illinois, businessman, Fell helped found Illinois State University, originally Illinois State Normal University. His friend and fellow attorney Abraham Lincoln was called upon to draw up the bond of guarantee for the Board of Education on May 5, 1857.

Fell was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and moved to Bloomington in 1831. After opening up the town's first law offices, he turned the practice over to a young lawyer, David Davis in 1836, and became a land claims adjuster. Fell then founded the city's first newspaper, The Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate on January 14, 1837. He married Hester Brown in January 1838, and in 1840, the couple moved to Adams County, near Quincy to start a fruit nursery. Six years later, Fell returned to Bloomington and began acquiring land and working as an agent for the Alton & Springfield Railroad to secure the right of way through McLean County. He also got back into the publishing business, joining with Charles Merriman to resurrect a failing newspaper, The Whig, which was rechristened The Intelligencer in 1851. It took the name The Pantagraph in 1853. Fell also is credited with developing much of the town of Normal, known in the 1850s as North Bloomington.

He died in 1887 and was interred at Evergreen Cemetery.

William H. Fithian was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 7, 1799. Fithian began studying medicine in 1822 with Dr. Joseph T. Carter in Urbana Ohio and was granted a diploma by the Board of Censors a short time after and soon settled in the town of Mechanicsburg at the age of 23, where he met and married his first wife who died within two years of their nuptials. Moving back to Urbana, Ohio, Fithian was named a sitting judge for the county.

Though having visited Danville, Illinois before 1830, Fithian moved there in 1830 and, after the land office opened there he began expanding his interests to include a mercantile and private banking firm. In 1832, Fithian joined several dozen other men from Vermilion County and joined the ranks of volunteers for the Blackhawk War, where he met a young New Salem store-clerk named Abraham Lincoln.

The men became friends and joined each other in the Illinois Legislature and, though separated by houses with Fithian's move to the Illinois Senate, the two men were joined by Whig Party politics and by friendship. In 1851, Lincoln even represented Fithian in a libel suit against a Mr. Cassidy involving remarks supposedly made about competing seminaries.

Fithian was married four times and two of his step-sons from his fourth wife, Josephine, became decorated heroes during the Civil War, General John C. Black and Captain William P. Black.

Fithian passed away on April 5, 1890, a mere two days before his 91st birthday. Aside from being Lincoln's client and political supporter, he was Lincoln's friend for more than thirty years. Lincoln once confided in Fithian "I appeal to you, because I can to no other with so much confidence."

Appointed as a justice by Judge John Reynolds (under whom he was already a sheriff) following the 1830 census, Bowling Green became of the leading citizens of the county. He was County Commissioner from 1826 to 1828; he was for many years a justice of the peace; he was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, and a very active and uncompromising Whig. The friendship between him and Lincoln, beginning at a very early day, continued until his death in 1842.

It is said that when his purported love-interest Ann Rutledge died, Mr. Lincoln went into a deep depression. "He was seen walking alone by the river and through the woods, muttering strange things to himself," wrote biographer Ida Tarbell. "He seemed to his friends to be in the shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, under the brow of a big bluff. Here, under the loving care of Green, and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was once more master of himself."

According to locals, when Bowling Green died, Lincoln was invited by the Masons, under whose auspices Green was buried, to make a funeral address, he manfully attempted it and ignominiously failed. His feelings overpowered him as the past rose in his memory, and the disinterested affection of his departed friend passed in review before him; his sobs choked his utterance, and he withdrew from the mournful scene to accompany Mrs. Green to her desolate home.

Ashael Gridley was born on April 21, 1810, in Cazenovia, New York. In October of 1831, Gridley came to Bloomington, Illinois, where he opened a general store and in the early years he rode on horseback to St. Louis and purchased all kinds of supplies at the famous Warburton & King House, but later he wagoned his goods from St. Louis to Bloomington, and at other times his goods were shipped by steamboat from St. Louis to Pekin, Ill. and then wagoned on to Bloomington. Asahel was in business with Ortogrul Covell from 1831 - 1838 and for eight years Gridley and Covell sold hardware, queens ware, groceries, medicines, liquor, salt, iron nails, harness and saddles, and everything farmers needed.

Shortly thereafter Asahel Gridley served as First Lieutenant of Company I under the command of Major Stillman, during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Abraham Lincoln was a Captain of another company in the Black Hawk War; here Gridley saw action; whereas, Lincoln did not though each received an honorable discharge. Gridley's reputation in the Black Hawk War, however , was later tainted by his citizens from McLean County who reported that in a battle in the Black Hawk War 275 men from McLean County against 40 Indians Gridley was reputed to have sent out the cry that they were surrounded by a thousand Indians. There was a panic, a rout; a defeat and what became known in history as Stillman's Run. The official record of the Black Hawk War, however, depicts Gridley as a hero who was the first to sound the alarm of impending danger and was cited for his being a true soldier at the point of great crisis.

Asahael (Asahel) Gridley Part 2

The Economic Panic of 1837 devastated Gridley's business, so he pursued law as a means to recover his fortune. Gridley served in the state legislature in the 1840s, and, in 1850, he was elected to the state senate where he served a total of four years. Gridley organized Bloomington's first bank, the McLean County Bank, and soon became the bank's sole proprietor. He practiced law for a great many years and, despite his reputation for being exceedingly abrasive of personality, he and Lincoln remained the best of the friends and sat together and opposed on many cases. In 1857, Gridley became the sole proprietor of the Bloomington Gaslight Company. Gridley turned over much of his legal practice to Abraham Lincoln so he could pursue banking, real estate, and railroad construction matters.

Asahel Gridley died on January 25, 1881, in Bloomington, Illinois. His death came at the conclusion of many weeks of suffering following his attempt a year earlier to help put out a fire in his bank. This emergency aggravated a lung ailment, which combined with exhaustion, led to his demise. For the last year of his life he spent most of his time at home.

Asahael (Asahel) Gridley Part 1

Born in 1814 in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Hatch moved to Griggsville, Illinois where he served as the Pike County Circuit Clerk. In 1850, he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature on the Whig ticket. In 1856, he was elected as a member of the newly formed Illinois Republican Party as Secretary of State. His office sat next to the state library, which was a favorite gathering place for local lawyers and politicians, which is where he met and befriended Abraham Lincoln. Following the presidential election of 1860, Hatch recommended the services of his clerk, John Nicolay, which Lincoln accepted. In that year he was re-elected as Secretary of State, but following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Hatch sought no further political offices and his last act as politician was in aiding in the selection of Lincoln's burial place at Oak Ridge, where he was also buried in 1893.

Herndon's family moved from Kentucky to Springfield when he was five. Herndon attended Illinois College from 1836-1837. Following college, he returned to Springfield, where he clerked until 1841, when he went into law practice with Lincoln. Both men were members of the Whig Party and joined the fledgling Republican Party after the dissolution of the Whigs. In 1858, Herndon conducted opposition research in the Illinois State Library to be used against Stephen A. Douglas in the 1860 presidential race.

Herndon was a much stauncher opponent of slavery than Lincoln and claimed that he helped change Lincoln's views on the subject. He felt that Lincoln acted too slowly against the issue following his election as President. Herndon felt that the only way to rid the country of slavery was "through bloody revolution." Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began to collect stories of Lincoln's life from those who knew him. Herndon aspired to write a faithful portrait of his friend and law partner, based on his own observations and on hundreds of letters and interviews he had compiled for the purpose.

He was determined to present Lincoln as a man, rather than a saint, and to reveal things that the prevailing Victorian era conventions said should be left out of the biography of a great national hero.

Herndon believed that Lincoln's "official" biographers, Nicolay and Hay, would tell the story of Lincoln "with the classes as against the masses." Numerous obstacles kept Herndon from writing the planned book until he met a young collaborator, Jesse W. Weik, who moved the project to completion in 1888. The biography finally was published in 1889, titled Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life.

Herndon died in 1891 and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, the same cemetery as Lincoln. His story is a complicated one, surrounded by much controversy, especially regarding his works concerning Lincoln and his literary treatment of Mary Lincoln.

Admitted to the bar in 1854, after studying under Judge Willis Allen and serving as deputy clerk for John M. Cunningham, Williamson County's County Clerk and Circuit Clerk. A county historian writing 22 years later noted that local residents considered the Ingersolls as a "very intellectual family; but, being Abolitionists, and the boys being deists, rendered obnoxious to our people in that respect."

When he moved to Shawneetown he continued to read law under Judge William G. Bowman who had a large library of both law and the classics. In addition to his job as a clerk, he and his brother opened their law practice under the name "E.C. & R.G. Ingersoll". During this time they also had an office in Raleigh, Illinois, then the county seat of neighboring Saline County.

As an attorney following the court circuit he often practiced along side Cunningham's soon-to-be son-in-law, John A. Logan, the state's attorney. After Cunningham moved back to Marion following the land office's closing in 1856 and Logan moved to Benton, Illinois, after his marriage that fall, Ingersoll and his brother moved to Peoria, Illinois where they finally settled in 1857.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, he raised the 11th Illinois Cavalry Regiment and took command. The regiment fought in the Battle of Shiloh. Ingersoll was later captured, then released on his promise that he would not fight again, which was common practice early in the war. After the war, he served as Illinois Attorney General. He was a prominent member of the Republican Party, and though he never held an elected position, he was nonetheless an active participant in politics. Ingersoll died from congestive heart failure in 1899 at the age of 65.

John Albert Jones moved from Georgetown in Washington D.C. to the village of Tremont, Illinois in 1835. A close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, this fellow circuit lawyer built what became known as the Jones-Menard House in Tremont in1845. Though he lived in Pekin in a rented home in 1850, while he was the Circuit Clerk there after the relocation of the Tazwell County seat Lincoln traveled regularly to Tremont to attend court at the Tazewell County Courthouse, which was located in Tremont at that time. Jones' daughter, Eugenia Jones Hunt, wrote prolifically of her personal recollections of the visits of Lincoln in their home.

Enoch Kingsbury was born in Langdon, New Hampshire on April 21, 1800. He was a graduate of Amherst College, in 1827. Kingsbury studied theology at Auburn, New York and at Prince Edward, Virginia. He went South for his health, but on his return he had a call to settle in Granby, Massachusetts and he then, it was argued, felt the missionary urge to move West. He was married in Simsbury, Connecticut to Fanny R. Goodwin, and ordained the same month in South-Hadley, Massachusetts. Moving to Illinois almost immediately, he was in Danville on the second Sabbath in January, 1831, at which time he began services.

His first Western ecclesiastical connection was undoubtedly with Crawfordsville Presbytery, for he was, in 1831, a member of the Synod of Indiana, though Danville Church, to which he ministered, was from May, 1831, (when the Assembly constituted the Synod of Illinois) in the bounds of the Presbytery of Sangamon. It was not until the Synod of Illinois, in 1833, constituted the Presbytery of Palestine, that he or his church formed an ecclesiastical connection in this State. He was the father of eight children and his son Edward perished in the Civil War.

Mr. Kingsbury's labors were very extensive and arduous. He was stated clerk of his Presbytery for a long series of years. He was ever an out-spoken abolitionist and a long-standing friend of Abraham Lincoln and resided in Danville home during his entire life in Illinois. He died on October 26, 1868.

Lamon was born near Winchester, Virginia, on January 6, 1828. Lamon studied medicine for two years and then moved to Danville, Illinois when he was nineteen to live with relatives. Giving up on medicine, Lamon attended the University of Louisville to receive his law degree and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1851. In 1850, he moved back to Virginia, married Angelina Turner, and then returned to Illinois to practice law.

Angelina died in April 1859, leaving a daughter, Dorothy, who was raised in Danville by Lamon's sister, Mrs. William Morgan. In November 1860, Lamon married Sally Logan, daughter of Judge Stephen T. Logan. Logan had been Lincoln's law partner from 1841 to 1844. Lamon's professional association with Lincoln started in 1852, when he became Lincoln's law partner in Danville, Illinois. Their partnership lasted up until 1857 when Lamon became the prosecuting attorney for the Old Eighth Judicial district and subsequently moved to Bloomington, Illinois in 1858.

While Lamon had Southern sympathies and his hatred of abolitionism set him apart from Lincoln, they remained friends, despite their very different characters. Lamon joined the then-young Republican Party and campaigned for Lincoln in 1860. Lincoln was up against New York Senator William Seward for the Republican nomination, and Lamon proved his friendship by printing up extra tickets for the convention to fill the hall with Lincoln supporters. When Lincoln was elected President, Lamon hoped for a foreign diplomatic post, but received a letter from his friend that said, "Dear Hill, I need you. I want you to go to Washington with me and be prepared for a long stay."

Lamon then accompanied him as he traveled from Springfield, Illinois to Washington D.C. in February 1861. Shortly after his inauguration in 1861, Lincoln appointed Lamon United States Marshal of the District of Columbia; he resigned his commission in June 1865, following the assassination. He returned to law until 1879 when, due to the failed reception of his Lincoln biography and his failing health, he resigned the practice of the law. He later died in West Virginia on May 7, 1893.

Stephen T. Logan was born in Franklin County, Kentucky on the 24th of February in 1800. Educated in Frankfort, Kentucky, Logan was only thirteen years of age when he was employed as a clerk in the office of the secretary of state. From there he ventured to Glasgow, Kentucky in 1817, studied law, and was admitted to the bar before the age of twenty-one. Following this he was appointed commonwealth's attorney and followed his profession for ten years in Barren, Kentucky and the adjoining counties.

Encountering financial difficulties, he emigrated in 1832 to Illinois, and in the following spring opened a law-office in Springfield, where he soon won reputation throughout the state. In 1835 he was elected judge of the 1st judicial circuit of the state, and in 1842 he was chosen to the legislature, and again in 1844 and 1846. In 1847 he was a delegate to the convention that framed the Illinois constitution.

For the next six years he devoted himself exclusively to his profession, and from 1841 till 1844 had as his law-partner Abraham Lincoln. In 1854 he was elected for the fourth time to the lower branch of the general assembly. In 1860 he was a delegate from the state at large to the Chicago Republican national, convention, and early in February, 1861, he was appointed by the governor of Illinois to be one of five commissioners to represent the state in the national peace convention at Washington, in which he took an active part.

This was Judge Logan's last appearance on any great public occasion. He retired soon afterward from politics, and gradually withdrew from the pursuit of his profession, but maintained his interest in current events. As an advocate he stood at the head of the bar in his adopted state. Judge David Davis has said of him, "In all the elements that constitute a great 'nisi prius' lawyer, I have never known his equal." Logan died in Springfield, Illinois, on July 17, 1880.

Clifton Haswell Moore was born on October 26, 1817 in Kirtland, Ohio. At the age of sixteen, in 1833, he left home to teach school in Bedford, Ohio after spending his earlier years working on his father's farm while attending school at the Painesville Academy and the Western Reserve Teachers' Seminary. He arrived in Pekin, Illinois in the spring of 1839 and, supporting himself by teaching, he began reading law and was admitted to the bar in 1841 at the age of twenty-three.

In August 1841, C. H. Moore became the first resident lawyer in Clinton, Illinois. In 1848 he formed a land speculating partnership with Judge David Davis that lasted until the death of Judge Davis in 1886. They poured the majority of their resources into purchasing land in Kansas, Nebraska, as well as Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri and both were considered very wealthy by 1851.

Moore became friends with Abraham Lincoln when he was riding the circuit through Dewitt County. They were law associates working together on many cases and opposing each other on many more. Mr. Moore attended the National Convention in 1860 and is said to have done much toward securing Lincoln's nomination for president.

By the time the first train passed through Clinton in 1854, Mr. Moore had been the railroad attorney for over two years and was mainly responsible for securing the right of way and getting the depot located in Clinton. When C. H. Moore purchased the Homestead, he added the west wing containing this two-story library mainly because he needed a place to house his vast collection of books and newspapers, from which Abraham Lincoln had borrowed before the home was constructed. He owned the largest and best private library outside of Chicago containing thousands of volumes among which were many rare and costly editions as well as bound volumes of newspapers. He encouraged his tenants and all citizens to use his library. A paralytic stroke convinced him that his death was and three months later Clifton Haswell Moore died on April 29, 1901 at the age of 83 leaving a vast estate, known as the C. H. Moore Trust Estate.

Born in Wenham, Massachusetts in 1821, Wheeler moved to Kentucky as a young man, where he taught school for several years, thence to Mississippi where he continued to teach. He moved to Illinois in 1845 and settled in Oakland in Coles County. Following this move, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1847 and commenced practice in Sullivan, Illinois. He moved to Shelbyville in 1849 and continued the practice of law.

He served as member of the State House of Representatives (1852-1859) and as a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1856. He then later served as president of the board of education of the State of Illinois (1859-1876). He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1862 to the Thirty-eighth Congress, but was successfully elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1865-March 3, 1867).

After switching party affiliations, he was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses in 1881 through 1885. He resumed the practice of law in Shelbyville and was --once again-- affiliated with the Republican Party after 1896. He died in Shelbyville, Illinois, June 3, 1905. He was interred in Glenwood Cemetery.

Oglesby was born in Floydsburg, Kentucky on July 25, 1824. Orphaned and moved to live with his uncle in Decatur, Illinois, in 1832, he later worked as a farmhand, rope maker, and carpenter. He was commissioned a first lieutenant during the Mexican-American War, but saw no combat and was mustered out of the volunteer service in May 1847. He studied at Louisville Law School in 1848, but afterward traveled to California for the gold rush in 1849, where he tried his hand at gold mining. After two years of traveling in Europe, he settled in Sullivan, Illinois, in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, in order to practice law. His legal career lasted about a decade in the 1850s arguing some cases with and also some against Lincoln. He joined the Republican Party at its formation, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Congress in 1858, and was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1860.

At the start of the Civil War, Oglesby was appointed Colonel of the 8th Illinois Infantry regiment on April 25, 1861, and was soon given command of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, District of Cairo, Department of the Missouri, serving under the command of Ulysses S. Grant. He was severely wounded in his chest and back at the battle of Corinth in October 1862.

Oglesby was promoted to major general on November 29, and resigned his commission on May 26, 1864, to run for governor on the Republican ticket. A short year later he was present in the room at the Petersen House when President Abraham Lincoln died April 15, 1865.

Oglesby was elected by a large majority and served as the Governor of Illinois between 1865 and 1869. After his term ended, he practiced law until 1872, when he agreed to run again for governor, but turned the office over to the lieutenant governor immediately after inauguration in return for a seat in the U.S. Senate and served from 1873 until 1878. In 1884 he was reelected governor for a third time, becoming the first man in Illinois history to serve three times as governor. At the end of his third term as governor, he tried unsuccessfully to be reelected to his Senate seat. He spent his remaining years in retirement and died at his "Oglehurst" estate in Elkhart, Illinois on April 24, 1899.

William Ward Orme was born in Washington, D.C. in 1832. He moved to Bloomington, Illinois, in McLean County, prior to 1860 where he practiced law in the law firm of Swett & Orme. His partner was Leonard Swett. He was a delegate to the Illinois State Constitutional Convention in 1860. He was a friend of Supreme Court Justice David Davis. When Abraham Lincoln appointed Davis to the Supreme Court, Davis wrote Orme about the news.

Brigadier General William Ward Orme was born in Washington, D.C. in 1832. He moved to Bloomington, Illinois, in McLean County, prior to 1860 where he practiced law in the law firm of Swett & Orme. His partner was Leonard Swett. While practicing law in Illinois he caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln who allegedly called Orme the "most promising lawyer in Illinois."

Orme was a delegate to the Illinois State Constitutional Convention in 1860and was a good friend of Judge David Davis. When Abraham Lincoln appointed Davis to the Supreme Court, Davis wrote Orme excitedly about the news.

With the onset of the Civil War, Orme formed and commanded the 94th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, known as the "McLean Regiment." At the time, he was a colonel and led a brigade under Francis J. Herron at the battle of Prairie Grove and, for his performance there, was promoted to Brigadier General postdated. Herron's division was transferred to the Army of the Tennessee and Orme continued in command of his brigade during the siege of Vicksburg. Upon the Confederate surrender, Orme's brigade led the Union army into the fallen the city of Vicksburg.

It was during his time in Mississippi that Orme contracted tuberculosis. His brigade was transferred to the Department of the Gulf but he was soon forced relinquish his command due to failing health. He was appointed commander of the Camp Douglas Prison but even that became to difficult for his health. He retired from the military in 1864 to become Supervising Agent for the United States Treasury. Orme finally succumbed to his illness and died in 1866 at his home in Illinois.

A friend of Abraham Lincoln, Samuel C. Parks was born in 1820, in Middlebury, Vermont and eventually moved to Springfield, Illinois and then to Mt. Pulaski in Logan County, Illinois, where he served on the Eighth Judicial Circuit and often came into association with Abraham Lincoln.

Parks had first met Lincoln at Springfield in 1840 when Parks was studying law in the office of Lincoln's first law partner, John T. Stuart. In 1846, Parks moved to Logan County and "followed the county seat from Postville to Mt. Pulaski and finally to the town of Lincoln...." While practicing law in Lincoln, Parks had his office on the square, and Abraham Lincoln and he sometimes collaborated on cases. Lincoln and Parks shared law offices in Mt. Pulaski and Lincoln, Illinois.

In 1855, Parks was elected to serve in the state legislature. Parks was a delegate to the first National Republican Convention of 1856 at which Abraham Lincoln received 110 votes for the nomination of vice-president. Parks also worked to secure Lincoln's nomination for President in 1860. In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Parks the Territorial Judge of the Wyoming Territory. Parks returned to Lincoln, Illinois long enough to chair the first formal observance of Memorial Day in Logan County in 1868. In 1878, President Hayes appointed Parks as a justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, and he held that position until 1882, when President Arthur transferred him to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Parks died in 1917.

William Prather was born in Maryland about the year 1806 and came to Macon County in 1843. He was appointed was appointed, by Judge Treat, Circuit Clerk of Macon county in 1847. After the adoption of the constitution of 1848 he was elected to the same office, which he held for four years, and at the same time was elected Judge of the Probate Court of Macon county, which office he held some six or seven years. In 1850 he was elected county judge, and retained that position until 1856. He always had very infirm health and died on the twenty-ninth day of August, 1870.

In his life, as a court official in Decatur, the seat of Macon County, Prather was witness to more than thirty cases involving Abraham Lincoln with a front row seat.

Benjamin S. Prettyman was born on November 21, 1819, in Smyrna, Delaware and came to Illinois at the age of twelve. His formal education was limited to three months' attendance in the district schools. From 1840 to 1844, he served as a deputy surveyor. He began the study of law under Judge Silas W. Robbins of Springfield, Illinois. About 1841, the county was reduced to its present boundaries, and he was appointed one of the Commissioners to district the county into towns, which he did, laying it out into nineteen townships, the present number. From 1840 until 1844 he served as Deputy Surveyor, and then commenced the study of law under Judge Robbins, of Springfield, Illinois. He went to the office of Logan & Lincoln, but was crowded with law students, and Logan advised him to get some legal books, adding that he would loan him such volumes as he desired. In March, 1845, he was admitted to the Bar of Illinois, at Springfield, and afterward settled in Pekin, which then had a population of four hundred.

In 1845, after being admitted to the bar, Prettyman moved to Pekin, Illinois, to practice law. He was associated with Lincoln in a number of Tazewell County court cases. Active in Democratic party politics, he served as chairman of the Tazewell County Democratic Committee for a number of years, and he was also a member of every Democratic National Convention from 1860 to 1892, except the convention of 1876. During the Civil War, he was elected mayor of Pekin, a position he held several times. Prettyman was also active as the director and vice-president of the Illinois River Railroad and as president of the Chicago, Pekin, and Southwestern Railroad. Prettyman died on April 8, 1895.

Ossian M. Ross was born in New York State Aug. l6, 1790, and was a soldier in the war of 1812, thus moving to Illinois in order to secure the land given him by Government as rendered for military service. In 1820 Mr. Ross with his family came to Alton, IL and in the .spring of the following year of 1821, with his family and a few men employed by him to make improvements, sailed up the Illinois River to Otter creek in a keel-boat. It was his intention to locate upon the southeast quarter of section 29, Isabel Township. He with three companions came up from Alton the previous year and had explored the area; selecting it because there was a good mill-seat there. It was his intention to erect a water-mill on this stream at that point; but after traveling up Otter creek for some distance in their cumbersome keel-boat they came to a large tree fallen across the stream, which made a barrier that could not be passed over or around. They finally managed to get upstream and to the home of the Evelands and there they remained until his teams and stock arrived. Mr. Ross with his teams then started for his own land, where Lewistown now is.

In twenty-four hours after arrival Mr. Ross had a shelter made for his family. It consisted of poles set in the ground tent fashion and other poles laid across these and covered with bark.

Settling in Havana, a village he had arranged to be surveyed in 1828, he kept the ferry across the Illinois River, built and kept the Havana Hotel (where court was attended in the early days of Havana), carried on a large farm, was a merchant and the postmaster, and, in addition to those many other functions, he also carried the mail route from Springfield to Lewiston. He would later found Lewistown, as well. Lincoln and fellow riders on the circuit would often stay at the hotel in Havana.

Abraham Smith, a Quaker, was an outspoken, zealous abolitionist and temperance advocate. Born in 1796, he came to central Illinois from East Tennessee, eventually settling in 1839 on a ridge just west of the Vincennes Trace between Paris and Danville. Abraham Smith moved to his farm on the glacial ridge and proudly called it his Farm on the Ridge or Ridge Farm. He established a Post Office and was the first Postmaster. He opened a blacksmith shop, an inn and a general store. Since there was no other stopping place for miles for the stage coach between Danville and Paris, he was obliged to "keep tavern" for the travelers. Four-horse coaches were put on the route the following spring for daily trips through the village.

Abraham Lincoln stayed on occasion at his inn for travelers there. Lincoln also knew him from their political activity and Smith's constant advocacy of abolition. Smith was the most vocal of those in the county that accused Lincoln's friend and State's Attorney David P. Campbell of being soft on prosecution of liquor violations and charged collusion with the offending purveyors of liquor. Smith even offered to prosecute the cases himself. He also contended that Campbell was on occasion intoxicated on the job. In 1853 Campbell had had enough of Smith's attacks and decided to file suit for slander. Knowing all the trial lawyers of the Circuit from his own professional activity, he chose Lincoln to bring the suit.

Abraham Smith Part 2

The jury awarded Campbell a verdict of $450 thus vindicating him. Smith unsuccessfully appealed this to the Supreme Court where Lincoln also represented Campbell. Campbell wasn't the only government official Lincoln represented in Vermilion County. In 1851 the acting sheriff of the county was sued for assaulting a prisoner. The suit was brought by Benedict and Oliver Davis. Lincoln and John Murphy defended. The case was settled.

The 1858 campaign brought Lincoln back into contact with Abraham Smith, the Ridge Farm abolitionist. Smith bore Lincoln no small amount of ill will and was acknowledged as ardently working against Lincoln in the Trumbull race for the Senate in 1854, though he did concede that he considered Lincoln trustworthy. Lincoln, however, turned him by his "House Divided" speech. In July, Smith wrote him stating, "I am rejoiced that by thy speeches at Springfield and Chicago thou art fairly mounted on the eternal and vulnerable bull work of truth…"

Smith died on April 26, 1863.

Abraham Smith Part 1

Stevenson was admitted to the bar in 1858, at age 23, and commenced practice in Metamora, in Woodford County, Illinois. As a young lawyer, Stevenson encountered such celebrated Illinois attorneys as Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, campaigning for Douglas in his 1858 Senate race against Lincoln. Stevenson also made speeches against the "Know-Nothing" movement, a nativist group opposed to immigrants and Catholics. That stand helped cement his support in Illinois' large German and Irish communities. In a predominantly Republican area, the Democratic Stevenson won friends through his storytelling and his warm and engaging personality.

In 1868, at the end of his term as district attorney, he entered law practice with his cousin, James S. Ewing, moving with his wife back to Bloomington, settling in a large house on Franklin Square. Stevenson & Ewing would become one of the state's most prominent law firms. In 1874, Stevenson was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth Congress, serving from March 4, 1875 to March 4, 1877.

Adlai Stevenson Part 2

Stevenson served as first assistant postmaster general under Grover Cleveland in 1885. During that time he fired over 40,000 Republican workers and replaced them with Democrats from the South. The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress did not forget this: when Stevenson was nominated for a federal judgeship, he was defeated for confirmation by the same people who never forgot his 1885 purge.

In 1892, when the Democrats chose Cleveland once again as their standard bearer, they appeased party regulars by the nomination of Stevenson, "headsman of the post-office," for vice president. As a supporter of using greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts, Stevenson balanced the ticket headed by Cleveland, the hard-money, gold-standard supporter. The winning Cleveland-Stevenson ticket carried Illinois, although not Stevenson's home district.

Stevenson was mentioned as a candidate to succeed Cleveland in 1896, but lost the nomination. In 1900 he ran on the Democratic ticket, but was soundly defeated. After the 1900 election, Stevenson returned again to private practice in Illinois. He made one last attempt at office in a race for governor of Illinois in 1908, at age 72, narrowly losing. After that, he retired to Bloomington, where his Republican neighbors described him as "windy but amusing." He died in Chicago on June 14, 1914. His body is interred in a family plot in Evergreen Cemetery, Bloomington, Illinois.

Adlai Stevenson Part 1

Jason W. Strevell was born in Albany, New York in the 1830's and received his education at Rensaller's Academy in New York before entering the office of Peckham and Tremain, a noted firm of Albany lawyers. After being admitted to the practice of law in 1856, Strevell moved to Pontiac, Illinois and opened an office there after receiving admittance to the bar of Illinois.

He served as a Republican in the Illinois House of Representatives, and also had one term as a Senator. He was a member of the Electoral College that elected Hayes to the presidency, and was actively concerned in the first presidential election of William McKinley. He was also among the delegation of men that saw to Lincoln's nomination for the presidency in 1860.

Strevell and Lincoln were close friends and shared many hours together in conversation. One of the most documented meetings between these two gentlemen occurred on the evening of January 27, 1860. Lincoln, earlier that same day, accepted an invitation to speak to the Pontiac Young Men's Literary Society. He was in Bloomington for a trial and took an afternoon train to Pontiac. His speech was a moderate success, and after the presentation, Lincoln went to the Strevell house to spend the night. Strevell and Lincoln stayed up late, talking about politics, slavery, and other national and local issues of the day.

Strevell moved from Pontiac to Montana in 1879, where he reestablished himself as an involved citizen of Miles City. His son, Charles, took up residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he devoted his life to archeology. Before the Strevell's left Pontiac, they removed the door jam which was marked with Lincoln's height, and it was subsequently placed in the Salt Lake City museum started by Charles Strevell. Jason Strevell died on February 17, 1903.

Born near Lexington, Kentucky on November 10, 1807, Stuart graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1826. Having then studied law, he was admitted to the bar in 1828, and commenced practice in Springfield, Illinois.

Stuart first met Lincoln while they both served in the Black Hawk War of 1832, and remained friends for sometime after. While serving in the Illinois State Legislature between 1832 and 1836, he encouraged Lincoln to study law and the two subsequently became law partners. Their partnership lasted from 1837 and 1841.

Stuart was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for election in 1836 to the Twenty-fifth Congress. He was, however, elected as a Whig to the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Congresses…winning over Stephen Douglas in 1838. He was not a candidate the next time in 1842 and then established a law partnership with Benjamin S. Edwards in 1843, a partnership that would last for forty years.

Serving as a member of the Illinois Senate between 1848 and1852, he was an unsuccessful Constitutional-Union candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1860, but was soon elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-eighth Congress (1863-1865), and served while Lincoln was president. He was defeated in 1864 by Republican Shelby Moore Cullom, a Lincoln ally. Following his defeat in 1864, Stuart resumed the practice of law in Springfield. He died there and was interred in the Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Stuart was a favorite cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln and as a member of Congress after his election in 1862 over Republican Leonard Swett was a frequent visitor at the White House even though he was an anti-emancipation Democrat.

Leonard Swett was born near Turner, Maine, 11 August, 1825 and was educated at North Yarmouth academy and Waterville (now Colby university), but amazingly did not receive a degree. Having read law in Portland, Swett enlisted as a soldier in the Mexican War and then settled in Bloomington, Illinois in 1848.

At that time, Swett travelled the the Eighth Judicial Circuit, and became an intimate friend of both Abraham Lincoln and David Davis. In 1852-'61 he took an active part in politics, canvassing the state several times. In 1856, Leonard Swett lost the Republican nomination for Congress to Owen Lovejoy before being elected to the State Legislature in 1858. Alexander McClure once observed, "Of all living men, Leonard Swett was the one most trusted by Abraham Lincoln." Swett himself said: "It seems to me I have tried a thousand lawsuits with or against Lincoln and I have known him as intimately as I have known any man in my life." He was later, having moved his practice to Chicago following Lincoln's death, one of the parties responsible for organizing the hearing that would see Mary Todd Lincoln committed.

In 1858, at the special request of Mr. Lincoln, Swett was a candidate for the legislature on the Republican ticket, and was elected by a large majority. This is the only official place he has ever held. When Mr. Lincoln became president Mr. Swett was employed in the trial of government cases, one of the most noted of which was that for the acquisition of the California quicksilver-mines in 1863. In the course of his practice Mr. Swett has defended twenty men indicted for murder, securing the acquittal of nineteen, and a light punishment for the other one. He has also been retained in criminal cases in nearly every part of the country, though his professional work has been mainly devoted to civil suits. His success is attributed to his careful personal attention to details and his eloquence as an advocate. He has rendered much gratuitous service to workingmen, servants, and other poor clients. In 1865 he removed to Chicago and delivered the oration at the unveiling of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in that city on October 22, 1887. He died on June 8, 1889.

Born near Paris, Kentucky in 1814, Thornton attended the common schools and Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. He graduated from Miami University, Ohio, in 1834, studied law under his uncle, John R. Thornton, and was admitted to the bar. Shortly thereafter, he commenced practice in Shelbyville, Illinois, in 1836.

A Major in the military during the war with Mexico, he served as delegate to the State constitutional conventions in 1847 and 1862 and as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1851-52. In 1856 he held a joint political debate with Abraham Lincoln, a fellow attorney, with whom he had many dealings, in Shelbyville, Illinois.

Thornton was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-ninth Congress in 1865, but was not a candidate for re-election in the following term. He resumed the practice of law and was eventually appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois from 1870 to 1873. He died at the age of 90 in Shelbyville, Illinois, on September 10, 1904 and was interred in Glenwood Cemetery.

Samuel Hubbel Treat was born on June 21, 1811, in Otsego County, New York, near Plainfield. Treat studied law in New York and was admitted to the bar after spending his formative years working his father's farm and attending local schools. With the westward migration of so many of the greatest minds of that generation, 1834, he moved to Illinois and settled in Springfield.

In May of 1839, Governor Thomas Carlin appointed Treat as a judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, but when the Democratic majority of the Illinois General Assembly expanded the Illinois Supreme Court in February of 1841 from four to nine members, they elected Treat to a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court. Each justice presided over county circuit courts in a specific region, and Treat was responsible for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the east-central portion of the state, Abraham Lincoln's stomping-ground.

When the new Illinois Constitution in 1848 reduced the size of the Illinois Supreme Court to three elected justices and relieved them of circuit court duty, Judge David Davis replaced Treat on the circuit. Treat, however, retained his seat on the Illinois Supreme Court and became its chief justice.

As judge of the circuit courts of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, Treat oversaw at least nine hundred cases in which Lincoln was an attorney. During his time on at the Illinois Supreme Court, Treat was a justice in 167 cases in which Lincoln was an attorney.

In March 1855, President Franklin Pierce appointed Treat to the position of judge of the newly created United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, a position he held for more than thirty years. Treat served continuously in the judiciary for forty-eight years.

Treat died March 27, 1887, in Springfield, Illinois, and at the time of his death was the oldest active judge in the US Court system. Treat was buried with no marker, virtually lost to the ages, until a monument was erected in 2008 as a result of the hard work of the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Illinois State Bar Association.

Horatio M. Vandeveer was born on March 1, 1816, in Washington County, Indiana and moved to Sangamon County with his family to farm near Clear Creek in 1829. Making the acquaintance of John T. Stuart, who would later become Lincoln's first law partner, Vandeveer studied law using books from Stuart's library and in the meantime taught school from 1836 until 1839, when he was admitted to the bar.

After assisting in the organization of Christian County, Horatio Vandeveer built the first house in Taylorville (the county seat), and in the first election there in 1839, he was elected county recorder. Later, he was appointed school commissioner and clerk of the circuit court where he befriended Abraham Lincoln, and eventually became a judge and state legislator.

In 1843, he was elected justice of the peace and soon after was appointed the Taylorville postmaster. When the Mexican War began, Vandeveer raised a company of volunteers and served as their captain and eventually President James K. Polk appointed him assistant quartermaster in the United States army with the rank of captain. In 1849, he was elected to a four-year term as county judge on the Democratic ticket, and was reelected four years later. In 1860 Vandeveer was elected to the state legislature, and in 1862, he was elected to the state senate. In 1868, he established the H.M. Vandeveer & Sons Bank with his son William. Another son, Eugene, became a partner in 1876. The bank was the second wealthiest bank in the state in the late 1800s, and the family provided funds to build Vandeveer High School, now Taylorville High School. In June of 1870, he was elected judge of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit and was reelected in 1873.

Despite all the Vandeveers did to establish Taylorville, the Vandeveer name eventually died out because there were no male heirs after he died on March 12, 1894 in Taylorville, Illinois.

Born in North Carolina, Warnick was among the first settlers of Macon County in 1825 by way of Tennessee. He Founded the Macon County Sheriff's Office and was the first county sheriff, holding the job from 1825 until 1839 and then again in 1840 for two more years. When Lincoln's family came to Macon County to live in 1830, Lincoln split fence rails and plowed fields as a hired hand for Warnick. During this time Lincoln recovered for three weeks from frostbite on his feet at the Warnick Home and is said to have read his first law books there. In 1839 and again in 1849-1852 Warnick would either hire Lincoln as his attorney or be involved with him in 3 legal cases.

He was in the Black Hawk war, and participated in the famous Stillman's Defeat, where he received a slight flesh wound and was also captain of the rangers during the same time period. Warnick, as sheriff of the county, whipped two men by order of the court, giving them 39 lashes apiece. This was the only punishment of the kind ever inflicted in the county.

Sheriff Warnick was a personal friend of young Abe Lincoln when the Lincoln family lived in the general area of Warnick's tavern. Local stories recount that much later, Lincoln read his first law books while recovering from falling in a frozen river while at Sheriff Warnick's home.

While Lincoln worked for several years as a hired-hand for his father on the Warnick farm, many years later in 1849 William Warnick engaged Lincoln and Joel Post to handle a case to recover some land that had been taken from him in payment of a judgment.

In 1854, at age 23, Henry C. Whitney relocated to Urbana and entered the practice of law. "I became acquainted with Lincoln," Whitney wrote over three decades later. "It was about the time of my first appearance at the bar. I did not feel the slightest delicacy in approaching him for assistance; for it seemed as if he invited me to familiarity if not close intimacy at once; and this from no selfish motive at all - nothing but pure philanthropy and goodness of heart to a young lawyer just beginning his career." Whitney became a friend and political ally of Mr. Lincoln and lawyer from Urbana with whom he worked on Illinois circuit.