John Peter Altgeld was an American politician and the 20th Governor of Illinois,serving from 1893 until 1897. He was the first Democrat to govern that state since the 1850s. A leading figure of the Progressive movement,Altgeld signed workplace safety and child labor laws,pardoned three of the men convicted in the Haymarket Affair,and rejected calls in 1894 to break up the Pullman strike by force. In 1896 he was a leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party,opposing President Grover Cleveland and the conservative Bourbon Democrats. He was defeated for reelection in 1896 in an intensely fought,bitter campaign.
John Marshall Hamilton was the 18th Governor of Illinois,serving from 1883 to 1885. Born in Union County,Ohio,Hamilton became interested in politics at a young age,joining the Wide Awakes when he was thirteen and the Union Army four years later. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University he studied law and was admitted to the bar. A notable attorney in Bloomington,Illinois,Hamilton was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1876. He served there until 1881,when he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois on a ticket with Shelby Moore Cullom. When Cullom resigned after election to the United States Senate,Hamilton became Governor of Illinois. He was not selected as a candidate for re-election,but did serve that year as a delegate to the 1884 Republican National Convention. He spent the rest of his life as an attorney in Chicago,where he died in 1905.
Joseph Wilson Fifer was the 19th governor of Illinois,serving from 1889 to 1893. He also served as a member of the Illinois Senate from 1881 to 1883.
Thomas Sterling was an American lawyer,politician,and academic who served as a member of the United States Senate and the first dean of the University of South Dakota College of Law.
Michael W. Frerichs is an American politician serving his third term as the State Treasurer of Illinois,after taking office on January 12,2015. Before being elected treasurer,he was a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate,representing the 52nd District from 2007 until 2015. The district,located in Champaign and Vermilion counties,includes all or parts of Champaign,Danville,Georgetown,Gifford,Rantoul,Thomasboro,and Urbana.
Benjamin Franklin Funk was a U.S. Representative from Illinois,father of Frank Hamilton Funk.
William Robert Warnock was an American lawyer,politician,and veteran of the Civil War who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1901 to 1905.
Isaac Funk was an American rancher and politician,originally from Kentucky. In the 1820s,he founded Funks Grove,Illinois,in McLean County,Illinois,with his brother and became a prominent cattle trader. Funk was elected to one term in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840. Despite several financial setbacks,Funk remained one of the wealthiest settlers in the area. He served in the Illinois Senate in the 1860s and died before his second term was complete. He was the patriarch of the Funk family and co-founded Illinois Wesleyan University.
The Funk Family is composed of Midwestern United States pioneers who did business in the fields of agriculture,politics,finance and civic life. Abraham Lincoln was one of Funk Farms' first attorneys and later served in the Illinois House of Representatives with Isaac Funk,who was a friend of Lincoln's and a booster when Lincoln ran for president. Funk and Lincoln were also responsible for bringing the Chicago &Alton Railroad through Bloomington-Normal in McLean County,detouring it from its originally planned route through Peoria.
Martin Reuben Merritt Wallace was a Union Army officer from October 12,1861,to November 3,1864,during the American Civil War. He was colonel of the 4th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry when he was mustered out of the volunteers on November 3,1864. In recognition of his service,in May 1866,he was nominated for appointment and confirmed to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers,to rank from March 13,1865.
Milton W. Mathews was an American attorney,publisher,and politician. Born and raised in Illinois,he practiced law in Champaign County before he was elected state's attorney. Mathews was also an important figure in the Modern Woodmen of America,serving as their chairman of the board of directors,and owned the Champaign County Herald. He was elected to the first of two terms in the Illinois Senate in 1888. During the second term he was named pro tempore President of the Illinois Senate,though he died before the term was complete.
George Washington Funk was an American rancher and politician from Illinois. The son of prominent state politician Isaac Funk,and a member of the Funk family,George W. Funk was tasked with dividing his father's vast holdings upon his death. Although he held similar political beliefs as his father,he was only elected to office once:to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1870 to a two-year term.
Duncan McArthur Funk was an American politician,banker,and rancher from Illinois. Born to Isaac Funk,patriarch of the Funk family,Funk left the family settlement to open a store in Bloomington,Illinois. Following his father's death,Funk tended to his share of his inherited property. Funk was president of the First National Bank of Bloomington and had financial interests in several others. He was elected to three consecutive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives.
William James Campbell was an American attorney and politician in Illinois. From Pennsylvania,he came with his parents to southern Cook County,Illinois at a young age. Campbell attended public schools,then the University of Pennsylvania and the Union Law School. He co-founded Campbell &Custer,a prominent law firm that represented industries. He served in the Illinois Senate from 1878 to 1886,quickly rising to become its president. From 1883 to 1885,this made him acting Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. After his Senate experience,he returned to his law firm and was a member of the Republican National Committee.
Isaac Newton Pearson was an American politician from Pennsylvania. Though born the son of a prominent politician,Newton's mother was soon widowed and moved the family to Illinois. Pearson started in politics as a clerk in the McDonough County,Illinois,circuit court. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives for one term,then to the Illinois Senate. In 1888,he was elected Illinois Secretary of State,a position he held for four years. He then returned to his business interests in Macomb,Illinois.
John Dougherty was an American politician from Ohio. After a stint mining and teaching,Dougherty became an understudy of Alexander Pope Field and was admitted to the bar. He served several terms in both the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate over the next twenty years. In 1868,he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.
Robert Boal was an American politician and physician from Pennsylvania. After schooling in Ohio,Boal moved to Lacon,Illinois,where he practiced medicine for thirty years. Boal was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1844,serving for four years. He returned to the General Assembly with an 1856 election to the Illinois House of Representatives. After serving a pair of two-year terms,he was made a trustee of the Illinois Institute of the Deaf and Dumb. During the Civil War,Boal examined soldiers from his congressional district. He later directed the Peoria State Hospital.
Nathaniel Holly Gates,also known as Colonel Gates for most of his life,(1811–1889) was an American pioneer lawyer and Oregon state legislator. He was an active Democrat throughout his life. He served four terms in Oregon's territorial legislature. This included one term as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives during the 1858 legislative session. After Oregon became a state in 1859,he served one two-year term in the Oregon House of Representatives and one four-year term in the Oregon State Senate. Before immigrating to Oregon,Gates lived and worked as a lawyer in Ohio and Iowa. After moving to Oregon,he settled in The Dalles and opened a law practice there. He helped develop that community and served as the city's mayor five times in non-consecutive terms.
John Sluyter Wirt was an American politician and lawyer from Maryland. He served in the Maryland Senate from 1890 to 1894 and the Maryland House of Delegates in 1898.
Rufus Lumry was an American circuit preacher and outspoken abolitionist. Ordained as an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church,then riven by conflict over slavery,Lumry was arraigned before its 1842 Illinois Annual Conference at Chicago for anti-slavery agitation,from which he was asked to desist. He replied that no man or group of men would put a padlock on his lips,and became a leading Illinois organizer of the new,staunchly abolitionist Wesleyan Methodist Church. Lumry unsuccessfully ran for the Illinois General Assembly on the abolitionist Liberty Party ticket in 1844 and helped found Wheaton College and its predecessor,the Illinois Institute in the 1850s and beginning of the 1860s–as well as the former Amity College in College Springs,Iowa. Lumry was a coworker with fellow abolitionists Ichabod Codding and Zebina Eastman. Of him,Owen Lovejoy said,"Lumry is a sharp thrashing instrument,having teeth wherewith the Lord thrasheth slavery."
