Madison County, Illinois - Chapter 10: Political and Legislative, 1912

First County Election - In the General Assembly (1818-1912) - Judge John Y. Saw¬ yer - Lincoln and Gillespie - Veteran of the Legislature - Other Prominent Mem¬ bers - "Sons of Their Fathers."

As stated heretofore, the territory of Illinois was at first organized without representation of the people in governmental affairs, but in 1812 a representative legislature was organized consisting of a legislative council and a house of representatives. Prior to that the governor and judges formed the legislative body which enacted all the laws and the governor ap¬ pointed all territorial and local officials, but it having been provided in the law of congress, dividing the territory of Indiana into two separate governments that "so much of the ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio as relates to the organ¬ ization of a general assembly therein shall be in force and operate in the Illinois territory whenever satisfactory evidence shall be given to the governor thereof that such is the wish of a majority," and the governor having re¬ ceived several petitions from citizens praying for the organization of a general assembly - that official, on the 14th of March, 1812, is¬ sued a proclamation directing that an election be held on the second Monday of April of that year and continue three successive days at the court house of each county, at which the free¬ holders of each county would have an oppor¬ tunity of expressing their wishes on the sub¬ ject mentioned.

The said election resulted in a majority of the electors expressing their opinion in favor of going into what was known as the second grade of territorial government, and the gov¬ ernor thereupon, on the 14th of September, 1812, at Kaskaskia, issued his proclamation ordering that elections be held in the several counties of the territory, on the 8th, 9th and 10th days of October following, for the pur¬ pose of electing a delegate to congress, mem¬ bers to the council and representatives to the assembly. The election in Madison county was ordered to be held at the house of Thomas Kirkpatrick. There were then five organized counties in the territory and the governor as¬ signed one representative to Madison, two to St. Clair, one to Randolph, two to Gallatin and one to Johnson counties. It is interesting to note that the county of Madison was organized on this same date, September 14, 1812, and therefore was just in time to be represented in the first general assembly. The centennial an¬ niversary of the county, therefore, and the institution of judicial procedure therein, is also the centennial anniversary of its obtain¬ ing the right to representation in the legisla¬ ture, making the date doubly significant and worthy of commemoration.

The election was held on the aforesaid dates in October, 1812, and resulted in the election of Shadrach Bond as the delegate in congress, and the following members of the legislative council : From Madison county, Samuel Judy; from St. Clair, William Biggs; from Randolph, Pierre Menard; from Galla¬ tin, Benjamin Talbott; from Johnson, Thomas Ferguson.

House of representatives: From Madison, William Jones; from Randolph, George Fisher; from Gallatin, Philip Trammel and Alexander Wilson; from Johnson, John Grammer; from St. Clair, Joshua Oglesby and Jacob Short.

These members constituted the first general assembly of the territory of Illinois, the legis¬ lative council corresponding to the state senate. This first general assembly was con¬ vened at Kaskaskia, November 25, 1812. Pierre Menard was elected president of the council and George Fisher, speaker of the house. Thus Randolph county secured the honor of furnishing both presiding officers.

In the second territorial assembly Madison county was represented in the council by Sam¬ uel Judy and in the house by William Rabb. At a second session of the legislature, in De¬ cember and January, 1815-16, John G. Lofton appears as the representative of Madison county. Benjamin Stephenson, of Madison, was elected delegate to congress.

The third general assembly of the territory was elected in 1816 and convened December 2d at Kaskaskia. John G. Lofton represented Madison county in the council, being pro¬ moted from the house. The name of the member of the house of representatives at this session I have not been able to ascertain. Nathaniel Pope was elected delegate to con¬ gress in 1816.

Fourth general assembly, 1824-6: Senate, Theophilus W. Smith, first session, (re¬ signed) ; second session (seriate), Joseph Conway; house, Curtis Blakeman, George Churchill and William Otwell.

Seventeenth general assembly, 1850-2 : Sen¬ ate, Joseph Gillespie; house, Andrew Miller, Nelson G. Edwards and Samuel A. Buckmaster (vice Edwards, resigned).

Twenty-third general assembly, 1862-4: Senate (unrepresented) ; house, Samuel A. Buckmaster (speaker). Legislature pro¬ rogued by Governor Yates.

Thirty-eighth general assembly, 1892-4: Senate, John W. Coppinger (president pro tern) ; house, Michael J. Gill, Conrad A. Ambrosius and Thomas T. Ramey.

Forty-sixth general assembly, 1908-10: Senate, George M. McCormick; house, Joseph G. Bardill, Norman G. Flagg and M. S. Link (seat unsuccessfully contested by J. T. Calla¬ han).

Forty-seventh general assembly, 1910-12: Senate, Edmund Beall; house, Norman G. Flagg, Jos. G. Bardill and William Dickman (seat unsuccessfully contested by J. P. Thomas).

One of the notable men of the early days of the county was Judge John York Sawyer, who, as lawyer, judge, member of legislature, schoolmaster and editor was a prominent fig¬ ure. He was born at Reading, Vermont, March 7, 1788 son of Benjamin and Sally York Sawyer. He studied law with Judge Aiken of Windsor, but his legal education was interrupted by the War of 1812 in which he served as ensign and lieutenant of the Thirtyfirst Infantry, and acting judge advocate. After the war he was admitted to the bar and in 1816 moved to Illinois and located at Edwardsville in the practice of his profession. He became successively justice of the peace, judge of probate, recorder of deeds and in 1824 was elected by the legislature judge of the First Judicial circuit, an office he filled with credit until the legislature repealed the circuit court system in 1826. Judge Sawyer then moved to Wisconsin where he remained a short time and then returned to Edwardsville where he engaged for a short time in teaching school. He was elected to the legis¬ lature in 1830-2. He established the Illinois Ploughboy in 1830 and later combined it with the Illinois Advocate which he purchased. In 1832 Mr. Sawyer was elected state printer by the legislature and removed the Advocate to Vandalia, then the capital. He died March 18, 1836, aged forty-eight years. He was an older brother of Hon. S. T. Sawyer of Alton.

Cyrus Edwards was a member of the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth and Twentieth assemblies, serving in both senate and house. He was one of the most distinguished men connected with the history of Madison county.

Mr. Edwards was a native of Montgomery county, Maryland, and was born June 17, 1793. He was the ninth of fourteen children born to his parents, Benjamin and Margaret Beall Edwards and was a younger brother of Ninian Edwards, territorial and state gover¬ nor. The Edwards family removed to Ken¬ tucky in 1800 where the elder brother had preceded them six years earlier. Cyrus Ed¬ wards was educated mainly at a private acad¬ emy and at the age of nineteen began the study of law with his brother, Presly Edwards. He was admitted to the bar at Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1815. He then located at Potosi, Missouri, and began the practice of law, but in 1819 re¬ turned to his former home in Elkton, Ken¬ tucky, where he was married to Miss Nancy Reed, a beautiful and accomplished young woman then in her sixteenth year. He re¬ mained in Kentucky and Missouri until 1829, when he removed with his wife and five chil¬ dren to Edwardsville, Illinois, named after his brother. He served in the legislature from 1832 to 1840; in 1838 was the Whig candidate for governor and was defeated by Thomas Carlin by the small margin of 996 votes. This was the nearest the Whigs ever came to carrying Illinois. Edwards was defeated by illegal votes cast by foreign laborers on the Illinois and Michigan canal. He was twice the minority candidate of his party for United States senator, in the legislature. He did not reenter public life until 1847, when he was a member of the constitutional convention. After a period of retirement on his estate at Woodland, near Upper Alton, he was again induced to become a candidate for the legisla¬ ture, and was elected on the Republican ticket. This was his closing public service. Only the fact of his belonging to the minority party prevented his receiving the highest honors the state could bestow.

Mr. Edwards was a warm friend of public education. He was long interested in Shurtleff College, made it a donation of lands valued at $10,000, and was for thirty-five years chair¬ man of its board of trustees. In the legisla¬ ture he gave special attention to the interests of educational and charitable institutions and was greatly instrumental in establishing the first Normal school at Normal, Illinois. He was ever a firm believer in Christian doctrine and in his eighty-second year confirmed his faith by uniting with the Baptist church of Upper Alton. In 1852 he received the honor¬ ary degree of LL. D. from Shurtleff College, Mr. Edwards' first wife died in 1834. She was the mother of eight children, none of whom survive but have left numerous de¬ scendants. In 1837 he married Miss Sophia Loomis, a daughter of Rev. Hubbel Loomis and a sister of the famous astronomer and mathematician, Professor Elias Loomis, of

Yale College. By his second wife he had four children, three of whom survive: Mrs. Mary Beall Hopkins, of Alton ; Mrs. Margaret G. Lea, of Atchison, Kansas, and William Wirt Edwards, of Jerseyville, Illinois.

In person Mr. Edwards was of command¬ ing and dignified presence, six feet two inches tall, and of genial personality. He lived to a good old age and left behind him a record of distinguished service and of philanthropic en¬ deavor. He was one of the grand characters that made Madison county famous, for all history is but the biography of the great men who made its several epochs eventful.

Joseph Conway was a prominent man in the early history of the county. He was a Sena¬ tor in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Assemblies. In 1834 he received in¬ ducements to remove to the newly organized county of Rock Island and thereupon trans¬ ferred his residence and disappears from the annals of Madison, but had a long and honored career as a citizen and official of Rock Island.

Joseph Gillespie, the eminent jurist and statesman, the friend and associate of Abra¬ ham Lincoln, had a long and honorable career in the legislature from this county, as shown in the above record. He was a Whig in poli¬ tics and subsequently a Republican. He was a candidate for reelection to the senate of the Twenty-first assembly, but was defeated by Col. S. A. Buckmaster in a contest which had national significance. It was the memorable campaign of 1858 which Lincoln and Douglas made famous by their joint debates in their contest for United States senator. Their cam¬ paign was for the control of the legislature, and each of the two great disputants took a keen interest in the result in every senatorial district. Before recounting the connection of Madison county with this campaign I wish to quote, as an introduction, a tribute to Judge

One of the connecting links between the earlier and later Illinois, who in his career as a lawyer, a magistrate and a citizen, has illustrated the history of Illinois for more than half a century, this paper is dedicated, as a slight token of the profound re¬ spect and high esteem in which he is held by the Writer."

Lincoln has been ably portrayed in number¬ less biographies as the ideal patriot and states¬ man ; the great emancipator, the vivifier of the constitution and the savior of the Union, but little has been written of him as the keen, sa¬ gacious, practical politician, and yet he was one of the most adroit politicians in the land. His finger was ever on the pulse of the people. He knew when the body politic needed a stimulant and when a febrifuge. An interest¬ ing instance of his political painstaking is fur¬ nished in two letters written to Judge Gilles¬ pie during the campaign of 1858. Mr. Lin¬ coln had been nominated for United States senator by the Republican convention that met at Springfield January 16, 1858. Of course he was naturally desirous of being elected. His nomination was only a recommendation and his success depended not on the popular vote, but on securing the election of a majority of the Republican members of the Legislature. This fact explains the situation under which the appended letters were written :

Hon. Joseph Gillespie: - My dear sir: I write this to say that from the specimens of Douglas Democracy we occasionally see here from Madison, we learn that they are making very confident calcula¬ tions of beating you and your friends for the house in that county. They offer to bet upon it; Billings and Job have been up here and were each, as I learn, talking largely about it. If they do so it will be only by carrying the Fillmore vote of 1856. Very differ¬ ently from what they seem to be doing in the other part. Below is the vote of your district in 1856:

By this you will see, if you go through the calcula¬ tion, that if they get four-fifths and you get one-fifth you beat them 179. In Madison, alone, if our friends get 1,000 of the Fillmore votes and their opponents the remainder, 658, we win by just two votes. This shows the whole field on the basis of 1856. Whether since then any Buchanan or Fremont votes have shifted ground, and how the majority of new voters will go, you can judge better than I. Of course you, on the ground, can better determine your tactics than any one off the ground, but it behooves you to be wide awake and actively working. Don't neglect this and write me at your first leisure.

There seems to be no copy of Judge Gilles¬ pie's reply, but it is evident from Lincoln's rejoinder that the judge had the blues when he replied to the first letter and must have inti¬ mated to Mr. Lincoln that Messrs. Billings and Job had figured the situation correctly in their representations at Springfield. Lincoln's reply was prompt and is given below :

Hon. Joseph Gillespie: - My dear sir: Your dole¬ ful letter of the 18th was received on my return from Chicago last night. I hope you are worse scared than hurt, though you ought to know best. We must not lose the district. We must make a job of it and save it. Lay hold of all the proper agencies and secure all the Americans (Fillmoreites) you can at once. I do hope on closer inspection you will find they are not half gone. Make a little test. Run down one if the poll books of the 'Edwardsville precinct and take the first hundred of known American names. Then quietly ascertain how many of them are actually go¬ ing for Douglas. I think you will find less than fifty. But even if you find fifty make sure of the other fifty ; that is, make sure of all you can, at all events. We will set other agencies to work which shall compen¬ sate for the loss of a good many Americans. Don't fail to check the stampede at once. Trumbull, I think, will be with you before long. There is much that he

The Fillmore men in 1856 had cast over one third of the total vote of the district and car¬ ried Madison county, but they had no' ticket in the field in 1858 and the problem Lincoln was trying to solve was what they would do with their votes. The sequel showed that while a small majority of them went to the Republi¬ cans in this county enough went to the Demo¬ crats to give the district to the latter. The interest shown by Lincoln in this county was an illuminating illustration of his methods as a politician. At the general election in Novem¬ ber the Democrats carried the district by a small majority and Colonel Buckmaster was elected over Judge Gillespie. The former car¬ ried Madison county by a majority of 184 votes, receiving 2,221 to 2,037 f°r Gillespie. The Democratic candidates for the House, Z. B. Job and Jos. H. Sloss, received about the same majority over the Republican candidates, Isaac Cox and the veteran legislator Curtis Blakeman. In the legislature Douglas had 54 votes to 46 for Lincoln. Had this district gone Republican Douglas would have had but two majority. Two of the legislative candi¬ dates in this campaign lived to a great age ; Z. B. Job died October 20, 1907, aged ninety years and six months - honored and esteemed by his fellow citizens. Jos. H. Sloss died in 1910, also aged over ninety years. When the war broke out he went south to his native state, Alabama, and entered the southern army, but during the reconstruction period he espoused the Republican cause and served as a representative from Alabama in the national congress.

Hon. H. W. Billings, who is spoken of in Lincoln's first letter, was a distinguished law¬ yer, and judge of the city court of Alton for a number of years. He was a member of the

Col. S. A. Buckmaster, Judge Gillespie's opponent for state senator in that historic cam¬ paign, was a leader of his party in the state for many years. He was a representative in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third and Thirtieth assemblies and senator in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second. He was a speaker of the house in the Twenty-third as¬ sembly which Governor Yates prorogued in June, 1862. He was twice an unsuccessful can¬ didate for governor in the conventions of his party, and was a delegate to the Charleston and Baltimore Democratic conventions. He was an early settler of Alton and was for some years warden of the State Peniten¬ tiary. At the time of his election as speaker of the house he was characterized by a local newspaper as possessed of the suavitur in modo et fortitcr in res requisite in the accom¬ plishments of a presiding officer.

Hon. Joseph Gillespie, of Edwardsville, had a career that was an honor to Madison county. He was an almost life-long friend of Lincoln and his political confidant. They served to¬ gether in the Black Hawk war, were associated in the legislature in their still early manhood, and were closely related thereafter. Judge Gillespie was one of the notable men of his generation and left a notable impress on the legislation of the state and its judicial records. He was born in New York August 22, 1809, of Scotch-Irish parents and grew to manhood on a farm. He studied law with Hon. Cyrus Ed¬ wards and subsequently served in the legisla¬ ture with his preceptor. In the Eighteenth general assembly he was the Whig candidate for United States senator. He presided over the Republican state convention of i860 which nominated Richard Yates for governor. He rounded out his career on the circuit bench where he presided from 1861 to 1867, having served fourteen years in the legislature.

George Churchill served longer in the legis¬ lature than any other member from this county, his service in the house and senate covering sixteen years. In the Third assembly he voted against the resolution for a conven¬ tion to revise the constitution in favor of slav¬ ery, and was burned in effigy at Troy, this county, by his pro-slavery constituents, as was his associate Risdon Moore of St. Clair. But notwithstanding his strong anti-slavery views he was elected as senator to the next assembly. Further notes of his career appear elsewhere.

Curtis Blakeman, an early settler of Marine and prominent anti-slavery leader, served ten years in the general assembly, beginning with the Third.

Gen. James Semple, of Alton, served in the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth assemblies and was speaker of the last two. He was attorney gen¬ eral in 1833 and was subsequently justice of the supreme court, minister to a South Ameri¬ can state and United States senator. He died in 1867 at his estate on the bluffs above Elsah.

George Cadwell served as senator from Madison in the First and Second assemblies and also a senator from Greene and Pike (daughters of Madison) in the Third. A notice of him appears elsewhere.

George Smith was another prominent pio¬ neer resident of Upper Alton. He was a rep¬ resentative in the Eleventh assembly and sena¬ tor in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth.

Willard C. Flagg, one of the most eminent men Madison county ever produced, was a prominent Republican senator in the Twentysixth and Twenty-seventh assemblies.

Daniel B. Gillham, one of the leading agri¬ culturists of the state and a descendant of the noted pioneer family of that name, served with distinction in the house of the Twentyseventh assembly and in the senate of the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth assemblies.

John M. Pearson, of Godfrey, a leading farmer and manufacturer and one of the best equipped men Madison county ever sent to the legislature, served with great usefulness in the Thirty-first, Thirty-second and Thirty-third assemblies. He was also an efficient member of the board of railroad and warehouse com¬ missioners. He was a leader in Masonic cir¬ cles, and at one time was the head of the order in the state. He was a son-in-law of Capt. Benjamin Godfrey, the founder of Monticello Seminary.

W. F. L. Hadley, a brilliant young lawyer, was a senator in the Thirty-fifth and Thirtysixth assemblies. He was later a member of congress. His early death cut short an emi¬ nently notable career which is spoken of else¬ where.

Nathaniel Buckmaster, a pioneer settler and a relative of Col. S. A. Buckmaster, was a member of the Second and Ninth assemblies, and filled many local offices of distinction.

David Rhodes Sparks, a soldier of the Mex¬ ican and Civil wars and the leading miller of Illinois, was a member of the house in the Thirty-sixth and of the senate in the Fortieth assemblies.

Col. A. F. Rogers, representative in the Twenty-seventh assembly, also a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars, still survives in an honored old age. Sketches of the careers of these two patriotic soldiers appear in the biographical section of this work.

George M. McCormick, of Collinsville, sena¬ tor in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth assem¬ blies, also1 filled various county offices. He served in an Ohio regiment during the war, was wounded at. Chickamauga and left for dead on the field. When he returned to con¬ sciousness he was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy and suffered much in southern pris¬ ons. His comrades wrote home that he had been killed and his funeral sermon was preached at his home church in Ohio.

the Thirty-ninth assembly. He died in office. He was mainly instrumental in the legislature in procuring an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars from the state in aid of the Lovejoy monument. He had been mayor of Alton and filled other local offices. He was likewise a soldier, having enlisted at the age of fifteen and served through the Civil war.

John W. Coppinger, of Alton, was senator in the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh assem¬ blies and was president pro tern of the latter. He had been mayor of Alton and was United States consul to Toronto under Cleveland.

Col. John J. Brenholt, of Alton, was a sen¬ ator in the Forty-first and Forty-second as¬ semblies, and was president pro tern of the lat¬ ter. During the absence of both the governor and lieutenant governor from the state he was acting governor for a few days. He had also been mayor.

Among the distinguished men who were sent to the legislature before the war were Robert Smith, later member of congress ; Newton D. Strong, brother of William Strong, associate justice United States supreme court; W. F. DeWolf, Edward Keating and William Martin. There were also Judge John Bailhache, editor of the Alton Telegraph, who met a tragic death in a runaway accident and John Hogan, a Methodist minister and later a mem¬ ber of congress from St. Louis.

Among other prominent figures after the war were A. W. Metcalf, of Edwardsville, an eminent lawyer and state senator; Hon. John H. Yager, of Alton, state senator, whose ca¬ reer is noted elsewhere; Daniel Kerr, of Al¬ ton, member of the house, and later member of congress from Iowa.

Also William H. Krome, of Edwardsville, state senator, lawyer and banker, and Hon. W. R. Prickett, also of Edwardsville, a lead¬ ing banker, both of whom rendered distin¬

Hon. George Alton Smith, an Alton mer¬ chant, also served with distinction in the legis¬ lature, as did Hon. George H. Weigler, a pioneer German resident of Alton, who filled many local offices and died in 1910, being over ninety years of age.

Louis E. Walter, a leading representative of Union labor and a glass blower by trade, served creditably in the house in the Fortysecond assembly and in the senate during the Forty-third and Forty-fourth.

One of the most notable events which ever occurred in the legislature having a national bearing, was the contest for United States Senator in 1855. Abraham Lincoln was the nominee of the Whigs, James Shields of the straight Democrats and Lyman Trumbull of the Anti-Nebraska Democrats. No candi¬ date had a majority. The Trumbull men who numbered five, included H. S. Baker and Dr. George T. Allen, of Alton. These five Anti- Nebraska Democrats stood solidly for Trum¬ bull, and finally, to prevent the election of a pro-slavery Democrat, Lincoln advised his supporters to vote for Trumbull and he was elected. Had the five Anti-Nebraska Demo¬ crats voted for Lincoln he would have been elected. In that event the joint debate be¬ tween Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, would not have taken place. That debate gave Lin¬ coln national prominence and gained him the nomination for president in i860. The de¬ feat of 1855 was the gateway to the victory of i860 and the five Anti-Nebraska Demo¬ crats, among whom were two from this county, without foreseeing the result of their votes, thus changed the personnel of the na¬ tional administration.

Hon. Henry S. Baker was a distinguished lawyer and for many years, judge of the city court of Alton. He was a man of brilliant intellect and a fine orator. He was a leading Republican but declined more political hon- ors than he accepted. He presided over the Republican State Convention of 1880. He was a son of former United States Senator David J. Baker, Sr.

Hon. George T. Allen was an early settler of Madison county and a prominent physi¬ cian. He was descended from the famous Vermont family of that name, of whom Gen. Ethan Allen of Revolutionary annals was the most prominent representative in history. Dr. Allen served through the Civil war as a divis¬ ion surgeon and medical inspector with the rank of colonel, and made a notable record. After the war he was appointed United States consul at Moscow, Russia, and filled that im¬ portant diplomatic position with great success. Later he was placed in charge of the United States Marine Hospital at St. Louis. His career was an honored and useful one in all its varied activities.

Physicians seldom consent to serve in the legislature owing to the absorbing character of their profession, but Dr. John S. Dewey, of Troy, found time to serve, and with great credit, in the Thirtieth and Thirty-first assemblies.

Senator Edmund Beall and Representatives N. G. Flagg, Jos. G. Bardill and William Dickman, present members of the legislature, are active and influential in the discharge of their public duties and are doubtless destined for still higher honors.

The sons of Madison county legislators do not seem to have followed in the footsteps of their fathers to any great extent, in seeking legislative honors. Why this is so is hard to explain. The early legislators left many able and influential descendants, but few of them seem to have had any taste or desire for this branch of the public service. In the early days the electors sent their ablest and brain¬ iest men to the general assembly, but, with the lapse of time and changes in view's in re¬ gard to office holding, the personnel of the legislatures as a whole, has deteriorated. Of course there are many shining examples of individual worth and talent among our later legislators, but in the main the legislatures do not, of late years, average well with the earlier representative bodies in unselfish devotion to the public good. Personal ambition and greed have gradually supplanted the higher virtues of patriotic devotion to the welfare of their constituents. Graft and greed, for¬ merly but little known, have intruded into the halls of the capitol to the detriment of the public service. But of this taint the legisla¬ tors of Madison county have been free. There seems to be but one exception on record and over that we draw the mantle of charity. An honest man by nature and of an honorable private life, he was tempted beyond his strength to resist.

But of sons who succeeded their fathers in the legislature from this county the examples we have are of those where the Roman virtues of the sires descended to the sons and have been exemplified in equally useful lives. An instance of this kind, I find is where Nelson G. Edwards, of Alton, succeeded his father, Cyrus Edwards, in the general assembly in i850-52. He was a young lawyer of brilliant talents, but resigned his seat on account of ill health and died at the early age of thirtytwo.

Another instance is that of George Alton Smith, of Alton, who succeeded his father, Senator George Smith, a man of sterling worth who was one of the pioneers of the county. The junior Smith inherited the noble qualities of his father.

His work in advancing the cause of agricul¬ ture and agricultural education, as well as education in general, has never been equaled. Himself a farmer, a graduate of Yale and a close student of economics, his work was in¬ valuable. He was succeeded in the Fortysixth and Forty-seventh assemblies by his son, Hon. Norman G. Flagg, whose career is equally honorable and useful.

All these men served with Lincoln in the several assemblies noted. Lincoln was also elected to the Nineteenth assembly, but re¬ fused his credentials in order to become a candidate for United States senator. Joseph Gillespie, George T. Allen and H. S. Baker, of Madison, were members of this assembly.

The Robert Smith, of Alton, named above, also served in the Thirtieth congress (1847- 9) with Lincoln, during the latter's one term in the house at Washington. Lincoln was a Whig and Smith a Demorcat, so they prob¬ ably advocated different policies, and were not kindred spirits.