American lawyer and public man, born in Frankfort, KY, on the 15th of April 1809; admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1833; appointed attorney-general of Illinois in 1834; a member of the legislature from 1836 to 1852. He served as superintendent of public instruction from 1854 to 1857. During the Civil War he acted as captain-commissary of subsistence. Early in his active life he married Elizabeth P. Todd, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. This relationship drew him into an intimate friendship with Lincoln, and caused him to take part in many of the great agitations of the day. He published, in 1870, The Life and Times of Ninian Edwards, and History of Illinois, a work of permanent value.
