History of Fulton County, Illinois; together with
Sketches of its Cities, Villages and Townships, Educational, Religious,
Civil, Military, and Political History; Portraits of Prominent Persons
and Biographies of Representative Citizens. Chas. C. Chapman & Co.,
Peoria, Illinois, 1879, page 657, Farmers' Township
Robert F. Francis, a native of England, was born May 22, 1843;
came to this country when but 4 years old, and remained in New York 5
years, when he came to Schuyler Co., Ill., where he received a
common-school education. He was reared on a farm; served 4 years in the
late war, and was a prisoner 10 months and 2 weeks in that most fearful
of all dens, Andersonville. He weighed 150 pounds when he entered the
prison and was reduced to 72 pounds when weighed in St. Louis, and had
been out of the prison a month. He will always be known as one of the
heroes of Andersonville. His father, John Francis, was a coach-painter,
and died in Chicago in May, 1874. Our subject was married Nov. 22,
1868, to Mary Walker, by whom he has 4 children. She being a widow, had
3 children before he married her.
