Scott County Biographies
John McAuley PalmerSenate Years of Service: 1891-1897
Party: DemocratPALMER, John McAuley, (1817 - 1900)
PALMER, John McAuley, a Senator from Illinois; born at Eagle Creek, Scott County, Ky., September 13, 1817; moved with his family to Madison County, Ill., in 1831; attended the common schools of Kentucky and Illinois; in 1834 entered Alton (later Shurtleff) College, where he remained two years; taught school, peddled clocks, and studied law 1835-1838; admitted to the bar in 1839 and practiced in Carlinville, Ill., 1839-1861; probate judge of Macoupin County in 1843 and 1847; member of the State constitutional convention in 1847; county judge 1849-1852; member, State senate 1852-1854, 1856; unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress in 1859; presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1860; member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; during the Civil War was appointed colonel of the Fourteenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry in 1861, and was mustered out as a major general in 1866; settled in Springfield, Ill., in 1867; Republican Governor of Illinois 1869-1873; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1888;elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1891, to March 3, 1897; chairman, Committee on Pensions (Fifty-third Congress); was not a candidate for reelection in 1896; resumed the practice of law; unsuccessful candidate for president of the United States as a Gold Democrat in 1896; died in Springfield, Ill., September 25, 1900; interment in Carlinville City Cemetery, Carlinville, Ill. [Source: American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Palmer, George T. A Conscientious Turncoat: The Story of John M. Palmer, 1817-1900. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941; Palmer, John M. Personal Recollections of John M. Palmer: The Story of an Ernest Life. Cincinnati: R. Clarke Co., 1901. ] Submitted by K. Torp
SIDNEY S. PULLEN, jeweler, Brazil, was born in Scott County, Ky., July 26, 1829, and was the son of Gonel B. and Anna Pullen, both natives of Kentucky. He of German and Scotch descent, she of Scotch and Welsh lineage. In 1832, the parents came to Crawfordsville, Ind., where they remained until 1845, when they moved to Bloomington, Ind. Sidney never attended school but one year until he was old enough to maintain himself and pay his own expenses, but worked with his father, who was a baker, and also learned the shoemakers trade, which calling he followed seventeen years, when he entered the printing office of his brother, who was editor of the Bloomington Reporter, and, after working at the printer's trade three years, was obliged, on account of failing health, to abandon the business. He then became his father's partner in a bakery, and followed that trade until 1865, when, having accumulated some means, he started a jewelry establishment, hired a foreman, and worked with him until he became a skillful workman. His marriage occurred January 9, 1853, to Eliza K. Baker. To this marriage were born six children, viz., Isaac M, William E., Maggie L., Charles S., Elizabeth (deceased) and Flora, who died, aged five years. Mr. Pullen and his wife joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852, and for ten years he has been Class Leader. He is a member of the I. O. O. F., United Workmen and Knights of Honor. In politics, he is a Republican. Coming to Brazil in 1868, when the city was in its infancy, Mr. Pullen has by his exemplary conduct, risen to high social and business standing. [Source: Counties of Clay & Owen Indiana Historical & Biographical; Illustrated by Charles Blanchard, Editor; 1884; Transcribed by Charlotte Slater; May 2011]
WILLIAM CHRISTY
Georgetown, KY (Scott Co.)
New Orleans, LA (Orleans Parish)
Christy, William, soldier, lawyer, merchant, author, was born Dec. 6, 1791, in Georgetown, Ky. He served under Harrison in the war of 1812; and subsequently became a merchant of New Orleans. He published a Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
[Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States, by William Herringshaw, 1909 – Transcribed by Therman Kellar]
