Adams, Augustus

Born: 1806-05-10 Cayuga County, New York

Died: 1892-10-10 Illinois

Flourished: Elgin, Illinois

Augustus Adams was a manufacturer, state representative, state senator, and prominent citizen of Elgin, Illinois. Around 1837, Adams and his business partners established Augustus Adams & Company, a foundry that manufactured corn shellers--the first manufacturing plant for corn shellers in Elgin and Illinois. Later, Adams established a large manufacturing operation in Sandwich, Illinois. In 1850, Adams was operating his foundry and living in Elgin and owned real property valued at $1,500. In 1847, Adams represented Kane County at the Illinois State Constitutional Convention. In 1850, Kane County voters elected Adams, as a Whig, to the Illinois House of Representatives. He served in the Illinois House from January 1851 to June 1852. In 1854, Adams won election, as a Republican, to the Illinois Senate, serving in that body from January 1855 to February 1857. By 1860, Adams was living in Sandwich and operating his manufacturing facility. He died in Sandwich.

R. Waite Joslyn and Frank W. Joslyn, History of Kane County, Ill. (Chicago: Pioneer, 1908), 1:446, 447-48, 668, 729, 750; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 217-18, 220-21; Arthur Charles Cole, ed., The Constitutional Debates of 1847, vol. 14 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Constitutional Series (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1919), 2:949; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Elgin, Kane County, IL, 9; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sandwich, De Kalb County, IL, 251; Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Sandwich, IL.