Bennett, Isaac R.

Born: 1799-XX-XX Bourbon County, Kentucky

Died: 1881-06-24 Virginia, Illinois

Isaac R. Bennett was a farmer, army soldier, county judge, state legislator, teacher, and justice of the peace. Bennett emigrated to Illinois, and, in 1821, settled in Morgan County, Illinois, where he taught school for a short period. In April 1823, Bennett married Mary (Polly) Jones, with whom he had eleven children. In 1831, Bennett purchased eighty acres of public land near Yatesville in northeast Morgan County. He acquired another thirty-nine acres in the area in 1835. Upon the commencement of the Black Hawk War, he volunteered for service in the Illinois State Militia, serving as second lieutenant of Captain Allen F. Lindsey's company. In 1850, he was farming his land and owned real property valued at $3,000. In 1853, Morgan County voters elected him as an associate judge of the county, and in 1854, he won election, as a Democrat, to the Illinois House of Representatives, representing Scott County from January to February 1855. After his term in the Illinois House, Bennett returned to farming his land in Morgan County. He also served as a justice of the peace for many years.

Gil R. Stormont, History of Gibson County Indiana (Indianapolis, IN: B. F. Bowen, 1914), 788-89; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Morgan County, ed. by William F. Short (Chicago: Munsell, 1906), 646, 650, 652, 701; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Sangamon County, 10 April 1823, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Morgan County, 68:116, 69:14, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 80; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Morgan County, IL, 227; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220; List of Members of the Illinois Legislature in 1855; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Morgan County, IL, 125; St. Louis Globe-Democrat (MO), 25 June 1881, 4:5; Illinois Statewide Death Index, Cass County, 24 June 1881, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL.