Blades, Franklin

Born: 1830-11-29 Indiana

Died: 1914-04-15 California

Born in Rush County, Indiana, Franklin "Frank" Blades was a doctor, lawyer, newspaper editor, state representative, and Republican. As a child his only education was what he learned at home and from private tutors, as there were few schools in Indiana at the time and none of them public. He nevertheless came to love reading and followed in his father's footsteps by studying medicine. In 1850, he lived in Marion County, Indiana, and worked in the medical field. In 1852, he graduated from Rush Medical College. He later also took post-graduate courses in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College. In 1854, he married Jane King, with whom he eventually had at least three children. In 1856, he won election to the Illinois House of Representatives as a Republican. He served a single term. Between 1856 and 1860, he also edited and published the Iroquois Republican. Blades studied law and gained admittance to the Illinois bar in 1858. That same year he served as a delegate to the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln as the party's candidate for the U.S. Senate. By 1860, he was working as a lawyer in Middleport, Illinois, and owned $2,400 in real and personal property. He also won election again to the Illinois House in 1860. During the Civil War he served as surgeon of the Seventy-Sixth Illinois Infantry, enrolling August 22, 1862 and discharging March 31, 1864. In the 1864 Federal Election, he served as a Republican presidential elector for Illinois and cast his ballot for Lincoln. He died in Pomona, California.

Paul M. Angle, Abraham Lincoln: By Some Men Who Knew Him (Chicago: Americana House, 1950), 76-77; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Marion County, IN, 424; U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, 1854, Indiana (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2004); Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 5 January 1857, 2:2; 17 June 1858, 2:3; Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 351; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Middleport, Iroquois County, IL, 182; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 221-23; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Ward 1, Watseka, Iroquois County, IL, 7; The Oregon Daily Journal (Portland), 15 April 1914, 15:7; Gravestone, Oak Park Cemetery, Claremont, CA.