Bone, Elihu

Born: 1795-10-22

Died: 1857-09-24

Flourished: 1838-11 Menard County, Illinois

While a young man in Tennessee, Bone volunteered as a soldier in the War of 1812. In 1815, he returned to Tennessee to marry Nancy Warnick, with whom he had eleven children. In 1824, the family settled in a part of Sangamon County that would later be in Menard County. Bone was a Presbyterian, and he served for years as an elder in the Rock Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church. A Whig politically, Bone represented Menard County in the Illinois legislature from 1842 to 1844. A wheelwright by trade, Bone also farmed; in 1850, he owned $7,000 worth of land.

The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1879), 387; Gravestone, Rock Creek Cemetery, Tallula, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Menard County, IL, 337; David McCoy Bone, "Biographical Sketch of Elihu Bone," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 11 (April 1918), 210-13.