Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Bunn, Lewis

Died: 1886-XX-XX McLean County, Illinois

Flourished: 1833-1886 McLean County, Illinois

Raised and educated in Ohio, Bunn was one of twenty-one children. When he was eighteen, he was sent to Chillicothe, Ohio, to learn the trade of blacksmithing. In 1831, he married Margery Haines, and the couple had three sons and two daughters. In 1833, he moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where he started Bunn & Ellsworth, his own blacksmithing business with Oliver Ellsworth. After the death of his first wife, he married Lucinda Blevins on January 26, 1847. In 1850, Bunn was a prosperous blacksmith, owning $3,000 in real property. In the 1850s, Abraham Lincoln represented Bunn in two legal cases, one before the Illinois Supreme Court. By 1860, Bunn was manufacturing plows and had accumulated $25,000 in real property, with a personal estate of $8,000.

Gravestone, Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, IL; E. Duis, The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington, IL: Leader, 1874), 252-55; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, McLean County, 26 January 1847, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), McLean County, IL, 4; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 2, Bloomington, McLean County, IL, 166; Bunn v. Spencer, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=135458; Piles et al. v. Bunn & Ellsworth, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=137938.