Bush, John M.

Born: 1821-03-17 Brookville, Indiana

Died: 1860-08-14 Chicago, Illinois

Flourished: Tazewell County, Illinois

As an infant, Bush moved with his parents to Cincinnati, Ohio. Orphaned as a young boy, his grandfather sent him to Ohio University, where he graduated in 1842. He then studied law in Virginia before settling in Tazewell County, Illinois, in 1844. In addition to working as an attorney, he also served as a county school commissioner and was judge of the county court in 1853. Bush was an advocate of the temperance movement. In 1850, he was a practicing attorney living in Tremont, Illinois, and he owned $600 in real property.

Daniel W. Stowell et al., eds., The Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 2:467, n46; The Tazewell Republican (Pekin, IL), 24 August 1860, 2:4; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Tazewell County, IL, 142; Gravestone, Old Washington Cemetery, Washington, IL.