Cheney, George

Born: 1819-02-18 Champaign County, Ohio

Died: 1866-08-17 Cheney’s Grove, Illinois

Flourished: 1825 to 1866 Cheney’s Grove, Illinois

George Cheney, farmer, moved with his family to McLean County, Illinois in the mid-1820s, and received a common education in Cheney’s Grove. Between 1838 and 1854, he acquired nearly 850 acres of public land in the county. Following his 1841 marriage to Cynthia Ann Hall, he settled on a farm in McLean County then later moved to the family homestead, which was divided between him and a brother. Politically, Cheney was a Republican, and he represented McLean County at the 1860 Illinois State Republican Convention. During the Civil War, he supported the Union and registered for the draft in McLean County in 1863, but there is no further evidence that he actually served in the Civil War. In religion, Cheney was described as believing in universal salvation, but he did not belong to a particular church. He was survived by six children.

E. Duis, The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington, IL: Leader, 1874), 389-90; For an exhaustive list of Cheney’s land purchases, search “Cheney George,” https://www.ilsos.gov/isa/landsrch.jsp; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, McLean County, 14 January 1841, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Petition of John Prothero and Others to U.S. Congress; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), McLean County, IL, 100; The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 8 September 1857, 2:2; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), McLean County, IL, 94; Wayne C. Temple, “Delegates to the Illinois State Republican Nominating Convention in 1860,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 92 (Autumn 1999), 295; U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 23 September 1863, 4:3; 22 August 1866, 4:4; Gravestone, Riverside Cemetery, McLean County, IL.