Cullom, Richard N.

Born: 1795-10-01 Kentucky

Died: 1872-12-04 Tazewell County, Illinois

Cullom married Elizabeth "Betsy" Coffey, with whom he had twelve children. A Whig from a prominent Kentucky family, Cullom settled near Washington in Tazewell County, Illinois, in 1828, and he lived there for the remainder of his life. A farmer both in Kentucky and Illinois, Cullom also served for many years on the Tazewell County board of supervisors, as township supervisor, and on the county commissioners court. Representing Tazewell County in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1836-38 and again in 1853-54, and in the Illinois Senate from 1840-44, Cullom focused his political efforts on developing the state's agricultural and trade infrastructure. Cullom was a political and personal ally of Abraham Lincoln. His son, Shelby Cullom, studied law with Lincoln and later became a U.S. congressman and senator as well as governor of Illinois.

U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Tazewell County, IL, 107; History of Tazewell County Illinois (Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1879), 304, 427, 430, 708, 712; Shelby M. Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1911), 1-3; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois (Chicago: Munsell, 1920), 1:125; Gravestone, Old Washington Cemetery, Washington, IL.