Dresser, Charles

Born: 1800-02-24 Promfret, Connecticut

Died: 1865-03-25 Springfield, Illinois

After Dresser graduated from Brown University in 1823, he went to Virginia to become a tutor and to study theology. In 1829, he was ordained as a minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He married Louisa Withers on November 8, 1832, with whom he had ten children. He and Louisa settled in Springfield, Illinois, in April 1838. Dresser was rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Springfield from 1838 to 1855, during which time he officiated the wedding of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd. In 1844, he and his wife sold their home on Eight and Jackson streets in Springfield to Abraham Lincoln. Dresser earned a Doctor of Divinity degree from St. Paul's College in Missouri, in 1858.

John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 268-69; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sangamon County, IL, 81; Contract between Charles Dresser and Abraham Lincoln; Deed of Charles Dresser and Louisa W. Dresser to Abraham Lincoln.