East, William

Born: 1799-08-16 Grayson County, Virginia

Died: 1891-03-21 Wapella, Illinois

Flourished: 1850 to 1865 DeWitt County, Illinois

William East, a farmer, was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. He moved with his parents to Indiana. After living in Indiana, he moved to Illinois by 1850. East settled on a farm near Wapella, Illinois, in DeWitt County. In May 1853, East was a member of the jury that found Moses Loe, a client of Abraham Lincoln, guilty of manslaughter in the stabbing death of James Gray. East married Drusilla Hudson in Wayne County, Indiana, in May 1832, and by 1850 they had eight children. In 1860, East owned real estate valued at $1,800 and a personal estate of $800. He was a lifelong Whig and Republican.

The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IN), 27 March 1891, 4:5; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), DeWitt County, IL, 404; Indiana, U.S., Marriage Certificates, 1960-2012 (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016), 24 May 1832, Wayne County ; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Wapella, DeWitt, IL, 183; People v. Loe, 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=135583; History of DeWitt County, Illinois (Philadelphia: W. R. Brink, 1882), 86; Gravestone, Crum Cemetery, Wapella, IL.