Elkin, William F.

Born: 1792-04-13 Clark County, Kentucky

Died: 1880-12-21 Decatur, Illinois

In 1811, Elkin moved to Xenia, Ohio, where he married Elizabeth Constant, with whom he had thirteen children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. In 1820, the family moved to Brownsville, Indiana, and then settled permanently in Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1825. Elkin was a veteran of the Black Hawk War and won election as a Whig to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1828, 1836, and 1838. He was a member of the Long Nine, a group of Sangamon County legislators who worked to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield. He served as sheriff and justice of the peace in Sangamon County. In 1849, voters elected him an associate justice of the Sangamon County Court. In 1850, he was a farmer with $1,000 in real property; by 1860, he was a clerk and owned $6,000 in real property and $1,000 in personal property. In September 1861, Abraham Lincoln appointed him as register of the Land Office at Springfield, and he held that office until 1872.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sangamon County, IL, 290; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sangamon County, IL, 113; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 502; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 281-82; Joseph Wallace, Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1904), 1:26; Oak Ridge Cemetery Interment Records, 2:60, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL; Appointment of William F. Elkin as Register of Land Office at Springfield, Illinois; Illinois Journal (Springfield), 11 December 1860, 2:2.