Frink, William S.

Born: 1790-12-17 Connecticut

Died: 1887-09-XX

Flourished: 1858-07-30 Taylorville, Illinois

Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, William S. Frink attended an academy at Westerly, Rhode Island, before spending several years teaching in the area in and around Chenango County, New York. He also served in the War of 1812. Frink became involved in trade and accompanied several merchant voyages to the Caribbean and Europe in the 1820s. From 1827 to 1828, he served as assignee for a bankrupt concern before establishing his own merchant business in 1829 and later moving it to Brooklyn, New York. As his business interests extended westward, he decided to move to Illinois and settled in Sangamon County in 1837. Frink soon became involved in the founding of Christian County (selecting its original name of Dane) and moved there. He managed a farm until 1853, when he moved to Taylorville, where he owned 160 acres as bounty for his 1812 service. Frink held a number of political offices, including surveyor of Shelby County in 1837, postmaster of Allentown from 1838 to 1840, probate judge for Christian County from 1843 to 1847, and U.S. collector of internal revenue for the third division of the Tenth Congressional district from 1863 to 1868. For a time, he operated a halfway house in Christian County, and Abraham Lincoln was a patron. Frink was also a Whig and Republican, and he corresponded with Lincoln about politics. In 1830, Frink married Sarah Grace Grant, with whom he had two children. In 1841, he joined the Baptist Church.

The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men: Illinois Volume (Chicago: American Biographical, 1876), 519-20; J. C. McBride, Past and Present of Christian County, Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1904), 33-34; Gravestone, Oak Hill Cemetery, Taylorville, IL.