Funk, Isaac

Born: 1797-11-17 Clark County, Kentucky

Died: 1865-01-29 Bloomington, Illinois

The grandson of a German immigrant, Funk was one of nine children. In 1807, he moved with his family from Kentucky to Ohio. At the age of twenty-three, he left his family to work for a year in the Kanawha Salt Works. After returning to Ohio for some time, he and his brother Absalom left in 1823 for Illinois, where they founded the town of Funk's Grove in McLean County. Funk was a farmer and raised livestock. In June 1826, he married Cassandra Sharp in Peoria. Funk won election to the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig from McLean County in 1840. He was a staunch Whig and joined the Republican Party in 1854. In 1862, he won election to the Illinois Senate. After a brief illness, he died in 1865.

Gravestone, Funks Grove Cemetery, McLean County, IL; E. Duis, The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington, IL: Leader, 1874), 580-81, 583, 588; 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), 345.