Herrington, Augustus (Gus) M.

Born: 1820-07-27 Meadville, Pennsylvania

Died: 1883-08-14 Geneva, Illinois

Flourished: 1835 to 1883 Geneva, Illinois

Augustus (Gus) M. Herrington, attorney, came to Illinois with his family in 1833, living first in Chicago and then settling permanently in Geneva in 1835. He studied law in the office of Ralph Haskins, was admitted to the bar in 1844, and enjoyed a long legal career. Politically, Herrington was a Democrat, and he acted as a presidential elector for James Buchanan in 1856. Buchanan appointed Herrington U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in 1857, but replaced him a year later due to his support of his friend, Stephen A. Douglas. Herrington ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1860. He served as a delegate to the Democratic national conventions of 1860, 1864, and 1868. On the advent of the Civil War he organized and helped to equip a regiment. Herrington registered for the draft in the Second Illinois Congressional District in 1863, but there is no further evidence that he served in the Civil War. In 1847 he married Emily Cook and was survived by two children. In religion, Herrington was an Episcopalian.

The Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1878), 320-21, 555; Commemorative Biographical and Historical Record of Kane County, Illinois (Chicago: Beers, Leggett, 1888), 866-67, 1047-48; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Kane County, 8 November 1847; Cook County, 15 November 1847, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Geneva, Kane County, IL, 131; The Monmouth Review (IL), 17 April 1857, 2:3; The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 24 March 1858, 2:5; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Geneva, Kane County, IL, 668; Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 11, 148; U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), 15 August 1883, 3:6-7; The True Republican (Sycamore, IL), 18 August 1883, 4:2; Gravestone, West Side Cemetery, Geneva, IL.