Horr, Josiah

Born: 1807-10-09 Lewis County, New York

Died: 1888-02-20 McLean County, Illinois

Alternate name: Hor

Horr received a common-school education in his native New York. At the age of twenty-one, he moved to Champaign County, Ohio, where he worked on a farm and in a woolen factory. On October 28, 1830, he married Temperance Cheney, and together the couple had eight children. In 1833, Horr moved west again, settling permanently in Bloomington, Illinois. Horr served as a justice of the peace for fifteen years, was a township trustee and a school director, and attended the Methodist Church. In 1838, he hired Abraham Lincoln to represent him in a debt case in McLean County Circuit Court. Politically, Horr was a Whig and later joined the Republican Party.

E. Duis, The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington, IL: Leader, 1874), 750-51; Horr v. Frankinburger, 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=136865; Gravestone, Frankeberger Cemetery, Ellsworth, IL.