Hundley, Robert M.

Born: 1820-06-12 Tennessee

Died: 1881-05-02 Williamson County, Illinois

Born in Springfield, Tennessee, Robert M. Hundley was a soldier, physician, businessman and banker, military officer, Mason, and Democrat. He moved to Williamson County, Illinois in 1838 with little to his name, but became well-regarded within the community. During the Mexican War, he served at the rank of second lieutenant in Company B of the First Illinois Infantry. He married Harriett Allen sometime before 1850 and had at least three children with her before she died in 1854. In April 1857, he married again, to Emaranda Hufstutter. In 1858, he won a contract to construct a courthouse for Williamson County, which he completed that year. He shifted his attention from medicine toward business and banking, and his personal fortune grew substantially as a result. In 1850, he owned $2,000 in real property; by 1860 he owned $40,000 in real property and another $30,000 in personal property. During the Civil War, he helped raise volunteers for and served in Company HQ of the 128th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, mustering in on December 18, 1862. He attained the rank of colonel and, although he once refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the Union, he disrupted a Confederate plot to recruit soldiers from his regiment to help attack and capture Cairo, Illinois. He was discharged April 4, 1863 and re-entered the business world. In 1864, he and a business partner won a contract to build the Williamson County jail for $9,000. He died in Marion, Illinois.

Illinois Mexican War Veterans, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Williamson County, IL, 284; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Williamson County, 2 April 1857, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Marion, Williamson County, IL, 8-9; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Milo Erwin, History of Williamson County, Illinois: From the Earliest Times, Down to the Present, 1876 (Marion, IL: Milo Erwin, 1876; repr., Herrin, IL: The Herrin News, 1914), 244, 249, 273-77, 281; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Williamson County, IL, 8; Harriett A. Hundley, Gravestone, Rose Hill Cemetery, Marion, IL; Emaranda H. Hundley, Gravestone, Rose Hill Cemetery, Marion, IL; Robert M. Hundley, Gravestone, Rose Hill Cemetery, Marion, IL.