Iles, Washington

Born: 1800-07-18 Bath County, Kentucky

Died: 1871-07-04 Springfield, Illinois

Iles first visited Illinois in 1818, touring the Sangamon River area on business. He returned to Kentucky where, in 1822, he wed Ann Foster. The couple lived for a time near Owensboro, Kentucky, and had two children. In 1825, Iles and his family moved to Sangamon County, Illinois, settling in Springfield. The couple had an additional nine children in Sangamon County. Iles purchased some six hundred acres in what would become Woodside Township. In 1840, Springfield voters elected Iles, a Whig, alderman of the third ward in the first election under Springfield's new city charter. In 1860, he was a farmer who owned real estate valued at $100,000 and a personal estate of $15,000.

Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 400-401; Joseph Wallace, Past and Present of the City of Springfield and the Sangamon County Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1904), 2:1651; Proceedings of the Springfield Board of Trustees; History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 566; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 24 April 1840, 2:5; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), District 16, Sangamon County, IL, 34.