Logan, Stephen T.

Born: 1800-02-24 Franklin County, Kentucky

Died: 1880-07-17 Springfield, Illinois

Stephen T. Logan received his elementary education in Frankfort, Kentucky, before moving to Glasgow in 1817 to study law under Judge Christopher Tompkins. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty and was appointed commonwealth attorney for the Glasgow district. Logan came to Springfield, Illinois, in 1832 to continue the practice of law, forming a partnership with William L. May. He married America T. Bush in June 1832, and their union produced eight children. In January 1835, Logan became judge of the First Judicial Circuit and held that position until March 1837. After resigning from the bench, Logan formed a legal partnership with Edward D. Baker, but that partnership soon ended because Logan found Baker to be reckless with money. In 1841, Abraham Lincoln became Logan’s junior law partner. This partnership lasted until 1844, when they amicably dissolved the relationship so that Logan could practice law with his son, David Logan. Active in Whig politics, Logan was elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1842, 1844, and 1846, served in the Illinois constitutional convention of 1848, and was elected again to the General Assembly in 1854. In 1854, he also branched into the business world, joining the Springfield Gas Light Company’s board of directors. In 1860, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. President Lincoln appointed Logan in 1862 to a commission to investigate claims against the government in Cairo, Illinois. That same year, Logan served as a delegate to the Washington Peace Conference. Logan amassed considerable wealth during his lifetime; by 1860, he had accumulated $175,000 in real estate and owned personal property worth $70,000.

David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 88, 96-100, 133; Sylvia B. Larson, "Logan, Stephen Trigg," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 13:845-47; Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 19 July 1880, 3:2-3; Mark E. Neely Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982), 194-95; U.S. Census Office, U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sangamon County, IL, 102; “An Act to Incorporate the Springfield Gas Light Company,” 27 February 1854, Laws of Illinois (1854), 189. Illustration courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.