Lusk, Edward

Born: 1816-01-01 Ohio

Died: 1886-04-13 Kansas

Edward Lusk was a merchant, steamboat operator, farmer, and Mason. In June 1830, he married Jane Almira. He was in Meredosia, Illinois, at least as early as 1833, but soon after opened a store in Jacksonville, Illinois. After keeping this store for six years, in the fall of 1839 he traveled to Saint Louis, Missouri, and bought a steamboat named The American. He ran the steamboat between St. Louis and Peoria, Illinois, ferrying both freight and passengers, for five years. He then settled in Meredosia, where he took up farming. In 1850, he owned $4,000 of real property. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1853-54 as a Whig. He later joined and became increasingly active in the Republican Party, serving as one of Morgan County, Illinois's delegates to anti-Nebraska and Republican conventions between 1856 and 1860. By 1860, he owned $27,800 in real property and another $3,000 in personal property. He died in El Dorado, Kansas.

History of Morgan County, Illinois (Chicago: Donnelley, Loyd, 1878), 413-15; Edwin P. Augur, Family History and Genealogy of the Descendants of Robert Augur of New Haven Colony (Middletown, CT: n.p., 1904), 151; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Morgan County, IL, 262; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 4 January 1853, 2:3; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 219; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 30 May 1856, 2:2; 16 July 1856, 2:2; 17 June 1858, 2:4; Illinois Daily State Journal (Springfield), 12 May 1860, 2:3; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Morgan County, IL, 14; Walnut Valley Times (El Dorado, KS), 16 April 1886, 3:4; Gravestone, Belle Vista Cemetery, El Dorado, KS.