Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Lynch, Jesse

Born: 1819-06-08 New York

Died: 1892-08-20

Jesse Lynch was an Illinois attorney and pioneer of the Illinois Republican Party. In December 1819, he moved with his parents from his native state to Sangamon County, Illinois. Jesse married Harriet Whitcomb, a native of Michigan, with whom he had several children. He read law, earned admission to the Illinois bar, and commenced a law practice in Magnolia, Illinois. An old friend and admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Lynch was in the forefront in organizing the Republican Party in Illinois, participating a convention of anti-slavery Whigs at Bloomington in 1854, where he introduced a resolution calling for the new party to be called the Republican Party. Jesse also attended the Republican National Convention in 1860 where delegates nominated Lincoln for president. In 1860, he was living and practicing law in Magnolia and owned real estate valued at $2,400 and had a personal estate of $5,000. Between 1860 and 1870, he and his family moved to Chenoa, Illinois.

Gravestone, Payne Cemetery, Livingston County, IL; Green B. Raum, History of Illinois Republicanism (Chicago: Rollins, 1900), 530; D. W. Lusk, Politics and Politicians: A Succinct History of the Politics of Illinois from 1856 to 1884 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1884), 26; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 672; Peoria City and County Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1912), 2:13; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Magnolia, Putnam County, IL, 136; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Chenoa, McLean County, IL, 52.