McRoberts, Samuel

Born: 1799-04-12 Monroe County, Illinois

Died: 1843-03-27 Cincinnati, Ohio

McRoberts earned appointment as circuit clerk of Monroe County, Illinois in 1819, before studying law at Transylvania University. He began his own practice but won election as state circuit court judge in 1824. Four years later, voters selected McRoberts for the Illinois Senate where he remained until 1830, when he became U.S. District Attorney for Illinois. He received another appointment in 1832 as receiver of Public Moneys for the Danville Land Office and also fought in the Black Hawk War alongside Abraham Lincoln. In 1839, William Henry Harrison appointed him solicitor of the General Land Office in Washington, DC, and in 1841, the Illinois Legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat. McRoberts died on his way back from Washington at the end of his term.

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Illinois of the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: Galaxy, 1875), 335; Gravestone, Moore Cemetery, Waterloo, IL; Muster Roll of Captain Jacob M. Early’s Company of Mounted Volunteers.