Mount, Matthias

Born: 1810-08-07 Shelby County, Kentucky

Died: 1887-12-23 Delavan, Illinois

Matthias Mount was a farmer, soldier, and lifelong Democrat. Educated in the log school houses of rural Kentucky, Mount relocated to Morgan County, Illinois in November 1830. At the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, he volunteered for service. He served first as a private in Samuel T. Matthews' Company, First Regiment, before being promoted to second lieutenant. He participated in two battles and attended the signing of the treaty ending the war. He moved to Tazewell County, Illinois in February 1833. In May 1836, he married Anna Louisa Broyhill. They had a son together in January 1840, but he did not survive, and Anna died in February of that year. In November 1843, he married Abigail C. Orendorff, with whom he had three children before she died in June 1853. He remarried in July 1854 to Eliza J. Bennett, and together they had five children. Mount was a longtime member of Tazewell County's Board of Supervisors. Between 1832 and 1854, he acquired more than 500 acres of public land in Tazewell and Shelby counties. As of 1860, he owned $15,000 in real estate and another $500 in personal property. He died of heart disease.

History of Tazewell County Illinois (Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1879), 453, 457; Illinois Black Hawk War Veterans, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 58; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Tazewell County, 31 May 1836; 14 November 1843; 23 July 1854, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Tazewell County, IL, 207; For a full list of Matthias Mount’s land purchases in Tazewell and Shelby counties, search “Mount Matthias,” "Mount Mathias," https://www.ilsos.gov/isa/landsrch.jsp; Gravestone, Anna Louisa Mount, Tennessee Point Cemetery, Tremont, IL; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 30 December 1887, 5:5; Gravestone, Matthias Mount, Prairie Rest Cemetery, Delavan, IL.