Nelson, Horatio C.

Born: 1819-03-02 Baltimore, Maryland

Died: 1897-03-24 Fulton County, Illinois

Flourished: Fulton County, Illinois

Nelson graduated from St. Mary's College in his native Baltimore in 1838 and moved to Fulton County, Illinois the same year. He soon relocated to Kentucky to study law, graduating from the Law Department of the University of Kentucky in 1843. The following year, he married Eliza Jones and together they settled permanently in Fulton County, Illinois, where they had seven children. Although admitted to the bar in both Kentucky and Illinois, Nelson devoted his time to farming and livestock raising. He served as a township supervisor in 1851, 1854, and 1864. In 1860, he owned $10,000 worth of real estate, with a personal estate of $1,000. In 1861, he enlisted in the Seventh Illinois cavalry as a captain and was later promoted to major. Major Nelson was taken prisoner in Coffeeville, Mississippi, but was able to escape. He resigned from the service in 1863.

U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Buckheart, Fulton County, IL, 123; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; History of Fulton County Illinois (Peoria, IL: Chas. C. Chapman, 1879), 496-97, 505; Gravestone, Greenwood Cemetery, Canton, IL.