Rawlings, Francis M.

Born: 1826-07-26 Kentucky

Died: 1858-10-12 Pulaski County, Illinois

Flourished: Pulaski County, Illinois

Francis M. Rawlings was a state's attorney, lawyer, newspaper publisher and editor, and a state legislator. Rawlings moved from Louisville, Kentucky to Illinois in 1847, settling in Benton. In 1849, he was elected state's attorney, overseeing more than a dozen courts. In 1850, Rawlings moved to Cairo and in 1851, established the Sun, a Democratic newspaper. He published the paper until 1852, and then moved to Thebes. Rawlings was among the incorporators of the Alexander and Pulaski Toll-Bridge and Plank Road Company and the Mound City Railroad Company. In 1854, Rawlings won election, as a Democrat, to the Illinois House of Representatives, representing Alexander, Pulaski, and Union counties in that body from January to February 1855. After his term in the Illinois General Assembly, Rawlings moved to Mound City, where he was the first practicing lawyer in the city. In 1857, he was among the original councilmen for Mound City, Illinois.

"An Act to Incorporate the Alexander and Pulaksi Toll-Bridge and Plank Road Company," 25 August 1852, Laws of Illinois (1852), 91; "An Act to Incorporate the Mound City Railroad Company," 12 February 1855, Private Laws of Illinois (1855), 281; History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1883), 2:539, 545, 562; Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 35; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 2 January 1855, 2:3; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220; List of Members of the Illinois Legislature in 1855; Gravestone, Cairo City Cemetery, Villa Ridge, IL.