Rosette, John E.

Born: 1824-XX-XX Delaware, Ohio

Died: 1881-10-31 Springfield, Illinois

Flourished: 1855 to 1881 Springfield, Illinois

John E. Rosette, attorney and newspaper editor, read law in his native Delaware, Ohio, with Charles Sweetser. He was admitted to the bar in 1850 in Columbus, Ohio, and began practicing law in Findlay, Ohio. Rosette was elected prosecuting attorney of Hancock County twice, then returned to Delaware for three years, where he was appointed Delaware County probate judge. He settled permanently in Springfield, Illinois about 1855, reputedly at the invitation of Abraham Lincoln, and he practiced law there until his death. Lincoln and Rosette encountered each other frequently at trial in Sangamon County Circuit Court. Politically, Rosette was a Democrat until the election of 1856, when he supported Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont, and he was a Republican thereafter. He edited the Daily Springfield Republican briefly in 1857 and supported Lincoln’s presidential nomination in 1860. Rosette registered for the draft in Sangamon County’s eighth congressional district in 1863, but there is no further evidence that he served in the Civil War. He married Mary Ann Taylor in 1845 and was survived by four children.

History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 120; John M. Palmer, ed., The Bench and Bar of Illinois: Historical and Reminiscent (Chicago: Lewis, 1899), 1:193; Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993, 7 January 1845, Hancock County (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Hancock County, OH, 33; Illinois, U.S., State Census Collection, 1825-1865, 3 July 1855, Mechanicsburg, Sangamon County, 131 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2008); For Lincoln’s cases involving Rosette, search Participant, “Rosette, John E.,” Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis, et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), https://lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 20 September 1856, 2:1; 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), 324; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Springfield, Sangamon County, IL, 160; Albert A. Woldman, Lawyer Lincoln (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1936), 262; U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 3 November 1881, 5:2; Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.