Robinson, James C.

Born: 1823-08-19 Edgar County, Illinois

Died: 1886-11-03 Springfield, Illinois

Born near Paris, Illinois, James C. Robinson was a farmer, army soldier, lawyer, Democrat, U.S. representative, and Mason. He moved to Clark County, Illinois with his parents in 1825. During the Mexican War, he served as a corporal in Company D of the Third Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. After the war, he began studying law. He gained admittance to the bar in 1850 and began practicing law in Marshall, Illinois. In 1853 he partnered with Jacob Zimmerman and purchased the Marshall paper, the Illinois State Democrat, which he and Zimmerman combined with the Marshall Telegraph to create the Eastern Illinoisan. He and Zimmerman edited and published the Illinoisan as a Democratic newspaper until they sold it in 1856. During the election of 1858, voters elected him to the U.S. Congress, where he served three consecutive terms. By 1860, he owned $6,000 in real estate and another $2,000 in personal property. In the election of 1864, rather than seek re-election to Congress, he ran for governor of Illinois. After losing this election, he resumed practicing law, which he continued until the 1870s.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1742-43; 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), 266, 272; William Henry Perrin, ed., History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1883), 322, 329; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Clark County, IL, 77.