Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

Roosevelt, William H.

Flourished: 1836 to 1865 Hancock County, Illinois

Alternate name: Rosevelt

William H. Roosevelt, attorney and land dealer, graduated from Columbia College (later Columbia University) in 1826. He moved permanently to Illinois about 1836, settling in Hancock County, where he practiced law and engaged in land dealing and speculation. Upon the organization of the Warsaw and Rockford Railroad Company in 1853, he was named president of the railroad. At the time of the 1860 census, Roosevelt owned real estate valued at $90,000 and possessed personal property worth $8,000. He ran unsuccessfully for the Illinois House of Representatives in 1838 and for the Illinois Senate in 1842 and 1846. In his 1842 campaign for the latter body, Roosevelt ran as an anti-Mormon candidate. He ultimately won election to the Illinois House as a Douglas Democrat in 1858 and served a single term. Roosevelt was mayor of Warsaw from 1858 to 1859 and again from 1862 to 1864, then in the latter year became supervisor of Warsaw Township. In religion, he was an Episcopalian, and served on the first vestry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Warsaw. He married Caroline Wells and the pair had children.

Charles Barney Whittelsey, comp., The Roosevelt Genealogy 1649-1902 (Hartford, CT: J. B. Burr, 1902), 53; Th. Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois (Chicago: Chas C. Chapman, 1880), 283, 417, 418, 448, 449, 450, 454, 638, 671; Officers and Graduates of Columbia College (New York: n.p., 1894), 104; U.S. Census Office, Sixth Census of the United States (1840), Hancock County, IL, 194; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 323, 351, 409, 565; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Hancock County, IL, 323; Weekly Rock Island Republican (IL), 27 July 1853, 2:4-6; Warsaw Sesquicentennial 1812-1962 ([Warsaw, IL?]: n.p., [1962?]), n.p.; Chicago Daily Press and Tribune (IL), 1 November 1858, 2:4; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 3, Warsaw, Hancock County, IL, 681; Hancock New Era (Warsaw, IL), 19 January 1865, 2:1.