Starkweather, Elisha H.

Born: 1800-XX-XX Vermont

Died: 1859-12-01 Charleston, Illinois

Flourished: Greenup, Illinois

After the Illinois General Assembly established Cumberland County, Illinois in 1843, Starkweather moved to the county seat of Greenup, where he taught school and opened a law office. That year, he won election as probate justice of the peace and was master in chancery in the circuit court. Starkweather served three terms in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1844 to 1850; he was elected as a Whig for the first term, and subsequently as a Democrat. In 1850, Starkweather owned real estate worth $5,000.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Hurricane, Cumberland County, IL, 278; The Prairie Sleeps: Cemeteries of Coles County, Illinois (n.p.: Coles County Genealogical Society, 1994), 3:34; John M. Palmer, ed., The Bench and Bar of Illinois: Historical and Reminiscent (Chicago: Lewis, 1899), 1:419-20; Harry Woods, comp., Blue Book of the State of Illinois, 1913-1914 (Danville: Illinois Printing, 1914), 357-60; 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), 401, 428; Counties of Cumberland, Jasper and Richland, Illinois: Historical and Biographical (Chicago: F. A. Battey, 1884), 96, 146, 147, 173.