Strawn, David

Born: 1818-10-01 Ohio

Died: 1873-09-25 Ottawa, Illinois

Alternate name: Straun

Born in Perry County, Ohio, David Strawn was a farmer, real estate investor, livestock dealer, state representative, and Republican. His uncle, Jacob Strawn, was a well-known cattle dealer in Morgan County, Illinois. David Strawn moved to Illinois with his family when he was twelve years old. Between 1835 and 1851, he purchased hundreds of acres of public land in La Salle County. He married Sarah Loyd in 1840 and had at least eight children with her. By 1850, his livestock was valued at $6,560 and his farm's cash value was $5,000. In late-August 1854, he attended the first convention of the Republican Party in La Salle County. The next month, the party nominated him to run for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly, and, in the election of 1854, the voters of La Salle, Livingston, and Grundy counties elected him to the Illinois House of Representatives. Although he also served as one of La Salle County's delegates to the Republican state convention in Springfield in 1858, his political career did not advance further. By 1860, he owned $9,000 in personal property and real estate valued at an impressive $163,300. He died of typhoid fever. The town of Strawn, Illinois was named in his honor.

Elmer Baldwin, History of LaSalle County, Illinois (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1877), 259; For an exhaustive list of Strawn's land purchases, search "Strawn David," https://www.ilsos.gov/isa/landsrch.jsp; Lineage Book National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: N.P., 1934), 140:190; U.S., Selected Federal Census, Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880, Agriculture (1850), La Salle County, IL, 123 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); History of La Salle County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1886), 1:267; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 2 January 1855, 2:3; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 June 1858, 2:3; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), La Salle County, IL, 380; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), La Salle County, IL, 8; The Ottawa Free Trader (IL), 27 September 1873, 5:2; Gravestone, Ottawa Avenue Cemetery, Ottawa, IL; The History of Livingston County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1878), 568-69.