Tracy, Frank W.

Born: 1833-07-21 Baltimore, Maryland

Died: 1903-11-08 Springfield, Illinois

Flourished: 1851 to 1863 Beardstown, Illinois

Frank (Franklin) W. Tracy, banker, graduated from Baltimore College in 1851, then moved with his family to Mason County, Illinois. Tracy found work in Beardstown, first as a clerk in a dry goods store for four years, then in 1856 as a bookkeeper for a mercantile firm. In 1863 he relocated permanently to Springfield, where he assisted in the organization of the First National Bank and became the institution’s cashier. Tracy worked in banking in Springfield for the remainder of his life. He 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. Politically, Tracy was a Republican, and he was selected as secretary of the Beardstown Republican Club in 1858. He served as a marshal in Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession. In religion, he was a Congregationalist. Tracy was a member of both the Masons and the Odd Fellows. He married Sarah E. Jones in 1855 and the pair had four children.

History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 722-23; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward 18, Baltimore, Baltimore County, MD, 52; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Cass County, 23 October 1855, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 15 June 1858, 2:3; Illinois Daily State Journal (Springfield), 1 May 1865, 2:2; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Beardstown, Cass County, IL, 208; U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2010); The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 9 November 1903, 6:3; Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.