Updegraff, Joseph

Born: 1819-06-16 Indiana

Died: 1898-06-15 Missouri

Flourished: Clark County, Illinois

Joseph Updegraff was a farmer and state legislator. Born in Franklin County, Indiana, Updegraff moved with his family to Shelby County, Illinois, where he attended district schools, receiving a basic education. In February 1844, Updegraff married Eliza J. Miller, with whom he had ten children. In 1850, Updegraff was living and farming in Hendrick Township, Shelby County, and owned real property valued at $1,500. The Updegraff family moved in 1854 to Clark County, Illinois, where Joseph engaged in farming and entered politics. In the Illinois state elections of 1858, he won election, as a Democrat, to the Illinois House of Representatives representing Clark County. He served in the Illinois House from January to February 1859 and voted for Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln in the election for U.S. senator. In 1860, Updegraff was back farming and owned real property valued at $5,200 and a personal estate of $1,000. Updegraff moved his family in 1864 to Nodaway County, Missouri, where he farmed and raised livestock during and after the Civil War. He was a Mason, Odd Fellow, and Methodist.

Indiana, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1802-1850 8 February 1844, Shelby County (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1997); U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Shelby County, IN, 221; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield, IL), 4 September 1858, 2:1; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 3 November 1858, 2:4; The Weekly Chicago Times (IL), 11 November 1858, 2:6; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 222; Illinois Senate Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 32; Illinois House Journal. 1859. 21st G. A., 30; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Clark County, IL, 202; The Nodaway Democrat (Maryville, MO), 16 June 1898, 1:3; Maryville Tribune(MO), 16 June 1898, 1:5; Gravestone, Swan Chapel Cemetery, Graham, Missouri.