Vanderen, Cyrus W. (Van Deren)

Born: 1815-05-06 Bourbon County, Kentucky

Died: 1883-10-30 Springfield, Illinois

Flourished: 1838 to 1883 Sangamon County, Illinois

Alternate name: Van Deren

Cyrus W. Vanderen, farmer and public official, followed other members of his family to Illinois in 1838 and settled in Sangamon County, where he served as a justice of the peace and county judge. In 1843 Vanderen retained Stephen T. Logan and Abraham Lincoln in order to sue over the distribution of his father’s estate. He represented Sangamon County in the Illinois Senate from 1857 to 1859. Politically, Vanderen was a Whig until the party dissolved, then afterwards was a member of the American Party. In religion, he was a Presbyterian. Vanderen married Margaret Patton in 1835 and the pair had three daughters who lived to adulthood.

John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 737; Vanderen et al. v. Vanderen et al., Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=140700; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sangamon County, IL, 181; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 221, 222; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Sangamon County, IL, 41; Daily Illinois State Register (Springfield), 31 October 1883, 3:4.