West, Henry

Born: 1804-02-15 Kentucky

Died: 1885-09-10 McLean County, Illinois

Flourished: Le Roy, Illinois

Henry West, a business farmer, married Mary "Polly" Liter in January 1824 in Bourbon, Kentucky, and the couple had at least two children. After Polly died in 1848, West waited twenty years to marry Addie Davis in June 1868. In 1850, West moved from Kentucky to McLean County, Illinois and purchased 2,500 acres. He became one of the largest landowners in what would become West Township, named after him. West was elected first supervisor of the township in 1858, and in 1860, West had accumulated $10,000 in real estate and $1,500 in personal property.

Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965, 26 January 1824, Bourbon County, (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, McLean County, 4 June 1868, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), McLean County, IL, 114; Jacob L. Hasbrouck, History of McLean County Illinois (Topeka, KS: Historical, 1924), 1:118-19; The History of McLean County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1879), 663; The Bloomington Daily Pantagraph (IL), 11 September 1885, 4:5; Gravestone, Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, IL.