Whiteside, Samuel

Born: 1783-04-12 Rutherford County, North Carolina

Died: 1866-01-13 Mount Auburn, Illinois

Alternate name: Whitesides

In 1803, Samuel Whiteside settled near the present town of Edwardsville, Illinois. Whiteside was a soldier in the Illinois 17th Infantry during the War of 1812 and the Winnebago War. A Democrat from Madison County, Illinois, he was a member of the first Illinois General Assembly. He was a brigadier general in the Black Hawk War, and one of the captains under his command was Abraham Lincoln. In 1836, the General Assembly named Whiteside County in his honor. In 1850, Whiteside was living in Madison County, with his wife Nancy.

W. T. Norton, ed., Centennial History of Madison County, Illinois and Its People 1812 to 1912 (Chicago: Lewis, 1912), 1:33, 453, 502; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 185; Gravestone, Hunter Cemetery, Mount Auburn, IL; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 100; John Reynolds, The Pioneer History of Illinois (Chicago: Fergus, 1887), 185, 314; Charles Bent, ed., History of Whiteside County, Illinois (Clinton, IA: L. P. Allen, 1877), 53; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Madison County, IL, 526.