Work, Samuel
Born: 1812-XX-XX Pennsylvania
Died: 1879-09-XX Minonk, Illinois
Samuel Work was a railroad station agent, grain dealer, public servant, real estate investor, Presbyterian, and Republican. He was the first Euro-American settler of what became Minonk, Illinois, arriving from Pennsylvania in 1831. Following the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad he served as station agent at Minonk for fifteen years. He was also one of several of Minonk's first grain dealers, beginning in 1854. During a county election on April 3, 1855, Woodford County's voters elected him one of two county magistrates. During the elections of 1856, he won election as justice of the peace for Minonk. He engaged in land speculation, purchasing 250 acres of public lands in several Illinois counties between 1836 and 1864. In April 1859, he married Narcissa C. Work, with whom he eventually had at least three children. In 1860, he served as a delegate to the 1860 Illinois Republican Convention. By the census of that year he owned $2,500 in real estate and another $200 in personal property. He died of dropsy.
The Past and Present of Woodford County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron Jr., 1878), 406, 426, 428; Ray L. Moore, History of Woodford County (Eureka, IL: Woodford County Republican, 1910), 154; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Marshall County, 69:155; Hardin County, 105:19, 110:249; Woodford County, 791:213, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, La Salle County, 14 April 1859, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Woodford County, IL, 93; U.S. Census Office, Ninth Census of the United States (1870), Ward 1, Minonk, Woodford County, IL, 4; U.S., Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970, Minonk Presbyterian Church, (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2016); Illinois Daily State Journal (Springfield), 12 May 1860, 2:4; U.S., Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885, Minonk, Woodford County, IL (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010).