John Reynolds (politician, 1788)

John Reynolds

John Reynolds (born February 26, 1788 in Montgomery County , Pennsylvania , † May 8, 1865 in Belleville , Illinois ) was an American lawyer and politician and from 1830 to 1834 the fourth governor of Illinois. He also represented this state in the US House of Representatives .

Early years and political advancement

Reynolds' family moved to Tennessee soon after he was born, and then to Kaskaskia in what is now Illinois in 1800 . Young John attended the Reverend Isaac Anderson Academy in Knoxville . Then he studied law. After his admission to the bar, he opened a law firm in Cahokia, Illinois. During the British-American War of 1812 he served as an Indian scout for two years, which earned him the nickname "Old Ranger". In 1818 he was appointed as a judge to the Supreme Court of Illinois , where he remained for the next six years. In 1823 he applied unsuccessfully for a seat in the US Senate . Four years later he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. There he stayed until 1829. In 1830 he won the election for governor of Illinois with 58.9 percent of the vote against Lieutenant Governor William Kinney .

Illinois Governor

Reynolds' nearly four year tenure began on December 6, 1830. It was overshadowed by the Black Hawk War . In this war he put himself personally at the head of the militia. He was given full authority by President Andrew Jackson , including the right to make special treaties with the Indians. It was about the following: The Indians under their chief Black Hawk refused to leave their country. The official policy under President Jackson was to relocate the Indians east of the Mississippi to areas west of this river. The Indian Removal Act was passed for this purpose. In Illinois, the Indians also had to give in and cede the disputed land to Illinois in return for compensation. Other events in Reynolds' tenure included the founding of the city of Chicago in 1833, the completion of the Alton Penitentiary, and the first signing of contracts with railroad companies with the aim of developing the state by rail in the long term. In addition, Jacksonville Female Seminary was the first high school for girls to be established. After Reynolds was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1834, he resigned as governor on November 17 (two weeks before the end of his term).

Another résumé

Between 1834 and 1837 he was a Congressman for the Democratic Party in Washington . He missed re-election in 1836, but made it to Congress again between 1839 and 1843 . Between his two convention sessions, he was part of a group of people who built the first railroad in the Mississippi Valley. It was a about six miles long stretch of a coal mine to the banks of the Mississippi on the other side of St. Louis ( Missouri ). At that time the railway was still pulled by horses, but it was a further step into the railway age. In 1846 and 1852, Reynolds was re-elected to the Illinois House of Representatives for a term each. In 1852 he was Sidney Breese's successor as President ( Speaker ). In 1860 was Reynolds delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston ( South Carolina ). There he supported John C. Breckinridge in his futile fight for the US presidency, which Abraham Lincoln won at the time . John Reynolds died in May 1865, about a month after the Civil War ended .

Web links

Commons : John Reynolds  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• John Reynolds at the National Governors Association (English)
• John Reynolds in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• John Reynolds at The Political Graveyard