The following article is an extract taken from the 1905 Souvenir History of Williamson County detailing the life of Judge James M. Washburn and is followed by collected data. Washburn was a Marion merchant, State Representative, Assistant Secretary of State, Master In Chancery, Attorney, member of the State Agriculture Board and one of the founders of the Egyptian Press newspaper.
Judge Washburn comes of hardy pioneer stock in Smith County, Middle Tennessee. He was born 51 miles east of Nashville, September 13th, 1826. His parents were farmers of simple and frugal habits and pure lives, who bequeathed the priceless heritage, together with its usual accompaniment of a vigorous constitution to their children.
The father, Lewis Washburn, died on the last hour of 1872, at the age of 75 years and six months, while his mother tarried a couple of years longer and died in May, 1874. Her maiden name was Nancy Moore. She raised ten children, and died aged 79. James was the sixth child, and was reared and educated in his native state. He taught school four or five years, farmed, sold goods, read law, was admitted to the bar and married all before he was 23 years old.
From this his life’s record can be read. He has been an exceedingly ambitious and active man, full of life and energy, of great endurance, unwearied diligence and iron will. He always had a dozen, more or less, different enterprises on hand, and so good was his management and so wise his plans that none of them rarely or ever miscarried. He did not come to Marion till the autumn of 1857. He studied law with Hall and Washburn, an older brother, from 1844 to 1846, was admitted to the bar in 1845, was elected County Surveyor, but resigned to come to Marion.
When he first moved to Marion in the fall of 1862, he occupied a home at 306 E. College Street, a period when Union soldiers were camped on the old fairgrounds west of Marion.
He lived in Marion for ten years (engaged in the practice of law and in the mercantile business with Frank (Francis) Sparks), and after spending a couple of years on a rented farm just out of town, he bought the farm where Dr. Ferrill now lives, near Carterville, and made it his home for 22 years. In 1862, while living at Marion, he was elected to the lower house at Springfield and served one term. In 1869-70 he was a member of the Constitutional convention which framed our present State Constitution.
In the fall of 1870 he was elected to the State Senate for the 50th Senatorial District, which is composed of the counties of Jefferson, Franklin, Williamson, Jackson, Randolph and Monroe.
By a new arrangement coming in with the new constitution he drew a two year term, and after its expiration was Assistant Secretary of the Senate for three years and during the session of 1875. In 1876 he was returned to the House and served another term of two years.
From 1872 to 1880, he was also Master in Chancery at Marion, and from 1873 to 1893 was a member of the State Board of Agriculture, and as such was the Illinois Commissioner for the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in the latter year. In 1884, he had been elected County Judge for Williamson County and served four years.
In 1874, while Assistant Secretary of the Senate, in company with his son, William Smith Washburn, Wm. T. Davis and Charles H. Denison, he started the Egyptian Press newspaper, and only severed his connection with it about 1902.
During that long period of 28 years, with a multitude of other matters on hand—financial, political, official business and family—whether as co-partner, associate editor and manager or sole owner, manager and editor, he acquitted himself creditably as the publisher of the principal Democratic organ of the County.
In 1894 he rented it to Casey and Watson and in 1895 to Casey alone, when Samuel Casey bought a half interest and in 1902 he sold out to Casey entirely. Mr. Washburn had the misfortune on September 15, 1897, to lose his house and all it contained by fire, and the 13th of November following his wife died.
His children being all grown, these misfortunes broke up his family relations and he spent four years in traveling. Coming back to the town of his boyhood he made the acquaintance of Miss Jennie Turner, to whom he was united in marriage in Smith County November 3, 1901. She is a member of the Baptist church. His first wife’s name was Sarah M. Smith, a native of Virginia.
They were both for 47 years active members of the Missionary Baptist church, and she died in that communion. Their children were William Smith Washburn, now of Chicago- Dr. C. L. Washburn, a physician and farmer about five miles northwest of Marion, and Benjamin L. Washburn, residing in Carterville.
The following tribute to Mr. Washburn is from the pen of Mark Erwin, the historian, and was written in 1876. And now, after the lapse of twenty-six years and the commentary of the events of more than a quarter of a century, there seems to be no occasion to change the opinions then expressed.
“James M. Washburn commenced the practice of law in this county over fifteen years ago, and has since been a Democratic politician of considerable prominence. During the war he was very bitter at times, but was elected to the State Senate in 1876 to the Lower House. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1869. He is admitted by all parties to be honest and upright in his daily work, and is now the leader of his party.”
Census and Related Data
On August 30, 1849, James married his first wife Sarah Smith in Smith County, Tennessee.
1850 Census, James 24, Sarah 24, Smith Tennessee, Laborer, $400 Personal Estate, one child named William Washburn born in October 1850.
1860 Census, James 33, Sarah 33, City of Marion, Illinois, Lawyer, $3,500 Real Estate, $3,000 Personal Estate, four children, William S. Washburn, 9, and Cicero L. Washburn, 7, Benjamin L. Washburn, 4, and John R. Washburn aged 3.
The First Baptist Church of Marion, Illinois, was organized on the 19th day of August, 1865. The following ministers composed the presbytery: Elder William Ferrell, Elder David Butler and Elder W. B. Chamness. James M. Washburn was elected secretary of the meeting.
1870 Census, James and Sarah 43, Fredonia, Township 9, Range 1 (roughly the Cambria area), Lawyer, $10,000 Real Estate, $1,500 Personal Estate, five children, William 19, Cicero 17, Benjamin 14, John 13, and Nancy 10, Domestic servant named Nancy Boan, aged 24.
1875, when the Egyptian Press newspaper was started up in the spring the first editor and publisher was William S. Washburn, James’s son. James was one of the founders.
1880 Census, James and Sarah 53, Carterville, Farmer, two children, Cicero 27 a farm laborer, Benjamin L. 24 a farm laborer. Two domestic servants, Cornelius Scott aged 19, a farm laborer and Mary Collard aged 12, house servant.
1882, Washburn built the first saw mill and grist mill in Carterville, Illinois.
1900 Census, James, widowed, 73 years old, living with son Cicero L. Washburn, farmer, in city of Marion. James is listed as a doctor under occupation. I suspect that the occupations for James and his son are mistakenly inverted, since his son was a doctor.
James married to Miss Jennie Turner in Smith County November 3, 1901.
1907 Marion Directory, James, farmer, wife Jennie T., residing at 1315 W. Main Street.
1908 County Plat Maps indicate that James held app. 440 acres of land on the south side of Old Route 13 just opposite Half Way Road (roughly behind the Pepsi Cola bottling plant). The property intersected what would now be the south turn of Westminster Road after crossing over the Interstate.
James Washburn passed away in Marion on April 3, 1910 and was interred at Hurricane Cemetery in Carterville, Illinois. He was a member of the Williamson County Bar Association.
Sam’s Notes:
Dr. Cicero L. Washburn was born in Smith County, Tenn., August 10, 1852. He is a son of Judge Jas. M. Washburn, also a native of Smith County, Tenn. His mother was Sarah M. Smith, who was born in Middle Tennessee in 1826, and died at the home of her son, Ben L. Washburn, in Carterville, Ill., November 18, 1897.
The subject of this sketch came with his parents to Marion in the Autumn of 1857, and received his education in the schools of this County, mainly in Marion and Carterville. He entered Ewing College in 1870 and graduated in 1874. His early life was spent on his father’s farm near Carterville, but after leaving college he took up teaching and taught in the public schools for six years. He then studied medicine, graduating from Missouri Medical College in 1882.
The Doctor has been married twice. His first wife was Katie L. Marcy, to whom he was united in October, 1856. She was a native of Livingston County, Kentucky, where she was born in 1867. His second wife was Mrs. Laura A. Utley, to whom he was united June 1st, 1899. She was born in Greenville January 4, 1861. They have one son, James B. Washburn.
In politics Mr. Washburn is a Democrat and is a member of the United Baptist Church. He is at present engaged in farming, stock raising and coal mining.….1905 Souvenir History
(Data extracted from the 1905 Souvenir History of Williamson County; Federal Census Records; Marion City Directories; Illinois Death Records; Civil War Registration Records; Tennessee Marriage Records; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 11/11/2013)