Individual Details

Left Maryland about 1794 to erect home for family in Nelson Co KY. Elected to legislature in 1796. Came to Logan Co about 1799. In 1809 was appointed by President Madison as Governor of Illinois. He was elected Governor of Illinois in 1824. Ninian died of cholera in 1833.

Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published
by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago. Reprinted by Southern Historical
Press. p. 68. Logan County.

NINIAN EDWARDS, chief justice of Kentucky, was born in Montgomery county,
Maryland, in March, 1775, and died in Belleville, Illinois, July 20,
1833. His father, Benjamin Edwards, served in the Maryland legislature
and in congress, and was a member of the state convention which ratified
the federal constitution. Ninian Edwards was a graduate of Dickinson
College, of Pennsylvania, and studied both law and medicine, but gave
his attention to the former. In 1794 he removed to Nelson county,
Kentucky, where he improved a valuable farm, and on the landed estate of
his father built a distillery and tannery. In 1796 he was elected to the
legislature, was re-elected, and in 1798 located in Russellville, where he
became distinguished in his profession. He acquired high reputation and
wealth in the active practice, and in 1804 was made presiding judge of the
general court of his district, was circuit judge, judge of the court of
appeals, and on January 5, 1808, became chief justice,--filling all these
positions before reaching his thirty-third year. In 1804 he was
presidential elector on the Jefferson ticket, in 1809 was appointed
governor of Illinois territory, and twice reappointed. When Illinois
became a state, in 1818, he was elected to the United States senate,
serving from 1818 to 1824. He declined the appointment of minister to
Mexico tendered him by President John Q. Adams, and was elected governor
of Illinois in 1826, serving until his retirement to private life in 1831.
Nature bestowed upon him many of her rarest gifts; he possessed a
mind of extraordinary compass and an industry that brought forth every
spark of talent with which nature had gifted him. He was in every way a
most superior man.

Three of Edwards' sons and one son-in-law followed him into politics. Ninian Wirt Edwards (1809–1889), named for his father and his father's childhood tutor William Wirt, served as Illinois Attorney General, in the General Assembly, and as Illinois' first Superintendent of Public Instruction. He was married to Elizabeth Porter Todd, a sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. Their daughter Julia Cook Edwards married Edward Lewis Baker, editor of the Illinois State Journal and son of Congressman David Jewett Baker.
Another son, Albert Gallatin Edwards (1812–1892), was an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln. In 1887 he founded the brokerage firm A. G. Edwards in Saint Louis, Missouri. A third son, Benjamin S. Edwards (1818–1886), established a successful law practice in Springfield, Illinois and served as a judge in Illinois' Thirteenth Circuit. Ninian Edwards' daughter, Julia Edwards Cook, married Congressman Daniel Pope Cook. Their son, John Cook, was a mayor of Springfield and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Birth	Mar 1775	Montgomery County, Maryland
Marriage	1803	Russellville, Logan County, Kentucky - Elvira Lane
Death	20 Jul 1833	Belleville, Saint Clair County, Illinois

Spouse	Elvira Lane ( - )
Child	Ninian Wirt Edwards (1809 - 1889)

Father	Benjamin Edwards (1753 - 1826)
Mother	Margaret Beall (1756 - 1826)
Sibling	Elisha Edwards (1781 - 1823)
Sibling	Cyrus Edwards (1793 - 1877)
Sibling	Dr. Benjamin E. Edwards (1797 - 1877)
Sibling	Penelope Edwards (1779 - 1845)
Sibling	Presley Edwards (1784 - 1833)
Sibling	Matilda Edwards ( - )