Rose was born Oct. 13, 1850, in the southern Illinois town of Golconda. Despite modest beginnings, Rose pursued an education, culminating with one term at the present-day Illinois State University in Normal. At age 17, he was back home in Pope County, teaching in a country school. Four years later, he was appointed principal of the Golconda grade schools. He then was elected to two terms as Pope County school superintendent before twice winning election as state’s attorney. In 1889, Governor Joseph Fifer appointed Rose a trustee of the Pontiac reformatory. The following year, Fifer appointed him one of the commissioners of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester.

In 1896, Rose was elected Secretary of State. An efficient administrator who was known for his approachable nature, Rose’s tenure as Secretary was marked by significant changes. In 1899, the General Assembly directed the Secretary to publish the first Blue Book, a directory of Illinois government. Rose embraced this responsibility, and by 1903 expanded the Blue Book to include a detailed section on state history.

During Rose’s third term in 1907, Illinois adopted its first motor vehicle licensing program, and his office was directed to administer the program. His next Biennial Report revealed that this raised some $39,884.22 in license revenue. Rather than license plates, automobile owners displayed two-inch metal tags, with stamped numbers. Display plates were then made by local blacksmiths. Full license plates were first issued by the state of Illinois in 1911, and by 1912 the Secretary was reaping $462,371 in license fees and $831,417 in corporation fees.

James Rose served as Secretary of State longer than anyone in Illinois history, holding the office from his inauguration in 1897 until his death in 1912. He became one of the most popular Illinois political figures of his era. Under his lengthy administration, the State Library continued its transformation to a center for Illinois librarianship and information exchange.

Rose served under the administrations of Governors John Tanner, Richard Yates, Jr., and Charles Deneen, and was nominated for a fifth term in 1912 by a landslide vote. However, Rose fell suddenly ill with a stomach hemorrhage late in the evening of May 28, 1912, and died the following day.

James Lusk Alcorn

Governor of Mississippi

James Lusk Alcorn was a governor, and U.S. senator during the Reconstruction era in Mississippi. A Moderate Republican and Whiggish "scalawag", he engaged in a bitter rivalry with Radical Republican Adelbert Ames, who defeated him in the 1873 gubernatorial race.

When James Lusk Alcorn was born on 4 November 1816, in Sarahsville, later named Golconda, Pope, Illinois, United States, his father, James A Alcorn, was 27 and his mother, Hannah Louisa Lusk, was 22. He married Mary Catherine Stewart on 13 August 1839, in Livingston, Kentucky, United States. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 2 daughters. He died on 20 December 1894, in Eagles Nest, Coahoma, Mississippi, United States, at the age of 78, and was buried in Alcorn Cemetery, Coahoma, Mississippi, United States.

Claude Van Cleve Parsons

Representative State of Illinois

PARSONS, Claude Van Cleve, a Representative from Illinois; born on a farm near McCormick, Pope County, Ill., October 7, 1895; attended the public schools; taught in the rural schools of Pope County, Ill., 1914-1922; was graduated from Southern Illinois State Normal School at Carbondale in 1923; moved to Golconda, Pope County, Ill., in 1922 to become county superintendent of schools, in which capacity he served until 1930; was also engaged as an editor and newspaper publisher of the Herald in Golconda, IL from 1924 to 1930; elected on November 4, 1930, as a Democrat to the Seventy-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Thomas S. Williams and on the same day was elected to the Seventy-second Congress; reelected to the Seventy-third and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from November 4, 1930, to January 3, 1941; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1940 to the Seventy-seventh Congress; appointed first assistant administrator of the United States Housing Authority February 14, 1941, and served until his death in Washington, D.C., May 23, 1941; interment in Zion Church Cemetery, near Ozark, Ill.

Washington, D. C., May 26 - Funeral services for Claude V. Parson, 45 years old, first assistant administrator of the United States Housing authority and former member of the house from Illinois, were held here this afternoon. The Rev. James Shera Montgomery, chaplain of the house, officiated. Additional services will be held at Golconda, Ill., where the body was sent late today.

[Chicago Daily Tribune, May 27, 1941, submitted by nls]

General John Reed Hodge

John Reed Hodge (1893-1963) - Find a Grave-gedenkplek

US Army General. His military career spanned World Wars I and II and Korea, and he commanded the US 3rd Army during the Korean War. After completing high school, he attended Southern Illinois Teachers College at Carbondale, Illinois and the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois.

He joined the US Army Reserve and in 1917 he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant out of Officers Candidate School into the Infantry Reserve. During World War I he served in France and Luxembourg from 1918 to 1919, and then returned to the US and from 1921 until 1925 he was a professor of military science at the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Mississippi State University), Starkville, Mississippi. From the late 1920s until the mid-1930s he served in other assignments as well as attending the US Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and the US Army Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field (now Maxwell Air Force Base), Alabama.

When the US entered World War II in December 1941, he was part of the staff of the US Army 7th Corps. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general, he started his combat career as part of the staff of General Joseph Lawton "Lightning Joe" Collins in the Guadalcanal campaign. He then participated in the Bougainville campaign in 1943 to 1944 and was promoted to the rank of major general during the Philippines Campaign in 1944. In 1945 he served on Okinawa and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general that August, becoming the commander of the 24th Corps of the US 10th Army.

From September 1945 until 1948 he served concurrently as the Commanding General of the 24th Corps, and also as the Commander of American Forces and the military governor of South Korea under the US Army Military Government in Korea and was also the commanding officer who received the surrender of all Japanese forces in Korea south of the 38th parallel. In 1948, after the Republic of Korea was established, he returned to the US to command the 5th US Army Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, he was named the Commanding General of the US 3rd Army, based in the US and not in Korea.

In July 1952 he was promoted to the rank of general and became the Chief of Army Field Services, serving in this position until he retired in June 1953, with 36 years of continuous military service. Among his military decorations and awards include the Distinguished Service Medal (with one oak leaf cluster), the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart (with one oak leaf cluster), the Air Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with silver award star, the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with two silver award stars and arrowhead device), the World War II Victory Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal (with Japan clasp), the National Defense Service Medal, and the Korean Service Medal (with three award stars and arrowhead device). He died at the age of 70.

Bio by: William Bjornstad

Faye King Imhoff

Faye King Imhoff was born in 1904, the daughter of Ezra and Hettie King. She attended Pope County Schools, Southern Illininois University, Carbondale, Wayne University and University of Ohio. She taught school for 13 years in Pope County, IL. She worked 16 years in Washington D.C. as a herladic artist and designer. She was one of three artists who designed the first Vice-Presidential flag. Alben Barkley was the first to receive the flag. She took leave every four years to be appointed Presidential Inaugural Calligrapher with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and concluding with Richard Nixon. She did private work for Madame Chiang Kai-shek, former First Lady of China, Haile Selassie, Former Emperior of Ethopia, President Auriol of France, and many other visiting heads of state.

Mrs. Imhoff was married to former judge and congressan, Lawrence E. Imhoff who was a soldier, lawyer, and a four-term U.S. Representative from Ohio .

She died at their retirement home in Ft. Myers, Florida in 1989.

C L McCormick

C.L. McCormick was born in McCormick, IL, an unincorporated community in Pope County, IL.
C.L. was his full first name. He went to the Vienna, Illinois public schools and was elected to the Vienna, Illinois City Council. He served in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he owned a taxi, merchandise, and restaurant business in Vienna, Illinois. In 1950, McCormick challenged the longtime incumbent county clerk of Johnson County, IL in the Republican primary and was elected in that year's general election. He was re-elected in 1954.
He served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1957 to 1975.
He returned to politics, defeating Democratic incumbent William L Harris in the 1980 general election. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives

again from 1981 to 1983. He died at Massac Hospital in Metropolis, IL.

Hiram Fowler

Representative and Senator State of Illinois

https://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/F/F000321.jpg

FOWLER, Hiram Robert, a Representative from Illinois; born near Eddyville, Pope County, IL., February 7, 1851; attended the public schools of his native city, and was graduated from the Illinois Normal University at Normal in 1880; studied law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was graduated in 1884; was admitted to the bar in 1884 and commenced the practice of his profession in Elizabethtown, IL.; State's attorney of Hardin County 1888-1892; served in the State house of representatives 1893-1895; member of the State senate 1900-1904; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses (March 4, 1911-March 3, 1915); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1914; resumed the practice of law in Elizabethtown, Ill.; moved to Harrisburg, Ill., in 1915 and continued practice until his death on January 5, 1926;

interment in Sunset Hill Cemetery.

Green B Raum

RAUM, Green Berry, a Representative from Illinois; born in Golconda, Pope County, Ill., December 3, 1829; attended the common schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1853 and practiced in Golconda 1853-1856; moved to Kansas in 1856 and practiced his profession for two years; returned to Illinois and settled in Harrisburg; during the Civil War served in the Union Army as major in the Fifty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and attained the rank of brigadier general; resigned his commission May 6, 1865, and engaged in railroad building; elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress (March 4, 1867-March 3, 1869); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1868 to the Forty-first Congress; United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue 1876-1883; United States Commissioner of Pensions 1889-1893; engaged in the practice of law in Chicago, Ill., until his death there on December 18, 1909; interment in Arlington National Cemetery, Fort Myer, Va.

Sarah McElwaine Lusk (later Ferguson)

Sarah Lusk Marker image. Click for full size.

In 1796 Major James Vance Lusk, Revolutionary War veteran, and his wife Sarah, daughter of Gen. James McElwaine, led a party of 35 - half of them children - from Washaw, South Carolina to a site in Kentucky, opposite the mouth of Lusk Creek.
Lusk obtained a license from Kentucky, and operated a ferry until 1798 when he established an unlicensed business on the Illinois bank, in protest of Kentucky's slave status. He built a two-story house of keelboat timbers near the mouth of the creek which still bears his name. Known as the Ferry House or the Tavern House, it was visited by many important travelers.

In 1803 Major Lusk died after completing a narrow road from Tennessee to Green's Ferry on the Mississippi.
In 1804 Sarah Lusk was granted a license by Gov. Wm. Henry Harrison of Indiana Territory. She operated the ferry and a store until 1805 when she married Thomas Ferguson, later a member of the First and Second Territorial Legislatures. Ferguson took control of the business and sold it in 1816.
In 1798 this was the only Illinois settlement between Kentucky and Kaskaskia. Records of 1807 show there were three small stores, one tavern, one saloon, and twenty dwellings. The name changed from Lusk's Ferry to Ferguson's Ferry, Sarahville, and finally became Golconda in 1817.

Hamlet Ferguson

Occupations prior to the Convention: Sheriff, Militia Captain

Mr. Ferguson can be found on the 1820 and 1830 Federal Censuses of Pope County, IL.

Committee during the Constitutional Convention of 1818

"to contract with Messrs. Blackwell and Berry for printing the journals of this convention"^[23]

August 5

Borough, Ferguson, Kitchell

1818 Illinois State Constitutional Convention

Representing Pope County: Samuel Olmeveny & Hamlet Ferguson

Samuel Omelveny

Occupations prior to the Convention: Pope Co. Treasurer, Produce Transporter

Mr. Omelveny can be found in the 1820 & 1830 Federal Censuses of Pope County, IL.

Committees during the Constitutional Convention of 1818

"to frame and report to this convention a constitution for the people of the territory of Illinois"

August 5

Bankson, Cairns, Compton, Cullom, Echols, Hall, Hargrave, Kane, Kirkpatrick, Lemen, Omelveny, Prickett, Roberts, West, White

"committee of revision" "to examine the draft of the constitution as amended and passed"

August 22

Kane, Lemen, Omelveny

Col Charles Durfee