****************************************************************************
File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format 
without the written consent of the author at http://fulton.ilgenweb.net.

****************************************************************************

Source: Atlas Map of Fulton County, Illinois, 
Andreas, Lyter, and Co., Davenport, Iowa. 1871
(page 35)

****************************************************************************

Hon. Lewis W. Ross.-- Lewis W. Ross was born at Seneca Falls, Seneca county, New York, December 8, 1812, and with his father, O. M. Ross, removed to Illinois in 1820, and to the county of Pike (now Fulton) in 1821; represented the county of Fulton in the state legislature in 1840-1 and 1844-5; in the convention to amend the state constitution in 1862, and again in 1870-1; was elected to congress in 1862 from the ninth district, and represented it for six years; was defeated as presidential elector on the democratic ticket in 1848, as a candidate for congress in 1852, and for lieutenant governor in 1860. He is a lawyer by profession, and has taken an active part in county and state politics for over thirty years. 
    
Mr. Ross has been the most important and active man of this section of country. Fifty years of his life have been spent in Fulton county, during which time he has seen the Indian pushed westward more than a thousand miles, and nearly extinct; the forest around his father's house turned into beautifully cultivated farms, and a town built upon it and named Lewistown, after himself; the state increase in population from a few hundred souls to two and a half millions, his county from half a dozen or less to nearly forty thousand; his father's garden converted into a beautiful town of two thousand, and the county seat of his county. He has had the honor of being called upon by his fellow citizens to fill some of their most important offices, which he did to their entire satisfaction. While in the halls of congress few men showed a better record. As a politician be is true; as a citizen, kind, pleasant, and active; as a business man, attentive and reliable.