HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
449
REYNOLDS, John, Justice of Supreme Court and fourth Governor of Illinois, was born of Irish ancestry, in Montgomery County, Pa., Feb. 26, 1789, and brought by his parents to Kaskaskia, Ill., in 1800, spending the first nine years of his life in Illinois on a farm. After receiving a common school education, and a two years' course of study in a college at Knoxville, Tenn., he studied law and began practice. In 1812-13 he served as a scout in the campaigns against the Indians, winning for himself the title, in after life, of "The Old Ranger." Afterwards he removed to Cahokia, where he began the practice of law, and, in 1818, became Associate Justice of the first Supreme Court of the new State. Retiring from the bench in 1825, he served two terms in the Legislature, and was elected Governor in 1830, in 1832 personally commanding the State volunteers called for service in the Black Hawk War. Two weeks before the expiration of his term (1834), he resigned to accept a seat in Congress, to which he had been elected as the successor of Charles Slade, who had died in office, and was again elected in 1838, always as a Democrat. He also served as Representative in the Fifteenth General Assembly, and again in the Eighteenth (1852-54), being chosen Speaker of the latter. In 1858 he was the administration (or "Buchanan) Democratic candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, as opposed to the Republican and regular (or Douglas) Democratic candidates. For some years he edited a daily paper called "The Eagle," which was published at Belleville. While Governor Reynolds acquired some reputation as a " classical scholar,'.' from the time spent in a Tennessee College at that early day, this was not sustained by either his colloquial or written style. He was an ardent champion of slavery, and, in the early days of the Rebellion, gained unfavorable notoriety in consequence of a letter written to Jefferson Davis expressing sympathy with the cause of "secession." Nevertheless, in spite of intense prejudice and bitter partisanship on some questions, he possessed many amiable qualities, as shown by his devotion to temperance, and his popularity among persons of opposite political opinions. Although at times crude in style, and not always reliable in his statement of historical facts and events, Governor Reynolds has rendered a valuable service to posterity by his writings relating to the early history of the State, especially those connected with his own times. His best known works are: "Pioneer History of Illinois" (Belleville, 1848); "A Glance at the Crystal
Palace, and Sketches of Travel" (1854); and "My Life and Times" (1855). His death occurred at Belleville, May 8, 1865.
REYNOLDS, John Parker, Secretary and President of State Board of Agriculture, was born at Lebanon, Ohio, March 1, 1820, and graduated from the Miami University at the age of 18. In 1840 he graduated from the Cincinnati Law School, and soon afterward began practice. He removed to Illinois in 1854, settling first in Winnebago County, later, successively in Marion County, in Springfield and in Chicago. From 1860 to 1870 he was Secretary of the State Agricultural Society, and, upon the creation of the State Board of Agriculture in 1871, was elected its President, filling that position until 1888, when he resigned. He has also occupied numerous other posts of honor and of trust of a public or semi-public character, having been President of the Illinois State Sanitary Commission during the War of the Rebellion, a Commissioner to the Paris Exposition of 1867, Chief Grain Inspector from 1878 to 1882, and Secretary of the Inter-State Industrial Exposition Company of Chicago, from the date of its organization (1873) until its final dissolution. His most important public service, in recent years, was rendered as Director-in-Chief of the Illinois exhibit in the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
REYNOLDS, Joseph Smith, soldier and legislator, was born at New Lenox, Ill., Dec. 3, 1839; at 17 years of age went to Chicago, was educated in the high school there, within a month after graduation enlisting as a private in the Sixty-fourth Illinois Volunteers. From the ranks he rose to a colonelcy through the gradations of Second-Lieutenant and Captain, and, in July, 1865, was brevetted Br
