HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
503
STARNE, Alexander, Secretary of State and 'State Treasurer, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 21, 1813; in the spring of 1836 removed to Illinois, settling at Griggsville, Pike County, where he opened a general store. From 1839 to '42 he served as Commissioner of Pike County, and, in the latter year, was elected to the lower house of the General Assembly, and re-elected in 1844. Having, in the meanwhile, disposed of his store at Griggsville and removed to Pittsfield, he was appointed, by Judge Purple, Clerk of the Circuit Court, and elected to the same office for four years, when it was made elective. In 1852 he was elected Secretary of State, when he removed to Springfield, returning to Griggsville at the expiration of his term in 1857, to assume the Presidency of the- old Hannibal and Naples Railroad (now a part of the Wabash system). He represented Pike and Brown Counties in the Constitutional Convention of 1862, and the same .year was elected State Treasurer. He thereupon again removed to Springfield, where he resided until his death, being, with his sons, extensively engaged in coal mining. In 1870, and again in 1872, he was elected State Senator from Sangamon County. He died at Springfield, March 81, 1886.
STATE BANK OF ILLINOIS. The first legislation, having for its object the establishment of a bank within the territory which now constitutes the State of Illinois, was the passage, by 'the Territorial Legislature of 1816, of an act incorporating the "Bank of Illinois at Shawnee-town, with branches at Edwardsville and Kaskaskia." In the Second General Assembly of the State (1820) an act was passed, over the Governor's veto and in defiance of the adverse .judgment of the Council of Revision, establishing a State Bank at Vandalia with branches at Shawneetown, Edwardsville, and Brownsville in Jackson County. This was, in effect, a rechartering of the banks at Shawneetown and Edwardsville. So far as the former is concerned, it seems to have been well managed; but the official conduct of the officers of the latter, on the basis of charges made by Governor Edwards in 1826, was made the subject of a legislative investigation, which (although it resulted in nothing) seems to have had some basis of fact, in view of the losses finally sustained in winding up its affairs-that of the General Government amounting to 354,000. Grave charges were made in this connection against men who were then, or afterwards became, prominent in State affairs, including one Justice of the Supreme Court and (
