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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. (See Suffrage.)
WOOD, Benson, lawyer and Congressman, was born in Susquehanna County, Pa., in 1839; received a common school and academic education; at the age of 20 came to Illinois, and, for two years, taught school in Lee County. He then enlisted as a soldier in an Illinois regiment, attaining the rank of Captain of Infantry; after the war, graduated from the Law Department of the old Chicago University, and has since been engaged in the practice of his profession. He was elected a member of the Twenty-eighth General Assembly (1872) and was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1876 and 1888; also served as Mayor of the city of Effingham, where he now resides. In 1894 he was elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress by the Republicans of the Nineteenth District, which has uniformly returned a Democrat, and, in office, proved himself a most industrious and efficient member. Mr. "Wood was defeated as a candidate for re-election in 1896.
WOOD, John, pioneer, Lieutenant-Governor and Governor, was born at Moravia, N. Y., Dec. 20, 1798-his father being a Revolutionary soldier who had served as Surgeon and Captain in the army. At the age of 21 years young Wood removed to Illinois, settling in what is now Adams County, and building the first log-cabin on the site of the present city of Quincy. He was a member of the upper house of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth General Assemblies, and was elected Lieu-tenant-Governor in 1859 on the same ticket with Governor Bissell, and served out the unexpired term of the latter, who died in office. (See Sis-sell, William H.) He was succeeded by Richard Yates in 1861. In February of that year he was appointed one of the five Commissioners from Illinois to the "Peace Conference" at Washington, to consider methods for averting civil war. The following May he was appointed Quartermaster-General for the State by Governor Yates, and assisted most efficiently in fitting out the troops for the field. In June, 1864, he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Illinois Volunteers (100-days' men) and mustered out of service the following September. Died, at Quincy, June 11, 1880. He was liberal, patriotic and public-spirited. His fellow-citizens of Quincy erected a monument to his memory, which was appropriately dedicated, July 4, 1883.
WOODFORD COUNTY, situated a little north of the center of the State, bounded on the west by the Illinois River; organized in 1841; area,
