resident proprietors of
Springfield. He had signed a petition for the division of Randolph county
in 1812, represented Union county as a senator in the first general
assembly of Illinois, and in 1820 was appointed register of the
land-office at Vandalia. In 1823 he came to Springfield as register of the
land-office at that place. Col. Cox was six feet tall, weighed two hundred
and forty pounds, and was a drunkard within a short time after the
founding of Springfield.

The most important thing about the founding of the town is the
heterogeneous character of its founders. A few incidents in their
subsequent history will emphasize this, and also show how well they worked
together when surrounded by the same conditions. When the commissioners
came to locate a permanent county seat Springfield, then called Calhoun,
had a formidable rival for the honor. Iles and Enos managed to have a
mutual friend engaged as guide to the commissioners. The guide conducted
them to the rival settlement by a long and rough route and upon being
requested to take them back over a shorter route he took a course more
difficult still. The commissioners decided that the rival settlement was
inaccessible. Iles was twice state senator, major in the Winnebago war,
and captain in the Black Hawk war, in which he served with Zachary Taylor,
Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Robt. Anderson, of Fort
Sumter fame, and others. Iles was also a large stock dealer, selling hogs
and cattle in St. Louis and mules in Kentucky, until 1838, in which year
he lost ten thousand dollars on hogs packed at Alton. In 1838-9 he built
the American House in Springfield. This was then the largest hotel in the
state and its erection created a great sensation. He was four times state
senator, and was an officer of the Bank of Edwardsville. Enos held his
position as receiver until removed for political reasons by Jackson in
1829. Cox had an eventful career. He was removed from his position of
register, under charges of misconduct, early in 1827; the next year he was
keeping a hotel in Springfield; later he removed to Iowa, then Wisconsin,
having secured a contract for the survey of public lands. He was three
times a member of the Iowa territorial House of Representatives and twice
a member of the territorial Council. A band of murderers, horsethieves,
counterfeiters, and blacklegs, having gained possession of the town of
Bellevue, on the Mississippi, in Jackson count