Benjamin Franklin FUNK, Congress, IL (1838-1909)

FUNK, Benjamin Franklin, (father of Frank Hamilton Funk), a Representative from Illinois; born in Funks Grove Township, McLean County, Ill., October 17, 1838; attended the public schools and Wesleyan University in Bloomington; left school in 1862 to enlist in the Sixty-eighth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, as a private, and served five months during the Civil War; returned to the university and finished the course; engaged in agricultural pursuits; moved to Bloomington, Ill., in 1869; mayor of Bloomington 1871-1876 and 1884-1886; trustee of the asylum for the blind at Jacksonville; president of the board of trustees of Wesleyan University for twenty years; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1888; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1894; resumed agricultural pursuits; died in Bloomington, Ill., February 14, 1909; interment in Bloomington Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present