Will County ILGenWeb Biographies..... 
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File contributed for use by:
Dori Leekly & Margie Glenn

Author: History of Will County, Illinois; Chicago: Wm LeBaron Jr & Co, 186 Dearborn Street, 1878.

Maj. Robert W. MCCLAUGHRY, Warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet; was born in 
Fountain Green, Hancock, Co., IL, July 22, 1839; he remained at home on the farm until 1856, 
when he entered Monmouth College, graduating in 1860, after which he remained in the college 
one year as Professor of Latin; returning to Hancock Co. in 1861, he settled at Carthage, 
and engaged in editing the Carthage Republican. In response to President Lincoln's call 
for 300,000 men, he enlisted in August 1862, as a private in the 118th IL. V. I.; was 
chosen Captain of Co. B and in November following, was elected Major of the regiment; he 
participated in all the campaigns which resulted in the capture of Vicksburg in the Gulf 
Department in the fall of 1863, and in all the campaigns in Western Louisiana until June, 
1864, when he was transferred to the Pay Department as Paymaster, and assigned to duty at 
Springfield, IL; he remained there until Oct. 13, 1865, when he was mustered out to accept 
the office of County Clerk of Hancock Co., to which he bad been elected; he held this 
office until 1869; the next two years he was engaged in the stone-quarry business in 
Sonora, Hancock Co., and furnished the stone for the railroad bridge over the Mississippi 
River at Keokuk, and for the foundations of the new State Capitol at Springfield; in 1871, 
he went to St. Louis in charge of the St. Genevieve quarries, but the following year, his 
health failing, he returned to Monmouth, IL, and entered the office of Judge GLENN to 
attend to a portion of his business, where he remained till Aug. 1, 1874, when he was 
appointed to his present important and responsible position. He was married in 1862 to 
Miss Elizabeth C. MADDEN, of Monmouth, IL, and has five children living.