William Lee Davidson Ewing (1795-1846)

5th Illinois Governor, Illinois State Representative, Illinois State Senator, US Senator. He was the president of the Illinois State Senate when, upon the resignation of Governor John Reynolds on November 17, 1834, he assumed the duties of Governor and served until December 3, 1834. A year later he was appointed to the US Senate, filling the vacancy of the deceased Senator Elias Kane and serving until 1837. Having previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1830 and in the Illinois State Senate from 1832 to 1834, he was reelected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1838 and again in 1840. At the time of his death, he was the auditor of public accounts for the State of Illinois. He served in the Black Hawk War as a colonel and in the Illinois militia as a brigadier general. He was originally buried in Hutchinson Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, but no record exists of where he was reinterred when this cemetery was closed and bodies removed in the mid to late 1880's. Although most reinterments took place in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, cemetery staff state he is not buried there.

Bio by: BjJ