Elias Kane

KANE, Elias Kent,

a Senator from Illinois; born in New York City on June 7, 1794; attended the public schools; graduated from Yale College in 1813; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Nashville, Tenn.; moved to Kaskaskia, Ill., in 1814; appointed judge of the Territory of Illinois; delegate to the first State constitutional convention in 1818; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1820 to the Seventeenth Congress; first secretary of State of Illinois 1820-1824; member, State house of representatives 1824; elected to the United States Senate in 1824; reelected in 1831 and served from March 4, 1825, until his death in Washington, D.C., December 12, 1835; chairman, Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses (Nineteenth through Twenty-first Congresses), Committee on Private Land Claims (Twenty-first through Twenty-third Congresses), Committee on Public Lands (Twenty-second Congress); interment in the family cemetery on the old Kane farm, near Fort Gage, Ill.

Bibliography

Hubbs, Barbara Burr. “Father of Illinois Constitution—Elias Kent Kane.” In Idols of Egypt, edited by Will Griffith, pp. 77-92. Carbondale, IL: Egypt Book House, 1947.