Richard James Oglesby was born on July 25, 1824 in Floydsburg, Oldham Co., one of eight children of Col. Jacob and Isabella Watson Oglesby. His parents and two of his siblings died in the 1833 cholera epidemic, and he was raised by an uncle before moving to Decatur, Ill. in 1836. He fought in the Mexican War and Civil War, was married twice, and had eight children. A close friend and supporter of Abraham Lincoln, he is credited with introducing the "rail-splitter" image into Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign and was at Lincoln's bedside when he died. Oglesby was a brigadier general in the Civil War and a three-time governor of Illinois. He died in Elkhart, Ill. on April 24, 1899.