Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago. Reprinted by Southern Historical Press. p. 68. Logan County. NINIAN EDWARDS, chief justice of Kentucky, was born in Montgomery county, Maryland, in March, 1775, and died in Belleville, Illinois, July 20, 1833. His father, Benjamin Edwards, served in the Maryland legislature and in congress, and was a member of the state convention which ratified the federal constitution. Ninian Edwards was a graduate of Dickinson College, of Pennsylvania, and studied both law and medicine, but gave his attention to the former. In 1794 he removed to Nelson county, Kentucky, where he improved a valuable farm, and on the landed estate of his father built a distillery and tannery. In 1796 he was elected to the legislature, was re-elected, and in 1798 located in Russellville, where he became distinguished in his profession. He acquired high reputation and wealth in the active practice, and in 1804 was made presiding judge of the general court of his district, was circuit judge, judge of the court of appeals, and on January 5, 1808, became chief justice,--filling all these positions before reaching his thirty-third year. In 1804 he was presidential elector on the Jefferson ticket, in 1809 was appointed governor of Illinois territory, and twice reappointed. When Illinois became a state, in 1818, he was elected to the United States senate, serving from 1818 to 1824. He declined the appointment of minister to Mexico tendered him by President John Q. Adams, and was elected governor of Illinois in 1826, serving until his retirement to private life in 1831. Nature bestowed upon him many of her rarest gifts; he possessed a mind of extraordinary compass and an industry that brought forth every spark of talent with which nature had gifted him. He was in every way a most superior man. Edwards = Nelson-KY Montgomery-MD IL PA http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/logan/edwards.n.txt