Ben Franklin Caldwell (August 2, 1848 – December 29, 1924) was an American politician who served two non-consecutive terms as a U.S. Representative from Illinois in from 1899 to 1905 and from 1907 to 1909.

Biography

Born near Carrollton, Illinois, Caldwell moved to Illinois in April 1853 with his parents, who settled near Chatham, Illinois. He attended the public schools, and thereafter engaged in

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

pursuits. He served as member of the

Board of Supervisors A board of supervisors is a governmental body that oversees the operation of county government in the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as 16 counties in New York. There are equivalent agenc ...

of Sangamon County in 1877 and 1878. He served as member of the

Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...

1882-1886, and served in the

Illinois Senate The Illinois Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state, State of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adop ...

1890-1894.

Congress

Upon his election to Congress in 1898, he resigned the presidency of the Farmers' National Bank of Springfield, which office he had held since 1885. He also served as president of the Caldwell State Bank of Chatham. Caldwell was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1899 – March 3, 1905). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1904 to the

Fifty-ninth Congress The 59th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1905, ...

. Caldwell was elected to the Sixtieth Congress (March 4, 1907 – March 3, 1909).

Later career and death

He was not a candidate for renomination in 1908. He again engaged in banking in Chatham, Illinois. He died in

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...

, on December 29, 1924. He was interred in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caldwell, Ben Franklin 1848 births 1924 deaths Democratic Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives Democratic Party Illinois state senators People from Sangamon County, Illinois American bankers Burials at Oak Ridge Cemetery Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois People from Carrollton, Illinois