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Rinaker, John Irving

soldier, lawyer, congressman, was born in Baltimore, Md. In 1862 he raised and organized the one hundred and twenty-second regiment of Illinois infantry volunteers, and was mustered into the military service of the United States Sept. 4, 1862, as colonel of that regiment, and served three years, till the close of the war. He was made brevet brigadier-general for gallant and meritorious services in the field. He served as presidential elector on the republican ticket twice-in 1872 as elector for the seventeenth congressional district of Illinois and in 1876 as elector for the state at large; and was a delegate to the republican national convention in 1876 and again in 1884. He was a member of the board of railroad and warehouse commissioners of Illinois under Governor Oglesby from 1885 to 1889. He was elected to the fifty-fourth congress in 1894 as a republican.