Semple, James
soldier, lawyer, jurist, congressman, was born Jan. 5, 1798, in Greene county, Ky. He was colonel of an Illinois regiment in the Black Hawk war; brigadier-general of the militia; speaker of the house of representatives; attorney general; chief justice of the supreme court and senator in congress from Illinois; and minister to New Grenada from the United States. He took a prominent part in the agitation for settling and holding the Oregon country, making speeches in that behalf in the Mississippi valley in 1842, and introducing, Jan. 8, 1844, in the United States senate, a resolution directing the president of the United States to give notice to his Britannic majesty of the desire of this country to abrogate the treaty by which the two countries jointly occupied the Pacific coast of America, from the Mexican province of California to the Russian province of Alaska. He died Dec. 20, 1866, in Elsah Landing, III.