As Tazewell County approaches our Bicentennial in April of 2027, current Tazewell County Clerk John C. Ackerman and former County Clerk Christie A. Webb will be honoring and recognizing the previous 22 community leaders to have held this position. The office of Tazewell County Clerk was the first Countywide Office established on April 10, 1827. Each month on the 10th, as we approach the Bicentennial, we will be placing a floral wreath from The Greenhouse Flower Shoppe in Pekin at the gravesite of these 22 individuals. 

This month we recognize the youngest to serve as Tazewell County Clerk, Richard W. Ireland, 1849 - 1853, of the Democratic Political Party.

Richard W. Ireland was born March 31st, 1827, in Sevierville, Tennessee, to Thomas L. (1772-1851) and Hannah Lamb Ireland (1784-1874). The family moved to Tazewell County, Illinois, in 1836 and settled in the vicinity of Tremont.

Richard was an attorney who served briefly as a Deputy Circuit Clerk and Deputy Sheriff before becoming the County Clerk from 1849 to 1853. He was 22 years old when elected Tazewell County Clerk, the youngest to serve in this vital Tazewell County Government position. He lived in Pekin from about 1849 to 1870 where he did business as a partner in the law firm of Robert’s & Ireland on Court Street in Pekin.

He never married and resided at the Tazewell House Hotel during his years in Pekin. Richard Ireland was in court for 17 of Abraham Lincoln’s cases in Tazewell County. He was serving as Deputy Circuit Clerk in fifteen of them.

Near the end of his short life, Richard Ireland returned to Tremont to live with his older sister until his death on the 18th of March, 1871. He is buried in Tennessee Point Cemetery near his parents.