At the time John Wood built his Quincy cabin, St. Louis and Missouri were the attractive places of the opening West, but the black gangrene of human slavery repelled John Wood and caused him to prefer the free soil of Illinois. When the question was submitted to the people, John Wood made a canvass of the Bounty Land or Military Tract as it was called, and out of one hundred and three votes cast secured all but four against a change. He regarded with equal disfavor the political organization known as the abolitionists, considering them civic disturbers. [Illustration: THOMAS F. RYAN, ESQ., Of New York City. Life Member of the Society. ] In 1832 John Wood served as a volunteer in the Blackhawk War. In 1848, with two sons, he went to California, but remained there only a year. In 1850 he was elected to the State Senate and in 1856 was elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, and became governor of the State in 1859 on the death of Governor Bissell. He was one of the five delegates who, in February, 1861, represented Illinois at the peace convention in Washington. On the breaking out of the rebellion he was appointed Quartermaster General of Illinois, and served with great efficiency until June, 1864, when, at the age of sixty-six years, he went to the field of war as Colonel of the One Hundredth and Thirty-Seventh Illinois. At Memphis, Tennessee, he was assigned to the command of a brigade and discharged his duties gallantly while under fire. The value of Governor Wood’s services to State and Nation were handsomely acknowledged in 1868 by Illinois’ great war governor, Richard Yates, then United States Senator, in a letter to Governor Wood. Senator Yates wrote: “I have never expressed to you, though I have many times spoken of it to others, my grateful remembrance of your great assistance during those trying times. Often when discouraged, as we all were, I believe, except you, I have been cheered and sustained by your confidence and what many persons told me of your kindly mention of my acts as governor. This, I assure you, my dear Governor, is one of the pleasant memories connected with those eventful and trying times, and it is not too late, I hope, for me to express my unfeigned gratitude. It has always afforded me pleasure, when friends have given me the credit, to tell them the truth, how vastly the State was indebted to Governor Wood for the great energy he displayed in his office, which was the most trying office of us all, and for his warm and enthusiastic words for his country in those days of doubt and trial. I hope you will not consider these words flattering, but as a grateful expression of your true friend, Richard Yates.”