Biography
Born in Funk's Grove Township, McLean County, Illinois, Funk attended the public schools and Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.
He left school in 1862 to enlist in the Sixty-eighth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, as a private, and served five months during the Civil War.
After the war, he returned to the university and finished the course. After this, he engaged in agricultural pursuits.
He returned to Bloomington, in 1869, and served as its mayor from 1871 to 1876 and from 1884 to 1886. He also served as president of the board of trustees at Wesleyan University for twenty years, served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1888 and was a trustee of the asylum for the blind in Jacksonville.
Funk was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1895). His candidacy for renomination in 1894 failed, so he returned to agriculture. He died on February 14, 1909 in Bloomington, Illinois. He is currently buried in Bloomington Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin F. Funk
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