Person

Willis Benson Machen (Lyon County, KY, attorney, farmer, iron manufacturer, and politician (KY & Confederate))

b. 1810-04-10 d. 1893-09-29

Lyon County, Kentucky, attorney, farmer, iron manufacturer, and politician. Caldwell County, Kentucky, native. Son of Henry Machen and Nancy Tarratt Machen. Married to Margaret Aurelia Lyon Machen on December 28, 1835. Father of Mary J. Machen, Henry L. Machen, Edward Chittenden Machen, and Willis B. Machen, Jr., and Willis B. Machen III. Married to Eliza W. Dobbyns Machen in 1852. Father of John S. Machen, Mary E. Machen, Elizabeth Machen. Married to Victoria Theresa Mims Machen in Lyon County on September 10, 1859. Father of Minerva Buckner Machen. Attended Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky. Admitted to the Kentucky bar. Member of the Kentucky Constitutional Convention in 1849 from Lyon County, Kentucky. Attorney in Caldwell County in 1850. Member of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1854. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1856 to 1860. Owned twenty-six enslaved persons in 1860. Member of the Council of Ten in the provisional government of Kentucky. Member of the Committee on Banks, Committee on Military Affairs, and Committee on Foreign Business in the Provisional Government of Kentucky. Member of the First and Second Confederate Congresses representing the First Kentucky District from February 22, 1862, to April 1865. Presidential pardon granted on October 3, 1865.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Lyon County, Eddyville, p. 769.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Lyon County, Eddyville, p. 416B (p. 2 of microfilm).

Ninth Manuscript Census of the United States (1870), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Lyon County, District 1, p. 4A.

Kentucky Marriage Records, Madison County Courthouse, Richmond, Kentucky, Lyon County Marriages, Film #000851644, p. 312 of microfilm.

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Caldwell County, District 2, p. 343B.

Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records – Microfilm (1852-1910), KDLA, Roll #994027, Lyon County Births, 1853, p. 2 of microfilm.

Kentucky Marriage Records, Madison County Courthouse, Richmond, Kentucky, Lyon County, Marriages 1854 - 1878, Film #000321364, p. 160 of microfilm.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, s.v. “Machen, Willis Benson,” http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000012 (accessed January 11, 2017)

Charles Lanman, Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States (Washington: J. M. Morrison, 1887), 313.

Ezra J. Warner and W. Buck Yearns, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975),159-160.

Find A Grave, "Willis Benson Machen (April 10, 1810-September 29, 1893)," Memorial #7932701, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7932701 (accessed January 11, 2017).

“Death a Welcome Relief: Ex-United States Senator Willis B. Machen Expires In the Hopkinsville Asylum,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), September 30, 1893. “Machen, Willis Benson,”

The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 598.

KYR-0004-033-0001.

Citation

Machen, Willis Benson. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32211014 (November 12, 2026).

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