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.
