Husband of Cyrena Thompson

The following is from The Good Old Times in McLean County Illinois: - by E. Duis
pages 394-395

King Solomon Cunningham
King Solomon Cunningham was born December 26, 1823, in Clark County, Indiana.
His father's name was Robert Cunningham, and his mother's name was Aphia
Cleveland. His father, who was born about the year 1780, was of Irish descent,
and his mother was a Yankee. Robert Cunningham was a soldier of the war of 1812,
and fought under Harrison at Tippecanoe.
In 1829 the Cunningham family came to Cheney's Grove from Clark County,
Indiana, where Robert Cunningham had lived for twenty years. At Cheney's Grove
the family went to farming, and a few years afterwards Robert Cunningham built a
water mill on Sangamon Creek. The stones for grinding were ... from the prairie,
but they did very good work. The water at that time was usually high enough to
run the mill all summer. Mr. Cunningham was obliged to work, and boys were
obliged to do the same, for the West was no place for idlers.
Mr. King Solomon Cunningham is particularly eloquent concerning the sudden
change in the weather, which took place December, 1836, and says that as the
cold wind rolled on it froze the air so rapidly that the frost seemed a moving
cloud of smoke. He speaks of the two rainy seasons, when the water in the creeks
and rivers rose tyo enormous heights. In 1844 the Mackinaw was higher than it
had ever been known before or since. The Sangamon Creek was too high for
Cunningham's mill to run. The year 1858 was another rainy season, and Sangamon
Creek was higher than in 1844.
King Solomon Cunningham married February 29, 1849, Cyrena J. Thompson, who
lived on the Mackinaw, five miles from Lexington. Her father, John B. Thompson,
was one of the oldest settlers of McLean County. They had six children, three of
whom are living. They are:
Mrs. Eliza Jane McFarland, wife of J. B. McFarland, lived six miles north of
her father's, in Cropsey township.
Henry B. Cunningham lives in Sonoma County, California. He is an active,
industrious young man, and his father feels justly proud of him.
John W. Cuningham, the youngest of the family, is the pet and lives at home.
King Solomon Cunningham is five feet ten inches in height, is rather slim in
build, is bald-headed, has a bright, clear eye and straight features. He is very
kind in his manner, has been obliged to work hard, but has been successful in
life, and is a settler who does credit to McLean County.