Nathaniel Pope

Nathaniel Pope (January 5, 1784 – January 23, 1850) was a politician and jurist from the U.S. state of Illinois.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to a family long important in Virginia and Kentucky politics. Pope graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, in 1804 and read law under his brother John Pope before being admitted to the bar. Pope soon moved to Ste. Genevieve, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and started practicing law in the Louisiana Territory, which had recently become part of the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

However, Pope soon realized economic opportunities were greater in Kaskaskia on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, and planned to move there. Furthermore, Kaskaskia became the seat of government when Congress organized the Illinois Territory in 1809, splitting off what became Ohio and the Indiana Territory. Pope's family connections, especially his brother John who became U.S. Senator from Kentucky in 1807, mattered. President James Madison on 23 February 1809 appointed Pope as Secretary of the Illinois Territory. When Kentucky Judge John Boyle declined appointment as the new territory's governor, Pope's cousin, Ninian Edwards, accepted. Pope, Edwards and Illinois' new judges resolved that laws previously in effect in Indiana would remain in force in Illinois unless repealed.

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