Robert Henry Crist was born on December 19, 1829, in Bethel, New York, to Peter M. Crist and Lillian Hunter. His father was a carpenter who owned $1,600 of real estate in 1850. His mother died in 1843, and his father married Nancy Frazier later that year. The family lived in New York until 1845, when they moved to Plainfield, Illinois.
Crist worked as a carpenter, and he moved to West Liberty, Iowa, around 1852. He returned to Plainfield two years later before moving to Natchez, Mississippi, in 1859. He worked as a master mechanic for the West Feliciana Railroad. In the fall of 1860, however, a local vigilance committee reportedly “notified [him] that he must leave because of his loyalty to the Union.”
He moved to Bedford, Indiana, and he enlisted in the Union army on July 24, 1861. He mustered in as a private in Company F of the 21st Indiana Infantry later that day. He expressed devotion to the Union and sent home patriotic poetry. In January 1862, he declared that "the South must be whiped and if slavery suffers let it suffer--it cannot be shielded without shielding the South, and I am not willing to do that." The regiment became the 1st Indiana Heavy Artillery in February 1863. He earned a series of promotions: to 2nd lieutenant on November 18, 1863, to 1st lieutenant on September 9, 1864, and to captain on March 1, 1865. He served as commissary sergeant from September 1861 until November 1863, when he became regimental quartermaster. He mustered out on January 13, 1866.
Crist settled in Wilmington, Illinois, after the war and resumed his work as a carpenter. According to a local writer, he was “an expert in the line of mosaic woodwork.” He married Frances E. Bates on April 14, 1867, and the couple apparently had no children. He applied for a federal pension in August 1890 and eventually secured one. He supported the Republican Party, and he was reportedly a “sta[u]nch advocate of its principles.”
His wife died in November 1898. He remained in Wilmington until at least 1910, and he died in Joliet, Illinois, on October 26, 1912.
Image: Robert H. Crist (William Wallace Stevens, Past and Present of Will County, Illinois)