VOLK, LEONARD WELLS (1828-1895), American sculptor, was born at Wellstown (now Wells), Hamilton county, New York, on Nov. 7, 1828. He first followed the trade of a marble cutter with his father at Pittsfield, Mass. In 1848 he opened a studio at St. Louis, Mo., and in 1855 was sent by his wife's cousin, Stephen A. Douglas, to Rome to study. Returning to America in 1857, he settled in Chicago, where he helped to es tablish an academy of design and was for eight years its head.
Among his principal works are the Douglas monument at Chicago and the Soldiers' and Sailors' monument at Rochester, N.Y.; and statues of President Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the Illinois State capitol at Springfield, Ill. In 186o he made a life-mask (now in the National Museum, Washington) of Lincoln, of whom only one other, by Clark Mills in 1865, was ever made.