2969* VNVIQNI
aaiSSHONVlN N
96AVIAI
'ONI Ad3QNia
NVW>»03H
A HISTORY
OF
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, its
People, and its Principal Interests
BY
George Washington Smith, M. A.
VOLUME III
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1912
OF THE
OF !L
History of Southern Illinois
ERNEST F. MILLER. One of the old and highly respected families
of Jackson county, Illinois, members of which have distinguished them-
selves in business life and the professions for a number of years, is
that of Miller, prominent members of which are found in Makanda, as
representatives of the well-known banking firm of R. H. Miller & Son,
of which R. H. Miller is president and Ernest P. Miller, cashier. Ernest
F. Miller was born on a farm near the village of Makanda, December
19, 1881, and is a son of Robert H. and Mahala (Oakes) Miller, and
a grandson of Alexander and Catherine (McMullough) Miller, the
former of Scotch and the latter of Scotch-Irish descent.
Robert H. Miller was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, February 2,
1837, and was a lad of fifteen years when brought to Illinois. Here
he was reared to agricultural pursuits, and on reaching manhood took
up that vocation, which he followed for many years. He is now liv-
ing on a farm near the old homestead, and his wife, a member of the
old Oakes and Zimmerman families of Union and Jackson counties,
also survives. They have had three children: Miss Hattie, Charles
A., a well known physician of Macon; and Ernest F. Mr. Miller is a
well-known Mason, has been interested in Republican politics, and is
a member of the Presbyterian church, with which his wife is also con-
nected.- Both are well known and highly esteemed in their community.
Ernest F. Miller's early life was spent on his father's farm, and
his early education secured in the public schools and McKendree and
Ewing Colleges. On finishing his education, at the age of fifteen years,
he entered the employ of the Jackson State Bank, of Carbondale. was
later in the First National Bank of East St. Louis, and eventually be-
came connected with the Diamond Joe line of steamers. Eventually he
became paymaster of the Defiance Box Company, at Defiance, Ohio, but
in 1905 resigned this position to engage in the banking business with
his father, and this has demanded all of his attention to the present
time. Although still a young man, Mr. Miller has been recognized
as one of the Republican leaders of his section, and has served as pres-
ident of the village board. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity and
the Modern Woodmen of America, in both of which he is very popu-
lar, and his religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal
church, in the work of which both he and his wife are active.
In 1907 Mr. Miller was married to Miss Venita Hall, daughter of J.
C. Hall, of McLeansboro, and they have had one son, Frederick Eu-
gene. During the time the business of R. H. Miller & Son has been
operating in Makanda it has firmly established itself in the confidence
of the people here, and it is considered one of the solid, substantial in-
stitutions of this part of the state. The elder Miller has always borne
an unblemished reputation in all of his business dealings, and his son
has inherited the same high principles that have made his father so
1087
615104
1088 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
highly respected. He has been ready at all times to aid by his means
and enterprising spirit the building up of this part of Southern Illi-
nois, and has many friends in both the business and social fields.
HENRY WILLIAM SCHROEDER. The city of Breese, Illinois, is the home
of some flourishing business houses whieh supply the large contiguous
territory with necessities, and one that controls an extensive trade and is
constantly enlarging its field of operations is that owned by Henry Wil-
liam Schroeder, a lumber and building material business. Mr. Schroeder
is well known to the citizens of Breese, as he has lived in this city all of
his life, his birth having occurred here September 15, 1869.
Mr. Schroeder is a son of Conrad Schroeder, who was born in Hessen,
Germany, and came to the United States at the age of eighteen years,
with a brother, John, who was sixteen years old at that time. Locating
in Clinton county, Illinois, they began to follow their trades, Conrad being
a wagon maker and John a blacksmith, and soon thereafter each entered
business on his own account and became well and favorably known to
the business citizens of the city of Breese. Conrad Schroeder married
Miss Christina Wiese, of Clinton county, where her father was a prom-
inent agriculturist, and they had a family of eight children, of whom
five survive : Carrie ; Henry W. ; Louisa, who became the wife of E. G.
Hofsommer ; Lydia, who married August Hofsommer ; and Emil J. Mr.
Schroeder continued in the wagon making business, in connection with
dealing in farming implements, up to the time of his death. His widow,
who survives him, resides in Breese and attends St. John's Evangelical
church, of which he was also a consistent member. In his political views
he was a Republican, but his business interests always demanded all of
his time and attention and he never held nor cared for public office.
Henry W. Sehroeder spent his boyhood in Breese, where he attended
the public schools, later entering the Southern Illinois Normal Univer-
sity, and eventually took a course in architectural drawing at Shenk's
Architectural Drawing School, St. Louis. Entering an architect's office
in St. Louis, Mr. Schroeder continued to follow that line for a time, but
eventually went into the carpenter and building business at St. Louis,
having learned that trade before he took up architectural work. In 1892
he came to Breese, where he formed a partnership with E. G. Hofsom-
mer in the building and contracting business, and this association con-
tinued for five years, when Mr. Schroeder purchased Mr. Hofsommer 's
interests. Lately, however, he has almost entirely abandoned the con-
tracting business, giving the major part of his attention to dealing in
lumber and building material, and to the manufacture of artificial stone,
as secretary of the Breese Artificial Stone Company. This company has
extensive yards at Breese, and is one of the largest industries of this
thriving city. In addition Mr. Schroeder is secretary of the Breese Water
and Light Company, and takes an active and intelligent interest in all
matters pertaining to the material welfare of his native city. He is a
Republican, but, like his father, he has found no time to mix in politics.
He attends St. John's Evangelical church, and is a member of the South-
ern Illinois Lumber Dealers' Association and the Concordia Singing
Society.
In 1903 Mr. Schroeder was married to Miss Lily Hofsommer, daugh-
ter of William J. Hofsommer, of Breese, and four children have been born
to this union, namely : Melva, Irma, Margaret and Carl. Mr. Schroeder
is an excellent business man, and has demonstrated that a man may be-
come successful through the use of honorable and upright business meth-
ods. His standing as a citizen is equally high, and personally he is very
popular having many warm friends in the city of his birth.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1089
ROBERT P. HILL. Among the distinctively prominent and brilliant
lawyers of the state of Illinois none is more versatile, talented or well
equipped for the work of his profession than Robert P. Hill, who main-
tains his home and business headquarters at Marion, in Williamson
county. Throughout his career as an able attorney and well fortified
counselor he has, by reason of unimpeachable conduct and close observ-
ance of the unwritten code of professional ethics, gained the admiration
and respect of his fellow members of the bar, in addition to which he
commands a high place in the confidence and esteem of his fellow citi-
zens. At the present time, in 1911, Mr. Hill is a member of the law
firm of Hill & Skaggs, of Marion, and he is representing the Fiftieth dis-
trict of Illinois in the general assembly.
The original representative of the Hill family in Illinois was John
W. Hill, grandfather of the subject of this review. John W. Hill ac-
companied his father to Illinois from North Carolina in an early day and
he passed his life in Hamilton and Franklin counties where he was long
engaged in agricultural pursuits. Robert P. Hill was born in Franklin
county, Illinois, the date of his nativity being the 18th of April, 1874.
He is a son of James B. Hill, a fruit commission man at Anna, Illinois.
James B. Hill was born in Hamilton county, this state, in 1844. He was
a gallant and true soldier in the One Hundred and Tenth Illinois Vol-
unteer Infantry during the war of the Rebellion, having belonged to the
Army of the Cumberland. He participated in strenuous conflicts at
Murfreesboro, Lookout Mountain and Mississippi Ridge and received his
honorable discharge from service in 1865. For a number of years he was
most successfully engaged in farming operations in Franklin county,
Illinois, but in 1899 he located at Anna, where he has since been en-
gaged in the commission business. In 1869 was solemnized his marriage
to Miss Rebecca Spilman, a daughter of a noted Christian minister, who
died at Mulkeytown, this state, at the advanced age of eighty years.
Mrs. Hill passed to the life eternal in 1884, and concerning her children,
Robert P. is the immediate subject of this review; James J. is circuit
court clerk of Franklin county, Illinois ; Rebecca A. is the wife of Joseph
Webb, a prominent merchant and farmer near Ewing, Illinois; and
W. J. Hill, of St. Louis, Missouri. Two daughters, Sarah and Alice, are
both deceased.
Robert P. Hill was reared to the invigorating influences of the old
homestead farm in Franklin county and his preliminary educational
training was completed by a course in the Ewing, Illinois, College, in /
which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1896, duly receiving
his degree of Bachelor of Science. While attending college he taught
two sessions of county school in the vicinity of his home and after leav-
ing college he came to Williamson county, where he was elected principal
of the Crab Orchard Academy, serving in that capacity for two years.
Being ambitious for legal training, he located at Marion, where he began
to read law under the able preceptorship of Messrs. D. T. Hartwell and
E. M. Spiller. He was engaged in the real estate and life and fire in-
surance business while in the embryonic stage as a lawyer. In June,
1906, Mr. Hill went to Chicago, where he passed the state bar examina-
tion and where he was admitted to the bar of Illinois. He initiated the
active practice of his profession at Marion, where for a time he was alone
but where he is now associated in a business way with Walter W. Skaggs.
The first public service of an official nature rendered by Mr. Hill was
that of police magistrate of Marion, to which office he was elected prior
to his admission to the bar. Subsequently he was elected city attorney
of Marion, succeeding Hosea Ferrell in the office and serving therein for
a period of two years. It was during his incumbency as city attorney
that the city paving was inaugurated. In 1910 he was nominated as one
of the Democratic candidates of the Fiftieth district for representation
1090 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
in the general assembly of the state. The district comprises the counties
of Franklin, Williamson, Union, Alexander and Pulaski, and while the
district is normally Republican by a wide majority he was elected to the
office. His interest in legislation has not taken a wide range but it is
shown to be practical by the activity he has manifested in legislating for
good roads, to reform the bill of lading practice of railroads and other
common carriers, to remove the technicality of "exceptions" in cases on
appeal to higher courts of the state and to eliminate the fee evil of the
state's attorney's office by placing the incumbent of that position on a
salary instead of tempting him with the fee graft, as of old. In the
Forty-seventh general assembly Mr. Hill was made a member of the com-
mittees on judiciary, judicial department and practice, good roads, mili-
tary affairs, railroads and the committee to visit penal and reformatory
institutions. He was also selected by his party as a member of the
Democratic steering committee.
Mr. Hill's plan for good-roads legislation was agitated in the house
and the same resulted in the naming of a committee to meet with a com-
mittee of the senate for the purpose of selecting another committee to
investigate conditions and make recommendations to the next general
assembly in that connection. Existing laws upon the subject will be re-
vised and the element of economy will enter into the consideration of
the question by the committee. As chairman of the sub-committee of the
house on railroads Mr. Hill was enabled to report favorably on the
" uniform bill-of-lading bill" and he secured its passage through the
house. As the end of the session was near the bill was hurried over to
the senate, where its friends secured prompt action, and the measure is
now a law.
Mr. Hill introduced a bill to change the court practice of requiring
"exceptions" to be made and noted during the trial of a cause before an
appeal to the higher courts could be taken and have standing with the
body. The bill provides that where any point in a bill is controverted
and passed on by the trial judge the party ruled adversely against may
take up the case on appeal on a writ of error without reference to form
of "exceptions" heretofore required to be made. The bill is now a part
of the statutes of 1911.
It has been common knowledge for years that the office of state's
attorney should be placed upon a salary basis in order to get the best
moral and financial results for the state. The temptation for graft is
ever present with the incumbent of the office and it has too frequently
been taken advantage of. A bill to abolish the fee evil came over to the
house from the senate end of the capital and Mr. Hill, as a friend of
the framer of the measure, fathered it and secured its passage, with the
result that it is now a law.
Mr. Hill in his legal practice is recognized as a particularly able law-
yer and among his clients are numbered some of the largest corporations
and most influential business concerns in this section of the state. As
already intimated, he is a stalwart Democrat in his political affiliations
and he is a zealous and active factor in all matters bearing on the party
welfare. He is connected with a number of fraternal organizations of
representative character and his religious faith is in harmony with the
tenets of the Baptist church, in whose faith he was reared. He is a
man of broad human sympathy and fine mental caliber and is held in
high esteem by all with whom he has come in contact.
On the 25th of December, 1901, Robert P. Hill was united in mar-
riage to Miss Lora Corder, of Marion. Mrs. Hill is a daughter of the late
Willis Corder, who was born and reared in Williamson county, Illinois,
and whose father was a pioneer here. Mrs. Hill is a grand niece of the
historic character and frontier lawyer of this county, Anderson P. Cor-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1091
der, who was a compeer of Lincoln and other ante-bellum lawyers of
Illinois. Willis Corder married Julia Springs, and Mrs. Hill was their
only child. Robert P., Jr., born on the 30th of June, 1905, is the issue
of Mr. and Mrs. Hill.
WALTER CLYDE SHOUPE. An enterprising and successful journalist,
Walter Clyde Shoupe, editor of the Constitution at Carlyle, and a mem-
ber of the firm of T. D. Shoupe & Sons, publishers, is widely known
throughout Clinton county in connection with his paper, which has the
distinction of being the only Democratic paper published in Clinton
county, Illinois. He was born at New Athens, Saint Clair County, Illi-
nois, March 25, 1876, where his father, Theodore David Shoupe, was
then living. His grandfather, Abram Shoupe, a native of Pennsyl-
vania, married Catherine Tannehill, who was born and bred in Kentucky,
and in 1830 settled in Belleville, Saint Clair county, Illinois, becoming a
pioneer of that locality.
One of a family of seven children, Theodore David Shoupe was born
in Belleville, Illinois, November 24, 1837. In his youthful days he
learned the printer's trade in the office of the Belleville Tribune, which
was then edited by his brother, William H. Shoupe, but was later con-
ducted by G. A. Harvey. Becoming proficient at the trade, he went to
Tamaroa, Perry county, Illinois, and there published the True American.
In 1871 he purchased the New Athens Era, in Saint Clair county, and
published it three and one-half years, after which he worked at the case
in the office of the Republican, at Saint Louis, Missouri. On July 4,
1881, he bought a half interest in the Constitution and Union, at Carlyle,
Illinois, and conducted it, in partnership with R. D. Moore, until 1885.
From that time he was in partnership with R. H. Norfolk until Mr. Nor-
folk's death, in 1892, when he bought out the heirs of his former part-
ner. Admitting then to partnership his two sons, under the firm name of
T. D. Shoupe & Sons, he changed the name of the paper to The Carlyle
Constitution, under which it has since been conducted. He has made the
paper thoroughly Democratic in its principles, and the public has shown
its appreciation in a gratifying way, its circulation being large and emi-
nently satisfactory. Although he has outlived the appointed three score
and ten years of man 's life, Mr. Shoupe is still active both mentally and
physically, and puts in full time each day in the office of his newspaper.
He is indeed a veteran journalist, and is distinguished as the oldest
editor in Southern Illinois.
Fifty-three years ago, in 1858, Mr. Theodore D. Shoupe was united
in marriage with Louisa J. Moore, who was born in Saint Clair county,
Illinois, of pioneer parents, and of the children born of their union five
daughters and two sons are living, both of the sons being associated with
him in the publication of the Constitution. Mrs. Shoupe is a faithful
member of the Baptist church, and Mr. Shoupe was formerly a member
of the Knights of Honor.
Walter Clyde Shoupe was educated in Carlyle, being graduated from
the Carlyle High School with the class of 1890. He immediately began
work in his father's printing office yielding, no doubt, to a natural ten-
dency toward journalism. His natural ability in that line brought him
rapid promotion, and a few years later, as above stated, he and his
brother were both made members of the publishing firm of T. D. Shoupe
& Sons, and have retained their connection with the Canstitution. The
Shoupe family have been associated with the newspaper world for sixty
or more years, and the journal which it is now editing is one of the very
few Democratic papers of the state which has faithfully supported the
principles of the party at all times.
1092 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
"Walter Clyde Shoupe is an intelligent, progressive journalist, and
as a stanch Democrat in politics is chairman of the Democratic County
Committee. He is now rendering excellent service as master in chancery
of Clinton county, and is president of the Carlyle Board of Education.
Fraternally he is a member and master of Scott Lodge, No. 79, Ancient
Free and Accepted Order of Masons.
NATIONAL STOCK YARDS NATIONAL BANK. In connection with the es-
tablishment of the Saint Louis National Stock Yards and the develop-
ment of the live stock industry in Southern Illinois and Missouri it be-
came evident to the business interests located at the Stock Yards that a
bank was necessary for the proper carrying on of the business.
In 1872, therefore, a private bank was organized by Messrs. Newman
and Farr, who carried on the business until 1887. That year the bank
passed into the control of Isaac H. and C. G. Knox, who in 1889 incor-
porated the institution under the state law, with a capital stock of
fifty thousand dollars, under the name of the Stock Yard Bank of
Brooklyn — the name Brooklyn was included from the little town of
Brooklyn adjoining the Stock Yards on the northwest. With the growth
of the market and the enlargement of the transactions there it became
necessary to increase the facilities of the bank. In 1892 the capital was
increased to one hundred thousand dollars, the deposits then being about
three hundred and fifty thousand. Mr. C. G. Knox, at this time acting
as president of the bank, was also managing officer of the Saint Louis
Stock Yards Company. He was a director of the Mechanics- American
National Bank of St. Louis, a member of numerous prominent clubs, and
a man very highly thought of in social and business circles in the city of
Saint Louis. There was very great regret manifested by his business
associates at his death in 1907, which occurred on ship board in the Gulf
of Mexico, terminating a vacation trip to the Panama Canal.
Snelson Chesney, at that time cashier of the bank, was made pres-
ident, and in 1908 the bank was reorganized under the National Banking
Law as the National Stock Yards National Bank, with a capital of three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and a surplus of seventy thousand
dollars, the deposits being two million and forty-five thousand dollars.
On the first of January, 1910, Mr. Wright was elected president and
Mr. Sullivan, cashier. At the present time the officers are as follows:
Wirt Wright, president ; C. T. Jones, vice-president ; M. A. Traylor, vice-
president ; O. J. Sullivan, cashier ; H. W. Kramer, assistant cashier ; R.
D. Garvin, assistant cashier. The directors are as follows : L. F. Swift,
Edward Tilden, G. R. Collett, William Cullen, C. M. Macfarlane, C. T.
Jones, Wirt Wright, 0. J. Sullivan, M. A. Traylor. The bank now has
a capital of $350,000 ; surplus and undivided profits of $238,000, and the
deposits are about $4.000,000.
Of the active officers of the bank- — the president was born at Liberty-
ville, Illinois, in 1878 ; was graduated from Beloit College in 1901 and im-
mediately entered the office of N. W. Harris and Company, bond dealers
in Chicago. After three years' service there he accepted the cashiership
of the First National Bank of Edgerton, Wisconsin, remaining there until
April 1, 1907, at which time he was elected cashier of the then Stock
Yard Bank at the National Stock Yards.
Mr. Traylor, vice-president, is a native of Kentucky, was born in
Adair county in 1878, and spent his youth in the mountains of that
state, leaving there at the age of twenty for Texas. There he was ad-
mitted to the bar and became assistant prosecuting attorney of Hill
county. Mr. Traylor practiced law for some years and finally became
interested in the banking business and was associated with several banks
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1093
in Texas, ultimately becoming president of the First National Bank
of Ballinger. This position he resigned to accept the vice-presidency of
the National Stock Yards National Bank.
Mr. Sullivan, cashier of the bank, was born in 1878, in Saint Louis,
and received his early education in the Saint Louis schools. Quite early
he entered the office of the Mechanics-American National Bank in Saint
Louis, and joined the force of the Stock Yards Bank in 1901. He has
since filled every subordinate position in the bank, becoming cashier in
January, 1910.
JOHN RUF, JR. A worthy representative of the native-born citizens
of Carlyle, Illinois, John Ruf, Jr., is well known in the newspaper world,
and as editor of the Union- Banner, is devoting all his thought and energy
to making that journal bright, newsy, readable and clean. He was born
January 12, 1879, in Carlyle, and is the third in direct line of descent to
bear the name of John Ruf.
His paternal grandfather, John Ruf, the first, was born in Germany,
and was there bred and married. In 1852, soon after the death of his
wife, Elizabeth Ruf, he immigrated with his family to America, locating
in Saint Louis, Missouri, where he was variously occupied for a few years.
Coming to Illinois in 1863, he was a resident of Waterloo until 1878, when
he returned to his old home in Germany, where he lived until his death,
two years later. He reared four children, of whom his son John, the next
in line of descent, was the second child.
John Ruf, second, or senior, as he now is, was born November 26,
1842, in Braunlingen, Baden, Germany, and in the eleventh year of his
age came with his father to the United States. After acquiring a practi-
cal education in private schools at Saint Louis he learned the printer's
trade, which he followed for seven years, from 1862 until 1869. Going
then to California, he worked at his trade a short time, but not con-
tent there returned to Missouri. In 1873 he located in Carlyle, Illinois,
and for three years was employed on the Clinton County Pioneer. In
1876 he established the Southern Illinois Zeitung, a weekly German
paper, and managed it a number of years. In 1886 he purchased a half
interest in the Union Banner, which had been established a few years
earlier by the late J. M. Peterson, whose widow retained the other half in-
terest in the paper. In 1888 John Ruf, Sr., bought out Mrs. Peterson.'s
share in the paper, and has since had entire control of the plant. He is
a stanch Republican in politics, and during the Civil war was a warm sup-
porter of the Union. In the spring of 1861 he was enrolled in Company
A, Second Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and served until being mustered
out with his regiment in August. 1861.
John Ruf, Sr., married, in 1875, Josephine Hubert, a daughter of
Jacob Hubert, who emigrated from Lorraine, France, his native city, in
1844, to Illinois, becoming one of the pioneer settlers of Clinton county.
Eleven children were born of their xinion, namely : Josephine ; Edwin
Jacob, deceased ; John, Jr. ; Harry, deceased ; Elsa ; Martha, wife of W. P.
Hinkel ; Ernest; Hubert, deceased; Paul and Brunoe, twins, deceased;
and Leo. Fraternally John Ruf, Sr., is a member of the Independent Or-
der of Odd Fellows; of the Modern Woodmen of America, and of the
Grand Army of the Republic.
John Ruf. Jr.. was educated in the public schools of Carlyle, where he
was well drilled in the rudimentary branches of knowledge. Inheriting a
love for journalism, he entered his father's printing office in 1896, and in
course of time mastered the mechanical details of the printer's trade. He
subsequently served with ability in different capacities, and since the ill-
ness of his father has assumed the assistant editor's chair, which he is
1094 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
filling successfully. The Union Banner, an interesting and newsy paper,
is Republican in politics, and under the efficient management of Mr. Ruf
enjoys the largest circulation of any paper in Clinton county.
Mr. Ruf is free from domestic cares and tribulations, never having be-
come a benedict, but he has led a busy and useful life, and being a man of
liberal views, energetic and progressive, he is held in high esteem as a
man and a citizen. He is an enthusiastic musician, playing the cornet
and the clarinet, and is a member of the American Federation of Musi-
cians. Fraternally Mr. Ruf belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted
Order of Masons and to the Mutual Protective League.
LEONIDAS J. MAY, M. D. Dr. May has been established in the town of
Cobden, Union county, Illinois, ever since beginning his practice in 1905,
and in that time has built up a fine practice and enjoys the confidence of
the community to whose ills he has ministered so wisely. He is a con-
stant student of his profession and is never ceasing in his efforts to keep
in touch with the latest discoveries of the science to which he has elected
to devote his life and to which so many of the greatest men the world
has produced are devoting their powers. Dr. May, who is still to be
counted of the younger generation, is a native son of Illinois, his eyes
having first opened to the light of day in Marion, Williamson county.
He is a son of Rev. G. W. May, a minister of the Cumberland Presby-
terian church and well known for his ability and services in the high
cause of his honored calling. The elder gentleman is a native of John-
son county and a son of William May, a native of Tennessee, who mi-
grated to Johnson county and had the distinction of being one of the
earliest settlers of Southern Illinois. He was prominent in the simple,
friendly, wholesome and strenuous life of the new section and his good life
has been recorded as a legacy to his descendants. He took as his wife a
Miss Simpson, a member of another pioneer family. Four of the brothers
of William May and four of his wife 's brothers were soldiers in the Civil
war, their sympathies being enlisted in the cause of the Union.
The youth of the Rev. G. W. May was passed in both Johnson and
Williamson counties, the family removing to the latter when he was ten
years of age. He married Sarah L. Davis, a native of eastern Tennessee.
When she was nine years of age her parents migrated to Williamson
county. The father was born in the year 1850 and has been a minister for
twenty years, being at the present time located at Owensville, Indiana.
He reared a family of six children, namely : Edna, now Mrs. McLain, of
Union county ; Ada Pearl, wife of Dr. Stewart, of Anna, Illinois ; Myrtle
(Barckniann) ; Daisy (Cantwell) ; Cecil (Wilder) ; and Leonidas J.
Dr. May, immediate subject of this review, was educated in part in
the Marion schools, finishing nine school grades when fifteen years of
age. He was for one year a student in the Anna high school and one year
in that at Patoka, Indiana. He finished his classical education in Oak-
land College, Oakland City, Indiana, in 1898. Meantime, however, he
had been working at various occupations and his studies were frequently
interrupted while earning a livelihood. The family was in modest cir-
cumstances, as is proverbial with the families of ministers. When eleven
years of age he was working on a farm near Cobden and first and last he
did a good deal of work of this kind in the vicinity of Cobden. Later he
engaged in sawmill work for three years in the vicinity of Anna, Illinois.
He also worked in a brick plant in the Hoosier state for a year and in
1897 began teaching. His pedagogical services extended over a period of
six years and included a year near Princeton, Indiana ; two years in the
Francisco high school ; three years as principal of the high school at Mon-
roe City, Indiana. In the meantime he had come to the conclusion to make
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1095
the medical profession his own and while teaching pursued his studies in
the Indiana State University at Bloomington, completing the course in
two years. In the spring of 1902 he entered the Kentucky School of
Medicine at Louisville and studied for four years, graduating in 1905.
While pursuing his studies in the Keystone state he was interne in the
Louisville City Hospital. In October, 1905, he passed the Illinois state
board examinations and immediately located at Cobden, where he has
built up an excellent practice and where he enjoys the regard of the com-
munity. He is affiliated with the Union county, the Illinois State and
the American Medical Associations, and with the Masonic order at Cob-
den. He is a Presbyterian in church faith.
Dr. May was happily married February 26, 1908, Miss Stella Stout,
of Cobden, daughter of Henry P. and Susan (Rich) Stout, becoming his
wife. They have a small son, Robert Leon.
B. CLEMENS NIEBUR. One of the successful farmers of Clinton county,
whose progressive views have done much for the section, is B. Clemens
Xiebur. When he came to Breese, Illinois, where he now resides, he found
nothing but wild prairie land, while the town itself was only a tiny set-
tlement of a few houses clustered around a church. With characteristic
enterprise he first proceeded to get his land into proper condition for
farming and then he turned his attention to the affairs of the town. In
the position of supervisor of this township he accomplished much toward
the building up of the country around Breese, and in looking now over
the thriving city one must remember the man who had a hand in its de-
velopment.
B. Clemens Niebur was born in the province of Hanover, Germany, on
the 12th of September, 1838. His father, John Henry Niebur, was also a
native of Hanover, the date of his birth being the 23rd of January, 1802.
As a young man the father was a tenant farmer, carrying on at the same
time a brisk trade in Holland. The commodities in which he dealt were
an odd mixture, such as bacon and wooden shoes, cheese and clothing. At
the age of thirty-two he was married to Gasina A. Maua, of the province
of Hanover. His wife was born on the 23rd of January, 1808, and four
children were born of this union. Joseph, Clemens, Christina and John.
Excepting Clemens, John is the only one of the children now living. In
1852 Mr. Niebur immigrated to America, bringing the whole family. He
bought two hundred acres and located in Germantown township, a farm
which he worked until his death on the 14th of September, 1882. Mrs.
Niebur did not long survive her husband, dying in 1884. Both were
members of the Catholic church. When Mr. Niebur came to America his
first act, as soon as it was possible, was to become a citizen of the United
States and his political allegiance was always to the Democratic party.
The youth of B. Clemens Niebur was spent in Germany, his education
being obtained in the common schools. At the age of fourteen he came to
America with his parents and for a time he attempted to go on with his
education by attending evening school, but this was given up after a short
time. As a mere boy he then started to work in a brick yard at German-
town, and stayed in this work for two years when, his father needing ex-
tra help with his farm, he began to work for him. He later hired out as
a farm hand to a neighbor and worked in this capacity for three years.
At the age of twenty-three he married Anna Maria Albers, the daugh-
ter of Frank Albers, of Germantown. The date of this event was the llth
of February, 1862, and afterwards he took his young wife to a farm in
St. Rose township. Here he not only engaged in agriculture but managed
to lay by a few dollars by operating a kiln for burning lime. After a
1096 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
few months Mr. Niebur decided to move to his present location northwest
of Breese. Here he has passed the remainder of his successful life.
Mr. Niebur owns his farm and also has considerable money invested
in real estate in St. Louis. In politics he is a Democrat and his party has
always found him a willing and hearty worker whenever occasion offered.
In religious matters Mr. Niebur clings to the belief of his fathers, and is a
communicant and devout attendant at the Catholic church.
Mrs. Niebur was born on the 31st of October, 1839, and died on the
26th of March, 1883, at Breese, Illinois. She and Mr. Niebur became the
parents of eight children, of whom five are living. Henry, a merchant
at New Baden ; Frank, a huckster at St. Louis ; Mary, who is dead ; Joseph
and Theodore, both of whom are farmers ; Elizabeth, who is Mrs. Josen
Boennighausen, of St. Louis, and two who died in infancy.
SAMUEL HART is the able and conspicuous representative of the com-
mercial phase of activity in Marion. His establishment is the mecca
for all who want satisfactory dry goods and ready made garments, and
"Harts" has been known as an up-to-date and progressive store for a
number of years.
The Hart family, of which this popular merchant is a member, was
founded by J. Hart, who was born in the town of Bochum, Prussia, in
1818. He was the son of a large and successful stock raiser of Bochum,
near Ebersfeld, but he 1-onged for the freedom and the unknown scenes
of that United States, of which he had heard so many fascinating tales.
He left, his Fatherland in 1839, and upon landing in this country made
his way to Missouri, where he began the foundation of his fortune, as
have so many others of his race, as a peddler with a pack strapped on
his back. These traveling merchants were quite common at this time
and in some places met with hostility and harsh treatment from those
prejudiced against his race. Persecutions were directed against him be-
cause once when utterly wearied by the weight of the heavy burden upon
his back, he dared to lean against the fence of some Gentile. It would
have fared badly with him had he not had a letter of introduction to
Judge Martin, of Lincoln county, who came to his aid and took him into
his home, and, lending his sympathy and personal interest, put an end
to the intolerant attitude of those arrayed against him. At first he was
only allowed to ply his trade on sufferance, but after a time the poor and
industrious young commercial adventurer won the friendly co-operation
of his fellow citizens. This was all due to the championship of Judge
Martin, and from that time the Judge and the young Hebrew were fast
friends.
When by careful management and strict economy Mr. Hart had saved
enough money he established himself in the mercantile business in Troy,
Missouri. He prospered as a merchant and as fast as the money rolled
in he invested it in other lines of business. In this way he acquired
considerable landed property and became a successful farmer by proxy.
The farmers all knew him as a good man with whom to dispose of their
produce, so they brought him their grain and stock, upon which he made
a considerable profit in the St. Louis markets. His mercantile house,
meanwhile, became one of the chief ones of the county and his estate
was reckoned one of the largest in Troy. He must not be thought of as
a mere money maker, for his personal popularity became so well known
that he was appointed by President Lincoln as an officer to aid in the
establishment of order in Lincoln county during the period of the Civil
war. In this sort of provost marshal position Mr. Hart's reputation as a
careful administrator of justice waxed strong. In politics he was at first
a Democrat, but during the campaign of 1896, when his party inserted
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1097
the "free silver" plank in their platform, he changed his allegiance and
espoused the cause of Republicanism, to which he ever after remained
loyal.
Joseph Hart married, in Lincoln county, Missouri, Miss Temperance
Stuart, a daughter of Robert Stuart, who had come into this region from
Kentucky. The death of his wife occurred in 1873, and for his second
wife Mr. Hart married Rose Steiner. The children of his first marriage
are: Adolph, of Worthington, Minnesota; Hermann and Jacob, mem-
bers of the mercantile firm of J. Hart Sons ; Chester, Illinois ; and Sam-
uel, of Marion. The three sons of his second marriage are : Louis J., who
is with the Federal Mercantile Company, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma;
Isaac 0., who is with the Globe Shoe and Clothing Company, of St. Louis ;
and Dr. E. R., whose dental offices are in the Third National Bank Build-
. ing in St. Louis.
Samuel Hart, the second youngest son of his mother, was born in
Troy, Missouri, on the 18th of August, 1869. His literary education was
gained in the public schools of his home town, and his business training
was had through actual experience as a clerk in his father's store, the
most practical and useful training that can fall to the lot of a future
merchant. When he was ready to engage in an independent venture
he established himself in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and conducted a gen-
eral dry goods business there for six years. Deciding that Marion, Illi-
nois, offered him better chances for investment, he came to the city and
since then has spent almost a decade in active business here. In 1903
he bought the stock of Mrs. Shannon Holland and has since given its
management the benefit of his years of training and mercantile experi-
ence.
On the 24th of January, 1894, Samuel Hart and Miss Anna Graves
were married in Montgomery City, Missouri. She is a daughter of Dr.
J. F. Graves, who had migrated from Virginia many years ago. Mrs.
Hart was born in Montgomery City, on the 29th of November, 1872, and
she and Mr. Hart are the parents of two children, Fannie Temperance
and Eugene Graves. In political matters Mr. Hart is a Republican, Jrut
is contented to limit his activities to casting the ballot. He is an inter-
ested member of the local Masonic chapter, and is a member of the Blue
Lodge. He is also a member of the Elks Club. Being a strong advocate
of the organization of retail merchants everywhere, he is an enthusiastic
member of the Retail Merchants Association of Illinois.
Although the life of Samuel Hart does not show the indomitable reso-
lution to overcome all odds, or the patience to endure whatever was in-
flicted, as was found in the life of his father, yet these qualities are evi-
dently latent in him or he could never have reached the important position
that he holds today. His keen sense and his thorough knowledge of his
business have won him the admiration of his business acquaintances, both
friends and foes. On the other hand, his many fine qualities of mind and
heart have caused to be gathered about him numberless friends.
FRANK ERNST, secretary and general manager of the New Baden Mill-
ing Company, organized principally by him in 1900, is one of the solid
men of his district. All" his life connected with the milling industry, he
is regarded as one of the foremost millers of this favored section of Illi-
nois. His efforts have been rewarded with a degree of success consistent
with his labors, and as a man of splendid traits, both in his capacity as a
man of business and as a valuable citizen, he takes a high rank in his com-
munity.
Born June 8, 1863, in Hanover, Germany, Frank Ernst is the son of
Henry and Theresa (Engelke) Ernst, of Hanover, Germany, in which
1098 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
town the parents were reared and passed their lives. They were the
parents of a family of six children : Henry, Prank, Jauchaim, Lena, now
Mrs. John Moehle, Josephine, the wife of Frederick Schroeder, and
Therese. The father died in 1901 and the wife and mother passed away
four years later. They were communicants of the Roman Catholic church
all their lives.
Frank Ernst came to America on March 6, 1879, locating first in St.
Louis, Missouri, where he was employed in a wholesale flour house. From
there he went to Belleville, where he secured work as shipping clerk for
the Crown Mills, and he remained with them for some years, studying the
business in every detail, the one dominant idea of his life to become estab-
lished in a business for himself. He labored so well that in 1886, on New
Year's day, he started up a grain business in Belleville on his own respon-
sibility. He continued there for the space of one year, then removing to
Mount Vernon. where he again entered the grain business, and after an-
other year he sold out and went to Clinton, Missouri. His time there was
as brief as in the other places, and he went on to New Memphis, Illinois,
continuing there for some little time, and on July 1, 1890, he established
a milling business in New Baden, Illinois, which is now known as the
New Baden Milling Company, incorporated under the laws of the state,
with Mr. Ernst as secretary and general manager of the organization.
The company has done a splendid business in the years of its operation,
the bulk of their meal and grits going to the south and the feed to Penn-
sylvania, corn being the product they utilize. Mr. Ernst has run the
business with a view to conservative advancement, and as a result the
New Baden Milling Company is one of the most stable and reliable con-
cerns in the community.
Mr. Ernst is a Democrat in his political leanings, but is in no sense
what might be termed a politician. He is averse to any political entangle-
ments and his interest in the party is in a purely impersonal sense. He
has served his village four terms in the capacity of president, proving
himself to be competent in affairs of civic administration, but further
than that he has not gone. Like his parents, Mr. Ernst is a devout church-
man of the Roman Catholic faith, as is also his family.
On October 23, 1895, Mr. Ernst married Miss Lillian Hoffman of St.
Louis, Missouri, and of their union four children have been born. They
are : Katherine, born January 22, 1897 ; Elenora, born December 30, 1899 ;
Francis, born August 8, 1901 ; and Frederick Richard, born December 28,
1905. Their first born, Katherine, passed away on October 27, 1902.
FRANCIS MABION HEWITT. As long as diseases and accidents assail
humanity and render health and life uncertain among men the good drug-
gist will be ever with them and they will regard him with esteem, or even
veneration, in proportion to their needs and the extent and value of the
service he is able to render them. So, on account of the nature of his busi-
ness, if for no other reason, the people of Carbondale and Jackson county
would have a high regard for Francis M. Hewitt, one of their leading
pharmacists and chemists.
But there are other reasons, and strong ones, for the high place Mr.
Hewitt occupies in the public estimation of the city and county of his
home and the seat of his business operations. He is an enterprising and
progressive man, with a cordial practical interest in the welfare of the
community around him, and great energy and intelligence in helping to
promote it in every way open to him. He is always among the first to
come forward in support of every worthy enterprise for the good of the
people, or the development and improvement of the region in which he
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1099
lives, and in everything that pertains to good citizenship he is second to
nobody in loyalty or the strict and prompt discharge of duty.
Mr. Hewitt is a native of Johnson county, Illinois, where he was born
on May 3, 1870. His parents, John L. and Mary Ann (Casey) Hewitt,
were farmers, but Mr. Hewitt remembers very little about them, as when
he was but two and a half years of age his father died, and when he was
but nine death robbed him also of his mother. He was therefore thrown
on his own resources at an early age, and had to work his way through
school and into some lucrative channel of employment before he could
secure even a foothold for advancement in the struggle for supremacy
among men.
He was able to attend the public schools in Johnson and Williamson
counties in a remittent sort of a way while working for a meager recom-
pense on farms and at other employment, and he made such good use of
his limited opportunities that he acquired considerable elementary schol-
arship, even in this fugitive way and at the age of nineteen taught school
in Williamson county, the district joining the Marion city school on the
north. His aim was lofty and he kept his eye steadily on the goal of
his hopes, using every means at his command to advance toward it.
He worked for his room and board while he attended the department
of pharmacy in the Northwestern University, Chicago, and in 1893
he came forth as a graduate of that great institution and qualified to prac-
tice pharmacy according to all the legal requirements.
For a few months after his graduation he clerked in drug stores in
Chicago and St. Louis, then came to Carbondale in the autumn of the
year last mentioned. He remained in the city three years employed in
his chosen line of work. But in 1896 he learned of a good opening in
Paducah, Kentucky, and immediately took advantage of it, remaining in
that city until 1899. He passed the next year in Clarksville, Tennessee,
and in 1900 returned to Carbondale and started the business in the drug
trade which he is still conducting here, and in which he has built up a
large and representative patronage, with its accompanying public confi-
dence and esteem.
From his advent in the city Mr. Hewitt has been very zealous and
energetic in his efforts to promote its welfare and advance its progress
and improvement. In every department of its being he has made his in-
fluence felt for good, and has been especially forceful and effective in
connection with its civic affairs. In 1911 he was one of the leading
workers for the establishment of the commission form of government for
the city, and did more than almost any other man to bring it about.
After it was adopted the people insisted that as he had been so potential
in bringing the issue to a successful conclusion, and had shown so much
wisdom in reference to the matter, he was one of the best men they had
to put the new plan in operation and must take his share of the responsi-
bility involved in starting it properly. He was made commissioner of
health and public safety, an office which he is now filling with great ac-
ceptability to the whole population.
Mr. Hewitt was also one of the founders of the Carbondale National
Bank and is now one of its directors and its vice president. He is an
active and zealous member of the Christian church, and has served as one
of the trustees of the Carbondale congregation of that sect. In the fra-
ternal life of the city and county he has been active and serviceable as a
Knight of Pythias, an Odd Fellow and a member of the Order of Elks.
In the Knights of Pythias he has been the chancellor commander of his
lodge, and in the Order of Odd Fellows has twice occupied the chair of
noble grand. In the Order of Elks he belongs to Paducah, Kentucky,
Lodge No. 236.
1100 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
On' January 24, 1907, Mr. Hewitt was married to Miss Winifred
Barker, of Carbondale, a daughter of Hon. Oliver A. Harker, judge of the
Court of Chancery. They have two children, their son Francis Marion and
their daughter Winifred Harker, who cheer and brighten the family
hearthstone and add greatly to the attractiveness of the home for the
numerous friends of their parents who frequent it for the enjoyment of
its air of intellectual and social culture and the genuine hospitality which
is one of its leading and most characteristic charms.
OLIVER ALBERT HARKER. A quarter of a century on the bench of the
higher courts of Illinois and many years as an educator in the field of the
law, have earned for Hon. Oliver A. Harker, of Carbondale, a most sub-
stantial eminence in all that concerns the highest prestige of his profes-
sion. In 1897 he commenced his influential identification with the College
of Law of the University of Illinois as a lecturer, and since 1903 has
served as dean of its faculty.
Judge Harker is a native of Newport, Wayne county, Indiana, born
on the 14th of December, 1846, to Miflin and Anna (Woods) Harker.
He obtained his earlier education in the schools of Florid and Wheaton,
Illinois, and was a student at Wheaton College from 1860 to 1862. In
the following year, then only a youth of sixteen, he enlisted in the Union
army as a member of Company D, Sixty-seventh Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry and with that command concluded his military service at the cessa-
tion of hostilities.
Upon his return to Illinois he located at Lebanon as a student at Mc-
Kendree College, from which he graduated with high honors in 1866. To
his regular Bachelor's degree was added that of A. M. in 1869. In the
meantime (1866-7) he had pursued a law course at the University of In-
diana, and in 1867-8 taught various private schools at Vienna, Illinois.
Admitted to the bar in 1869, Judge Harker commenced the practice of
his profession in that place, where he continued for some eight years, or
until his first appointment to the bench.
In August, 1878, Governor Cullom appointed Judge Harker to the
bench of the first circuit, and he continued thus to serve, by elections in
1879, 1885, 1891 and 1897, until 1903. During that period he acted as
judge of the Appellate court for the second district from 1891 to 1897,
and of the third district from the latter year until 1903. As stated, he
was appointed dean of the law school of the University of Illinois in 1903,
and still honors the position. In 1895-6 Judge Harker was president of
the Illinois State Bar Association; he is also a leading member of the
American Bar Association, and for many years was identified with the
Illinois Council of the national organization. His high standing was
further emphasized when the Supreme court of Illinois appointed him as
a delegate to the International Congress of Lawyers and Jurists which
assembled at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis.
By virtue of his service in the Civil war Judge Harker is identified
with the Grand Army of the Republic ; he is also a member of the I. 0.
0. F. and of the fraternities. Phi Delta Phi and Theta Kappa Nu.
Married on the 3rd of March, 1870, at Vienna, Illinois, to Miss Sid-
ney Bain, the Judge is the father of three children — George M., a prac-
ticing attorney; Oliver A., Jr., a farmer, and Winnifred, wife of Frank
M. Hewitt, a druggist of Carbondale. Judge Harker has been a resi-
dent of that city since 1880.
ROBERT J. MCELVAIN. As one of the distinguished members of
the bar of Southern Illinois and as one who has given most effective
service in offices of public trust, Judge McElvain well merits consider-
«— *- " "**
•3FTHE
OF HL
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1101
ation as one of the representative citizens of the favored section of
Illinois to which this publication is devoted. Further interest attaches
to his career by reason of the fact that he is a native son of the state
and a scion of one of its early and sterling pioneer families.
Judge Robert James McElvain was born at DuQuoin, Perry county,
Illinois, on the 20th of March, 1849, and is a son of Joseph H. and
Esther (Lipe) McElvain, who established their home in that county
in an early day and who continued their residence in Southern Illi-
nois during the residue of their lives, — secure in the high regard of all
who knew them. The father contributed his quota to the industrial
and social development and progress of this section of the state and
wielded no little influence in public affairs of a local order. Judge Mc-
Elvain gained his early educational discipline in the common schools
of his native county and supplemented this by a course of study in the
Southern Illinois College, now known as the Southern Illinois Normal
University. In preparation for the work of his chosen profession he
began the study of law under effective private preceptorship and there-
after continued his technical studies in the law school at Lebanon, St.
Glair county. He was admitted to the bar in 1878. In 1884 he found
it expedient to establish an office in Murphysboro, the county seat, to
which city he removed in 1890, since which year he has here main-
tained his home and professional headquarters. In 1884 he was elected
state attorney for Jackson county, in 1894 was elected county judge
and at the expiration of his term, in 1898, he was chosen as his own
successor. In 1902, shortly after his retirement from the county bench,
he was elected representative of the Forty-fourth Senatorial District
in the Lower House of the State Legislature, and significant evidence
of his popularity was again given on this occasion, as he received at
the polls a majority of more than two thousand votes. In 1904 he was
elected representative of the Forty-fourth district in the State Senate,
and the best voucher for his effective record in this important office was
that given in his re-election in 1908, his second term expiring in 1912.
Judge McElvain has ever given a stanch allegiance to the Re-
publican party and has been one of its influential representatives in
Southern Illinois. He is known as a most effective campaign speaker
and his services in this connection have been much in requisition in the
various campaigns in the state. On the 19th of September, 1901, he
delivered the principal address at the memorial services held in honor
of the lamented President McKinley at Murphysboro, and he has given
many other public addresses of a general order.
Judge McElvain and his wife and son hold membership in the
Christian church, and he is prominently affiliated with the Knights of
Pythias, in which he has passed the various official chairs of the local
organization and in which he held the office of grand chancellor of
the Grand lodge of the state in 1900. He also holds membership in
the Murphysboro lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks.
On the 29th of January, 1874, was solemnized the marriage of
Judge McElvain to Miss Mary A. Schwartz, of Elkville, Jackson
county, her parents, George and Sarah Schwartz, having been early
settlers in that locality, where her father became a representative agri-
culturist and stockgrower. Judge and Mrs. McElvain have one son,
Robert J., Jr., who is now successfully established in the real-estate and
insurance business at Murphysboro. He was born on the 4th of Sep-
tember, 1880, and was afforded the advantages of the excellent public
schools of Murphysboro, where he has gained distinctive prestige and
popularity as one of the representative young business men of the city,
voi.'m— 2
1102 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
He holds membership in the Christian church, is a stanch Republican
in his political proclivities, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.
He married Miss Naomi McCuan, of Creal Springs, Williamson county,
Illinois, and they have one son, Howard Harvey.
GEORGE JOSEPH MONKEN. Numbered among the prominent and influ-
ential citizens of New Baden is George Joseph Monken, who has long
taken an active and intelligent part in the management of public affairs,
and as mayor of the city aids and encourages the establishment of all en-
terprises conducive to the advancement and growth of the community.
A son of the late John B. Monken, he was born February 26, 1865, at
Columbia, Monroe county, Illinois, of thrifty German stock.
Born at Frankfort, Germany, January 12, 1830, John B. Monken re-
mained in the Fatherland until eighteen years old. Immigrating then
to America, he spent a year in Greene county, Illinois, being employed on
a farm, and was afterwards similarly employed in Saint Clair county,
near Belleville. In 1863 he established a vinegar factory in Belleville,
and managed it for a year and a half. Moving then to Monroe county,
he resided there a short time, but in 1865 a longing for the sight of his
early home seized him, and he went back to Germany to visit friends and
kinsmen. In the spring of 1868 he returned to Illinois, and in 1869 set-
tled at New Baden, where for nineteen years he was a teacher in the
public schools. He was active in public life, being a loyal supporter of
the Democratic party and for a period of twenty years was assessor of
Clinton county. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows, and both he and his wife were members of the German Catholic
church. At the age of twenty-one years he was united in marriage with
Annie Gundlach, of Belleville, Illinois, and they became the parents of
four children, as follows : Ida, wife of Rudolph Herdenstein ; Mary, de-
ceased ; George Joseph ; and Melinda, deceased. The mother of these chil-
dren died in 1884, and Mr. Monken, who survived his wife, passed away
January 27, 1896, in New Baden.
Brought up in New Baden, George J. Monken attended the rural
schools until fourteen years of age, when he began learning the art and
trade of a painter. Instead, however, of following the craft with which
he had become familiar, Mr. Monken was employed in a hotel at Belleville
for awhile, and in 1890 entered the employ of the New Baden Milling
Company, with which he has since been actively associated, his efficiency
in the different departments having won him the position of bookkeeper
of the mill.
True to the political faith in which he was reared, Mr. Monken is a
zealous advocate of the principles that govern the Democratic party, and
is a most useful and highly esteemed member of the community. He is
now filling the mayor's chair ably and acceptably, having been elected to
the position by a handsome majority, and is also supervisor of Clinton
county and a trustee of the township schools. Fraternally he belongs to
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to the Knights of Pythias, and to
the Modern Woodmen.
On July 1, 1897, Mr. Monken was united in marriage with Louisa
Butzow, of New Baden, and their union has been blessed by the birth of
seven chldren, namely: Arthur, George, Alfred, Fred, Edmund, Laura,
and one that died in its infancy.
LINDORF WALKER. The gentleman whose name forms the caption of
this article is one of Cobden's progressive and highly esteemed young citi-
zens. Lindorf Walker, cashier of the First National Bank, is a banker of
honorable and unassailable methods, and in his residence in this place he
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1103
has won the unbounded confidence of his fellow citizens. He is a native
son of Illinois, his birth having occurred, September 29, 1881, on a farm in
Johnson county. His father, William P. Walker, is now living on his
farm in Johnson county, and that section of the great state of Illinois is
the scene of his birth and lifelong residence. He is a son of Robert J.
Walker, a native of North Carolina, who first migrated to Tennessee and
thence to Southern Illinois. He was one of the dauntless company of
pioneers who paved the way for latter day prosperity and civilization.
The maiden name of the subject's mother was Sarah E. Gillespie, and she
was born in Tennessee, the daughter of John H. Gillespie, who came to
Johnson county with her parents when five years of age. This worthy
lady was born in 1848 and was summoned to the life eternal in June,
1911, when her years numbered sixty-three. Mr. Walker was the second
of a family of three children to grow to maturity, the others being Dr.
H. W. Walker and Lizzie Naomi (Hand). William P. Walker has made
a great success of the great basic industry of agriculture and enjoys the
esteem of his particular community.
Lindorf Walker was educated in the public schools of Johnson county
and at an early age, feeling inclined toward a business career, he took an
appropriate preparatory course in the Gem City Business College, from
which well-conducted institution he was graduated in 1900. His first
experience as an actual factor in the world of affairs was in the capacity
of bookkeeper for a mercantile firm in Saxton, Missouri. He first en-
tered upon his connection with the banking world when he took the
place of the cashier of the Drovers' State Bank at Vienna, the incumbent
of the office suffering from ill health. In the spring of 1901 he was. em-
ployed in the county clerk's office and at the conclusion of these services
he spent a few weeks on his father's farm and then wishing like most
alert young men to see something of the world he started out in June,
1901, and journeyed to Oklahoma and Texas. He then remained in the
Indian Territory for a year and returned to Illinois in 1902, entering the
mercantile business at Ganntown and remaining thus engaged for a year.
He worked for his brother, the Doctor, for a few months and then came
to Cobden, in September, 1903, remaining here for a year and a half.
During the sojourn he was employed in the First National Bank. He
later returned to Vienna and acted as bookkeeper of the First National
Bank of that place until May 1, 1907. At the date mentioned he returned
to Cobden to accept the position of cashier with the First National Bank.
This thriving and well managed monetary institution is incorporated with
a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, while its total resources
amount to two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Its officers are as
follows : President, William C. Rich ; vice-president, I. H. Lawrence ; and
cashier, Lindorf Walker. The directorate consists of the three given
above with the addition of H. A. Dubois and H. H. Lamar. No small
part of the bank's prosperity is directly traceable to the intelligent
methods of its cashier.
Fraternally Mr. Walker is one of the most enthusiastic of Masons, and
exemplifies in his own living the principles of moral and social justice
and brotherly love for which the order stands. He belongs to the Blue
Lodge of Cobden ; the Chapter of Vienna ; and the Eastern Star ; and he
is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Pythian Sisters of
Vienna.
Mr. Walker established a pleasant home and congenial life compan-
ionship by his union, in November, 1905, to Pearl Debnam, of Johnson
county, daughter of William C. and Lizzie (Dunn) Debnam. They
share their pleasant home with one son, WTillard, aged three years.
1104 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
FRANCIS MAIN EDWARDS, M. D. Distinguished not only as a promi-
nent physician and surgeon of Clinton county, but as a leading citizen of
New Baden, Francis Main Edwards, M. D., is eminently worthy of repre-
sentation in a work of this character. He was born May 14, 1876, in
Sandoval, Illinois, a son of Dr. S. G. H. Edwards.
S. G. H. Edwards, a native of Mount Vernon, Illinois, where his birth
occurred December 23, 1850, spent his earlier years in Jefferson county,
and during a large part of the Civil war traveled with his parents, during
the later years of the conflict accompanying his maternal grandfather,
Col. S. G. Hicks, on his trips. In 1872 he was graduated from MeKen-
dree College, in Lebanon, Illinois, with the degree of A. M., and in 1875
received the degree of M. D. at Cincinnati Medical College, in Ohio. Im-
mediately locating in Sandoval, Illinois, he was there successfully en-
gaged in the practice of medicine until his death, in 1887, while yet in
manhood's prime. He was a Democrat in his political affiliations, and
held various town offices. Fraternally he was a member of the Ancient
Free and Accepted Order of Masons and of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows. He married, in 1875, Tilda Main, who is still living in
Sandoval, Illinois, and to them four children were born, as follows:
Francis Main, the special subject of this brief biographical sketch ; Lydia,
wife of P. E. Lewis ; Ralph ; and Elizabeth, wife of Charles Hall.
Having completed the course of study in the public schools of Sand-
oval, Francis Main Edwards spent a year in Valparaiso College, in Val-
paraiso, Indiana, and in 1898 was graduted from the Saint Louis College
of Physicians and Surgeons with the degree of M. D. Coming then to
New Baden, Clinton county, Dr. Edwards met with such encouraging suc-
cess from the start that he has continued here since, having now a large
and lucrative patronage in this vicinity, his professional skill and ability
being widely recognized and appreciated. He is a member of the
American Medical Association ; of the Clinton County Medical Society ;
and of the Southern Railway Surgeons' Association.
Politically the Doctor is a stanch adherent of the Republican party,
and has served two terms as president of the Village Board. During the
Spanish- American war he was a member of Pittinger's Provisional Regi-
ment, being mustered in as first lieutenant of his company, but subse-
quently resigning the position to enter the medical department. Fra-
ternally Dr. Edwards is a member of the Knights of Pythias; and is
prominent in the Modern Woodmen of America, having been instru-
mental in organizing the New Baden camp of that order.
In 1899 Dr. Edwards was united in marriage with Mary Griesbaum,
of New Baden, and they are the parents of four children, namely :
Estelle, Elizabeth, Irene and Francis, Jr.
HON. JOHN H. BURNETT. Having attained an eminent position in the
financial world and risen to the chief executive office in Marion, Illinois,
the Hon. John H. Burnett may be classed among the representative citi-
zens of the southern part of the state. As president of the Marion State
and Savings Bank he has carefully conserved the interests of the deposi-
tors, and in the capacity of mayor he has administered the affairs of the
city with the same ability that has characterized his business dealings.
Mayor Burnett is a product of Williamson county, and was born Sep-
tember 29, 1844, a son of Thomas H. and Nancy (Parks) Burnett.
Thomas H. Burnett was born in 1813, in Wilson county, Tennessee,
and came to Williamson county during the early 'thirties, spending the
remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits and passing away in 1875,
in the Crab Orchard neighborhood, where his brother James also reared
a family, the rural neighborhood becoming known as the "Burnett Set-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1105
tlement. ' ' Originally a Democrat, he later became a Republican, but his
life was spent in the quiet vocation of farming and he never entered the
stormy field of politics. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Nancy
Parks, was a daughter of Hugh Parks, whose forefathers were North
Carolinians, from which commonwealth he himself came to Illinois. Mrs.
Burnett died at the age of sixty -two years, having been the mother of the
following children : George, lieutenant in the One Hundred and Tenth
Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil war, and later a
merchant and farmer in Williamson county, where he died in 1886 ; John
H. ; Milo, who served in the One Hundred and Forty -fifth Illinois Vol-
unteers during the rebellion, spent some years in the mercantile business
and died in Kansas during the eighties ; Leander, also an agriculturist of
this county; Eliza, who died single; William F., deceased, and Sarah,
the wife of Roily Carley, resides in Williamson county.
The youth of John H. Burnett was spent in much the same manner as
other farmers ' lads of his day, and when the Civil war broke out he, like
his brothers, was fired with patriotism and desired to serve his country.
He did not succeed in enlisting, however, until May, 1864, at which time
he became a private in Company F, One Hundred and Forty-fifth Regi-
ment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, his immediate commanders being
Captain Evans and Colonel Lackey. His command rendezvoused in camp
at St. Louis and dropped down to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, later on and
was discharged without reaching the front. Mr. Burnett's service cov-
ered some five months, and after leaving the army he taught country
school for a time, but eventually settled down to farming, in which he
was engaged until coming to Marion in 1887. As a dealer and shipper of
live stock and a buyer of grain he enjoyed a measure of success, and in
1886 he was elected to the office of sheriff of Williamson county, succeed-
ing Mr. Hartwell Duncan. After serving one term he again engaged in
business, and he subsequently held the office of special agent of internal
revenue, with headquarters at St. Louis. The voters of Marion elected
him mayor in 1895, and he has since served capably as a member of the
school board and the council, and again in 1911 he was chosen as the
chief executive of Marion. The Republican party has found him an able
and influential leader in this part of the county. He became identified
with banking as a member of the firm of Denison & Burnett, a private
institution out of which grew the Marion State and Savings Bank, of
which Mr. Denison was president until his death in 1908, at that time
Mr. Burnett becoming president.
In March, 1866, Mr. Burnett was married to Miss Mary A. Davis,
daughter of Thomas Davis, a pioneer of Williamson county, and the fol-
lowing children have been born to this union : Misses Delia and Eliza,
who reside in Marion ; Senator 0. Herman, who was one of the leading
members of the Williamson county bar and state senator at the time of
his death ; Lillie, who married Frank Throgmorton and resides in Harris-
burg; Amy, who married Harry Mclntosh, of Marion; Estella ; and
Bertha, who married Philip Cline, of Marion. The family is connected
with the Missionary Baptist church.
FRED JOHN KOCH. Distinguished as the foremost citizen of New
Baden, and one of the ablest business men of Clinton county, Fred John
Koch is an important factor in advancing the industrial and financial
prosperity of this part of Southern Illinois, and as a representative to
the State* Legislature from the Forty-second district he is as faithful to
the interests of his constituents as it is possible for any man to be, per-
forming the duties devolving upon him in that capacity in a praiseworthy
1106 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
manner. A native of Clinton county, he was born September 16, 1870,
in Gerraantown, where he grew to manhood.
His father, Herman Koch, was born in Neuenkirchen, Germany, Octo-
ber 10, 1839, and was there bred and educated. Leaving the Fatherland
when nineteen years old, he crossed the ocean to the United States, and
for nearly two years followed his trade of a cabinet maker in Saint Louis,
Missouri. Migrating to Clinton county, Illinois, in 1860, he became one
of the pioneer settlers of Germantown, and one of its first cabinet makers.
When the railroad became assured in that locality, he embarked in the
lumber business, with which he has ever since been prominently identi-
fied, and also engaged in mercantile pursuits, his stock at the present time
consisting of lumber, hardware and furniture valued at nine thousand
dollars. He is a Democrat in politics, and for twelve years served as
justice of the peace. Religiously he is a member of the Catholic church,
and has reared his family in the same faith. He has been three times
married. He married first, in September, 1864, Elizabeth Frerker, whose
parents were early settlers of Germantown. She died the following year,
leaving no children. He married in 1866 Elizabeth Lampe, who died in
1867, leaving one child, Elizabeth, who is now in a convent in Chicago,
where she is known as Sister Angelina. He married for his third wife
Mary Wieter, and of their union ten children have been born, as follows :
Fred J., the subject of this sketch ; Kate, deceased ; Antone ; Mary, wife
of Henry Westerfelhaus ; Herman ; John ; Henry ; Edward ; Clara ; and
Alphonse.
Obtaining his preliminary educational training in the parochial
schools of Germantown, Fred J. Koch subsequently completed the com-
mercial course at the Saint Louis University. Beginning work then as
a cabinet maker, Mr. Koch gradually drifted into the business of build-
ing, contracting and construction work, all of which he is following today
in connection with other lines of industry. With his brother John and
brother-in-law, Henry Westerfelhaus, he is located in New Baden, where
he deals extensively in lumber, hardware and building material, having
established a substantial business. Mr. Koch is likewise prominently
identified with two safe and sound financial institutions, being president
of the Germantown Savings Bank and a director and vice-president of
the Bartelso Savings Bank. He is also connected with the Southern Coal
and Mining Company of New Baden. In 1910 Mr. Koch was chosen to
represent the Forty-second senatorial district in the Forty-seventh Gen-
eral Assembly of Illinois, in which he is serving ably and faithfully.
Mr. Koch married, in June, 1885, Josephine Westerfelhaus, of Ger-
mantown, and to them five children have been born, namely : Gertrude,
Adeline, Leona, Joseph and Francis. Politically Mr. Koch is a. steadfast
Democrat and an earnest supporter of the principles of his party. Re-
ligiously both Mr. and Mrs. Koch are members of the Catholic church.
GEORGE W. ANDREWS. One of the venerable but still vigorous and
active members of the bar of Jackson county is Judge George Washing-
ton Andrews, who established his home in Murphysboro and here en-
gaged in the practice of his profession nearly half a century ago. The
intervening years have been marked by large and distinguished accom-
plishment along the line of his profession, of which he has long stood as
one of the leading representatives in Southern Illinois, and he has also
been called upon to serve in various offices of distinctive public trust,
the while he has guided his course upon the highest plane of integrity
and honor and .thus has well merited the unequivocal confidence and
esteem in which he is held in the prosperous community that has so
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1107
long been his home and in which he is a citizen of prominence and in-
fluence.
Judge Andrews takes a due measure of pride in reverting to the
fine Old Buckeye state as the place of his nativity and he is a scion of
one of its sterling pioneer families. He was born at Dayton, Mont-
gomery county, Ohio, now one of the most beautiful cities of the state,
and the date of his nativity was February 22, 1842, so that he was con-
sistently given the name of the great American on whose birthday an-
niversary he was ushered into the world. He is a son of Samuel A.
and Margaret (Ramsey) Andrews, who passed the closing years of
their lives at Dayton, the father having been actively identified with
agricultural pursuits during virtually his entire career and having been
a man of the highest character, so that he ever commanded a secure
place in the confidence and esteem of his fellow men, the while his
forceful individuality and broad mentality made him a local leader in
thought and action. Judge Andrews is indebted to the common schools
of his native state for his early education and he gained his due quota
of youthful experience in connection with the work of the home farm.
He continued his studies in a well ordered academy at Fairfield, Ohio,
and in the Presbyterian Institute at Hayesville, that state, after which
he entered with characteristic vigor and earnestness upon the work of
preparing himself for the profession of his choice. He was matriculated
in the law department of the celebrated University of Michigan, at
Ann Arbor, in which he completed the prescribed curriculum and was
graduated as a member of the class of 1865. After thus receiving his
well earned degree of Bachelor of Laws Judge Andrews came to Illi-
nois and sought for an eligible field of endeavor. He remained for a
brief interval at Jonesboro and in May, 1865, he established his perma-
nent home at Murphysboro. the judicial center of Jackson county, where
he has continued to reside during the long intervening period and where
he has been most successful in the general practice of his profession, to
which he still continues to give close attention. He has been identified
with much important litigation in the courts of this section of the state
and is now worthy of designation as the dean of his profession in Jack-
son county, where he commands the highest vantage ground in the con-
fidence and esteem of his confreres and also the general public.
In addition to the work of his profession Judge Andrews has given
most loyal and effective service in various offices of public order. He
was master in chancery for Jackson county for eleven years and served
on the bench of the county court for five years. For two years he held
the office of postmaster of Murphysboro and he served one term as mayor
of the city, as well as one term as city attorney, — preferments which
well indicate the high regard in which he is held in his home commu-
nity, in the furtherance of whose civic and material progress and pros-
perity he has ever shown the deepest interest. For four years Judge
Andrews was connected with the government department of the interior
in the capacity of inspector of surveyor generals' and land offices, and
his service in this office covered the entire United States. His career
has been one of signal activity and usefulness and has been crowned
with well earned honors. He is president of the Jackson County Bar
Association, is a staunch and effective advocate and supporter of the
cause of the Democratic party, is affiliated with local organizations of
the Masonic fraternity and the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks, and he has long been a zealous member of the Presbyterian church,
of which his cherished and devoted wife likewise was a most earnest ad-
herent for many years prior to her demise.
On the 19th of December. 1867. was solemnized the marriage of
1108 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Judge Andrews to Miss Jennie Slocum, of Norwich, New York, in which
state she was born and reared, and this loved and gracious companion
and helpmeet remained by his side for nearly forty years, she having
been summoned to the life eternal on the 25th of January, 1905, and
her name and memory being revered by all who came within the sphere
of her gentle and kindly influence. Mrs. Andrews is survived by two
children : Myra M., who is the wife of Harry 0. Ozburn, cashier of the
Citizens' State & Savings Bank of Murphysboro; and Eugene S., who
is agent for the American Company at Murphysboro. He married Miss
Ethel McClay, of Carbondale, this state.
Living in a community in which his circle of friends is coincident
with that of his acquaintances and enjoying the well earned rewards of
many years of earnest endeavor, Judge Andrews may well felicitate
himself upon the smiling plenty and fair, prosperous days which mark
the course of his life during the period in which he looks back upon a
record of conscientious application and faithful service as one of the
world 's productive workers, and no citizen is more worthy of special and
cordial recognition in this history of Southern Illinois.
ZENAS CARROLL CARSON. Noteworthy among the successful educa-
tors of Southern Illinois is Zenas Carroll Carson, superintendent of the
schools at New Baden, who is doing much towards advancing the effi-
ciency and scope of the public school system of this section of the state,
heartily agreeing with Charles William Eliot, LL. D., president emer-
itus of Harvard University, who says ' ' The standard of education should
not be set at the now attained or the now attainable. It is the privilege
of public education to press toward a mark remote." Mr. Carson was
born June 2, 1878, in Washington county, Illinois, on the farm of his
father, William Kendrick Carson. His grandfather, Samuel Carson, a
Kentucky frontiersman, lived on a small farm in the backwoods, partly
supporting himself and family by cultivating small patches of land. He
had a better education than the most of his neighbors, and spent a part
of his time each year in teaching school, and occasionally added some-
what to the family exchequer by working at the cobbler's trade.
A native of Kentucky, William Kendrick Carson was born De-
cember 12, 1832, in New Lexington. He grew to manhood beneath the
parental roof-tree, being brought up amid primitive scenes and in true
pioneer style, never even having a pair of shoes until he made them
himself. At the age of twenty-five years he came to Southern Illinois,
locating in Washington county, where he began farming on forty acres
of land, splitting the rails with which to enclose his small estate. He
was successful in his undertakings, and subsequently bought one hun-
dred and forty acres of land from the Government, and on the home-
stead which he there improved is still living, a venerable and esteemed
citizen. He is a Democrat in politics, and a member of the Methodist
church.
William K. Carson has been four times married. He married first,
in 1858, Mary Anne Ragland, of Washington county, Illinois, who died
in 1876, having borne him nine children, five of whom survive. He mar-
ried in 1877 a cousin of his first wife, Amanda Ragland, who bore him
four children, two of whom are living, Zenas Carroll and Benjamin W.
She passed to the life beyond in 1884, and in the ensuing year, 1885,
he married her sister, Viana Ragland, who died in 1898, leaving three
children, all of whom are living. In 1899 he married for his fourth
wife Mrs. Polly Carson, widow of his brother, Robert Carson, and they
are enjoying life on the old home farm.
Spending his earlier years on the home farm in Washington county,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1109
Zenas Carroll Carson attended the country schools until sixteen years
of age, when he entered the Nashville High School, where he fitted him-
self for a professional career. An ambitious student, however, enter-
prising and progressive, he has since kept apace with the times by close
study, and has taken post graduate work at the Southern Illinois Nor-
mal School, in Carbondale. Immediately after leaving the high school
Mr. Carson began teaching in the rural districts, and has since taught at
Hoyleton, Illinois, New Minden and Smithton, and at New Baden, where
he is now superintendent of the schools. He is an indefatigable laborer,
and it is largely through his influence that the present school building
is now, in 1912, being enlarged to such an extent that when it is com-
pleted it will be one of the best buildings of the kind in Clinton county.
Mr. Carson married, December 24, 1901, Lulu D. Smith, and into
their pleasant home four children have been born, namely : Herbert M.,
Greorge Saint Clair, Dean M., and Cyril W. In his political affiliations
Mr. Carson is a Democrat. Fraternally he belongs to the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows and to the Modern Woodmen of America. Re-
ligiously both Mr. and Mrs. Carson are members of the Methodist church.
ROBERT L. RICH. The gentleman whose name stands at the head of
this paragraph is one of the successful men of Union county. He is by
primary vocation a farmer and by admirable example has done much to
advance ajid promulgate scientific agriculture. His small but valuable
farm of fifty-five acres has been utilized to marvelous advantage and
there is admiration and respect for a man who can raise six hundred
and thirty bushels of corn on nine acres, which Mr. Rich succeeded in
doing in 1911. He also manages his father's farm of two hundred acres.
However, he does not limit his energies to agriculture, and since 1899
has engaged in the commission and brokerage business in Cobden.
Robert L. Rich was born October 30, 1864, on a farm a mile and a
half from Cobden. He is the son of John M. Rich, who was born in
1828, in Alabama, and the grandson of Thomas J. Rich, a native of
North Carolina. The Rich family came originally from England and
are of Puritan stock, three Rich brothers having been of the brave and
pious little company who crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower and
landed on bleak Plymouth Rock in 1620. Mr. Rich is thus a Pilgrim
son and one of the oldest and most honored stock in America. One of
these brothers went south, one to the northwest.
The father of the subject married Annie Uffendale, who was born in
England and came to America with her parents, the father 's name being
Michael Uffendale. He subsequently found his way to Anna, Illinois,
and there engaged in mercantile business until his death. John M.
came with his father and the rest of the family from his native state
in 1832, as a little lad, the journey being made by ox team. They lo-
cated on government land in Union county and were of that fine pioneer
stock which laid the foundations of Southern Illinois' present prosper-
ity. Thomas, the subject's grandfather, fought in the Black Hawk war
and lived until 1869, having in his lifetime witnessed other American
wars. He departed this life in the old house which he had built on
his pioneer farm. Mr. Rich's father and mother are both living at ad-
vanced age, serene and respected in the pleasant sunset of life. They
make their home on the original homestead, which still remains in the
family. This consists now of two hundred acres, and the old gentle-
man still cultivates several acres in fruit and vegetables. He has been a
prosperous farmer and has reared the following family of eight chil-
dren : Thomas J., deceased; William C., residing at Anna; Michael M.,
a farmer located near Cobden ; George D., also located near Cobden and
1110 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
*
a farmer; Delia, now Mrs. Randleman, of Alto Pass; Annie M. (Cox),
living in Tennessee; Robert L. ; and Carrie (Parks), who makes her
home at Anna.
Robert L. Rich was educated in the Public schools and subsequently
matriculated at Champaign University. He engaged in farming for a
time and in 1882 removed to Alto Pass, where he clerked for several
years in a store owned by his father and brother-in-law. This estab-
lishment was the property of John M. Rich for a decade. In 1889 the
subject removed to his father's farm and conducted its affairs until
1894, in which year h'e was appointed postmaster of Cobden, and he
served faithfully and efficiently for four years and four months under
the Cleveland administration. In the years 1898 and 1899 he traveled
for the commission company of C. P. Love & Company of Chicago, and
since the year last mentioned he has engaged in the commission and
brokerage business on his own account. He also manages his farm
and that of his father, the acreage under his cultivation being utilized
as follows: Apples, thirty acres; asparagus, twenty acres; rhubarb,
twenty acres ; tomatoes, eight acres ; melons, five acres ; fifty acres in
corn and the remainder in pasture and hay land.
Mr. Rich was married in November, 1888, at Alto Pass, to Emma B.
Abernathie, daughter of William C. and Mary Abernathie, of Alto
Pass, the father a prominent farmer. The demise of this admirable lady
occurred May 18, 1909, at the age of forty-two years, and her only child,
a son, Raymond Lee, died at six months of age.
Fraternally Mr. Rich belongs to the Knights of Pythias at Cobden
and he is a member of the Congregational church, to whose tenets his
Pilgrim origin predisposes him. He is a Democrat in politics and is in-
fluential in party councils. He is serving at the present time as precinct
committeeman.
EDWARD GEORGE SCHMITT, D. D. S. A prominent and popular resi-
dent of New Baden, Edward George Schmitt, D. D. S., is a fine represen-
tative of the dental profession, which -is, mayhap, one of the most im-
portant branches of surgery, its application being required at some
period of life by almost every member of the human family. Intelligent
study, patient investigation, and careful experiment have within recent
years elevated dentistry to a distinct and separate science, in the valu-
able and important discoveries made, America taking a foremost place.
A son of Henry Schmitt, Dr. Schmitt was born November 23, 1880, in
Belleville, Illinois.
Born at Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 1830, Henry Schmitt was there
bred and educated. Coming to America in 1849, he located in Belle-
ville, Illinois, where he entered the employ of an uncle, a hotel keeper,
whom he afterwards bought out, becoming himself proprietor of the
hotel. He was a man of unquestioned business ability and judgment,
energetic and enterprising, and became actively identified with the up-
building and growth of Belleville, and the establishment of valuable
industries. He was one of the original founders of the Belleville Stove
and Range Works, and a valuable member of the Belleville Building and
Loan Association. He was an ardent supporter of the Republican
party, but was never an office seeker. He was very popular with the
traveling public, successfully managing his hotel until his death, Febru-
ary 26. 1886.
Henry Schmitt was twice married. He married first a Miss Kramer,
who died in early womanhood., leaving two children, Mrs. Lizzie Metz;
and John, deceased. He married for his second wife, in 1862, Clara
Voegle, who still resides in Belleville. She was born in Switzerland,
OF THE
:8SITY OF ILUISIT.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1111
and at the age of twelve years came to America with her parents, cross-
ing the ocean on a sailing vessel, and being ninety days on the water.
One of her brothers was born on the ocean, but he died while on the
way from Saint Louis to Belleville, during the time of the plague. Of
the seven children born of the marriage of Henry and Clara (Voegle)
Schmitt all are living, as follows: Henry; Sigmond; Lena, wife of J.
W. Miller; Walter; Freda; Edward George; and Ida, wife of W. H.
Pfingsten.
Acquiring his rudimentary education in his native city, Edward G.
Schmitt was graduated from the Belleville High School with the class
of 1899. Turning his attention then to the study of dentistry, he re-
ceived the degree of D. D. S. at the Marion Sims Dental School, in
Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1902, being there graduated with honors. To
further equip himself for his profession, Dr. Schmitt subsequently took
special work two summers at the infirmary connected with that insti-
tution. Beginning the practice of dentistry in Belleville, he remained
there three years, during which time he was for two years chief deputy
coroner of Saint Clair county, under Dr. E. M. Irvin. Locating at New
Baden in 1906, Dr. Schmitt opened a dental office, and has since met with
eminent success in his professional career, having built up an extensive
and remunerative practice.
The Doctor is an active and useful member of the Republican County
Executive Committee, and takes a warm interest in local affairs. He is
now serving as police magistrate of New Baden, and is president of the
New Baden School Board. In the latter capacity he has made a good rec-
ord, having been largely instrumental in securing the erection of a fine
new school building, in the regrading of the schools, and in the intro-
duction of a high school course of two years. He is a member of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, also of the Encampment of the I. 0.
O. F.
Dr. Schmitt married, September 12, 1905, Dorothy G. Kraft, a
daughter of George W. Kraft, a foreman in the nail factory at Belle-
ville.
JOHN WESLEY MILLER. Entering upon the struggle for advance-
ment among men as a school teacher, and conducting his work in that
occupation in such a manner as to tell to his advantage in a substan-
tial way and give him a strong hold on the confidence and regard of
the people, and now a leading lumber merchant, with an extensive trade
and an excellent name in business circles, John Wesley Miller, of Car-
bondale, has known and obeyed a stern sense of duty, been wise to the
ways of the world, and used all his opportunities greatly to his own
advantage and essentially for the benefit of the communities in which
he has lived, labored and made his progress.
Mr. Miller is a native of Indiana, born at Fort Wayne on Judy 30,
1863, and a son of Emanuel J. and Noima (Maxwell) Miller. The
father was a preacher in the United Brethren church and died in his
work of benevolence and improvement, and while the objects of his
care were rejoicing in his pronounced usefulness. He preached the
gospel of Christianity with fearlessness and fervor, and performed all
the pastoral duties of his high calling with great fidelity, industry and
zeal, leaving his family an excellent example, a good name and the rec-
ord of a well spent life.
His son John Wesley began his education in the public schools and
completed it at Ewing 'College in Ewing. Illinois. After leaving that
institution he taught school ten years, and while engaged in this im-
portant but largely unappreciated occupation served as principal of
1112 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the schools in Benton, Thompsonville and other towns. He made a
good record and . a high reputation in his work as a teacher, but found
his progress too slow to suit his desires, and turned his attention to
the more active and promising field of mercantile life.
During the next three years after he quit teaching Mr. Miller car-
ried on a lively and flourishing business in- the lumber trade. At the
end of that period he sold his business, which was located at DuQuoin
in Perry county, this state, and moved to Carbondale, arriving and lo-
cating here in 1883. He at once started again in the lumber business,
and with this he has been connected ever since, expanding his trade
and growing into popular favor as the years have passed, until now
he is one of the leading business men of the city, and one of its most es-
teemed and representative citizens from every point of view.
In addition to his lumber interests he has stock in the Carbondale
Mill and Elevator Company and the Carbondale Building, Loan and
Homestead Association, and is one of the directors of each of these
worthy and beneficial enterprises. He takes an earnest interest and
an active part in the management of the public affairs of the city and
has rendered it good service as a member of the school board for six
years. In matters of public improvement he is always one of the fore-
most and most effective aids, and in connection with everything that is
designed to promote the general welfare of the people, or their ad-
vantage in any special way, the benefit of his intelligence in counsel
and his help in material assistance are to be relied on at all times, what-
ever may be the issue.
Mr. Miller was married on October 10, 1902, to Miss Kate Snider,
a daughter of Michael and Martha (Brewster) Snider, widely re-
spected residents of Carbondale and farmers of Jackson county. Mrs.
Miller is a graduate of the Southern Illinois Normal University and a
highly cultivated lady. Her husband is a Freemason of the Knights
Templar degree and a past master of his lodge, Both have the regard
of the whole people.
E. GILBERT LENTZ. The popularity of the Marion schools, especially
that of the high school, and the general excellence of the work accom-
plished is due in large measure to the efforts of the superintendent of
schools, E. Gilbert Lentz, the son of a mechanic. From his youth Mr.
Lentz's ambitions lay along the lines that he has followed. Much of his
education was paid for out of his own pocket, and the energy and per-
severance and self denial which this necessitated may only be imagined.
E. Gilbert Lentz was born in Williamson county on the 27th of May,
1881. He is the son of Eli Lentz, who settled in the Wolf Creek neigh-
borhood in the ante-bellum days. The latter was born in 1831, near
Saratoga, Illinois, where his father had settled when the land was al-
most an untrodden wilderness. The latter belonged to that sturdy group
of people who, along with the Scotch-Irish, formed the backbone of the
American Revolution, namely, the Germans who settled the "up" coun-
try of North and South Carolina. It was in the former state that the
young German, fresh from the Fatherland, first located. His son Eli
demonstrated his stalwart ancestry by enlisting in the Union army when
General Logan was calling for volunteers to fill the ranks of his Thirty-
first Illinois Infantry. He remained in the service until the last bitter
scenes of the struggle had been played out. He then returned to Wolf
Creek and took up his life as a blacksmith, dying in 1894, in Creal Springs,
when his youngest son, Gilbert, was a mere lad. His wife was Lydia
Hare, a daughter of John Hare, of Union county, Illinois, and she sur-
vived her husband a number of years, dying at the family home in 1908.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1113
Their children were: Sarah, wife of L. L. Gallimore, of Wolf Creek;
Amanda, who married S. M. Fowler, of Herrin, Illinois ; Isabel, widow of
Dr. J. P. Throgmorton ; Anna, who became Mrs. John M. Kilbreth ; Fan-
nie, who died after her marriage to William Allen ; I. N. Lentz, living at
Wolf Creek ; John, an educator in Valparaiso, Indiana ; William R. is the
agent of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, at Kansas City, Mis-
souri ; Theodore, practicing law in Missoula, Montana ; and E. Gilbert.
E. Gilbert Lentz, having completed the not very extensive curriculum
of the schools of Wolf Creek, entered the Creal Springs schools and fin-
ished the course there. He then attended the Creal Springs College,
but wishing to keep on with his academic work he began teaching school.
His first work was in the district schools in the country, which not only
meant the most difficult kind of discipline, but also that he had to build
the fires and sweep out the room and then perhaps walk three or four
miles to the home of the people who "ate" him. It was a stern introduc-
tion to life, and he spent all of his wages in perfecting himself in his
profession, attending the Valparaiso University, at Valparaiso, for three
years. He spent some time in graded work as principal at Monroe Cen-
ter, Illinois. Then for two years he acted as principal of the Carter-
ville schools. He was steadily successful, and the Creal Springs schools
considered themselves fortunate in having him as their principal for
three ensuing years. In 1907 he was elected teacher of history and civics
in the Marion high school, and was later chosen principal of the same
school. In 1910, when it became necessary to select a successor to Pro-
fessor Asbury, he was unanimously chosen for the superintendency of
the city schools.
During his career as a superintendent Professor Lentz has graduated
one hundred and eight, who, in the main, have become teachers or are
continuing their educational work at higher institutions of learning. He
has ever been in sympathy with the educational bodies established for
the mutual profit of teachers, and they, realizing his executive abilities,
have given him many offices in their associations. He is vice-president
of the Williamson County Teachers' Association, is a member of the
State Teachers' Association, also of the School Council, and has the
honor of being president of the Southern Illinois Teachers Association.
Miss Lula Gillespie was the maiden name of the wife of Professor
Lentz, their marriage taking place in Creal Springs on the 2nd of April,
1903. Mrs. Lentz was one of a large family of Mrs. Mary (Johnson)
Gillespie, the family being one of the pioneer group of Southern Illi-
nois. She was educated at Creal Springs and was one of her husband 's
teachers before their marriage. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Lentz
number three : Agnes, born in 1905 ; Lula Blanch, born in 1908, and Gil-
bert, Jr., born in 1910.
Professor Lentz 's active relation to the religious life of the commun-
ity is manifest in his work in the First Baptist church of Marion. He
is also superintendent of the Sabbath-school and is president of the Y.
M. C. A. of- Marion. Believing also that the brotherhood of man is to
be found not only in the churches but also in the fraternal orders, he is
a loyal Mason. He is a Master Mason and a member of the Chapter,
being junior warden of the Blue Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter.
Professor Lentz has chosen one of the most poorly paid and unap-
preciated professions that exist, but he surely finds a reward for all the
struggles he has had to paSvS through, and for the disadvantages which he
must endure in the love and respect not only of those who have come di-
rectly under his influence, but of those who meet him in a non-profes-
sional way. In selecting a man to fill such a position as he holds, where
he comes in close contact with young people at their most impression-
1114 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
able age, the responsibility is great, therefore the people of Marion are to
be congratulated in having secured a man of such sterling character
and fine principles as Professor Lentz.
CHARLES WILLIAM HOFSOMMEK. That the farm and dairy business
is not retarded by the possession of a liberal education on the part of the
man who makes that industry his lifework is conclusively shown by the
record of the Hofsommers, father and son, for a number of years ac-
tive in farm and dairy circles of Clinton county. Rather, it is a dis-
tinct and decided advantage, as will be shown by a brief summary of
their careers.
Charles William Hofsommer was born at Breese, Illinois, December
29, 1878. He is the son of William Jacob Hofsommer, born at Frogtown,
Clinton county, Illinois. January 12, 1857. William Jacob Hofsommer
spent his early days on his father's farm, and attended the public schools
of the community in which he was reared. Following his completion of
the common school course he attended McKendree College at Lebanon for
an extended period and later was graduated from Christian Brothers
College at St. Louis, Missouri. On the completion of his college studies
he embarked in a general merchandise business at Breese, with which he
was connected actively for sixteen years. He was attracted, however, by
farm life, and about three years previous to the time when he gave up his
store in Breese he bought a fine farm near the outskirts of the town, and
when he retired from the mercantile business he immediately engaged in
the farm and dairying business. In the three years that he has conducted
the enterprise the business has grown apace, and they now handle in the
neighborhood of seventy gallons of milk daily, and produce a large
quantity of butter as well. This part of the business is conducted al-
most entirely by his son, Charles, as his time and attention is largely oc-
cupied by the care of another fine farm of which he is the owner and
manager.
In 1878 Mr. Hofsommer was married to Miss Fredericka Helwig, of
Breese. Five children were born to them, three of whom are now liv-
ing. They are, Charles, Olga, now Mrs. Gus Glancey, and Lily, the wife
of Henry Schroeder. The family are members of St. John's German
Evangelical church, and are earnest and active in their affiliation with
that organization. Mr. Hofsommer is a Republican in his political con-
victions and adherence, and is prominent in local political circles. He
has held various offices connected with the administration of city affairs,
always with credit to himself and the city.
Charles William Hofsommer, like his father, spent his boyhood days
on the farm and attended the public schools. He was a graduate of the
high school at Carlyle, following which he took a complete and thorough
business course at Jones Commercial College in St. Louis, Missouri. Re-
turning home to Breese, he went into the farm and dairy business with
his father, whose operations were assuming such proportions that more
help was necessary, and he has since that time been in charge of one of
the farms owned by his father, conducting the affairs of the place with a
wisdom and acumen that is producing results of no uncertain nature. As
a coming dairyman, Mr. Hofsommer 's future is assured, and it is pre-
dicted freely that he will make an enduring reputation for himself among
leading men of his line of endeavor. Mr. Hofsommer is Republican in
his political views, and active in the interests of the party. He is a
stockholder in the Clinton County Racing Association, and a member of
the Concordia Singing Society. He and his family are members of the
German Evangelical church.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1115
In 1902 Mr. Hofsommer married Miss Tillie Flader, of Breese, Illi-
nois. They are the parents of two children, William and Alvina. The
family occupies one of the handsome residences erected by William J.
Hofsommer on the farm located nearest to Breese, the other one of which
is the home of the elder Hofsommer.
THOMAS B. GOODMAN, M. D. The gentleman to a brief review of
whose life and characteristics the reader's attention is herewith directed
is among the foremost citizens of Cobden and has by his enterprise and
progressive ideas contributed in a material way to the industrial and
commercial advancement of the city and county. He has in the course of
an honorable career been most successful in the business enterprises of
which he is the head and is well deserving of mention in the biographical
memoirs of Union county. Dr. Goodman would be a man of note did
he limit his energies to his profession. His practice is large and he spe-
cializes in surgery, and hundreds of families have for many years looked
up to him as a kindly friend and doctor, his practice covering a radius
of seven miles around Cobden. Nevertheless, he devotes much time to
agriculture, owning a fine farm of two hundred and twenty acres, about
one hundred of which are devoted to farming. This farm contains large
deposits of kaolin, or China clay, used in manufacturing porcelain, which
he mines extensively and disposes of sixty-eight carloads per year. He
has been most successful financially and owns no less than twenty-two
properties in Cobden.
Dr. Goodman is a native son of Illinois, his birth having occurred at
Anna, Illinois, March 22, 1859. He is the son of Moses Goodman, a na-
tive of North Carolina, who migrated to Southern Illinois in 1854, being
one of the first settlers of Union county. He was born in 1817 and mar-
ried Amanda C. Peeler, a native of Union county. Moses Goodman en-
gaged in merchandising in Anna during his lifetime and lived to ad-
vanced age, his demise occurring in 1854. He reared a family of seven
children, two of whom were the offspring of an early marriage contracted
in North Carolina, namely : John and Dr. Mumford M. Goodman. The
five children by the second marriage with Miss Peeler were as follows:
Daniel Webster; William, deceased; Dr. Thomas B.; Nellie, deceased,
was the wife of Dr. W. H. Damond, and Charles H. The doctor's
mother, an honored lady, survives and makes her home at Anna.
Dr. Goodman received his early education in the schools of Anna
and took advantage of their higher department. He began the study of
medicine in 1880, when twenty*one years of age, entering the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, where he pursued a three years'
course. He had spent a previous year taking a preparatory course at
Valparaiso, Indiana. In the spring of 1884 he received his well-earned
degree and immediately began his practice at Anna, where he remained
for a year, in which brief time his unusual talents were apparent. He
then located in Cobden, where he has ever since remained and where he
enjoys an enviable reputation, the fame of his abilities being known far
beyond the boundaries of the county. As before mentioned, he specializes
in surgery, and he has made every effort to keep abreast of the latest dis-
coveries in this wonderful science.
Dr. Goodman is a man of genial and interesting personality and his
gifts are of remarkably versatile order. A particularly pleasant phase
is his interest in antiques and Indian relics and some of his discoveries
have been of considerable value to antiquarians. He has a truly wonder-
ful collection, which includes an ancient flax spinning wheel and hackle,
guns of a bygone age, Mound Builders' relics and Indian implements of
1116 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
many kinds. He is never so fluent as when explaining these, his knowl-
edge of old customs being unusual.
It has been said that the Doctor is an extensive miner of kaolin, his
farm being situated in the heart of the kaolin district, near Kaolin Sta-
tion, on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. He ships his product to the eastern
factories, engaging in the manufacture of terra cotta and fine clay work.
The clay in his deposits extends to a depth of one hundred feet and is
apparently inexhaustible, as it begins but a few feet below the surface.
He has mined this for the past thirteen years. Kaolin is mined by means
of pits sunk from the surface. A few years ago he sold one single de-
posit for ten thousand dollars, and this industry is a source of great
financial benefit. He takes pleasure in his agricultural operations, which
his tenant farmer conducts on one hundred acres. His beautiful resi-
dence is situated in Cobden and he has eloquently demonstrated his con-
fidence in the future of the place by making himself the possessor of
twenty-two lots within its pleasant boundaries. He also rents five houses.
Dr. Goodman is fond of automobiling and makes use of a motor in
making his professional visits in the surrounding country. He has also
made many pleasure trips, for he is an out-of-door man and enjoys
living "close to nature's heart." He also delights in hunting and is
happiest when in the woods, engaged in hunting and fishing, in which
sports he indulges whenever his manifold duties give him leisure.
Dr. Goodman was first married in 1886, Harriet Buck, of Union
county, daughter of Adam Buck, becoming his wife. Her untimely de-
mise occurred in 1889. In 1891 he was united to Mrs. Minnie (Ross)
Scott, of Cobden, daughter of Dr. B. F. and Elizabeth (Muzzy) Ross.
Mrs. Goodman is a lady of culture and charm. She was educated in Val-
paraiso, Indiana, and is a painter of great merit. She was previously mar-
ried to a Mr. Scott, and the three children of this marriage are Florence,
Bertha and Georgia. She and Dr. Goodman are the parents of three chil-
dren, namely : Thomas M., Charles H. and Eloise D.
Dr. Goodman is a member of the Union County, Illinois State, Ameri-
can and Illinois Surgeons' Associations. He and his wife attend the Pres-
byterian church and are active in Cobden 's best social and philanthropical
activities. His energy is unflagging and he has proved a success as phy-
sician, miner, farmer and antiquarian.
HENRY ERNST SCHMIDT. Left an orphan at the early age of sixteen
years, when death robbed him of both mother and father in the brief
space of two short weeks, Henry Ernst Schmidt has been in the fullest
sense the architect of his own fortune. Alone and unaided he has been
able to secure a comprehensive education, and for several years past he
has been filling acceptably the position of superintendent of the Breese
public schools. That he was called to fill that responsible position in the
town where he was born and spent his early youth is a fitting testimony
to the intrinsic worth of the man, and of his qualifications for the work
in which he is engaged.
Henry Ernst Schmidt was born in Breese, Illinois, on January 19,
1861. His father, Frederick Schmidt, was born February 17, 1827, in
Mecklenburg, Germany. He was the son of a farmer, and when he came
to America in 1859 he located at Breese, Illinois, and secured work as a
day laborer. When he landed in New York he was immediately married
to Catherina Yungblut, a native of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, the
marriage occurring on September 25, 1859. Settling at Breese, Illinois,
they took up their life among the earliest settlers of Clinton county. Five
children were born of their union: Henry; Annie, now Mrs. Charles
Muehlenbein ; William ; Lizzie, now Mrs. Armin Kerbes ; and Fred. Wil
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1117
liam and Lizzie were twins. In 1877 Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt were torn
from their young family by death, passing away within a few weeks, leav-
ing their five children in an orphaned state, Henry being the eldest. No
relatives were near to care for the children, and kind neighbors helped
them, in various ways until they were old enough to make their own way
in the world.
Henry Ernst Schmidt found a home in the family of Charles Dorris,
a neighboring farmer, and he worked with him for four years, diligently
saving his slender earnings until he would have sufficient to see him
through a course of schooling. He had been able to receive but very lim-
ited advantages in the public schools prior to the time of his parents' de-
mise and he was determined to secure an education that would help him
materially in his future life and work. When he was twenty-one he drew
out his savings of four years and attended the Southern Illinois Normal
for two years. Following that course of study he accepted a position as
teacher of the Breese school, which at that time had but one room, with
an attendance of sixty to eighty pupils. After eight consecutive years of
service in that capacity he took a position with the Breese Mill & Grain
Company as clerk, remaining with that firm until the mills burned down
several years later. Subsequently he was with the Hoffman & Helwig
Company as a clerk in their store until 1908, at which time he was ap-
pointed principal of the Breese public schools. The school system had
expanded with the passing of the years, coincident with the growth of
the town, and at the time Mr. Schmidt resumed the principalship of the
schools after an interval of more than fifteen years the pupils were housed
in a fine brick structure of four rooms, with an average attendance of two
hundred scholars. The curriculum of the system includes nine grades,
and graduates of the school are able to secure second grade teachers' cer-
tificates. Mr. Schmidt's efforts since he has had charge of the schools
nave been largely rewarded in renewed and increased efficiency of the
system, and he is a strenuous worker for the advancement of the standing
of the institution of which he is the head. Modern methods are his, and
the results of his labors are everywhere apparent in the school.
Mr. 'Schmidt is a liberal Republican in his political views and has
held office in Breese in many and varied capacities. He was township
collector for four consecutive terms, and township clerk for one term, as
well as city treasurer of Breese. On each occasion he has been elected
in the face of strong opposition, the town being almost solidly Democrat,
but his record and standing has been such that he has been able to break
down the strength of opposing political forces in every fight he has waged
in the municipal elections. His service in every public office he has held
has been of a high order, and always he has held the interests of his
town in first place. Mr. Schmidt is a member of St. John's Evangelical
church, is secretary of the church, and is active in all departments of its
work. He is clerk of the Modern Woodmen of America lodge in Breese
and is the secretary of the Concordia Singing Society of Breese. In ad-
dition to Mr. Schmidt's position as superintendent of schools, he is the
agent for a number of fire insurance companies, and carries on a thriv-
ing business in that line in connection with his other duties.
On April 29, 1886, Mr. Schmidt was united in marriage with Miss
Emma Gerdes, daughter of Gottleib Gerdes, of Breese, her parents being
both deceased. Ten children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt,
eight of whom are living. Edward, the eldest, is superintendent of the
Water, Light & Power Company of Breese, while Fred, Herbert. Harold,
Hilda, Alfred, Alevia and Emily are all students in the schools of Breese.
vol. in-
1118 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
PAUL D. HEREIN is the popular and efficient incumbent of the office of
cashier of the City National Bank of Herrin, and he is a scion of that
family of pioneers and stanch countrymen so numerous in Williamson
county, Illinois, and in whose honor the city of Herrin is named. A na-
tive of Cartersville, Illinois, he was bom April 30, 1875, a son of John
D. Herrin and a grandson of Oliver Herrin, whose father, David Herrin,
was the recognized founder of the family in this county.
David Herrin and Isaac Herring, brothers-in-law, came into Illinois
and settled at Herrin 's Prairie about 1818, acquired a body of land from
the vast wilderness then unsettled and belonging to the public domain,
and they passed their lives raising stock and bringing into subjection their
respective farms. These two respected pioneers came hither from Hop-
kinsville, Kentucky, where was solemnized the marriage of David Herrin
to Sarah Herring, February 25, 1814. The family of David and Sarah
Herrin consisted of six children, as follows : Jackson ; Oliver, grandfather
of the subject of this sketch ; Martha, who first married James Aikman and
whose second husband is James Goodall, is a resident of Marion, Illinois;
Betsy became the wife of Ephraim Snyder and passed away in Jackson
county, Illinois; Lydia became Mrs. Newton Bradley and passed away in
Williamson county ; and Delila P., married George Harrison, father of
David R. Harrison, who led an active and successful life in the vicinity of
Herrin, where he died. David Herrin was summoned to the life eternal
September 1, 1870, at the age of seventy-seven years, and his cherished
and devoted wife died July 31, 1856, 'at the age of sixty-three years.
Oliver Herrin grew to maturity under the invigorating discipline of
pioneer life and in due course of time he married Julia Spiller, a daugh-
ter of an old Tennessee family that migrated to Illinois in the early days.
The children of this union were : John, the father of Paul D. Herrin, of
this notice ; Louisa, who married Curtis Brown and is now deceased ;
Henry, who migrated to the state of Washington, where he became a
prominent citizen of the city of Seattle ; and Charles, who lost his life
in a railroad accident at Creal Springs. After the demise of Oliver Her-
rin his widow became the wife of a Mr. Bradley and reared a second fam-
ily, comprising: Lavinia ; Annie; William H., who passed away at Her-
rin ; Emma married William Rummage and they reside at Marion, Illi-
nois ; and George M. died in 1907. Mrs. Bradley survived her husband
and subsequently married William Caplinger.
John D. Herrin was born in Williamson county, Illinois, was spar-
ingly schooled, owing to the times, and during the brief years he lived he
was a country merchant. He married Miss Josie Brown, a daughter of
Captain John Brown, mention of whom is made at length elsewhere in
this work. John Herrin died in 1876, the father of Ruth, who is now
Mrs. D. H. Harris, of Creal Springs; and Paul D., whose name forms the
caption for this article. For a few years following the death of her hus-
band Mrs. Herrin resided with Ruth and Paul on Herrin 's Prairie. In
the early '80s she moved to Creal Springs, where she opened up an hotel
for tourists and health-seekers, thereby giving that place its first im-
petus toward a town. Several years later she disposed of her hotel and
engaged in the general merchandise business at Creal Springs, where she
is now living in retirement. She is a woman of most noble personality,
possessed of shrewd judgment and splendid business ability.
Paul D. Herrin grew up under a somewhat diversified environment, as
it appears, and the atmosphere of his mother's hotel and store gave him
some early and practical notions of business. He received a liberal educa-
tion at Creal Springs and for a few years following his mother's retire-
ment from business he spent his summers on the farm of his grandfather,
Captain Brown. When the coal field began rapid development in the vi-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1119
cinity of Herrin he secured a clerkship with the Elles Store Company,
with which concern he remained for a period of years, at the expiration
of which he engaged in the lumber business at Herrin. Pour years later
he was encouraged to enter into that business on a larger scale and he then
organized the Stotlar-Herrin Lumber Company, one of the important
lumber concerns of Williamson county today. Following several years of
active connection with the company he spent a year in travel on the Pa-
cific coast, covering it from Los Angeles to Seattle and thoroughly ac-
quainting himself with the business methods and social life of that sec-
tion of the country.
Eventually returning y> Illinois, Mr. Herrin withdrew from the lum-
ber business and, in company with others, promoted and chartered the
City National Bank, June 10, 1907, which concern immediately opened
offices in the corner of one of the business houses of Herrin. A movement
was at once begun to erect a home for the institution and in February,
1908, the bank occupied its quarters in the new structure. The building
is of buff, hydraulic pressed brick, one hundred by thirty-seven and a
half feet in lateral dimensions and two stories high. It is rather massive
in design and is one of the most attractive business houses in Herrin. The
capital stock of the bank is fifty thousand dollars and it is officered as
follows: John Alexander, president; R. A. Karr, vice-president; Paul
D. Herrin, cashier ; and Walter Goodout, assistant cashier.
At Herrin, June 16, 1899, Mr. Herrin was united in marriage to Miss
Ruby Stotlar, who is a daughter of William N. and Sarah (Cox) Stotlar
Mr. Stotlar was a prominent and influential farmer of this community
during his active career and is now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Herrin have
two children, Jean and Jo.
Mr. Herrin is a Master Mason, a member of the Elks and the Eagles,
and he is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
WILLIAM CLARK CARSON. One of the leading Republican newspapers
of Southern Illinois is The Greenville Advocate, which has long been rec-
ognized as a director of party policies and a supporter of its acknowl-
edged candidates, as well as a newspaper singularly free from sensational-
ism, its policy always having been to give to the reading public the best
to be found in journalism. Its rapid growth in favor among the people
of this section of the state is due in large part to the efforts of its man-
aging editor, William Clark Carson, who holds a prominent position
among Illinois newspaper men, and a citizen whose sincerity in develop-
ing the interests of his community has never been questioned.
William Clark Carson was born at Woodburn, Macoupin county, Illi-
i nois, August 7, 1874, and is a son of William T. and Abbie E. (Colcord)
Carson. William T. Carson was a native of Franklin, Tennessee, where
he was born February 8, 1832. When he was eighteen months old he was
brought by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Blackburn Carson, to Ma-
coupin county, Illinois, and there the family resided on a farm until
1845, in which year they removed to Woodburn. His father passed away
in 1886 and his mother three years later. As a young man William T.
Carson engaged in the mercantile business in Woodburn, and then spent
four years in the same line in Greenville, but in 1 873 returned to Wood-
burn, where he followed commercial pursuits until 1892, when he retired
from business activities and came to Greenville. He served as postmaster
during five administrations at Woodburn, being an independent Demo-
crat in politics, and for twenty years acted in the capacity of justice of
the peace. On May 18, 1856, he was married in the old Congregational
church at Greenville, to Miss Abbie E. Colcord, who was born in Wilton,
Maine, March 7, 1837, and came to Illinois in 1840 with her father, Sam-
1120 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
uel Colcord, making the journey in a covered wagon. Samuel Colcord,,
who was one of this county 's most highly esteemed citizens, died in No-
vember, 1893. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Carson, namely :
Eula, Clarence H., Francis P., Ella, William Clark and Harriet S., of
whom Francis P. and Ella are now deceased. At the time of the dissolu-
tion of the old Congregational church Mr. and Mrs. Carson became con-
nected with the Presbyterian church, of which they are still members.
William Clark Carson attended the public schools of Woodburn, the
Bunker Hill Military Academy and Shurtleff College, but did not com-
plete his course in the latter institution, owing to failing eyesight. La-
ter his parents removed to Greenville, where he attended Greenville Col-
lege, and graduated therefrom in the class of 1895, with the degree of
Bachelor of Commercial Science. In the following year Mr. Carson en-
tered the employ of W. W. Lowis, of The Greenville Advocate, and he
has since been connected with this paper. He became city editor in 1898,
and when Mr. Lowis was appointed postmaster of Greenville, in May,
1906, he took over the active management of The Advocate, in which he
secured a half-interest May 1, 1908, the firm style at that time becoming
Lowis & Carson. Also at that time he assumed the editorial and busi-
ness management of the paper, and acts in that capacity at present.
The Greenville Advocate is one of the oldest publications in the state,
having been in existence for more than fifty -four years, and since March,
1911, has been issued twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, the
former containing from four to ten pages, and the latter from eight to
sixteen pages, filled with accurate and comprehensive news and illustra-
tions, while the editorial page wields a strong influence in matters of im-
portance along all lines. One of the most modern plants in this part of
Illinois has been erected for its use, and everything that goes to make up
a wide-awake, up-to-date newspaper has been installed here, including
linotype machine, cylinder presses and a modern folder. Three men are
employed in the editorial department and six in the mechanical depart-
ment and press rooms, in addition to a large force of carriers, and the
circulation has grown rapidly in late years, now being more than two
thousand one hundred. Mr. Carson believes in progress, has taken an
active interest in local affairs and has identified himself with all move-
ments tending to better his community in any way. He is stanch in
his support of Republican principles, but has not sought public prefer-
ment on his own account. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of
America and the Woodmen of the World, while his religious association
is with the Presbyterian church, of which his wife is also a consistent
member.
On October 14, 1900, Mr. Carson married Miss Louise Seawell, daugh-
ter of the Hon. Charles W. Seawell, who served two terms in the Illi-
nois State Legislature and fifteen years as an internal revenue agent, be-
ing for three years in charge of the Chicago internal revenue office. Mr.
and Mrs. Carson have had one child, Mildred, who is attending school.
WILLIAM W. Lowis. Possessed of industry, zeal, a real love of his
chosen work, clever wit and an individual style, with a high ideal of
journalistic work, William W. Lowis of Greenville, Illinois, dean of the
newspaper men of Bond county, established a widespread reputation in
this state among his colleagues, and from the close of the Civil war until
his practical retirement from this field of endeavor, in May, 1906, was as-
sociated in official capacities with some of the leading periodicals of the
state. Mr. Lowis, who for five years has been acting in the office of post-
master of Greenville, was born in Spalding, Lincolnshire England, Febru-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1121
ary 10, 1846, and is a son of John Walker and Elizabeth Ann (Bond)
Lowis.
John Walker Lowis was born in Louth, England, and as a young man
learned the draper's trade, which he followed at Spalding until May, 1850,
in that year coming to the United States and settling in Janesville, Wis-
consin. Two years later he removed to Freeport, Illinois, where for sev-
eral years he held the office of deputy recorder of deeds, and in 1872 he
went to Escanaba, Michigan, retired from active life and lived with his
children until his death in 1874. He was a Northern Democrat during
the Civil war, and a faithful member of the Episcopal church. Mr. Lowis
was married (first) in England, to Elizabeth Ann Bond, who died at
Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1850, and to this union there were born eleven
children, of whom William W. was the sixth in order of birth. In 1852
the second marriage of Mr. Lowis occurred, when he was united with Miss
Mary Nichols, of Janesville, by whom he had two children. Mrs. Lowis
survives her husband and makes her home with her daughter in Es-
canaba, Michigan.
William W. Lowis was four years of age when the family came to the
United States, and his education was secured in the common schools of
Freeport, Illinois. Pn completing his schooling he became clerk in a
store in Janesville, Wisconsin, from whence he enlisted for service in the
Fortieth Wisconsin Volunteers, and served six months during the Civil
war, participating in some heavy engagements in Tennessee and Ala-
bama. On receiving his honorable discharge he went to Freeport, where
he was initiated into newspaper work, serving an apprenticeship to the
printer's trade in the office of the Freeport Bulletin. After one year
he was made foreman of the office, a position which he held for fifteen
years, and then went to Lanark, Illinois, where for two years he pub-
lished the Carroll County Gazette. Disposing of his interests there, he re-
moved to Lena, Illinois, and for sixteen years was owner and publisher of
the Lena Star, and in 1893 came to Greenville and purchased the Advo-
cate. This paper, one of the oldest in the state, was established in 1854,
and is now published twice a week, having a circulation of two thousand.
In 1898 Mr. Lowis made William C. Carson his city editor, and in May,
1906, that gentleman took over the active management. In May, 1908, the
firm of Lowis & Carson was formed, Mr. Carson at that time becoming
half-owner, editor and business manager, although Mr. Lowis still holds
a half-interest in the newspaper. The Advocate is one of the leading Re-
publican organs of Southern Illinois, and is equipped with a plant that
is in every way sufficient to its needs. The policy of the paper shows that
its publishers realize the great responsibility they have assumed in these
days when newspapers practically control public opinion, and by the
hearty support it is being given it has been demonstrated that the read-
ing public appreciates the efforts of the owners to put forth a clean, re-
liable source of information. In 1906 Mr. Lowis was appointed post-
master of Greenville, in which office he has served to the present time. He
served as private secretary to Lieutenant-Governor W. A. Northcott dur-
ing his first term, and has always been prominent in Republican politics,
being chairman of the Republican County Central Committee for sev-
eral years. The best interests of Greenville have been uppermost in his
mind, and he was largely instrumental in securing the Federal Building
for this city.
On January 6, 1870, Mr. Lowis was united in marriage with Miss
Mary Jane Newcomer, and they had one son, who died at the age of four
years. Mr. and Mrs. Lowis are consistent members of the Episcopal
church. He has been prominent in Grand Army circles, and was ad-
1122 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
jutant and commander of the local post for a number of years, while fra-
ternally he is connected with the Masons and the Court of Honor.
JAMES EDWARD VENERABLE. In this section of the country, teeming
with successful farmers and orchardists, one of the foremost places
should be given to James Edward Venerable. Starting out in life with
the great handicap of orphanhood, he has now reached the place where he
holds the distinction of being the largest shipper of fruits and vegetables
in the Cobden district. This splendid rise is the result of his own cour-
age and determination, strengthened by the fight against adverse condi-
tions. The respect with which he is regarded in the community is suf-
ficient proof that his struggle for success has not only resulted in a fine
business, but also in a strong and upright character.
Mr. Venerable was born at Metropolis, Illinois, on the 18th of April,
1858, being the only child of Benjamin and Eliza (Crittenden) Vener-
able. His father was a native of the Blue Grass state, who had been at-
tracted by the rich farm lands of Southern Illinois and had migrated to
this section before the Civil war. But this peaceful life was not to last,
for when the Civil war broke out the farmer dropped his plow, enlisted in
a cavalry regiment and served through a large part of the war in the
Union army. He fell at last in a skirmish with the guerillas. He and his
wife had left by death the young boy, James, adrift on the world when
but eighteen months old.
During his youth the lad was a welcome inmate in the homes of three
families, but he always considered that of Mrs. Betsy Lamer, in Union
county, his real abiding place. Until he became of age the boy worked
for various farmers, thus serving his apprenticeship and gaining the prac-
tical experience which was to serve him in such good stead during his
later life. By frugality and stern self denial he saved sufficient money
to buy his present home farm of forty acres. He immediately followed
the trend of the times into specialization, devoting his time to tomatoes, so
successfully that he was able to increase his acreage to its present size of
two hundred and seventy acres. This land is planted with seventeen hun-
dred apple trees, three thousand peach trees, twenty-five hundred pears,
and the remainder of the farm in a valuable diversified crop, which in-
cludes asparagus and rhubarb. In 1911 the apple trees produced a rather
poor crop, which he sold for five thousand dollars, but the peach crop was
very fine, bringing him three dollars a bushel, the total being between
eight and ten thousand dollars. At one time he also grew sweet potatoes
in large quantities, but now he does not raise any for the market.
Mr. Venerable believes strongly in fraternalism, his affiliation being
with the Ancient Masonic order, Cobden Lodge, No. 446, Chapter No.
46, at Anna, and he also has the honor of being a Knight Templar of
Cairo Commandery, No. 13. He has always stood for the principles of
true sportsmanship, and his own healthful out of doors life has caused
him to wish to give his friends an opportunity to possess some of its
benefits. To this end he founded the Cobden Gun Club, further display-
ing his altruistic spirit by buying and developing the land which the
club now owns. Although many fine shots have become members of the
club since its beginning, his reputation as one of the best marksmen still
remains undisputed.
In 1881 Mr. Venerable was married to Nancy Elizabeth Randleman,
the daughter of Martin and Clara (Lamer) Randleman. Four children
were born to them : Iva, James Earl, Willis and Herbert Wallace.
Starting as a farm laborer at fourteen dollars a month, going into
debt for his first farm, and sturdily bearing this double load until he had
OF THE
8OEBSITY CF IUJKOT,
OMHE
<8SITY OF I
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1123
paid off his indebtedness, his courage and perseverance make him a figure
whom the young men of his community might well use as a model.
WILLIAM GEORGE BECHTOLD, M. D. Among the professions the one
making the most demand upon time, study and experience is probably
that of medicine, and to make a success of his vocation the doctor must at
all times be willing to sacrifice everything else for it. William George
Bechtold, one of the successful physicians and surgeons of Clinton county,
Illinois, whose chosen field of practice is the thriving city of Breese, has,
from a humble beginning, built up one of the finest practices in this part
of the county. He was born June 11, 1862, at Belleville, Illinois, and is
a son of Frederick and Eugenie (DuBoweaire) Bechtold.
Frederick Bechtold was born in Germany, in 1822, and there re-
ceived his education and learned the trade of professional decorator. He
was married in that country to Mile. Eugenie DuBoweaire, a native of
France, and they had a family of ten children, William George being the
ninth in order of birth. On coming to this country Mr. Bechtold fol-
lowed his trade for some years, but eventually entered the insurance
business and came to Belleville, Illinois, where he followed that occupa-
tion until within a few years of his death, when he retired. He was a
prominent citizen in Belleville, was well known in the insurance field, and
during President Lincoln 's administration held several offices by appoint-
ment, being a hard worker in the ranks of the Republican party. His
death occurred in Belleville in 1894, while his wife passed away in 1882.
William George Bechtold received his primary schooling in the public
institutions of Belleville, immediately after leaving which he entered the
Missouri Medical College and was graduated therefrom in 1884, with the
degree of M. D. In the next month, April, he came to Breese, where he
engaged in a general practice, and he has since continued here, having won
a widespread reputation by his success in numerous complicated cases.
He has done considerable surgical work, and is surgeon for the Balti-
more & Ohio Railroad Company at Breese. Progressive in all matters, Dr.
Bechtold was one of the first in this city to adopt the automobile, and he
finds it assists him materially in making calls, as well as being the means
of taking numerous pleasure trips. In political matters the Doctor is a
Republican, but his practice has demanded his attention to such an ex-
tent that he has found little time to give to public matters. However, he
is a public-spirited citizen, and all matters pertaining to the welfare of
Breese will find in him an interested and active supporter. Fraternally
he is connected with the Masonic Lodge and the I. 0. 0. F. In addition
to his comfortable home, Dr. Bechtold owns considerable city property,
and has a well-cultivated farming tract of three hundred and sixty acres,
located in Clinton county. He keeps well abreast of the new discoveries
and inventions in his profession by subscribing to the leading medical
journals, and holds membership in the State, County and American Medi-
cal associations.
In 1894 Dr. Bechtold was united in marriage with Miss Lena Tieman,
of Belleville, Illinois, daughter of August Tieman, a retired business man
of that city, and three children have been born to this union, namely:
Eugene, Dorothy and Robert.
CAPTAIN ELISHA DILLON. The life of a successful man is an inter-
esting study. When one comes in frequent contact with such a man
his characteristics, his manner of doing things, as well as the evidences
of his ability, seem to all work in harmony to make what the world
names a great man. When one reflects upon these various points, the
blending of them all into the man himself makes the study more dif-
1124 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ficult. But one cannot fail to see distinctly the bold lines which denote
success. With no one do these lines stand out more prominently among
the so-called successful men of Franklin county than with Elisha Dillon,
who for years has been closely identified with the business and finan-
cial interests of the city of Benton. Mr. Dillon is a product of Frank-
lin county, and was born August 19, 1842, a son of Captain Milliam
B. and Margaret (Eubanks) Dillon, natives of Tennessee.
. Isaac Dillon, the grandfather of Elisha, was born in Virginia and
at an early day moved to Tennessee, from whence he came to Illinois,
where his death occurred. He came of Irish ancestry. William B.
Dillon was born in Tennessee, in 1809, and he was eleven years of age
when he accompanied his parents to Williamson (now Franklin)
county, Illinois. He was a blacksmith, farmer, carpenter and general
jack-of-all-trades, and among other things made all the coffins used in
his neighborhood for many years. He was a justice of the peace for
forty years, and when John A. Logan practiced law in Benton he fre-
quently had a case for trial before Justice Dillon. At times the office
would not accommodate the crowd gathered, and court then adjourned
to a nearby large oak tree. Until 1870 Mr. Dillon resided on his farm,
but in that year went to DuQuoin, and subsequently to Tamaroa, Perry
county, where his death occurred when he was eighty-seven years of
age. He organized and served as captain of Company I, Fifty-sixth
Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, until he was attacked by typhoid
fever and was obliged to resign his commission and return home. Not
alone he of his family served in that war, but his three sons, Elisha,
John and James, all offered themselves to their country in the cause of
the Union. James was mortally wounded at Shiloh and died a few
days afterward, while John died after the close of the war as a result
of an illness contracted while in the service. The parents of William
B. Dillon's wife were farming people of Tennessee who became early
settlers of Franklin county and here spent the remainder of their lives.
Elisha Dillon, the only one of the three brothers to survive the Civil
war, received the rudiments of his education as a lad in an old log
schoolhouse with a clapboard roof, one door, no windows, a huge fire-
place in the middle of the room, and seats made of roughly hewn logs.
He was just about ready to enter the public schools at Benton when
the Civil war came on, and he enlisted in his father's company, De-
coming its first sergeant. At the time of his father's resignation, en-
forced through serious illness, on August 18, 1862, the son Elisha was
promoted to second lieutenant, and on August 31st of the same year
was made captain of the company. He was at the siege of Corinth in
April, 1862, and on October 2d, 3d and 4th took part in the three days'
battle at Corinth, where his sword shield was struck and badly dam-
aged by a bullet. He was with Grant at Holly Springs and Oxford,
Mississippi, participating in several sharp skirmishes, one with bush-
rangers being especially severe. On December 24th and 25th, during a
heavy rainstorm, his company, as a part of Grant's command, marched
from Oxford, Mississippi, to Memphis, and, during that time without
anything to eat and having no tents or shelter on the banks of the
river, they were compelled to sleep in the rain both nights. The
weather suddenly changed and their clothing was frozen to their
bodies. Captain Dillon served with distinction at Champion Hill and
Black river, and in the siege of Vicksburg was in the assault on the
Rebel works May 23, 1863, and in the fighting was knocked down by a
Rebel shell. It was there that he contrated the illness which made his
resignation imperative.
After his return to civilian life Captain Dillon went to DeWitt
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1125
county, Illinois, and with a few hundred dollars which he had been able
to save purchased one hundred acres of land, making a first payment
with the amount. Then he settled down to follow the peaceful life of
an agriculturist. Progressive in all things, Captain Dillon was the
first farmer to use tile in his section of the country, and he made one
of the finest farms in the section, later selling his holdings for forty
dollars an acre, at that time the highest price ever paid for land in that
locality. Captain Dillon first came to Benton in 1883, in which year
he established himself in the mercantile business and continued therein
for two years. But not liking the business he began loaning money
and buying tax titles, an occupation which he has since carried on with
great success. He has a beautiful home in Benton, where he owns con-
siderable property and is looked upon as one of the substantial men of
the city.
In 1862 Captain Dillon was married to Miss Laurenda Maddox,
daughter of James Maddox, who was an early settler of Franklin
county, and she died in 1863, during which same year he was married
to Miss Olive Martin. Mrs. Dillon, who was a daughter of Samuel
Martin, an early settler of DeWitt county, died May 12, 1888, leaving
one child, John S., who was second lieutenant of Company F, Ninth
Illinois Regiment, during the Spanish-American war, and is now the
editor of a newspaper at Oxford, Ohio. Mr. Dillon's third marriage
occurred January 15, 1893, when he was united with the widow of his
cousin, Captain W. J. Dillon, of Company C of the gallant Eighteenth
Regiment, who was killed at Shiloh. Captain Dillon was a law stu-
dent of John A. Logan, and was county judge of Franklin county when
the war was inaugurated. He resigned to enlist and was made first
lieutenant of his company. For gallantry at Belmont he was promoted
captain of his company. He was first wounded at Fort Donelson, but,
with his wounded arm in a sling, rejoined his regiment in a short time
and met his death at Shiloh. His widow was made an honorary daugh-
ter of the Eighteenth Regiment, as being the youngest widow of the
regiment. Her maiden name was Hettie A. Duncan, daughter of John
R. and Jane (Riddell) Duncan, and a direct descendant of Queen Isa-
bella of England, of whom history has it that "From King John and
Isabella every sovereign who has since sat upon the throne of England
is descended." Mr. Duncan was born in Maysville, Kentucky, and all
his ancestors served in both the Revolutionary war and the War of
1812. Mrs. Dillon's grandfather was an orderly to General Jackson at
the battle of New Orleans. The Riddell family traces its ancestors
back to the year 886, A. D., to the Earl of Angonlesme and Piragord of
France, ancestors of Queen Isabella. Mrs. Dillon was a step-daughter
of Hon. Walter S. Aiken, prominent in Southern Illinois, he having
served as postmaster of Benton, as judge of Franklin county and as a
member of the Illinois legislature. As her mother was an invalid the
daughter, then a young girl, assisted in entertaining many noted guests
at the family home, including Governor Yates, Governor Oglesby, Gen-
eral and Mrs. Logan, General and Mrs. I. N. Haynie, Judges Breese.
Marshall and Allen and other noted personages. From the time of
their first meeting at the old Logan home here Mrs. Logan and Mrs.
Dillon have retained the warmest friendship for each other. Mrs. Dil-
lon, then a young girl, was the Logans' guest when Senator Douglas
made his memorable visit to Benton. Mrs. Logan has accorded Mrs.
Dillon a place in her forthcoming book, "The Part Taken by Women
in American History." Mrs. Dillon is prominent in social affairs, a
member of the Methodist Episcopal church, of the W. C. T. U. and of
the Self Culture Class of Benton.
1126 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Captain Dillon is senior vice commander of the Southern Illinois
Soldiers and Sailors Reunion Association, the largest organization of
ex-soldiers in the world, which was established twenty-nine years ago
and holds reunions every year, at which time there is an attendance of
from ten thousand to fifteen thousand people. He organized the G. A.
R. post here and was its first commander. A stanch Republican in
political matters, his first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln for pres-
ident in 1864. When the offices of the Franklin County Chronicle were
destroyed by fire, August 23, 1893, he showed his loyalty by purchas-
ing a new press, naming it the Benton Republican, and in December of
the same year the paper issued its first edition. Captain Dillon was
collector of his township in DeWitt county for three years when the
township was largely Democratic, but he was elected each time on the
Republican ticket. In 1876 he was candidate for the office of sheriff
of DeWitt county, on the Republican ticket, but owing to political
conditions at the time he met with defeat, although by only a small
margin. He has on numerous occasions served as delegate to state and
county conventions, and in 1892 was made county chairman and re-
elected in 1894 for two more years (that year marking the first time
Franklin county ever went Republican). He was made special ser-
geant to the convention in 1896 that nominated McKinley for the pres-
idency, in 1896 also was made chairman of the senatorial district, and
in 1898 two Republican representatives were elected for the first time
in the history of the district. He is now serving as treasurer for the
Republican central committee, and for a number of years has acted
as public administrator of Franklin county. During the Spanish-
American war he organized a company for the regiment named for
the Chicago Press Association and received a captain's commission
from the governor, but the division was not needed and never went to
the war. In fraternal circles Captain Dillon has been for forty-two
years an Odd Fellow, and is a charter member of the Elks lodge in
Benton.
As a soldier, as a business man and as a citizen Captain Dillon has
proved himself a thoroughly representative citizen of Illinois, and well
merits the respect and esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens.
JUDGE HENRY WILSON is the police magistrate of Herrin and has been
connected with the city government in some capacity or other almost
from the inception of the town. He came here while the townsite was
yet responding to the toil of the husbandman and has watched its phe-
nomenal growth and aided modestly in its development as an industrial
center and as a competitor for metropolitan honors in Williamson county.
Judge Wilson dates his advent in this locality from 1896. There was
nothing on the site of the future Herrin but a depot and a few frame
structures — stores scattered here and there. He built the first cottage
that could be styled a home and established a saw-mill in the woods
close by and for several years was engaged in cutting into lumber the
limited quantity of timber adjacent to the town.
In 1902 Judge Wilson abandoned milling and devoted his attention
to the office of justice of the peace, to which he had been elected. Ere
this the town had spread over the country almost like a prairie fire and
the free and open condition of it gave the local court much business from
the unlawful element that gathers in numbers about a new and wide-
awake place. He was justice of the peace for three years, served also
as one of the first aldermen, following incorporation, and was then
elected mayor. During his first term the electric line was built in here
and a new impetus given to an enthusiastic .and strenuous populace.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1127
As real estate began to boom Judge Wilson became a dealer in it, built
a few houses as a speculator and as a developer and eventually erected his
own home, one of the best residences in Herrin, the same occupying spa-
cious grounds in the north end of the city. In 1908 he was elected as a
candidate of the Labor party, to the police magistracy, although he is a
Republican upon state and national issues.
Judge Wilson came into Williamson county from near Akin, Illi-
nois, and he was born in Benton, this state, near the site of the Franklin
county jail. His birth occurred December 23, 1858, and his father was
Larkin Wilson, who came to Illinois from near Princeton, Gibson county,
Indiana. Larkin Wilson was born in Indiana, was a farmer's son and
married Louisa Martin, a daughter of Bailey Martin, one of the widely
known citizens of Franklin county, Illinois. Mr. Martin was a farmer
and stockman and formerly resided in Indiana. Larkin Wilson was a
tanner both before and following his advent in Illinois, having been en-
gaged in that business at Owensville, Indiana, and at Benton, Illinois.
Abandoning that occupation, he moved to a farm and was identified with
agricultural pursuits during the residue of his life. He was a stalwart
Republican and was a supporter of church effort, although not a member
of any religious denomination. He passed away in 1899 and his chil-
dren were : William, who died unmarried ; Judge Henry, of this review ;
Mary, who passed away in childhood ; John 0., a resident of Big Lake,
Washington ; Charles, who maintains his home at Haniford, Illinois ; Alice
is Mrs. George Williamson, of Benton, Illinois.
The paternal grandfather of Judge Wilson died in Gibson county,
Indiana. His children were : John, who reared a family in Gibson county,
Indiana ; Mary, who became the wife of Dr. Henry Wilson and died in
Franklin county, Illinois ; and Larkin, father of the subject of this
sketch.
Henry Wilson, of this notice, was educated in the public schools of
Franklin county and for a time he also attended school in Perry county,
Illinois. As a farmer he was modestly identified with public matters in
Eastern township, where he resided, having been township collector and
assessor on different occasions. He left the farm to engage in the manu-
facture of lumber at Herrin and with the passage of time other matters
developed to change the whole course of his life.
In November, 1881, Judge Wilson was married, in Franklin county,
to Miss Nancy E. Akin, a daughter of Robert Akin, a leading member of
the Scotch settlers who occupied a large portion of the country about Ben-
ton as refugees from the religious oppression of their native land. The
Akins and McClains comprise a large citizenship of Benton community
and are noted for their allegiance to church work and as members of the
Missionary Baptist faith. These clans perpetuate the memory of their
deliverance by occasional convocations where the Scotch dress of the olden
time is brought out and the youth of today are made to feel the sacred-
ness of the ties that once bound their forefathers to their native land.
The Akin family, now of vast numbers in Illinois, is wont to hold fam-
ily gatherings at Benton, and this practice has come to be somewhat his-
toric, in view of the programs, the Scotch dress and the sentiment ut-
tered upon the occasion for their forced exile from the hills and vales
of the highlands.
Robert Akin married Lucretia Atchison, and their children were:
James, a farmer near Miami, Oklahoma ; Charles, special pension ex-
aminer in the United States service at Indianapolis. Indiana ; Jane is
the wife of Mandrake Summers, a farmer of Franklin county, Illinois ;
Miss Malinda is a resident of Franklin county ; Nancy E. is the
wife of Judge Wilson, as already set Torth; Eveline married Whit-
1128 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
field Conover, of Franklin county; Adeline is the widow of Samuel
Shepherd, formerly of Franklin county ; Robert is a farmer in Franklin
county; Hiram is ex-county superintendent of Franklin county, where
he resides ; Milton is a resident of Thompson ville, Illinois ; and Hannah
died as Mrs. William Moore.
The children of Judge and Mrs. Wilson are : Ethel B., of Big Sandy,
Montana, who, with a girl friend, braved the environment of the fron-
tier, took a claim and is gaining title to a home in that locality ; Charles
is manager of the W. P. Rend store at Rend City, where he is likewise
postmaster ; and James A. is a student in the engineering department of
the University of Illinois.
In his fraternal connections Judge Wilson is a valued and appreci-
ative member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of
Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Modern Brotherhood
of America. His family are devout members of the Missionary Baptist
church, in the different departments of whose work they are active fac-
tors. Judge Wilson is genial in his associations, honorable and straight-
forward in his business dealings and a man of mark in all the relations
of life. He is a valued citizen and an efficient public servitor.
DR. JAMES JOSEPH MORONY is one of the best known and liked medi-
cal men in Clinton county, Illinois. His Irish ancestry has bequeathed to
him the tender heart and sympathetic nature of the sons of Erin, and
these qualities have rendered him very popular throughout the district.
James J. Morony was born at Decatur, Illinois, on the 6th of Sep-
tember, 1865. He was the son of John Morony, who first saw the light
of day in far-famed old County Clare, in Ireland, in 1819. John Mo-
rony studied engineering in Ireland, and then took up railroad contract-
ing, following this occupation throughout his active life. In 1848 he
came to America and located at Decatur, Illinois. In his work here as a
railroad contractor he built part of the Illinois Central and Wabash rail-
roads. In 1853 he was married in St. Louis to Helen Godfrey. At that
time she was living in St. Louis, but, like her husband, she hailed from
the Emerald Isle. Four of the children born to them grew to matur-
ity : Hugh C., a fireman in the St. Louis fire department ; Andrew C., an
attorney in St. Louis ; Joseph J. ; and Patrick, who died in 1904, having
reached the position of division freight agent for the Iron Mountain
Railroad. Until within a few years of his death Mr. Morony followed a
very active life, but as his health failed he retired and in 1898 he died at
St. Louis. The death of his wife had occurred several years before, in
1893, at St. Louis. In politics Mr. Morony was a Republican, and the
religious affiliations of both his wife and himself were with the Roman
Catholic church.
Since the profession of his father forced him to often change his
place of residence, the early life of the son was spent in a number of dif-
ferent places, among them being, Decatur, La Place, Arcola and St.
Louis. His education was obtained in the public schools of the above
places. After leaving school he went to work in the railroad offices.
Having no experience, he began at the very bottom and worked
up until finally he reached the position of traveling auditor for the
Terminal Railroad Association. Until 1892 he followed railroading and
then, thinking that his taste for medicine was stronger than that for the
railroad business, he gave up his position and entered the Marion Sims
school. He had been in business for a good many years and was older
than the average student, so the work was unusually hard for him, but
he stuck doggedly at it and in 1895 was graduated from the institution.
At first he was located in St. Louis and then, in 1897, he came to Breese.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1129
Here he has since remained, conducting a general practice and doing
considerable work in the hospital of Breese. He has not cared for either
politics or business, preferring to devote himself exclusively to his pro-
fession. He is interested in the civic life of the city, however, and
since 1900 he has served as coroner of Clinton county. He votes the
Democratic ticket, but is content to see others holding the offices. He is
a member of the Roman Catholic church, and is associated fraternally
with the Knights of Columbus. In his own profession he belongs to the
State, County and American Medical Societies, and takes much interest
in the work of these various organizations.
On the 17th of June, 1890, Mr. Morony was married to Katherine
O'Brien, of St. Louis. They have become the parents of two children,
Mary and Frank.
Willing tribute should be given to men like Dr. Morony, who sacri-
fice themselves willingly on the altar of duty, and give themselves freely
in the service of their fellow men. He has lived and worked in Breese
for many years and its townspeople have learned to put a high valuation
upon his services, for they are given not only as a professional man,
but as a friend.
GEORGE W. RICH. Union county is rich in her well-to-do farmers.
The best citizenship, the sturdiest characters, the most dependable men,
are, in part at least, to be found among those men who have lived close to
the soil and by close attention to the duty nearest to hand have amassed
comfortable fortunes and incidentally linked themselves indissolubly
with the life and history of their city and county. Prominent among men
of that type is George W. Rich, a resident of Cobden since his birth, and
well and favorably known in Union county all the days of his life thus
far.
George W. Rich is the son of William Carroll Rich, who was born
November 18, 1819, in Alabama. He came to Illinois in 1832 with his
father's family, and he is distinguished today as the oldest living resident
of Union county. In 1843 William C. Rich married and settled on the
farm on which he now lives. During the years of his activity he accumu-
lated a tract of land containing several thousand acres, which he has but
lately deeded to his heirs. He is also known to be the oldest bank presi-
dent in Illinois, being the president of the First National Bank of Cob-
den since its organization. In 1843 Mr. Rich married Millie C. Guthrie,
the daughter of Anslon Guthrie, a native of Tennessee, where she was
bor in 1823. The Guthrie family came to Illinois in about 1829, and have
been residents of the state since then. Mr. and Mrs. Rich were the par-
ents of a family of twelve children, named below as follows : Mrs. Saman-
tha Tripp, deceased; Mrs. Kate McMahon; Matilda, twice married, her
first husband having been W. C. Monroe, of Anna, deceased, and her sec-
ond husband is John Halterman, an official in the Anna (Illinois) Hospi-
tal ; Lafayette married Miss Anna Lingle ; Mrs. Eliza Condon ; Mrs. Maria
Hilton; Amalphous, died September 8, 1893, at the age of thirty-five
years ; William J". ; Lou, still in the home of the family ; Lizzie, a success-
ful teacher for twenty years; George W., of Cobden; and one that died
in infancy.
George W. Rich was born in Cobden, Union county, Illinois, on May
8, 1867. His education was in advance of that of the average country
youth, his public school training being supplemented by a course in the
Anna Academy, in which he spent three years devoted to close and care-
ful study. In 1889 he began teaching school, to which he gave five years
in all. He was thus employed from 1889 to 1893, when he discontinued
the work and later, in 1900, he again taught for one year. In 1893, Mr.
1130 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Rich was elected village marshal of Cobden, and so well did he carry out
the duties of his position that he was retained in that office for a period of
eighteen years. In 1884 he engaged in the commission and brokerage
business, which he carried on until 1909. At that time he eliminated the
brokerage feature of the business, but is still engaged in the buying and
selling of country produce. With an eye single to the future, and realiz-
ing the intrinsic value of the lands lying in the vicinity of Cobden, Mr.
Rich has gradually acquired a goodly acreage thereabouts. He has four
hundred and twenty acres of fertile land in the neighborhoods of Wolfe
Lake, twelve miles west of Cobden, and near to Cobden he has a par-
ticularly valuable tract of eighty acres. Fifteen acres of this he has
planted to peaches, and the remainder of the land is devoted to apples
and the small fruits. Mr. Rich has no political inclinations whatever.
He is well content to leave the engineering of the political machinery
to others, and beyond the immediate demands of good citizenship gives
no attention to affairs of that nature. He is interested in but one fra-
ternal society, that being the Masonic order, of which he is a member of
Lodge No. 466, at Cobden.
On June 22, 1894, Mr. Rich married Mary E. Hardin, daughter of
L. T. and Elizabeth (Farrell) Hardin, natives of Tennessee, who be-
came residents of Union county in 1836. Mr. and Mrs. Rich are the
parents of four children, one living, A Paul, and three others deceased,
namely, Ryde, Louis and Margaret.
WARREN E. McCASLiN. A public-spirited and highly esteemed citi-
zen of Greenville, now serving his sixth year as county clerk of Bond
county, Warren E. McCaslin comes of pioneer ancestry, and is a fine
representative of the native-born residents of Southern Illinois, his birth
having occurred, July 14, 1867, in Bond county.
His father, the late William G. McCaslin, was born in Bond county,
Illinois, July 13, 1829, and died in the very house in which he first drew
the breath of life on February 13, 1907, at the advanced age of seventy-
eight years. The son of a pioneer farmer, he succeeded to the occupa-
tion in which he was reared, spending his whole life in agricultural pur-
suits. He married Mary J. Steele, a daughter of Walker Steele, a well-
known agriculturist of Bond county, and she still lives on the old home-
stead. Six sons and five daughters were born of their union, Warren E.
the subject of this brief personal record, being the seventh child in suc-
cession of birth.
Warren E. McCaslin received a practical education in the common
branches of learning while a boy, while on the home farm he was well
drilled in the agricultural arts and sciences. Entering upon a profes-
sional career at the age of twenty years, he taught school two years,
after which he took a commercial course of study at a business college in
Danville, Indiana. Returning to Bond county, Mr. McCaslin resumed
his educational work, teaching in various places, for three years being
principal of the Mulberry Grove schools. In 1906 he was elected county
clerk of Bond county, and filled the office with such ability and fidelity
that at the expiration of his term, in 1910, he was honored by a re-elec-
tion to the same office without opposition. Politically Mr. McCaslin is a
straightforward Republican. Religiously he is a member of the Meth-
odist Episcopal church, and fraternally he belongs to the Modern Wood-
men of America ; to the Court of Honor and to the Knights of the Mac-
cabees.
Mr. McCaslin married, in 1887. Gussie A. Goad, a daughter of Wil-
liam M. and Amanda J. Goad, who are now living, retired from agricul-
tural pursuits, in Greenville. Mr. and Mrs. McCaslin have three daugh-
HISTORY OF SOUTHEEN ILLINOIS 1131
ters and an adopted son, namely: Ruby B., wife of Ralph G. Bowden, of
Collinsville, Illinois; Gladys A., deputy county clerk; Cora Pearl; and
James Y.
GEORGE W. ROBERTS. At this juncture in a volume devoted to the
careers of representative citizens of Southern Illinois it is a pleasure to
insert a brief history of George W. Roberts, who has ever been on the
alert to forward all measures and enterprises projected for the good of
general welfare and who has served his community in various official po-
sitions of important trust and responsibility. He served twelve years
as a magistrate of Herrin 's Prairie precinct, in Williamson county, and
for several years was the efficient incumbent of the office of school treas-
urer. He devoted the greater part of his active career to agricultural
pursuits but at the present time, in 1912, is living retired on his fine
little estate just outside of Herrin.
George W. Roberts was born in Robertson county, Tennessee, on the
26th of March, 1838, and he accompanied his parents to Illinois in Sep-
tember of the following year. He is a son of Ephraim A. Roberts, known
by his associates in Tennessee as "Young Ephraim," and a native of
Virginia, where he was born in 1811. In early life Ephraim A. Roberts
went with his father, Ephraim Roberts, to Tennessee, where he was
reared on an old plantation worked by slaves. His mother was a Harris
and she bore her husband a dozen children, but died before all of them
grew to maturity.
Ephraim Roberts, Sr., was one of the old-time men of the south. He
carried on his farm with slave labor, owned and operated a distillery, as
was customary with men of means in those days, and seems to have been
a robust figure. He was three times married, but had children only by
his first wife. Those were : William ; Riley ; Winnie, wife of Calvin
Holdeman; Ephraim A., father of the subject of this review; "Booker,"
or Pleasant, as he was christened ; Jesse B. ; Polly, who married Caven
Mason ; Nancy became the wife of Meredith Long, the son of Ephraim 's
second wife ; Martha became Mrs. Robert Thompson ; Rachael married a
Mr. Parker; and Elizabeth married her cousin, Jabez Roberts, who
passed his early married life in Texas and after the war settled in Ar-
kansas. All the above except Elizabeth, Ephraim and Jabez, passed
their lives in Tennessee, where the father was called to the life eternal in
1854, at the age of sixty-eight years.
Ephraim A. Roberts, Jr., married Miss Mary Williams, a daughter
of Rev. John Williams, a Baptist minister who died in active religious
work in Robertson county, Terinessee. Mr. Roberts died not long after
his advent in Illinois, and subsequently his widow married William Par-
sons. They had one son, John S. Parsons, a resident of Herrin, Illinois.
The Roberts children were : Nancy, who died in childhood ; George W.,
the immediate subject of this review ; and Amanda, who married Cap-
tain David G. Young and went to Dade county, Missouri, where she
passed away.
George W. Roberts has always lived in the atmosphere he now
breathes. No other community has contributed aught to him and his
efforts have all been put forth here. He acquired enough education as
a student in subscription schools to enable him to assume the role of
school-master himself. During his boyhood persons aspiring to teach
made up their school by going around and "getting up their scholars"
on a cash basis or other arrangement with the patrons of the district.
When a teacher came to the home of young Roberts his mother seldom
had the money with which to pay tuition for her son and if she couldn't
get in a "pattern of jeans" or -a batch of carded wool or some of the
1132 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
products of the farm George did not get to go to school. By actual count,
Mr. Roberts found that he was in school a few days more than fourteen
months. He knew when he took his first school, before the war, that he
was not properly equipped for the work but, like many of the teachers
of that time, he became the hardest student of his classes and eventually
made himself not only proficient as a teacher but a decided scholar as
well.
He moved to a farm adjacent to the east line of Herrin when he mar-
ried, in 1861, and he continued to reside there for a number of years,
teaching school during the winter terms. Often, at night, he cut the
supply of wood for his household while he should be absent and his
chores about the farm became a matter of "night work" during the
short days of the year. He continued teaching for a time 'during the
period of the Civil war and today the evidences of the constant sharp-
ening of his intellect and the polish of his mother tongue manifest them-
selves in the syntax of his conversation. Finally abandoning the school-
room, Mr. Roberts gave his full time to the management of his farm. He
raised grain and stock and from his profits he added to the extent of his
dominions until he owned something over five hundred acres of fine land.
When the mining of coal was begun in this locality overtures were made
him for a portion of his farm and he parted with some of it in 1895.
In 1900 he disposed of the remainder of the old estate to the Big Muddy
Coal & Iron Company.
For a new home Mr. Roberts bought a small square of land adjacent
to Herrin on the north and improved the same. Here his wife lived out
her life and here he is passing the declining years of his life. He was
married, March 28, 1861, to Annie Herrin, a daughter of Alfred Jack-
son Herrin, one of the early settlers of Williamson county. Mrs. Roberts
was born in the vicinity of Herrin and she died in 1901. The union was
prolific of the following children : William J., who died April 10, 1897 ;
Ephraim A., who died January 17, 1902 ; George Edgar, who died De-
cember 16, 1891 ; Ida is the wife of William Fultz and they reside with
her father; Artemisa passed away unmarried, December 5, 1899; and
Clara is the wife of Harry Grandstaff, of Carbondale, Illinois.
Mr. Roberts owns to some partisanship as a Democrat during his vig-
orous life. He was a close observer of events as a result of neighborly
antipathies during the war of the Rebellion. His antecedents were in-
tensely southern and many of his kin were in the Confederate service.
He remained out of the army out of regard for his convictions and found
no good reason for reforming his politics during subsequent events. He
served twelve years as a magistrate of his precinct, for a number of years
was school treasurer and has ever allied himself with the temperance
sentiment of. his community. He was chairman of the Temperance
League a few years back when an anti-saloon campaign was waged and
when almost the whole county was placed in the "dry column." He
has been upbraided for his share in thus ' ' driving out the very life of a
growing town like Herrin ' ' but his conscience is his guide and it has suf-
fered no punishment as a result of his attitude toward saloons. In early
life he united with the Methodist Episcopal church but the animosities
engendered between church people by the issues of the Civil war broke
up the congregation and he found himself without a church home. Sub-
sequently he united with the Baptists, his wife having been a devout
member of that faith, but the Baptismal doctrines of the body were in-
sisted upon so strongly that, rather than be rebaptized, he asked for a
rescinding of the vote that had made him a member of the church and
withdrew. He holds sacred the Christian religion and his life is gov-
erned by the same precepts that brought consolation to him and his fam-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1133
ily in the junior years of his life. He is past master in the time-honored
Masonic order and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge of the
state. Though venerable in years, Mr. Roberts is still erect and he re-
tains in much of their pristine vigor the splendid physical and mental
faculties of his prime. He is held in high esteem by his neighbors, and
the citizens of Herrin love and honor him for his kindliness and true
gentlemanly spirit.
PRANK GEORGE KUHLS, M. D. One of the men who has achieved suc-
cess in his chosen walks of life, almost before the' flush of youth has faded
from his countenance, and has made his name a representative one in his
community in the profession of medicine is Prank George Kuhls, who has
been established in practice at Breese, Illinois, since 1898. Dr. Kuhls is a
native of this city, and was born August 31, 1876, a son of Prank and
Gertrude (Miller) Kuhls.
Prank Kuhls was born in Westphalia, Germany, November 6, 1836,
and after attending the schools of his native place he began to assist
his father in working at the carpenter trade. When he had reached the
age of sixteen years he entered the German army to serve the customary
three years, and when he had secured his honorable discharge, with the
rank of lieutenant, he left the Fatherland and came to America, follow-
ing the trade of cabinet maker for four years in St. Louis, Missouri. He
came to Breese, Illinois, at a time when there were but three houses here,
and during the twelve years that followed he continued to work at the
trade of cabinet maker, at the end of that time selling out to engage in
business as a carpenter. For the past three years Mr. Kuhls has been
living a retired life. He is very well known to the older generation of
business men in Breese, who remember him as a man of excellent busi-
ness ability and honest and upright business principles. Mr. Kuhls was
a Republican until the election of President Garfield, at which time he
joined the ranks of the Democratic party, in which he has been a hard
and faithful worker, although he has never cared for office for himself.,
He is a faithful member of the Catholic church. On May 3, 1862, Mr.
Kuhls was married in St. Joseph's church, St. Louis, to Miss Gertrude
Miller, who was born in Warburg, Germany, and she is still living and
makes her home in Breese, being seventy-two years of age. They had a
family of five boys and three girls, Dr. Kuhls being the youngest son.
Prank George Kuhls spent his boyhood days in Breese, his education
being secured in the parochial schools, and he also spent one year in St.
Joseph 's College, Teutopolis, Effingham county. Subsequently he took a
medical course at Washington University, from which he was graduated
with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1898, immediately after which
he returned to Breese and began practice. Thoroughly abreast of the
times, Dr. Kuhls is a close student and thinker, and is a subscriber to the
leading medical journals of the country and holds membership in vari-
ous medical associations. He specializes in diseases of women and has
handled some very complicated and discouraging cases with complete
success. He has an enviable reputation in his profession, and is equally
favorably known as a business man, having interested himself in the real
estate field and dealt in considerable property in the vicinity of Breese
for a number of years. His political support is given to the Democratic
party, but like his father he has never cared for public preferment. He
and his wife are well known members of the Catholic church and have
many friends in its congregation.
In 1900 Dr. Kuhls was married to Miss Anna Kline, of Carlyle, Clin-
ton county, Illinois, and five children have been born to this union,
namely : Viola, Adolph. Angeline, Anna and Louise.
Vol. Ill— 4
1134 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
DR. WILLIS E. LINGLE, for several years past identified with the medi-
cal profession in Union county, is the representative of a family which
has been closely allied with the history of that county since its organiza-
tion. Born April 23, 1872, he is the son of George W. Lingle, who was
born in 1850, on the old farmstead in Cobden, Union county, and he still
lives in Union county. The father of George W. Lingle and the grand-
father of Willis E. Lingle was Henry Lingle, a native of North Caro-
lina and a man of German extraction. He came to Union county about
1820, in company with a number of other homeseekers from the Caro-
linas. At one time in the early history of that county Henry Lingle
owned a tract of one hundred and twenty acres of farm land, which
constitutes the present site of Cobden. When the Illinois Central Rail-
road passed through that region in 1855, Mr. Lingle sold his entire hold-
ings to that company, realizing a handsome profit on the transaction,
after which he moved out seven miles northeast of the present town site
of Cobden and bought a farm of five hundred acres. Henry Lingle was
always a man of action. He was a veteran of the Mexican war, winning
for himself a splendid record during his service. He passed away in
recent years, but his wife, Elizabeth (Vansel) Lingle, still lives. George
Lingle, their son, is the owner of a fine farm of one hundred and forty
acres, ninety acres of which .are a portion of the old Lingle estate. He
was a prosperous man, ambitious and energetic. He married Amelia C.
Brooks, a daughter of Larkin Brooks, a native of North Carolina, and who
operated a planing mill, the only mill of its nature in Union county for
many years. Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. George Lingle four children
were born. They are : Willis E., of this review, a practicing physician of
Cobden ; Fred Lee, of Alto Pass, also a practicing physician ; George Mel-
vin, who is on the home farm, married Miss Laura Crawshaw, daughter
of Abe Crawshaw, a well known stock farmer of Jackson county ; the
daughter is Naomi.
Dr. Lingle attended school in his home county and at the Normal at
Carbondale; in 1890 he matriculated in the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, at St. Louis, Missouri, graduating in March, 1894. He began
practice in Makanda, where he was interested in a drug store, remaining
there one year. The following two years he practiced at Degonia, Jack-
son county, and in 1897, came to Cobden.
On January 29, 1896, Dr. Lingle married Miss Mary Estella Patter-
son, daughter of Gabriel W. Patterson of Makanda, a prominent mer-
chant and grain dealer of that place. Two children have been born to
Dr. and Mrs. Lingle, Leland Patterson and Kathryn.
WILLIAM HENRY HUBBARD, state's attorney at Greenville, Illinois, and
one of the members of the legal profession in Southern Illinois, was born
June 29, 1849, in Castile, Wyoming county, New York, and is a son of
William Henry and Elvyn Phelps (Wells) Hubbard.
William Henry Hubbard, the father, was born at Hopewell, Ontario
county, New York, July 17, 1822, and was reared on the farm of his
father, Pliny Hubbard, on which he resided until 1861. In that year he
became general agent for the Hubbard Mowing Machine Company,
with which he was associated until 1868, and the family then moved to
Syracuse, New York. A few years later Mr. Hubbard removed to a
farm eighteen miles from Syracuse, at Pompey. Onondaga county, New
York, and in 1874 traded this property for a farm and store at Ferry
in Oceana county, Michigan. In 1879 Mr. Hubbard traded his Michi-
gan interests for property in South Evanston, Illinois, and during the
remainder of his life he made his home in South Evanston and Chicago,
becoming a dealer in real estate and accumulating considerable prop-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1135
erty. His death occurred October 11, 1899, when he was on a trip to
Depere, Wisconsin. On June 12, 1846, Mr. Hubbard was Tiarried at
Webster, New York, to Miss Elvyn Phelps Wells, a direct descendant
of General Israel Chapin, of Revolutionary fame, and there were five
children born to this union : Wells Foster, born May 10, 1847 ; William
Henry, Jr., June 29, 1849 ; Charles P., January 23, 1851 ; Frank L., July
10, 1855 ; and Nellie Eva, now Mrs. R. W. Hodgson, of Kingman, Kan-
sas, July 10, 1859. William Henry and Mrs. Hodgson are the only sur-
vivors. Mrs. Hubbard died October 2, 1904, dying in the faith of the
Universalist church. Mr. Hubbard was a stanch Democrat in his politi-
cal views, and a prominent Mason.
William Henry Hubbard spent his early life in the East, receiving
his education in the public schools of his native state and commencing
to read law when he was about twenty years of age. He was admitted
to the Syracuse bar in 1871, and there was engaged in practice until
1889. As a lad Mr. Hubbard had learned the printer's trade, and on
going to Centerville, Michigan, in 1889, he purchased a printing office
and edited the St. Joseph county Republican, but in 1890 moved the
plant to Carbondale, Illinois, where he established the Jackson county
Republican, which was consolidated with the Free Press in 1893, and
conducted by Mr. Hubbard until 1897. In that year his health failed,
and in December he went to Seattle, Washington, where he remained un-
til January, 1904, when he returned to Illinois, settled in Greenville,
and established himself in a large and lucrative law practice. Mr. Hub-
bard is a stanch Republican in political matters, and in Oceana county,
Michigan, served as state's attorney. Shortly after locating in Green-
ville he was elected justice of the peace, and in November, 1908, he was
elected to the office of state's attorney of Greenville, an office which he
has held to the present time. Mr. Hubbard belongs to the Masonic order
and to the Presbyterian church.
On June 27, 1867, when not ye't eighteen years of age, Mr. Hubbard
was married to Miss Imogene Ide, daughter of Darius and Mary Ide,
of New York, and she died July 30, 1888, in Syracuse, having been the
mother of two children: Mary Evelyn and Charles W. Mary Evelyn
was educated in the Southern Illinois Normal School, at Carbondale,
and is now the wife of Frank E. Watson, of Greenville ; while Charles
W., who was also a student of the normal school, is engaged in the com-
mission business in this city.
Mr. Hubbard has contributed the force of a potent personality and
consistent civic patriotism to every enterprise which has contemplated
the upbuilding of his adopted city, and he has always been energetic,
eager, enthusiastic, broad-minded and ready to do large things in a
large way. Education, charity and religion have all found a place in
his heart, and he can truly be said to be one of his community's most
representative men.
CARL BAKER, M. D. One of the representative physicians and sur-
geons of Williamson county, Illinois, Dr. Carl Baker is well upholding
the prestige of the honored name which he bears. He is descended from
a fine old North Carolina family, his great-grandfather, Jonathan Baker,
having been a native of the Old Dominion commonwealth, where the
Baker family were founded in the colonial epoch. Carl Baker, in his
professional work, is associated with his father, Dr. Griffin J. Baker,
who is a native son of Williamson county and who has been engaged in
the practice of medicine in this section of the state for over thirty-four
years. Father and son are now located at Herrin, where they control a
1136 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
large and lucrative practice and where they are esteemed as citizens
of intrinsic loyalty and public spirit.
Jonathan Baker, great-grandfather of him whose name initiates this
review, was a native of North Carolina, whence he removed, with his
family to Tennessee. Among his children were : George, who died un-
married; Abel, who passed his declining years in Williamson county,
Illinois, where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety years; Benja-
min J., who died at Paragould, Arkansas ; Jonathan Aaron was the
grandfather of Dr. Carl, of this notice ; Jacob D. is the father of Mar-
tin Luther Baker, of Marion, Illinois ; Rachel became the wife of Ezekiel
Clark and passed away in Williamson county ; Ann married Louis Cross
and died near Chester, Illinois; and Casander became the wife of Wil-
liam Rodden and passed her life in Missouri.
Jonathan Aaron Baker was born in Mecklenburg county, North
Carolina, in 1821, and in 1836 he accompanied his parents to Benton
county, Tennessee, where he was reared and educated and where was
solemnized his marriage, in 1847, to Miss Mathilda C. Sanders. In 1850
he removed to Illinois, settling in Williamson county, where he was
identified with agricultural pursuits until the time of his death, in 1875.
His cherished and devoted wife died in 1873. Their children were:
Alonzo P., a medical practitioner at Herrin ; Dr. Griffin J., father of Dr.
Carl, of this notice ; Dr. Miles D., of Anna, Illinois ; and Belle and Vir-
gil, who passed away in childhood.
Dr. Griffin J. Baker passed his boyhood and youth on the old pa-
rental farm in Grassy Precinct, Williamson county, where he was born
May 27, 1851. He made the most of such educational advantages as
came his way and at the age of seventeen years began to teach a country
school. He was identified with the pedagogic profession in Williamson
and Jackson counties for a number of terms, during which time he was
applying himself diligently to the study of medicine under the able pre-
ceptorship of an older brother. Subsequently he was matriculated as a
student in the Missouri Medical College, at St. Louis, in which he was
graduated as a member of the class of 1878, with the degree of Doctor of
Medicine. He initiated the practice of his profession in Southern Wil-
liamson county, where he remained until 1906, when he came to Herrin
to practice medicine with his son, Dr. Carl Baker. In 1872 Dr. Griffin
J. Baker was united in marriage to Miss Lucy A. Allen, a daughter
of Isaac and Martha J. (Bayless) Allen, originally of Tennessee. Con-
cerning the five children born to Dr. and Mrs. Baker the following brief
data are here inserted, — Rhoda M. died as Mrs. George L. Roberts, and
is survived by two sons, Paul and Henry Roberts, who reside with their
maternal grandparents at Herrin; Dr. Carl is the immediate subject
of this review ; Ada died at the age of eighteen years, and two children
died in infancy.
Dr. Carl Baker was born at Cottage Home, Grassy Precinct of Wil-
liamson county, Illinois, April 25, 1877. He received his preliminary
educational training in the public schools of his native place and when
seventeen years of age entered the preparatory department of the
Southern Illinois Normal University, at Carbondale. For four years he
was a student in the medical department of the Northwestern Univer-
sity at Chicago, being graduated in that excellent institution in 1906.
Immediately after graduation he went to Salt Lake City, Utah, where
he performed services as interne at the Salt Lake City Hospital. In
the following year he came to Herrin, where he has since been associated
with his venerable father in medical work. Both Dr. Griffin J. and Dr.
Carl Baker are appreciative and valued members of the Southern Illi-
nois Medical Society and of the American Medical Association. Dur-
~" LIBPJBV
OF THt
CF L
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1137
ing the long years in which Dr. Baker, Sr., has been a member of the
medical profession he has done considerable scientific research work and
in 1888 he returned to his Alma Mater, the University of Missouri, for
post-graduate work. His professional career excites the admiration and
has won the respect of his contemporaries, and in a calling in which one
has to gain reputation by merit alone he has advanced steadily until he
is acknowledged as the superior of most of the members of the pro-
fession in this part of the state, having long since left the ranks of the
many to stand among the successful few. In their political convic-
tions Drs. Baker are stanch supporters of the principles and policies for
which the Republican party stands sponsor and while they have no
time for participation in public affairs they are ever active in pro-
moting progress and improvement.
At Carbondale, Illinois, October 20-, 1902, Dr. Carl Baker married
Miss Lena Baird, the second child of William and Belle (Church)
Baird. Mr. Baird was a gallant soldier in the Union ranks during the
Civil war and after the close of hostilities located at Carbondale. Dr.
and Mrs. Baker have one daughter, Cecil May.
FREDERICK G. RAPP. Columbia possesses one of the first requisites
for success, a public spirited mayor, Frederick G. Rapp, the incumbent
of that office now serving upon his second term and having made a
record for efficiency which is indeed pleasant for all concerned. In
the business world he is known as a particularly successful insurance
and real estate man, representing some of the most important compa-
nies. He is also known as an educator and for eighteen years di-
rected the "young idea" in the public schools of Monroe county. In
truth, his services were such as to make it a matter of general regret
when he entered a new line of endeavor.
Mr. Rapp is a native son of the state and is very loyal to all its in-
stitutions. He was born in Central City, December 6, 1871, and is of
German extraction, his father, the Rev. John T. Rapp, having been
born in 1835 in Germany. At the age of thirty years he came to the
land of the stars and stripes. He had prepared for the ministry of
the Evangelical church in his native country and upon coming here he
located at Nashville, Illinois, and was minister of the Evangelical church
for the space of five years. He then removed to Central City and
Centralia. having congregations in both places. He was married to a
young countrywoman to whom he had been betrothed in Germany, —
Miss Mary Scherbart — -his fiancee joining him in Nashville, Illinois,
where the marriage took place. To their union five children were born,
Frederick G. being the third in order of birth. Martha, now Mrs.
Heineman, of St. Louis, and the subject alone survive. Rev. Mr. Rapp
spent the remainder of his life in Centralia, his demise occurring in
1876, when Frederick was a lad only five years of age. He was well
known and very generally respected and his untimely death was a
matter of deep regret in many quarters. He was a fluent speaker, pos-
sessing, in truth, the gift of oratory which was exceedingly useful to
him in his good work. His widow, who still survives, making her
home in St. Louis, was a second time married, becoming the wife of
Benjamin Findling, a teacher in the parochial schools of the Evangel-
ical church. The family subsequently removed from Central City to
Waterloo where Mr. Findling had been engaged as principal of the
Evangelical school, and there they resided until 1888, when they went
to St. Louis, where the step-father had accepted the principalship of
St. Matthew's school and remained in such capacity until his death, in
1909.
1138 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
The earliest childhood of Frederick G. Rapp was passed in Central
City, the removal to Waterloo, as previously mentioned, having been
just following his mother's marriage. He was educated in the paro-
chial and public schools of Monroe county and was graduated from
the high school at Waterloo in the year 1888. Then removing with
the family to St. Louis, he became a teacher in St. Mathew's school, of
which his step-father was principal. He remained in that city until
1890, when he came to Monroe county and, having successfully passed
the examination which made him eligible to teach in the public schools,
embarked in this work and for eighteen consecutive years taught in
the schools. He was conscientious and enlightened in his methods and
in this as in all else to which he has put his hand he was successful,
the community ever congratulating itself upon the possession of in-
structors of his type. However; in 1908 he severed his connection with
pedagogical affairs and entered the real estate and insurance business,
in which he is now engaged. He has built up a large and constantly
growing business and is district agent for several fire and life insurance
companies.
Mr. Rapp entered upon his career in the mayoralty in 1909 and is
now serving his second term. He has given the town a clean, strong
administration and has done much towards bringing about a number
of things conducing to the general welfare. He was, for instance, in-
strumental in securing the electric line from St. Louis to Waterloo, and
he is in all things thoroughly progressive. He is a thirty-second degree
Mason and is also affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America and
the Eastern Star. He is very loyal to the best interests of Columbia ;
he purchased the land upon which is located the waterworks and electric
light plant ; he is busy with plans for an extensive waterworks and sewer-
age system, and is very proud of the fact that Columbia has the finest
streets and sidewalks in Monroe county. In addition to his other public
services he is also secretary of the school board. He is indeed one of
the most prominent of Columbia's residents and assuredly is one of its
most valuable citizens.
Mr. Rapp laid the foundations of a happy household and congenial
life companionship when, on April 26, 1896, he was united in marriage
to Miss Lydia Snyder, daughter of H. Snyder, of this place. They share
their delightful home with two children, Viola and Walter. Mr. Rapp
is Republican in politics, having given his support to the "Grand Old
Party" since his earliest voting days.
ROBERT K. DEWEY. Having the distinction of being one of the old-
est continuous residents of Greenville, Robert K. Dewey has been an
important factor in stimulating the growth and prosperity of the city,
and a brief review of his long and useful life cannot fail to be of in-
terest to the people of this section of Southern Illinois, and we are
therefore pleased to place before the readers of this volume an out-
line of the chief events of his active career. Coming from honored New
England ancestry, he was born August 25, 1830, in Lenox. Massachu-
setts, one of the most beautiful spots in the Berkshire hills, where Dame
Nature fashioned scenery exquisite in its variety and marvellous in its
quiet beauty.
His father, Oliver Dewey, whose birth occurred in the same town,
July 24, 1805, was brought up on a farm, and as a boy and youth at-
tended the public schools and the Lenox Academy. An excellent
scholar, he prepared for college, but on account of delicate health did
not matriculate. Soon after attaining his majority he was oppointed
deputy sheriff, an office which he filled for the next twenty-five years.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1139
Coming then with his family to Illinois, he took up land in Aurora,
Kane county, and was there engaged in general farming for a long
time. On retiring from active pursuits he came to Greenville, and sub-
sequently lived with his son Robert during his remaining years, pass-
ing away March 4, 1901. In June, 1829, he was united in marriage
with Eliza Sabin, a native of Berkshire county, Massachusetts, her
birth there occurring on June 4, 1907. She died in Sandwich, De Kalb
county, Illinois, December 23, 1886. They were both devoted members
of the Congregational church, and in politics he was a steadfast Repub-
lican. Six children were born of their union, as follows : Robert K.,
the special subject of this sketch; Edmund S., deceased; Hannah J.,
wife of C. H. Sabin; Oliver B., deceased; Charles A.; and Myra E.,
wife of Andrew Beveredge.
Spending the first twenty years of his life in the Berkshires, Robert
K. Dewey obtained the rudiments of his education in the public schools
of Lenox, and subsequently continued his studies in the old academy in
which his father had previously been a pupil. Coming to Illinois in
1851, he taught school in Troy, Madison county, for a time, and in 1854
located permanently in Greenville, Bond county, which has since been
his home. Taking up surveying, a profession in which he was an ex-
pert, Mr. Dewey followed it many years, and superintended the laying
out of almost all of the town site of Greenville. He served as county
surveyor many terms, and still does much surveying in this section of
the country.
In 1861 Mr. Dewey offered his services to his country, but was de-
nied enlistment on account of sickness. He enlisted, however, in 1864 as
quartermaster sergeant of the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Illinois
Volunteer Infantry. His brother, the late Edmund S. Dewey, served
during the war as captain of a company belonging to the One Hun-
dred and Thirtieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, while his brother Oliver
was a private in the Tenth Illinois Cavalry. His other brother, Charles
A. Dewey, tried to enlist, but was rejected, as the forefinger of his right
hand was missing.
Returning to Greenville at the close of the war, Mr. Dewey con-
tinued as a surveyor until 1871, when he accepted the position of book-
keeper in the First National Bank of Greenville, and retained it for ten
years. Being made county surveyor in 1884, he held the office continu-
ously until the last election, in 1908, when he refused to run again.
Since that time Mr. Dewey has been actively engaged in the real es-
tate and insurance business, and also does considerable surveying.
A prominent and active member of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, Mr. Dewey has belonged to this organization for over three
score years, and has the distinction of being the oldest Odd Fellow in
Southern Illinois. A zealous worker in the efforts to advance the good
of the order, he has held the highest office of the order in the state, in
1872 having served as grand patriarch. He is also a member of the
Grand Army of the Republic, in which he has held all of the offices.
Politically he is an active supporter of the principles of the Republi-
can party, and religiously, true to the faith of his ancestors, he is a
Congregationalist,
JAMES HARLEY ALLIO. Possessing much legal talent and ability, and
well versed in the intricacies of the law, James Harley Allio has served
several years as city attorney of Greenville, and is also master of chan-
cery for Bond county. A native of Pennsylvania, he was born May 5,
1871, in Clarion county, which was also the birthplace of his father,
the late Levi Allio.
1140 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
A son of John Allio, Levi Allio's birth occurred on the home farm
December 17, 1849. Succeeding to the occupation in which he was
reared, he was engaged in tilling the soil in the Keystone state until
1879, when he located on a farm in the eastern part of Bond county,
Illinois. In 1900 he migrated to Mississippi, and was there a resident
until his death, September 25, 1911. He was a steadfast Republican in
politics and a member of the Christian church. He married, in 1869,
Aurilla Cornish, a daughter of Henry and Susan Cornish, prosperous
members of the farming community of Clarion county, Pennsylvania,
and to them seven children were born, of whom James Harley is the
eldest child. The mother is still living in Mississippi.
Having laid an excellent foundation for his future education- in
the rural schools of Bond county, James Harley Allio subsequently at-
tended Effingham College, in Effingham, Illinois, and Greenville Col-
lege, in Greenville, Illinois. He afterwards took a post graduate course
in law at Bushnell College, there receiving the degree of LL. B. In
Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 1897, he was admitted to the bar, and at once
resumed his labors as a teacher, a profession which he had previously
followed in Bond county for eleven years. Opening an office at Green-
ville in 1903, Mr. Allio has since been here successfully engaged in the
practice of law, at the present time, as previously mentioned, serving
as city attorney and as master in chancery. He is likewise carrying on
a successful work in the loan, real estate and abstract business, having
a large patronage in each.
In March, 1908, Mr. Allio was united in marriage with Bertha
Walker, a daughter of Cyrus and Sarah D. Walker, of Mulberry Grove,
where Mr. Walker is a prosperous farmer and stock grower. Two chil-
dren have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Allio, Joseph H. Allio and Grace
Esther Allio. Politically Mr. Allio is a zealous worker in the Republi-
can ranks, and fraternally he is a' member of the Ancient Free and Ac-
cepted Order of Masons ; of the Court of Honor ; and of the Knights of
the Maccabees. He also belongs to the American Insurance Association.
Religiously bolh Mr. and Mrs. Allio are trustworthy members of the
Methodist Episcopal church.
WALTER J. CASPER. Many of the more progressive farmers of
Southern Illinois are specializing in their work, realizing that there is
more money in this method than in merely carrying on general farm-
ing, and one who has demonstrated the practicability of his ideas is
Walter J. Casper, who owns one of the finest tracts of land in John-
son county, located near New Burnside, and whose specialty has been
the growing of fruit. Mr. Casper was eminently fitted in his youth to
carry on his present vocation, his father, a half century ago, having
laid the foundations for the present great fruit industry of the Prairie
state. Walter J. Casper was born September 23, 1850, on a farm near
Anna, Union county, Illinois, and is a son of Peter H. and Elizabeth A.
(Henderson) Casper.
Peter Casper, the grandfather of Walter J., was born in Rowan
county, North Carolina, of German ancestry, and was one of the first
pioneer settlers of Union county, coming to this section during the
early twenties, when this part of the country was a vast wilderness.
He had been married in his native state to a Miss Fullenwider, and
brought his family to a little log cabin, around which he made a clear-
ing, and here engaged in agricultural pursuits during the remainder of
his life. He and his wife had a family of four sons and three daugh-
ters, namely: Caleb, Stephen, Henry, Peter H., Mrs. Elinor Miller,
Mrs. Katherine Miller and Mrs. Esther Davis.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1141
Peter H. Casper was born on the wilderness farm in Union county,
in 1823, and there grew to manhood. At the outbreak of the Mexican
war he enlisted in the United States army, under Colonel Bissell, and
served throughout that struggle, after which he returned to Union
county and secured two tracts of land from the Government, to which
he later added from time to time until he owned six hundred acres of
tillable land. In 1846 or 1847 he was married to Elizabeth A. Hender-
son, and they had a family of ten children, of whom seven grew to ma-
turity, namely: Walter J. ; Mrs. America Josephine Yost, of Danville,
Illinois ; Stephen Douglass, residing in Anna ; Mrs. Addie Laura Appell,
living at the old homestead in Anna ; Lincoln L., who resides on a farm
in Union county ; John R., a hospital attendant at "Watertown, Illinois ;
and Oscar H., living at Anna. The father of these children died Oc-
tober 12, 1878, and his widow survived him until October, 1893, when
she passed away. Mr. Casper was the pioneer orchardist of Union
county, and in the face of the ridicule of his neighbors, who were con-
tent to farm along in the old way, planted five hundred trees, demon-
strating by his success that Illinois was an ideal spot for the growing
of fruit. Always an active citizen and great patriot, during the Civil
war Mr. Casper assisted the United States marshal in many ways, be-
ing especially active in preserving order and raising troops, although,
owing to an infirm limb, his enlistment was barred. The respect and
esteem in which he was universally held proved his worth to his com-
munity, and in his death Union county lost one of its able agriculturists
and public-spirited citizens.
Walter J. Casper received his education in the district schools in
the vicinity of his father's farm and the Anna high school, and con-
tinued to work with his father until he was twenty-one years old. Dur-
ing the next three years he was engaged in the mercantile business, and
ran a confectionery store and news stand at Vienna and Anna, but
eventually returned to the farm, where he continued until January 15,
1879. He had previously, in 1878, bought a small farm of six acres, on
which was a little house and barn, and at the time of his father's death
he received forty-seven acres from the estate. This land he sold in 1888,
and November 13th of that year came to New Burnside and purchased
one hundred and twenty acres of land, only partially cleared at that
time, but which is now in a high state of cultivation, and on which are
situated a fine residence and large barns and outbuildings. Since that
time he has bought more land, but after improving it has disposed of it,
and he now owns the original tract. On first locating here he immedi-
ately began planting fruit trees, starting with apples and peaches, and
he was so successful with the former that he has continued with them
until he now has fifty solid acres of apple trees just coming into bearing.
His orchard contains four thousand trees in all, and he has about sixty
varieties of apples, thirty-five varieties being displayed by him at the
Horticultural Exhibit at Anna in 1911. He has more varieties than any
other grower in Southern Illinois, and is an experimenter and pro-
ficient horticulturist. A frequent exhibitor at horticultural fairs, he
has secured many prizes for the excellence of his fruit, and is one of
the leading members of the Illinois State Horticultural Society. Years
of careful study in his business have made Mr. Casper an absolute au-
thority on fruit culture, and his advice is constantly being sought on
matters of this nature.
On January 15, 1879, Mr. Casper was united in marriage with Miss
Marie C. Miles, daughter of William T. and Fyla (Marshall) Miles,
natives of New York state, who emigrated to Cobden, Union county, Illi-
nois, in 1867, and the former of whom died in 1881, while the latter still
1142 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
survives. Mr. and Mrs. Miles had three children : Cyrus A., who died in
1887 ; Arthur 0., who makes his home at New Burnside ; and Marie C.
Mrs. Casper was educated in the Southern Illinois State Normal Uni-
versity, at Carboudale, and taught the graded schools of Cobden, Anna
and Jonesboro, in Union county, for five years. She and her husband
have had three children: Norman Walter, Roscoe (who died in infancy),
and Ivo Marie.
JAMES FINIS JOHNSTON. A prosperous business man and prominent
citizen of Greenville, James F. Johnston is now rendering appreciated
service as circuit clerk of Bond county, and is widely known in indus-
trial, fraternal and social circles. He was born February 20, 1879, in
Miltonvale, Kansas, where his boyhood days were spent. His father,
William H. Johnston, was born in Bond county, Illinois, in 1843, of
pioneer stock, and grew to man's estate on his father's farm. At the out-
break of the Civil war he enlisted in the Union army for a period of
ninety days, and was commissioned second lieutenant of his company.
Locating in Cloud county, Kansas, after the war, he was busily engaged
in farming, stock raising and as a general merchant until his death, in
1888, when but forty-five years of age. He was a man of great intelli-
gence and excellent business capacity, and took much interest in the af-
fairs of the community in which he resided. He was a Republican in
politics ; a member of the Grand Army of the Republic ; and belonged to
the Cumberland Presbyterian church, to which his widow, now a resi-
dent of Mulberry Grove, Illinois, belongs. He married, in 1866, Leonora
Emeline Reeves, of Bond county, Illinois, and of the seven children
born of their union five are now living, James F. being the youngest
child.
Living in Kansas until eleven years old, James F. Johnston obtained
his first knowledge of books in the rural . schools of Miltonvale, and
after returning to Illinois he continued his studies in the public schools
of Bond county, later taking a course in the commercial department of
Greenville College. Thus equipped, he began his active career as book-
keeper for the Smithboro Mine, holding the position until the follow-
ing year, when the mine suspended operations. He subsequently clerked
three years for the McLain and Cable Grocery Company, and was after-
wards similarly employed in the clothing department of the store owned
by Weise & Bradford. In 1905 Mr. Johnston was elected city clerk
of Greenville, and in 1907 was re-elected to the same office. From 1906
until 1909 he carried on a substantial business as junior member of the
firm of Mitchell & Johnston, real estate dealers, the partnership being
dissolved when Mr. Johnston assumed the office of circuit clerk of Bond
county, to which he was elected, by the Republican party, in the fall
of 1908, and in which he has since served with credit to himself and to
the honor of his constituents. Mr. Johnston is secretary and treasurer
of the Cyclone Hose Company, also secretary and treasurer of the Old
Settlers' Association of Bond county, and is actively interested in the
real estate and insurance business, in addition to which he makes a spe-
cialty of loaning money.
Mr. Johnston married, in 1900, Georgia N. Ferryman, a daughter of
George and Alice Ferryman, her father being editor of the Greenville
Item. Four children have been born of the union of Mr. and Mrs.
Johnston, namely : William Carl, Floyd Ferryman, Margaret Elizabeth
(who died in childhood), and Alice Leonora.
Mr. Johnston is an active member of the Republican party, and both
he and his wife are members of the Christian church. Fraternally Mr.
Johnston is a member of Greenville Lodge, No. 245, Ancient Free and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1143
Accepted Order of Masons ; of Clark Lodge, No. 3, Independent Order of
Odd Fellows; and of Browning Lodge, Knights of Pythias. He is an
enthusiastic lodge worker, and at different times has served as a dele-
gate to the Grand Lodges of his Orders.
WILLIAM H. FORD, M. D. If those who claim that fortune has fa-
vored certain individuals above others will but investigate the cause of
success and failure it will be found that the former is largely due to
the improvement of opportunity, the latter to the neglect of it. For-
tunate environments encompass nearly every man at some stage of his
career, but the strong man and the successful man is he who realizes that
proper moment has come, that the present and not the future holds his
opportunity. The man who makes use of the Now and not the To Be
is the one who passes on the highway of life others who started out
ahead of him, and reaches the goal of prosperity in advance of them.
It is this quality that has made William H. Ford a leader in the busi-
ness world at Herrin, where he has gained distinctive prestige as a
real-estate man and as a booster of the town.
Dr. Ford was born in Jackson county, Illinois, the date of his na-
tivity being the 10th of March, 1878. He is a son of the late Wiley N.
Ford, who passed away in Herrin, May 3, 1909. Jesse Ford, grand-
father of the Doctor, was a native of Pennsylvania, whence he came to
Southern Illinois as a pioneer settler. He located in Jackson county
and for a number of years prior to his demise was a prominent mer-
chant at Carbondale. Jesse Ford was twice married, his first wife hav*
ing been a Miss Greathouse. She died, the mother of Wiley N. and
William, the former the father of Dr. Ford and the latter a farmer in
Williamson county, Illinois. Mr. Ford's second wife was Miss Brandon.
They had no children.
Wiley N. Ford was born near Carbondale, Illinois, in 1853, and as a
youth he attended the district schools of his native place. After reach-
ing years of maturity he was for a time engaged in farming and stock-
raising but later became interested in the real-estate business, the scene
of his operations in that connection being in Williamson county. He
platted and sold the town of Fordville, an incorporated village of some
seven hundred inhabitants, the same covering a tract of two hundred
acres of land. With the passage of time his interests in the vicinity of
Herrin became considerable and he laid off and sold several "out lots"
to the city. He bought and sold property of every description and was
an aid in the organization of the City National Bank of Herrin, being a
member of its board of directors at the time of his death. In politics
he was a Democrat and served his party simply as a counselor. He was
averse to public office for himself, held aloof from all fraternities and
life insurance companies and owned allegiance to no church or creed.
He was married, in Jackson county, Illinois, to Miss Amanda Phemister,
a daughter of Henry and Margaret (Tygett) Phemister. Mrs. Ford
was born in Jackson county, in 1859, and she had three sisters, namely, —
Mary, who died as the wife of John Borne ; Ettie, who is the wife of
William Rushing, of Jackson county, Illinois; and Martha, widow of
Albert Presson, of Osage, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Wiley N. Ford be-
came the parents of two children, — Dr. William H., of this notice ; and
Roy Ford, a farmer near Herrin, who married Cora Tilson at Val-
paraiso, Indiana, while he was a college student in that place.
In the public schools of Jckson county Dr. William H. Ford re-
ceived his rudimentary educational training and later he supplemented
that, discipline by a course of study in the Southern Illinois Normal Uni-
versity, at Carbondale. As a young man he decided upon medicine as his
1144 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
profession and in 1894 was matriculated as a student in the St. Louis
Medical College, in which he was graduated as a member of the class
of 1898, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Immediately after
leaving college he came to Herrin, where he was engaged in the active
practice of his profession for a number of years. The press of business
matters consequent upon the substantial investment of both his father
and himself made such demands upon his time, however, that he finally
gave up his profession and joined his father in the varied phases of
town building and urban development generally. For the past seven
years he has been interested in the real-estate business. As a young
doctor he became a valued member of the Southern Illinois, the Tri-
State and the American Medical Associations and although now out of
practice he still keeps in touch with matters pertaining to the advance
of medical science and professional doings.
In connection with his real-estate interests at Herrin, Dr. Ford was
originally associated with his father, they having laid off the Ford and
Stotlar additions to this city. He was also interested in the Fordville
enterprise, mentioned above. The Doctor has manifested his faith in
Herrin by erecting a substantial business block here and by putting up
a number of cottages throughout the residence district. It is probable
that through his real-estate dealings he has added more to the city's
development and improvement during the few short years he has been
a resident of this place than any other man in Herrin. He became a
stockholder in the City National Bank at the time of its inception and
is a member of the board of directors of both it and the Herrin State &
Savings Bank. In politics he is a Democrat and his fraternal affiliations
are with the Masons, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks.
On January 10, 1900, Dr. Ford married Miss Nora Stotlar, a daugh-
ter of Thomas and Louisa (Cox) Stotlar, pioneers of Williamson
county. Mrs. Stotlar died in 1900, and her husband died March 8,
1912. Dr. and Mrs. Ford have one daughter, Louane, whose birth oc-
curred October 5, 1908.
JOSEPH MARION BROWN. A man of good financial ability and of strict
integrity, Joseph Marion Brown, of Greenville, county treasurer of Bond
county, is filling the responsible position to which he has been chosen to
the eminent satisfaction of all concerned, and enjoys the confidence
and esteem of his fellowmen to a high degree. He was born March 26,
1868, in Bond county, on the same homestead farm that his father, the
late Robert Brown, spent his entire life.
A son of Wilson Brown, Robert Brown was born in 1834, and died
on the home farm, which became his by inheritance, in 1874, while yet
in the prime of a vigorous manhood. He married Mary Ann Moore,
who was born in Bond county, Illinois, where her father, Joseph
Moore located when coming to this state from Tennessee. Of their
union seven children were born, Joseph M. being the fifth child in suc-
cession of birth. The mother is now living in Greenville with her son
Joseph. The father was a sturdy adherent of the Democratic party,
and belonged to the Christian church.
Brought up on the old homestead, Joseph M. Brown received a
practical education in the common schools, and during all of his earlier
life was successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits, living and labor-
ing on the old home farm. An active and enthusiastic worker in
political fields, Mr. Brown is a recognized leader in Democratic ranks,
and has never shirked the responsibilities connected with public office.
In 1898 he was the Democratic candidate for sheriff of Bond county,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1145
but made an unsuccessful run, being defeated at the polls by only one
hundred and twenty-six votes. In 1905 he was elected to the same
office, and served as sheriff of the county for four years. He was then
elected county treasurer, and is serving in that capacity with ability
and fidelity.
Mr. Brown married, in 1898, Emaline Jane Rogers, of Bond county,
and they are the parents of two children, Marion Robert and William
Joseph. Fraternally Mr. Brown is a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, and religiously he belongs to the Baptist church.
JOHN SWEITZER. Given the history of any representative county or
community, the careful observer can not fail to find manifold instances
of men who have made judicious use of their every opportunity, be-
ginning life with a good head and a strong pair of hands as their chief
assets, and who have in middle age attained to that place in life where
they are independent beings in the largest meaning of the phrase, all
as a result of their own well directed, honest and whole-hearted en-
deavors. John Sweitzer is the specific illustration of the truth of the
above statement. His life in Cobden has been a model of industry, and.
his attainments worthy of emulation. As an orchardist and general
farmer he ranks high among the producers of his locality, and has done
much to establish this particular section of Union county in popular
esteem as a fruit producing community.
John Sweitzer was born July 17, 1844, in Baden, Germany. He
was the son of John and Theresa (Witz) Sweitzer. When he was but
four years of age his father died, and the mother had the full care of
her little brood of five children, of which John Sweitzer was the young-
est. The others were named Barbara, Mamie, Sebastian and Frank.
John Sweitzer was educated in Germany. His schooling was limited,
owing to the circumstances, and when he was twenty years of age he
and his brother Frank emigrated to America. They came direct to
Cincinnati and located there, where they lived for some little time.
Frank Sweitzer had paid a previous visit to America, being here at the
breaking out of the Civil war, and he enlisted and served during the
war. Following that he lived for a time in Cobden, Illinois, and then
returned to Germany, being accompanied by his brother John on his
return trip, as mentioned above. Leaving Cincinnati, they came direct
to Cobden, where Frank Sweitzer had established a home and family.
For some time John Sweitzer worked at Anna, Illinois, in the lime-kilns.
Then he entered the employ of James Bell, an extensive fruit grower of
Cobden, and, the work appealing to him, he remained in that berth for
sixteen and a half years.
In 1882, at the close of his period of service with James Bell, he was
able to purchase with his savings ninety acres of fertile land in Cobden
vicinity. His long and faithful labors with Mr. Bell had thoroughly
trained him in the mysteries of fruit growing, and when he entered busi-
ness on his own responsibility he was relieved of the necessity of under-
going the experimental stage, and from the inception of the business his
affairs prospered. He has added to his original holdings until now he
is the owner of one hundred and seventy-eight acres of valuable fruit
land, has a handsome residence and good, commodious farm buildings.
In 1911 he shipped from a twelve acre apple orchard seven hundred
bushels of apples. From his six acres of peaches the crop was light,
netting only about two hundred bushels. He also shipped about the
same quantity of pears. From a seven acre field of sweet potatoes he
shipped one thousand bushels. His six acre field of asparagus yielded
eighteen hundred boxes, and he sold about five hundred bushels of
1146 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
rhubarb. In addition to his fruit growing Mr. Sweitzer lias delved into
general farming, and is a producer of considerable hay and wheat. He
has on his place seventeen head of cattle, eight horses and thirty-five tine
hogs, and is also the owner of two business blocks in Cobden, one the
post office building and a store building.
Mr. Sweitzer has been twice married. In 1870 he married Miss
Mamie E. Caising, who passed away in 1874, leaving him three sons;
Edward, Harry and Fred. His second marriage occurred in 1879, when
he was united with Annie Bigler, a daughter of Joseph Bigler, a native
of Switzerland. She has borne him eight sturdy children, all of whom
are graduates of the Cobden high school. They are named as follows:
Joseph, Annie, John, Mary, Josie, Charles, Frances and Emma. Mr.
Sweitzer is the grandfather of eighteen children.
JONATHAN SEAMAN. Occupying a conspicuous position among the
highly respected citizens of Greenville, Jonathan Seaman is numbered
among the sound business men who are contributing so much toward the
city 's reputation as a desirable place of residence, both in a social and a
financial point of view. A native of Bond county, he was born October
5, 1851, near Greenville, where his father, the late Jonathan Seaman,
Sr., settled on coming to Illinois to live.
His grandfather, Jonah Seaman, resided in Frederick county, Vir-
ginia, which was a slave state. He was not a slave owner, and as he had
very decided views on the slave question, being, in fact, a "black aboli-
tionist, ' ' he moved with his family to Ohio in the very early part of the
eighteenth century, and there reared his sons to a sturdy manhood.
Born in Frederick county, Virginia, January 22, 1799, Jonathan
Seaman, Sr., was a young man when his parents migrated to Ohio, where
he assisted his father in clearing and improving a farm. In March,
1851, accompanied by his wife and children, he came to Illinois, locating
in Bond county in September of that year. Taking up land lying two
miles east of Greenville, in Hall's Grove, on the homestead which he
improved, he spent his remaining days, passing away January 13, 1868.
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and having in-
herited to a marked degree the political views of his father, was opposed
to slavery in any form, and was a stanch and loyal member of the Repub-
lican party from the time of its formation. He was twice married. He
married first, when about twenty-four years old, in Xenia, Ohio, Sarah
E. Smith, who died in 1846, leaving nine children. He married in 1848
Mary N. Miller, a daughter of Thomas and Jane Miller, of Ohio, where
her father was a cabinet maker for many years. She survived him four
years, her death occurring September 30, 1872. Five children were born
of his second marriage, of whom Jonathan, the subject of this sketch, was
the second child, and one of these five children is deceased.
Brought up on the home farm, Jonathan Seaman attended the dis-
trict schools of Hall 's Grove, and was there actively engaged in agricul-
tural pursuits for many years. About a month after the death of his
first wife who was Mary E. Owen, of Wilmot, Wisconsin, where they
were married December 15, 1874. She died September 22, 1880, and
the one child by this marriage, Albert Owen Seaman, is Captain of the
Fifteenth Infantry, U. S. A. Mr. Seaman, on October 23, 1880, moved
to Greenville, and for a year was engaged in the drug business with his
brother, George W. Seaman. Buying out the mercantile interests of
Ellhart & Guller in February, 1882, Mr. Seaman has since carried on an
extensive and profitable business as a hardware merchant, having a wide
trade in Greenville and vicinity. He is one of the directors of the
Bradford State Bank, and likewise of the Greenville Public Library.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1147
Mr. Seaman married, in 1883, Jennie H. Hull, a daughter of John
Hull, of Bond county, and they have one child, J. Ralph Seaman. Iden-
tified in politics with the Prohibition party, Mr. Seaman has taken a
prominent part in the management of municipal affairs, having served
the city as mayor four years ; as alderman six, years ; and having been a
school director many terms. He is a valued member of the Methodist
Episcopal church, and is now serving as president of its Board of Trus-
tees. Fraternally Mr. Seaman is a member of the Ancient Free and Ac-
cepted Order of Masons and of the Knights of Pythias.
PATRICK S. McCANN. A citizen of note and a business man of promi-
nence and influence at Herrin, Illinois, is Patrick S. McCann, who is
president of the McCann Construction Company, one of the contracting
concerns of Southern Illinois. Mr. McCann is also extensively interested
in real estate at Herrin, and the splendid business blocks erected by him
in this place have added stability and permanency to the city.
In the city of St. Louis, Missouri, December 13, 1865, occurred the
birth of Patrick S. McCann, who is a son of James McCann, now a re-
tired citizen of Jackson county, Illinois. James McCann was born in
County Cavan, Ireland, in 1830. In 1852, as a young man, he came to
America, working at his trade of bricklaying first in New York city and
later in Philadelphia. About the year 1855 he migrated west and settled
at Dubuque, Iowa, where he joined a party of his countrymen in buying
up an area of land under the "bit act" and where he continued to re-
side until the outbreak of the Civil war. In 1861 he went to St. Louis,
there engaging in the retail fuel business, his stock consisting of coal and
wood. With the passage of time he developed an extensive business in
St. Louis, where he had several yards, which he conducted until late in
the '70s. In 1872 he came into Illinois and purchased a tract of timber,
the beechwood of which he proceeded to manufacture into charcoal. In
those days charcoal was used extensively in the rectifying or filtering of
whiskey at the distilleries and that market opened up a good industry for
Mr. McCann at Grand Tower. His charcoal was ground and sacked and
then shipped in five-bushel bags to points on the Mississippi river between
St. Louis and New Orleans. Eventually a cheaper method of handling
the crude whiskey was introduced and then Mr. McCann turned his at-
tention to the clearing and developing of his land in Jackson county.
At this point his several sons rendered him valuable service as farmers
and it was not until they had reached their majorities and gone out into
other fields of endeavor that the father gave up farming, too, finally re-
tiring to live upon his competency.
James McCann was married at St. Louis during the Civil war, the
maiden name of his wife having been Bridget Harigan. Mrs. McCann
was born and reared in Ireland, in County Tipperary, whence she came
to America, She was called to eternal rest December 26, 1909, and is sur-
vived by the following children, — Patrick S., the immediate subject of
this review ; James, Jr., a member of the McCann Construction Company ;
Maggie, the wife of "William Hickey, of East St. Louis ; Charles, also a
member of the McCann Construction Company, and runs a livery and
sales stable at Murphysboro, Illinois; Mollie is Mrs. Frank Raddle, of
Murphysboro ; and Robert is likewise connected with the McCann Con-
struction Company.
Patrick S. McCann was a child of seven years of age at the time of
his parents' removal to Jackson county, Illinois, where he passed his boy-
hood and youth and where he received his early educational training. At
the age of twenty -one years he left his father's farm and became a fire-
man of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad out of Murphysboro. He remained
1148 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
in the railroad service for the following two years, at the expiration of
which he formed a little partnership with his brothers to take a contract
from the government for getting out piling and riprap stuff for repairing
the banks of the Mississippi river. ' The brothers followed this work for
the ensuing nine years and eventually drifted into railroad contract work.
The first real contract taken by "McCann Brothers" comprised a piece
of grading for the Cotton Belt line at Gray's Point, Missouri. They also
contracted for the foundation work for the round house and the excava-
tion for the ash pit there. Since accepting their first contract, in 1899,
they have done work for the Frisco, the Illinois Central, the Iron Moun-
tain, the Chicago & Eastern Illinois and the Coal Belt Electric railroads,
in addition to which they have also done a great deal of grading for
mining companies in this section of Illinois. At the present time, in 1912,
they are completing a contract for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
Railway Company into the coal field between Marion and Herrin.
Early in the history of Herrin Mr. McCann and his brothers became
owners of real estate in the new town. After the destructive fire they im-
proved their property with splendid new brick houses, some of which face
on Park avenue and Washington street.
In his political relations Mr. McCann is a Republican. "While a resi-
dent of Grand Tower he served that place as a member of the board of
aldermen, and since coming to Herrin he has served with the utmost effi-
ciency on the board of health. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and with the Knights of Colum-
bus. In their religious faith he and his wife are devout communicants of
the Catholic church, in the various departments of whose work they are
most zealous factors.
At Bloomington, Indiana, April 26, 1904, Mr. McCann was united in
marriage to Miss Ella Kerr, a daughter of Patrick Kerr, of Irish birth.
The wedding occurred the day before the formal opening of the St. Louis
Exposition and Mr. and Mrs. McCann attended that event. When Presi-
dent Roosevelt let loose the fastenings that held "Old Glory" as a signal
that the exposition was open to the world, Mr. McCann was standing
where its folds enveloped him and where the real spirit of the occasion
was centered. Mr. and Mrs. McCann have two children, — Catherine and
Ella.
THOMAS M. LOGAN. It is a generally accepted truism that no man
of genius or acknowledged ability can be justly or adequately judged
on the morrow of his death, chiefly because time is needed to ripen the
estimate upon work which can only be viewed on all sides in the calm
atmosphere of a more or less remote period from its completion. This
remark is in no sense inappropriate in the case of the late Thomas M.
Logan, who occupies a conspicuous place in the history of Jackson
county. No man in the community had warmer friends than he, or
was more generally esteemed. He was a man of refined manners, of
consummate business ability, one who achieved eminent success in his
affairs. Mr. Logan was born August 1, 1828, a son of Dr. John and
Elizabeth Logan, and a brother of the famous soldier and statesman,
General John A. Logan, one of Illinois' most honored sons.
Mr. Logan's grandfather, John Logan, brought the family to the
United States from Ireland, and for four years Dr. John Logan studied
medicine in the South, his first field of practice being in Perry county,
Missouri. In 1824 he located at Brownsville, then the county seat of
Jackson county, Illinois. He married Mary Barcune, of Cape Gir-
ardeau county. Her father kept a store at the mouth of Apple Creek
and sent his daughter away to a French and English school, so she was
1
OF HI
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1149
well educated and she was also a handsome woman. She was the widow
of one Lorimer, and one child was born, Louisa. The mother died, and
several years later Mr. Logan moved to Illinois, and here he married
for his second wife Elizabeth Jenkins, a native of North Carolina,
whose father removed from that state to South Carolina and later to
Tennessee, and subsequently came to Union county, Illinois, where he
spent the remainder of his life in farming. Mr. Jenkins raised a com-
pany during the Black Hawk war, later becoming the colonel of his
regiment, and his son served the state as lieutenant governor. In 1826
Dr. John Logan removed to what is now Murphysboro, buying a tract
of one hundred and sixty acres of land, and in 1842, when the county
commissioners chose a part of that farm for the site of the new court
house, he readily donated a large portion of his land, on which the
square and court house are now located. The original Logan home,
which was erected by him, was remodeled, the same logs being used in
rebuilding, and this homestead is located on South Eighteenth street.
During the Black Hawk war Dr. Logan offered his services to his coun-
try, and throughout that struggle served as a surgeon. A prominent
member of the Illinois medical profession, he was also interested in
public matters, and rose to positions of honor and trust, being several
times sent to the legislature. He passed away in 1853, and his widow
survived him until 1876, when she passed away. Both were earnest
members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South.
Thomas M. Logan was educated in the public schools, and was reared
to the life of an agriculturist, eventually becoming the owner of three
hundred acres of fine land, which he devoted to general farming and
the breeding of fine cattle and thoroughbred horses. In 1892, with J.
C. Clarke, he laid out the Clarke & Logan addition to Murphysboro, a
tract of eighty acres, and eventually became the organizer and director
of the First National and City National banks, and with John Ozburn
built the manufacturing mill and the Logan & Deshon mill. Actively
interested in all of his city's interests, he became president of the Mur-
physboro Street Railway Company, and held that position up to the
time of his death. In 1891 he bought the site of the present Logan
home, which cost in the neighborhood of thirty-five thousand dollars.
There his widow, who was Miss Sallie Oliver, of Lecompton, Kansas, now
resides.
As an intelligent man and reader, Mr. Logan was always well versed
in the current events and affairs of the day, whether from an educa-
tional or political standpoint. While his strong self-reliance required
him to adhere with tenacity to those views which his judgment and
investigation led him to adopt, his sincerity was undoubted, and his
integrity was unquestioned. Holding the warmest place in the hearts
of those who knew him best — whether at the home fireside or in the
circle of friendship — his life and character were a tower of strength,
and his memory shall be a benediction to those who loved him so well,
He passed away at his home in Murphysboro on the 26th of June, 1907.
RICHARD TALLEY, formerly known as Dick, was born in Ireland, May
30, 1826. He came to America in 1830, with his parents, where he grew
up to manhood, after which he was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Ann
Wilkinson, daughter of Bennie Wilkinson, of Missouri, and settled down
farming in Franklin county, Illinois, on what is known as ' ' Town Mount
Prairie," the postoffice being Plumfield. In time two children were
born to this union, — James Benjamin Talley and Elizabeth Talley. In
1861. on June 6th, he volunteered and inlisted in Company I. of an Illi-
nois regiment, and served three years in the war after which he received
1150 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
an honorable discharge and returned home. He began farming in the
coming spring, and in the same spring a quarrel ensued between him and
his brother-in-law, resulting in the fighting of a duel, in which they shot
each other and both died. Richard left his wife, son and daughter to
mourn his loss. Eleven months after his death his wife, Sarah Ann,
died, leaving James Benjamin Talley and Elizabeth Talley to grow up
in the world the best they could. James Benjamin was but five years and
ten months old, his sister, Elizabeth Talley, being one year his senior.
They were then taken by Ben Wilkinson, their uncle. When sixteen
years old, James Benjamin Talley came to Jackson county, and Eliza-
beth Talley, when ten years old, went to her grandfather, Bennie Wil-
kinson, in Northwest Missouri. There, at the age of seventeen years, she
was married to George Taylor, after which they began traveling and their
whereabouts are unknown to this day.
James Benjamin Talley came to Jackson county and settled down at
Oraville, Illinois, after which he was engaged in the timber business with
Dutch Payne for about six months. He then began farming for Bill
Bradley, but after farming for him three years he left and went into the
blacksmith business with Freel Robinson at Oraville, staying there six
months. Selling out, he then began railroading, but after eight months
returned to farming, working for Frank Bastien for six months. Next he
engaged in the timber business at Vergennes, staying there three months
and then went to Severance, Kansas, and took up farming there, but only
remaining at that place about two months, when he returned to Oraville,
Illinois, and engaged in farming again for Bill Bradley.
During that time Mr. Talley was united in marriage to Miss Mary
Bastien, daughter of Frank Bastien, who resided one mile west of Ora-
ville, and began farming for himself on Frank Bastien 's farm. One child
was born to them, named Henry ; after two years Mr. Talley moved to E.
H. Snider 's farm, four miles north of Murphysboro, Illinois. There to
their union was born the second child, named Edward. Farming there
one year, he then moved to the R. A. McCord farm, one-quarter of a mile
west of Oraville, farming there one year, when he moved to his own farm
in Levan Township, in section sixteen, residing there off and on for
twenty-two years. To their union seven children were born, as follows :
Marion, Willie, Gertrude, Ida, Lulu, Frank and Sarah.
About March 10, 1903, Mr. Talley bought Mr. Elex Ripley's farm, lo-
cated three-quarters of a mile west of Oraville, and moved there, but after
one month sold it back to Mr. E. Ripley and returned to the farm in Le-
van Township, staying there six months. He then bought the John
Murray property, on the north edge of Oraville, staying there until
the middle of the next summer, when he sold and moved back to the farm
in Levan Township. Leaving the farm in the care of his sons Edward
and Willie the remainder of the family moved back to Oraville, where
they all reside at present with the exception of Sallie Gertrude, who is in
East St. Louis, Illinois. The son Edward married Miss May Deitz,
daughter of Noah Deitz, of Levan Township, and his brother Willie lives
with him.
J. B. Talley and son Henry purchased the merchandise business of
J. L. Bradley & Son, of Oraville, where they are at present. Mr. J. B.
Talley 's knowledge of the needs of the people of his community has stood
him in good stead in selecting his new stock. He has lived in this locality
for a long period, is well known to the citizens here and bears an excel-
lent reputation as a man of sterling integrity and upright business prin-
ciples. Politically, he is a Republican.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1151
HENRY TALLEY, junior member of the mercantile firm of Talley & Son,
at Oraville, Illinois, belongs to the younger generation of business men
of Southern Illinois, whose enthusiasm and enterprise have done so much
toward developing of late years the commercial interests of this section.
Born on a farm and reared to agricultural pursuits, he has shown him-
self quick to adapt himself to his new occupation, and has educated him-
self in modern methods of doing business to such an extent that he has in-
troduced several up-to-date innovations in his business and is rapidly
making a place for himself among the substantial men of his community.
Mr. Talley is a native of Jackson county, and has spent his entire career
here.
Henry Talley 's early life was spent on his father's farm, and his edu-
cation was secured in the public schools, while attending which he as-
sisted his father in the work around the homestead. As a youth, how-
ever, he manifested a desire to give up the cultivation of the soil and en-
gage in some more congenial occupation, and for some years he followed
railroading. He had always had a desire to enter the mercantile field,
and when his father informed him of his purpose to purchase the business
of Mr. Bradley, young Talley became his partner, and the association has
since continued. A business connection of this kind is one of the best
that can be formed, the conservatism of the older man and his experience
in matters of business counterbalancing the more daring ventures of
youth. Both father and son in this case have many warm personal friends
in this community, and the manner in which they are being supported in
their new venture speaks well for the future of the concern. Henry Tal-
ley, like his father, is a stanch supporter of Republican principles, but
he has been too much wrapped up in his private interests to think of en-
tering the political field. He is unmarried, and makes his home with his
parents at their present residence at Oraville.
THOMAS L. ROBISON. The records of the Civil war show that Illinois
contributed some of the best and bravest of its sons to the Union cause,
and that they bore the brunt of some of its hardest-fought battles. The
real record of that great conflict is written deep in the hearts of those who
participated in it. Aside from wounds, sickness, broken health and shat-
tered nerves, the survivors of the great rebellion had seared on their mem-
ory scenes and incidents that even the hand of time could not erase, and
the carefree youths who marched away so gayly in defense of their coun-
try's flag returned to their homes full-grown men, old, if not in years, in
experience. The Robison family was one whose members sacrificed them-
selves on the altar of their country's honor, for four brothers served gal-
lantly as soldiers in the Union army, and it is of one of these, Thomas L.
Robison, a retired farmer of Ozark, Illinois, that this sketch speaks. Mr.
Robison was born April 1, 1842, on a farm in Pope county, Illinois, and is
a son of Allen and Diona (Keef ) Robison, natives of Ireland and Tennes-
see, respectively.
Allen Robison first settled in North Carolina on coming to the United
States, subsequently removing to Kentucky and then to Tennessee, where
he was married. In 1812 he migrated to Pope county, filed government
land, and for many years cultivated a farm of one hundred and sixty
acres. Of his children, four grew to maturity, Robert A., Thomas L., Wil-
liam F. and George "W., all of whom enlisted for service in the Union
army. Robert A. died at Corinth. Mississippi, soon after the battle at
that point, and William F. met his death in the battle of Fort Pillow.
On November 7, 1861, Thomas L. Robison enlisted in Company K, Fifty-
sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and after serving one year
was transferred in January, 1863, to Company Gr, Sixth Illinois Cavalry,
1152 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
with which he continued to serve until the close of the war. He received
his first honorable discharge October 25, 1862, at Corinth, Mississippi,
and re-enlisted at Germantown, Tennessee, September 6, 1863, his final
discharge coming at Selma, Alabama, November 5, 1865. Mr. Robi-
son participated in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including
Corinth, Moscow, Hurricane Creek, Collinsville, Franklin, Nashville and
Columbia. At the battle of Nashville he was wounded in the left thigh,
and a bursting shell so injured the drum of his right ear that during
his later years he has been affected by partial deafness ; at the battle of
Moscow he was wounded in the right arm, and in the battle of Franklin
was severely wounded in the right breast. A brave and faithful sol-
dier, he is remembered by his old comrades as one to whom no danger
was too great to risk, no march too long, no duty too irksome, and he
was respected by his 'officers and admired by his fellows. Golconda G. A.
R. Post, No. 332, has no more highly esteemed member.
On his return from the service Mr. Robison engaged in farming in
Pope county until November 9, 1884, which was the date of his advent
in Johnson county. In 1901 he purchased a farm of eighty-nine acres
three miles west of Ozark, but on April 14, 1902, moved to the village,
where he has since resided. He is the owner of five town lots and a hand-
some residence, and is numbered among the substantial men of his
community. During the eighteen years he lived at Sanburn, from 1884
until 1902, he served as justice of the peace and notary public. He was
also one of the most successful pension attorneys in Southern Illinois,
and supplemented his service as a soldier by greatly aiding the veterans
and the widows of those who had lost their lives in battle. Fraternally
he is connected with Tunnel Hill Lodge, No. 611, I. 0. 0. F., and his
religious belief is that of the Baptist church.
On October 8, 1871, Mr. Robison was married to Miss Sarah J. Oliver,
who was born January 27, 1849, in Franklin county, Alabama, daugh-
ter of James F. and Barbara (Hamilton) Oliver, and came to Pope
county, Illinois, March 8, 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Robison have had no chil-
dren, but have reared several children as though they were their own:
Carrie Oliver, George Robison, Belle Hardin and Sarah Ford.
JUDGE WILLIAM M. FARMER. A man of more than local fame, known
throughout the state for his ability in his profession and whose name
stands in Vandalia for honor, uprightness and truth is Judge William
M. Farmer, of the supreme court of the state of Illinois. His advent
into the legal fraternity was unheralded ; he was a green young lawyer
together with hundreds of others who were graduated from the law
schools and launched in life at the same time. But presently he began
to attract attention; soon he was elected state's attorney, and then the
steady advance began which culminated in his present high position.
On the 5th of June, 1853, William M. Farmer was born in Fayette
county, Illinois, the son of William F. and Margaret (Wright) farmer.
His father was a native of the Blue Grass state, where his paternal grand-
parents had settled on their removal from North Carolina. William
Farmer was born in 1808 and came to Illinois in 1829 and located in
Fayette county. He turned his attention to farming and throughout his
life pursued this occupation, save for the time which he spent in the serv-
ice of his country during the Black Hawk war of 1832. Mr. Farmer
never had the opportunity to acquire much of an education, but his
strong common sense and force of character made him a highly respected
member of his community. He held a number of public offices in his
county, and was a stanch Democrat. Both he and his wife were mem-
bers of the slave-holding aristocracy of the South, but they took the side
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1153
01 the Abolitionists and were firm supporters of the Union during the
Civil war. Mrs. Farmer died when the Judge was only twelve, but her
husband lived to the ripe old age of eighty, dying in 1888. The Judge
was the son of the second wife of Mr. Farmer. His first marriage was to
a Miss Jackson, and four children were born of this first union, all of
whom have died.
Judge Farmer spent his early life on the farm, but his father was
ambitious for him, so after his education in the public schools he was
sent to McKendree College, where he pursued the classical course, feel-
ing all the while that law was the profession most suited to him. His
interest in the law was very likely aroused when as a boy he sat by his
father's side and listened to the arguments of the lawyers. His father
was a justice of the peace, and in those days important cases were taken
before him and the best legal talent in the county-seat would be ar-
rayed in his office. Consequently, after teaching for ten months the boy
entered the old Union College of Law, which is now the law department
of the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In 1876 he was
graduated with the degree of LL. B., and was admitted to the bar that
same year. In July he opened an office in Vandalia, in partnership with
an old college chum, named Chapin. He was successful from the very
first, for he owned a winning personality and the confidence and en-
thusiasm of youth. Just four years later, in 1880, he was elected state 's
attorney, holding this difficult position for four years, during which time
he continued his practice, gaining each day in a knowledge of values and
of men. In 1888 he had so far won the confidence and trust of the peo-
ple that they sent him to the lower house of the Legislature. After the
expiration of a two-years' term they further honored him by sending him
to the Senate. He served in this august body for four years, being one
of the famous "101" who in 1891 elected ex-Governor Palmer to the
United States Senate. During the session of 1893 he was chairman of
the judiciary committee and took an important part in framing the laws
of the state. There was no species of wire-pulling and political trickery
that he did not come in contact with during these years, but it was his
constant endeavor to keep his skirts out of the muck, and he came from
his term of office with the confidence of his constituents unimpaired.
In 1897 he was compelled to give up his active practice by his elec-
tion to the bench as circuit judge. His ability in this new line of work
was soon recognized and in 1903 the supreme court appointed him to the
appellate court of the second district. In 1906 came the crowning tri-
umph, in his election to the supreme court of the state of Illinois for a
term of nine years. Although he practices no longer, he still clings to
his old law office and in spite of his exalted position it is very easy to
drop in and have a chat with its genial occupant.
On the 23rd of December, 1875, in Hagerstown, Illinois, Judge
Farmer married Illinois Virginia Henninger, a daughter of William
and Mary Henninger. Two girls, Virginia and Gwendolyn, comprise
their family.
In politics Judge Farmer is a Democrat, and in 1892 he received the
honor of being sent to the Democratic national convention as a delegate.
He and his household are members and active workers in the Meth-
odist Episcopal church. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Odd Fel-
lows, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America.
The success of Judge Farmer as a lawyer is due, first, to the fine
training which he has had, and, second, to his own keen intellect, his
powers of concentration and his remarkable clearness and simplicity of
expression. His success as a judge is due to his logical mind and his
1154 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
knowledge of human nature, gained from a long experience with many
different types of men.
GRANT CRUSE. The coal fields of Southern Illinois have added
greatly to the prosperity of this section, and in their operation large
companies have been formed employing a vast army of people. In this
connection it is not inappropriate to speak of the Carterville Big Muddy
Coal Company, and of Grant Cruse, connected with the offices of the
plant at Cambria. Mr. Cruse comes of an old family of Williamson
county. He was born January 2, 1879, on the farm on which the com-
pany employing him is now operating, and which his father settled and
developed into a productive homestead from the virgin timber. His
father was John M. Cruse, who migrated to this state from Christian
county, Kentucky, in 1868, marrying and following the vocation of his
father, the farm. His father, a native of Virginia, moved first to Ten-
nessee, settling in Ray county, where he died during the childhood of his
son, leaving a wife and the following children : Martha, Delilah, Nancy,
Amanda, and John M., father of Grant Cruse.
John M. Cruse failed to have the advantages of the ordinary schools
of his day and did not learn to read or write until after his marriage.
He enlisted in the Union army when the Civil war came on and was a
member of the Seventeenth Kentucky Infantry, raised about Hopkins-
ville. His regiment formed a part of the Army of the Cumberland, and
was in the engagement at Shiloh, the campaign against Vicksburg,
Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge,
participated in the Atlanta campaign and after the capture of the city
returned north with the army, following the Confederate General Hood,
and fighting him at Franklin, his army being annihilated at Nashville.
In all of these engagements and more Mr. Cruse took a very active
part, serving three years and eight months, but receiving neither scratch
or blemish. As a citizen he was noted for his industry and "his sympathy
with progress and for his loyalty and local activity in Republican poli-
tics. His lack of education hampered him no little, but he made the
most of what he had and was ever regarded as a valuable citizen. He
married Rebecca Sizemore. She died in 1879, leaving children as fol-
lows : Anna, who married W. Albert Perrine, of Herrin, Illinois ; Martha ;
Manthus, the wife of J. B. Crowell, V. S., of Marion ; James B., living in
Salina, Kansas; Alice, who died as the wife of S. A. Crowell; Jennie, the
wife of L. B. Sizemore, of St. Louis ; Oscar, on a farm near Carterville,
Illinois; Grant; Robert R., mine manager of Cambria; Ethel, the wife
of S. L. Brainerd, of Fordville, Illinois; and Mrs. Emma Schuttee. of
Champaign. Mr. Cruse was an active Free Will Baptist church worker
from early manhood.
Grant Cruse acquired a liberal education. He attended the Illinois
State Normal School for two years, and was then a teacher in the public
schools for two years, then returning to the old farm, on which he has
since resided. He owns the old home, having bought it after his fa-
ther's death, in 1908. In 1903 the coal was leased to the Carterville Big
Muddy Coal Company, and at the same time Grant entered their office
as clerk, in which capacity he still continues. Like his father, Mr. Cruse
is an adherent of Republican principles, but, while he is just as earnest,
he has not been as active as was his father. His religious belief is that
of the Free Will Baptist church.
Grant Cruse was married April 13, 1902, to Miss Florence E. Wil-
liams, a daughter of Walker Williams, who brought his family to the
United States from Oxfordshire, England, in 1866, and is now a retired
mine manager. Mrs. Cruse is one of seven children and was born in
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1155
Perry county, educated in DuQuoin and Carbondale, and taught in
the public schools for seven years. She and Mr. Cruse have three chil-
dren : Rebecca, Harold and Dean.
H. K. POWELL has held the office of county clerk for forty-one years,
a period longer than any other clerk in the state of Illinois, and it is
safe to say that there are few, if any, incumbents of this important office
in all the length and breadth of the United States who have exceeded
his record. Prom the first Mr. Powell proved wonderfully faithful and
efficient, his eye being single to the good of the people and the best per-
formance of the duties of the office with which they had entrusted him.
Jasper county is indeed to be congratulated for a discernment as to
its best interests which has led it to keep in office men loyal to the best
interests of the county, and of ability and inpeccability. He is a man of
well-deserved popularity and no one is better known in this locality.
Among Mr. Powell's distinctions are the facts that he is a native son of
the county, the son of one of the staunch pioneers of this section, and
one of the gallant boys in blue who marched forth willing to risk life and
limb in the cause of the Union, whose integrity they placed above per-
sonal safety.
The life record of Mr. Powell began November 12, 1848, on a farm in
Crooked Creek township, in Jasper county. His father, John Powell, was
born in Madison county, Ohio, in 1823, and when a young man removed
from the Buckeye state to the newly opening Illinois. He located in
Jasper county, where he farmed and engaged in stock buying, driving
cattle in herds to Chicago from this part of the country. He married
Francis A. McComas, a native daughter of Jasper county, and into their
household were born five children, Mr. Powell being the eldest of the
number. The father journeyed on to the "Undiscovered Country," De-
cember 24, 1857, and the demise of his cherished and devoted wife oc-
curred February 20, 1901. The subject's father was Democratic in his
political faith and during his active years played a leading role in the
many-sided life of the community in which his home was located.
Although Mr. Powell of this review .was born on a farm, he did not
long maintain his residence amid these rural surroundings, for when he
was three years of age his parents removed to Newton. In its public
schools he received his education and while yet a lad entered upon his
career as a wage-earner. In those early years he worked at various oc-
cupations— on a farm, in a printing office and for three years he ful-
filled one of his youthful dreams by driving the stage from Newton to
Olney. Part of the time he clerked in the store, and in whatever posi-
tion he found himself he proved useful to his employers. While yet a
school boy the long gathering Civil war cloud broke in all its fury and
as soon as he would be accepted, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted, becom-
ing a member of Company I, of the One Hundred and Forty-third Illi-
nois Regiment and serving for a few months. He then returned to New-
ton, and it was after that that he worked in a printing office. Upon the
attainment of his majority in 1869 he entered upon his public career,
being elected assessor of Wade township, and at the completion of the
assessment the then county clerk engaged this useful and competent
young man as deputy under County Clerk Robert Leach. He held that
office until 1873, and then as the logical successor of Mr. Leach he became
county clerk himself. Ever since that time, without exception, at every
election he has been returned to the office and thus has completed forty-
one years in office, the record, as before stated, for the commonwealth of
Illinois. He is a Democrat of sound and honest conviction and he has
ever proved ready to do anything in his power for the success of his
1156 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
party. He is genial and cordial in his bearing, easily approached and
attracts friends as the magnet does the needle, while those for whom he
forms an attachment may be as certain of his unfaltering friendship as
that the orb of day will appear each morning in his daily round.
Mr. Powell was happily married January 11, 1870, Dolly Thomp-
son, of Newton, becoming his wife. Six children have been born to their
union, five of whom are living: Julia, now Mrs. Evans, resides in Jas-
per county ; Robert L. holds the office of deputy county clerk and is a
competent young man ; Hattie makes her home in Newton ; Thomas W. is
a citizen of Chicago ; and Boyce is still in the schools of Newton. Mrs.
Powell is a valued member of the Methodist Episcopal church and the
subject is member of Jacob E. Reed Post, No. 550, Grand Army of the
Republic, with the comrades of other days renewing the sad but stirring
events of our greatest national crisis.
FRANCIS E. CRAWFORD, the popular superintendent of schools in Fa-
yette county, Illinois, must look upon his success as the work of his own
brain. Starting on his career as a teacher with only the meager equip-
ment of the country school, he has secured his education piecemeal, when-
ever he had a chance. Much of his culture he has acquired by himself,
when, after a hard day's work with refractory pupils and often with
grown-ups, he has sat till far into the wee sma ' hours poring over some
book. He is essentially a self-made man, and looks upon the niche which
he has carved for himself in life with justifiable pride.
Francis E. Crawford was born in Fayette county, near Brownston,
'on the 23rd of March, 1869. His father was Martin Van Buren Craw-
ford, who had been born in Ohio in 1844. Mr. Crawford, Sr., lost his
father when he was a very small child, and was brought by his mother
into Illinois in 1848. Here he grew to manhood, working on the farm to
help his mother. He followed this occupation all of his life, and at-
tained to considerable success as a farmer. In 1867 he married Eliza-
beth J. Bolt, and they spent the remainder of their lives in Fayette
county. Six children, five boys and one girl, were born to them, of whom
Francis E. is the oldest. Of these children all have died except one of
his brothers, James L. In politics Mr. Crawford was a Democrat, and
both he and his wife were members of the Christian church. His wife
died in 1893 and he followed her on the 26th of February. 1905.
Francis E. Crawford spent his younger days on the farm, receiving
his education in the country schools. When he was seventeen domestic
troubles forced him to add his quota to the support of the family, so he
turned his hand to that work which he felt best able to do, and on the
1st of April, 1886, began teaching his first school. For the next six
years he served a weary apprenticeship in the school of experience by
teaching in the country. Then he was offered the principalship of the
Ramsey schools, which he held for two years. The four years follow-
ing were spent in the grammar department of the Vandalia schools, and
then he was promoted to the position of assistant principal of the same
schools, at which post he worked for two years. He then went to St.
Elmo, where for eight years he acted as principal of the schools. The
Casey schools called him next, and for a year he held the superintend-
ency here. He was elected for a second term, but resigned to accept the
position of county superintendent. This took place in 1910. and his long
experience in various places and positions has given him the experience
now so necessary to him. He is now able to understand the problems of
a teacher of any rank, those of the country as well as those of the cities,
and the wisdom with which he handles these is shown by his popularity
and by upholding the high standard of education now in vogue. He has
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1157
never received a degree from college or university, but he has attended
several summer sessions of various normals and in this way has kept in
touch with the trend of modern thought. Teaching in the first place
was forced upon him, on account of sickness that deprived the family of
some of its bread earners, but he came to love his profession and now his
whole soul is in his work.
On the 1st of October, 1890, the marriage of Mr. Crawford to Sarah
A. Pilcher was consummated. She was the daughter of Winston Pil-
cher, a farmer of Fayette county. They had two children, one a little
girl, died in infancy, the other, Cecil C., is a graduate of the high school
in Casey.
In politics Mr. Crawford is a Democrat, and the influence which he
possesses as a semi-public man is always used to further the interests of
his party. Mr. Crawford is a member of the Christian church and be-
longs in the fraternal world to the Odd Fellows and to the Modern Wood-
men of America. In his own profession he is a member of the Illinois
and of the Southern Illinois Teachers ' Association.
The people of Fayette county are still congratulating themselves upon
their good luck in having secured Mr. Crawford to direct the educational
work of this section, for he had been tried and tested in the furnace and
had been proven to be pure gold. His gradual rise is a splendid proof
of his natural ability unassisted by the influence of a number of letters
tacked on to his name or by having friends in high places.
DANIEL BALDWIN FAGER. To the land that has sent to our country
so many of her best sons, and that has given that tinge to the stream of
America life that renders it healthy and wholesome, in other words, to
Germany we owe the presence among us of Daniel Baldwin Fager, who
has done so much for education in Southern Illinois, and in whom may
be traced that clarity of intellect and steadiness of purpose that char-
acterizes the land of his ancestry. He has given his whole life to the
cause that he holds closest to his heart, and in the remarkable progress
that the science of education has made in the past decade or so Mr. Fager
has always been in the fore front. In addition to his scholarly attain-
ments he has much tact and the personality that charms both children
and grown people, so as a superintendent he has been remarkably suc-
cessful, and outside of his profession he numbers hosts of friends.
Daniel Fager is not a German by birth, having been born, on the 15th
of August, 1859, in Jackson county, Illinois, but his father, Sebastian
Fager was born in Germany, at Baden. The latter came to America
about 1850, and settled in Jackson county, where he engaged in farming,
in which pursuit he spent all of his life. He rapidly became accus-
tomed to the changed conditions under which he was to live, and soon
became an ardent devotee of the Republican mode of thought, though he
never entered actively into political life. Both he and his wife were mem-
bers of the Lutheran church. He was married before coming to this
country to Mary Mauer, who was of French descent. Eight children were
born to this couple, of whom Daniel is the youngest. Of these children
only four are now living. The father died in 1889, at the age of eighty,
but, the mother passed away many years before, in 1862, leaving Daniel
a little three year old toddler.
The early life of Daniel Fager was spent on the farm in Jackson
county, and the education that he received in the county schools caused
him to realize the deficiencies that were glaringly evident in the schools
of his youth. He also studied some time in the village schools of De Soto.
After acquiring more than he at the time realized from this preparatory
training he entered the Southern Illinois Normal and was graduated from
1158 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
this school in 1883. The two years previous to his entry into the normal
school he spent in teaching a country school, so on his graduation he
was not only equipped with a diploma but also with experience, and he
was immediately .offered a principalship. This first position was at Ga-
latia, Illinois, and he remained here for two years. He then accepted a
similar position at Anna, and his stay here was of the same length.
Shawneetown then elected him their superintendent of schools, and he
accepted the post, which he held for a year, resigning to become super-
intendent of the Collinsville schools. The people of the latter place had
the good fortune to hold him for six years, during which the schools of
the town made great strides forward, but Assumption finally secured his
services, though he only remained for one year. From Assumption he
went to Salem, as superintendent of schools, remaining four years. At
the end of this time he took the principalship of the Mount Vernon city
schools, holding this office for a year, before coming to Vandalia. He
has been at Vandalia for five years, and the citizens of the town can only
hope that he will make a longer stay with them than he has at the other
places where he has held executive positions.
There are eighteen teachers engaged in the Vandalia schools and the
responsibility for their work rests upon the shoulders of the superin-
tendent. The high school has a four year course, and is fully accredited,
a diploma from the school being accepted by the University of Illinois
in lieu of an examination. The enrollment of the high school has in-
creased since Mr. Fager took charge of it from seventy -five to one hun-
dred and twenty -nine.
While attending to the education of others, Mr. Fager has followed
the principle that the teacher should always be the student, and to that
end has not only read widely but has taken post graduate work at the
University of Illinois, having spent in all four summer sessions at the
University. An evidence of his popularity and ability as a teacher, as well
as the progressive modes of thought which he has adopted, is given by
the frequency with which he is invited to give courses or talks at the va-
rious institutes that have been held in the counties of Marion, Jackson,
Randolph, Saline and Jefferson.
In 1887 Mr. Fager was married to Fannie D. McAnally, the daughter
of Dr. J. F. McAnally, of Carbondale, Illinois. One son was born to
them, Frank D. Fager, who is now a junior at the University of Illinois,
where he is pursuing the electrical engineering course.
Mr. Fager has joined that recent movement in politics with which
most thinking men are in sympathy, at least in this section of the Union,
that is, he is a Progressive Republican. His religious affiliations are with
the Methodist Episcopal church, and he takes considerable interest in
the affairs of the fraternal world, being a member of the Odd Fellows
and of the Knights of Pythias.
JAMES WALTER G-IBSON. Among the younger set of Mount Vernon 's
successful men James Walter Gibson takes prominent rank as one who
has already made rapid strides in his chosen work, and who has a worthy
and brilliant career before him. As assistant cashier of the Ham Na-
tional Bank, Mr. Gibson is the incumbent of a highly responsible posi-
tion, and he has held similar positions for the past ten years, establish-
ing for himself in that time a reputation that stands for reliability, in-
tegrity, energy and various other kindred virtues.
James Walter Gibson was born September 25, 1874, on a farm three
and a half miles south of Mount Vernon, being the son of Samuel and
Angeline (Newby) Gibson. The father was born in 1828, in the little
town of Muskingum, near to Zanesville, Ohio, and was the son of James
OF
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1159
Gibson, a native of Scotland, who in his young manhood migrated to the
United States and finally settled on a farm, near Zanesville, where he
passed a quiet and uneventful life in the tilling of his farm and rearing
his little family. His son, Samuel, the father of James Walter Gibson,
migrated to Illinois in 1849, when he had reached his majority, and be-
came engaged in the occupation in which he was reared, that of agricul-
ture. He passed his subsequent life on his Illinois farm, with the excep-
tion of one interval when he became a soldier in the One Hundred and
Tenth Illinois Volunteer Regiment of the Union army, serving through-
out the war and winning for himself and his posterity a record of hero-
ism and bravery that will be to them a gracious heritage of intrinsic worth
for all time. His wife, and the mother of James Walter, was the daugh-
ter of Hezekiah Newby, an early pioneer settler of Illinois and a native
of Tennessee. She passed away in December, 1895, leaving husband and
children to mourn her loss. They were the parents of ten sons and daugh-
ters, but six of whom are now living. They are here named in the order
of their birth : Augustus, deceased ; Ida and John A., also deceased ; Dr.
0. N. Gibson, of Eldorado, Illinois ; Thomas Otis, a farmer near Mount
Vernon; Adella, deceased; Ernest, in Bozeman, Montana; Samuel A., on
a farm near Mount Vernon ; Mrs. R. S. Mernagh, whose husband is man-
ager of the Alton Brick Company, St. Louis, Missouri ; and James Wal-
ter, assistant cashier of the Ham National Bank of Mount Vernon.
The education of Mr. Gibson was of a most liberal nature, beginning
with a thorough course of training in the Mount Vernon High school,
from which he graduated in 1895, and finishing with one term in the State
Normal at Normal, Illinois. In 1900 Mr. Gibson became a clerk in the
Mount Vernon post office, which position he retained until December,
1905. He then entered the Jefferson State Bank as assistant cashier, and
was in that institution until May, 1906. He next became cashier of the
Jefferson State Bank of Mount Vernon, serving in that capacity until
January 1, 1911, when he resigned his position and became connected
with the Ham National Bank as assistant cashier, the duties of which
position he is still performing in a manner highly creditable to himself
and to the institution. Mr. Gibson is a member of a number of fraternal
societies, among them being the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and
the Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church
of Mount Vernon.
On October 13. 1901, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Gibson with
Cora C. Young, the daughter of W. L. Young, of Mount Vernon.
ALPHONSO McCoRMiCK. While demonstrating his executive ability,
fine business capacity and general readiness, resourcefulness and adap-
tability to requirements, in the teaching and management of several im-
portant schools in different cities of this state, Alphonso McCormick,
of Carbondale. attracted the attention of the American Book Company,
and was called into its service with bright prospects, a part of which
have since been realized, with the rest still waiting for him as he ad-
vances toward them. In the service he has rendered it he has not dis-
appointed the great book concern, and it always appreciates faithful at-
tention to its interests and rewards it justly.
Mr. McCormick is a native of Indiana and a son of William and
Sarah E. (Cotton) McCormick, and was born at Evansville in the
Hoosier state on January 16, 1861. His father is a coal operator in
that locality and a man of force and influence among his fellows. He
appreciates the value of a good education as a means of advancement in
life, and gave his son every educational advantage he was able to provide
for him. The son used his opportunities for all they were worth, wast-
1160 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ing no time while attending school and neglecting no means available
to him for the acquisition of useful knowledge and full mental develop-
ment.
He began his scholastic training in the public schools of his native
city, continued it at Valparaiso University in the state of his birth and
completed it at the University of Chicago. He began teaching school
in 1881 and continued his work in this highly useful but very trying
occupation until 1896. He was employed in several parts of Southern
Illinois and served as principal of the schools of several different cities.
In the year last named he accepted an offer from the American Book
Company to act as its agent in Southern Illinois, and in 1896 was ap-
pointed its general agent for the whole of Southern Illinois, with head-
quarters in Carbondale, which has been his home for a number of years.
Mr. McCormick has been very diligent and vigilant in attending to
the interests committed to his care, and they have prospered and grown
stronger in his hands. He has applied to the management of them the
same assiduous industry, determined will and fruitful persistence that
he employs in everything else he undertakes, and he has made his efforts
tell greatly to the advantage of the company, and at the same time they
have served to raise him to the first rank in public estimation as a
business man, while his high character, public spirit and general worth
have given him a strong hold on the regard of the people as a citizen.
Mr. McCormick was first .married, on July 8, 1882, to Miss Josie
Crider of Marion, Kentucky. On July 8, 1910, he married Ella Lilly,
of Carbondale. They have six children: Gertrude E., the wife of C.
C. Neely, a train dispatcher for the Illinois Central Railroad; William
P., a prosperous merchant in Jackson, Tennessee; Esther, who is a
valued employe of the Carbondale Telephone Company; and Edith M.,
Alma L. and Archibald S., who are still members of the parental family
circle, and strong elements of its popularity as a social center and
source of genial and genuine hospitality.
Mr. McCormick has taken a great interest in the fraternal life of
his community for a number of years, and his membership is highly
appreciated in the various benevolent societies to which he belongs. He
is a past noble grand in the Order of Odd Fellows, and had been the
representative of his lodge in the meetings of the Grand Lodge many
times. He also belongs to the Knights of Pythias, the Order of Elks
and the United Commercial Travelers Association. His religious af-
filiation is with the Baptist church, and the members of his family
also favor that denomination.
DANIEL NEEDHAM. Prom mule boy to chief engineer for the Collins-
ville Mining Company is the record of Daniel Needham, who has been a
resident of Breese in the latter named capacity for the past twenty years.
"Push, Pluck and Perseverance" have been the watchwords of Daniel
Needham, and the measure of success he has achieved in his life thus far
amply demonstrates the winning power of those qualities when applied
in daily life.
Born in Belleville, Illinois, on October 10, 1863, Daniel Needham is the
son of Matthew Needham, a native of England, born in Manchester. Mat-
thew Needham was a coal miner. He went into the mines as a boy and
made a close study of mining, and when he came to America as a young
man he located at Belleville and there entered the same occupation. He
gradually worked his way up in mining circles, and finally became presi-
dent of the Ruby Coal Mining Company, which position he held at the
time of his death, in 1901. Mr. Needham was a Democrat, staunch and
true in his adherence to the party, but never an office seeker. He was a
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1161
Methodist, and for years a trustee of that church. Just previous to his
migration to America Mr. Needham married Miss Martha Williamson, of
Manchester. Seven children were born of their union, five of whom are
living, Daniel Needham being the eldest. The others are John, Thomas,
James and Albert.
The ascent of Daniel Needham from his labors as a mule driver when
a boy to his present responsible position has been attended by manifold
difficulties and even hardships. Relentless, unremitting toil marked his
youth and early manhood, and only his dominant will, — his determination
to advance, have brought him to his present secure footing. When he
was a young boy his mother died, and his father contracted a second mar-
riage. He attended the Collinsville Public schools, graduating there-
from in 1880, and he immediately went into the mines, starting as a mule
driver. He worked there in that and other capacities for a period of
about twelve years, after which he went with one Mr. Hanvey to perfect
himself in the trade of an engineer, and in 1889 he came to Breese as en-
gineer for the Consolidated Coal Company of St. Louis, a position which
he has held continuously since that time.
Mr. Needham has ever been a man of prominence in the town which he
has called home for so many years. In his political convictions he is
Democrat, and has served the party in various capacities and at various
times. He is citizen of great worth, and his political influence is always
directed in a manner that is calculated to result in the best good to the
community, regardless of party affiliations. He has held various offices
in Breese from time to time. He was for three years president of the vil-
lage, and he was the incumbent of that office when the village was incor-
porated five years ago as a city. In 1910 he was elected mayor of the
city, carrying the election by an overwhelming majority. For fifteen
consecutive years he held the position of chief of the Breese fire depart-
ment, always giving the town the most efficient service possible with an
organization of its size and equipment. Mr. Needham is a member of the
Miners' union, being president of that body. He is a member of the
Catholic church.
In 1888 Mr. Needham wedded Sarah Normansell, of Caseyville, Illi-
nois. Six children have been born to their union, three of whom are
living. They are William, James and Nora. In 1900 Mrs. Needham
died, and in 1902 Mr. Needham contracted a second marriage, when Miss
Wilhelmina Niemeyer became his wife. She was a resident of Breese, well
known and esteemed of all. There is one child by the second marriage,
Martha.
SAMUEL WILSON BAIRD. A genial, obliging and efficient public of-
ficial, Samuel W. Baird, postmaster at Carlyle, is faithfully devoting
his attention to the duties of his position, being mindful of the interests
of his patrons and true to those of the government. A native of Illinois,
he was born June 20, 1845, in Edwards county, a son of Samuel Baird.
Samuel Baird was born in Indiana, and as a boy came with his
parents to Illinois, where he grew to man's estate. Becoming an agri-
culturist, he was engaged in tilling the soil in Edwards county for a
number of years. He subsequently bought land in Wabash county, where
he continued as a general farmer until his death, in 1857. He was a
Whig in politics, and an active and valued member of the Christian
church, oftentimes preaching on Sundays in the rural churches of that
denomination. His wife, whose maiden name was Lucinda Stewart, was
born in Indiana, and died, in 1884, in Illinois. Eight children blessed
their union, Samuel Wilson being the seventh child in succession of
birth.
1162 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Four years old when his parents settled in Wabash county, Illinois,
Samuel Wilson Baird acquired his elementary education in the rural
schools of that county, completing his early studies at Eureka College,
in Eureka, Illinois. He subsequently taught school two years in Law-
rence county, in the meantime working at the carpenter's trade in his
leisure moments. A good mechanic, and liking the work, Mr. Baird
finally accepted a position with the old Ohio and Mississippi Railroad
as carpenter and bridge builder, and proved himself so capable that he
was soon promoted, being first made foreman of the bridge builders, and
later being division superintendent of bridges on the road. Mr. Baird
continued in this capacity until 1907, when he was appointed, by Presi-
dent Roosevelt, postmaster at Carlyle, an office which he has since held.
Mr. Baird has been twice married. He married first, in 1868, Julia
Black, of Salem, Illinois. She died five years later, leaving no children.
Mr. Baird married in 1896 Miss Lillian Belle Brigham, of Mannsville,
New York, and they have one child, Lillian Bernice Baird. An enthusi-
astic Republican in politics, Mr. Baird is a strong supporter of the prin-
ciples of his party. Fraternally he is a member of the Ancient Free and
Accepted Order of Masons, in which he has taken the Knights Templar
degrees. Religiously he is a member of the Christian church.
WILLIAM M. SCHUWEEK. Preeminent among the many important
factors in the political life of Evansville and Randolph county stands
Judge William M. Schuwerk, judge of Randolph county, and for many
years recognized as a particularly able exponent of the legal fraternity
in his section of the state. A resident of Evansville since his sarly youth,
he is correspondingly well known in that place, and as a skillful lawyer,
a successful and honored judge, as a man of family, and the friend of
the people, his place in his community is most firmly established.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, April 12, 1856, William M. Schuwerk is the
son of Paul Schuwerk. The latter was born in Wurtemberg, Germany,
in 1814, and migrated to this country in 1844. In Cleveland he married
Miss Elizabeth Moser, a young woman of Swiss extraction, born in 1828,
and who died in Evansville in 1891. Paul Schuwerk passed away in
1869. The issue of their union were William M., Mary, who became the
wife of Henry G. Meyerott, of St. Louis, and Annie, who married A. C.
Douglass and also resides in St. Louis.
The childhood and youth of Judge Schuwerk were passed upon his
father's farm in Randolph county, and his early schooling was received
in the parochial schools of Evansville, wherein he was taught in the
mother tongue of his parents. Later he was sent to the public schools
that he might become thoroughly grounded in English, and following his
graduation from the public schools he entered McKendree College at
Lebanon, Illinois. He finished a scientific course in that institution,
graduating therefrom in 1882, with the degree of M. S., and later he fin-
ished a course in law with the degree of LL. B. He was admitted to the
bar of the state of Illinois upon presentation of his diploma, and he be-
came a member of the bar of the state courts and of the Federal courts
at about the same time.
Prior to the completion of his college courses, Judge Schuwerk spent
some little time as a teacher in the public schools, and following his
graduation he resumed that work for a period of three years, conclud-
ing his pedagogic experience when he was principal of the Evansville
schools. He then established a law office in Evansville, entering into a
partnership with a Mr. Hood, of Chester, Illinois, in 1885, from which
time an office was maintained in each of the two towns, the firm name
being Hood and Schuwerk.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1163
As the conditions of rural practice necessitate, Mr. Schuwerk fol-
lowed all branches of the law, conducting cases through all the courts
with appellate jurisdiction as they chanced to reach there. In criminal
cases he was always a defender, and many of his cases have either re-
sulted in the establishment of a new precedent, or in giving rise to a new
interpretation of the law. His political relations Judge Schuwerk has ex-
tended through the channels of Democracy. He has held few offices, his
first official position being that of chancery judge of Randolph county
and his second that of county judge, to which latter position he was
elected as a Democratic candidate in November, 1910, the successor of
Judge Taylor. In 1889 he was chosen to represent his county in the Illi-
nois general assembly. He belonged to the minority party of that body,
looking with a feeling something like chagrin upon the many transac-
tions of the lower house, although its proceedings were dictated by many
of the old and what might be termed political statesmen of the Republi-
can party of that day.
The corporations of Evansville have been aided in their ambitions
for a charter existence by the machinations of Judge Schuwerk. He as-
sisted in the organization of the Evansville Building & Loan Association,
the Evansville Telephone Company, and the N. & W. Sauer Milling Com-
pany. He also was an active factor in the securing of the Illinois South-
ern Railroad for this point, in raising the cash bonus of fourteen thous-
and dollars, and also in securing a portion of the right-of-way, all of
which have been very material aids to the growth and prosperity of
Evansville. Judge Schuwerk has always been more or less interested in
farming and is the owner of some especially fine farm land adjacent to
this locality in the Okaw bottoms.
On June 7, 1883, Judge Schuwerk married Miss Mary M. Hoffman, a
daughter of Michael and Josephine Hoffman, of Mascoutah, Illinois. Mr.
Hoffman was born in St. Clair county, Illinois, but his wife is of Swiss
birth. Mrs. Schuwerk was born in Macon county, Illinois, June 25, 1862,
and she and Judge Schuwerk are the parents of Myrtle M., the wife of
H. P. Sauer, of Etherton, Illinois ; William M., a law student in the fa-
ther's office; Walter J., a student in McKendree College; and Paul Ed-
ward, the youngest of the family.
Fraternally Judge Schuwerk is affiliated with a number of important
societies. He is master of Kaskaskia lodge, No. 86, A. F. & A. M., the first
masonic body established or organized in Illinois, and he has on several
occasions represented it in the Grand Lodge of Illinois. He is deputy
grand master of Elwood Lodge, No. 895, I. O. 0. F., and a member of
Hercules lodge, No. 285, Knights of Pythias, of Chester. ' He is the pres-
ent representative of the Evansville I. 0. 0. F. to the State Grand lodge,
and he also belongs to the Stanley Chapter, No. 103, Royal Arch Masons,
at Sparta, Illinois, and to Murphysboro lodge, No. 572, of the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks.
HOSEA V. FERBELL, M. D. The name of Ferrell has for several gener-
ations been familiar to the inhabitants of Williamson county, Illinois.
The family sprung from stanch old Irish stock and the original repre-
sentative of the name in America was one James Ferrell, who was trans-
ported from Ireland to the Maryland colony in commutation of a death
sentence about 1720. James Ferrell located where Frederick, Mary-
land, now is. He was a soldier in the French and Indian war, in Gen-
eral Braddock's army, which marched on Fort Pitt in 1755 and which
was surprised and almost annihilated in what is known as "Braddock's
Defeat." James Ferrell married Lydia Dent, and they became the
parents of three children, namely, — Hezekiah, Zephaniah, and one daugh-
1164 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ter. Hezekiah and Zephaniah Ferrell were patriots of the Revolutionary
period and both served with General ' ' Light Horse ' ' Harry Lee 's legion
throughout the war, taking part in the slaughter at McNeil's Lane, in
which some four hundred Tories were killed.
Hezekiah was born about 1724 and died at Georgetown, Virginia, in
1804. In civil life he was a farmer, living near where the city of Ra-
leigh, North Carolina, now is. His wife was Susan Allison, of English
lineage, and among their children were : James, who passed his life in
North Carolina, where he died in 1870, survived by a family ; Dent set-
tled in Dyer county, Tennessee, and his posterity can be found about
Dyersburg, Humboldt and Memphis, Tennessee; Lydia married W. P.
Mangum, for thirty years United States senator of North Carolina and
one of the able men of the south before the Civil war period ; Mary be-
came the wife of a Mr. Fuller and reared a large family, whose pos-
terity is scattered about over western Tennessee. William Ferrell, who
established the family in Illinois, was born at the old farmstead, or plan-
tation as it was then known, in 1788. He married Jailie Barnes and re-
moved to Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 1811. The year following his advent
in Tennessee, William Ferrell enlisted in Colonel Coffey's regiment for
the Creek war and served under "Old Hickory" in that struggle and in
the war of 1812, his military career ending with the defeat of the Brit-
ish at the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. He subsequently
moved to Smith county, Tennessee, and thence proceeded on his final
journey westward to Illinois, arriving here in 1839. He passed the re-
mainder of his life as a farmer and as a Baptist minister in this state.
He was originally an old-line Whig in politics but upon the formation
of the Republican party, transferred his allegiance to that organization.
He passed to the life eternal in 1867, and his cherished and devoted wife
died in the following year.
Among the children of William and Jailie Ferrell were Reverends
Hezekiah and Wilfred Ferrell, leaders in the work of the Missionary
Baptist church in Southern Illinois for many years. They married sis-
ters from Virginia and both were strong men in their calling and use-
ful citizens. Wilfred Ferrell represented Williamson county in the gen-
eral assembly of Illinois in 1850-1 and was an associate of Abraham Lin-
coln. It was that assembly that gave the Illinois Central Railroad its
corporate existence and there was much politics played in the selection
of the railroad route across the state. In 1859 Rev. Wilfred Ferrell re-
moved to Hallville, Texas, where he passed away in 1875. His first wife
was Mary Walker and his second was Eliza J. Smith. Some of his chil-
dren are numbered among the old residents of that Texas community.
Rev. Hezekiah Ferrell married Martha Walker and died in Williamson
county, Illinois, in 1860. George, another son of William Ferrell and
father of Dr. Hosea V. Ferrell, was born near Rome, Tennessee, in 1816.
He passed his life as a farmer and merchant, married Laura M. Waller,
and died in 1856. His widow survived until 1905, dying at the venerable
age of eighty -four years. Mrs. Ferrell, a daughter of John Waller, who
came to Franklin county, Illinois, from Virginia in the territorial days of
this state. Her great-uncle, Ned Waller, was the first justice of the peace
in Mason county, Kentucky, and lived at Waller and Clark's Station,
near Kent on 's station in Mason county, Kentucky. George and Laura
Ferrell became the parents of seven children, namely, — Leander, Dr.
Hosea V., Levi, James M. (deceased), Amanda, Gallic and Georgia (de-
ceased).
Of the above children Dr. Hosea V. Ferrell is he whose name forms
the caption for this review. The Doctor was educated at Indiana Uni-
versity and received his degree of Doctor of Medicine at the old St.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1165
Louis Medical College. He has been a resident of Carterville since 1872.
He married Miss M. C. Davis, a daughter of General John T. Davis, who
was born in Trigg county, Kentucky, on a farm adjoining that of the fa-
ther of Jefferson Davis. General Davis was born in 1803 and accom-
panied his parents to Illinois in 1819. He was liberally educated and
in 1832 was commissioned brigadier general of the Illinois militia during
the Black Hawk war. He was the first member of the general assembly
from his county and was the first justice of the peace of Williamson
county. During the greater part of his active career General Davis was
engaged in the general merchandise business at historic old Sarahville,
which place was named for his daughter, Sarah. He was unusually suc-
cessful in his various business projects, was an extensive property owner
and was known as the wealthiest citizen of his county at the time of his
demise, in 1855. Davis Prairie, in the eastern part of Williamson county
was named for his father. His wife was Nancy Thompson, a daughter
of William Thompson, of Kentucky, and his surviving children are Mrs.
Hosea V. Ferrell and Mrs. Sarah Walker. General Davis was a Democrat
in his political convictions and as a citizen gave freely of his aid and in-
fluence in support of all projects for the general welfare.
ALFRED BROWN, for many years a prominent figure in Alexander
county, and for the past three years the clerk and recorder of the Circuit
court of his county, is a scion of the family of Browns which was es-
tablished in Southern Illinois in the early part of the nineteenth cen-
tury by David Brown, the paternal grandfather of our subject.
David Brown was born in Roan county, North Carolina, December 14,
1804, and came with his parents to Union county, Illinois, about 1809.
In 1838 he wisely homesteaded a valuable tract of farm and timber land
in Alexander county from the Government, upon which he settled and
passed the remainder of his life, passing away February 2, 1865. Early
in life he was married to Rebecca Ellis, who was born in Pennsylvania,
May 15, 1810, and who came with her parents to settle in Illinois about
1818. David and Rebecca Brown were the parents of thirteen children,
named as follows: Minerva, George, Matilda, Martin (who was the father
of Alfred Brown of whom we write), John, William, Catherine, Caro-
line, Andrew J., Benjamin F., Martha, Elizabeth and Henry.
Martin Brown was born near Anna, Union county, Illinois, Septem-
ber 9, 1834. From 1838 his life was passed within the confines of Alex-
' ander county, and his activities in the farming industry were limited to
the neighborhood of Thebes. He was wedded, April 30, 1854, to Eliza-
beth Durham, a daughter of John A. Durham, also an esteemed citizen
and pioneer of that vicinity. Mr. Brown passed away in the year 1905,
and it was less than two years later that his life partner followed him.
They were the parents of eight sons and daughters, named as follows:
Alfred, William. Martha. Mary, Henry, Ulysses S., Martin and Thomas.
The minor years of Alfred Brown were passed in the same quiet man-
ner which characterized the life of his ancestors. He was indebted to
the district schools of his community for his education. At the age of
twenty years he abandoned the old homestead to the younger members of
the family and launched out into the timber and saw-mill business. Eight
years of his life were devoted to this work in his home town, and in 1889
he went to Cairo, Illinois, where he was engaged for three years as pro-
prietor of a hotel. He was then appointed deputy sheriff and jailor of
Alexander county, and served throughout a term. Following that he
once more turned his attention to the mill and lumber business, and for
several years was thus employed.
The next change in Mr. Brown's somewhat varied career came when
vol. m— a
1166 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
he was elected to the office of circuit clerk and recorder of his county. He
secured the Republican nomination against odds of three to one and was
elected in 1908. Mr. Brown has served with all efficiency thus far, and
his splendid record is a source of much pride to his friends and his con-
stituency in general.
Mr. Brown was married on December 21, 1879, to Miss Zorayda Irvin,
a daughter of Joseph Irvin, of Raleigh, Saline county, Illinois.
WILLIAM A. WILSON is a noble illustration of what independence,
self -faith and persistency can accomplish in America. He is a self-made
man in the most significant sense of the word, for no one helped him in
a financial way and he is self educated. As a youth he was strong, vigor-
ous and self-reliant. He trusted in his own ability and did things single-
handed and alone. Today he stands supreme as a successful business
man and a loyal and public-spirited citizen. Most of his attention has
been devoted to mining enterprises and at the present time he is general
manager of the Wilson Brothers Coal Company, of Sparta. He is a very
religious man and for three years was wholly engaged in evangelistic
work in Iowa, and then for about three years in his native land of Scot-
land.
, In Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the 9th of June, 1863, occurred the birth
of William A. Wilson, whose father, John Wilson, was a coal miner by oc-
cupation. Early representatives of the Wilson family were from Aber-
deen, Scotland, and the Allans, maternal ancestors of the subject of this
review, hailed from near Edinburgh. John Wilson died in Scotland, and
after his demise his widow followed her children to America. Mrs. Wil-
son died in Whatcheer, Iowa, and she is survived by five children, con-
cerning whom the following brief data are here incorporated,— John
is a member of the company of Wilson Brothers, as is also William A., to
whom this sketch is dedicated ; Agnes is the wife of William Dalziel, of
Albia, Iowa ; George A., is the third member of the firm of Wilson Broth-
ers, at Sparta ; and Ann is now Mrs. Lewis Jones, of Renton, Washington.
William A. Wilson's early education was not even of the high school
kind. His services as a contributor to the family larder were necessary
from childhood and he entered the works about the mines where his
father had been employed at an early age. He left Scotland in 1880, on
the ship Anchoria, going from Glasgow to New York city, from which
latter place he proceeded at once to the Carbon Run mines in Bradford
county, Pennsylvania. He remained in the old Keystone state of the
Union as a miner for several months and eventually removed west to
Iowa. He was an integral part of the mining fraternity about Whatcheer,
Iowa, for the ensuing ten years and he also spent two years at Forbush,
Iowa. During his stay in Iowa he spent five terms in Oskaloosa College
and one summer term taking private lessons in Greek. He took an irregu-
lar course, but his thirst to read the Bible in Greek kept him at that study
all the time. Leaving that commonwealth, he also left the craft for some
three years and returned to his native land as an evangelist, here carry-
ing on a spiritual crusade among his fellow workmen in the cause of the
gospel. Almost immediately after his return to America he went to Kan-
sas City, Missouri, where he was superintendent of the Baker & Lock-
wood Tent & Awning Company for a time, and in Kansas City he also at-
tended Brown 's Business College at nights for some time. From there he
removed to Sparta in 1899. He has been connected in some capacity with
the coal-mining industry here since his advent in Illinois and was official
mine inspector of Randolph county, in which position he served two
years. While so doing he was invited to make an inspection report to the
president of the Eden Mine Company. This report resulted in his leasing
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1167
and putting the Eden mine property in shape for operation, its ultimate
sale to the Willis Coal & Mining Company and subsequent lease from
them to the Wilson Brothers to operate the mine.
Although this is one of the leading properties in this region of coal
mining, and while Mr. Wilson and his brothers have been identified with
its operation since 1906, he opened Mine No. 4 for the Illinois Fuel Com-
pany and also opened the Moffat mine of Sparta. The mining of coal has
been Mr. Wilson's lot from childhood and few years of his career since
attaining his majority has he devoted himself to other work.
Mr. Wilson was married in Whatcheer, Iowa, in November, 1890, to
Miss Christina Moffat, a daughter of John Moffat, also from Scotland.
The issue of this marriage are : Christine, a graduate of the Sparta high
school and a teacher in the public schools of Randolph county ; and Eliza-
beth, Prank, William and John, all of whom remain at the parental home.
Mr. Wilson's life, as already seen, has been devoted to industry and
few matters outside of those affecting his family or his craft have at-
tracted him. His politics are severely independent and his public serv-
ice has consisted alone in his work as a member of the Sparta council one
term, during which the saloons made their exit from the community. He
is one of the congregation of Gospel Hall and occasionally supplies the
pulpit there. Since returning from his evangelistic work in Scotland Mr.
Wilson's activity as a minister has been only occasional when he takes a
holiday. He is a man of broad and noble principle and his life has been
exemplary in every respect.
Since coming to Sparta he pursued a course in mining in the I. C.
Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania. At the urgent request of a St.
Louis company, he went to Arkansas to manage its property, but re-
turned broken in health. John Mitchel, when president of the U. M. W.
of A., sent a special delegate from the Indianapolis convention requesting
him to work for the U. M. W. of A., either in West Virginia or Illinois,
saying : ' ' We get more out of the operators when they recognize our man
to be fair minded." Mr. Wilson loves home too much to enter on such
work, and refused the very liberal offer. He formed this resolution early
in life, ' ' Never be idle, ' ' and when not engaged manually, he is mentally.
HENRY M. SMITH. Long and faithful service of the most unselfish and
high-minded order marked the career of the late H. M. Smith, prominent
. in the political and other activities of Pulaski county for forty years, and
a resident of the state of Illinois since he was a lad of ten until the time
of his death, which occurred in 1898. Never a politician, but always
deeply interested in the best welfare of the Republican party, whose ad-
herent he was, he was called by the people to fill various important offices
within their gift, and as the incumbent of those offices he labored honestly
and with a singleness of purpose which proved him to be a man of in-
trinsic worth, well fitted to be employed in the services of the community
in which he lived and moved.
Judge Smith was born in Newberry District, South Carolina, May 3,
1820. He was the son of Daniel Lee Smith, a native of Virginia, who
settled in South Carolina in early life and there married Elizabeth Hamp-
ton. They came to Illinois in 1830, located in Pulaski county, where
Daniel L. Smith opened a farm. His death occurred in 1857, one year
previous to the death of his wife. They reared a family of five children :
Eliza J., who married John Carnes; Elizabeth, who became the wife of
William Carnes; H. M., of this review; James G., and Julia, who died as
the wife of Dow Smith.
As a boy and youth, H. M. Smith acquired a passing fair education
in the schools of Pulaski county, and between seasons of schooling was his
1168 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
father's assistant on the farm until 1842, when he entered the employ of
Captain Hughes, continuing thus for two years at Lower Caledonia. In
1844, when he was just twenty-four years of age, he was elected sheriff
of Pulaski county on the Democratic ticket and served four years in that
office. In 1852 he was returned to fill the position of county judge, but
after one year of service he resigned and began the study of law in the
offices of Hon. John Dougherty and in 1857 was admitted to the bar in
Caledonia. He immediately entered upon the practice of the law, and
was more or less identified with the profession in the capacity of attor-
ney for the remainder of his life. In 1860 he was elected circuit clerk and
so well did he conduct the affairs of that office that he was retained until
1868, after which he led the life of a private citizen for four years, intent
upon the practice of his profession. In 1872 Judge Smith was chosen
state 's attorney for the county and served in that important capacity for
a period of four years. Then followed another brief term of official inac-
tivity covering three years, when he was again chosen by the voters of
Pulaski county for the office of county judge, and he filled that office by
successive elections until 1886, when he severed his connection with pub-
lic life and retired to his store and other private interests. During all
the years of his political activity Judge Smith had been conducting a
store in Olmstead ; or it might be more correct to say that while he was
connected with public affairs his wife managed the store, thus relieving
him of a deal of responsibility that must otherwise have been a drag upon
him, and rendered less efficient his wholly worthy service. Although
Judge Smith began his political career as a supporter of the Democratic
cause, the issues of the Civil war period caused him to transfer his al-
legiance to the Republican party, and he was the faithful supporter of
that party throughout the remainder of his life. Although he filled
many important offices in his day, Judge Smith was never an office
seeker. It is an undeniable fact that he never made a canvass in his own
behalf, never contributed toward a fund to influence votes for any can-
didate, and that when he was a candidate he remained in his office
throughout the campaign and accepted the result of the election as the
sincere expression of the wish of the people. He was ever an independent
and conscientious man, and his attitude towards any subject was ever
consistent with his naturally high-minded and honorable instincts. He
belonged to no church, and never identified himself with any society or
organization save the Masons, being a member of Caledonia Lodge, No.
47.
Four times did Judge Smith enter upon matrimony. His first wife
was Lucinda Wogan, who left one son. His second wife, Sarah Burton,
bore him a son and daughter : Hulda E., who married Thomas Smalley
and is a resident of Springfield, Missouri ; and Lucius C., who married
Hester Magee, and is now deceased, leaving a family. The third wife of
Judge Smith was Elizabeth Barber, who died without issue, and in June
of 1861 he married Mrs. Sarah Little. She was a daughter of Isaac K.
Swain, a native of Virginia, who was the son of Dr. Chas. Swain. Dr.
Swain later moved to Kentucky as a pioneer of that section and died in
Ballard county. Isaac K. Swain married Lucy Henderson, a North Caro-
lina lady, who pased away in Ballard county, Kentucky, as did her hus-
band. Mrs. Smith was born in Ballard county, Kentucky, in 1834, on Oc-
tober 16th, and is the oldest child of her parents, the others being: Jo-
seph and Jeremiah, who died in their youth ; Isaac N., who at his death
left one son; Judson K. resides at Herington, Kansas; Calista married
James White; Mildred married Russell B. Griffin and died leaving one
daughter ; Lucy, the wife of Raymond Griffin, deputy county surveyor of
Pulaski county; and Marion C. Swain, living in Mississippi. Mrs.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1169
Smith's first husband was John Muffet, by whom she is the mother of
Betty, the wife of Malcolm McDonald, of Enid, Oklahoma. As the wife
of Judge Smith she was the mother of four children. They are : H. M.,
who died in 1902 ; Sarah, who passed away in childhood ; Belle, the wife
of George Bullock, of Marston, Missouri, and Myra, the wife of James
Ray Weaver, of Mounds, Illinois.
HON. PRANK C. MESERVE, at one time county judge of Lawrence
county, is one of the leading Democratic politicians of Southern Illinois.
His father, Clement Meserve, of New Hampshire, was for many years a
contractor by profession. Late in life he took up the study of law and
was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. Here he practiced until his
death, in April, 1891, living to see realized his fond hope that his eldest
son would follow him in the legal profession. Clement Meserve was mar-
ried in his young manhood to Miss Nancy Colburn, of Massachusetts, and
five children were born to them. She died in 1869, and some years later
Mr. Meserve married a widow, Mrs. Sarah Hayes, a native of Massa-
chusetts. No children were born of this union. Mr. Meserve was a con-
servative Democrat, giving consistent service to the party and holding
various offices during his lifetime. He was postmaster of his home town
for some years, and represented his district for two consecutive terms in
the Massachusetts legislature. The family was reared in the Methodist
church, and most of them have ever continued in affiliation with the faith
in which they were early trained.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Clement Meserve, of which
number Frank C. was the third in order of birth. He was born in Hop-
kinton, Massachusetts, on July 2, 1856. After attending the elementary
schools of Hopkinton he was sent to Boston University, where he en-
tered the College of Liberal Arts and was graduated from that institution
in the class of 1877. He taught in the high school of Mendon, Massa-
chusetts, and in his home town before entering his father's law office to>
begin his study of that profession. In 1879 he left Massachusetts for Illi-
nois, settled in Robinson and devoted himself to reading law in the office
of Callahan & Jones. In 1880 he was admitted to the bar, coming at
once to Lawrenceville, where in June of that same year he began active
practice. Almost at once he formed a partnership with George Huffman,
which partnership continued until Mr. Huffman was forced to go to
Florida in search of health. In 1894 the business relations were resumed
and lasted for the several years following before the final dissolution
was brought about.
In 1881 the firm of Meserve & Huffman purchased the Democratic
Herald, the leading Democratic organ of Lawrenceville, and conducted
its publication until 1888. During these seven years Mr. Meserve acted
as editor and business manager for the paper. Since that time the publi-
cation has been discontinued. In 1890 Mr. Meserve was elected county
judge. From 1886 to 1890 and from 1902 to 1906 he served as master in
chancery and for a number of years he was a prominent member of the
Democratic central committee of his county, attending several state con-
ventions as the delegate of his party.
Mr. Meserve, like many another successful business man, is a member
of several fraternal orders. Among them is the Masonic fraternity, the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of
America.
On the 15th of November, 1888, Mr. Meserve was united in marriage
with Rosma B. Roberts, the daughter of T. W. Roberts, who was, prior to
his death, a prominent and popular merchant of Lawrenceville.
1170 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
CHARLES C. BURTON. A man of literary tastes and talents, possessing
good business and executive ability, Charles C. Burton is an esteemed and
popular citizen of Belle Rive, and as editor and proprietor of the Belle
Rive Enterprise is doing much toward promoting the highest interests of
the community in which he lives. Coming on both sides of the house of
excellent New England ancestry, he was born February 6, 1879, on a New
Hampshire farm.
His father, William Burton, also a native of the Granite state, was
born in 1840, and died in 1906. He was a farmer by occupation, but was
for many years identified with military affairs, during the Civil war
serving in both the army and the navy, being first in the Seventh New
York Volunteer Infantry and later in the Eleventh New Jersey Volun-
teer Infantry, and on board the gunboat "Anderson." After the close
of the conflict he enlisted in the regular service, and served in the Sixth
United States Cavalry for fifteen years, when he was retired as a cap-
tain. Two of his brothers and two of his wife 's brothers also served in
the Civil war, and of those four soldiers three lost their lives at Gettys-
burg and one at the battle of Antietam. William Burton married Ellen
Campbell, a daughter of John Campbell, who served in the Revolutionary
war as an officer, and subsequently migrated from his native state, Massa-
chusetts, to New Hampshire. Three children were born of their union,
as follows : Charles C., with whom this sketch is chiefly concerned ; Wil-
liam, deceased ; and Emma, deceased.
Brought up in New Hampshire, Charles C. Burton attended the pub-
lic schools and in a country office learned the printer's trade. At the age
of sixteen years he made his way to Boston, where he followed his trade
two years. Going from there to Buffalo, New York, Mr. Burton was in
the employ of the Buffalo Courier Company for four years. Again mov-
ing westward, he went to Missouri, and until coming to Belle Rive was a
resident of Saint Louis. Imbued with the same patriotic ardor and zeal
that animated his father and his Grandfather Campbell, he enlisted for
service at the first call for troops for the Spanish- American war, and for
eleven months served in the Eighth Massachusetts Hospital Corps. In
June, 1911, Mr. Burton, who is an expert journalist, established the Belle
Rive Enterprise, an eight page, five-column, sheet, bright, interesting,
clean and newsy, which has already a large local circulation, and a most
liberal advertising patronage. Mr. Burton has without doubt one of the
best job printing establishments in Jefferson county, and in addition to
doing much local work is well patronized by people from Mount Vernon
and other cities who desire a neat, attractive and accurate job of print-
ing done.
Mr. Burton married, January 22, 1908, Edna F. Gerdom, of Saint
Louis, Missouri, and they have one chilB, Charles E. Burton, born Feb-
ruary 6, 1910.
CARROLL MOORE. Among the men to whom Southern Illinois may
look for the prosperity that blesses the region there is a man who for
many years has served the community by guiding and supporting the
business interests of this part of the state, and in his capacity of banker
and capitalist has ever yielded the most active personal and financial
support to every enterprise advanced for the public interest. He has
seen the country pass through panics and hard times; he has watched
the growth of the early agricultural district into a still more fruitful
farming region and into one of the most progressive business sections
in the state ; and he has ever lent his wisdom and grasp of complicated
situations to the building up of stable institutions and the management
of affairs.
OF ME
OF
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1171
Carroll Moore was born in Franklin county, Illinois, on the 1st of
September, 1837, whither his parents had come three years before. His
father and mother, Joseph and Mary Moore, both natives of Tennessee,
came to Illinois in 1834 and camped for a time on the banks of Jordan
fort until they were able to take up a tract of land for cultivation.
When they got their homestead it was heavily timbered. With typical
Moore energy and enthusiasm, they cleared their acreage and continued
to manage their farm well. They made their permanent home in the
county, and lived here all their remaining lives. Joseph Moore passed
away in 1848. He was the son of Thomas Moore, another early settler
in this region, who also took out land in Franklin county in the year
1834, and spent the remainder of his days on a farm. Joseph Moore
had a most valorous record for service during the Black Hawk war, one
of the most interesting and thrilling pages in the history of Illinois.
Carroll Moore, the immediate subject of this short personal record,
spent his early life on his parents' homestead and received his educa-
tion at the common schools of the county. He was still a school-boy at
the breaking out of the Civil war, but though young he had a man's en-
thusiasm and interest in the cause, and in 1861 he helped to raise a com-
pany— Company I of the Thirty-first Illinois Infantry, and was sub-
sequently elected its captain and served in the Union army until Jan-
uary, 1865. He was in a great many serious engagements and many
times distinguished himself as a commanding officer. He was present
at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and led his company through-
out the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns and was with Sherman on that
never-to-be-forgotten march from Atlanta to the sea. On the 22d of
July, 1864, during a serious encounter at Atlanta, Georgia, Captain
Moore was wounded, but he continued to hold his place in the service,
not even leaving his command to go to the hospital. At the close of the
war he returned to Illinois and started life on a little farm; but that
he left in the fall of 1865 to become deputy internal revenue assessor,
and in this capacity he served the Federal government until his elec-
tion, in 1870, to the office of sheriff. As sheriff Mr. Moore served two
years, meantime buying a great deal of land. In 1873 he decided to
enter the mercantile field and accordingly went into the dry-goods bus-
iness with W. R. Ward as partner, and continued to be so engaged until
1875, when he and his partner started the Ward and Moore Bank, the
first bank to be established in the country, and the only monetary in-
stitution of its kind here for twenty years.
In January, 1898, Mr. Moore and his associate organized the Benton
State Bank, Mr. W. R. Ward being elected its president and Mr. Moore
its vice-president. The bank has since become known as the strongest
and most reliable financial institution in this part of the state. Mr.
Moore has since become its president. The institution is capitalized
at fifty thousand dollars and has a surplus of sixty thousand. Its aver-
age yearly deposits amount to four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
' In 1863 Mr. Moore was united in marriage to Miss Narcissa Layman,
daughter of John D. Layman, one of the early stalwart pioneers of
Franklin county. She passed away three years later, in 1866, survived
by one child, William E. Moore, now a prominent merchant of Benton,
Illinois. In 1873 Mr. Moore was again united in marriage, his bride
being Miss Dora Snyder, the daughter of Solomon Snyder, one of the
earliest and best-known settlers in Franklin county, Illinois. It is in-
teresting to note that when Mr. Snyder first came to Franklin county
it was still a virgin wilderness and almost, unpopulated save for the rem-
nants of the Indian tribes that had formerly held sway. He made a
business of buying and dressing hogs, selling them at two dollars and a
1172 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
half a hundred pounds. His daughter, the wife of Carroll Moore, died
in 1893. She was the mother of the following children : Mary Moore,
who became the wife of W. W. Williams, a well-known attorney and
mining man ; Harry, now prosperously engaged in the mining business ;
Grace, bookkeeper in the Benton State Bank ; and Cicel, single, is in the
Christian College in Missouri, class of 1912. In 1898 was solemnized the
marriage of Mr. Moore to Helen A. Hickman, daughter of Dr. Z. Hick-
man, one of the most successful and trusted physicians of the county.
To this union have been born two children, — Madge and Carroll. Both
are attending school. Mrs. Moore is a member of the Baptist church, and
her husband is an active member of the Christian denomination.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Moore has been a member of the
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons for over forty-five years and is a
chapter Mason. He is also a member of the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks and of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Politically he has all his life been an influential member of the Repub-
lican party, lending his energy gladly to forward the interests of the party
he thinks most dedicated to the general welfare. He served a term of
four years on the state board of equalization, and was one of the com-
missioners that placed the monuments on the soldiers' graves in the
National Cemetery at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Mr. Moore at present devotes the greater part of his time to his
extensive farming interests, for he is keenly interested in the future
of scientific farming in Illinois. He is not only one of the wealthiest
but one of the best liked and most public spirited citizens in Franklin
county, and his name has been associated with almost every large un-
dertaking that has led to the betterment of conditions in this region
for over forty years.
ABEAM G. GORDON is eminently deserving of recognition and represen-
tation among the men who have been strongly instrumental in promoting
the welfare of Chester, Illinois, where he is a senior member of the bar.
The son of a family of ancient lineage and high birth, he has faithfully
upheld the traditions of his house, and the name of Gordon is as bright
and untarnished today as it was in the days of Richard of Gordon, Lord
of the Barony of Gordon in the Merse, midway of the twelfth century.
The family has ever been one of strong purpose, dominant will and high-
est integrity. The father of Abram G. Gordon is but another of the
many illustrious examples of the strength and power which are the
glowing attributes of the name of Gordon. The founder of the church
of the Free Will Baptists and ever the ardent and faithful disciple of
the church of his organization, he has done more for the religious and
spiritual growth and the broadening of Christian charity in the hearts
and minds of the people who came within the sphere of his influence than
any other man in Southern Illinois. As the son of his father, Abram
Gordon has been as active in a busines way and in the developing of the
material resources of Chester as was that parent in the development
of the spiritual life of this section of the state.
Abram G. Gordon is the son of Rev. Henry and Nancy (Hill) Gordon,
and he was born in Randolph county, Illinois, on the 6th of November,
1849. He was one of the nine children of his parents, the others being:
Mary ; Rev. George A., who is carrying on the work which his father
commenced; Henry C., deceased; Parker, a merchant of Ava, Illinois;
Dr. Noel R., of Springfield. Illinois ; Charles S., in business at Ava, Illi-
nois ; Edward B., a railroad man of St. Louis ; and Ora C., a merchant
of Percy, Illinois. The father passed away in 1896, after a long and
noble life of good works, and his devoted wife survived him until 1905.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1173
After completing the curriculum of the public schools of his native
place Abrarn G. Gordon was matriculated as a student in McKendree
College at Lebanon, Illinois, in which worthy institution he completed
both the scientific and Latin courses, and in which he also prosecuted
the study of law. He was duly graduated in 1873, with the degree of
Bachelor of Laws, and initiated the active practice of his profession
in 1874. He is well known as one of the most prominent and able law-
years in Randolph county, the years telling the tale of an eminently suc-
cessful career, due to the possession of innate talent along the line of his
chosen profession. Most of his attention has been devoted to civil
rather than criminal practice, and a review of the docket of the courts
of his jurisdiction will show his connection with much of the varied lit-
igation that has come up within the last thirty years. In addition to
his law practice he has had time for the development of various business
projects affecting the welfare of the city, and his part in many of the
industrial activities of the county has been large and worthy. He as-
sisted in the promotion of the Grand View Hotel and the knitting mills
at Chester, and in connection with his son built the Gordon telephone
system of Chester in 1898. The telephone exchange since then has de-
veloped extensively and now covers much of Randolph county. It
has toll lines to Steeleville and Percy and owns the exchanges in those
places, in addition to which it also owns farmers' lines of its own con-
struction and gives connection to co-operative rural lines, thus bringing
the country into close touch with the towns. Various other enterprises
have also felt his influence and power, all of which has redounded to
the good of his city and county.
In politics Mr. Gordon maintains an independent attitude, prefer-
ring to give his support to men and measures meeting with the ap-
proval of his judgment, rather than to vote along strictly partisan
lines. In his religious faith he is a member of the Baptist church, in
kind with the other members of his family. Fraternally he is affiliated
with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is past noble grand
of that order, as well as having sat in the Grand Lodge of the order in
Illinois.
On November 6, 1873, Mr. Gordon was married at Percy, Illinois, to
Miss Clara J. Short, a daughter of R. J. Short, long a prominent farmer
in Randolph county. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon have three children : Eugene
R., manager of the Gordon telephone system at Chester, married Miss
Agnes Aszmann ; Clarice is the wife of Edward W. Meredith, of Ches-
ter ; and Florence married B. C. McCloud, also of Chester.
JULIUS HUEGELY. The milling interests of Nashville, Illinois, are
very extensive, the city being located in the center of a great agricul-
tural district, and prominent among those who have identified them-
selves with this industry may be mentioned Julius Huegely, the young-
est son of John Huegely, and one of the successors of his venerable
father in the management of the interprise founded and developed by
the latter during the thirty-seven years of his active connection with
Nashville affairs. Julius Huegely was born near the site of the big
Nashville mill, March 27, 1870.
John Huegely was born November 11, 1818, in Hassloch, Bavaria,
Germany, and his parents being in rather humble circumstances, he was
given only limited educational advantages, and as a lad was forced to
go out and make his Own way in the world. Mr. Huegely remained in
his native country until he had reached his majority, and then started
for the United States, arriving at New Orleans March 9, 1840. Looking
about for work with which to earn money to enable him to journey
1174 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
further north, he secured employment at sawing wood, and thus earned
passage money to Monroe county, Illinois, where he obtained work with
Mr. Sauers, father of the proprietor of Sauers Milling Company, Evans-
ville, Illinois. He continued with that gentleman for two years, and
then entered the employ of Conrad Eisenmayer, who conducted a water
mill at Red Bud, Illinois, his wages there being twelve dollars per
month. Subsequently he removed to a farm near Mascoutah, Illinois,
but soon thereafter engaged with Ph. H. Postel, and continued with
him until 1853, which year marked the forming of a partnership with
Ph. H. Reither, they purchasing the saw and grist mill at Nashville.
In 1860 the old mill was replaced by the present structure, which at
that time had a capacity of two hundred barrels, and in 1871 Mr.
Huegely bought his partner's interest and enlarged and remodeled the
mill from time to time until it is now a modern plant of five hundred
barrels' capacity. In 1890, feeling that he was entitled to a rest after
his many years of industrious labor, Mr. Huegely turned over the active
management of the venture to his sons, John Jr., and Julius, and his
son-in-law, Theodore L. Reuter, who have since conducted the business.
The success which attended the efforts of Mr. Huegely in his private
affairs led the citizens of his community to believe that he would be
just as able to manage the business of the public, and he served for some
time as associate judge of Washington county and as delegate to the
Republican national convention in 1864 which nominated Abraham
Lincoln for his second term as president. For about sixty-two years
he has been a consistent member of the Methodist church. Although
he is in his ninety-fourth year, Mr. Huegely is hale and hearty, in full
possession of his faculties, and an interested observer of all important
topics of the times. A self-made man in all that the word implies, he
has so conducted his affairs that they have helped to build up his com-
munity, and no man is more highly respected or esteemed.
Julius Huegely attended the public schools of his native place and
spent three years in the Central High School and Wesleyan College of
Warrenton, Missouri, rounding out his preparation for efficient service
with his father by taking a course in a St. Louis commercial college. His
connection with the big factory began in 1889, when he came into the
accounting department, and since the retirement of his father this de-
partment of the concern has fallen to him, largely, as his portion of
the responsibilities to be borne by the new regime.
On August 17, 1904, Mr. Huegely was married in St. Louis, Mis-
souri, to Miss Cora Wehrman, of Champaign, Illinois, daughter of the
Rev. Charles "Wehrman, a minister of the Methodist church, stationed
at Ogden, Illinois, and a native son of the Fatherland. Mr. and Mrs.
Huegely have had two children: Julius Wallace and Charles Russell.
Mr. Huegely is a director in the First National Bank of Nashville and
of the Nashville Hospital Association, and is president of the Nashville
Pressed Brick Company. His political affiliations have been fashioned
after his elders, and the interests of the Republican party have ever
claimed his attention. He has served as secretary of the county central
committee and was a delegate to the Republican national convention of
1900 which nominated Colonel Roosevelt for President McKinley's sec-
ond running mate. As a Mason he was worshipful master of the Blue
Lodge for four years and high priest of the Chapter eight years, repre-
senting both bodies in the Illinois Grand Lodge during his incumbency
of the chairs. He is a Knight of Pythias and has clung to the teach-
ings of his parents in spiritual matters, being a faithful attendant of
the Methodist Episcopal church. His home is one of the residences in
the cluster of homes in the atmosphere of the parental domicile, in ac-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1175
cordance with the plan of the father in gathering his children about him
for a happy and contented termination of the parental lives.
WILLIAM E. BEADEN. The soil of Southern Illinois has perhaps pro-
duced a greater number of wealthy and influential citizens than any
other section of similar area and advantages. Randolph county is par-
ticularly rich in men of that status, and prominent among them all is
William E. Braden, successful farmer, stock-breeder and lumber dealer
of Sparta. He was born near Rosborough, Illinois, November 10, 1846,
and is the son of Moses Braden, who established the Braden family in
Randolph county in the early forties, and where it has been prominent
and influential over since.
The name Braden is Teutonic, and was brought to England by Teu-
tons, Angles and Saxons. The first mention of Braden in English his-
tory is in Green's History of the English People in the twelfth century.
A forest in England was known as the Braden wood. Nothing of note
is further known than that Bradens were British subjects until the
seventeenth century, when Cromwell put down a rebellion in Ireland.
One of the vanquished rebel chiefs, "McG-uire," Petty King of county
Fermanagh and county Tyrone, was stripped of most of his domain,
and it was given to Cromwell's brother officers in the English army,
among whom were Captain Herbert Braden and Captain George Braden.
Herbert Braden died a bachelor, and the estate became the property
of Captain George Braden. One of the holders of the estate, supposedly
Captain George Braden, was created a Baronet, with the title "Sir."
The name Braden has been spelled a number of ways — Braden,
Braiden, Brading, Breeden, Breden, and even Brayden and Breeding,
but all these names of Irish ancestry or birth are descendants of Cap-
tain George Braden, of county Tyrone, Ireland. Between 1840 and
1850 Sir James Braden, of county Tyrone, Ireland, was a member of
Parliament. A Braden, an Irishman, was a great Congregational min-
ister in London, for some years rivaling Doctor Spurgeon, in his day,
and quite a number of Bradens have become ministers in this country,
seven having sprung from one family in Pennsylvania, all preaching in
1863, one being president of Vanderbilt University in 1878, but among
all of the Braden. ministers none were more prominent or did a greater
work than Rev. Clark Braden, now near eighty-one years of age, hale
and hearty, of Carbon, California, who founded and held the presidency
for some years of Southern Illinois College at Carbondale, which later
became the Southern Illinois Normal.
Moses Braden was born in county Donegal, Ireland, in 1818, and
when nearing his majority, he, having kissed the Blarney Stone, ac-
companied by a cousin, John Braden, left Ireland and came to America.
They located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they found work at
their trade as weavers. Later they came to Chicago and still later to
St; Louis, engaging in manual labor of any sort when work at their trade
might not be found. They finally drifted into Perry county, Illinois,
where they became attracted by the splendid opportunities offered an
ambitious man in a farming way, and they settled down to farm life in
that district.
The father of Moses Braden, William, and family — a son and three
daughters — followed some years later to America and settled in Phila-
delphia. Pennsylvania. One daughter was married to James Russel, of
Philadelphia, and the other two to Samuel and John Rogers, both of
Brooklyn, New York; they all raised families. The son, who was also
William, died a bachelor about 1871 or 1872. The family to which the
cousin, John Braden, belonged also came to Philadelphia ; one brother,
1176 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Oliver, made two trips to Illinois in the '60s to visit him. Descendants
of both families drifted westward from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and far-
ther north, south and west.
In 1844 Moses Braden married Mary Stewart, late from county An-
trim, Ireland, and he and his wife were the parents of William E., Eliz-
abeth, who died before mature years; John T., who was married in
1884 to Maggie J. Telford, who bore two children, Ethel M. and Clinton
S., and died in 1889, near Sparta; and Sarah J., who became Mrs. J. B.
Pier, and was the mother of two children, W. R. and C. S., and now
resides in Sparta, Illinois. Moses Braden passed away near Rosborough,
November 9, 1853, and his widow followed him July 19, 1871.
William E. Braden received his principal education in the public
schools, with two terms in the Sparta High School. He followed the oc-
cupation of his father, in which he grew up by his own energy and dili-
gence, and has always maintained an active and profitable interest in
that pursuit. Later in his agricultural career he became an enthusist
on the subject of thoroughbred horses and cattle, and in more recent
years he has devoted his time and attention to those interests. He is
widely known throughout Southern Illinois as a grain and stock farmer,
and he is now serving his third term as director in the State Farmers
Institute from the twenty-fifth congressional district. In addition to
grain and stock farming he has attained a considerable reputation
among stock breeders. The breeds he is most interested in are the regis-
tered Hamiltonian and Percheron horses and Shorthorn cattle. While
not an importer of registered males, he has bred up a fine strain of
horses of the bloods mentioned, and his modest herd of Shorthorns show
pedigrees of Scotch tops from the well known breeders Wilhelm of Ohio,
and the Harned stock farm of Missouri. Mr. Braden and his sons' estate
comprises a goodly tract of land near the scenes of his childhood, and
his place is one of the finest in the state. Mr. Braden and sons are also
the owners of between two and three thousand acres of land in other
states, namely, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Colorado and North Dakota.
In 1895 Mr. Braden invested largely in the lumber business in Sparta
in the interests of his sons, thus establishing them firmly in a splendid
business. The Schulenberger and Beckler yard in Sparta thus came
into the possession of the Braden family, and the senior Braden is al-
most as deeply interested in the manipulation of that business as are
his sons. Mr. Braden is and has been president of the Cutler Creamery
and Cheese Company since its organization in 1889, which is about the
only one of the various plants of that character organized during the
so-called "creamery age" that is still being operated by the men who
promoted it, and with E. C. Gemmill as secretary and manager, now a
heavy stockholder, holding his position since the plant opened for bus-
iness, they have done a most successful business since they started. Mr.
Braden 's life record is purely that of a business man. He has not
permitted politics or its demands to interfere with the operation of his
business, being interested in the fortunes of the Republican party in
a merely casual manner.
On March 23, 1876, Mr. Braden married Jane Smiley, the daughter
of James Smiley, who was an early settler of Marissa, Illinois, originally
from Ireland. Mrs. Braden was born in Randolph county. Mr. and
Mrs. Braden are the parents of Smiley M., of Sparta, interested in busi-
ness with his father, who married Miss Estella Richie, and they have a
son, Stanley R., born February 23, 1911 ; Clarence A., a lawyer of East
St. Louis, married Miss Paiila Dimer. of Champaign, Illinois. January
17, 1906 ; Anna Mary married Ed. H. Smith, March 22, 1910, and re-
sides in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has a daughter, Jane B., born
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1177
May 6, 1911. The Braden family are affiliated with the Covenanter
church, of which Reverend W. J. Smiley, a brother-in-law, is pastor.
The lineal descendants of Captain George Braden, of county Tyrone,
Ireland, are now scattered over several states — New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, some in the southern states, and in
Ontario, Canada.
CASSIE B. LEWIS. Franklin county, Illinois, shows today some of the
best-cultivated farming land to be found in the southern part of the
state, and many of the most successful agriculturists of this section are
living on land that they have 'developed from a practical wilderness. It
would be hard for the casual visitor to the vicinity of Sesser to believe
that the magnificent tract of land comprising the farm of Cassie B. Lewis
was only a comparatively short time ago a wild waste of prairie, swamp
and timber, and that the same soil which now yields bounteous crops
was at that time almost totally unproductive. This, however, is the case,
and it has been due to the efforts of just such men as Mr. Lewis, most of
them self-made men, that the county is at present in such a flourishing
condition. Mr. Lewis is a native of Franklin county, and was born
January 29, 1855, on his father's farm near Sesser.
The paternal grandfather of Mr. Lewis lived and died in South
Carolina, and little is known of him save that he was a farmer, the
occupation followed by Mr. Lewis' maternal grandfather, Samuel Ham-
mond, who was born in Kentucky, and moved to Illinois at an early day,
the remainder of his life being spent in agricultural pursuits. Two of
his sons, Sanford and Reuben Hammond, served as soldiers during the
Civil war, and both died while wearing the blue uniform of the Federal
army. John B. Lewis was born in South Carolina, and came to Franklin
county at an early day, securing land from the Government and develop-
ing it into an excellent farm. A quiet, unassuming man, he never en-
gaged in public matters, but at his death, in 1895, was known as an ex-
emplary citizen and skilled farmer. He and his wife, who bore the
maiden name of Rachel Hammond, died in the faith of the Baptist
church, of which they had been life-long members.
Cassie B. Lewis received a common-school education, but did not re-
ceive many advantages in that line, as the family was in anything but
prosperous financial circumstances, and the youth 's services were needed
on the home farm. He remained with his father for a number of years,
accepting every opportunity that presented itself to make a little extra
money to add to his earnings, and finally was able to make the first
payment on a small piece of land. Following the example of the first
settlers, he cleared and cultivated his little tract, and by industry and
persistent labor was able from time to time to add to his livestock and
farming utensils. When he had his first purchase well under cultiva-
tion he added to it, and the original small property grew from year to
year until it is now one of the handsome, productive farms of this lo-
cality, and the poor lad who started out without influential friends or
financial help is now one of his community's prosperous citizens, owning
real estate in country and city worth ten thousand dollars, and being
vice president of the First National Bank of Sesser. Such a career
must of necessity be encouraging to the poor youth of the present gen-
eration, and wiil serve as an example of what the man with sufficient
perseverance can accomplish in spite of all handicaps and discourage-
ments.
In 1877 Mr. Lewis was married to Miss Martha Cook, daughter of
George Cook, a native of Hamilton county, who died during the Civil
war. Seven children were born to this union : Harley, who was killed
1178 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
in a mine accident; Elza, who is engaged in mining and farming;
Arthur, an agriculturist of Franklin county ; Ople, who is in business
at Sesser ; lea Jennings, who resides at home, and one who died in in-
fancy. The mother of these children died in 1900, and in 1901 Mr. Lewis
was married to Mrs. Ellen Browning, daughter of John Maddox, an
early settler of Franklin county. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis are members of
the Missionary Baptist church. He belongs to Sesser Lodge, No. 918,
A. F. & A. M., of which he is secretary. In political matters he is a
Democrat, and for a number of years acted as justice of the peace. Mr.
Lewis is one of the self-made men of his _county of whom Illinois is so
proud, and is respected and esteemed by a wide circle of friends and ac-
quaintances.
HARDY M. SWIFT, M. D". — The present mayor of Mount Vernon is one
of those rare beings who find it possible to combine the exacting duties
of a busy representative of the medical profession with those of an
active participant in the administration of municipal affairs. Previous
to his election to the mayoralty, Dr. Swift was prominent in every good
work calculated to contribute to the betterment of civic conditions, and
in his profession, in his interests in financial and real estate enterprises
of the city and county, and his concern for the public welfare he is
regarded as one of the first men of his city.
Dr. Hardy M. Swift was born August 29, 1871, in Jefferson county.
He is the son of James M. Swift, a farmer and merchant of Southern
Illinois, and the grandson of Alfred Swift, who was a native of Tennes-
see and one of the pioneer settlers of Jefferson county. James M. Swift
was reared in Mount Vernon and at one time had a mercantile business at
Ham's Grove, which later was destroyed by fire, and in his young
manhood became engaged in the mercantile business on his own responsi-
bility in Mount Vernon, where he continued for several years, and later
was associated with a number of prominent firms in this city. He is a
veteran of the Civil war, having seen active service through the greater
part of the rebellion as a member of Company A, Twentieth Ilinois In-
fantry, being transferred later to the One Hundred and Tenth, after
the Twentieth Illinois has been practically annihilated at Lookout Mount-
ain and Chickamauga. He participated in the battle of Missionary
Ridge and also of Chattanooga, and took part in the Atlanta campaign
and was in the "March to the Sea" with General Sherman, being mus-
tered out at the close of the conflict at Washington. He married Dru-
cilla Jane Maxey, the daughter of Charles Hardy Maxey, a prominent
pioneer settler of Mount Vernon. Charles Hardy Maxey was born in
Tennessee and moved into Jefferson county in the spring of 1818. He
was always a prominent figure in Jefferson county, and particularly in
Mount Vernon, in which place he erected the first building on what is
now the public square. His sturdy, pioneer life in Jefferson county was
filled with incidents of peculiar interest.
Of the union of James M. Swift with Drucilla Jane Maxey, nine
children were born, eight of whom are now living. They are : Alfred
Ettis, engaged in the real estate business at Brookings. South Dakota;
Hardy M., mayor of Mount Vernon and a practicing physician at that
place ; Mrs. Lulu Gilmore, living in Mount Vernon ; Mrs. Carrie Estella
Westcott, resident of Mount Vernon ; Bertie May, wife of Fred E. Percy;
Sarah C., the wife of Hall Anderson, a telegraph operator of McGhee,
Arkansas; William W., superintendent of streets in Mount Vernon; and
Alva R., who is engaged in farming in Jefferson county. The father is
still living in Mount Vernon, aged sixty-eight years.
Hardy M. Swift as a boy and youth was a regular attendant at the
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1179
public schools of Mount Vernon. He was graduated from the high school
of his home town and entered Ewing College. Finishing his course in
that place, he entered the Physio-Medical College of Chicago in 1891,
passing two years in close and careful application to his studies there.
In 1893 he entered Physio-Medical College in Indianapolis, graduating
therefrom in the spring of 1895, with his well earned degree of M. D.
He began practice immediately, choosing Opdyke, Illinois, as a point of
location, and he remained there in active practice for eleven years, re-
moving in 1906 to Mount Vernon, taking the superintendency of the
Mount Vernon hospital, which he held until 1908, at which time the hos-
pital was destroyed by fire. Dr. Swift 'sold his interest in the institu-
tion and withdrew from the superintendency, becoming absorbed in pri-
vate practice immediately. Since that time he has conducted an ever-
growing general practice, and his fortunes have steadily mounted higher
with the flight of time. Dr. Swift is a holder of considerable real estate
in Mount Vernon, which includes nine pieces of fine residence property.
He recently traded a splendid farm of one hundred and sixty acres for
a prosperous grocery business in Mount Vernon, and his realty holdings
are steadily increasing. Dr. Swift is also a stock-holder in the Ham
National Bank, as well as a member of the directorate of that institution.
Always interested in the correct administration of civic affairs, he has
been active in municipal circles, although he never was committed to any
public office until the spring of 1911, when he was elected mayor of
Mount Vernon on the Democratic ticket, which office he is filing credit-
ably to himself and his constituents. In his fraternal affiliations he is
connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Mount Ver-
non, the Modern Woodmen and the Court of Honor. As an aid to his
professional interests, the Doctor is a member of the Jefferson County,
Southern Illinois, American and Illinois State Medical Associations, be-
ing prominent and active in all of them.
In 1894 Dr. Swift married Mary A. Moss, the daughter of T. C.
Moss, of Mount Vernon. Two children have been born to them ; Harry
Monroe, a student in the Mount Vernon High School, and Thelma
Blanche.
JOHN E. LUPKIN. One of the old and honored residents of Anna,
Illinois, where for nearly forty years he was engaged in business, is John
E. Lufkin, proprietor of the Fair View Poultry Farm, and a man who
has proved himself an honest and reliable citizen in every walk of life.
He was born in the state of Maine, in 1830, and was twenty years of age
when he went to Ohio and engaged in railroad work. He came to Anna
in January, 1853, where he became identified with the Illinois Central
Railroad as foreman of a construction gang, Anna at that time being a
cornfield on which were three log houses. Eventually he became em-
ployed in the train service and was one of the two conductors who took
the first passenger trains into Cairo, on completion of the I. C. Rail-
road to that point. His service with the Illinois Central covered a
period of fourteen years, and he held the position of roadmaster on dif-
ferent divisions of the road from 1857 to 1867.
In 1867 Mr. Lufkin gave up railroad work and started a grocery
store in Anna, being proprietor thereof for many years and attaining
considerable success. He finaly sold out in 1905, and for four or five
years was engaged in travel, but eventually returned to Anna and bought
a farm of forty acres, where he is now engaged in poultry raising. The
Fair View Poultry Farm is modern in every respect, and Mr. Lufkin
carries on his operations in a scientific manner, having made a deep
study of his business. He now has about five hundred Plymouth Rock
1180 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
chickens and thirty-five turkeys, while his son gives his attention to
ducks. Although advanced in years, Mr. Lufkin is still actively engaged
in business, and he makes his home in Anna instead of on his farm. His
operations have been successful because he has prosecuted them earn-
estly and in an intelligent manner, and all who have had business deal-
ings with Mr. Lufkin will testify to his honorable principles. He is
essentially a self-made man, and the rise of the youth who came to this
city with but one dollar and fifty cents in his pocket to the prominent
man of business has been sure and steady. The interests of Anna have
always been foremost in his mind, and he has done his full share in de-
veloping the rich resources of this section.
On December 25, 1856, Mr. Lufkin was married to Chloe Allen Bagg,
who was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and to this union the fol-
lowing children have been born : Harry E., who is now acting as state
superintendent of Sunday schools in the state of Maine; Adele, who
married A. J. Nesbitt, a resident of New Mexico ; Virginia, the wife of
Oliver Alden, living in Anna; Arizona, who married Peter Auten, of
Princeville, Illinois ; and John E., Jr., part owner of poultry farm, and
who married Miss Belle Sifford.
Mr. Lufkin joined the Odd Fellows in 1854, at Murphysboro, Illinois,
the same night and at the same place that John A. Logan became a
member of that order. Formerly a Democrat, since the Civil war he has
acted with the Republican party, but he has never sought public pre-
ferment, although he is a stanch supporter of his party's principles.
The family is identified with the Presbyterian church, and Mr. Lufkin
though never a member of any church, has been liberal in his support of
religious and charitable movements.
BENNETT M. MAXEY. Possessed of the rare gift of being able to
give expression to his ideas of right and wrong and still retain the per-
sonal friendship of practically every individual who reads his news-
paper, Bennett M. Maxey is giving the people of Flora, Illinois, and the
adjacent country a newspaper of which they may well be proud in the
Flora Journal, the pages of which are filled with clean, clear and concise
news matter and virile, well-written editorials. While Mr. Maxey is giv-
ing the greater part of his attention to journalism, he has at various
times been engaged in business ventures, and now has large real estate
holdings both in Illinois and Colorado. He is a native of the Prairie
state, having been born in Wayne county, November 25, 1856, and is
a son of Joshua C. and Elvira A. (Galbraith) Maxey.
Bennett Maxey, the grandfather of Bennett M., was a native of
North Carolina who came to Illinois at a very early date, settling in Jef-
ferson county, where he took up land from the government. During
early days in this state he served as an Indian fighter. Agricultural pur-
suits of an extensive nature claimed his attention during the greater part
of his life, and when he died he was in comfortable circumstances finan-
cially. All of his five sons were soldiers in the Union army during the
Civil war, and Joshua C., father of Bennett M., who had previously
been a farmer, and who entered the service in 1861, was a member of
Company I, Forty-eighth Illinois Volunteers at the time he met his
death, in 1865. He was but thirty-three years of age at the time his death
occurred. Joshua C. Maxey was born in Jefferson county, Illinois, and
there educated and reared to agricultural pursuits. He was a faithful
member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and politically, up to the
time of the war, was a Democrat, but subsequently gave his allegiance
to the Republican party. He married Elvira A. Galbraith, who was
born in Marion county, Illinois, daughter of Green B. Galbraith. The
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1181
latter was born in Tennessee and came to Illinois at an early period,
settling first in Marion and later in Wayne county. He was first an
agriculturist, but later engaged in the mercantile business at Johnson-
ville and Odin, and died a prosperous man in the latter city.
The education of Bennett M. Maxey was secured in the public
schools of Flora and in the Valparaiso (Indiana) College, from which
latter he was graduated in 1880. Taking up teaching as a profession,
he followed that vocation during the next eight years in Clay county,
becoming widely and favorably known as an educator. At that time
he decided to enter the mercantile business and accordingly established
himself as the proprietor of a store at Xenia, where he remained for
about seven years, during which time the business grew to considerable
magnitude. At this time Mr. Maxey learned of a business opportunity
in the West, and went to California, where for the next four years he
was engaged as a real estate dealer, but in 1892 he located in Flora.
From that time until 1904 he followed the real estate business and gen-
eral merchandising, but in the latter year he purchased the Journal, a
Republican publication forty-two years old and the leading newspaper
of Clay county. Mr. Maxey 's politics have always been those of the
Republican party, and he has, no doubt, done a great deal in influencing
public opinion during campaigns. He is endeavoring to give the reading
public all that is best in journalism, and if the success that has attended
his efforts so far is any criterion he has not tried in vain. Alive to
every important issue of the day, he gives his support to the measures
which he deems will be best for the country, state or community, and as
one who has the best interests of the public at heart he has the universal
respect and esteem of his fellow citizens. Mr. Maxey 's operations have
been deservedly successful in a financial way, and he has real estate hold-
ings in Flora and in Colorado. Fraternally he is connected with Flora
Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of Masons and with the Knights Tem-
plar, and has served as junior warden and as secretary of his Chapter.
On September 7, 1879, Mr. Maxey was united in marriage with Miss
Rosa Tully, daughter of John Tully, an early settler and agriculturist
of Marion county. Mr. and Mrs. Maxey are consistent members of the
Methodist Episcopal church and have a wide acquaintance in social
circles of Flora.
WILLIAM PERRY WILSON. In the recent death of William P. Wilson,
Jackson county has suffered a great loss, for it was given to this popular
citizen of Murphysboro to achieve a place as one of the representative
members of the bar of his native county, and he was also known as a
man of marked progressiveness and civic loyalty, in which connection
it may well be noted, as a matter of evidence, that he was president of
the Southern Illinois Building and Loan Association, which accom-
plished a most beneficent work under his able regime. In addition to
these activities he was the owner of valuable farm property in Jackson
county and was prominently concerned with various agricultural and
stock-raising enterprises.
William Perry Wilson was born in Degonia township, Jackson
county, Illinois, on the 17th of June, 1879, and was a son of Aaron E. and
Rachel H. (Donalds) Wilson. Aaron E. Wilson established his home
in Jackson county many years ago and eventually became one of its rep-
resentative farmers and stock growers, having developed one of the fine
landed estates of the county and having been an honored and influential
citizen of his township. Both he and his wife are yet living, loved and
respected by the whole community.
William P. Wilson found his childhood and youth compassed by the
vol. m— 7
1182 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
benignant surroundings and influences of the home farm and his pre-
liminary educational advantages were those afforded in the public
schools. Later he prosecuted a course of study in the Southern Illinois
Normal University and in preparation for the work of his chosen pro-
fession he entered the law department of the celebrated University of
Michigan, at Ann Arbor, in which institution he was graduated as a
member of the class of 1906 and from which he received his degree of
Bachelor of Laws. In July of the same year he was admitted to the bar
of his native state and forthwith opened an office in Murphysboro, where
he continued to devote himself to the general practice of his profession
up to the tiiie of his death. In his work his success was on a parity with
his energy and well recognized ability, and had he lived longer his repu-
tation would have been even more widespread. He served two years
as city attorney, but manifested no predilection for political office,
though he was aligned as a stalwart and effective advocate of the princi-
ples and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor.
Throughout his whole life Mr. Wilson was especially active and
progressive in the furtherance of civic and material improvements, and
in this line his influence was noteworthy and emphatic through his con-
nection with the affairs of the Southern Illinois Building and Loan As-
sociation, of Murphysboro, the business of which has more than doubled
under his administration as president, an office of which he was the in-
cumbent at the time of his death. He was a zealous and valued member
of the Murphysboro Commercial Association, another of the alert and
progressive institutions of Jackson county. The valuable landed estate,
which he owned in his native county, a well-improved tract of one thou-
sand acres, he devoted to diversified agriculture and to stock-growing.
Four hundred acres of this property on an average was planted in
corn, and Mr. Wilson always took a most lively interest in the further-
ance of the agricultural and stock industries in the county which was
ever home to him.
Mr. Wilson was a member of the Jackson County Bar Association,
of which he was treasurer for several years. He was also affiliated with
the Knights of Pythias and with the Modern Woodmen of America.
Both he and his wife were members of the Free Baptist church, in which
his wife is still active. Mr. Wilson died in Murphysboro, Illinois, on
the 1st of November, 1911. The funeral services were conducted from
the Free Will Baptist church, the Knights of Pythias being in charge,
the burial taking place in Ava, Illinois, where he now rests in the Ever-
green cemetery. He was only a little over thirty-two years old at the
time of his death, and one can but wonder what he would have become
had he lived a few years longer, for his ability was so pronounced that
every one joined in prophesying for him a brilliant future.
Mr. Wilson was married on the 4th of September, 1907, to Miss
Harriett Downen, who likewise was born and reared in Jackson county
and who is a daughter of Cornelius C. and Elizabeth (Snyder) Downen,
her father being a representative farmer in the vicinity of the village
of Campbell Hill, this county. Three children were born of this mar
riage. namely : Russel A., Rachel A. and Cornelius J.
EDWARD H. BIBKNER. As postmaster of the village of Oraville, Illi-
nois, Edward H. Birkner has been identified with the public interests of
Jackson county for the past two years, but this is not his first public
office, as prior to his advent here he had been selected to hold other
positions of trust by the townsmen of the vicinity in which he made his
home. He has proven a faithful, efficient and courteous official, giving
to his work the same conscientious regard that has made him successful
-"• V.BRAW
OF THE
QOVERSITY OF
•to <*
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1183
as a merchant, and the esteem in which he is universally held is mani-
fested by the large number of people who are pleased to call him friend.
Mr. Birkner is a native of Jackson county and has resided here all of his
life. Like many of the successful merchants of this part of the state, -he
is the product of the farm, having been born on his father's home-
stead in Ora township, December 27, 1876, a son of Peter and Emma
(Meuschke) Birkner.
Peter Birkner was born September 21, 1844, at Belleville, St. Clair
county, Illinois, his parents having settled in the St. Clair colony at the
time of their arrival in this country from Germany. As a youth Peter
Birkner was reared to habits of frugality and industry, traits which
make the Germans such excellent citizens, and he was brought up to en-
gage in agricultural pursuits. In 1861 he accompanied his parents to
Jackson county, settling in Ora township, and here he was married to
Miss Emma Meuschke, of Jackson county, and they had three children :
Amelia, who is deceased ; Annie, who became the wife of Frank Sher-
mann, a Jackson county agriculturist; and Edward H. After marriage
Mr. and Mrs. Birkner settled down to clear and cultivate their land, and
they are still residing in Ora township, and are respected by all who
know them. They are faithful members of the Lutheran church, and the
loyalty with which Mr. Birkner has supported Republican principles has
won him the recognition of his party and caused him to be elected to
various township offices.
Edward H. Birkner spent his early life in Ora township, securing
his education in the common schools, and assisting his father until he
reached the age of twenty-five. At that time, deciding on a mercantile
career, he established himself in business at Sato, a little mining town,
but after three years found that his business had outgrown his field, and
went to Herrin, where he had better facilities. After three years spent
at the latter place he came to Oraville, and opened the general merchan-
dise store which he now owns and operates, and where he does an excellent
business. Progressive ideas and up-to-date methods have gained him a
large and lucrative trade, these being associated with a pleasant person-
ality and straightforward manner of doing business. He has found
that the best way to gain and hold trade is to be absolutely above-board
in all of his dealings, and his success may be said to have been caused by
this policy. In 1909 Mr. Birkner received the appointment to the office
of postmaster, and, as heretofore mentioned, he has made a highly satis-
factory official.
In 1899 Mr. Birkner was married to Dolly Mae Wills, of Ora town-
ship, daughter of Benjamin "Wills, and four children have been born to
this union, namely: Vera, Clarence, Marguerite and Lillian. Mr. and
Mrs. Birkner are members of the Lutheran church, and have many warm
friends among its congregation. Mr. Birkner holds membership in the
local lodge of the Modern Woodmen of America.
WILLJAM F. FERREL.L. Should a search be made throughout the
length and breadth of Union county no fairer example of the self-made
man could be found than William F. Ferrell, manufacturer, farmer
and landowner of Jonesboro. Brought by merest chance, in early
manhood, in touch with the making of beer keg staves, he seized upon
this accidental chance as upon an opportunity, mastered the rudiments
with a thoroughness that has characterized his every action in life, and
upon this practical knowledge builded his exceptional business career.
One by one he saw the possibilities as they opened before him, each
possibility becoming a probability and then a certainty, until eventually
the poor youth who had begun his business career with absolutely no
1184 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
education and a capital in cash of one hundred dollars in borrowed
money has become one of the wealthiest men of his section.
William F: Ferrell was born on May 30, 1869, at Jonesboro, Illinois,
and is the son of William and Mary (Tinsley) Ferrell. His father was
born in Tennessee and came to Union county in 1864, and his mother
was born in Jonesboro, being the daughter of Isaac Tinsley, who came
to Union county in 1818 and settled on a farm four miles from Jones-
boro, on Dutch Creek, his farm comprising land which he entered from
the Government. He was one of the earliest pioneers of Union county
and passed an active and useful life in that section. He was born in
South Carolina in 1798, and passed away on his farm near Jonesboro
at the venerable age of eighty-two years. He had acquired a farm of
three hundred and ninety acres, which is now the property of his
grandson, William Ferrell.
The son of William and Mary Ferrell was given but scant oppor-
tunity to secure an education of any sort, in his boyhood attending the
district schools for only a brief period, and he was not more than a
mere boy when he secured a chance to go to work for C. F. Myers, of
Mound City, who was then engaged in making beer keg staves. After
ten years of service at small wages, only adequate to provide a meagre
living for himself, the boy left Mr. Myers and, seeing a chance for him
to accomplish something for himself, he borrowed one hundred dollars
and bought a car load of staves, thus becoming established in business.
Four months later his former employer saw fit to buy his youthful
competitor out, which he proceeded to do, Mr. Ferrell clearing four
hundred and fifty dollars on the transaction. In 1902 he started buying
timber for hickory spokes, and this business has grown to such an ex-
tent that he now ships from fifty-five to sixty cars of spokes each year,
his dealings in the hickory spoke business alone aggregating twelve
thousand dollars in 1910. As a side line Mr. Farrell is the buyer for
the Mutual Wheel Company of Moline, Illinois. In his capacity as
buyer for this firm he is called upon to exercise his best ability as a
judge of timber, timber lands and the values of both, and his long ex-
perience in kindred matters has given him a prestige in timber circles
that is of very material value to him.
In addition to his operations in timber and manufacturing, Mr.
Ferrell runs a truck farm upon his grandfather's old homestead farm
of three hundred and ninety acres, as previously mentioned, and he has
a garden and trucking plot of twenty seven and a half acres of valuable
land in Jonesboro, a two hundred and sixty acre tract on the river, three
hundred and twenty acres in section 14, township 12, the latter being
in timber, as well as being the owner of one hundred and twenty acres
of land heavily timbered in part and the remainder rich in pottery
clay, the latter of which he ships to some extent. Mr. Ferrell is in-
tensely interested in White Leghorn chickens, being the possessor of a
handsome flock of these birds, and it is his expectation to soon enter
this business extensively with a view to producing eggs for breeding
purposes.
During his business career in Jonesboro Mr. Ferrell has gained an
enviable reputation as a man of the highest integrity and business abil-
ity, as well as a man of extraordinary foresight in placing investments,
and a good and public-spirited citizen of Jonesboro. His operations
have ever' been along strictly legitimate lines, and whatever enterprises
his good name has been connected with have had the fullest confidence
of the business men of his community.
Mr. Ferrell is of the opinion that the popular belief or idea that a
man is irrevocably handicapped in business life unless he has had the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1185
advantages of a generous education, or at least an education of some
sort, is vastly over-estimated. He cites his own case as an example of
the contrary view of the matter, and admits that he began business life
without the ability to even read and write. While he admits that his
lack of educational training has been a hindrance, and made some of his
successes come harder than might have been the case had he been better
equipped along educational lines, still he regards his accomplishments
as being far removed from failure, and justly. He believes that if a
man takes firm hold upon the old belief "Where there's a will there's
a way," he will come very close to realizing the success he might have
made with the greatest possible educational equipment, and starting life
as he did, with only his indomitable will to win and his splendid in-
herent ability to back him in the struggle, Mr. Ferrell has certainly
demonstrated his proposition in a most thorough manner.
In 1900 Mr. Ferrell was married to Miss Lela Lewis, a daughter of
James A. and Anna (McNeely) Lewis, a native of Union county. Four
children have been born to them, all of whom are under the shelter of
the parental roof. They are Mabel, Selma, Carl and Lela.
Louis G. PAVEY. One of Mount Vernon's citizens of whom she
speaks with great pride is Louis G. Pavey, not only on account of the
things he has accomplished, but also because of the clean, straightfor-
ward way in which he has always conducted his business affairs, his
achievements having been accomplished not by clever trickery in which
the means was the justification of the ends, or by the juggling with
finances, but by honest business methods, and by his marked capacity for
making wise investments. He is now cashier of the Ham National Bank
of Mount Vernon, and his associations with other financial institutions,
as a member of their directorates or as one of their officers, are numerous.
Not only is he interested in financial affairs but he is also connected with
the commercial world through his interest in one of the leading dry
goods firms in Mount Vernon. He has labored under the disadvantage
of having a reputation already made for him and which he was expected
to sustain, for his father was one of the most prominent men in the state
of Illinois, and from the brilliancy of mind that all of his children seemed
to inherit, and which Louis early showed, the whole community would
have been greatly surprised and disappointed had he not met with
success.
The father of Louis G. Pavey was Charles W. Pavey, who was born
on the 14th of November, 1835, in Highland county, Ohio. He was the
son of Samuel Pavey and Lucinda Taylor, the latter of whom was a rela-
tive of Zachary Taylor, one time president of the United States. Charles
W. Pavey migrated to Southern Illinois in the 'fifties, and went into
business in Mt. Vernon as a merchant, on the corner now occupied by
the Odd Fellows building. He conducted this general merchandise busi-
ness for a number of years and then, when he could no longer resist the
wave of patriotism that was sweeping over the country, he enlisted in
the Union army, his commission giving him the rank of second lieuten-
ant of Company I, of the Eightieth Illinois Regiment. This was the
beginning of long years of a glorious service, in which the agonizing
nights and days that he spent as a prisoner and the terrible experiences
which he had as an active soldier counted as nothing when he thought
that it was all for the glory of the Stars and Stripes and the uniting of a
divided country. He was wounded by a shell at the battle of Sand
Mountain, as a participant in General Strait's famous raid, and was
picked up by the cavalry of General Forrest and sent to the much dreaded
Libby prison at Richmond. He underwent the horrors of this pestilent
1186 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
hole for twenty-three months, part of this time as an occupant of a
death cell, not knowing at what moment he would be called upon to
sacrifice his life for his country. One of the many strange incidents that
happened to him during his life in the army happened at this time.
When he had enlisted in the army his little sister, to whom he was de-
voted, gave him a small testament, which he carried with him wherever
he went, whether for a quiet nap in his tent or for a desperate charge
against the enemy. Consequently it was with him in old Libhy. As the
time drew near when he knew he was to be executed he could not bear
to think of the little volume that was so sacred to him falling into care-
less hands, so he wrote a message upon the fly-leaf designating its dis-
posal and asking that it should be sent to his family. On the last night
of his life, as he thought, the day set for his execution being the mor-
row, he slipped the testament through the bars of the little window in
his cell, praying that it would fall into friendly hands. The execution
did not take place and soon afterwards he was taken from the prison
upon the evacuation of Richmond, but he was not yet a free man. To
return to the testament, years afterward while attending a National
Encampment he met Sergeant Sumner of the Twenty-seventh Michigan
Regiment, who told him that the highly prized volume had fallen into
his possession and was one of the treasures of his daughter. Through
Sergeant Sumner 's influence General Pavey was once again put in pos-
session of the battered little book, dog-eared and minus one corner which
had been gnawed off by the prison rats, but the most valuable book in
the world to its owner. It was returned to him on the 24th of May,
1900, almost thirty-five years from the time he had last seen it.
When the siege forced the Confederates to evacuate Richmond our
young prisoner was removed to Dalton, Georgia, and at last he was ex-
changed*. While he languished in his small, narrow death cell the horror
of his condition was increased by the sight of the men outside his tiny
window working on the coffin intended for him. After his exchange he
returned to the army, and reported to General Rousseau for duty. The
General assigned him to a position upon his own staff, and there he re-
mained until the close of the war.
After the surrender he returned home and engaged in the general
merchandise business, following this occupation for twenty years after
the war, until 1885. To a man who had witnessed such stirring scenes
it was at first a relief to settle down to the quiet life of a small town
merchant. But after the novelty had worn off General Pavey began to
look with longing eyes towards an active public life. Consequently it
was very willingly that he accepted the office of collector of internal
revenues for the Cairo district, to which post he was appointed by Pres-
ident Arthur. He held this position for three years, until President
Cleveland took up the reins of office. In 1888 he was elected state
auditor of public accounts, serving for four years. In 1892 he was re-
nominated, but was defeated with the entire state ticket, his name lead-
ing the ticket. In 1897 he was appointed by President McKinley, who
was one of his very close friends, as an examiner in the department of
justice at Washington. This position he held until 1908, when his
health began to show the hard strain of his long years of active service,
and he resigned to return home.
One of the greatest interests in the life of General Pavey was in the
various associations of the Veterans of the Civil war. It was one of his
great pleasures to meet his old comrades and talk over the days they
had fought side by side. Not content with his loyalty, he served his old
associates in many executive positions. He was inevitably a member of
the Grand Army of the Republic post, and for twelve years he was
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1187
president of the Illinois State Prisoners of War Associations. The high-
est honor that came to him in this line was one that he held at the time
of his death, namely, commander of the Southern Illinois Soldiers and
Sailors Reunion Association. This is the largest reunion association in
the United States, and the enthusiasm which was shown at their yearly
meetings was due in no small measure to the influence of their presiding
officer. During General Pavey's term as auditor he had the additional
responsibility of being a member of the Examining Board of the com-
mission governing the United States Mint at Philadelphia. His title of
"general" came to him through his appointment by Governor Cullom
of Illinois as brigadier general of the State Militia.
General Pavey married Isabella Prances Pace, a daughter of Joel
Pace, Jr., one of the first settlers in Jefferson county. She comes of a
line of soldiers, for her father was in the war of 1812 and her grand-
father, Joel Pace, fought through the American Revolution. Mrs. Pavey
is still living in Mount Vernon, at the old Pace homestead, which formerly
embraced fifty acres, now within the city limits. The children of this
marriage numbered five. Eugene M. is living at Aurora, Illinois, hold-
ing the position of Illinois superintendent of agencies for the Federal
Life Insurance Company of Chicago. Louis G. is second in age. Neil
P. is in San Francisco, as representative of the Army and Navy Supply
Company of New York. He was captain of the local militia and during
the Spanish-American war served in Cuba. After the evacuation he
enlisted in the Thirtieth Provisional Regiment, being mustered in at
Jefferson Barracks as a lieutenant. He served in the Philippines and
was made commissary of his regiment. Soon afterwards he was ap-
pointed chief commissary on the staff of Major General Bates. He later
had an opportunity to go to Japan as a military instructor, but pre-
ferred to return home. He has traveled extensively, particularly in
the Central America and South American States, and has shown himself
to be his father's own son. Mabel S. is the eldest daughter and lives at
home with her mother. Alice is the wife of John B. Emerson of St.
Louis, he being manager of the Robert W. Hunt and Company, a firm of
civil engineers and contractors. The well beloved father of this family
died at Mount Vernon on the 15th of May, 1910.
Louis G. Pavey was born on the 19th of October, 1868, at Mount
Vernon, Illinois. He received his education in the public schools and in
the high schools of his home town, and then attended the University of
Illinois. He left his books to assist his father in making his canvass for
state auditor, acting as his secretary. On the election of his father to
the above position he was appointed warrant clerk, his duties being to
audit the warrants and checks drawn upon the state treasury. At the
close of his service in the auditor's office he went to Rockford, Illinois,
where he was employed by the Emerson-Talcott Company, a large man-
ufacturing concern. In association with the Emersons he went from
Rockford to St. Paul, where they purchased a large creamery plant,
operating it for one year. Mr. Pavey sold out in 1896 and came to
Chicago, to enter the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank. He remained
here till June, 1899, the experience which he gained being invaluable,
then he came to Mount Vernon and accepted the position of cashier of
the Ham National Bank.
This institution is the oldest bank in the county, having been organ-
ized under the name of Carlin, Cross and Company, in 1869. It was
soon reorganized as the Mount Vernon National Bank, with Noah John-
ston as president and C. D. Ham as cashier. In this guise it existed for
seven or eight years and then was conducted as a private bank until
1897 by C. D. Ham and Company, Jerry Taylor being president and C.
1188 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
D. Ham, cashier. At this time it was rechartered and reorganized as
the Ham National Bank, having as president C. D. Ham, and as cashier,
Rufus Grant. About 1903 Mr. Grant retired as cashier and Mr. Pavey
was elected to succeed him. Mr. C. D. Ham died in 1899 and Albert
Watson was made his successor. The present officers of the bank are :
Albert Watson, president ; S. B. Ham, vice president ; Louis G. Pavey,
cashier; C. R. Keller and J. W. Gibson, assistant cashiers. The bank was
first capitalized at fifty thousand dollars, which was increased in 1905
to one hundred thousand dollars. The institution has a surplus of fifty
thousand dollars.
Mr. Pavey is a director of the following banks: The First National
Bank of Sesser; The Farmer's Bank of Waltonville; The Ina Bank of
Ina, Illinois ; Bank of Bonnie, Bonnie, Illinois ; The Security Bank of
Opdyke, Illinois; The Peoples Bank of Bluford, Illinois; The Farmer's
and Merchants Bank of Dix, Illinois; The Bank of Divide, at Divide.
Illinois. He is also president of the People's Bank of Bluford, Illinois,
and is a member of the firm of Hobbs and Pavey Dry Goods Company
of Mount Vernon. This long array of responsible positions which Mr.
Pavey holds speak for themselves. There is no need to call attention to
his financial ability or his personal integrity.
General Pavey was a member and trustee of the First Methodist
church of Mount Vernon, also being one of the trustees. His son has
followed closely in his father's steps, being likewise a member and stew-
ard in the same church. The father was interested in the fraternal or-
ganizations to the extent of being an Odd Fellow, but the son has no
fraternal affiliations. Louis G. Pavey was married in November, 1901,
to Martha Ham, daughter of C. D. Ham, with whom he was so closely
associated in a business way.
HON. GEORGE PARSONS. A modest, unassuming man, possessing un-
doubted business ability and judgment, Hon. George Parsons, now serv-
ing his fourth term as mayor of Cairo, is numbered among the repre-
sentative citizens of Southern Illinois. The seventh child in succession
of birth of the nine children of Joseph and Mary (Cram) Parsons, he
was born in April, 1854, on a farm in Kennebunk, Maine, the old home-
stead on which he was reared still belonging to the family.
His early life, like that of many New England boys of his day, was
one of hardships and struggles, ready money being scarce and wage-
earning opportunities rare. Hard-working people, with limited means,
his parents trained their sons and daughters to habits of industry, hon-
esty, and thrift, and lived to see all of them well settled in life. At the
age of sixteen years, through the generosity and kindness of a kinsman,
George Parsons was enabled to prepare for college, and was graduated
from Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, with the class of 1876. The
ensuing fall he entered Comer's Commercial College, in Boston, Massa-
chusetts, and having completed a course of six months in that institution
accepted a position in the office of Edwin Parsons, of New York city,
where he remained four and one half years, gaining valuable business
knowledge and experience.
Leaving that mart of human activity and commercial strenuosity in
October, 1881, Mr. Parsons made his way westward to Alexander county,
Illinois, and soon afterward entered the service of the Cairo Trust Prop-
erty as bookkeeper, and has since been closely associated with this or-
ganization, for many years having served most ably and efficiently as
its managing head.
A stanch supporter of the principles of the Republican party since
casting, in 1876, his vote for President Hayes, Mr. Parsons contributes
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1189
v
liberally of his time, influence and services towards the advancement of
his party and the welfare of city, town and state, being ever mindful
of the interests of the people. In the spring of 1905 he was elected
mayor of Cairo, and the following November was the choice of the people
for county commissioner of Alexander county, polling the largest vote
ever cast for a Republican candidate at a similar election, and in the
spring of 1907 was honored with a reelection to the mayorship of the
city. The work of Mr. Parson both as mayor and as commissioner was
such as to reflect credit upon his administrative abilities. Upwards of
a million dollars worth of improvements were inaugurated, including a
good sewerage system, the paving of many streets, the building of cement
sidewalks, and the improvement of the public highways throughout the
city and county. For many years Mr. Parsons has been an active mem-
ber of the National Good Roads Association, which has been influential
in materially improving the highways, more especially the country
roads. In the work of improving the roads leading to the National Cem-
etery in Pulaski county, near Mound City, Mr. Parsons was an active and
interested worker, having donated to the United States Government the
right of way from Cache bridge to the cemetery. He also surveyed the
road, was instrumental in securing an appropriation from the National
Congress for its building, and in May, 1907, brought the matter before
the war -department, at Washington, D. C., in such an effective manner
that during the following summer repairs amounting to five thousand
dollars were made upon the road.
In 1908 Mr. Parsons acceded to the wishes of his many friends and
became a candidate for Congress from the Twenty-fifth congressional
district of Illinois. The improvement of the internal waterways has
long been of supreme moment, to the people of Southern Illinois, which
has a vast frontage on two of the largest rivers of the country, the
Ohio and the Mississippi, and this improvement has been intelligently
developed through the indefatigable labors of the various River Im-
provement Associations, in each of which Mr. Parsons is an active
member. Largely through his personal influence, in October, 1907,
President Roosevelt and the Inland Waterways Commission made a trip
on the Mississippi from Keokuk to Memphis, arriving in Cairo, Illinois,
in company with a large delegation of governors and other public offi-
cials on October 3, it being the first visit of a president of the United
States to the Twenty-fifth congressional district of Illinois. The Presi-
dent and his companions were most hospitably entertained by Mr. Par-
sons, who likewise had the distinction, in October, 1909, of entertain-
ing President Taft and his party on their river journey from Saint Louis
to New Orleans, an honor which rarely comes to men so far removed
from the seat of government.
In November, 1911, the guests aboard the replica of the boat "New
Orleans," making its centennial trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans,
were entertained at the home of Mayor Parsons, who extended a public
invitation to the citizens of Cairo to gather at his house, express their
interest in the great event being commemorated, and extend a neigh-
borly greeting to the distinguished party from the head waters of the
Ohio. On November 30, 1911, another honor fell to the lot of Mayor Par-
sons, when he had the pleasure of extending his hospitality to Alfred
Tennyson Dickens, son of Charles Dickens, whose descriptions of Cairo
after his own visit to this city connects this part of Southern Illinois with
the writings of the famous English author and novelist.
Mr. Parsons has been thrice married. He married, first, in Cairo, in
1882. Ada V. Scarritt, a daughter of Rev. J. A. Scarritt. She passed to
the life beyond in 1897, leaving one child, Blanche Parsons. Two years
1190 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
later Mr. Parsons was united in marriage with Isabel Hartley, of New
York, who passed away in February, 1911. On February 27, 1912, at
Little Rock, Arkansas, he married Miss Mary Pearl Shields, a native of
Kentucky. Her father, Charles P. Shields, was at one time professor of
languages in Bethel College, Russellville, Kentucky.
CYRUS H. IRVIN, M. D. The technical education of the doctor of med-
icine avails him but little unless he has laid a foundation for it of
broad general knowledge and made a careful study of human nature.
When he took up the practice of medicine Dr. Cyrus H. Irvin brought
to the profession a mental equipment acquired through a number of
years spent as an .educator, and with this preparation the mysteries of
medicine and surgery were quickly mastered, and success was his from
the beginning of his professional career. Dr. Irvin was born in Jeffer-
son county, Illinois, October 28, 1878, and is a son of Wilford F. and
Julia A. (Hughes) Irvin.
Wilford F. Irvin was born in 1848, in Hamilton county, Illinois,
a son of Runion Irvin, who spent his life in agricultural pursuits in
Hamilton and Jefferson counties. Like his father, Wilford F. Irvin
spent his active years in tilling the soil, and became a successful farmer
and a well-known Republican politician. His death occurred in 1891.
His wife, who was born in Ohio in 1859, and who now makes her home
at Mount Vernon, Illinois, is a daughter of Cyrus S. Hughes, who
brought his family from Ohio to Illinois in 1861, and for years was
known all over Southern Illinois as a dealer in live stock. He accumu-
lated a comfortable fortune during the years of his operations here,
and retired some time prior to his death. In political matters he was an
ardent Jacksonian Democrat.
Cyrus H. Irvin received his preparatory education in the common
schools of Jefferson county, and in 1899 graduated from Ewing College
with a certificate which granted him the privilege to teach school. During
the four terms that followed he acted as a teacher in the public schools,
in the meantime prosecuting his studies with the ultimate object of
entering professional life. In 1906 he was graduated from the College
of Physicians and Surgeons, St. Louis, and after spending eight months
at Dahlgren, Illinois, came to Sesser. A skilled surgeon, he has practically
a monopoly on all the surgical work done here, and acts in that capacity
for the Sesser Coal Company. He has been an active and interested
member of the Southern Illinois, Illinois State and Franklin County
Medical Societies and the American Medical Association, and acts as
local correspondent for the county organization. His fraternal con-
nection is with the local lodge of Odd Fellows. Dr. Irvin has found
time to engage in politics, and he is recognized as the logical leader
of the Republican forces in Sesser, where his influence in felt in all
matters of importance. The old homestead in Jefferson county, which
was operated for so many years by his father, is now owned by him, and
in addition he has interested himself in various enterprises of a com-
mercial nature. Any movement promising to be of benefit to his
adopted community in any way is sure of his hearty support, and
worthy movements of a religious and charitable nature find in him an
enthusiastic and liberal co-worker.
On December 19, 1906, Dr. Irvin was married to Miss Mary Ger-
trude Lionberger, daughter of A. J. Lionberger, a native of Jefferson
county, and now a successful farmer and prominent Republican poli-
tician of Mount Vernon. One child, Mary Louise, has been born to
Dr. Irvin and his wife. Mrs. Irvin is a member of the Missionary Bap-
tist church.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1191
COMMODORE MILLS, who owns a large farm in Bond county, Illinois,
is one of the leading agriculturists in that section of the country. He was
born in the southern part of Indiana, on the 6th of January, 1863, the son
of H. E. and Mary E. (Chewning) Mills. Mr. H. E. Mills was a native
of Indiana and was born on the 5th of February, 1829. Indiana was his
home state until 1878, when he came to Illinois and located in Bond
county, northwest of Greenville, where agricultural pursuits engaged
his attention. At the age of twenty-one he was united in marriage with
Miss Chewning, of Indiana. To this union nine children were born, Mr.
Commodore Mills being the sixth child. Mr. Mills spent the later years
of his life in Greenville, and passed away there on the 18th of February,
1909. Mrs. Mills was called to the eternal rest in January of 1892.
The early life of the subject of this sketch was passed in the state of
Indiana. When he was fourteen years of age the family moved to Bond
county, Illinois. Until he was twenty he attended school each winter for
a short time, after the fall farm work was finished. Later he worked on a
rented farm for a period, but in 1893 he purchased the farm, extending
over one hundred and ten acres, upon which he now resides.
On November 1, 1891, Mr. Mills and Miss Stella Billiard, of Bond
county, the daughter of Jerry and Emily ( Gushing) Hilliard, entered the
holy bonds of matrimony. To this union six children were born : Helen,
Blanche, Mildred, Dorothy, Bernice and Isaac.
Like his father, Mr. Mills places his trust in the Republican party,
which he has served faithfully for many years. He is affiliated with but
one fraternal organization, — the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. and
Mrs. Mills are both devoted attendants of the Baptist church, in which
they are earnest workers. Mr. Mills takes an active interest in the educa-
tional affairs of his neighborhood and acts as school director of his dis-
trict. He is also the director from Central township in the Farmers'
Institute. He is respected by all who come in contact with him for his
upright character and loyalty to the loftiest ideals of citizenship.
JACOB KAREAKER was born in Union county, Illinois, September 30,
1822, and died at his home in Dongola, Illinois, March 12, 1910. His par-
ents were North Carolina Germans. His father, Daniel Karraker. was
born in Cabarrus county, North Carolina, February 8, 1793, and his
mother, Rachel Blackwelder Karraker, in Rowan county, October 1, 1794.
They were married May 19, 1818, and left North Carolina on July 28th
of the same year and located in what was then a wilderness three miles
east of the present location of Dongola, Illinois. Daniel Karraker was a
man of strong moral and religious convictions, and his standard was ahead
of the time in which he lived.
Jacob Karraker, the subject of this sketch, was born on the farm on
which his father settled when he came to Illinois. In October, 1848, he
made profession of religion and joined the Bethany Baptist church. In
1851 he was made a licensed preacher and in 1855 he was ordained as a
minister of the Gospel, from which time he continued active in the min-
istry. He was essentially a pioneer in his field. At a time when the tem-
perance movement was not popular, he advised total abstinence from in-
toxicants and set the example himself. He was largely instrumental in
the organization of many new churches in Southern Illinois. He preached
to his churches, served as pastor, officiated at marriages and conducted
funerals without charge and often without compensation. He was a man
of strong conviction and fixed purpose, a great force for the moral and re-
ligious uplift of the people among whom he labored.
On December 8, 1842, Jacob Karraker was married to Miss Mary
Peeler, whose parents were Christian Peeler and Rachel Brown Peeler,
1192 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Tennesseeans who migrated to Union county, Illinois, in 1827. The fol-
lowing were their children : Rachel was married first to Barnabus Penrod
and after his death to Mr. W. Martin Keller, a retired farmer living near
Dongola, Illinois. Anna M. is deceased. Malinda married Mr. S. W. 0.
Head, and both husband and wife are now deceased. William Wilford
was for twenty-seven years a teacher in the public schools of Union county,
Illinois, and is now living on his farm near Dongola, Illinois. His wife
was Miss Sarah Ellen Richardson. David W. was county superintendent
of schools from 1877 to 1880, state's attorney from 1880 to 1888, state
senator from 1888 to 1892, an officer and director of a number of banks in
Southern Illinois and an attorney at law. He lives at Jonesboro, Illinois.
His wife was Miss Cora Harreld. Lucinda J. is deceased. Henry W. is
moderator of the Clear Creek Baptist Association and active in the Bap-
tist Ministry, Dongola, Illinois. His wife was Miss Ina Davis. Julius F.
is deceased. His wife was Miss Mary Keller. Jacob Calvin is deceased.
His wife was Miss Nannie Keller. Mary Ellen married Dr. George W.
Ausbrooks, a practising physician of Dongola, Illinois.
0. M. KABRAKEE. As president of the First National Bank of Harris-
burg, 0. M. Karraker is connected with one of the leading financial insti-
tutions of Saline county, and is performing the duties devolving upon
him in his responsible position with ability, fidelity and to the eminent
satisfaction of all concerned.
The Karraker family was first known west of the Alleghanies in 1818,
when Daniel Karraker, Mr. Karraker 's great-grandfather, migrated from
Cabarrus county, North Carolina, to Indiana, settling with his family in
the wilderness, from which he redeemed a homestead. Subsequently com-
ing to Illinois, he took up land in Union county, near Dongola, and the
house which he erected is still standing on the old homestead. He there
spent the later part of his life, dying at the age of seventy-six years.
Reverend Jacob Karraker, Mr. Karraker 's grandfather, was a pioneer
minister of the Missionary Baptist chuch, in which he preached for three
score years. He was a noted trapper and hunter, and as a young man was
an expert log roller. He spent his last years in Dongola, Illinois, passing
away March 12, 1910, aged eighty-seven years, five months and twelve
days.
For twenty-six years W. W. Karraker, Mr. Karraker 's father, was
engaged in professional work, having been well known as a successful and
popular school teacher. His home during all of that time was on the
old Karraker homestead in Union county, where he is still living, an hon-
ored and respected citizen.
Receiving excellent educational advantages when young, 0. M. Kar-
raker was graduated from the State Normal School at Carbondale, Illi-
nois, with the class of 1899. Very soon after receiving his diploma he
became principal of the Harrisburg High School, a position in which he
served acceptably for eighteen months. He subsequently became assistant
cashier of the "First National Bank of Harrisburg, and served as such
from 1900 until 1906, when he was deservedly promoted to cashier of the
bank, and January 1, 1912, he became president, an office for which he
is amply qualified and eminently adapted. Mr. Karraker was reared in
the Baptist faith, his grandfather, Elder Jacob Karraker, having been
especially prominent in the affairs of the Bethany Baptist church in
Union county, which he organized, and in which he served as pastor,
without pay, for twenty consecutive years.
CHARLES ROY LAMER. The well established reputation of the Lamer
family in Union county as fruit growers on a large scale is being carried
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1193
on in praiseworthy manner by Charles Roy Lamer, of Cobden, Union
county, Illinois. He, with his brother H. H. Lamer, are among the
heaviest producers and shippers in Southern Illinois in the fruit line,
and it is consistent with the spirit of the times that mention be made of
them in this historical and biographical work.
Charles Roy Lamer, orchardist and general farmer, was born June
28, 1875, on the home farm, two and a half miles northwest of Cobden.
His father was Willis Lamer, a native of Union county, and -his grand-
father was Jackson Lamer, who came to Union county from North Caro-
lina in the early history of Illinois and filed on government land in Union
county. Jackson Lamer prospered, and when he died he left a goodly
inheritance to his son Willis. Besides his original holdings of four hun-
dred acres of fine land in Union county, he became the owner of eight
hundred acres in Pulaski county, of equal or greater acerage value.
Willis Lamer became wealthy in the fruit growing industry, and was
one of the first, if not the first, man in Union county to realize the vast
possibilities of Illinois as a fruit producing country. In 1848 Willis
Lamer married Prances Lovelace, a native of Johnson county. She was
born in 1855, and died in 1908, while on a visit to Texas friends. She
was the mother of three children : H. H., Vivian and Charles Roy. In
later years Mr. Lamer contracted a second marriage, and two chil-
dren, Beulah and Essa, were born of that union.
Charles Roy Lamer was educated in the common schools of Union
county. Early in life, however, he began farming for himself, starting
out with one hundred acres of land which came to him from his father 's
estate. He has since increased this to one hundred and seventy-five
acres, and the farm is cultivated as follows : Apples, fifty acres, but the
crop in 1911 was hardly an average yield, netting about twelve hundred
barrels; peaches, thirty acres, the crop in 1911 being about four thou-
sand crates, or fifteen hundred bushels; rhubarb, eight acres, the yield
for 1911 being one thousand packages; asparagus, three acres, the yield
for 1911 being six hundred packages. In addition to specific fruit grow-
ing. Mr. Lamer does considerable general farming. He employs four
regular "hands" and in picking season employs from thirty -five to fifty
men. Everything on the Lamer farm is done in an up-to-date and pro-
gressive manner. The latest improved machinery is in evidence there,
and every labor saving device known to the farming industry is pressed
into service on this strictly modern farm. Two spraying machines are
used in the care of the fruit, and every possible precaution taken to
insure a perfect crop where perfection is possible. In addition to this
splendid farm Mr. Lamer and his brother H. H., hold the lease of a two
hundred acre orchard in Jackson county, which is a wonderfully pro-
ductive affair. In 1911 the crop aggregated eight thousand barrels of
first class apples, including two thousand barrels of the famous "Wine
Saps," for which they produced a price of four dollars and fifty cents
per barrel.
Mr. Lamer is a member of the A. P. & A. M. Lodge No. 46, in Cobden,
and of the Chapter at Anna, Illinois, No. 45. Like his father Mr. Lamer
has been twice married. First to Ella Hardin, November 2, 1896. She
was a daughter of L. T. Hardin. On July 21, 1908, she passed away,
leaving her husband and three children, Willis, Fay and Janice. His
second marriage took place on February 6, 1909, when he married Ellen
Parrell, of Makanda.
HERMAX THEODORE BECHTOLD, M. D. To become eminent in any pro-
fession, or more than ordinarily successful in any calling, requires cer-
tain qualifications, not all of which are gifts of Nature. Heredity, no
1194 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
doubt, has a great determining influence, but to become perfectly compe-
tent and able to meet and overcome competition, there must be persever-
ance, concentration of energies and practical training. This is as true in
its application to medical science as to any line of activity. In this con-
nection may be mentiond one of the leading professional men of St. Clair
county, Dr. Herman Theodore Bechtold, whose residence and immediate
field of practice is at O'Fallon. He was born at Belleville, Illinois, No-
vember 10, 1853, and is a son of Frederick and Eugenia (De Bassomp-
piere) Bechtold.
Frederick Bechtold was born at Mainz, Germany, in May, 1819,
where he was reared in a home of refinement and was afforded educa-
tional advantages. In 1849 he came to America, and after a short period
of residence in the city of New York he came to Illinois, locating at
Belleville. Shortly afterward he pre-empted a claim near St. Paul, Min-
nesota, and endeavored to clear his land and put it under cultivation,
but he was totally unused to exposure and had never been trained to
manual work, and after a trial of three years abandoned the venture.
He established himself in the furniture and upholstering business at
Belleville, and through honorable business methods so gained the con-
fidence of his fellow citizens that at the opening of the Civil war he was
given an important political position, within the gift of the Republican
party, being made collector and assessor of what was then the Twelfth
congressional district of Illinois. In 1866 he embarked in insurance and
did a large volume of business, subsequent to his death, September 22,
1894, from an attack of pneumonia, having retired. He was married at
Brussels, Belgium, to Eugenia A. F. De Bassomppiere, who died July 4,
1882. She was a daughter of F. George De Bassomppiere, a counselor at
law and one of the royal ministers to King Leopold. To this union twelve
children were born, as follows : Eugenia ; Frederick W., who is a banker
at Bellaire, Michigan; Louis J., who is a. surgeon of note, residing at
Belleville, Illinois ; Rudolph, who is deceased, was a retired capitalist ;
Louisa, who is Mrs. M. Fuirer; Eliza, who is Mrs. Adolph Newhoff, re-
siding at Belleville ; Herman T. ; Adelle, who is the wife of Dr. John
Massey, of Belleville; Flora and Florian, both of whom are deceased;
William G., who is a physician at Breese, Illinois ; and Adolph G., who is
now deceased, was a physician at Freeburg, Illinois. The parents of the
above family attended the Evangelical church.
Herman Theodore Bechtold attended the public schools of Belleville
until 1868, and in the following year entered a drug store at Belleville to
learn the drug business, but after two years he became a student in Wash-
ington University, at St. Louis, Missouri, and in 1875 was graduated in
the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. Returning to Belleville he continued
in the drug business there until 1877, when he entered seriously upon the
study of medicine, for which his previous studies had well prepared him,
and in 1880 he was graduated from the Missouri Medical College. Imme-
diately afterward he located at O'Fallon and has continued in active
practice here ever since and has likewise identified himself with the
leading interests of the place. He is second vice president of the First
National Bank of O'Fallon and has made large property investments,
owning a beautiful residence here.
Dr. Bechtold was married September 13, 1881, to Miss Katie J.
Pffefer, of Lebanon, Illinois, who died December 6, 1904. His second
marriage took place on November 17, 1910, to Mrs. Ella Merk Bechtold,
widow of Dr. Adolph G. Bechtold. Mrs. Bechtold had two children by
her first marriage.
In politics Dr. Bechtold is a Republican and at present is serving in
his third continuous term as president of the board of education, of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1195
which he had previously been a member for some years. For a pro-
longed period he served as a trustee of McKendree College. He is a Ma-
son of prominence, a Knight Templar, thirty-second degree and a
Shriner. Dr. Bechtold makes a specialty in his practice of diseases of the
eye, nose, throat and ear, and the year 1896 he spent traveling in Europe,
during which time he attended clinics in Germany, the acknowledged
home of medical scientific knowledge. He is a valued member of the St.
Clair County Medical Society.
GEORGE LINZY CREMEENS, M. D. Probably no other profession has
advanced so rapidly during the last half-century as that of medicine, and
as this advance still continues the physician who would win success must
keep abreast of the discoveries and inventions in this prolific field in or-
der that his patients may have the benefit of the most skilled treatment.
George Linzy Cremeens, M. D., is one of the members of the Southern Illi-
nois medical profession who is meeting with exceptional success in his
work, and is rapidly taking front rank among the physicians of Hamil-
ton county, his field of endeavor being the village of Dahlgren. Dr.
Cremeens was born October 16, 1868, in northern Missouri, and is a son
of Linvill and Jennie (Miller) Cremeens.
Byrd Cremeens, the grandfather of the Doctor, was probably born in
Virginia, about 1808, and was married in Ohio, to which state he had
moved as a young man, to Sophronia White, by whom he had ten chil-
dren : Linzy, Linvill, William, Anderson, Mose, Stephen. Byrd, Cyrina
and two daughters whose names have been forgotten. Byrd Cremeens
was a local Methodist preacher and farmer, and moved his family to
Franklin county some time during the 'fifties. He later moved to Mercer
county, Missouri, but a short time thereafter returned to Franklin county,
and his death occurred about 1878, on his farm, which was situated at
the foot of the hill west of Macedonia, his widow passing away there in
1899 or 1900. In political matters he was a Republican. Linvill Cre-
meens was born in Ohio, and in Franklin county, Illinois, was married
first to Maria Carlton, who bore him one child, William, who died at
about the age of fifteen years. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union army
from Macedonia, Illinois, for service in the Civil war, and served through
that struggle, after which he went to northern Missouri with his parents
and was there married to Jennie Miller, who was born in March, 1847.
near Galliopolis, Ohio, daughter of George and Annie ( Carr) Miller, and
they had three children, namely : George Linzy ; Annie, who married A.
P. Proudfit, of Hamilton county, and now lives in Aaronville, Illinois,
having four children ; and Byrd T., who died young. On his return from
Missouri, Linvill Cremeens engaged in farming near Macedonia, but at
the time the Louisville & Nashville Railway was built through he took his
family to Belle Rive, Jefferson county, where he engaged in the mercan-
tile business. While thus engaged he began to fit himself to become a
lawyer, and 'at the time of his death was ready to be admitted to the bar.
He was a stanch Republican in his political affiliation, and he and his
wife were members of the Methodist church.
George Linzy Cremeens worked on his father's farm, which was situ-
ated about ten miles east of Dahlgren, attending the public schools and
two select schools, and later becoming a student in the Southern Illinois
College, Enfield, Illinois, and in the Normal University at Carbondale.
In 1891 he began to read medicine with Dr. H. E. Hale, now of Mc-
Leansboro, and for four years attended the medical school at Keokuk,
Iowa, now Drake University. He was graduated March 5, 1895, and en-
tered into practice at Springerton, Illinois, but after six years came to
Dahlgren, where he has continued in active practice to the present time,
1196 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
with the exception of several months, and his success in a number of seri-
ous cases has won him the confidence of the people of his community and
served to increase his practice.
On September 3, 1891, Dr. Crerneens was united in marriage with Miss
Lulu Martin, near Belle Prairie, Illinois. She was born in 1876, on a
farm about two miles west of McLeansboro, and is a daughter of Samuel
and Mary (Coker) Martin. Three children have been born to Dr. and
Mrs. Cremeens : Hugh, born in 1892, who died when about one year old ;
Blythe, born in 1896, who died in infancy ; and Lyle, born in 1900, and
now attending school. Dr. Cremeens is an adherent of Republican prin-
ciples, but he has taken only a good citizen's interest in matters of a pub-
lic nature. He and his wife are consistent members of the Methodist
church, and very popular in church and social circles of Dahlgren.
HARDY C. VORIS. Newspaper work is essentially transitory in its na-
ture. The newspaper article that may be read with the most absorbing
interest today by thousands is tomorrow forgotten by the eager public,
as it is then no longer "news" and some more recent event has taken
its place as the center of public attention for a few brief hours. Con-
sequently the newspaper article possesses none of the stability of other
literary effort. Rarely is it kept for general reference except in the files
of the newspaper office itself. It is read, makes more or less of an im-
pression for a time, and is then superseded by the next issue and thrown
aside. To make a permanent impression upon this particularly kaleido-
scopic field of the world 's work requires something more than mere talent ;
it requires absolute genius, and the fact that a publisher and editor can
make a deep and lasting impression upon the public conscience, an im-
print that influences public opinion and acts as a factor in determining
the outcome of large issues, shows him to be possessed of that genius.
Such has been the record of Hardy C. Voris, editor of the Waterloo Re-
publican, of Waterloo, Illinois, a strong party newspaper which he has
conducted for the past twenty years. Mr. Voris was born June 21, 1863,
at Waterloo, a son of Z. J. and Edith (Rogers) Voris, and is descended
on both sides of the family from ancestors who came to this country at an
early day and took a prominent part in its development.
Coert Alberts van voor Hees, the paternal ancestor, resided in front
of the village Hees, near Ruinen, Holland, prior to 1600; the word
"voor" meaning "in front of." Steven Coerte Van Voorhees, his son,
emigrated from Holland to America in 1660, and settled at Platlands,
Long Island, and since that time various branches of the family have
spelled the name in different ways, such as Voorhees, Voorhies, Voor-
heis, Voorhis, Vorhes, Voris, Vorus and Vores, and many have prefixed
the Van to each of these styles. The original progenitor had three sons,
one of whom settled in Kentucky, one remained in the East and one
went to Ohio. The branch of the family with which this article has to
deal belong to the Kentucky settler, and Senator Voorhees of that state
belongs also to this line.
Z. J. Voris, the father of Hardy C., was born in Moredock precinct,
November 20, 1840, and, reared to agricultural pursuits, has made that
his life work. He now resides on his ranch at Sheridan, Texas. On
August 6, 1862, he was married to Miss Edith Rogers, daughter of Dr.
John and Jane (Hilton) Rogers. Dr. John Rogers was a pioneer phy-
sician of Monroe county, having come here from New London, Con-
necticut, where he was born, a son of Rev. Peter Rogers, chaplain and
one of the life guards of General George Washington. Peter. Rogers
was descended from Rev. John Rogers, one of the English martyrs, and
a descendant of Roger of France, who went to England with William
OF THE
H5WERSJTY OF ILLISC
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1197
the Conqueror. Mrs. Edith (Rogers) Voris died in March, 1888, hav-
ing been the mother of five children, namely: Hardy C. ; Mrs. R. J.
Williams, a resident of Los Angeles, California; Harry, who is de-
ceased; Don, who makes his home in St. Louis; and James P., who
died in infancy. Z. J. Voris was married (second) to Miss Rowena
Tolin, who survives. They are members of the Baptist church, and Mr.
Voris is a Republican in his political views.
Hardy C. Voris spent his early life on his father's farm, and his
education was secured in the public schools, he being a member of the
first graduating class of Waterloo High School, in June, 1879. While
attending school he was engaged in work in a printing office, thus learn-
ing the trade, and after he had taught school for a period covering six
years he again went back to that occupation, which he followed in
various fields. In 1890, recognizing the need and opportunity for a
Republican newspaper in Monroe county, -he purchased the old
Advocate, at Waterloo, and on January 1st began the publication of
the Republican, this being the first time the paper had changed hands
since its inception in 1858. When the Republican first entered the
field Monroe county was an almost invincible Democratic stronghold,
but now it invariably shows a Republican majority, and while it will
not be said that this change in political affairs has been brought about
solely through the influence of this sheet, it may be truly stated that
no other journal has accomplished so much for the ' ' Grand Old Party ' '
in this section during this time. A born newspaper man, Mr. Voris has
given his readers a clean, reliable periodical, and that his efforts have
been appreciated has been shown by the enormous increase in circulation
which the paper has enjoyed and the confidence placed in the prin-
ciples it advocates. An interesting object in the offices of the news-
paper here is the oldest press in Southern Illinois, which is still doing
yeoman duty as a proof press.
On October 27, 1890, Mr. Voris was married to Miss Lethe M. Brey,
daughter of the late Judge Paul C. and Sophie (Durfee) Brey, and
two children have been born to this union: Lucile and Bryant. Mr.
Voris' untiring work in behalf of Republican policies was recognized
by his appointment to the office of postmaster of Waterloo, a position
which he held for thirteen years, and during his administration he
was the prime mover in securing the installation of the rural free
delivery service here. Since 1905 he has served as president of the
school board, and has shown himself a capable and conscientious public
official.
ALLEN F. CALVIN. It is fitting that in these biographical memoirs of
the men of Southern Illinois the name of Allen F. Calvin, of Newton, Illi-
nois, should have a place, for he has by his enterprise and his progressive
methods contributed in a very material way to the industrial and com-
mercial advancement not only of Newton, but also of the surrounding
section. He is a splendid example of that typically American product —
the self-made man, for he was not born with the proverbial silver spoon
in his mouth, but to the contrary has had to battle with life from his boy-
hood. He has had an honorable and successful business career, and has
been a dominant factor in some of the most important enterprises in New-
ton. As a business man his ability is undoubted, and particularly is this
true in the field of finance.
Allen F. Calvin was born in White county, Illinois, on the 15th of
June, 1865. He is a son of Thomas Calvin, who, although the earlier years
of his life were devoted to farming, later became a railroad man and was
connected with this industry at the time of his death. In 1863 he was
Vol. Ill- 8
1198 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
married to Mary C. Hanks, and four children were born to him and his
wife. Of these Allen F. Calvin was the next to the eldest. Two of the
children died in infancy, leaving Allen and his brother Frank, who at
present resides in the city of Indianapolis. Thomas Calvin died in De-
cember, 1908, having been preceded by his wife, who died in March,
1897.
Shortly after the birth of Allen F. Calvin his parents removed to
Flora, Illinois, and here the boy grew up. The family while not poor were
only in comfortable circumstances, and since an education was something
of a luxury in those times young Allen did not have many years in the
school room. Three winters, that was all, but he made the most of his
time and obtained as much benefit as a boy nowadays would from double
the time. To use his own picturesque phrase, he is a graduate of that
school known as experience, and many of his early disappointments he
has found to be valuable assets in after life. He remained in the town of
Flora until 1881, and then at the age of sixteen determined to go to
Newton and find work.
He therefore came to Newton, and secured employment as a clerk in
a clothing store, following this line of work until February, 1895, when
he formed a partnership with E. W. Hersh in the investment business.
The firm, which was known as Hersh and Calvin, existed until 1901, and
they built up a very lucrative business. Between 1895 and 1901 they
purchased the Bank of Newton, a private banking house. This they con-
ducted in connection with their investment, and their patronage grew so
large that they finally determined to nationalize the institution. In
1901, therefore, the Bank of Newton, became the First National Bank of
Newton, Illinois. When this was done they closed out the investment
business, in order to have more time to give to the new enterprise. Mr.
Calvin is vice president of the First National Bank of Newton, Illinois,
and is also one of the owners of the Bank of Commerce, a private bank-
ing house, located at Wheeler, Illinois. In 1905 Mr. Calvin again went
into the investment business, operating independently. He deals mainly
with first mortgage loans, and much of his time is spent in looking after
his large real estate holdings and in caring for his banking interests.
Mr. Calvin was married in April, 1888, to Miss Eva Shup, a daugh-
ter of George H. and Elsie C. Shup, of Newton. Mr. and Mrs. Calvin
have no children, but they have the love of the little folks far and near.
It is safe to trust a child's intuition, so it will cause no surprise that Mr.
and Mrs. Calvin should have a very large circle of friends, who respect
them for the strength and fineness of their characters, and love them for
the charm of their personalities. Both Mr. Calvin and his wife are mem-
bers of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Politically Mr. Calvin is a Republican, but his interest in politics is
only that of an intelligent voter and he has no desire for political hon-
ors. His fraternal affiliations are with the Masons and the Knights of
Pythias. He is also a member of the Commercial Club, taking an active
part in the work of this organization, and he has done as much to put
Newton on the map of Illinois as has any one man in his city.
JOHN D. LYLE, M. D. C. The very desirable quality of faithful citi-
zenship is not monopolized entirely by those of us who have been born
beneath the protection of the flag of that nation whose citizens we are.
That fact has been demonstrated on repeated occasions, and is particu-
larly exemplifie'd in the history of the Lyle family. Born and reared in
Ireland, both the father and grandfather of John D. Lyle gave to the
land of their adoption every drop of allegiance and loyalty that was com-
mon to their make-up, and rendered a service to the Union that was sur-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1199
passed by none, in that they did what they could for the cause. In this
connection it is entirely in keeping with the demands of this occasion that
more extended mention be made of the ancestry of John D. Lyle.
Dr. John D. Lyle is the son of William J. Lyle and the grandson of
James Lyle. The last named was born and reared in Ireland, in the
town of Larne in County Down, and there he also settled down and
reared his family. His wife died just prior to the immigration of the
family to the United States, and when James Lyle arrived in America
he was accompanied by his children, among whom were: Martha, who
later became the wife of James H. Dickey, one of the old and honored
merchants of Sparta, Illinois; Eliza, who married James Miller and
passed away in Sparta ; William J. ; and Thomas, who made his home in
Seattle, Washington, where he lately passed away, leaving one son.
James Lyle settled in Randolph county, Illinois, upon a farm near
Sparta. He had not been a resident of the United States for long when
the Civil war broke out, and it was then that the splendid patriotism,
fealty and honor of the true son of Erin was made manifest in the Lyle
family. Father and son, James and William, both enlisted in the cause
of the Union, and as members of Company I, Forty-ninth Illinois In-
fantry, did valiant and heroic duty throughout the long and bitter
struggle, serving with their regiment in its activities on both sides of the
Mississippi river and in various campaigns until the close of the war.
Civil life again resumed, father and son returned to the farm, where
they made as admirable records as citizens as they had made as sol-
diers. The senior Lyle continued for some years with the farm life, but
the younger man became interested in the mercantile business, and his
early experience in that line was gained in the employ of a Mr. Dickey,
a merchant of Sparta. In 1894, James Lyle died at Sparta at the age of
seventy-four years, serene in the knowledge that he had been a factor
in the preservation of a great nation, and in the further knowledge of a
life of better than three score and ten years well spent.
The education of William J. Lyle was acquired chiefly after his re-
turn from the war, and then entirely by his own efforts. A man of ex-
ceptionally bright mind and an inordinate desire for knowledge, he has
always been a wide reader and a student of life from every point of view.
While his actual book learning as a student in his youthful days was but
meagre, he has by his own careful and well directed studies attained a
knowledge and education that is of a high order.
After a career of several years in merchandising, in which time he
succeeded to the business of Mr. Dickey, his brother-in-law, he directed
his efforts in a new departure and became actively engaged in the livery
and live stock business in Sparta in 1881. His mania for blooded horses
was at last to be given expression, and for thirty years he conducted a
breeding stable in conjunction with a well equipped livery, and he be-
came the owner of many fine imported Percherons and standard bred
stallions, as well as thoroughbred mules, and he has been in that time an
important factor in improving the stock of mules and horses in Ran-
dolph county. After thirty years of life as a stock breeder he surren-
dered active business life and has virtually retired from the field. In
1911 he made his first trip back to the land of his birth, and incidentally
to visit Europe on a sightseeing tour and to study at first hand the social
and economic conditions of the old world, in which he has always been
deeply interested.
William J. Lyle married Miss Ellen Miller, a daughter of Andrew
Miller, and she died July 12, 1887. Their children were: Charles, of
Blair, Illinois ; Millard, of Telluride, Colorado ; James, of Sparta ; Dr.
John D., of this review, and Harry, Ella and Martha, all of Sparta. Un-
1200 HISTOKY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
til 1896 Mr. Lyle was an adherent to Republican principles, but at that
time he was drawn by the "Free Silver" slogan to unite with the party
who was then the exponent of that cause, and he has continued in har-
mony with progressive Democracy since that time.
Dr. John D. Lyle was a student in the Sparta high school, about to be
graduated with his class, when he gave up school and, imitating the ex-
amples of his father Tind grandfather, went in for army life. The war
with Spain had just been concluded, and he, with many another young
man, became fired with the desire to see our new possessions and to serve
in the army, not alone as a matter of service, but for the experience and
the wider fields of knowledge it opened up to him. Accordingly, in Sep-
tember, 1899, he enlisted in Company 1, of the Forty-first United States
Volunteer Infantry, with Colonel Richmond in command. His was the
largest regiment ever recruited by the United States army and it was
mobilized at Camp Meade, Pennsylvania, and sailed in November, 1899,
from New York harbor for the Philippine Islands. In January, 1900,
the regiment was distributed through the interior of Luzon, doing patrol
duty, teaching the natives and in every way endeavoring to introduce
the spirit of Americanism, until in May, 1901, when the command em-
barked for home, completing the world's circuit at San Francisco on
June 26th following. The regiirent was mustered out at Presidio, July
3rd, and Dr. Lyle came directly home.
His plans already matured for the preparation required for his pro-
fession, he became a student in the Chicago Veterinary College, being
graduated therefrom in April, 1904. No fitter location could be desired
than the home of his boyhood and youth, and there he settled to follow
the practice of his profession, where he has remained to the present time.
He is recognized as one of the ablest of his profession in Southern Illi-
nois, and has been particularly successful in demonstrating the value of
the sciences as applied to diseases of the animal world. He is a member
of the Illinois Veterinary Medical Association, and is a careful student
of all that applies to the profession to which he is devoted.
Dr. Lyle is able to give some of his time to the affairs of the city, and
is now serving his second term as a member of the city council, in which
capacity he has given especially praiseworthy service. He was chosen to
that office without regard to his political faith, although he is responsive
to the demands of the Democratic party, and subscribes to the doctrines
enunciated by the more advanced thinkers of that faith.
On New Year's day, 1907, Dr. Lyle married Miss Mayme H. Neil, a
daughter of Robert Neil, the head of an old and honored Scotch family
of Sparta, and Dr. and Mrs. Lyle are the parents of two children, Cath-
erine and Robert.
WILLIAM E. GEORGE. One of the most notable examples of the self-
made man to be found in Johnson county is William E. George, of Cache
township, who, losing his father at a tender age and being compelled to
be content with but scanty educational advantages in order that he might
contribute to the support of his mother's family, learned the lessons of
thrift and industry so well that he has risen to a place among the lead-
ing agriculturists of his section. Mr. George was born December 13,
1862, on a farm in Knox county, Illinois, and is a son of Isaac and Eliza-
beth Ann (Whitman) George.
Isaac George was born in Pennsylvania, of German extraction, and
lived for a short time in Knox county, Illinois.. In 1864 he took his fam-
ily to Muscatine county, Iowa, where he met death by drowning in 1867.
He and his wife, who was born November 7, 1836, in Baltimore, Mary-
land, had five sons : Plummer, who died at the age of sixteen years ;
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1201
Charles, who is engaged in farming; "William B.; "VVhitfield, who died in
infancy ; and John W., an agriculturist of Kentucky. Mrs. George later
married for her second husband L. A. Walker, and they had two daugh-
ters, namely: Josie, who died at the age of nineteen years; and Mrs.
Jennie Miller. In 1868 the family moved to northwestern Missouri, near
Lexington, but in 1872 returned to Illinois, settling on a rented farm in
Union county, where they resided until 1882, and then coming to John-
son county, the sons in the meantime working on rented farms. In 1886
William B. George was married and purchased forty acres in Cache
township, and Charles E., in 1891, purchased forty acres. William E.
George has prospered exceedingly, and his success has been entirely the
result of his own labors. When he began farming on his own account he
did not have a dollar, and went into debt to the extent of two hundred
dollars for his first forty acres, which he soon had developed to such an
extent that the land was worth eight hundred dollars. Soon thereafter
he purchased forty acres of railroad land for two hundred dollars, and
his third forty acres cost him one thousand dollars, but he is now the
owner of five hundred and fifty acres, valued at about fourteen thou-
sand dollars, three hundred and fifty acres being under cultivation. Like
many of his fellow-agriculturists in this part of the county, he devotes a
great deal of attention to breeding live stock, and his annual shipment
of animals includes twenty mules and horses, twelve head of cattle, fifty
sheep and from fifty to one hundred hogs. As a man who has benefited
his community by assisting in developing its resources, and as a citizen
who has always been ready to assist in movements calculated to be of
benefit to his section, Mr. George is respected and esteemed by his fellow-
townsmen, who acknowledge him to be a good, practical farmer and an
excellent judge of live-stock. He is progressive in all matters, and be-
lieves in the use of the most modern machinery and methods. He be-
longs to the Masonic order as a member of Belknap Lodge and Vienna
Chapter, in both of which he is extremely popular, as he is with the mem-
bers of the Modern Woodmen of America, with which he is also con-
nected. With "his family he attends the Methodist Episcopal church, and
has been active in its work.
Mr. George was married in 1886 to Miss Sarah Ellen Littleton, daugh-
ter of Thomas Littleton, a native of North Carolina, of English descent,
who migrated to Tennessee and then to Illinois, and who died November
27, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. George have had eleven children, of whom nine
are living, as follows: Raleigh, who is married and has three children,
Ernest, Chelis and Madge ; William T., who is also married ; and Walter
E., Clyde, DeWitt, Curtis, Homer, Fred and Ray, all of whom live on the
farm with their parents.
CHRISTOPHER J. BOYD, who for more than forty years has been en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits near Anna, in Union county, Illinois, is
one of the old and honored citizens of his community, and has identified
himself with various enterprises of a business nature. Mr. Boyd is one of
the self-made men of Union county, and can look back over a life that has
been filled with industrious endeavor and usefulness to his community.
He is a native of eastern Tennessee, and was born in 1848, a son of
John and Almira (Johnson) Boyd, natives of Tennessee, both of whom
died in Union county.
Christopher J. Boyd was three years of age when he accompanied his
parents to Union county, where his father assisted to build the Illinois
Central Railroad, and he grew up on the home farm, attending the dis-
trict schools of vicinity when he could be spared from his home duties.
His education, however, was cut short by the death of his father in 1861.
1202 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and from that time until 1870 he managed the home farm for his mother.
In the year last mentioned he was married to Miss Minerva Hess, who
was born in 1848, in Union county, daughter of John Hess, an old pio-
neer resident, and at that time started to farm on his own account, rent-
ing land for five years. Having been reared to habits of industry and
economy, he was then able to make a payment on a tract of fifty acres in
Union county, and to this he has since added from time to time, now
owning one hundred and forty-nine acres of some of the best-cultivated
land in his section. He has paid a good deal of attention to fruit cul-
ture, having ten acres in apples and twenty acres in strawberries, and is
president of the Union Fruit Package Company and a director of the
Union County Fruit Growers' Association, having held the latter posi-
tion since the organization of that enterprise. Mr. Boyd has engaged to
some extent in truck farming and breeds good horses, at present having
fifteen blooded animals on his farm.
Mr. and Mrs. Boyd have had eight children, seven of whom are liv
ing, six sons and one daughter. Five sons are engaged in farming and
one son is a doctor of medicine. The daughter is the wife of Joseph Hart-
line, a prominent farmer of Union county. Mr. Boyd has been a friend
of progress along all lines and has always been ready to do his full share
as a public-spirited citizen. A strong believer in the benefits of educa-
tion, he served for nine years as a member of the township trustee school
board, and for three years, from 1906 to 1909, he acted in the capacity of
county commissioner. It has been just such men as Mr. Boyd who have
developed the best resources and advanced the interests of Union county,
and who are universally respected as the prime movers in transforming
this section of the state from a vast, uncultivated tract of practically
worthless land into one of the garden spots of Southern Illinois.
WALTER L. WYLIE, M. D. Of one of the old, historic and honoied
families of Southern Illinois Randolph county has a consistent represen-
tative in Dr. Walter L. Wylie, of Sparta. The history of the Wylie fam-
ily for three generations back is so closely interwoven with that oi
Southern Illinois that it is impossible to write even briefly of the life of
Dr. Walter L. Wylie without saying something of his ancestors who have
done so much for the spiritual and material uplift of Illinois.
Dr. Walter L. Wylie was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1875,
being the son of Rev. William T. Wylie, whose father was Rev. Dr. Sam-
uel Wylie, the founder of the family in Randolph county, and the fa-
mous exponent of the Covenanter faith, which he established in Southern
Illinois, and he is justly termed in these parts as the "Father of the
Faith." His labors in behalf of the cause were limited only by his
strength, and the best years of his life were spent among his people in
Southern Illinois, where he ministered to them in body and soul.
Dr. Samuel Wylie was born in Ballycraigie, County Antrim, Ireland.
He came to the United States alone when a young man, and thereafter
made his home with an uncle, Dr. Wylie, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
a preacher of the Covenanter faith, to which Samuel Wylie became an
ardent adherent. Dr. Wylie saw that the young man was properly edu-
cated, recognizing in him the proper timber for a benefactor of the hu-
man race, and did all in his power to properly fit his nephew for the ca-
reer in which he afterwards so distinguished himself. He began his ac-
tive ministry in 1811, in Illinois, and was the first minister of the Church
of the Covenanters west of the Alleghany mountains. He spent the first
few years of his ministry in old Kaskaskia and along the Mississippi,
where he labored valiantly to establish the faith in the hearts and minds
of the people. No small task was his, considering that his efforts for
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1203
the most part devoted to a people who were bound by the tenets of the
church of Rome, but that he succeeded beyond his fondest expectations
is amply demonstrated by conditions existing there today. After hav-
ing made a beginning and having established the church securely, he
made entry to a tract of land upon which he founded the old town of
Eden, early famed for its intense God fearing tendencies and for its
record as a second ' ' cradle of liberty. ' ' The life of Reverend Dr. Wylie
among his people was a never failing source of inspiration to all, and
his labors of love will be remembered for all time. His education
fitted him for his position most admirably, being somewhat similar to
the training of the modern medical-missionary, and he was . an indis-
pensable factor at every important ceremony in the lives of his people.
He brought them into the world ; he baptized them ; he performed their
marriage ceremonials and, when life was finished for them, he finally
buried them. Par and wide through Southern Illinois he was known
as "Priest Wylie" and his high office was performed with the most
tender love and sympathy for his ever growing flock. Early in his
ministry Dr. Wylie married Mary Milligan, and three children were
born to them: William Theodore, John and Mary. But one was
spared to them, however, William Theodore, the father of Walter B.
Wylie. Dr. Wylie died in 1873, after a beautiful life of more than
four score years, sixty of which were passed in a consuming devotion
to the cause of his church and his people in Southern Illinois.
William Theodore Wylie was born in old Kaskaskia, on March 4,
1827. He was sent east to be educated, and his training was conducted
under the able supervision of old Dr. Wylie, who had educated the
'father of William Theodore Wylie. On the completion of his regular
college course he entered a theological seminary at Xenia, Ohio, the
precept and example of the lives of both uncle and father having incul-
cated in him the ambition and desire to continue in his father's labors.
He entered upon his ministry in Randolph county as a preacher of
the Covenanter faith and spent his life in humble devotion to duty and
service of his people, in worthy emulation of his revered father. He
displayed some little interest in the development of that section of
the country as a mine owner, but all matters of a business nature were
but a secondary consideration to his earnest nature. He continued
in active service in the ministry until the last few years of his life,
when depleted health compelled him to seek some rest from his labors.
He died December 9, 1910, at the fine old age of eighty-three years,
leaving a gracious heritage of a well spent life, and rich in the memory
of all who knew him. Rev. Wylie was thrice married. Of his first
marriage two children were the result, Samuel Wylie, of Ballston Spa,
New York, and Laura J. Wylie, now professor of English in Vassar
College, Poughkeepsie, New York. His third wife, who still survives
him, was Miss Agnes Hays, daughter of James H. Hays, of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, Walter L. Wylie was her only child.
Walter L. Wylie was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1875. He
was educated in the Sparta public schools and later in the Western
Military Academy at Upper Alton, Illinois. Choosing medicine for a
profession, he completed his medical course in Chicago, graduating
therefrom in 1897. After some four years spent in the practice of
that profession in Sparta. Dr. Wylie decided that he was unfitted by
inclination for the work of a physician, and was sufficiently courageous
to relinquish his practice and turn his attention to a business career,
by which he was irresistibly attracted. Brokerage and real estate con-
stitute his active business connections, and he conducts a thriving busi-
ness along those lines, proving himself eminently fitted by nature for
1204 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
a business career. Dr. Wylie is a Republican, politically speaking, and
participates in the activities of his party only as an aid to correct
national policies. He is in no wise ambitious for office or political
preferment of whatever nature, and is well content to be merely a plain
business man.
Dr. Wylie is a director in the Southern Illinois Improvement and
Loan Association, and fraternally he is a member of the minor Masonic
bodies at Sparta, as well as a member of the Peoria Consistory, having
taken his thirty-second degree in masonry.
On August 10, 1903, Dr. Wylie was married to Miss Flora Hayes,
a daughter of Monroe Hayes, formerly of Carbondale, Illinois, where
Mrs. Wylie was educated in the Southern Illinois Normal and com-
pleted her musical studies under the personal supervision of Professor
Sherwood, of Chicago.
WILLIAM C. DOWELL is deputy warden of the Southern Illinois Peni-
tentiary and has spent approximately thirty-four years of his life in
prison work with this institution. He was one of the first force of em-
ployes who came to Chester to do the preliminary work of building the
prison, and it can be truthfully said that the first work of clearing the
ground for the prison site was done by him. Mr. Dowell was born at
Dover, Tennessee, on the 30th of October, 1852, and his father was John
C. Dowell, overseer of the iron furnaces of John Bell at Dover. John C.
Dowell entered the river service and became mate, pilot and then cap-
tain of a packet in the Nashville-St. Louis service. After following that
occupation for about a dozen years he engaged in building the Illinois
Central Railroad as one of its contractors, and when he retired from that
work he settled on a farm in Williamson county, Illinois, there passing
the declining years of his life. He was born in Daviess county, Ken-
tucky, of Irish lineage, his ancestry having been originally from county
Down, Ireland. The family name in its primitive form was "McDowell"
and was so written by Allen McDowell, grandfather of the subject of
this review. .Allen's children, including John C., dropped the "Me"
and all of his descendants are now known under the name of Dowell.
Allen McDowell was a colonial soldier in the war of the Revolution and
took part, also, in the war of 1812. He came into Kentucky and died at
Whitesville, in that state. He was twice married and became the father
of five sons and two daughters. In the early days he was a Democrat of
the old school, but after the close of the Civil war he and his sons trans-
ferred their allegiance to the Republican party.
John C. Dowell married Miss Sarah Mobley, a North Carolina lady
of Irish blood and a native of County Down, Ireland. She passed away
in 1886, at the age of seventy -eight years, and her honored husband died
in 1907, in his eighty-ninth year. Concerning the children of Mr. and
Mrs. John C. Dowell, four passed away early in life ; William C. is the
immediate subject of this review ; Alice is the wife of William Gulledge,
of Williamson county, Illinois; Monroe died at Carterville, Illinois, and
is survived by a family ; and Thomas L. passed away at Marion. Illinois,
where his family is now residing.
William C. Dowell, of this notice, was a child of but four years of
age at the time of his parents' removal to Illinois. He grew to maturity
in Williamson county, to which public schools he is indebted for his
preliminary educational training. As a youth he engaged in the rail-
road business on the Illinois Central Railroad as station man at Car-
bondale, following that line of enterprise from 1871 to 1877. Subse-
quently he spent six months with the United States pension department
at Salem, Illinois, and at the expiration of that period he became inter-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1205
ested in the prison work and came to Chester, as previously noted. He
became assistant clerk in the Southern Illinois Penitentiary in 1877 and
in the following year was made purchasing agent of the institution. He
served in the latter position until 1885, when he was appointed deputy
warden by General Mitchell, the warden. He served as deputy warden
until 1893, when he was appointed captain of the World's Fair secret
service force at Chicago. From 1894 to 1896 he was assistant secretary
of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, the committee which
so successfully blocked the efforts of the Bryan management and carried
the state by an overwhelming majority for McKinley, thus closing the
greatest political campaign ever fought in the United States. In 1897
Mr. Dowell returned to Chester as deputy warden, by appointment of
J. M. Tanner, and he served as such until 1904, when he again resigned,
only to be reappointed in the following year by Governor Deneen. In
his capacity as prison official Mr. Dowell has covered a large portion of
the United States in pursuit of escaped convicts and he has a wide ac-
quaintance among prison men and peace officers everywhere. His fa-
miliarity with Illinois and her public men is most pronounced and the
statesmen and politicians developed by the conditions of the Civil war
were in their palmiest days of service when he was annexed as a public
servitor.
Mr. Dowell became interested in active politics as a young man and
was a delegate to the state conventions of 1876, 1884 and 1896, as a Re-
publican. He has served under all the governors of the state since 1877
and under seven wardens during that period. In fraternal circles he is
a Knight Templar, an Odd Fellow and an Elk, and he was a delegate to
the Grand Lodges of the Odd Fellows order in 1876 and 1877.
At Chester, Illinois, on the 18th of November, 1885, was solemnized
the marriage of Mr. Dowell to Miss Mary Dunn, a daughter of Andrew
Dunn, who was born and reared in County Antrim, Ireland. Mrs.
Dowell was born at Chester, Illinois, and is a member of a family of eight
children, six of whom are living, in 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Dowell are the
parents of the following children, — Linnie, who is the wife of D. M.
Logan, of Shawneetown, Illinois ; Jean, who is with the Terminal Rail-
way Company of St. Louis; and Dorothy, Margaret, David and Mary,
all of whom are at the parental home.
MATTHEW "W. COCKKUM. The evolution of Franklin county from an
untamed wilderness into a populous, highly improved and well ordered
community has occupied but a brief span of years. There are those now
living who were here in time to aid in the beginning of the struggle
against the forces of nature. And yet there has been time for families
to grow up and children and grandchildren to be born and to scatter
west, north and south. Such has been the history of the family of Mat-
thew W. Cockrum, an old and respected citizen of Franklin county and a
man who stands high in the estimation of all who know him. Although
now spending the closing years of his life in retirement, he was at one
time the leading agriculturists of his county. Mr. Cockrum was born
in Franklin county, January 29, 1838, a son of Matthew and Sarah (Gib-
son) Cockrum, and a grandson on both the maternal and paternal sides
of a family of Kentucky farming people.
Matthew Cockrum was born in Kentucky, and came to Illinois at a
very early day, settling as a pioneer near Ewing. In 1840 he took his
family to a farm on the present site of Sesser, and started to cultivate the
one hundred and eighty acre tract which he had secured from the gov-
ernment. He was engaged in farming during the remainder of his life,
1206 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and his death occurred in 1895, when he was known as the wealthiest
man of his locality.
Matthew W. Cockrum received his education in the subscription
schools, and his boyhood was spent in hard work upon his father's farm.
He experienced the usual trials and discouragements that befell the
pioneers of his section, but the training gave him splendid physical
strength and taught him that the true road to success lies only through
hard work and persistent effort. In time he became the owner of a prop-
erty of his own, on which he resided until 1908, and then retired from ac-
tive pursuits and settled in Sesser. He reserved eighty acres on the edge
of the town, which he platted into lots, and also owns thirty acres within
the corporation limits. At one time Mr. Cockrum was the owner of over
eight hundred acres of land in Franklin county, but during 1910 he di-
vided this among his children. He is a sturdy Republican in politics, but
has given his whole attention to his farming interests, and has never
allowed his name to be used in connection with public office. In his long
and active career Mr. Cockrum has had a reputation for the highest in-
tegrity and business ability, a man of extraordinary foresight in placing
investments and a good and public-spirited citizen of Franklin county.
In 1860 Mr. Cockrum was married to Miss Ruth Greenwood, daughter
of Willoughby Greenwood, an early settler of Franklin county. Of the
children born to this union five are now living, namely : Martha Jane, who
married William Jones; Arta M., who married Charles Jones; Laura L.,
who married Robert Sherriff ; Francis M., who is engaged in farming in
Franklin county; and Monia D., who married Alva Stephenson. Mrs.
Cockrum died July 3, 1909, in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal
church. On June 23, 1910, Mr. Cockrum was married to Mrs. Matilda
(Isaacs) Brayfield, widow of J. M. Brayfield, who died in 1904. Mrs.
Cockrum is a daughter of George Isaacs, a veteran of the Mexican war
and an early settler of Franklin county.
ALEXANDER WILSON MILLER. The mining interests of Southern Illi-
nois are vast and varied and have called forth the best efforts and activ-
ities of some of the leading men of this section, in which connection the
name of Alexander Wilson Miller stands forth as superintendent of the
old Brush mining property of Carterville, now known as the Madison
Coal Corporation, which includes the old Colp mine adjacent to Carter-
ville. Mr. Miller has been in charge of the property since November,
1910, succeeding James Reid in the position. His life has been spent in
the industry of mining, comes from a family of coal miners, and was born
in St. Louis, Missouri, July 12, 1865. His parents located in Belleville,
Illinois, in 1869, and around that town and in the graded schools there
he grew up and secured his somewhat limited education.
Alexander Miller, the father of Alexander W., was born in Ayrshire,
Scotland, was married there and came to the United States when about
thirty years of age. He grew up in the atmosphere of the mines and dug
coal all of his life, and his death occurred at 0 'Fallen, Illinois, in 1906,
when he was seventy-six years of age. His wife, who bore the maiden
name of Mary Wilson, resides at Glen Carbon, Illinois, and is seventy-
eight years old. They had four children : N. K., of Glen Carbon ; Mrs.
Jane Clayton and Mrs. Elizabeth White, of 0 'Fallon ; and Alexander
Wilson, of Carterville.
Beginning his trade as a lad of twelve years, it was impossible for
Alexander W. Miller to secure much schooling, but home study and much
reading have made him a well-educated man. His name appeared on the
payroll of the Palm mine at Belleville in 1877, and his efforts thenceforth
were directed in mastering the details of mining. He was a coal digger
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1207
until he was thirty-three years of age, when he was made a mine manager
at Glen Carbon, Illinois, and there did the work that earned him the su-
perintendency of the old Big Muddy properties at Carterville. On Febru-
ary 26, 1886, Mr. Miller was married at O'Fallon, Illinois, to Miss Minnie
Sherman, a daughter of George Sherman, a painter and settler there
from Indiana. Mrs. Sherman was formerly Miss Amanda Powell, whose
ancestors were of the old residents of Ridge Prairie in St. Clair county,
going there with the noted Colonel Thomas. Mr. Miller established his
home in Edwardsville, and is still a resident there. His children are:
Raymond, who is assistant electrician of the Madison Coal Corporation
at Carterville ; Elton, who is bill clerk for the same concern ; Blanche,
who is a teacher in the Glen Carbon schools ; and Bernice Fern and Ker-
mit R., students in the public schools.
Mr. Miller has manifested much interest in Free Masonry, having
taken the thirty-second degree by both the Scottish and York routes. He
is a member of the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Eastern Star at Edwards-
ville, of the Council and Commandery at Alton, and of the Consistory at
Chicago and the Mohammed Temple at Peoria. His membership in the
Knights of Pythias he holds at Glen Carbon. He is a Republican in poli-
tical matters, but outside of showing a good citizen 's interest in the affairs
of the day he has not engaged in public affairs.
WILLIAM M. GRISSOM. A man whose life 's activities have demanded
the possession and use of a high order of intellectual attainments as well
as ability in leadership of men is Mr. William M. Grissom, Jr., who is now
well known as the president of the Merchants State Bank of Centralia,
Illinois. The Grissom family was one of the first to settle in Johnson
county, Illinois, John Grissom having crossed the country between North
Carolina and that point in 1818, traveling the whole distance in a one
horse cart. This was the great-grandfather of William M. Grissom, Jr.,
whose life it is our purpose to sketch. Next in line came Warren Grissom,
a native of North Carolina, who was brought by his father to Illinois. At
the age of twenty-four years he was united in marriage to Miranda Fin-
ney, a native of Ohio, whose parents died when she was a small child,
and who was brought to Golconda, Illinois, when six years old by an aunt
with whom she lived. Her demise occurred several years before that of
her husband, who married again later and was the father of ten chil-
dren. His death occurred in 1867, and he was buried in Pope county.
The oldest son of his family was William M. Grissom, Sr., the father of
our subject, his birthplace being a prairie home in Grantsburg township,
and the date on which he was born, December 9, 1830. In 1859 he as-
sumed the responsibilities of a family man and was united in wedlock
with Miss Eliza Farless, a native of Johnson county. To this union were
born ten children, including: Sidney A., deceased; James E., Jane,
Thomas S., Kittie and Ida, all of whom died in infancy ; Mary Elizabeth,
wife of Frank Ferris; and William M., Jr. The mother of these chil-
dren died in 1886 and subsequently Mr. Grissom married again, his sec-
ond wife being Eliza Spense, of Massac county, Illinois. Mr. Grissom is
a prosperous farmer and now resides with his wife in Vienna.
William M. Grissom, Jr., was born October 3, 1872, on a farm in
Grantsburg township, Johnson county, and until seventeen years of age
he employed his time in attending school and performing such duties as
are common to the son of an agriculturist. He then entered the Southern
Illinois State Normal University, and for several years alternately at-
tended college and taught school to help defray his college expenses, con-
tinuing with this method until he had acquired the equivalent of a three
years' course. It was Mr. Grissom 's worthy ambition to devote his life
1208 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to the cause of education, and this desire he carried out with fidelity.
He followed the pedagogical profession for a period of twenty years, dur-
ing eight of which he filled the office of county superintendent of schools
of Johnson county, discharging his duties in a manner highly satisfac-
tory to the public and with great credit to himself. He was first elected
to that office in 1902, served a term of four years and was re-elected in
1906, continuing in office until December 1, 1910.
While acting as county superintendent of schools Mr. Grissom was a
strong advocate of agricultural extension work and zealously labored for
the advancement of scientific agricultural methods, and the introduction
into the rural schools of studies covering them. His interest in the pro-
motion of the best interests of the rural people was further demonstrated
by his activity in the Johnson County Farmers' Institute, of which or-
ganization he acted as secretary for several years and in January, 1911,
was elected president. An off-shoot of this institute was the Johnson
County Fair Association, Mr. Grissom becoming its first secretary and
filling the same office for three successive years, 1905-06-07. While at
the head of that institution's affairs the new fair grounds were platted
and he, with the assistance of J. C. Blair, of the State University, laid out
the plans for the location of the various buildings and supervised their
erection. He is at the present time filling the office of president of the
Fair Association.
For several years Mr. Grissom was connected with the Agricultural
Extension Department of the State University as lecturer, and it was
largely due to his influence that the agricultural department has been
added to the curriculum of the Southern Illinois Normal University at
Carbondale, of which institution of learning he is a trustee. Mr. Gris-
som's interest and activities in agricultural work are not wholly the-
oretical, for he is a practical farmer and is known as the premier dairy-
man of Johnson county, and owns a two hundred and five acre farm near
Vienna that is one of the finest in this section of the country. Owing to
his removal to Centralia to live and the multiplication of his commercial
interests he recently disposed of a splendid herd of Holstein cattle which
he had kept upon his farm.
Mr. Grissom 's connection with financial institutions dates back several
years, and while filling the office of county superintendent of schools he
was first elected as a director of the First National Bank of Vienna, and
in July 1, 1910, was made vice president of the same institution. In the
summer of 1911 Mr. Grissom, in company with other substantial men,
purchased a controlling interest in the stock of the Merchant's State Bank
of Centralia, Illinois, which was established in 1889, and is known as one
of the most stable financial institutions of that city. The bank has a capi-
tal stock of fifty thousand dollars and assets aggregating four hundred
and twenty-five thousand dollars. On August 1, 1911, the new owners
had an election of officers, which resulted as follows: William M. Gris-
som, Jr., president ; J. Hefter, vice president ; Jacob Pfeifer, second vice
president; J. F. Mackay, cashier; S. Condit, assistant cashier. President
Grissom removed with his family to Centralia in October, 1911. to take
active charge of the operation of the bank. The foregoing recital apply
illustrates the wide extent and superior character of the activities of Mr.
Grissom in business and professional life, and the fact that he has
achieved abundant success in whatever channel he has directed his en-
deavors proves his possession of unlimited energy and a high order of
ability. Yet his interests are not confined to commercial and professional
work, and social and religious circles also are debtor to his activity. He
has from his youth been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church,
worked in the Sunday-school as one of its most effective teachers and he
OF THE
C5iV£8SITY C? I^J
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1209
has served also as president of the Johnson County Union Sunday-school
Association. He takes an active part in the direction of the church's af-
fairs, being a trustee of the Vienna Methodist church. His lodge af-
filiations are numerous and include membership in the A. F. & A. M.,
Knights Templars, Eastern Star and Knights of Pythias. Politically
he is a believer in the principles of the Republican party.
On April 8, 1894, occurred the marriage of Mr. Grissom to Miss Nettie
I. Farris, a daughter of T. J. and Amanda Farris, of Johnson county.
Mr. and Mrs. Grissom are the parents of four children, three of whom
are living. They are Curtis, sixteen years of age ; Dorothy, twelve years
old ; and Mildred, three and one-half years of age. James died when a
child of two and one-half years.
The accession to the citizenship in any community of a man of the
stable character and high abilities possessed by Mr. Grissom is a distinct
advantage, and Centralia is to be congratulated upon his becoming a resi-
dent there. Few men are accorded the unstinted admiration and respect
given by all to Mr. Grissom and among his extensive acquaintance there
is not one but holds him in highest esteem for his many personal attrib-
utes and his public benefactions.
CHARLES L. RITTER. As a native son of Southern Illinois and a
member of one of the sterling pioneer families of this section of the
state, Mr. Ritter is well entitled to consideration in this publication, as
is he also by reason of his standing as one of the representative busi-
ness men and progressive and public-spirited citizens of Murphysboro,
the judicial center of Jackson county. He has been influential in the
furthering of measures, and enterprises tending to advance the civic and
material welfare of his home city and county and has been specially
prominent in connection with educational affairs, .the while his personal
popularity in the community emphatically gives evidence that he has
measured up to the gauge of public approbation, which is the mete-
wand of character.
Charles Louis Ritter was born in the city of Cairo, capital of Alex-
ander county, Illinois, on the 21st of September, 1868, and is a son of
Louis and Kate (Erne) Ritter. The family removed to Murphysboro
in 1871, when he was about three years of age, and here his parents
passed the remainder of their lives, secure in the high regard of all who
knew them. The father devoted the major part of his active career
to merchant tailoring, and is a man of prominence and influence in
Jackson county. To the public schools of Murphysboro Charles L. Rit-
ter is indebted for his early educational discipline, and he was grad-
uated in the high school as a member of the class of 1885, when but six-
teen years of age. Thereafter he devoted sixteen years as an officer of
Jackson County and First National Banks, and at the expiration of this
period he engaged in the real-estate and insurance business, with which
line of enterprise he has since continued to be actively identified and
in which his operations have been of broad scope and importance.
Through the medium of his real-estate business he has done much to
further the material advancement of his home city and county, and he
is one of the leading factors in his field of business in this section of
his native state. His transactions have been of important order, in-
volving the handling of valuable city and farm property, and the scope
of his business has been expanded to include representation as a
general fiscal agent. Mr. Ritter has won large and definite success
through his own well directed efforts and has large and varied capital-
istic interests. He is a member of the directorate of the First Na-
tional Bank of Murphysboro and also that of the Murphysboro Savings
1210 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Bank, and he was prominently concerned in the development of the
Murphysboro Waterworks, Electric & Gas Light Company, of which
he was superintendent for two years. He is secretary of the Jackson
County Fair Association, and served for some time as president of the
local board of insurance underwriters. Among the most worthy and
valuable achievements of Mr. Ritter as touching matters of general
public import has been his work in connection with the advancement
of the standard of public-school systems in Jackson county, and his
interest in this important work has been of the most loyal and insistent
order. He was a member of the official board under whose direction
was erected the present fine township high school building of Murphys-
boro township, in the city of Murphysboro, and he served as president
of the board of education of this township for five years.
Though he has manifested no desire for the honors or emoluments of
political office, Mr. Ritter is aligned as a stalwart supporter of the
principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor.
He is an appreciative and influential member of the Knights of Pythias
and in this order is now grand chancellor of the Grand Lodge of Illi-
nois. He is also affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order
of Elks and the Modern Woodmen of America, besides which he was
for a number of years president of the Jackson Club, one of the rep-
resentative civic organizations of Murphysboro. He has put forth many
effective efforts in behalf of educational work, and in this connection
has delivered many effective addresses before educational organiza-
tions as well as before popular assemblies of a general order. Broad-
minded, liberal and progressive, Mr. Ritter stands as a loyal and valued
citizen, and in his home community his circle of friends is coincident
with that of his acquaintances.
On the 3d of September, 1892, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
Ritter to Miss Jennie Goggin, of Murphysboro, and" they have one
daughter, Pauline Celeste.
JOSHUA H. RICKMAN, owner of the Chester Knitting Mills, was born
with the time-honored credential to greatness, that is, he was born in a
log house, this particular log house being located in Todd county, Ken-
tucky, about nine miles from Elkton, and was at that time the prevailing
style of architecture in that neighborhood.
Joshua N. Rickman, the father of Joshua H., was a Southerner of the
old school, his ancestors having lived in Virginia since before the Revo-
lution. His mother, Betsy Henry, belonged to the Henry family of which
Patrick Henry was the most historic character, and her near relatives
were among those who demonstrated their patriotism so forcibly at Meck-
lenburg and elsewhere in Virginia during the Revolution. She was born
at the close of the Revolution, but early enough to become personally
acquainted with many of the renowned patriots of that state. From Vir-
ginia the family migrated into Tennessee, and here she was married to
James Rickman, father of Joshua N. Rickman, and when the latter had
become a young man the family moved to Kentucky, where he married
Amanda Richards and here, November 28, 1861, Joshua H. Rickman was
born ; his father was enlisted in the Confederate service at the time. His
mother's people were Northern sympathizers and four of her brothers
were in the Union army, thus Joshua H. comes from a race of fighters,
not so much warriors as men of very positive opinions and courage to
back them up.
He grew up on the family homestead, a serious minded, white headed
boy ; learned to cut wood, hoe corn and ' ' worm ' ' tobacco ; went bare-
footed in summer and a stubbed toe or stone bruise was nothing uncom-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1211
mon. That the boy should be a preacher was the fond desire of his
mother's heart, whether the idea appealed to him or not, I do not know,
but strangers not infrequently mistake him for a minister, probably be-
cause the strong, square chin and aggressive nose are softened by the
sincere kindly eyes.
At the age of eighteen the wanderlust struck him and he sold his
horse and saddle and started for Illinois, where the big corn and wheat
fields appealed to him ; his strong physique and disposition to make him-
self useful readily secured for him employment with a farmer at ten
dollars a month and board. It is one thing to get a job and another to
hold it, but J. H. Rickman held his job and always held whatever job he
undertook. The following year his father moved the family to Wash-
ington county, Illinois, and settled on a farm north of Nashville and all
went well for awhile, then followed year after year of drouth and chinch
bugs, then the era of business depression, when farm products reached
their lowest price, potatoes twenty cents per bushel, wheat forty-five
cents, and horses and cattle so cheap it was an insult to a spirited horse
to have his cash value mentioned above a whisper. The prospect was any-
thing but encouraging and when he was offered a position in the Southern
Illinois Penitentiary, by the Democrats of his county, he gladly ac-
cepted. This was the real turning point in his life ; it placed within his
reach the means of achieving a place among his fellows, although that
means had to be uncovered by his own sagacity. After a time the Para-
mount Knitting Company established a plant at the prison on a con-
tract with the state to use prison labor, and the president of that concern,
being on the look out for men to strengthen his organization, soon had his
eye on Rickman and induced him to give up his position with the state
and accept one with the Paramount Company.
This was the first knitting factory he had ever seen, but with his
usual thoroughness set about learning the business from the ground up.
That he was successful in this is shown by the fact that in less than three
years he was general manager; he held this position until the company
was obliged to move from this state on account of the convict labor law
passed by the legislature.
Believing in the possibilities of Southern Illinois as a manufactur-
ing center, Mr. Rickman set about establishing the Chester Knitting
Mills. This he imbued with his own personality until the Chester Knit-
ting Mills is J. H. Rickman. In this country town where the boys form-
erly loafed in the park and smoked cigarettes, and the girls walked the
streets in idleness, you will not find an habitually idle person in the
town ; they are all employed making stockings. The work is pleasant,
clean and remunerative, as is evidenced by the four hundred happy,
healthy girls and boys that file through the doors of the factory about two
minutes past six. This enterprise started in 1905, with a capital of twenty
thousand dollars, but has twice increased its capital until now it is one
Irandred thousand dollars, with a probability of this being doubled during
the present year. The output is twelve hundred dozen pairs of stockings
daily and last year (1911) a branch factory was located at Collinsville,
Illinois, with a capacity equal to the Chester mill ; this makes Joshua H.
Rickman the largest employer of labor in Southern Illinois. This
growth is largely due to the excellence of the hosiery manufactured —
anybody can make a stocking, but to make them better than your com-
petitors takes brains.
Mr. Rickman was married November 18, 1896, at Chester, to Miss
Alice Randolph, a daughter of W. J. Randolph, of Golconda, Illinois.
Portia Isabel, now twelve years of age, is the only child. Notwithstand-
ing the close application to his business, his family always comes first,
1212 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and his highest aim in life is to make them happy. His home is one of the
beauty spots in Chester — an old colonial, vine covered house in the cen-
ter of a five acre park, and it is here in front of the open wood fire in the
winter evenings or under one of the "venerable oaks" in the summer
that some of his far seeing ideas are hatched.
THOMAS JEREMIAH. As mayor of Willisville and general superin-
tendent of the Willis Coal and Mining Company, Thomas Jeremiah is one
of the prominent men of his community. A follower of the coal mines
since he was a lad of nine years, he is well qualified to hold the responsi-
ble position he now fills, and is an acknowledged authority on many sub-
jects pertaining to coal mining. Mr. Jeremiah has also given his atten-
tion to various other matters beyond the province of coal mining, and is
actively concerned in a number of industrial organizations of varied
natures, while his connection with the organization of the National Mine
Workers of America has brought him no little prominence in surrounding
communities.
Born at Steeleville, Illinois, on June 10, 1868, Thomas Jeremiah is the
son of the venerable pioneer mine developer, John Jeremiah, now a re-
tired resident of DuQuoin, Illinois. He was born at Ponter Pool, South
Wales, in 1830, and came to the United States in 1852. He stopped for
a time in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, and reached Southern Illinois
just at the close of the Civil war, after having served a term in the Fed-
eral army as a member of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania
troops, and seeing much active service during the term of his enlistment.
He was among the first to engage in coal mining in Randolph and
Perry counties, and was prominently identified with that industry for
many years. He married Miss Margaret Bridgewaters, a daughter of
Andrew Bridgewaters, who was a pioneer of Illinois and who settled in
Perry county, where Mrs. Jeremiah was born in 1837. The issue of their
union is : Thomas, the subject ; Alfred of Percy, Illinois ; Solomon of Du-
Quoin, Illinois, an electrician with the Brilliant Coal and Coke Company ;
and Emma, the wife of Fred Kennedy, of DuQuoin. By an earlier mar-
riage with Sarah Edmund he was the parent of five children : Rachel, who
died in infancy; Edmund, of DuQuoin; William, who died in 1908, as a
miner ; Mattie, who became the wife of Charles Voice ; and John, of Percy,
Illinois. Margaret Bridgewaters, the second wife of John Jeremiah and
the mother of Thomas Jeremiah, of this review, was twice married. Her
first husband was John Yancy, and of their union four children were
born. They are : Rebecca, who married Walter Standhouse, now de-
ceased, the widow residing in DuQuoin; Rachael became the wife of
George Popham, of Herrin, Illinois, and Amos and Josephine passed
away as children.
The chief characteristic as displayed by Thomas Jeremiah in his boy-
hood was industry. At the age of nine he left off his studies and followed
his father into the mines as a student of mining methods and as a helper
when required. He passed several years thus in mastering the details
of the subject, and, becoming interested in the labor organization, was
advanced to a leadership in it at an early age. He secured additional ex-
perience as a miner in other coal fields, as in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and
he was made master workman of the Knights of Labor at Jenny Lind,
Arkansas, in 1887. Returning to Illinois in 1892, Mr. Jeremiah was later
made superintendent of the Excelsior Coal Mining Company, and held
that position until 1894, then going west and working in the mines. In
1896 he returned to Illinois and began taking an active part in organizing
the miners of Southern Illinois and was elected a member of the central
sub-district No. 7. In 1897 he was chosen a member of the state executive
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1213
board and later was appointed national organizer for the United Mine
Workers of America. In his work in the latter named capacity he cov-
ered many of the coal producing states of the Mississippi Valley and the
east, and secured a varied experience in a general way that has been of
utmost importance to him in later years. He resigned from that office in
1902 to accept service with the Willis Coal and Mining Company, with
whom he has since been employed.
Mr. Jeremiah is now serving his third term as mayor of Willisville.
He is a member of the Mine Investigators Committee of the State of Illi-
nois by appointment of Governor Deneen; he is a member of the Perry
County Fair Association and of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.
He has acted in the capacity of operators' commissioner for the Fifth
and Ninth districts, and is a member of the operators' board for the
same district. In addition to his numerous connections of a more public
character, Mr. Jeremiah is a member of the Willisville Breeding Asso-
ciation, and is superintendent of the Mid-Valley Oil Company, now pros-
pecting for oil in and about Willisville and Pinckneyville. He is a di-
rector of the First National Bank of Percy, a director of the Willis Coal
and Mining Company, of which he is also general superintendent, and is
a. member of the mercantile firm of Schmitt & Jeremiah, of Willisville.
From all of which it will be seen that he has a multiplicity of interests
demanding time and attention, in addition to his regular duties. Fra-
ternally he is an Elk and a Knight of Pythias.
On February 11, 1892, Mr. Jeremiah was married in DuQuoin to
Miss Elizabeth Davis, a daughter of Pat J. Davis, a mine manager and a
native of Illinois. Mrs. Jeremiah was born in Perry county, and is the
mother of six children : Otis, Guernzie, Lyle, Loren, Cleo and Garnie, but
the latter died at the age of six years.
FRED POTTHAST. Among this section's prosperous and substantial
citizens is Fred Potthast, whose fine farm of one hundred and fifty-two
acres, purchased in 1902, is located five miles southwest of Greenville.
He is helpfully interested in all that pertains to the welfare of the com-
munity and is of well-proved public spirit and progressiveness. Mr.
Potthast was born in Madison county, December 5, 1871, and is of Ger-
man descent, his father, Henry Potthast, having been born in the Father-
land. He came to America at the age of twenty-one years and located
in Madison county, where he engaged in farming. He married soon after
coming to America, the young woman to become his bride being Agnes
Rommerskirchen, a native of Prussia. To their union were born the
following six children : Joe, Frank, Fred, Herman, Theodore and Mary.
Mr. Potthast, the elder, continued to reside in Madison county until his
death, which deprived the community of one of its most estimable citizens.
The mother is still living in Greenville, Bond county. After the death
of her first husband she married Antoine Wolf. The subject's father was
a Democrat in his political conviction and in the matter of religion was a
communicant of the Catholic church.
The early life of Fred Potthast, immediate subject of this review, was
spent in Madison county, in whose public schools he was a student until
the age of fifteen years. He then came to Bond county and located near
Pierron, and in a school near that place continued his studies. The fam-
ily then removed to a homestead southeast of Greenville, and here Fred
reached manhood. In 1889 he was united in marriage to Miss Lena
Sharer, daughter of Fred and Julia Scharer, who has proved an ideal
helpmeet and been of great assistance to him in securing his present pros-
perity. They share their home with two children, — Agnes and Fred-
erick.
1214 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
For a number of years Mr. Potthast lived with his wife and family
south of Greenville, but in 1902 they purchased their present farm, a
property possessing many advantages, and which under careful and in-
telligent management has been greatly increased in value. Mr. Potthast
is the friend of the. best education procurable, (as he is of all good meas-
ures) and for some time served with faithfulness and efficiency as a mem-
ber of the school board. He has given hand and heart to the men and
measures of the Democratic party since his earliest voting days and his re-
ligious conviction is that of the Catholic church, in which he and his
family are zealous communicants.
HENRY WILLIAM SHRYOCK was born in OLney, Illinois, on March 25,
1861, and is a son of William and Elizabeth (Wood) Shryock, of that
city. The father was a farmer, stock-breeder and merchant, and one of
the most respected citizens of the county in which he lived and operated.
He was a man of energy and fine business capacity, and was successful in
all his undertakings by reason of his industry, integrity, ability and strict
attention to every duty in all the relations of life.
The son of William and Elizabeth Shryock began his education in the
public schools, and was graduated in a classical course from the Olney
high school. Later he matriculated at the Illinois Wesleyan University
in Bloomington, and in 1893 the university conferred upon him the de-
gree of Bachelor of Philosophy. He served as principal of the Olney
high school for eleven years, and at the end of that period was called to
the chair of Literature and Rhetoric in the Southern Illinois Normal Uni-
versity, soon thereafter being elected vice-president and registrar of the
institution. To his duties in the university he gives the most careful at-
tention, and employs his full power in their performance. But in spite
of the fact that those duties are numerous and exacting, his enthusiasm
enables him to find time and strength for a vast amount of work outside
on the lecture platform.
During the last seventeen years he has lectured on educational topics
in sixty-seven counties in Illinois and twenty-three in Indiana ; and has
done similar work at many places in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and
Michigan. He has also delivered addresses at the University of West
Virginia and the following State Normal Schools : St. Cloud, Minnesota ;
Winona, Minnesota ; Platteville, Wisconsin ; Whitewater, Wisconsin ; and
other institutions of learning, and has discussed sociology and literature
before many Chautauqua audiences and various clubs, both for men and
women. In this line of work the demands for his services are many more
than he can comply with, for he is a most impressive and popular speaker.
For the benefit of his classes and the reading public in general he
has published a translation of Moliere's "A Doctor in Spite of Him-
self," a very difficult task, but one in which Professor Shryock has won
a notable triumph. The wit and humor of Moliere is so subtle and elu-
sive that it is exceedingly difficult to carry over into a foreign language,
without loss of flavor, but in his hands its spirit has been caught and
preserved in sparkling English. He has also published an annotated
edition of Tennyson's "Princess," which has been very favorably re-
ceived and is highly commended by the most competent critics of the
country, being of great value to the ordinary reader. He is at present
engaged in the preparation of a set of readers for one of the leading book
publishing houses.
The Professor has never lost his deep interest in the cause of public
education. The very nature of his work and place of its performance
would keep him in touch with it, but back of that is his own earnest de-
sire for the enduring welfare of the country, and his positive approval of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1215
public instruction is one of the most powerful agencies in promoting it.
He has been the president of the Southern Illinois Teachers' Association
and is at this time (1911) president of the State Teachers' Association.
He is also a leading member of the State Educational Association and
takes an active part in all its proceedings. Mr. Shryock has traveled not
only in all parts of the United States, but has twice visited the leading
countries of Europe.
On July 14, 1886, Professor Shryock was married to Miss Jessie Bur-
nett, of Olney. They have one child, Burnett Henry. All the members
of the family are warmly welcomed in social circles everywhere, and con-
sidered valuable additions to the most brilliant functions. Wherever
they are known they enjoy in full measure the highest esteem, regard and
admiration of all classes of the people, yet get no more in this respect
than they richly and justly deserve.
ALLEN THOMAS SPIVET, the active and efficient postmaster of Shawnee-
town, Illinois, has not had an easy row to hoe in life. He, however, is
endowed with that gift from Pandora's box, Hope, and with this and his
indomitable courage he has been able to win success in spite of all ob-
stacles. He occupies a position of considerable influence in this part of
the state through his editorship of the Shawneetown News-Gleaner, and
in the columns of his paper his voice is continually heard on the side of
good government and progress. Through this paper he has accomplished
much for the public good, and the citizens of this section realize that if
the Shawneetown News-Gleaner can be persuaded to espouse a caus.e it
is a long step towards its success. As a politician Mr. Spivey has always
taken a prominent part in the work of his party, and is everywhere recog-
nized as one of the leaders of the Republican party in Southern Illinois.
As a business man he is also progressive and up-to-date, as will be seen
in a further account of his career.
Allen Thomas Spivey is the son of Thomas Jefferson Spivey, who was
born in Gates county, North Carolina, February 18, 1830. His father
was the founder of the family in this country, having been brought to
America at the age of two years. This rather young pioneer was Thomas
Sawyer Spivey, and was born in England, February 25, 1799. When
quite a young man he married Teresa Eason, his wife being still younger,
her age being fourteen. She was of Scotch descent. He received a fairly
good education for those times and came to Illinois in 1832, his profes-
sion being that of a school teacher. He settled in Shawneetown and taught
school for a number of years. He was greatly respected in the com-
munity, both for his learning and for his good common sense. He was
elected justice of the peace, and in 1856 was elected to the higher posi-
tion of county judge. He served in this capacity for four years. In 1860
he moved out to a farm near Shawneetown, and there he died in 1862.
His wife survived him for many years, and for a long time before her
death was a living example to all around her of the beauty of Christian
patience and fortitude, for she was blind for many years. She died in
1888, having reared the large family of ten children. Sallie, Murray,
Lydia and Thomas Jefferson were all born in North Carolina. Annie,
Henry, Mollie, Caroline and Louise were all born in Shawneetown. Of
these many children all have passed into the Great Beyond save two.
Caroline is unmarried and lives in Shawneetown and Louise is a widow
and lives in New Albany, Indiana.
Thomas Jefferson Spivey came to Shawneetown with his parents in
1832. He grew up here and received his education in the public schools.
When the gold fever swept over the country in 1849, he was seized with
the ambition to go to the west and try his fortune at picking up the nug-
1216 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
gets. He went to California, but returned two years later, having suf-
fered disappointment in his search, like so many others. On his return
he bought a farm seven miles west of Shawneetown, and settled down to
the quiet life of the farmer. He was married March 12, 1857, to Sallie
Annie Smyth, born January 27, 1841, a daughter of Samuel Marshall
Smyth, who was a native of Londonderry county, Ireland, and has set-
tled in Gallitin county in youth. Success came to Thomas Jefferson
Spivey. His farm prospered and he won many friends through his pub-
lic activities. He was a Democrat, and although he never sought office,
yet he served conscientiously in several minor offices of the community.
He and his wife were both members of the Presbyterian church, and for
twenty-five years he was an elder in the Ringgold Presbyterian church,
while his wife was a leader in many of the church activities. Ten chil-
dren were born to this couple : Quintin E., Minnie, Marguerite, Addie,
Annie, William Walter, Samuel Simon, Gertrude, Allen Thomas and
Marshall.
Allen Thomas Spivey was born on the Spivey farm, seven miles west
of Shawneetown, on the 5th of April, 1875. He was educated in the coun-
try schools until he was of high school age, when he was placed in the
Shawneetown high school. He attended school during the winters and
during vacations he worked on the farm, so life did not have much play
time for this youngster. In 1894 he finished school, but he did not feel
that he was as well equipped for the world which, from his youthful ex-
perience, he knew was not one of ease, so he entered a commercial col-
lege .in Evansville. He remained there during the winter of 1894-1895
and until 1896 he worked at various occupations, gathering a broad,
general knowledge of different phases of business. In December of 1896
he commenced work as an apprentice in a printing office, having decided
that journalism was the profession which had the strongest attraction
for him. He did not believe that he could ever become a successful jour-
nalist unless he possessed some practical knowledge, and furthermore he
had no powerful friends to get him a position as ' ' cub ' ' reporter. After
his apprenticeship he followed the trade, working in various offices, but
it was not long before his chance came to get into the real work of jour-
nalism. In 1897 he formed a partnership with A. C. Clippinger, and
they published the Norris City, Illinois, Record. This venture not prov-
ing to be as successful as he had hoped, he sold out his interest and re-
turned to Shawneetown in 1898. Here he again took up his trade, and
worked at it until the winter of 1899, when he went to Henderson, Ken-
tucky, continuing to work as a printer. No opening seemed to be in sight
and, as nearly discouraged as it is possible for Mr. Spivey to become, he
gave up his trade and in the spring of 1900 went to St. Louis and entered
the employ of a wholesale sash and door company. The call of the print-
er's ink was too strong for him, however, and whem a chance came to
go back to his old trade he accepted it gladly. In this capacity he re-
turned to Shawneetown in the fall of 1900. He only remained in news-
paper work for a few months, however, becoming a bookkeeper in a hard-
ware store in the spring of 1901. He also served as the assessor of the
Shawnee township during the spring of 1901, and in April of that year
he was elected city treasurer of Shawneetown for a term of two years.
He had always been economical, and had denied himself many com-
forts in the hope that some day he might be able to buy a paper of his
own. Now his dream was realized, for with his small savings he invested
in a Washington hand press and some type, bought a little printing office,
and November 8, 1901, the first issue of the Shawneetown Gleaner was on
the streets. This was the turning point of his career. He was no longer
to knock about from pillar to post, for the paper was a success from the
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1217
start. So prosperous was it, in fact, that on the 2nd of March, 1902, al-
most exactly five months since the first issue, Mr. Spivey was able to an-
nounce his purchase of the Shaivnee News, a Republican newspaper. The
Gleaner had been the third newspaper in Shawneetown, and while the size
of the place scarcely warranted the publication of three papers it could
easily support two. Mr. Spivey, therefore, consolidated the papers of
which he was the owner, under the title, The Shawneetown News-Gleaner.
The paper continued to grow and prospects looked brighter every day.
The debts were all about paid off on the plant when suddenly disaster
came in the shape of a fire that destroyed the whole thing on the morning
of the 4th of June, 1904. The insurance was small and the loss was
heavy, but success had once come to Mr. Spivey and now nothing could
discourage him. Taking the insurance money as a nucleus he began all
over again ; bought another plant and continued to publish the paper
without missing an issue. His confidence was fully justified, for now the
paper is one of the most influential in Southern Illinois. He is now
president of The Southern Illinois Editorial Association, an organiza-
tion composed of almost every editor in Southern Illinois. He has the
confidence and respect of all of them and was the only person ever
elected to the office without opposition.
He was appointed postmaster of Shawneetown on the 21st of Janu- •
ary, 1907, and is now serving his second term. Now that the Demo-
cratic party is beginning to show its strength, the Republican party
should congratulate itself upon the fact that such a loyal worker as Mr.
Spivey is to be found among its ranks.
Mr. and Mrs. Spivey are both members and active workers of the
Presbyterian church in Shawneetown, and in the fraternal world Mr.
Spivey is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, affiliating with
Warren lodge, and of the Masonic order, Chapter No. 14, of Shawnee-
town.
Mr. Spivey was married in McLeansboro, Illinois, on the 25th of De-
cember, 1901, to Mary O'Neal Wright, a daughter of T. B. Wright. The
latter was a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, and her
mother was Mary O'Neal, who was the daughter of John William
O 'Neal. Her father was the nephew of a man who was a political leader
in Democratic circles in Southern Illinois for many years. This man
was Judge Samuel Marshall, who was congressman for six terms, the first
time in 1855-1857, and the last time in 1873-1875. Mrs. Spivey was edu-
cated in the common schools of McLeansboro and later .attended college
in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Spivey are the parents of two
children: Mittase Wright Spivey was born on the 10th of September,
1902, and their son, Allen Thomas Spivey, Jr., was born on the 1st of
October, 1911.
Mr. Spivey possesses those characteristics that make a man loved
and honored by the community. He is straight-forward and conscien-
tious in all of his business dealings. His prosperity has been built up not
through snatching the bread from the mouths of someone else, but by
his own honest, industrious efforts. He is known for his generosity and
his charity to all who are in need, and he is a man to whom his family,
his God and his home mean more than all of the wealth and fame in the
world. He has added much to the material prosperity of the town, not
only in the erection of his beautiful modern home, which is both com-
modious and attractive, but also in the business block occupied by the
postoffice and other offices, which he owns. He is also the owner of other
property throughout the town. He feels that although he has had a stiff
battle with life, yet in his ambition to succeeed he has not torn down the
1218 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
work of others, for his philosophy is, "Work and application to this
work, and you will find that the world has room for us all. ' '
WILLIAM A. WILLIS. Possessing the foresight to recognize the future
of Sesser as a commercial center and the courage to take advantage of the
opportunity presented to him, William A. Willis came to this city some-
thing less than seven years ago with but little capital other than shrewd
business ability, and through wise investments has won himself a place
among the substantial men of his adopted locality. Aside from being an
extensive land owner he has acted in the capacity of postmaster of Ses-
ser since becoming a citizen here, and in his administration of the gov-
ernment 's affairs has proven himself an able official of a rapidly-growing
community. Mr. Willis was born in Jefferson county, Illinois, Febru-
ary 19, 1854, and is a son of Josiah and Anna Eliza (Cockrum) Willis.
Tolliver Willis, the grandfather of William A., was born in Tennes-
see, and came to Illinois with his family at an early day, the remainder
of his life being spent here in agricultural pursuits. His son, Josiah
Willis, was born in Jackson county, Tennessee, in 1824, and was a lad
when brought to Jefferson county, Illinois. His mother dying when he
was still a youth, he was bound out to a blacksmith at Edwardsville,
Illinois, to learn the trade, and when the Civil war broke out he enlisted
in Company A, One Hundredth and Tenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, as regimental blacksmith, remaining in the service two years
and ten months. On his return from the army he purchased a small
farm, and continued to operate this and conduct a 'smithy until his
death in 1907. Mr. Willis had been an adherent of Democratic princi-
ples up to the time of the candidacy of Blaine and Logan, but at that
time, owing to his intense admiration for General Logan, he became a
Republican, and that party received his support during the remainder of
his life. Josiah Willis married Anna Eliza Cockrum, daughter of Mat-
thew F. Cockrum, a native of Kentucky, who became one of Franklin
county's wealtiest and most highly esteemed citizens and left a large
estate to his family at his death.
William A. Willis received few advantages of an educational nature
in his youth, and his energies as a lad were devoted to tilling the soil of
his father's farm and working in the blacksmith shop. Inheriting me-
chanical ability, he became a skilled blacksmith and something of a ma-
chinist, and for two years worked at the latter trade in Benton. Subse-
quently he removed to Tameroy, and for the next five years was en-
gaged in selling machinery for Alva Blanchard, and later followed the
same line as a traveling salesman. In 1893 he purchased a farm in Jef-
ferson county, and was engaged in farming until December 16, 1905,
when he moved to Sesser. Mr. Willis was the first postmaster of Sesser,
then a village still in its infancy, and the first day's cancellation of
stamps amounted to twenty-two cents. That the business of the office has
increased may be seen by the fact that the daily cancellations at this time
amount to from five to ten dollars per day. As the business has ad-
vanced Mr. Willis has improved the service, and the courteous and oblig-
ing manner in which he discharges the duties of the office have made him
popular with all who have met him in an official way, and the verdict is
universal that no better man for the office could be found. While he has
never been an office seeker, Mr. Willis has been tendered office by the peo-
ple of his community in each section of which he has lived, and while
residing in Jefferson county was supervisor of his township for eight
years. Subsequently he was the Republican candidate for county treas-
urer, and the high esteem in which he was held by. the voters of the
county was shown when in that stronghold of Democracy he was defeated
by only thirty-five votes. A popular member of the Odd Fellows, he
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1219
has passed through all the chairs in that order. Mr. Willis has prospered
in a financial way as a result of wise and far-seeing investment of his
means, and he is now the owner of fourteen lots in Sesser, as well as four
residences and a large business block, property in West Frankfort and an
excellent farm in Jefferson county. His success has come as a result of
his own efforts, and he is known as a man who while looking after his
own interests has always been ready to support movements for the bene-
fit of the city's interests.
In 1882 Mr. Willis was married to Miss Rachel Hawkins, of Perry
county, Illinois, who died in 1888, and to this union one child was born :
Velma, who is a trained nurse in St. Louis. Mr. Willis was married in
1903 to Mollie Hartley Kirkpatrick, and they have had three children:
Lillian May and Russell V., who are in school ; and William H.
BERNARD JOHN MEIRINK, M. D. One of the prosperous and popular
physicians of Germantown, Bernard John Meirink, M. D., is a close stu-
dent of the science which he has chosen as a profession, and in its practice
is meeting with well deserved success. A native of Illinois, he was born
July 3, 1872, in Breese, Clinton county, of pioneer ancestry, his grand-
father, Henry Meirink, Sr., having been an early settler of this section
of the state.
The Doctor's father, Henry Meirink, Sr., was born in Germantown,
Illinois, in 1842. Left an orphan when but three years of age, he was
brought up in a family named Kniepman, receiving but meagre educa-
tional advantages. As a boy he worked at farming and odd jobs, finally
learning the carpenter's trade, which he followed successfully until 1906.
Having then by persistent labor, thrift and good management accumu-
lated a competency, he^retired from the active cares of business, and is
now spending his days in pleasant leisure at Breese. He is a stanch Dem-
ocrat in politics and a faithful member of the Catholic church, to which
his wife and family belong. He married, in 1869, Anna Schonefeld, of
Breese, and to them two sons and five daughters have been born, Bernard
John being the second child in order of birth. His only brother, Henry
Meirink, Jr., is a carpenter in Breese.
Brought up and educated, primarily, in Breese, Bernard J. Meirink
attended the parochial schools until fourteen years old. He subsequently
spent three years in the Franciscan College at Teutopolis, Illinois, and in
1890 was graduated with the degree of A. B. Beginning life then as a
teacher, he taught for six years in the Becker school in Wade township,
during which time he took up the study of medicine, for which he was
eminently fitted. Continuing his studies at the Saint Louis Medical Col-
lege, he was there graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1899, and the
following ten months was engaged in the practice of medicine at Dami-
ansville. Coming from there to Germantown, Dr. Meirink has here built
up a large and lucrative patronage and is meeting with flattering re-
sults in his professional pursuits, and has also made for himself an en-
viable position in both the business and social affairs of his adopted home.
The Doctor is a member and the president of the Clinton County
Medical Society; a member of the State Medical Society; and of the
American Medical Association. He is a Democrat in politics, active in
public affairs, ajid is now serving his third term as mayor of Germantown.
He is rendering the city noteworthy service, a fine system of water works
having been installed under his administration.
On October, 1899, Dr. Meirink was united in marriage with Frances
Becker, of Bartelso. the daughter of Henry Becker, a pioneer farmer of
Wade township. The Doctor and Mrs. Meirink are the parents of three
1220 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
children, namely : Laura, Edward and Paul. True to the religious faith
of his ancestors, Dr. Meirink is a member of the Catholic church.
FRANK T. I. LEPPO. Liberal-minded, enterprising and progressive,
Frank T. I. Leppo, of Xenia, is a fine representative of the self-made men
of Clay county, having in early life measured his own ability and hewn
his way straight to the line thus marked out. Through his own untiring
efforts he has met with deserved success in his career, being now an ex-
tensive land owner and an important factor in advancing the mercantile
interests of the county, as a dealer in hardwood lumber and ties, having
built up a modest and remunerative trade. A son of Jabez Leppo, he was
born in Carroll county, Maryland, May 14, 1861. His grandfather, Jacob
Leppo, a life-long resident of Maryland, served as a soldier in the War
of 1812.
Jabez Leppo was born May 21, 1825, in Maryland, where he lived and
labored for many years. Migrating to Tazewell county, Illinois, in No-
vember, 1868, he followed farming there for awhile, and then settled in
McLean county, Illinois, where, after renting a farm for two years, he
bought land and engaged in farming on his own account. Subsequently
trading his land for a residence in LeRoy, Illinois, he continued as a resi-
dent of that place until his death, in 1908. He was a Democrat in poli-
tics, but took no active part in public affairs. Both he and his wife united
with the Methodist Episcopal church when young, but during his later
years he became a member of the Universalist church.
Jabez Leppo married Katherine Burns, who was born in Maryland,
December 25, 1835, and died in Illinois, in 1886. Her father John Burns,
was a native of Maryland, and was in business there as tavernkeeper on
the turnpike road. He moved to Tazewell county, Illinois, where for a
number of years prior to his death he bought and managed a farm.
Obtaining his elementary education in Maryland, Frank T. I. Leppo
completed his early studies in Illinois, attending school in both Taze-
well and McLean counties. Reared to agricultural pursuits, he worked
by the month as a farm laborer a short time, and he farmed for himself
until twenty-nine years old, when he began as a dealer in grain and live
stock. ' Coming to Xenia, Clay county, in 1890, Mr. Leppo first engaged
in the orchard business, later buying and shipping cattle and live stock,
also embarking in mercantile pursuits. He has been fortunate in most
of his ventures, his present trade as a dealer in hardwood and ties being
fair and lucrative. Mr. Leppo also owns five hundred and seventy acres
of improved land in Clay county, the larger part of which is devoted to
the raising of grain, the remainder being either good timber or pasture
land. He has likewise property interests in other places, owning consid-
erable timber land in Arkansas.
Mr. Leppo 's business is one of the largest of the kind in the county.
He uniformly supports the principles of the Democratic party at the polls,
and although he has never been an aspirant for political honors he has
served as alderman. Mr. Leppo has never married, and being entirely
free from domestic cares and tribulations has ample leisure to attend to
his personal affairs.
FRANCIS 0. HARRISON, M. D. After thirty-four years .of faithful and
conscientious labor in the field of medicine in and about Christopher, Illi-
nois, Dr. Francis 0. Harrison is one of the most highly esteemed physi-
cians of Franklin county, and during his long and useful career has built
up an enviable reputation not only in his profession but as an able busi-
ness man, a successful agriculturist and a citizen of sterling worth. Dr.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1221
Harrison was born near Mulkeytown, in Franklin county, November 6,
1846, and is a son of Christopher and Mary (Swain) Harrison.
The paternal grandfather of Dr. Harrison, Lemuel Harrison, was a
native of North Carolina, from which state he came to Franklin county as
a pioneer, and here became successful in farming, and held numerous
offices within the gift of the people. He served as county surveyor for
some time, and until his death in 1851 acted as circuit clerk. His son,
Christopher Harrison, was born in Franklin county, and was engaged
in farming here in 1850, at the time of the gold rush to California. Join-
ing the throng that crossed the country to attempt to make their fortunes,
he was one of the unfortunates who contracted cholera and he died in a
boat on the Mississippi river, living but six hours. His wife, Mary Swain,
was the daughter of John Swain, who was born in Tennessee and came to
Illinois early in life. He also, 'was engaged in agriculture, became well-
to-do, and at the time of his death, which occurred when he had reached
advanced years, he was well known all over Franklin county.
Francis 0. Harrison was able to secure only a meager schooling, as
the death of his father left the family in humble circumstances, and the
help of the sturdy young son was needed in cultivating the little prop-
erty the parent had left behind. He was an ambitious youth, however,
and lack of attendance at the country schools did not prevent him from ac-
quiring an education, as whatever time he could find from his work was
spent in reading and study, and thus he became well informed in a gen-
eral way. He worked on the home property until he was twenty-two
years of age, at which time he was able, by investing the money which
his habits of industry and economy had enabled him to accumulate, and
by going into debt for a part of the property to purchase himself a little
farm, and this he started to cultivate. It had been his ambition from
youth, however, to enter a professional life and when he had cleared his
land from debt and could see that he was making progress, he started
to study medicine, with the result that he subsequently entered the Eclec-
tic Medical Institute at Cincinnati, Ohio, and was graduated therefrom
in 1878. On his return to his farm he "hung out his shingle," and at
once began a practice that has grown year by year until today there is no
better known physician in Franklin county. In the meantime he con-
tinued farming, and at one time was the owner of five hundred acres of
land, but in 1909 sold off a farm of two hundred acres. In addition he
is a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of Christopher,
has various commercial and financial interests and valuable real estate
holdings, and is considered one of Christopher's most substantial men.
Being desirous of increasing his medical education, in February and
March, 1912, the Doctor pursued post graduate course in the New York
Post Graduate school and hospital of New York City. Taking up as the
principal study of diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. Dr. Harrison
congratulates his good fortune as being a very healthy man. He has
lived for years in succession, without an ache, or pain.
In 1868 Dr. Harrison was married to Miss Maria Burkitt, a daughter
of William Burkitt, one of the pioneer farmers of Franklin county. She
died in 1881, without issue. The Doctor remaining a widower for about
three years then married her sister, Emily Burkitt, who died in the year
of 1891. Of this union three children were born, Lottie, Noba and Littie,
now living. About five years after the death of his second wife he mar-
ried Eva Neal, daughter of John R. Neal, a successful farmer of Franklin
county. Six children were born to them, three boys and three girls. Ivan,
Velma. Ethan, Ovel, Viva and Neva-Dot, all now living but Ethan, he
having been about two years old at his death. Dr. and Mrs. Harrison are
members of the Church of Christ of Christopher, Illinois. He is an Odd
1222 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Fellow and his profession connects him with the medical societies, being a
member of The Illinois Electic Medical Society, and also of the National
and he attends those societies. He has served as a member of the board of
Pension Examining Surgeons at Benton for over sixteen years and has
acted as secretary of said board for the last ten years, being secretary at
the present time. Dr. Harrison is a stalwart Republican in politics, and
has tried to do much for his party, but has acted as an onlooker rather
than an office seeker. But for several years he has been a member of
the county central committee, and has discharged his duties as a citizen
by serving for a number of years as a member of the school board. His
long residence of this section has made him hosts of friends, who
recognize and appreciate his many sterling traits of character. He was
one of the pioneers of Christopher, Illinois, in starting the little village,
now a city of about three thousand inhabitants, the Doctor having the
honor or liberty of naming the town Christopher in honor of his father,
who at one time owned a part of the land on which Christopher is built.
In conclusion the Doctor wishes to go on record that he has been
against the saloon, and since he became a voter he has always voted and
argued against intoxicants believing that it has been and is causing
more deaths, destruction and sorrow than anything that was ever placed
before the public. He fully believes that the poison not only destroys
the body, but destroys both body and soul.
DR. LUTHER F. ROBINSON. The dean of the medical profession in
the village of Ullin and the surrounding country is Dr. Luther F. Robin-
son. For more than a score of years he has been an active member of
this little community and he is joyfully welcomed in every home not
only as their tried physician but as their faithful and loving friend.
No trouble is too insignificant to win his warm sympathy, no joy is
quite complete until the Doctor has had a share in it. Beside the close
ties that bind him to the hearts of his people through his connection
with their private affairs, he is also interested in the public affairs of
the community, being president of the First National Bank of Ullin
and postmaster of the village.
Luther F. Robinson was born at Statesville, Iredell county, North
Carolina, on the 26th of February, 1852. Being orphaned in infancy
he was legally adopted by his maternal grandparents, and knew them
as his only parents. His grandfather was Henry Robinson, who came
from an old pioneer family of English origin, whose founder, the
grandfather of Henry, had settled in North Carolina during colonial
times. Henry Robinson was born in Davie county, North Carolina,
He married, and in 1861 moved westward, finally coming to Arkansas
and settling in Greene county. There his life was devoted to the farm
and his industry was unbroken until he died, in 1874, during the
seventy-sixth year of his life. His home was near Gainesville, the old
county seat of Greene county, and the only time he allowed any in-
terest to draw him away from his farm was when he was elected county
judge of the Democratic party. Henry Robinson and his wife had a
number of children. The oldest, Isabel Olive, was married to a Mr.
Houston, who disappeared while on a trip into the wilds of the West
during the infancy of his son and only child. Nothing was ever heard
that might give some clew to his fate, and his wife died in Ullin, in
January, 1910, at the age of seventy-six, having only lately been re-
united to her son after a separation of more than a third of a century,
Frank Robinson, of Anna, was another child, as were A. W. and Lee
Robinson, of that city, the last named dying there in recent years.
Mrs. C. M. Hileman, who died in Ullin, Illinois, and Mrs.-Levi Hileman,
73fc LIBRAE
OF THE
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1223
of Anna, Illinois, were daughters of the old Arkansas pioneer and
aunts of Dr. Robinson.
Luther P. Robinson spent his boyhood till he was seventeen on the
farm of his grandfather, doing the work of a man as soon as his
strength permitted and gaining what education he could from the dis-
trict schools. In 1869 the blood of his pioneer ancestors came to the
surface, and the boy demanded the right to start his own life amid sur-
roundings of his own choice, making his way yet further west, until
he reached the frontier of Texas, where he became a cowboy on one of
the great cattle ranches that then occupied all that vast grassy plain.
After two years of this wild out of door life he returned to civilization
and located in St. Louis. He easily, on account of the fine physique
which his rough life had developed, secured employment. His am-
bitious spirit was not satisfied with his position, and seeing that his
great lack was education he began to attend night school. He then
learned the carpenter's trade, and came into Illinois, making his home
in Union county. He followed his trade for a time, but he was clearly
not cut out for a carpenter, so turned to fruit and truck farming near
Anna. Here he married his first wife, Mahala Jane Chatham, in
August, 1874. His acquaintance with and marriage into the Chatham
family probably had a controlling influence in his life, as he took up
the study of medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. John R. Chatham, of
Anna. Becoming intensely interested in the subject and eventually
deciding that he had found his vocation, he pursued his medical course
to a satisfactory completion. His first two years of study were spent in
the old Physicians and Surgeons at St. Louis, which school is now a
part of Washington University. His next work was taken in the med-
ical department of the University of Louisville. He graduated from
there in June, 1889, and established himself at once in Ullin, Illinois.
He has not allowed the progress of modern science as applied to med-
icine to slip past unheeded, but has attended the clinics of the best
known surgeons and doctors of St. Louis and Chicago. For seventeen
years he has been local physician and surgeon of the Illinois Central
railroad, and held the position of president of the pension board at
Cairo for eleven years.
The first wife of Dr. Robinson was a daughter of Robert and Mahala
J. (Hood) Chatham. The father was a native of Tennessee, but his
wife was from Charleston, South Carolina, later moving to Tennessee,
where her marriage to Mr. Chatham took place. Soon after their mar-
riage they came to Illinois and settled first in Shelby county, later com-
ing to Union county. Mrs. Robinson died in March, 1901. The chil-
dren of this union were : William, an engineer on the Illinois Cen-
tral out of Mounds; Ida, wife of Robert George, of Mounds, Illinois;
and Myrtle, now Mrs. John Rowe. In November, 1902, Dr. Robinson
married Elizabeth Bise, a daughter of Samuel Bise, of Owensboro, Ken-
tucky.
Dr. Robinson is one of the leaders of the progressive party in Ullin,
always standing for any movement that would be of benefit to the
town and taking an active part in the civic life of the place. He was
one of the men who pushed the plan of incorporating the village of
Ullin, and after the successful culmination of this scheme acted as its
treasurer for nine years. In conjunction with Lawrence Cheiiault he
founded the first banking house in the village, in 1904, the month be-
ing June, and in May of the following year he purchased the interest
of Mr. Chenault. He conducted it as a highly successful institution
under the name of the Bank of Ullin until 1906, when it was converted
into a national bank, taking the name of the First National Bank of
1224 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Ullin. It has a capital of twenty -five thousand dollars, and Dr. Robinson
has served as its president since its organization. In 1900, feeling the
need of a reliable pharmacy in his own profession, he established a drug
business. Many of the substantial improvements throughout the town
are due to his energy, for one of his dearest wishes is to make a beauti-
ful town out of the place that has so endeared itself to him.
In 1909 he received the appointment to the position of postmaster
as the successor Thomas Myers, which post he now occupies. He abides
by the tenets of the Republican party and is an active worker in its
behalf, when the issues are important and the result is in some doubt.
He is one of the seven oldest members of the Anna lodge of Odd Pel-
lows, and is a member of the Knights of Pythias. His religious affilia-
tions have been with the Missionary Baptist church since he was twenty-
three years of age, and his long membership has been a very active one.
In his profession Dr. Robinson has served two years as the pres-
ident of the Pulaski County Medical Society, is a member of the South-
ern Illinois Medical Society and of the Illinois State Medical Associa-
tion, as well as belonging to the American Medical Association.
The position of a physician in the community is like that of a
minister, one of great responsibility and influence. He must hold
himself at all times at the call of any one, must always be even tem-
pered and cool-headed, as an example, if nothing more, for his patients.
All these requirements seem almost superhuman, but Dr. Robinson has
fulfilled them so nearly that his people swear he is the ideal physician.
What unbounded energy he possesses to be able to take the time and
thought from that most exacting type of practice, that which may call
him many miles out into the country at any hour of the day or night,
to enter with the whole of his forceful personality in to the public aff airs
of his people ! They reward him, however, by returning in full measure
the love and devotion which he has so freely poured forth for them.
THE O'GARA COAL COMPANY. Southern Illinois is noted far and
wide as a section of marvellous natural resource, its splendid tracts of
rich prairie and forest, its splendid streams and fertile vales being un-
derlaid by wonderful mineral deposits. The coal fields are of vast ex-
tent and probably nothing else has given as materially to the general
prosperity as their development and utilization. One of the greatest
corporations engaged in this work is the O'Gara Coal Company, which
in its comparatively brief existence has accomplished wonders and
whose methods towards employes and in all its commercial dealings are
most admirable. It is indeed a pleasure to the publishers of a work
of this nature to accord recognition to an industry which has proved
as much a blessing to a great section of country and given it such world-
wide prestige.
The O'Gara Coal Company was organized in 1905, the scene of the
councils which brought it into existence being the Marquette Building
in Chicago. It was capitalized with $6,000,000, and the following
gentlemen forms its staff of officers: T. J. O'Gara, of Chicago, pres-
ident ; Thomas J. Jones, treasurer ; and W. A. Brewerton. secretary.
All the mines of the O'Gara Coal Company are located in Saline
county, these being twelve in number, with an annual output of seven
million tons. Six thousand men are employed in a field capacity and
the pay roll disbursement is $150,000 per month. The company pays
$10,000 monthly royalty. It has control of thirty thousand acres, whose
development will doubtless extend over a period of fifty years. To
speak of the O'Gara Coal Company means to deal in enormous figures
and phrases.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1225
The O'Gara Coal Company is particularly fortunate in the men
who control its workings. H. Thomas is its general manager of mines,
Ed. Ghent its chief engineer and D. B. McGehee the assistant general
manager.
THOMAS SHERMAN GEEHART. One of the most prominent men in
Sumner is Thomas Sherman Gerhart. He is a lawyer and is un-
doubtedly one of the best in this section of the state, but his prominence
in his home town does not come so much from the fact that he is a clever
lawyer as from the fact that he is public spirited and is eager to do his
share towards the advancement of the public weal. He has been a res-
ident of Sumner for a few years only, but he has shown himself so
sincere in his desire to assist in the onward march that the citizens of
the town are making that he has won the friendship and confidence of
all who know him, as a proof of this he has been elected city attorney.
He is highly respected in his profession, not only for his intellectual
gifts and for his abilities as an orator, but also for his moral strength,
which the men of his fraternity can appreciate far more than others.
He is possessed of a strong will and a determination not to succumb
to the many temptations that beset the path of the young lawyer today.
He will not stoop to the tricks of his trade, and trusts to his powers
of persuasion and to the righteousness of his cause to win his cases for
him. He has the gift of eloquence in a generous degree and whenever
he is speaking, he holds his audience enthralled. He is now at the point
where he has gained a rich experience and a maturity of thought, and
adding to these his eloquence and his logical mind he has the full equip-
ment of the successful lawyer.
Thomas Sherman Gerhart was born on the 20th of April, 1868, in
Whitley county, Indiana. His father, Jacob Gerhart, is a native of
Ohio, having been born on the 14th of September, 1840, in Greene
county. In 1868, soon after the birth of his son, he came to Lawrence
county, Illinois, and here settled to the life of a farmer. During the
Civil war he had been one of the Indiana Home Guards, and it was a
great sorrow to him that he was physically incapacitated to serve in the
regular army. It seemed hard that he who wanted to go to the front,
should not be able to, while some men who would have preferred the
peace and comfort of their own firesides were forced to go. However,
he met his disappointment as he met all the troubles in his life, phil-
osophically and cheerfully. He was married on the 24th of March,
1864, to Margaret Anne Norris, of Whitley county, Indiana. Seven
children were born of this union, and of these Thomas S. was the second
child. In politics Jacob Gerhart is a staunch Republican and a worker
in the party. He is active in the public affairs of the community, and
some of the best work that he did for his fellow citizens was performed
when he was highway commissioner for his county. His religious af-
filiations were with the German Baptists or Dunkards, of which denomi-
nation he was a very loyal member.
Thomas Sherman Gerhart spent his childhood" and boyhood on a
farm in Lawrence county, and his early education was received at the
hands of the country school teachers in that county. After he had
finished these, he attended Vincennes University and pursued the com-
mercial and scientific courses during the four years he spent there. He
was graduated from the above institution in 1894, with the degree of
B. S. He then turned to the profession for which he seemed best fitted,
at the same time determining that he would take up the study of law
as soon as he was able. The profession- which he chose was that of a
school teacher and until 1899. he conscientiously tried to impart knowl-
1226 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
edge to children of his home county — Lawrence. During his vacation
he took various courses in the State University of Indiana, and in the
evenings throughout the long winters he was never too tired after his
day's work to pore over his law books. In 1901 he was graduated from
the State University and received the degree of LL. B. His admission to
the bar occurred during the same year and he at once began to practice,
saying good-bye to the school room with a glad heart, for he had for so
long looked forward to his moment when he should be a full-fledged
lawyer.
He first began to practice in Kokomo. Indiana, and remained here
for seven and a half years, during which time he became a very popular
and influential member of the community. He was active in the pol-
itical circles of the town, and was one of the most efficient members of
the city council. He was also appointed city judge by the governor of
Indiana and filled this position to the satisfaction of every one. He
moved from Kokomo to Sumner, Lawrence county, Illinois, in 1909, and
was soon holding a place of the same prominence in Sumner as he had
in his former home. His term of service as city attorney has been
mentioned, and during this term he added to his popularity tenfold
through the able way in which he discharged his duties. His career
as a school teacher was undoubtedly a fine preparation for his career
as a lawyer. He gained self confidence and became accustomed to the
sound of his own voice. As a teacher he also showed the executive
ability which has been of so much aid to him in his political work. He
was not only principal, but also superintendent of the Lawrenceville
public schools. His ability as an orator was forecasted during his
career as a student, when he was attending Vincennes University.
Mr. Gerhart is a member of the Christian church, and is an active,
earnest worker in the church. He is a trustee of the church and for
some time was superintendent of the Sunday school. In the fraternal
world he is a member of the Knights of. Pythias and is master of the
exchequer Sumner Lodge, No. 702. His ability as a lawyer has been
greatly enhanced by his thorough understanding of many of the tech-
nical points of business which he gathered during a business course of
study which he took in Vincennes University, Indiana.
Mr. Gerhart was married on the 15th day of June, 1898, to Caroline
Jennings Clark, a graduate of Indiana State University, and a daugh-
ter of Reverend T. J. Clark, of Bloomington, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs.
Gerhart are the parents of three sons: Francis C., Charles T. and
Emerson T.
HENRY F. HECKERT. For more than sixty years the Heckert family
has been prominently identified with the best interests of Washington
county, of which the subject of this review, Henry F. Heckert, a prom-
inent agriculturist of Venedy township, is serving his sixth year as
clerk. He is a native of this township, and was born December 2, 1861,
a son of Rudolph and Mary (Luebke) Heckert. Mr. Heckert 's father,
a Hanoverian, born in 1825, was seventeen years of age when he came
to the United States from the Fatherland, and stopped first in St.
Louis, where he remained until his advent in Washington county in
1850. He adopted readily the modes and practices of the New World,
took a stand with the Republicans in politics, and participated in
local affairs with his fellow citizens without being drawn into a fight
for personal success. He died in 1899, and his wife, who was a daugh-
ter of Rudolph Luebke, passed away in 1868. Of their nine children,
three grew to maturity, viz: Mrs. Caroline Vortman, of Venedy town-
ship ; Henry F. ; and Louisa, who died as Mrs. Henry Heitland and left
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1227
one child. Mr. Heckert married for his second wife Mrs. E. Hodde,
widow of Chris Hodde, and two children were born, Rudolph and Wil-
liam C.
Up to fourteen years of age Henry F. Heckert was a pupil of the
parochial schools, then spent a year in a public school of St. Louis, and
to round out his education took a course in Jones Business College in
that city. Having been brought up on the farm and learned its suc-
cessful principles, he applied himself to that sphere of industry for
nearly a quarter of a century in the community of his birth and bring-
ing up. His fascination for local politics, in which he took an interest
even before he attained his majority, led him into a race for public
office for himself, and he was nominated for county clerk as a Repub-
lican in 1906. His former participation had given him experience in
county and congressional conventions as a delegate, and when he sought
the tangible results of political activity for himself he was equipped
to make his candidacy worth while. He was elected without dangerous
opposition and took office as the successor of H. F. Reuter, and succeeded
himself in 1910 without competition in his own party, at present hav-
ing completed his sixth year as an efficient and conscientious public
servant.
On November 15, 1883, Mr. Heckert was married in Johannesburg
township, Washington county, to Miss Alary Van Stroh, a daughter of
Henry Van Stroh, a settler from Hanover, Germany, who married
Minna Holland. Mrs. Heckert is the only child of the four born to her
parents who reached maturity. She and Mr. Heckert have had three
daughters, namely : Laura, Ida and Ella. Mr. Heckert maintains his
interest in agriculture, owning a handsome, well-cultivated property
in the west end of the county. He holds no other affiliations or con-
nections save his membership in the Modern Woodmen of America.
He has many friends in this section, where his genial, jovial personality
has made him a general favorite- with all who know him.
ELBEKT WALLER. The county of Union numbers among its citizens
many skillful physicians, lawyers of state repute, well known manu-
facturers and business men of much more than local reputation; while
proud of them the county is not lacking in others who have achieved
distinction in callings requiring intellectual abilities of high order.
Among the latter Professor Elbert Waller, the popular and efficient
superintendent of the Cobden schools, occupies a deservedly conspicuous
place. No one is more entitled to the thoughtful consideration of a
free and enlightened people than he who shapes and directs the minds
of the young, adds to the value of their intellectual treasures and moulds
their characters. This is pre-eminently the mission of the faithful and
conscientious educator, and to such noble work is the life of the subject
of the sketch devoted.
Professor Waller was born August 24, 1870, on a farm four miles
south of Murphysboro, Jackson county, Illinois, the son of William
and Mary (Crawshaw). Waller, natives of Union and Williams counties,
respectively, both counties being at the time of the birth of these
worthy people parts of Jackson county. William Waller was born in
1823, the son of Joseph Waller, a native of Kentucky, and grandson of
William Waller, a native of Georgia. Joseph Waller found his way
to Southern Illinois about the year 1811, and settled near Bald Knob,
Union county. Professor Waller is thus of the third generation ,in the
state.
The father of William Waller, previously mentioned, founded the
family on American shores, coming from England during the Revolu-
1228 HISTORY, OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
tion. Professor Waller's grandfather, Joseph Waller, took up govern-
ment land in Union county and enlisted in the Black Hawk war under
the "Old Ranger." He passed to the great beyond shortly after re-
turning home from his military services, his death being caused by
sickness contracted during the war.
William Waller was a farmer by occupation. After his mar-
riage he removed to Jackson county and with his brother-in-law entered
forty acres of land. While a boy in Union county he attended a school
near Bald Knob, the improvised school house being an old stable in
which a fireplace was built. This school was taught by ex-Lieutenant
Governor Dougherty. During the Civil war William Waller belonged
to an organization opposed to the Knights of the Golden Circle and all
they represented and several times they tried to take his life. He was
a man of patriotism and tried to enlist- during the war, but was re-
jected on account of ill health ; so making the best of things he remained
at home and looked after. several families whose natural .providers were
away fighting for the Union. In later years he was very active in hunt-
ing down horse thieves, with whom the country became infested, and
he successfully landed several of these undesirable members of society
in the penitentiary. He was thrice married. His first wife was a Miss
Ditzler, who died shortly after they were united. He then married a
Miss Lipe, whose demise several years later left motherless four chil-
dren, namely: John; W. J. ; Sarah (Crawshaw) and Mary (Crow) de-
ceased. His third marriage was with Mrs. Mary (Crawshaw) Hagler,
whose first husband, brother and a cousin were killed in the battle of
Fort Donelson. The children of this union were five in number and
concerning them the ensuing data is entered. The first-born was Han-
nah, who married William R. Lee. Luvisa became the wife of the late
Dr. Trobaugh, of Murphysboro. She, as well as her husband, is deceased.
Elbert, the subject, is third. Gilbert is at Herrin, where he is engaged
in the real estate business. The youngest, Alice, married A. M. Beecher.
William Waller died after an active life and one full of achievement, on
December 26, 1891, and his faithful and devoted wife survived him
until April 14, 1900. He was an able, public-spirited citizen and his
memory will long be cherished in Jackson county, in which he lived
from the time he was first married. His wife was the daughter of
Samuel Crawshaw, a native of Leeds, England, and a farmer by occupa-
tion, who immigrated to America in 1824 and located in Williamson
county, at that time a part of Jackson county. In those days the
redskins still claimed Illinois as their hunting grounds, and he was
engaged in an Indian war waged against the Indians and a western
tribe. He died very young and his widow lived to advanced old age.
A family tradition has it that an ancestor of Professor Waller was a
relative of Oliver Cromwell and served in his army.
Professor Waller received his education in the district schools and
prepared for his profession in the Southern Illinois Normal school.
The piquant experiences of the primitive schools were not altogether the
property of his forebears, for he remembers vividly attending school
in the old Sharon church, seated on long benches, seats and desks, all
home-made of course. This school housed sixty pupils, these being
crowded at four desks. There was a small blackboard, three feet by
three feet, used by the teacher, and the pupils used homemade soap-
stone pencils. The cracks in the floor allowed the pencils to drop
through and eager hands were frequently raised by the boys asking,
(and girls too) "can I crawl under the house and git my pencil." As
boys will be boys, it is possible that the dropping of pencils was more
frequent than really necessary. He attended the normal for a time
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1229
and then Ewing College, where he pursued his studies several terms.
In 1909 he received the degree of Ph. B. from the latter place.
Professor Waller began teaching in 1890, and since then has taught
continuously with the exception of three years. At first for some
terms he taught rural schools in winter and attended Normal in sum-
mer. From 1893 to 1896 he was principal of the Ava (111.) schools
and following that he spent a year in college. In 1898, when pat:
riotism became more than a mere rhetorical expression, he voluntered
for service in the Spanish-American war, but through no fault of his
own saw no active service. During the winter of 1898 and 1899 he
taught a rural school and following that for a short period engaged
in the newspaper business and was elected city attorney of Ava, Illi-
nois. He held this important office one year, from 1901 to 1902, and
proved remarkably successful in enforcing the laws. From 1901 to 1904
he was principal of the Percy (111.) schools; from 1904 to 1906
acted in similar capacity in Tamaroa, Illinois; was principal of the
Viola schools for the three years included between 1906 and 1909 ; and
was principal of the Anna high school in 1909-1910. In 1910-1911 he
was superintendent of the Columbia schools and at the present time he
holds the office of superintendent of the Cobden schools, having been
appointed in 1911. He has here, as in preceding scenes, given a favor-
able ' ' taste of his quality. ' '
Professor Waller belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
of Percy; and to the Masons and the Modern Woodmen of Tamaroa.
He is a Baptist in religious conviction. He has no small amount of
literary ability and has published a brief history of Illinois, which has
had a wide circulation and much praise.
In the spring of 1894 Professor Waller was united to Maggie D.
Clendennon, of Jackson. She is a daughter of Dr. M. W. Clendennon,
of Rockwood, who died when Mrs. Waller was only about ten years of
age, and she was reared to young womanhood by her uncle, W. G.
Wagner. To the subject and his wife have been born four children.
The first died in infancy ; Arista died at the age of seven months ; Wil-
lard W. is a lad of twelve ; and Max is five. Both the subject and his
wife are held in highest esteem, and are active in social circles.
Professor Weller is energetic, progressive and ambitious in his
chosen profession and during the brief time he has had charge of the Cob-
den schools marked advancement has been made. Under the guidance
of his inspiration a new and modern high school has been erected and
an elective course is offered that makes his school among the largest
and best in Southern Illinois. In conclusion it may be said that Profes-
sor Waller is a very successful school man and a speaker of unusual
ability.
REVEREND FATHER JOHN MOLITOR. That friend of all the helpless
and poor and weak, the Catholic priest, has a worthy representative
in these pages in the person of Father John Molitor. In this state of
Illinois, which should be regarded as a part of the great Northwest,
the Catholic priest should be looked upon, as a class, with peculair
veneration, for it was a priest of the Roman Catholic church, Pere
Marquette, who, with his companion Joliet, first explored the prairies
of Illinois, and later it was these same priests who through their mis-
sionary labors among the Indians of this section made possible the
settlement of the country sooner than would have been possible other-
wise. Father Molitor has been such an intimate factor in the lives
of the people of Newton for so many years that it would not seem the
Vol. Ill— 10
1230 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
I
same place were his familiar figure absent. For thirty-five years he
has baptized, married and buried. the people of this parish.
Father John Molitor was born in Clinton county, Illinois, on the
6th of December, 1845. His father, William Molitor, was a native of
Germany, having been born at Waterslow, in Westphalia, in 1811. Wil-
liam Molitor emigrated from Germany in 1836, and, coming to Amer-
ica, located first in Baltimore. From there he went down to New
Orleans, and then followed the Mississippi up to St. Louis. He re-
mained here for a time, and then he came over into Illinois and set-
tled on the site of the present town of Germantown. This was in 1840,
and from this time until his death in 1868 he lived the peaceful life
of the farmer, respected by all who knew him. In 1838 Mr. Molitor
was married to Gertrude Roeckenhans, also a native of Germany, and
they became the parents of six children, of whom Father Molitor was
the fourth. The mother long outlived her husband, dying in 1892.
The beautiful character which makes Father Molitor so well be-
loved owes some of its fineness and strength to his early surroundings,
for he was brought up on a farm, and he was much alone with the
grass and trees, and at night the stars for company, so he learned to
think, he learned with Milton that,
"In contemplation of created things
By steps we may ascend to God."
For an education he was sent to the district schools, and later, in 1864,
to Saint Joseph's College at Teutopolis, Illinois. In 1868 he went to
Saint Francis Seminary at Milwaukee, and here he remained until
1874. On the 25th of March of that year he was ordained at Alton,
Illinois, and went immediately to take charge of his first parish at
Olney, Illinois. He remained here until 1877, when he was transferred
to Newton. It was a fortunate thing for the people of Newton when
Father Molitor arrived in the town on that cold January day in 1877.
They had not had a priest until a few years before this when Fr. Cor-
nelius Hoffman had been sent to them, the date of his coming being
1873. It was as his successor that Father Molitor had been sent, and
the young priest found plenty of work cut out for him. His first
work was to build a suitable edifice for the worship of God, and 1880
saw the completion of a fine brick church. In 1895 fire destroyed
part of the church building, but the people, led by Father Molitor,
immediately set to work, improved the old building and rebuilt the
part which had been laid in ruins, so in 1896 the present beautiful
building was ready for occupancy. In 1884 the schools were estab-
lished, and both church and schools are dedicated to Saint Thomas.
Since there are only one hundred and fifty-five families in the parish,
this activity is the result of some one person's influence and very nat-
urally it is that of their beloved priest's. As for the man himself,
he walks quietly along his peaceful way, with his hand ever out-
stretched to give help to those who ask it, without a thought of self,
only asking that he may be permitted to live out his days surrounded
by those for whom he has given his life and who in return have given
him their confidence and affection.
JOHN W. THOMASON. Among the more prosperous young business
men of Louisville, John W. Thomason must be accorded a prominent
place. Admitted to the bar in 1899 and beginning the practice of
his chosen profession in Louisville immediately thereafter, he has in
the intervening years built up a law practice worthy of a longer
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1231
period of labor, and in addition has become prominent in stock rais-
ing circles as a breeder of fine cattle, pure Shorthorns being the
breed he is cultivating. His united efforts in the law business and
as a cattle raiser have brought him a prominence in Clay county,
where he was already well known, that being the county of his birth.
Mr. Thomason was born on July 5, 1874, and is the son of Wil-
liam B. and Caroline (Kellums) Thomason. The father was a na-
tive of Indiana and the mother of Clay county. He was a farmer,
and when his son, John W., was four years of age, he died. His
widow survived him until 1901. He was a son of Allen Thomason,
born in South Carolina, who settled in Indiana, later removing to
Illinois, where he passed the remainder of his life. He was a farmer
and a veteran of the Mexican war. The maternal grandfather of
John Thomason was John W. Kellums, born in Greene county, In-
diana, who moved to Illinois shortly after his marriage. He settled
on a farm in the northern part of Clay county, and was there known
as a large stock-raiser, in which business he was especially pros-
perous. He was ever a prominent Republican, and was well known
throughout the county. He has always been in the well-to-do class,
owning as much as four and five hundred of acres of farm lands.
He is now retired from the farming business, and is a resident of
Flora, where he owns the principal hotel of the town. He also still
retains a goodly quantity of valuable lands in the vicinity of Flora.
John Thomason received his earlier education in the common
schools of Clay county and later attended Orchard City College at
Flora, from which institution he was graduated in 1894. He taught
school for a few terms by way of becoming accustomed to making his
own way in the world, after which he studied law in a Chicago law
school. He also studied in Mercer county, Illinois, and finished his
studies in 1899, being admitted to the bar of the state of Illinois in
the same year. He took up the active practice of his profession in
Louisville, and in the year following the initiation of his practice
there he was elected to the office of state's attorney, in which he
served one term. He was elected on the Democratic ticket, although
Clay county is a stronghold of the Republican party. In the fol-
lowing election he was defeated for re-election by one vote, at a
time when Theodore Roosevelt carried the county by a five hundred
majority. Mr. Thomason has been chairman of the Democratic county
committee, and has in many and various ways made himself a use-
ful and valuable adherent of the party. As previously mentioned,
his operations in the stock-breeding business have brought him added
prosperity, and he is the local attorney for the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad Company.
In 1901 Mr. Thomason married Margaret Downing, of Mercer
county. She is a daughter of John Downing, who is a merchant in
Joy, Mercer county, and a man of considerable note in his com-
munity. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Thomason.
They are Corinne, Helen and John D.
Mrs. Thomason is a member of the Presbyterian church, in which
she takes a sympathetic and dutiful interest, and her husband is
affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Masonic order. In
the latter connection he is a member of the Royal Arch Chapter at
Flora and has served as master in the Louisville lodge.
THEODORE L. REUTER has been identified with the milling industry
at Nashville since 1869 and is a co-manager of the triumvirate chosen
by the venerable John Huegely to conduct the affairs of his great
1232 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
flouring mill under the name of the Huegely Milling Company upon
his retirement from active business life nearly a quarter of a century
ago. Mr. Reuter is a German, born near Frankfort-on-Main, April
6, 1845, and was a child of three years when his father, Philip C.
Reuter, brought his family to the United States and located, after
two years in St. Louis, at Belleville, Illinois. Philip C. Reuter was
a tailor, and also carried on a small grocery business at Belleville,
where he resided until some sixty years of age, when he came to
Nashville to be near his sons, and died here in 1872, when he was
sixty-three years old. Mr. Reuter married his wife in the com-
munity where they both spent their childhood, she being Miss Eliza-
beth Otto, and her death occurred in 1869. Their children were as fol-
lows: Henry F., ex-county clerk of Washington county, and now
engaged in the monument business in Nashville ; Theodore L. ; and
Rev. William C., a minister of the Methodist church, who holds a
pastorate in the state of Oregon.
Theodore L. Reuter acquired his education in the Belleville schools
and when a youth applied himself to the trade of carriage painting.
The call to arms of 1861 for the preservation of the Union roused
him and prepared him for his part in the struggle, even before he
attained the legal age for acceptance as a soldier. He enlisted in
August, 1862, at Belleville, in Company H, One Hundred and Seven-
teenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Captain R. A.
Halbert, R. M. Moore being colonel of the regiment. This formed a
part of the Third Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps, with Gen-
eral A. J. Smith in command of the division. General Hurlbert was
the first corps commander and General Dodge succeeded him. The
first active service of the regiment was on the Meridian campaign in
Mississippi, following which the command was ordered to join Gen-
eral Banks on the Red river, and it took part in that famous cam-
paign. Transferring back to the east side of the Mississippi river,
the campaign around Tupelo, Mississippi, was made and fought out.
Subsequently the regiment recrossed the Mississippi and took part
in the defense of Missouri against General Price's army, known uni-
versally as "The Price Raid," and when this work was done an-
other order east put them across the river for the fourth time and
placed them in conjunction with the Union troops operating against
the Confederate General Hood around Nashville, Tennessee, and they
helped annihilate that part of the Rebel force in November, 1864.
After this engagement, the One Hundred and Seventeenth, with other
troops, was ordered to Mobile and reached there in time to help cap-
ture Fort Blakely, one of the last Confederate fortifications in the
South. While waiting for the War Department to get its bearings,
the command was ordered into camp at Montgomery, Alabama, and
remained around there until ordered home for discharge and muster
out, at Camp Butler, Springfield, in August, 1865. During this three
years of military life, which tried the metal of men as well as their
courage, Mr. Reuter slipped through between the missiles of the en-
emy without a wound, escaped capture always, but not hunger. Hav-
ing discarded his uniform for the regalia of peace, he resumed his
work with bucket and brush in the town he marched out of as a
soldier and among the friends of his childhood.
After a brief period he gave up his trade and took a clerkship in
a store in Belleville; subsequently, in 1866, came to Nashville to ac-
cept a like position, and still later went to Chicago as a merchant's
clerk. In 1869 he returned to Nashville and entered the employ of
John Huegely as a clerk, and began a career with an enterprise
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1233
which has held him during his remaining years and to the present
time. The political, social and church life of the locality has felt his
influence in a modest way, and the movements which have stood for
sobriety, morality and order have ever commanded his interest and
support. He has served on the city council of Nashville, and has
spent many years as a member of its school board. He is a Repub-
lican, an active member of the Methodist church, and has been fre-
quently called to the superintendency of that denomination's Sun-
day-school. He is an active G. A. R. man locally, has attended their
state and national encampments at times, has been post commander
at home, and in other ways has encouraged the welfare of the now-
dying but still great patriotic order.
On October 6, 1870, Mr. Reuter was married in Nashville, Illinois,
to Miss Mary C. Reuter, daughter of John Huegely and a native of
Mascoutah, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Reuter have had the following
children: Miss Sue, residing in Nashville; Annette, the wife of W.
R. Jones, of St. Louis, Missouri; Philip G., who married Miss Mar-
garet Cretsinger and resides in St. Louis; Theo, who married Cor-
win N. Blackman, of St. Paul, Minnesota; and J. Bertram, who is a
clerk in the employ of the Huegely Milling Company.
HIRAM M. AIKEN. One of the most prosperous agriculturists of
Franklin county, Hiram M. Aiken is an excellent example of the self-
made man, having started in life as a poor boy, without educational
or financial advantages, and his present position in life has been
attained solely through his own efforts. Mr. Aiken belongs to one-
of Franklin county's oldest and most honored families, members of
which have been identified with the agricultural interests of Southern
Illinois for more than eighty-five years. He was born on a farm eight
miles from Benton, August 17, 1867, and is a son of Robert M. and
Teresa (Atchinson) Aiken.
William Aiken, the great-grandfather of Hiram M., was a native
of Ireland, and after the battle of Culloden, where his family met
with defeat and their goods were confiscated, he came to America,
being then eighteen years of age. He joined General Washington's
army at Philadelphia, served throughout the Revolutionary war, and
moved to South Carolina, where he died. His father, the first Wil-
liam Aiken to come to America, and from whom there have been
over three thousand descendants, was one of the richest planters
of South Carolina, and his uncle, also named William Aiken, was
governor of that state in 1860. James Aiken, the grandfather of
Hiram M., was born in South Carolina, and came to Illinois in 1816,
settling in Franklin county, where he was engaged in agricultural
pursuits until his death in 1863. He married Jane McLean, and
among their children was Robert M. Aiken, who was born in Franklin
county, May 5, 1822. Reared to agricultural pursuits, Robert M.
Aiken on attaining his majority took up and cleared a large tract
of land, became one of the well-to-do agriculturists of his day, and
died August 25, 1901. He was a Democrat until 1864, at which time
he joined the ranks of the Republican party. Mr. Aiken married
Teresa Atchinson, who was born in Hamilton county, Illinois, De-
cember 20, 1826. daughter of Thompson Atchinson, who was born in
Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Tennessee in later years. He
participated in the War of 1812, and soon after the battle of New
Orleans came to Hamilton county in search of a Mr. Moore, who had
come to the Salt Wells and had never returned. After searching for
some time, Mr. Atchison discovered a skull, which he took back to
1234 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Tennessee, and which was identified as that of Mr. Moore by means
of the teeth. Having become impressed with the opportunities of-
fered the agriculturist in Hamilton county, Mr. Atchison came back
to this section, where he spent the rest of his life in farming. He
belonged to one of the distinguished families of Tennessee, being a
nephew of General Montgomery, of Revolutionary fame, and a son of
Arnold Atchinson who served during that struggle. Mrs. Teresa
(Atchinson) Aiken died December 3, 1906, aged eighty years, the
mother of eleven children.
Hiram M. Aiken attended Ewing College and the State Normal
School at Carbondale, and in 1894, while still a student in that in-
stitution, was elected to the office of county superintendent, receiv-
ing the re-election in 1902. He is a Republican in politics, and recog-
nized as a leader in his community, where he has worked faithfully
in the cause of education. For about fifteen years he taught school.
but he now gives his attention to farming, owning his father's old es
tate and four hundred and forty acres of some of the best land in this
part of the county. He also is engaged in the hay and grain busi-
ness in Benton. For years he has served as secretary of the Farmer
Institute, and he is widely and favorably known among agriculturists
in Franklin county, although he resides in a beautiful residence in
Benton. He and his wife are consistent members of the Missionary
Baptist church, and fraternally he is connected with the Odd Fellows
the Knights of Pythias, the Court of Honor and the Modern Woodmen.
In 1892 Mr. Aiken was married to Miss Cora Johnson, daughter
of Robert H. Johnson, an early settler of Franklin county, whose
people, natives of Tennessee, founded the town of Macedonia. Mr.
Johnson, who is closely related to Andrew Johnson, served in the
Civil war, and now resides in Macedonia. Mr. and Mrs. Aiken have
had ten children: Robert, James, John, Lucille, Paul, Ruby, Marion,
Edith, William F. and Hiram M. Jr., all of whom are attending
school with the exception of the last three. Mr. Aiken has an ex-
cellent record as a public official, enterprising agriculturist and
highly esteemed private citizen, and it is all the more gratifying to
him in that it has come as a result of his own individual efforts.
Progressive in all things and possessed of much civic pride, he has
been a leader in organizing movements to advance the welfare of
Franklin county, where the family name has been known and honored
for so many years.
JUDGE Louis BEENREUTER, one of the judges of the third judicial
circuit of the state of Illinois, has been a resident of this state since
the year of his birth. Since his early manhood he has been actively
connected with the politics of his section of the state, and he has held
many important offices and been prominent in the affairs of his city,
county and district. A man of upright and sterling character, his
influence has ever been of an order eminently calculated to advance
the best interests of the community, and as such his career has been
valuable and praiseworthy.
Born at St. Charles, Missouri, on the llth of April, 1863, he is
the son of Conrad and Catherine (Stulken) Bernreuter, the former
a native of Bavaria and the latter of Oldenburg, Germany. Conrad
Bernreuter was born in Bavaria, in 1826, the son of well-to-do par-
ents. He was given the advantage of a liberal education there, and
when he immigrated to America he was accompanied by his father,
Jacob Bernreuter, who settled on a farm in Madison county, Illinois,
and passed the remaindler of his days thereon. He died in 1871,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1235
when he was more than eighty years of age. He was the father of
two sons: George, who died in Bond county, Illinois, as a farmer,
and left a family, and Dr. Conrad, the father of Louis Bernreuter,
of this sketch. Dr. Bernreuter had just arrived at the age of eight-
een when the Mexican war broke out, and he joined Captain Wheeler's
company, with Colonel Bissell in command of the regiment, and he
saw service under General Taylor in the routing of Santa Anna's
army of Mexicans at Buena Vista, Saltillo and other historic places
near the Rio Grande border. After returning with the victorious
troops from Mexico, Dr. Bernreuter experienced a call to preach
the gospel, and for eight years he filled the pulpit of the Methodist
church in Madison county and other places in Iowa and Wisconsin,
giving up the work at the end of that time owing to his impaired
physical health. After this he studied medicine and remained in
active practice until the time of his death, in 1888. He was a Re-
publican in his political sympathies, but gave voice to his opinions
and aid to the party only as a voter at the polls, and never as a
politician.
On September 9, 1851, Dr. Bernreuter married Catherine Stulken
in Madison county, Illinois. Her father, John Stulken, and her
mother, Margaret Stoffleman, were born in Oldenburg, Germany, and
were pioneers in Madison county. Mrs. Bernreuter was born May
18, 1830, and died in 1893, while her husband passed away in 1898.
Their children were : Lydia, residing in Bison, Kansas ; Esther and
Amelia, who died in childhood; Dr. Edward, who graduated from
the Missouri Medical College, took a post graduate course in Berlin,
Germany, and who took up the practice of his profession in Mt. Olive,
Illinois, dying there in 1893, leaving a family; Reverend George, a
graduate of McKendree College and of the Boston University, and was a
Methodist minister at Compton, Illinois, when he died in 1903 ; Louis,
of Nashville, Illinois, the subject of this sketch; Helen, who married
George Ficken and resides at Bison, Kansas ; Emma, who passed away
at that place as the wife of Fred Humberg; and Matilda, the wife
of Fred Krumsick, of Nashville, Illinois.
Louis Bernreuter passed through the public schools of Nashville
and took \ip the profession of teaching. He followed that work in
both the country and the graded schools of the county and gave it
up eventually to pursue the study of the law. He began his studies
in the office and under the direction and preceptorship of Judge
Charles T. Moore, of Nashville, and was admitted to the bar upon
examination in 1894. Of the Republican faith he soon became a figure
in the politics of that party in his district, and in 1896 became a
candidate for state's attorney. He was declared elected by a ma-
jority of two votes on the face of the returns, but lost the decision
on a recount. In 1901 he was elected city attorney of Nashville. In
1902 he was elected county judge as the successor of Judge Vernor,
and in 1906 was again elected, by an increased majority. In 1906
he was elected circuit judge on the Republican ticket with Judges
Hadley and Crow, by a majority of over four thousand from the coun-
ties of Washington, Madison, Bond, St. Glair, Monroe, Perry and
Randolph. His political record has been one in which he may justly
show pride, and which is eloquent evidence of the regard of his fel-
low citizens for him.
On June 15, 1892, Judge Bernreuter was married in Washington
county to Miss Minnie Krughoff. a daughter of Fred Krughoff. The
wife of Fred Krughoff was Miss Wilhelmina Peithman. who bore him
1236 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ten children. Judge' and Mrs. Bernreuter are the parents of two
children : Ruth Ada and Edward Louis.
JAMES MCDONALD JOPLIN. In the death of James McDonald Joplin
on February 17, 1911, Benton, Franklin county, Illinois, and in fact
the whole of this section of the state, suffered an irreparable loss, his
demise marking the passing of a man who was at all times during his
life in the forefront in all affairs which tended to make for the highest
development and upbuilding of this section. In a professional way Mr.
Joplin was known as one of this locality's most talented and successful
attorneys-at-law, while his long and faithful service in various official
capacities in the city and county served to still further enhance his
fame and he was known to thousands of people in his part of the state
as a man of comprehensive talents and unimpeachable personal in-
tegrity.
James McDonald Joplin was a native of Franklin county, Illinois,
his birth having occurred near Benton on December 3, 1866. The Jop-
lins were early pioneers in Southern Illinois, the parents of James Mc-
Donald, whose names were Howell T. and Anna (Dial) Joplin, hav-
ing come from their native state of Tennessee to Franklin county in an
early day, living here until the time of their death. Mr. Joplin, senior,
was a veteran of the Civil war. The son James spent his boyhood days
on his father's farm, attending school and participating in such work
and amusements as ordinarily fell to the lot of the farmer's boy in
those days.
After his student days were over Mr. Joplin became a teacher in
Franklin county schools, pursuing that profession for several years.
He gave up that work finally, however, to discharge the duties of clerk
of the county court of Franklin county, to which office he was elected in
November, 1890. He filled that office with great efficiency for a period
of four years and after retiring from the position took up the study of
law and was admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1897. A year later Mr.
Joplin formed a partnership with D. F. Moore at Benton, and the firm
handled a lucrative legal business for two years. Mr. Joplin then pur-
chased an interest in the real estate and abstract business of Judge W.
F. Dillon, and these two gentlemen continued to conduct the office for
two years, when Judge Dillon retired from the firm, selling his interest
to W. F. Spiller the business was accordingly conducted until 1909
under the firm name of Joplin & Spiller.
In 1906 Mr. Joplin became the Democratic candidate for Congress
in the Twenty-fifth Congressional District of Illinois, and notwith-
standing the district was very largely Republican in sentiment, he ran
far ahead of his ticket, and, although defeated, was stronger in the
affection and esteem of his friends than before entering the campaign.
In 1907 Mr. Joplin accepted the nomination for mayor of Benton, was
elected and made one of the most efficient officials the city ever had in
that position. One of the practical monuments of his term as mayor is
Benton 's excellent sewer system, for the securing of which the city is
directly indebted to him more than any other individual. In the May,
1909, term of the circuit court Mr. Joplin was appointed by judge
Creighton as master in chancery, which position he held at the time of
his death. Mr. Joplin was an indefatigable worker, an interesting and
forceful speaker, true to a trust, competent and courteous and dis-
charged his duties in every official position he ever held with great
credit to himself and entire satisfaction to his constituents and the
public at large.
He was a man of large sympathies and broad interests, and was
"**
OF THE
OF ILU
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1237
always a potent factor in movements of every description inaugurated
to serve the public good. In 1898 Mr. Joplin was elected captain of
Company F, Ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, in the Spanish-Amer-
ican war. He accumulated a considerable fortune during his life and
at his death bequeathed a large estate to his family.
On November 20, 1889, occurred the marriage of Mr. Joplin and Miss
Mattie Taylor, a daughter of Richard H. Taylor. Mr. Taylor was born
at Taylor Hill, Franklin county, and died from the effects of a wound
which he received in the Civil war, he having been a member of Com-
pany F, Eighteenth Regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Joplin became the parents
of six children: Clarence D. is engaged in the farm loan business;
Perna C. in high school here; Percy M. attends a business college at
Marion; Ruth E. is a schoolgirl, as is also Anna, while the youngest,
Jama Marie, is not of school age. Mrs. Joplin is one of the leaders of
social and religious life here. She is a member of the Primitive Baptist
church, and belongs to the Eastern Star, Rebekah and White Shriner
lodges.
JOHN D. HIRONS. Noteworthy among the enterprising and success-
ful business men of Jefferson county is John D. Hirons, cashier of
the Farmers' Bank of Waltonville. The great-grandson of John
Hirons, who settled in Jefferson county, Illinois, in 1829, he comes of
substantial pioneer stock, and is numbered among the native born
citizens of the county, his birth having occurred near Waltonville,
July 25, 1879, on the farm of his father, the late Sidney T. Hirons.
His paternal grandfather, Benjamin L. Hirons, was born in Ohio,
and came to Jefferson county, Illinois, with his parents in 1829. He
subsequently purchased government land in the vicinity of Walton-
ville, at one dollar and twenty-five cents and acre, and in course of
time became on of the large landholders of this part of the county,
and a most prosperous farmer. He died at Waltonville, Illinois, in
the year 1891, and his widow, whose maiden name was Emily Place,
afterwards married a Mr. Gilbert and is now living, a bright and
active woman of four score and four years.
Sidney T. Hirons, the father of John D. Hirons, spent his entire
life of sixty years in Jefferson county, his birth occurring in 1850 and
his death in June, 1910. He married Susan Dodds, who is still living,
and to them four children were born, as follows : Mrs. Ruth Davis ;
John D., the special subject of this brief sketch ; Hughs, living on the
parental farm, one and one-half miles east of Waltonville ; and
Euterpe, wife of Ray Mannen.
Receiving his elementary education in the common schools of his
native district, John D. Hirons afterwards continued his studies for
a time at the McKendree College, in Lebanon, Illinois. Having acquired
a thorough knowledge of agriculture during his youthful days, he
afterwards followed farming for awhile, and from 1903 until 1907
was engaged in mercantile business in Waltonville. In the latter
year the Farmers' Bank of Waltonville was organized by the farmers
of the community, and Mr. Hirons accepted a position as cashier of
the institution, an office for which he is admirably qualified, and in
which he has since served most efficiently and satisfactorily. The
officers of the bank are men of integrity and worth, and include the
following named officers and directors : President, T. H. Manuen ;
vice president, Dr. J. W. Jeffries; cashier, John D. Hirons; assistant
cashier, W. J. Gilbert. The directors are as follows: J. F. Allen,
H. P. Daniels, W. J. Gilbert, Jarret McCowan, Henry Pero, T. H.
Mannen, J. D. Dodds, II. H. Davis, J. W. Jeffries, W. R. Shurtz and
1238 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
John F. Walker. The bank has a capital stock of fifteen thousand dol-
lars, its list of stockholders comprising about forty-five of the leading
farmers of this section of Jefferson county, with an individual liability
of five hundred thousand dollars.
On April 14, 1903, Mr. Hirons was united in marriage with Lela
McConaughey, of Waltonville, a daughter of Andrew J. McConaughey,
and into their pleasant home two children have made their advent,
namely: Lucille, born February 5, 1904, and Margaret, born Decem-
ber 9, 1905. Fraternally Mr. Hirons is a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows and of the Modern Woodmen of America.
JAMES W. TURNER. Noted as a scholar and an educator, James W,
Turner, superintendent of the public schools at Carrier Mills, is ad-
ministering the affairs of his important position with a zeal and effi-
ciency that is widely recognized and highly appreciated by parents,
pupils and the community in general. He was born February 20,
1848, near Nashville, Tennessee, of honored patriotic ancestry, his
great-grandfather, John Turner, a resident of North Carolina, having
served as an officer in the Revolutionary war, enlisting for service in
that state.
Elijah Turner, Mr. Turner's father, was born in Simpson county,
Kentucky, but early in the '60s bought land in Williamson county,
Illinois, and was there engaged in agricultural pursuits until his
death, at the age of four score years. He served as sutler of a regi-
ment in the Civil war, but was never identified with any political
office. He married Matilda McDole, who was born in Simpson county,
Kentucky, and died on the home farm in Williamson county, Illinois,
when but sixty-five years old. He belonged to a family of some note,
two of his uncles, Jackson Williams and Thomas Williams, having
served in the War of 1812, at the battle of New Orleans fighting under
General Jackson.
After leaving the public schools, James W. Turner attended Bor-
deau Academy, a branch of Vanderbilt University. When seventeen
years old he came with the family to Williamson county, Illinois, and
soon after the opening of the Southern Illinois Normal School, at
Carbondale, entered that institution, and there continued his early
studies. Thus well equipped, Mr. Turner has pursued his profes-
sional career, begun in 1866, and for well-nigh a half century has
been an active and successful worker in educational fields, in the ad-
vancement of the public school system, having contributed his full
share. For nine years he taught in the rural schools of Williamson
county, being afterwards principal of the Crab Orchard schools seven
years and of the Marion schools in 1883 and 1884. Subsequently
founding Crab Orchard Academy, Mr. Turner served as its princi-
pal twenty years. He was superintendent for eight years of the
Stone Fort high school, which he organized and for five years was
at the head of the Carterville high school as its superintendent. Go-
ing then to Creal Springs, he organized a high school at that place,
and after serving as its superintendent four years, came in 1910, to
Carrier Mills, where he organized the high school of which he is now
the superintendent, this being his second year in that position.
For the benefit of teachers and advanced pupils desirous of tak-
ing a practical and thorough review of all branches of study on which
they may be examined for a certificate, Mr. Turner established the
Carrier Mills Select School, the first annual term of which was opened
in the Carrier Mills high school building April 5, 1911, with an aca-
demic and normal department, both of which are well patronized con-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1239
sidering the brief time in which they have been in existence. Espe-
cial attention is given to the special studies of the "Illinois Teachers'
Reading Circle," "Methods of Teaching" and to the State Course of
Study," subjects in which the average student and many teachers are
deficient and likewise those branches of arithmetic and history which
are not very thoroughly taught.
Mr. Turner is prominent in institute work, and has served as presi-
dent of the Tri-county Teachers' Association. Nearly one hundred
scholars have been graduated from schools which Mr. Turner has
had in charge, and of these seventy-six have entered the teacher's
profession, while upwards of three hundred of his pupils have become
school teachers, and several have become school superintendents. Un-
der Mr. Turner's efficient management the Carrier Mills schools are
in a flourishing condition, being located in a magnificent new build-
ing, with over four hundred pupils in the grades, and as intelligent
and capable a corps of teachers as can be found in Southern Illinois.
The high school is well equipped and occupies class rooms in the same
building.
Mr. Turner married, in 1874, Millie Cunningham, who was born
in Marshall county, Mississippi, in 1844, a daughter of William and
Catherine Cunningham, and a relative of Mrs. John A. Logan. Six
children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Turner, namely:
Rev. James W. Turner, of Edgewood, Iowa, a prominent minister in
the Methodist Episcopal church, belonging to the Northern Iowa Con-
ference; Gus H., a printer at Taylorville, Illinois; Richard F. and
Elijah H., who died in infancy ; Charles H., a printer at Carrier Mills ;
and Millie R., a teacher.
In his political affiliations Mr. Turner is • a steadfast Democrat.
Fraternally he has been a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted
Order of Masons and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since
attaining his majority, and has passed all the chairs in the lodges
of each organization. He was made a Royal Arch Mason in Marion,
Illinois, and holds his Chapter membership there. Blazing Star Lodge,
at Crab Orchard, in which he. took the initiatory degrees of Masonry,
was for a time inactive, but recently, under the efforts of Mr. Turner,
it has been revived, and since its removal to Carrier Mills is in an
exceedingly prosperous condition, with fair prospects of becoming a
strong and vigorous organization. Mr. Turner is a strong advocate
of the principles of Christianity and morality, and always puts forth
his best efforts to kindle a spark of inspiration in the life of his pupils.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is an active
worker in the Epworth League and Sunday-school.
Louis FALLER. As a representative business man and one of Jasper
county's most public-spirited citizens, Louis Faller, of the large mill-
ing firm of Faller Brothers, has been prominently identified with the
development and material prosperity of the city of Newton. He is
a native of this city, and was born February 5, 1864, a son of Bernard
and Elizabeth (Theriach) Faller.
Bernard Faller was born at Barr, Alsace, France (now Germany),
July 13, 1822, and in 1839 accompanied his five brothers to the United
States, settling first on a farm in Fox township, Jasper county, Illi-
nois. After a short period he removed to Chicago and obtained em-
ployment as a tanner, a trade he had learned in his native country,
and subsequently sought to enlist in the army for service during
the Mexican war, but on arriving at St. Louis found that the war had
closed, and instead joined a party which was en route for the gold
1240 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fields of California. After remaining in that state for about four
years, during which he met with gratifying success, Mr. Faller came
back to Newton, where he was married in 1854 to Miss Elizabeth
Theriach, a lady of Vincennes, Indiana, of French descent, whose
people were among the first settlers of that old city. Fourteen children
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Faller, namely : Anthony, M. D., who is
deceased; James, a retired citizen of Newton; Frank, who died in
infancy ; Henry, who is engaged in the real estate business at Newton ;
Thomas, who is deceased; Florent, a prosperous grocer of Newton;
Louis ; Francis, who is the manager of a sawmill in Arkansas ; Joseph-
ine, residing at home ; Helena, who is a sister, known as Sister Francis
DeSales, in St. Joseph's Hospital, at Kansas City, Missouri; Bernard,
who is deceased ^ Stella, residing at home ; Hubert, a barber of New-
ton; and Charles, who is a member of the firm of Faller Brothers.
After his marriage Bernard Faller resided for a short time on a farm,
and in 1858 came to Newton and organized the Newton Steam Mill,
which he erected. Two years later the Newton Water Mills was built
and the mill is still in operation, although the original building burned
in 1877 and was rebuilt the same year by Mr. Faller. This business
claimed Mr. Faller 's activities until his death in 1888. He was widely
known, and held various positions of importance in Newton, serving
capably on the village and school boards and in other capacities.
Squire Faller was a Democrat, and was a stockholder in the People's
Bank of Newton, of which he was for some time president. He died
in the faith of the Roman Catholic church, of which his widow, who
survives him and is seventy-three years of age, is also a member.
The early life of Louis Faller was spent in Newton, where he se-
cured a public school education. In 1875 he went to work in the old
mill, and he has since engaged in that line of enterprise. The pres-
ent firm of Faller Brothers, which bears a high reputation in this sec-
tion, was organized in 1903 by Mr. Faller and his brother, Charles,
they buying up the shares of the other stockholders and dissolving
the old corporation. Five men are employed in producing 144 barrels
of flour daily, and the well-known "Stella" and "White Lily" brands
are manufactured. Mr. Faller is a man of marked discrimination and
tact, and his careful regard for the highest ethics of business has
gained for him uniform confidence and esteem and a patronage which
is the natural sequence of correct methods. Politically a Democrat,
he has served as a member of the city council, maintains a thoroughly
public-spirited attitude and is held in high esteem by all who know
him in both business and social circles. He and Mrs. Faller are
members of the Catholic church, and he belongs to the Catholic Order
of Foresters, the Court of Honor, the Modern Americans and the
Newton Commercial Club.
In 1895 Mr. Faller was married to Miss Josephine P. Shackmann,
of Newton, and eight children have been born to them, three of
whom are living, namely: Louise, Elizabeth and Florant. Charles
Faller was married in 1904 to Miss Molly F. Sullender. They have
no children.
JUDGE WILLIAM P. GREEN. Exercising, with marked distinction,
and impartiality, high judicial functions as county judge of Wash-
ington county, and recognized as one of the able members of the bar
of Southern .Illinois, it is but fitting that a record should here be en-
tered concerning the Hon. William P. Green, of Nashville. He was born
in Nashville township, Washington county, June 4, 1874, his father be-
ing one of the farmer citizens of the county who was honored with
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1241
public office. He left his farm to take the office of county treasurer,
to which the Republicans had elected him, and the years following his
retirement were passed on the Green homestead, three miles south-
west of Nashville, where he died in 1890, at the early age of fifty-
six years.
Hugh P. Green, father of Judge Green, was born in 1834, in St.
Clair county, Illinois, from whence he came to Washington county.
His father was Burget Green, who settled near Marissa, St. Clair
county, as a pioneer and spent his life there as a farmer and school
teacher. He had these children : Parker, who died in 1890, at Mar-
issa, as a farmer and left a family ; James, who passed away there in
the same vocation and was the father of children ; Polly, who married
Abraham Teter and died near New Athens, Illinois, with issue; Rob-
ert, who died in Missouri ; Isabel, who died at Marissa, unmarried ;
and Hugh P. In 1849 Hugh P. Green joined the throng moving on
California, went out through Texas and Mexico, and sought his for-
tune in the gold fields. He engaged in prospecting at once, and dur-
ing his absence of several years gathered together with pick and pan
enough gold dust to pay for the Green homestead in Washington
county, which he bought and settled on before the outbreak of the
Civil war. He was educated limitedly, save for his varied experience
.in the affairs of men, and he applied himself to the popular features
of farm life until elected to care for the public funds of his county.
In political matters he was a stalwart Republican.
Hugh P. Green was married in Washington county, Illinois, to
Miss Elizabeth Troutt, a daughter of the venerable Nashville patri-
arch, Elijah Troutt. Mr. Troutt came to Nashville in 1863 and re-
sumed his trade of blacksmith, following it until old age ordered his
retirement. He came from Elkton, Todd county, Kentucky, where
he grew up from a lad of a dozen years and where his father, Joseph
Troutt, had settled in 1833. The latter was a North Carolina man,
was a schoolboy during the progress of the Revolutionary war, moved
to Lebanon, Tennessee, and spent a few years just after his mar-
riage, and there his son Elijah was born. His wife was a Miss "Wall,
and it is said that they brought their eleven children to years of ma-
turity without the aid of a doctor. Joseph Troutt died at the age
of one hundred and ten years, in Todd county, Kentucky.
Elijah Troutt and his sister, Polly Sneed, were the only mem-
bers of the family to migrate to Illinois. While he was sparingly
educated, he was fond of literature and possessed himself of a fund
of general information by daily reading. He seems to have been a
typical "village blacksmith." with an active and well-balanced mind,
and capable of defending his convictions in extemporaneous debate.
He was an ardent Prohibitionist and. anti-slavery man during war
times and on the eve of the secession movement was challenged by a
preacher of the community to debate with him publicly the question
whether liquor or slavery were the greater evil. He was assigned
the slavery end of the question, and although his was a pro-slavery
community and he flayed the institution without mercy, the judges
gave him the decision. While troops were being enlisted for the Mex-
ican war about Elkton, Mr. Troutt was a fifer at the head of the
column marching under martial music to arouse public interest in the
cause. He was subsequently captain of a militia company and still
later colonel of a militia regiment. He married his wife in the com-
munity where he grew up, she being Lucinda Carson, daughter of
Samuel Carson, an Englishman, whose wife, a Miss Waggoner, was
born in Germany, and Mrs. Troutt was the third of their six children.
1242 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
The issue of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh P. Green are as follows : Martha,
the wife of W. E. Darrow, of O 'Fallen, Illinois; Mary, who married
O. H. Burman, and resides in Washington, D. C. ; James, of Schaller,
Iowa; William P., the subject of this sketch; Dr. G. A. Green, of
Hoyleton, Illinois; Anna, the wife of H. J. Mueller, of Nashville,
Illinois; Viola, now Mrs. George Ausmeyer of this city; and Hugh
P., who completed his course in law in the Northwestern University,
Chicago, in 1912.
William P. Green attended high school in Nashville, Illinois, and
spent two years in the law department of McKendree College. After
his admission to the bar he taught school two years in Washington
county. He then engaged in law practice and was made city attorney
of ' Nashville. He soon formed a partnership with Judge Louis Bern-
reuter in the real estate and loan business and was appointed manager
of the Washington County Abstract Company, which business they are
still carrying on as W. P. Green & Company. In 1910 MrT Green be-
came a candidate for the office of county judge before the Republican
primaries and was nominated and subsequently elected. He took the
office upon the retirement of Judge Bernreuter, and is giving a most
excellent administration of the affairs of this important judicial office.
Judge Green has established a thorough reputation for comprehensive
legal knowledge and for ability to apply it. He is a logician as well
as a close student, and is highly regarded by his fellow members of
the bench and bar, and has the full confidence and respect of the
public at large.
Judge Green was married May 21, 1907, in Washington county,
to Miss Clara Becker, a daughter of William Becker, the oldest shoe
merchant in Nashville, and three children have been born to this
union, namely: William, Vera and Porter E.
JOHN R. BONNET, well known in Clay county and Southern Illinois
as a prosperous farmer and a prominent attorney in this section of
the state, was born in Monroe county, Illinois, on the 27th day of April,
1848. He is the son of Philip C. and Nancy (Fisher) Bonney, the
former born in Cumberland county, Maine, in 1808. He came to Illi-
nois in 1840 and settled in Monroe county, later moving to Jackson
county. A stone mason by trade, he followed that occupation all his
life. When the Civil war broke out he enlisted in Company A of the
Thirty-first Illinois, in the command of General John A. Logan, and
after a continuous service of eleven months he sickened and died three
days after being sent home. Mr. Bonney saw much active service dur-
ing the months of his enlistment, passing through the siege of Vicks-
burg and participating in many important engagements. His widow
survived him until May 12, 1908, when she passed away at the family
home. She was a woman of sterling character and all womanly traits,
and was always a member of the Baptist church. She was a charter
member of the New Design Baptist church, the first Baptist church or-
ganized in the state of Illinois, and was ever an enthusiastic and honored
member of the organization. Her father, Thomas Fisher, the grand-
father of John R. Bonney, was a native of Tennessee. He settled in
Illinois in an early day and there passed his life as a farmer. He was a
highly respected member of society in his community, and lived a
worthy and useful life in his quiet way.
John R. Bonney was educated in the common schools of Clay county,
and finished with two years in Shurtleff College at Upper Alton, after
which he taught school for two terms. In 1877 he settled on a farm in
Clay county, and there lived the quiet life of a farmer. He was elected
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1243
justice of the peace, and for twenty consecutive years held that office
In the meantime he prosecuted a carefully outlined course of law study,
and in 1896 was admitted to the bar. In 1898 he was elected to the
office of county judge, succeeding himself in that office in 1902. It was
not until then that he entered into the active practice of his profes-
sion, forming a partnership with Judge A. M. Rose, prominent in
Louisville and Clay county, and for two years he carried on a wide
practice, meanwhile farming "by proxy," as he says. Mr. Bonney is
a veteran of the Civil war, having served in Company E of the One
Hundred and Fifty-fifth Illinois Regiment for a term of seven months.
He is and always has been an active Republican, as was also his father.
Mr. Bonney has prospered in all his undertakings, and his farm of
three hundred and seventy-five acres is a source of much pride to him,
as well as a considerable income. He is at present filling the position
of city attorney in Louisville in addition to his general practice, and
is an all-around busy, business man. He is a member of the Grand
Army of the Republic and of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In 1869 Mr. Bonney married Miss Samantha Erwin, and of their
union six children were born. They are: Laura, who married J. H.
Chandler; Etta, who became the wife of George W. McGlashan; Lillie,
who married Elijah G. Johnson; Maude and Jessie, both living in the
parental home; and Roscoe, principal of schools in Springer, New Mex-
ico. The wife and mother died in 1898, and on November 9, 1900, Mr.
Bonney contracted a second marriage, when Miss Jennie Wolf became
his wife. She is the daughter of Jacob Wolf, an early settler in Clay
county. One son has been born of this later union, — Harold Hobson,
now attending school. Mrs. Bonney is a member of the Methodist
Episcopal church, and is interested an active in all its departments of
service.
CARL ROEDEL. Unless the modern lawyer is a man of sound judg-
ment, possessed of a liberal education and stern training, combined with
a keen insight of human nature, there is not much chance of his meet-
ing with success. The reason for this lies in the spirit of the age, with
all its complexities. Modern jurisprudence has become more and more
intricate because of new conditions and laws and in their interpreta-
tion. Years of experience, constant study and natural inclination are
superinduced upon a careful training in the case of Carl Roedel, whose
career as an attorney-at-law has been marked with many successful out-
comes for his clents. His heart is in his work and he brings to it an
enthusiasm and belief in its importance which would probably result
in his being raised to the bench were it not that his political convictions
have made him a member of the party now in the minority in his sec-
tion of Illinois. Mr. Roedel, whose field of practice is the city of
Shawneetown, Gallatin county, was born in Van Wert county, Ohio,
September 30, 1842, and grew to manhood at Decatur, the county seat
of Adams county, Indiana, whence his parents had removed when he
was a child.
Mr. Roedel was educated in Vermilion Institute at Hayesville, Ohio,
taught school awhile in Indiana, and for a period of three years was
principal of the schools of Mt. Carmel, Illinois. In 1868 he came to
Shawneetown as principal of its schools for one year, and even at that
time the attendance was about what it is today, although the school
buildings were poor and the system had not. advanced to its present
efficiency. Miss Joanna Golden, who was one of his assistants, has
taught school here for more than half a century and is still engaged in
the profession here. Later Mr. Roedel taught at Grayville, in the
1244 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLI\7OIS
meantime assiduously studying law, and in 1871 he was admitted to
practice, locating in Shawneetown the year following. Since that time
he has devoted himself unreservedly to his profession and has been very
successful in his chosen line, that of civil practice. He has served as
counsel in almost every case of any importance in Gallatin county dur-
ing this time, and several with which he has been connected have at-
tracted widespread attention, especially the famous "Riverside Tax
Title Case," involving title to the widely -known Riverside Hotel, the
only case on record that has had three rehearings before the supreme
court. The former state treasurer Ridgeway and the then member of
congress Townsend were the leading spirits in this case, which gave op-
portunity to fight out long existing personal, political and business
animosities, the questions involved interesting the profession generally.
For some five or six years Mr. Roedel's son, Charles K., a graduate in
law from Wesleyan College at Bloomington, Illinois, has been his
partner. An earnest Republican, casting his first vote in 1864 for
President Lincoln, Mr. Roedel has been an active and earnest worker
for his party, the campaign of 1896 especially demanding his efforts
on the rostrum to counteract the Free Silver movement. He stands
high in his profession, many of the members of which would be pleased
to see him occupy a seat on the circuit bench, but an overwhelming
Democratic district leaves little chance for a Republican to be elected.
Mr. Roedel was married at Mt. Carmel, Illinois, to Miss Sarah
Frances Koser, and they have reared a family of seven children. He is
an elder in the Presbyterian church and has been active and liberal in
his support of religious and charitable movements, especially in the
Sunday-school, of which he has been the head for many years. Mr.
Roedel belongs to the old school of lawyers, although progressive in his
methods and ideas, and is of gracious and genial personality and
courteous bearing. Widely acquainted throughout Gallatin county, he
has hosts of friends both in and out of his profession, regardless of
political views, and is justly regarded as one of this section's most
eminent attorneys.
PROFESSOR HENRY • W. HOSTETTLER. The reputation of Professor
Hostettler as an educator is not alone confined to Olney, nor yet to
Richland county, but is familiar to the educational circles of all South-
ern Illinois. His work during the years of his service has been of an
excellent order, and has won him a reputation for efficiency and ad-
vanced ideas that is wholly consistent with the close and careful appli-
cation he has given to all matters of educational interest.
Henry W. Hostettler was born in Richland county, June 7, 1868,
and is the son of Peter and Elizabeth (Balmer) Hostettler, the former
having been born in Ohio, of Swiss parentage, while the latter was born
in Switzerland. Peter Hostettler came to Illinois as a young man and
settled on a farm in Richland county, where he still lives. He has
been highly successful in his labors in agricultural lines and is widely
known in Richland county as a stock raiser of much ability and success.
He is an enthusiastic Democrat, and both he and his wife are members
of the German Reformed church. His father was Joseph Hostettler,
born in Switzerland and an immigrant to Ohio in early life. He was
a physician and practiced his profession in Ohio for forty years. The
maternal grandfather of Henry "W. Hostettler was a native of Switzer-
land, coming first to Indiana and later to Illinois, where he devoted
himself to farming pursuits, in which he was particularly successful,
being known as one of the well-to-do men of his district.
The higher education of Professor Hostettler was obtained mainly
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1245
through his own efforts, as after he left the common schools he was
left to his own resources in the matter of his continued studies, and he
attended the Southern Illinois Normal school by teaching school in the
winter and prosecuting his studies in the summer, continuing in that
way until he had finished his normal course of instructions. He was
principal of schools at Bridgeport from 1895 to 1898, and in the latter
year was elected superintendent of schools of Lawrence county, serving
one term. He was then made city superintendent of schools at Law-
reneeville, where he remained for four years, filling the position with
credit to himself and in a manner that was highly beneficial to the
schools. His next position was as principal of the township high school,
a place which he filled for two years, coming to Olney as superintendent
of schools in 1911. His labors thus far in Olney have been rewarded
by a pleasureable degree of success and he is regarded as the right man
in the right place by his constituency.
Professor Hostettler is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is
an adherent to principles of the Democratic party, whose cause he has
ever supported in a whole-souled manner. During his term of service
in Lawrenceville he was twice elected to the office of mayor, happily
demonstrating his fitness for other positions of responsibility aside from
his educational work, to which he has devoted the greater part of his
life thus far. He is the owner of a fine farm in Lawrence county, as
well as other outside interests, but none of these have been permitted
to interfere with the fullest and most conscientious performance of his
duties in his educational capacity. He has been a member of the Revi-
sion Committee of the State Course of Study, serving from 1900 to
1902. and while a member of that committee he did excellent work for
the commission. Professor Hostettler was a teacher of mathmatics in
the State Normal at Normal, Illinois, during the summer term of 1911,
in which branch he was particularly successful. He has done a vast
amount of institute work and has held various offices in the Teachers'
Association of Southern Illinois, his high reputation among the educa-
tional interests of the state being well earned and one of which he is
eminently deserving.
In 1894 Professor Hostettler married Stella Shaw, a daughter of
Hutchings Shaw, a native of Ohio, now a resident of Lawrence county.
Three children have been born to the union of Professor and Mrs. Hos-
tettler: Jean, Pern and Mary. The two eldest are attendants at the
Olney schools, while Mary is but eighteen months old.
ETHELBERT CALLAHAN was born in Licking county Ohio, December
17, 1829. His father was of Irish and his mother of English descent.
His grandfather, the Rev. George Callahan, was a soldier of the Revolu-
tion and a pioneer Methodist preacher in Ohio. In 1849 he came to
Crawford county, Illinois, and that winter taught a three months'
school at fifteen dollars a month and says that when paid he felt richer
than ever since. He edited the Wabash Sentinel in 1853-4, after which
time he went to Marshall and edited the Telegraph during the Know
Nothing campaign of that year. On the 27th of June, 1854, he mar-
ried Mrs. Mary Barlow Jones and has since resided in Crawford county.
In his boyhood he heard Thomas Ewing make a great legal argument
and decided in boyish fashion that he, too, would be a lawyer, but
years had passed leaving the ambition still ungratified. In 1857 he
was elected justice of the peace, began to read law and in 1859 was
admitted to the bar. In 1861 he opened an office in Robinson, and
commenced an active practice. His career as a lawyer has been emi-
nently successful, and this has been achieved by an untiring devotion to
1246 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
his profession, a profound knowledge of the law, the patient study that
gave him complete mastery of his cases and a rare faculty for seizing
opportunities in their trial, a genius for examining witnesses and an
unfailing judgment of men, strong, earnest argument, and the high
standard of honor and courtesy to friend and foe that entitles a man
to call himself in a true sense a lawyer.
The general practice of a country lawyer necessarily includes every
branch of the law and all classes of cases, from the most trivial to the
most serious character, involving life, liberty, reputation and the numer-
ous rights of property arising out of the diversified pursuits and com-
merce of the country. This kind of a practice enlarges the knowledge
and broadens the mind of a lawyer who keeps up with its demands. Mr.
Callahan has not lagged behind his professional brethern but has won
his full share of important legal battles. As a recognition of his char-
acter, ability and standing as a lawyer the honorable degree of Doctor
of Laws was, in June, 1898, conferred upon him by McKendree College.
Mr. Callahan claims the distinction of having made the first speech
in the county for the Republican party. As a Republican he has been
a member of the twenty-ninth, thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and thirty-
ninth general assemblies of the state. As presidential elector he voted
for Garfield and Harrison. He was a member of the Methodist church
and was, in 1874, a delegate from the Southern Illinois Conference of
that church to the general conference held in Brooklyn. Mr. Callahan
was one of the organizers of the Illinois State Bar Association, was its
president in 1889, and has contributed to it several valuable papers,
among which was "The Lawyers of the Bible," which has been exten-
sively copied.
He is also one of the largest farmers in the county, and his farm
on the banks of the Wabash is an exponent of the best scientific methods
of farming.
EDMUND C. PARK, M. D. After nearly forty years spent .in minis-
tering to the needs of suffering mankind, Dr. Edmund C. Park, of
Flora, Illinois, has practically retired from the practice of his profes-
sion and is now living a semi-retired life on his handsome farm in Clay
county. During the Doctor's long and useful career he has been phy-
sician, soldier, merchant and agriculturist, and at all times a public-
spirited citizen, and no one has the confidence and esteem -of his fellow
men in a greater degree. Dr. Park was born in South Carolina, Octo-
ber 18, 1836, and is a son of Edmund C. and Susan M. (Wilkins) Park,
both born in that state.
Thomas Park, the grandfather of the Doctor, was a prominent edu-
cator and occupied a chair in Columbia College, Columbia, South Caro-
lina, where he died, and where he was the owner of a large plantation
and a number of slaves. His son, the father of our subject, was edu-
cated to be a physician, and in 1840, with his wife and children, came
to Illinois, settling at Greenville, Bond county, where he practiced
medicine until 1849. Dr. Park then started for California, having
contracted the gold fever, and with eight other adventurous souls started
to cross the country overland. When the little party was near Inde-
pendence, Missouri, however, the cholera plague struck their camp and
three of the party, including Dr. Park's father, passed away, the lad
then being only thirteen years of age. He was left alone with his
mother, who was the daughter of Samuel Wilkins, a native of South
Carolina and a Missionary Baptist missionary and preacher for many
years. He moved to Illinois in 1844 and entered land, but only re-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1247
mained a short time, returning to his native state, where his death oc-
curred.
The early education of Edmund C. Park was secured in the schools
of Greenville, Illinois, where he had as a schoolmate the late Robert
Ingersoll. After the death of his father he went to California, but did
not remain long in that state, returning by way of the Isthmus. While
on the return journey, and in Havana, Cuba, he witnessed the public
execution of Narciso Lopez, the Spanish- American filibuster, who after
a career marked by murder and revolutionary activities was put to
death September 2, 1851. On his return to Illinois, Dr. Park took up
the study of medicine under the tuition of his uncle, Dr. C. K. Hender,
of Olney, and he subsequently entered the Chicago Medical College,
being graduated therefrom. He began practice in LaClede, Illinois,
where the outbreak of the Civil war found him, and in 1862 he gave
up his practice to answer the call for volunteers. Becoming first lieu-
tenant of Company H, Sixty-second Regiment, Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry, he was soon promoted to the rank of captain and detailed
to hospital duty. He served with distinction with the same organiza-
tion until the close of the war, having an honorable record for faith-
ful, cheerful and capable service, and then returned to LaClede to
pick up the broken threads and resume his practice where he had
left off. In 1872 Dr. Park moved to Flora, and there began a prac-
tice that lasted for something like forty years, during which time he
gained the affection and confidence of his fellow men in an excep-
tional degree. Known as an experienced physician and surgeon, and
as a man who had served his country, his practice was large from the
start, but each year found him widening his circle of patients, ac-
quaintances and friends, and when he decided that he had completed
his duty and that he had earned a rest from his labors the community
expressed their regret in no uncertain terms. During five years the
Doctor was the proprietor of a pharmacy, but of this he also dis-
posed, and he is now living practically retired, the greater part of
his attention being given to apple raising. He has been deservedly
successful in a material way, and in addition to his large farm is
the owner of considerable city property in Flora. Always conscien-
tious in regard to public duty, Dr. Park has been called upon to fill
various offices, and he is now acting very capably as county coroner.
He has been stanch in his support of Republican principles, and the
leaders of the party in Southern Illinois consider him one of their
valuable workers. For many years a Mason, he belongs to LaClede
Lodge and Chapter, being past master of the former and having
represented it in Chicago more than forty years ago. He and his
family attend the Presbyterian church, and all are well known in
religious and charitable circles.
In 1857 Dr. Park was united in marriage with Miss Emma Dowler,
daughter of Frank Dowler, an early settler of Indiana, who later
moved to Fayette county, Illinois, being a merchant at the time of
his death in Vandalia. Mrs. Park died in 1896, having been the mother-
of four children, as follows : Emma Lula, who is living with her
father and acting as his housekeeper during his declining years ; Kate,
who married William J. Selby and resides in Flora ; Marion, de-
ceased, who married Samuel Norwood, of South Carolina, and was
living in that state at the time of her death ; and Dr. Edmund C., Jr.,
who now has an excellent practice in Chicago, and who was for fifteen
years one of Flora's best known professional men.
1248 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
CHARLES B. COLE is vice-president of the H. C. Cole Milling Com-
pany and president of the Wabash, Chester & Western Railroad Com-
pany. He was born at Chester, Illinois, May 6, 1845, and is a represen-
tative of one of the old families which has been conspicuous for three-
quarters of a century in commercial and industrial affairs at this point.
Mr. Cole, of this notice, has passed his life in the development of one of
the leading flour mills of Illinois and as a promoter of a line of trans-
portation which has availed much for this community in the interchange
of commodities.
Mr. Cole 's father, Hermon C. Cole, was born in Seneca county, New
York, in 1813, and was brought into the Mississippi valley when he was
eight years of age. His father, Nathan Cole, the founder of the family
in this section of the country, passed his milling interests to his son,
Hermon C., when the latter was about twenty-five years of age. The
original progenitor of the Cole family in America was of English origin
and he came to this country during the early colonial epoch of our na-
tional history.
Hermon C. Cole was reared on the banks of the Mississippi and,
while he acquired but little education within the walls of a genuine
school, he developed power with experience and demonstrated a large
amount of latent capacity in the building up of his mill business. His
citizenship was marked for its lack of activity in political matters and
for abstention from fraternal societies. He was originally a Whig but
later became a Republican, casting a vote for Fremont in 1856. He
manifested a general interest in current news and discussed public
questions of moment intelligently whenever drawn into conversation.
He was an easy talker but never essayed to speech-making, preferring
to be a layman rather than a leader. He was about five feet, eight
inches in height and weighed one hundr.ed and fifty pounds; his move-
ments and expression were indicative of a man of achievement. In 1844
Hermon C. Cole married Miss Emily Cocks, the ceremony having been
performed at Stamford, Connecticut. Mrs. Cole was a daughter of
Richard Cocks, and Englishman by birth and a mill-wright by occupa-
tion. It is interesting to note that from the pond of the old Cocks mill
property the city of Stamford gets its water supply today. Mrs. Cole
died in 1859, and her honored husband passed away October 20, 1874.
Their children are here mentioned in respective order of birth, — Charles
B. is the immediate subject of this review ; Zachary T. is a resident of
Los Angeles, California; Mrs. Alice Smith resides at Alton, Illinois;
Henry C. is connected with the H. C. Cole Milling Company, as will be
noted in following paragraphs; Eunice is the wife of George J. Ken-
dall, of St. Louis; and Edward E. is engaged in business at Fargo,
North Dakota. Hermon C. Cole married for his second wife in Feb-
ruary, 1862, Mrs. Sarah J. Flanigan, and of this union there were born
Cora V., who died February 19, 1892 ; Hermon and Grace, who live in
Upper Alton, Illinois; Nathan, who lives in Springfield, Illinois; and
Newell, who died January 24, 1896.
After completing the curriculum of the public schools of Chester,
Charles B. Cole was matriculated as a student in the engineering de-
partment of Harvard University, in which excellent institution he was
graduated as a civil engineer in 1&67. When ready to assume the active
responsibilities of life he came to the aid of his father in the mill, with
the business of which he has been identified during the long intervening
years to the present time, in 1912.
Following is an article devoted to the H. C. Milling Company,
which will here be reproduced in its entirety. The same appeared in
the Modern Miller under date of March 3, 1906.
OFTHt
10NERSITY OF ILUSK
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1249
"The Cole family of Chester, Illinois, have operated a flour mill
continuously for sixty-seven years and probably conduct the oldest mill-
ing company in the Mississippi valley. The Coles were pioneers in the
milling trade of the west and the milling industry established by the
first generation has thrived and continues one of the most successful
in Illinois. C. B. Cole and H. C. Cole have large interests, aside from
milling, in railroads and corporations, but their milling industry they
look upon as their inheritance, in which they take special pride. The
history of the Cole family and the Chester mill is an interesting one.
"In 1820 Nathan Cole came from western New York to St. Louis,
Missouri. In 1821 his wife followed him with six boys, floating on a
raft with twelve other families, from Olean Point, New York, to Shaw-
neetown, Illinois, and from there across Illinois to St. Louis in an ox-
cart. Mr. Cole engaged for several years in packing beef and pork at
East St. Louis, near where the Southern Railway freight station now
stands. In 1837 he moved to Chester, Illinois, bought a large body of
land and started a saw mill with a corn stone attachment. In 1839 he
built a flour mill with two run of four-foot stones and a small pair for
corn. At this time there was not enough wheat raised in this section
to feed the people and considerable flour was brought from Cincinnati
and other points East.
"Nathan Cole died in 1840. He was succeeded by his third son,
Hermon C. Cole, who operated the mill with varying success until 1847,
the year of the Irish famine, when for the first time he made a fair
profit out of the business. This, with the active markets caused by the
Mexican and Crimean wars, gave him sufficient means to build, in 1855,
a then up-to-date mill, with four run of four-foot stones and one three
and one-half pair for middlings.
"With the new mill and the splendid wheat raised in the vicinity
of Chester, he determined to make the best winter-wheat flour that good
machinery and skill could, and he sold it under the brand of FFFG.
"This flour soon took the place it was intended that it should have
and until the introduction of purifiers it stood at the top and com-
manded a corresponding price.
"This was accomplished by using only the best of the wheat grown
in this section. The lower grades were used to make a flour sold under
the brand of Coles Mills Extra, which stood very high in the southern
markets; the FFFG, being sold principally in eastern markets.
"During a part of the time from 1840 to 1861 H. C. Cole's oldest
brother, Abner B. Cole, was associated with him. In 1861 A. B. Cole
moved to Turner, Oregon, where he died at a ripe old age. In 1873
purifiers were introduced into the mill but no attempt was made to in-
troduce a purified middlings flour.
"In 1868 Mr. Cole admitted his son, Charles B. and Zachary T.
Cole, as partners under the style of H. C. Cole & Company. He then
removed to Upper Alton, Illinois, where he died October 20, 1874, at
the age of sixty-one years. The mill was sold in 1875, in settlement of
the estate, to his sons, C. B. Cole, Z. T. Cole and Henry C. Cole, who
continued the business under the old firm name of H. C. Cole & Com-
pany. In 1878 the mill was enlarged to eight run of stones.
"In 1883 the old mill was wrecked and new machinery installed,
changing to the full roller process, with a daily capacity of five hundred
barrels. At this time the brand of Omega was established for the
patent grade and the old brands FFFG and Coles Mills Extra were
retained for the clear flour. By the same care in the selection of wheat
and skill of manufacture the new brand of Omega was soon established
1250 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and has maintained its supremacy as one of the highest grades of winter
wheat patent to the present time.
' ' In 1872 an elevator of 80,000 bushels capacity was built. In 1888
another of 125,000 bushels was built, which, with four country elevators,
gives a total storage capacity of 250,000 bushels of wheat, insuring an
ample storage capacity for a thoroughly uniform grade. There are
warehouses for the storage of 7,000 barrels of flour.
"In 1888 the business was incorporated with a capital of $100,000,
as the H. C. Cole Milling Company, with H. C. Cole, president; Z. T.
Cole, vice-president; and C. B. Cole, secretary and treasurer. In 1882
C. B., Z. T. and H. C. Cole purchased a half interest in the Star &
Crescent Mill in Chicago and Z. T. Cole went there and assumed the
active management of the same. He continued in this position until
1890, when his health failed and his interest was sold to Clinton Briggs.
Z. T. Cole removed to Los Angeles, California, where he still resides,
but retains his interest in the Chester mill. In 1895 P. H. Ravesies
purchased an interest in the H. C. Cole Milling Company and was its
manager until 1905, when he sold out. He was succeeded by E. P.
Bronson, who purchased his interest and was elected a director and
treasurer of the company. The mill has been enlarged and new
machinery added until now it has a capacity of 800 barrels per day,
with a trade that takes the full output.
"Thus for sixty-seven years the mill has been run continuously by
three generations; the present one being well along in years they must
soon give way to new faces, none of the fourth generation being dis-
posed to follow the old trail.
"This, in brief, is the history of what, so far as known, is the old-
est mill in the Mississippi valley run by the same family. ' '
In company with several parties Charles B. Cole purchased the
Wabash, Chester & Western Railroad at the receiver's sale and upon
the reorganization of the company he was chosen vice-president and
general manager in 1878. Some years later he was made president of
the company, a position he still holds. In politics Mr. Cole is a Demo-
crat and he served his district in the capacity of representative to the
state assemply in 1887. He attended Democratic state gatherings and
helped make state tickets as a delegate until 1896, when the party be-
came Bryanized and adopted a platform which he could not and did
not endorse. He gave encouragement to the "sound money" element
of the party and was an alternate delegate to the Indianapolis con-
vention which nominated Palmer for president. He opposed what was
said then to be the un-American policies of Mr. Bryan and has op-
posed their author since in his efforts to reach the presidency upon a
more modified declaration of principles.
Mr. Cole was first married at Walchville. Illinois, in 1869, to Miss
Laura Layman, who died in 1878. The children born to this union
were : Burt, a mining engineer ; Miss Alice, of Chester ; Una, wife of
P. C. Withers, of Mr. Vernon, Illinois; and Miss Edna, of Chester. In
January, 1882, Mr. Cole married Miss Mary Palmer, of Hampton, New
Hampshire. This union has been prolific of one child, Marion, who is
the wife of Dr. R. G. MacKenzie, of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
JOHN H. HENSON. Active and energetic, possessing good business
ability and judgment, John II. Henson occupies an assured position
as one of the leading general merchants of Xenia, and as mayor of
the city is rendering efficient service. He was born December 25,
1864, in Wayne county,' Illinois, which was likewise the birthplace
of his father, W. C. Henson. His paternal grandfather, Reuben Hen-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1251
son, a Kentuckian by birth, migrated to Illinois during the twenties,
took up land from the Government, and was there employed in tilling
the soil until his death, while yet in the prime of a vigorous manhood.
His wife, who survived him, married for her second husband Jerry
Chapman, a pioneer settler of Wayne county and a well-to-do farmer.
Philip Henson, father of Reuben Henson, was a soldier in the Revolu-
tionary army.
Born December 16, 1844, in Wayne county, W. C. Henson began
his career as an agriculturist, and for thirty years owned and occu-
pied the same farm. He is now living three miles south of Xenia,
where he is still engaged in general farming. During his earlier
years he was an adherent of the Democratic party, but since the year
in which William McKinley was nominated for the presidency he has
voted the Republican ticket. Both he and his wife are members of the
Church of Latter Day Saints. The maiden name of the wife of W. C.
Henson was Nancy Catherine Martin. She was born in Wayne county,
Illinois, December 29, 1846, a daughter of Andrew Jackson Martin,
whose birth occurred, in 1809, near Wheeling, West Virginia. Mr.
Martin came to Illinois about 1839, entering a tract of land in Sanga-
mon county. Subsequently entering land in Wayne county, Illinois,
he was there prosperously engaged in farming until his death, in 1902.
He was a man of pronounced ability, by wise management and invest-
ment acquiring a large property, at one time owning a thousand acres
of land. Two of his sons, Henry Martin and James Martin, served as
soldiers in the Civil war, James dying from the effect of wounds re-
ceived on the battlefield.
Receiving his high school education in Salem, Illinois, John H. Hen-
son completed his early studies at Hayward College, in Fairfield, Illi-
nois, although he was not graduated from that institution. Taking up
then the profession for which he was so well fitted, he taught school
from 1887 until 1891, after which he was employed at the Orchard City
Bank, in Xenia, for a time. Resuming his educational work in 1893,
Mr. Henson taught school until 1908, meeting with good success as an
educator. Locating then in Xenia, he has since been here engaged in
mercantile pursuits, having a finely stocked general store, which he is
managing with most satisfactory success, his honest integrity and up-
right dealings having won for him a large and substantial patronage.
Mr. Henson is also interested in the agricultural development of this
part of the state, being the owner of a farm lying near Xenia.
On September 26, 1902, Mr. Henson married Nellie Mayfield, a
daughter of James M. Mayfield, a well-to-do and highly respected man,
who is distinguished as being the oldest resident of Xenia- Mr. May-
field was born January 14, 1837, in South Carolina. As a young man
he migrated to Georgia, where he lived until after the breaking out of
the Civil war, which swept away all of his property, leaving him pen-
niless. Coming to Illinois in 1864, he began working at the carpenter's
trade, in that capacity building, or helping to build, the most of the
houses in Xenia. He is now carrying on a good mercantile business,
dealing extensively in lumber and building materials. Mr. and Mrs.
Henson have three children, namely: Gladys Ray, assisting in her
father's store; Inez Mae; and Harry Mayfield.
Politically Mr. Henson is identified with the Democratic party, and
as a true and loyal citizen has never shirked the responsibilities of
public office, having served for three years as assessor of Xenia town-
ship, and being now not only mayor of Xenia, but also clerk of its
school board. He is likewise president of the Township Democratic
Central Committee. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent
1252 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Order of Odd Fellows, in which he has passed all the chairs; of the
Daughters of Rebekah; of the Improved Order of Red Men; and of
the Modern Woodmen of America, in which he has served as clerk
three years. Religiously Mr. Henson belongs to the Church of the
Latter-Day Saints, while Mrs. Henson is a member of the Methodist
church.
"W. H. PIPPIN. One of the conspicuous figures in the recent history
of Jasper county is the present popular and efficient sheriff whose name
introduces this review. It should be added, however, that his popularity
is far greater with the sound law-abiding citizenship than with that
class whose business unfortunately takes them out of the straight and
narrow path, for the duties of his office are scrupulously carried out by
him, the chief custodian of the law. He is influential in local Demo-
cratic councils and takes an active part in the many-sided life of the
community.
Mr. Pippin is a native son of Jasper county, his birth having oc-
curred in Crooked Creek township, August 1, 1870. His father, Bird
Pippin, was born in middle Tennessee, November 16, 1846, and came
to Illinois aftQr the Civil war. He had at first served in the Confed-
erate army under General Longstreet, but as soon as he received his
discharge he joined the Tennessee volunteers of the Union Army, his
sympathies being with the cause it represented. Upon coming to Illi-
nois he engaged in agriculture and continued in this line of activity
until his demise in 1905. He was married in 1868 to Mary Jane Kil-
burn, of Jasper county, and of the three children born to them, Mr.
Pippin is the eldest and the only one living at the present time. The
wife and mother died in 1874 and the father married again, Martha N.
Hudson becoming his wife. Four children were born to the second
union. The second Mrs. Pippin died in 1891. The subject's father is
Democratic in politics and is one of the highly respected men of his
locality.
W. H. Pippin has spent almost his entire life in Jasper county and
no one is more loyal to its institutions or more ready to advance its
welfare. He received his education in the public schools and when
quite young learned the barber trade, which he followed for seventeen
years. In the meantime he held a number of offices, his faithfulness to
any public trust soon becoming apparent. For two terms he was town-
ship clerk, for an equal space of time was village clerk and for one
term, village trustee. He finally gave up barbering and served two
years and ten months as city marshal. In January, 1910, he resigned
the office of city marshal to make the race for sheriff and was elected
by a very large majority. He carried the primaries by three hundred
votes and the general election by a large majority. He still holds the
office and has two deputies. He spares no pains to be agreeable to all
having business to transact in his office, while his determination to en-
force the law to the letter and bring law-breakers to justice has made
his name a terror to evil doers within his jurisdiction. Determined to
carry out the mandates of the court and execute the laws as far as main-
taining the peace is concerned, he has been untiring in his efforts, and
has brought to the bar of justice a number of hardened criminals.
Mr. Pippin was married at the age of twenty-one to Delia Rice, who
became the mother of one daughter, Velva Irene, who was left mother-
less by her death on Christmas day, 1899. The subject was married in
1902 to Iva Bunton, and by this union there are two other daughters —
Viva Leora and Hally Lee.
Sheriff Pippin is of wholesome social and fraternal proclivities and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1253
takes great pleasure in his affiliations with the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America and the order of Ben
Hur.
HOKATIO C. CHAFFIN. Clay county claims a goodly number of pros-
perous business men who have distinguished themselves by worthy
accomplishments in a financial way, but among them all none is more
prominent or more worthy of mention in this history of Southern Illi-
nois than is Horatio C. Chaffin, whose principal labors have been along
educational lines, but who has been variously connected with financial
and commercial enterprises of distinctive character.
Born in Clay county, Illinois, January 4, 1873, Horatio C. Chaffin
is the son of John and Mary E. (Claypool) Chaffin, both natives of
Ohio, the former of Scioto county and the latter of Ross county. John
Chaffin was a carpenter by trade, and he was also an experienced
farmer. He came to Illinois as a young man and when he died he had
achieved a fair measure of success, judged by the standards of his
time. His demise occurred in 1886, and he left an estate of four hun-
dred acres of fertile Illinois land. He was a Republican of staunch
faith, and with his wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
They reared three sons, all of whom are living at this time. John Chaffin
was the son of Reuben and Sarah Chaffin, the former born and reared
in Ohio, and there he passed his life and finally died. He at one time
entered Illinois land from the government, intending to move there,
but never did so. After his death his widow came to Illinois and died
in this state. The maternal grandfather of Horatio C. Chaffin was
James Claypool, born in Ohio. His son, the uncle of the subject, is
H. C. Claypool. member of congress for the Chillicothe, Ohio, district.
Horatio Chaffin was given the advantage of a broad education,
which he put to excellent use in later years. He finished the schools
of Clay county, and after graduating from the high school of his town
entered McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois, where he was gradu-
ated in due season with the degrees of B. S. and LL. B. Thereafter he
taught school for nine years in Clay and St. Clair counties, and was
for some time superintendent of the schools of the city of Flora. He
was editor of the Olney Republican at Olney, Illinois, the oldest news-
paper in Southern Illinois, and while acting in that capacity demon-
strated amply his fitness for work in an editorial capacity. In 1902
Mr. Chaffin established the Rinard Banking Company at Rinard, Illi-
nois, but he eventually sold out his interests in that organization and
returned to Flora, where he reorganized the Bank of Flora, becoming
its cashier. Later, in connection with C. McDaniel, of Rinard, he or-
ganized the Farmers and Merchants Bank at Creal Springs, Illinois.
He is also financially connected with a grain and seed business in
Flora, the name of the concern being Borders Chancy & Company, this
being one of the largest concerns of its kind in the state of Illinois.
Mr. Chaffin is a Republican, although he has never been a candi-
date for office. He rather inclined toward helping his friends in their
political struggles than to struggling for himself. He is a Mason and
a member of the Modern Woodmen. He is widely known in and about
his community, and is regarded as a particularly able young business
man by those who have watched his career thus far.
In 1899 Mr. Chaffin married Miss Olive Miller, the daughter of Dr.
L. T. Miller, for thirty years a practicing physician in Southern Illi-
nois. He has now retired from active practice and is passing his de-
clining years on a farm near Collinsville. One son has been born to
Mr. and Mrs. Chaffin.
1254 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ARCHIBALD B. MCLAREN. Among the many well known mining men
of Southern Illinois, the popular superintendent of the Chicago Big
Muddy Coal and Coke Company, of Marion, is one of the most efficient.
He has spent most of his life in this work, and save for a short period
has pursued his vocation in the state of Illinois.
Mr. McLaren has behind him a long line of sturdy Scotch ancestors,
he, himself, having been born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on the 6th of
January, 1873. His father was William McLaren, who was born in the
same little Scotch community in 1850, and his mother was Miss Mary
Kennedy, whom William McLaren had married in his native Scotland.
Five years after the birth of Archibald the family came to the United
States, sailing from Glasgow to New York and thence by way of the
Great Lakes making their way into the interior of the country,
through Chicago as the gateway. They made their way down to
Streator, Illinois, where they remained until 1884, when the father
decided to try his fortunes in the south, and moved to Charleston,
Arkansas, where he expected to engage in mining, which industry
had been his means of livelihood in the "Auld Countree." Condi-
tions not being favorable there, he loaded his family and his house-
hold goods upon two ox-carts and made his slow way across the
state into the sparsely settled territory of Oklahoma, passing through
the densely peopled Choctaw nation, whose many strange and weird cus-
toms made a deep impression upon the Scotch wanderers. Reaching Mc-
Alester, Oklahoma, he established his family at Krebs, in the vicinity of
which place he resided during the several months he spent in the territory.
Here it was that his son Archibald was first instructed in the proper
methods of mining coal, for that was the father's business. When he
returned to Illinois some time later he continued as a miner, and has
followed that vocation in the central part of the state ever since, at
present being at work in the mineral field about Cuba, Illinois.
Mrs. McLaren died in 1883, at McAlester, Oklahoma, leaving three
children, Archibald B. ; Annie, the wife of William Townsley, of Cuba,
Illinois; and Lizzie, who married George Craft, of Cuba, Illinois. Be-
sides the loss of his wife Mr. McLaren lost his mother and a son during
his residence in Oklahoma. He later married Eliza .Lewelling, at
Streator, Illinois, but has no children by this second marriage.
Owing to the migratory life of the family and the primitive condi-
tion of part of the country in which his youth was spent, Archibald
B. McLaren gained only snatches of education and after he was grown
and married did not possess even a common school education. As a
mere lad he was induced to enter the mines at McAlester, by the advice
of a physician, who told him, in brief, "either mine or move." Bur-
rowing into the depths of the earth seemed to agree with him, and he
worked at his father's side then and for some time after the family
returned to Illinois.
While living at Streator he left the mines to take up railroading,
but he preferred the life underground and in less than a year was back
in the diggings. In 1895 he left this locality and went to Carbon Hill
in Grundy county, where the Star Coal Company had other mines.
Here it was that ambition awoke within him, and the interesting event
that enabled him to become, instead of one who works with his hands,
one who works with his head, took place. At this time he was a co-
workman with other miners, as black and grimy as any one of his fel-
lows, with no thought of ever becoming anything else, but he had wise
friends and a wonderful wife, and at the advice and urging of these
he was persuaded to take a course in the Scranton Correspondence
Schools on the subject of mine managing. His wife was a powerful
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1255
factor in his success, encouraging and aiding him in doing the work
efficienty, and later helping him to prepare for the examination. How
thorough had been his preparation was shown by the ease with which
he passed the state examination. He was appointed a manager by the
Star people some time before he left their service.
From Carbon Hill Mr. McLaren came to Williamson county in 1901.
Mr. Goodall, the superintendent of the Chicago Big Muddy, and the
man who had originally developed the property, was about to retire.
Mr. McLaren was offered the position, as his successor, which he ac-
cepted, and has held ever since. This position is one of the most re-
sponsible superintendencies in the Marion vicinity, the mine giving em-
ployment to some three hundred men and producing about eighteen
hundred tons of coal daily.
Mr. McLaren met his wife at Streator, when they were both chil-
dren, and he was a boarder in the Peters' home, of which family she
was a member. She was Emily, the daughter "of Joseph Peters, and
was born July 1, 1878. Her father was a native of England and Mrs.
McLaren was born across the water. As a young boy, while he was
attempting to master the science of digging coal, she was wont to aid
him in his attempts to master fractions, as she later helped him to
equip himself for the position he now holds, so in literal truth she has
been a helpmate. The children of this union are William, Joseph,
Eliza, Mary and Esther.
Mr. McLaren is a Republican, but evinces no special interest in
the game of politics, although he holds himself ready to accept. any civic
responsibility with which he may be shouldered. He served Carbon
Hill as a councilman, and has also performed a life service for Marion,
acting from the Third ward. He is at present serving his third term
on the school board. He is an active member of both the Masons and the
Knights of Pythias, being a member of the Blue Lodge and of the
Chapter at Marion, and belonging to the Mt. Vernon Commandery, to
the Oriental Consistory and to the Medina Temple at Chicago. He was
made a Knight of Pythias at Streator, was transferred when he went
to Carbon Hill, and again on his removal to Marion. Here he is a
member and chairman of the Knights of Pythias building committee,
and is also a member of the joint committee of the Knights of Pythias
and the Masons on the erection of their hall in 1911. He is likewise a
member of the building committee of the Methodist church in the erec-
tion of their new edifice, under construction in 1911. He was one of
the promoters of the Citizens Trust and Banking Company, holding
stock in that institution, and he is also a stockholder in the El Dorado,
Marion and South Western Railway Company.
The above long list of outside interests goes to show that Mr. Mc-
Laren has not allowed the responsibility of business cares to wholly
absorb him, but has sought a wider field of activity. Scarcely enough
credit can be given to this man, who simply through inertia might have
allowed his splendid faculties to atrophy, but instead set to work and
overcame his early handicap. In doing this he did not, after having
reached the goal, turn from his old friends, but in his good fortune
always has an eye for the ill fortune of others, is glad to help any man
with his counsel and advice, just as he himself was helped. This is
perhaps the true reason for his popularity.
HARVEY W. SHRINEB. Foremost among the leaders of the legal
profession in Southern Illinois, Harvey W. Shriner stands pre-eminent
as one who has achieved success in his chosen profession. He has long
practiced in all the courts of the state, and has handled successfully
1256 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
some of the most important cases that have come to litigation. His
courteous and kindly disposition, together with his alert and enter-
prising mind and his excellent preparation for his work, has brought
about his reputation as one of the representative men of Clay county.
Harvey W. Shriner was born in Vinton county, Ohio, October 25,
1861. He is the son of Silas and Susan (Luse) Shriner, both natives
of Ohio. Silas Shriner was a farmer and came to Clay county, Illinois,
in October, 1864, where he remained until his death, which occurred
in June, 1906. His father Francis Shriner, the grandfather of Harvey
W., was a native of Pennsylvania, who afterwards removed to Ohio
and devoted his life to farming interests. The mother of Harvey W.
Shriner is still living and is a resident of Flora. She is a woman of
splendid character and pleasing personality and is passing her declin-
ing years happily in the love of her children. Six children were born
to her, five of whom are now living. They are : Ibbie, deceased ; Mrs.
Louisa Frame, of Chicago; Harvey W., of this review; Albert G., of
Springfield, Illinois ; Mrs. Ida MacGregor, of Flora ; and Pearl V., who
is living on the old farm home, five miles from Flora.
Mr. Shriner received his early education in the public schools of
Flora, later attending a business college at Cairo, Illinois. He then
completed a course at the National University at Lebanon, Ohio, in
which institution his scholarship was of an especially high order. Af-
ter graduating therefrom he taught school for six winters in Clay
county, performing his work with all efficiency and winning high rep-
utation as a teacher. But the life of a pedagogue did not appeal to him,
and he felt that he possessed the ability for greater things. The law
especially appealed to him, and after some deliberation he began the
study and was admitted to the bar in February, 1887. In June of that
year he formed a partnership with one D. C. Hagle, prominent in legal
circles in these parts, and that partnership endured until dissolved by
the death of Mr. Hagle in 1897. The two formed a particularly strong
combination and built up a splendid practice during the years of their
association. Since the death of his partner, Mr. Shriner has conducted
his practice alone, although his ever increasing popularity makes him
a very busy man.
Since his earliest association with the legal profession Mr. Shriner
has taken an active part in the political life of his community. In
1888 he was elected state's attorney of Clay county on the Republican
ticket, and was re-elected in 1892, which term was followed by re-
election again in 1896. The excellency of his service is vouched for by
the number of terms he was called to the office. He was a member of
the board of education of Flora for several terms and supervisor of
his township. In 1904 Mr. Shriner was named for the office of repre-
sentative to the state legislature, and he was elected to the office by a
flattering majority, running away ahead of his ticket at the election.
He employed his time as a representative in a manner that was con-
clusive proof of the wisdom of his constituents. He was known to be
one of the strong advocates of local option, and did much for the fur-
therance of the cause. In November, 1905, Mr. Shriner was appointed
deputy revenue collector for Division No. 4 of the thirteenth district
of Illinois, which position he has filled with all credit and efficiency.
Aside from his many other interests Mr. Shriner has devoted some
of his time to farming and is the owner of a very fine farm in Stanford
township, Clay county, near to Flora. It is well equipped and wisely
managed, and among his stock, of which he is an excellent judge, may
be found many of the better breeds. In a fraternal way, he is a Ma-
son and a Woodman. He has ever been a power in the civic life of his
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1257
community, and his labors in behalf of his city and county have been
of a most unselfish nature. The dominant qualities of his life have
been of an intense and forceful nature, and the success of his career is
but the natural outcome of such a character as his.
Mr. Shriner has been twice married. In September of 1885 he was
united in marriage with Emma Critchlow, of Louisville, Clay county,
the daughter of an old and highly esteemed family of that place.
Three sons were born of their union : Austin D., Carlton C. and Silas.
Mrs. Shriner passed away in January, 1896. In recent years Mr.
Shriner married Miss Francis Higginson, of Flora, and they are the
parents of a daughter, Mabel.
JOHN E. McGouGHEY, prominent in the practice of his profession, —
that of the law, — in Lawrenceville since 1890, is recognized in his com-
munity as one of the solid and substantial business men who have con-
tributed much to the prosperity and advancement of this city. A suc-
cessful lawyer, a wise business man, a capable one in any public official
position, and an admirable citizen and a man of family, Lawrenceville
recognizes no finer example of citizenship than is represented by this
worthy gentleman.
Born in Jackson county, Indiana, on March 31, 1862, John E. Mc-
Goughey is the son of John McGoughey and Harriet E. (Meyers) Mc-
Goughey. The father was a native of Kentucky, born there on July
27, 1809. He was a farmer by occupation, and he came to Illinois on
the llth of April, 1870, locating in Lawrence county. His marriage
to Harriet Meyers took place in Jackson county, Indiana, and in that
state they made their home for a number of years. They became the
parents of four children, of which number John E. is the third born.
Previous to his marriage with Harriet Meyers, Mr. McGoughey had
been married, and was the father of eight children. He was a Demo-
crat in politics, and his religious faith is that of the Presbyterians, in
which he was reared by his Scotch parents. He was a man of fine in-
tellect, generous and kindly instincts, quiet in his manner of life, and
. in every way an admirable and estimable citizen. He died February
14, 1873. His widow still lives, and on the 14th of October, 1911, she
celebrated the seventy-sixth anniversary of her birth.
John E. McGoughey lived in Indiana with his parents until he
had reached the age of eight years, when the family home was moved
to Lawrence county, Illinois, destined thereafter to be his home and the
field of his business activities through life. He attended the public
schools of the village where they lived, and having finished the com-
mon schools himself earned the money to make possible his attendance
at a normal school in Mitchell, Indiana, conducted by Professor Lugen-
beal, now president of Winona Lake College. Following his course of
study in this private school, which was most thorough and calculated
to fit him for entrance at any college, he took up the study of law un-
der the preceptorship of E. B. Green, of Mt. Carmel, Illinois, and so
well did he progress with his studies that on February 24, 1890, he
was admitted to the bar of Illinois. He began the practice of his pro-
fession on March 1, 1890, making but little delay in becoming estab-
lished in a business way, and immediately formed a partnership with
one W. F. Foster, which association continued until two years later,
after which he remained alone until 1895. In that year he formed a
partnership with J. D. Madding, the arrangement enduring for four
years and on the dissolution of that partnership Mr. McGoughey con-
ducted an independent practice until 1909, when he became associated
with N. M. Tohill.
1258 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mr. McGoughey is a Democrat, but is not a politician nor an as-
pirant for political honors. He has held various offices since he became
connected with the business and professional life of Lawrenceville, and
was state's attorney between 1892 and 1896. One line of business in-
dustry which has particularly attracted his attention is the oil busi-
ness, in which he has been active for some time. He has been the legal
representative of practically every independent oil producer in this
section of the country, including the Indian Refining Company, and
the Central Refining Company. Mr. McGoughey is a member of the
Christian church, and in a fraternal way is affiliated with the Masonic
order, in which he holds the Knight Templar degree, and he is a mem-
ber of the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order
of Elks.
On September 24, 1890, Mr. McGoughey was united in marriage
with Bessie A. Ennis, of Mitchell, Indiana, a daughter of Charles Ennis,
formerly in the railroad business at that place, but now retired from
active service. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Mc-
Goughey,— Guy, John and Helen.
HARVEY D. McCoLLUM is one of the younger sons of Clay county
who have been identified with the best business interests of Louisville
since they inaugurated their business careers, and he is one of the ablest
and most progressive. of the younger class of business men. He was
born in Clay county, March 13, 1879, and is the son of James C. and
Mary (Long) McCollum. The father was also a native of Clay county,
born there August 9, 1844, while the mother was born in Wayne county
on May 5, 1853. James McCollum lived on his father's farm and at-
tended the village schools as a boy and until he had attained years of
young manhood, when he came to Louisville and entered into the mer-
chandise business, with which he has been successfully identified for
years. He is a man of considerable wealth, which he accumulated as a
result of his energy and thrift, and he is now living a retired life in
Louisville. He is an ardent Democrat and has been one all his life.
He has been a leader in the business life of Louisville for a great many
years, and was connected with the most worthy and prominent in-
dustrial and financial institutions of the city. He was one of the or-
ganizers of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, and is now vice-presi-
dent of that institution. His father was James McCollum, a native of
Kentucky, who came to Illinois in about 1830. He became the owner
of a tract of government land, which he improved, and on which he
passed the remainder of his life. When he passed away he was looked
upon as one of the wealthy farmers of his district. His father, Alex
McCollum, the great-grandfather of the subject of this review, was
one of the eight men killed at the battle of New Orleans. The mater-
nal grandfather of Harvey McCollum, Darling Long, was a native of
West Virginia. He came to Illinois in about 1853, settling in Clay
county, where he passed the remainder of his life.
Harvey D. McCollum was reared in Louisville, and he passed
through the schools of this city, after which he entered the University
of Illinois at Champaign, being graduated from that institution in
1901, from the law department. In the following year Mr. McCollum
was admitted to the bar, and he conducted his first law practice as the
partner of Judge Albert M. Rose. This partnership existed with all
satisfaction to both parties until the election of Mr. Rose to the circuit
bench in 1906, at which time Mr. McCollum became the partner of
John W. Thomason, another brilliant young attorney of Louisville.
For the past two years Mr. McCollum has conducted a private prac-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1259
tice and in that, as with his partners, he has been particularly fortu-
nate and successful, his practice extending to all courts. In addition
to his legal interests, Mr. McCollum gives some time to the manage-
ment of the fine farm of which he is the owner, and which is an added
source of prosperity to the already independent young attorney. He
holds considerable stock in the Farmers and Merchants Bank, of which
his honored father is vice-president, and is connected with certain
other institutions of an industrial and financial character. He is an
enthusiastic Democrat, as is his father, and is untiring in his labors
for the good of the cause. Twice he has served terms as master in
chancery, and in 1909 he was elected to the state legislature. He is
local attorney for the Baltimore & Ohio and the Illinois Central Rail-
road Companies, and is justly regarded as being one of the leading
legal men in the county. He is a member of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows, of the Modern Woodmen, the Benevolent and Protect-
ive 'Order of Elks, the Masons and the Knights of Pythias.
HERMAN M. REA. There is no such word as luck in the lexicon of
business men, for experience has taught them most convincingly that
success is the result of persistent application of intelligent methods
that demand time for their development. To executive ability and
organizing sense must be added public confidence and a thorough
knowledge of the field to be occupied, which latter can only be gained
by gradual and steady approaches. Sudden acquisition of wealth is
a rare occurrence, and often followed by speedy and irremediable
collapse. In any event, none of the citizens of Christopher would in-
timate that Herman M. Rea owes his distinction to any adventitious
aid. His present enviable position is due to manly energy, sterling
honesty, inflexible sense of justice, tireless energy and intimate ac-
quaintance with business methods. He is a native of Franklin county,
Illinois, and was born five miles north of Christopher, September 25,
1877, a son of Frank G. and Bretana Elizabeth (Buckner) Rea.
The grandparents of Mr. Rea, Abner and Mary (Overturf) Rea, na-
tives of Tennessee, came to Illinois in early life, took up land from the
Government, and here spent the remainder of their lives. Mr. Rea
became one of the wealthiest agriculturists in Franklin county, and
before his death presented each of his children with a farm, in addi-
tion to a sum of money. Frank G. Rea, who for many years was en-
gaged in farming in Franklin county, and was also a successful mer-
chant of Christopher for fifteen years, is now living retired in this city.
He has had a prosperous career and the honorable lines along which he
conducted his business have served as an example for his son, who has
inherited many of his admirable traits.
Herman M. Rea received his educational training in the common
schools of Christopher, and as a youth worked in his father's store.
He then entered the postoffice at Zeigler, where he acted as clerk for
six months, and his first experience in the real estate field came as an
employe of Horn & Dimond, with whom he continued five years.
Since that time Mr. Rea has been in business with Jesse Dimond &
Company, a firm that does a tremendous business in real estate, buying
land all over the state, and in addition trades for stores and mines.
Mr. Rea is president of the Christopher Electric Company and of the
Horn-Dimond Coal Company, secretary of the Benton District Coal
Company and the West Frankfort Coal Company, vice-president of
the First National Bank of Christopher and a director of the First
National Bank of West Frandfort. Although immersed in business,
with so many large interests claiming his attention and demanding
1260 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
much of his time, Mr. Rea yet finds leisure to devote to those domestic
and social relations in which he finds his chief enjoyment. He is a
prominent member of the Masonic fraternity and of the Modern
Woodmen of America. A Republican in politics, the high esteem in
which he was held by his fellow townsmen resulted in his election as
collector of Tyron township, although at that time the district was
strongly Democratic. He has given the greater part of his time to his
business interests, however, and has never sought public preferment.
In 1894 Mr. Rea was married to Miss Ida Clark, daughter of Scott
Clark, an early settler and prominent agriculturist of Mulkeytown,
who also for some years was the proprietor of amusement enterprises
during season, and who died about 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Rea have six
children : Leo, Clyne and Thelma, all of whom are attending school ;
and Helen, Mildred and Mary, at home.
PHILIP B. LESEMANN, D. D. S. A representative member of the den-
tal fraternity in Nashville, one who holds high rank in his profession
and whose ability and courtesy have won him the confidence and pat-
ronage of a large class of citizens, is Dr. Philip B. Lesemann. He
comes of a pioneer German family whose identity with the United
States dates from 1844, when its founders immigrated from the vil-
lage of Bergkirche, Prussia, and established themselves in Washington
county, Illinois. That historic year of the Mississippi flood Henry
Lesemann expatriated himself from his native land and brought his
family to the New World. His father was then an old man, and the
family settlement was made some six miles northeast of Nashville,
where, upon the Henry Huck farm, the father and mother and other
members of the family lie buried. Henry's first wife died in young
womanhood and his second one died about four years after their ar-
rival in Illinois. Farming claimed Henry Lesemann after he came to
the United States, but in his native Prussia he was a cabinet-maker
and fashioned and finished spinning wheels. The children by his last
marriage were : Louisa, who married Louis Wehking and both are de-
ceased ; Frederick, the father of the Doctor ; Christiana, who married
William Schlake, both being now deceased ; and Ernst. He was a the-
ological student in Boston when he died. The children of Henry 's first
wife were "William, of Kinmundy, Illinois; and Mrs. Henry Steffen,
who is deceased.
Frederick Lesemann was born in 1838, and passed an uneventful
life in the country near Nashville. Toward the evening of life he
moved into the county seat and died there in 1903. He married (first)
Louisa Grote, who died, the mother of Augusta, who passed away as
Mrs. Fred Hoffman ; and Matilda, now Mrs. Charles Millier, of Gran-
ite City, Illinois. For his second wife Mr. Lesemann married Matilda
Poehler, who still survives, and the issue of this marriage were Rev.
Louis, a graduate of Central Wesleyan College, at Warrenton, Mis-
souri, and a degree man of the Biblical Institute of the Northwestern
University, is a Methodist minister of Chicago, and married Miss
Eleanor Tieman ; Dr. Philip B., of Nashville ; Samuel J., D. D. S., of
Altamont, Illinois, and a graduate of the Louisville College of Den-
tistry ; Amelia, the wife of Albert Lyons, of Granite City, Illinois ; and
Dr. Frederick J., a physician of Chicago, who is a graduate of Rush
Medical College.
Dr. Philip B. Lesemann was born in a country home near Nashville,
August 1, 1871. While coming to mature years he had both rural and
urban experience and his career in school was passed chiefly in the
county seat. At twenty years of age he began his preparation for
"--•"*•
HE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1261
dentistry as a student in the Louisville College of Dentistry and took
his diploma from that institution in June, 1895. He opened his office
in Nashville the same year and his citizenship has been maintained
here since. He is a member of the State Dental Society and is ex-
president of the St. Glair District Dental Society. He is secretary and
treasurer of the Bridget Hughes Hospital of Nashville, and has de-
voted his energy and his skill to the achievement of desirable results
in his profession. He is in close touch with advanced thought, keeps
thoroughly abreast of the advances made in dentistry, and has se-
cured a practice of unmistakably representative character.
On June 26, 1895, Dr. Lesemann was married to Miss Anna Franz-
lau, of Nashville. Her father and mother, Frederick and Minnie
(Krumwieder) Franzlau, were German people, and the parents of
Lizzie, wife of Dr. Krumsieck, of Nashville ; Frank H., engaged in the
drug business at Manito, Illinois ; William, of Hartford City, Indiana ;
Mrs. Lesemann; Ella, the wife of Rev. Charles Krugoff, residing at
Jamestown, Missouri; Emma, who married Oscar Grote, of St.
Louis ; and Harry, a resident of Freeburg, Illinois. Dr. and Mrs. Lese-
mann have two children : Ralph, twelve years old ; and Ferrol, who is
four years his brother's junior. The family are members of the Ger-
man Methodist church, of which Dr. Lesemann is steward.
ELMER BURCH, M. D. Comparatively brief has been the period of
the residence of Dr. Elmer Burch in DuQuoin, but it has been of suffi-
cient duration to win for him a fair degree of eminence in that city and
in the surrounding district. He is a member of the professional firm of
Gillis & Burch, M. D. 's, and has been active in the practice of his pro-
fession in DuQuoin since 1908. As physician for the Children's Home of
DuQuoin and district surgeon of the Illinois Central Railway Company,
together with his private practice, Dr. Burch is one of the busy men
of the city.
Elmer Burch was born on a farm near Monmouth, Illinois, on April
8, 1864, and was there reared. His grandfather was Thomas Wells
Burch, a native of Wales, born in that country in 1795, who came to
the United States in infancy and was reared in North Carolina. He
later became a resident of Illinois, settling at Monmouth. He married
and became the father of thirteen children, but only four grew to years
of manhood and womanhood. They were Benjamin, who died recently
in Hancock county, Illinois, leaving a wife and daughter to mourn their
loss; Lizzie, who became the wife of Jackson Gossett and resides in
Nebraska ; Thomas J., who became the father of Dr. Elmer Burch ; and
Sarah, who died at Monmouth, Illinois, as Mrs. John Easton.
Thomas J. Burch lived the life of the farm boy as a child, and when
he became a man accepted that vocation as his own. He re-
ceived the usual district school training, and passed his boyhood and
youth as a typical farmer's lad, the real business of life beginning when
he volunteered for service in the Union army in Company K of the
Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, with Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll in com-
mand. An active and honorable army career was his, and when the
viscissitudes of army life were over he returned to his home, where he
resumed work on the old farm. He remained thus occupied for some
time, until he subsequently moved to Missouri, and is now passing his
remaining days in the peace and quiet of the town of Ewing in that
state. He is an active Democrat and a member of the G. A. R. Thomas
J. Burch chose as his wife Miss Marie L. Shellenbarger, a daughter of
George Shellenbarger, from Erie county, Pennsylvania, who, with his
wife, was of German extraction. Mr. and Mrs. Schellenbarger were
Vol. Ill— 12
1262 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the parents of eleven children, of whom Mrs. Burch was the fourth
in order of birth. Mr. and Mrs. Burch were the parents of two sons,
Dr. Elmer, of this review, and Dr. George W., a graduate of the Col-
lege of Physicians and Burgeons of Keokuk, Iowa, now located at
Quincy, Illinois, and active in the practice of his chosen profession.
Dr. Elmer Burch, after finishing with the high school of his home
town, completed a course of literary studies in the U. P. College of
Monmouth. He took up his medical studies in the College of Physi-
cjans and Surgeons at Keokuk, Iowa, graduating therefrom in 1886
He began the practice of his profession at Cameron, Illinois, continu-
ing his work there for a space of six years, then entered the Baltimore
Medical College and was graduated from that institution in 1893. His
next location was at Clearmont, Missouri, where he remained for five
years in practice and then removed to Doe Run, St. Francois county,
and after a residence of ten years came thence to DuQuoin. While
located in Missouri Dr. Burch connected himself with the professional
societies of both county and state, and holds similar affiliation with
corresponding societies of Illinois, as well as with the American Med-
ical Association. He is physician for the Children's Home of Du-
Quoin and district surgeon of the Illinois Central Railway Company,
and in connection with the latter named position holds membership in
the Illinois Central Association of Surgeons. Dr. Burch is a member of
the Blue Lodge and Chapter of Masonry, is past noble grand of Odd
Fellowship, past sachem of the Red Men, and is also a member of the
Eagles, Elks and the Modern Woodmen.
On July 23, 1893, Dr. Burch was married to Miss Trella M. Reg-
nier, a daughter of Eugene and Frances (Holcomb) Regnier. Mr.
Regnier is of French origin and is a mason contractor of Galesburg.
Dr. and Mrs. Burch have two children, Beatrice and Claire.
MILO R. CLANAHAN. As manager of the Southern Illinois agency
for the National Life Insurance Company of Montpelier, Vermont, Mr.
Clanahan is recognized as one of the representative figures in the field
of life insurance in this section of the state, and he maintains his of-
ficial headquarters in suite 506-7 Metropolitan building, East St. Louis.
He is one of the popular and representative business men of this thriv-
ing city and has made an admirable record in his chosen field of en-
deavor.
Milo R. Clanahan finds a due amount of satisfaction in reverting
to Illinois as the place of his nativity, and he is a scion of a family
whose name has been identified with the history of this favored com-
monwealth for fully three quarters of a century. He was born on a
farm in Pope county, Illinois, on the 4th of March. 1864, and is a son
of Augustus Hamilton Clanahan and Ann Eliza (Modglin) Clanahan,
who established their home in Pope county many years ago, the father
becoming one of the prosperous farmers of that section, where both he
and his wife continued to reside until their death. He whose name
initiates this review was reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm and
in the meanwhile the district school found him enrolled as a duly am-
bitious pupil. He amplified his educational discipline by attendance in
summer schools and finally by an effective course in the Northern Illi-
nois Normal University, at Normal, McLean county. In this institu-
tion he admirably qualified himself for the work of the pedagogic pro-
fession, and for six years he was a successful and popular teacher in
the public schools of his native state. Thereafter he served five years
as chief deputy in the office of the United States collector of internal
revenue at Cairo, Illinois, a position from which he retired in 1894. In
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1263
1896 he became district manager for the Mutual Life Insurance Com-
pany of New York, this position having been given him after a specially
excellent record as a local underwriter for the Mutual Benefit Life In-
surance Company. His service as district manager for the Mutual Life
continued until the 1st of January, 1904, and he maintained his execu-
tive headquarters in the- city of Cairo until 1901, when the same were
transferred to East St. Louis. On the 1st of January, 1904, Mr. Clan-
ahan assumed his present position, that of manager of the Southern
Illinois agency for the National Life Insurance Company of Montpe-
lier, Vermont, and he has added materially to his prestige in his chosen
profession since forming such connection with this admirable New Eng-
land company, for which he has built up a large and substantial busi-
ness in his jurisdiction. He has shown marked initiative and executive
ability, is progressive and alert and has a broad and exact knowledge
of all details of the life-insurance business, in which he has gained a
high reputation and unqualified success. In 1908 Mr. Clanahan pur-
chased a fine stock farm near Vienna, the judicial center of Johnson
county, Illinois, and he has found great pleasure and satisfaction in
the development and improvement of this property and in exploiting
the stock industry through progressive and effective methods. His farm
is now one of the best devoted to the raising of pure bred live stock
to be found in Southern Illinois, and he gives to the same his personal
supervision.
In politics Mr. Clanahan gives a stanch allegiance to the Repub-
lican party and as a citizen he is essentially loyal and public-spirited.
He is a member of the East St. Louis Commercial Club, is affiliated
with the Masonic fraternity and is identified with other civic organiza-
tions. The church relations of Mr. and Mrs. Clanahan are with the
Presbyterians.
On the 26th of June, 1889, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Clan-
ahan to Miss Lollie Mittler, and they have three children, — Elsie Mittler,
who is a student in Washington College, at Washington, D. C. ; Julius
Harrington, who is a member of the office force of the Pittsburg Alumi-
nuni Works, which is one of the largest industries of East St. Louis,
Illinois; and Walter Hamilton, who is a student in the East St. Louis
high school.
Apropos of Mr. Clanahan !s deep interest in stock-growing it may be
said that he is specially enthusiastic as a lover and breeder of fine horses,
in which connection he has prepared and published an attractive little
brochure, dedicated to the American saddle horse in general, but more
particularly to Forest Dudley, No. 2850, and his noted sire, Forest King,
No. 1462, the former animal being owned by Mr. Clanahan. Concern-
ing the pamphlet to which reference has just been made pertinent in-
formation is given in the preface of the same, and the context thereof
is consistently reproduced in this sketch of the career of the author:
"Upon my first conception of the idea that I would prepare a pamphlet
and dedicate it to 'The American Saddle Horse' in general, but more
particularly to the one in which I felt most deeply interested, I little
realized the enormity of what first appeared so small a task, but which in
reality proved a large one for me, coming, as it does, not from a horseman,
familiar with 'boss' talk, but simply from a life-insurance man who in
early boyhood and while on the farm formed a love and admiration for
horses, which is my hobby. . . • . It has been said that every man
must have his business and his hobby. Imagine yourself, if you please,
trying to write something of your hobby and to make it of interest to any-
body else, especially when you are not a member of or applicant for mem-
bership in the Ananias Club, and you will agree with me that it would
1264 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
be far easier to talk or write intelligently and, as in this case I have
tried to do, truthfully upon the line of business in which you are in
every-day life engaged. But as I was never accused of being a ' quitter, '
I have stayed at this self-imposed task until it is now 'up to the printer'
and ' me for the bill, ' and if this pamphlet contains any information of
interest to you, either with reference to Forest Dudley, No. 2850, or any
of his distinguished ancestry or to the American saddle horse in gen-
eral, let me assure you that I have taken no little pains but have spent
much time and labor and some money in the preparation of the book-
let, and in an honest effort to substantiate every statement made herein,
and which I now ask you to accept as authentic, with the compliments
of the author. ' ' Copies of the pamphlet may be had upon application
to Mr. Clanahan, and at a purely nominal price. Further statements
made by Mr. Clanahan in this connection are as follows: "By a care-
ful study of this publication you will find that it contains much valuable
and general information, in fact the boiled-down essence of the various
published volumes of the American Saddle Horse Register, as to the or-
ganization of the association, the foundation sires and later noted sires,
outlining from official sources the distinctive upper blood lines of the
American saddle-horse family, with show records and achievements of its
most noted sires; also the sources, breeds and crosses from which the
' American saddle-horse family has sprung ; therefore we trust that every-
one into whose hands this booklet may fall may find it both interesting
and worthy of preserving for future reference."
In conclusion of this sketch of Milo R. Clanahan, will say that he has
always applied his energies faithfully and loyally to whatever task he
undertook, always remembering, and usually applying that good old rule
— "Business first and pleasure afterwards."
JUDGE MOSES PEARCE MCGEHEE. "With the passing of Judge Moses
P. McGehee in 1883, Saline county lost one of her earliest pioneers and
most valuable citizens. Judge McGehee was early in life thrown upon
his own resources and he had to struggle along in the best way he
could. He was, however, full of the true spirit of the pioneer, the
spirit that went forward no matter what the odds, sustained by the
vision of the great and glorious country which was to rise on the foun-
dations of which the pioneers were the 'builders. He could turn his
hand to almost anything from blacksmithing to acting as a judiciary.
This versality, together with the wisdom which he had gathered dur-
ing his long life and the common sense which had been Nature's gift
to him, made him a very popular member of the community and he
was in demand on all occasions.
Moses Pearce McGehee was born in Montgomery county, Tennes-
see, in 1823. He was the descendant of an old and honored Virginian
family which had migrated to Tennessee. His parents were Pyrant
and Jemima Pearce McGehee, who left Tennessee in 1832, and came to
Gallatin county, Illinois. In 1838 Judge McGehee was left an orphan,
and finding that he would have to shift for himself he bound himself
as an apprentice to A. Mitchell and learned the blacksmith trade. He
plied his trade for several years on the western frontier and then re-
turned to Illinois and settled in Galatia, Saline county, in 1847. The
following year of 1848 witnessed his marriage to Mary Priscilla Davis.
She was a native of White county and a daughter of Dr. Robert Davis.
Judge McGehee lived in Galatia until 1856, and then he moved his
family to Harrisburg, where he spent the remainder of his life with the
exception of two years, 1876-77, when he lived at Carrier Mills.
Shortly after his arrival in Galatia, in 1850, he and Dr. Harvey
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1265
Pearce opened a general merchandise store. They also had the first
steam saw and grist mill in the county. The location of this mill was
about one and one-half miles southeast of Galatia. Since there were
no railroads in those days the machinery had to be hauled overland
from St. Louis, and created more excitement than a circus. In 1858
this mill was moved to Harrisburg, Illinois. In 1849 he was elected
justice of the peace and from 1853 to 1856 he served as associate jus-
tice. He was a clear thinker and was truly desirous of giving each
man his due, and his worth is deeply felt by the people of the county.
This was proven when they elected him county judge in 1856, to serve
four years. He was again elected to this office in 1865, serving until
1873. He was a staunch Democrat, and was a loyal believer in frater-
nal societies. He was a charter member of Harrisburg Lodge, No. 325,
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and he was the first senior war-
den of the Lodge. He died in 1883 and was buried with the Masonic
ritual. His widow is still living in Harrisburg, at the age of seventy-
nine. The Judge and his wife were the parents of the following chil-
dren : Martha Louisa, who is the widow of Daniel Stiff, and with whom
Mrs. McGehee makes her home ; Sarah, who died in infancy ; Thomas,
who also died in babyhood ; Robert Solen ; Nora, who married H.
Thompson ; Axel, who died as a baby ; and Davis A.
The business ability of Judge McGehee was inherited by his chil-
dren and grandchildren. His grandson, Dennis B. McGehee, of Harris-
burg, is the assistant to the general manager of mines of the O'Gara
Coal Company, the most important enterprise in this section of the
country and which was organized in 1905, with T. J. O'Gara as its
president, and its officers and directors were all men of excellent busi-
ness ability and of executive capacity. It was incorporated under the
laws of the state of New York with a capital of six million dollars,
with headquarters in Chicago, in the Marquette building. This com-
pany owns or controls thirty thousand acres of coal land, enough to
keep its mines in operation for fifty years yet to come. The twelve
mines it is now working have a capacity for an output of seven million
tons of coal each year, and if fully worked would necessitate the em-
ployment of six thousand men. Its monthly pay roll now amounts to
$250,000, with a royalty for coal of $10,000. The O'Gara Coal Com-
pany's entire investment in lands and plants in Saline county, alone,
approaches $10,000,000, a vast sum of money which yields very satis-
factory returns. Mr. H. Thomas, as general manager of mines, and
Mr. McGehee, his assistant, so handle the works, the men and the
business as to make this organization of the utmost importance not
only to Harrisburg and to Saline county, but to Southern Illinois,
placing it in the foremost rank among the substantial industries of the
state.
HARVEY F. PIXLEY. The able and popular president of the First
National Bank of Flora, Illinois, is most consistently accorded recog-
nition in a work of the province assigned to the one at hand, since it
has to do with the representative citizens of Clay county, of which
number he is a worthy member. He has had a prominent part in the
financial and commercial development of the county, during the long
period of years in which he has been identified with the business world
of this part of the state. Not only have the interests of business
claimed his time and attention but politics have also found him wide
awake and interested. He is particularly active in any movement for
the civic betterment of the town, as is shown by the leading part he
took in the founding of the Carnegie Library.
1266 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Harvey F. Pixley was born in Ingraham, Clay county, Illinois, on
the 25th of November, 1869. He is the son of Osman Pixley, who
was a native of New York, having settled in Edwards county at an
early date. In 1852 he moved to Clay county, and became well known
as a merchant. For years he was president of the First National Bank
of Flora, and his ability and strength of character won the confidence
of his fellow citizens to such an extent that they elected him their rep-
resentative in the lower house of the legislature for 1871-1872. For
the long period of forty years he was post-master of Ingraham. He
received a request from Postmaster General Wanamaker for his pho-
tograph, to be used in the Chicago "World's Fair, he being the fourth
oldest postmaster in point of service in the United States. After an
active and useful life he was called to rest on the 7th of April, 1903.
His wife was Frances Wood, who was born near Allendale, Wabash
county, Illinois, on the 29th of June, 1832. She was a woman of beau-
tiful character, and to her influence is due many of the fine qualities to
be found in Harvey Pixley. She was the daughter of Spencer Wood,
who was born near New Haven, Vermont, on the 14th of February,
1788, and died on the 5th of December, 1846. Her mother was Ma-
tilda Flower, who was born in Hardinsburg, Kentucky, on the 19th of
March, 1791, and died on the 12th of March, 1855, the mother being
the last surviving member of the family. Mrs. Pixley was one of a
large family of children nine in number, and she in turn became the
mother of nine children. Of this number four girls and one boy are
dead. Harvey is the seventh in order of birth, and of his two broth-
ers, Dewitt C. is living in Orange, California, where he is a prominent
business man, .being married and having five children, while Arthur
H., who lives in Chicago is associated with the firm of Ware and Le-
land, and is a member of the Board of Trade. The mother of these
boys passed to her rest on the 16th of May, 1907.
The grandfather of Harvey Pixley was Asa Pixley. He was a na-
tive of Vermont, but moved to western New York and finally came
still further west and settled near West Salem, Edwards county, Illi-
nois, about the year 1830. This was during pioneer days, and Asa
Pixley showed the spirit of his Puritan ancestors, who also braved
the dangers of an unknown country. Asa Pixley was born on the
26th of March, 1805, and died on the 9th of February, 1883. He
was married to Amanda Ingraham, the daughter of Philo Ingraham
and Arvilla (Barney) Ingraham. Her father was born on the 28th
of June, 1768, and died on the 21st of April, 1842. The date of her
mother's birth was the 12th of September, 1782, and her death oc-
curred on the 19th of September, 1854. They are supposed to be the
first white people buried in Clay county, and now lie at rest in In-
graham Cemetery. Amanda Ingraham Pixley was born on the 22nd
of February, 1806, and died on the 26th of September, 1844. The
town of Ingraham was named for this fair dame of the early eight-
eenth century who scarcely lived to reach her prime. The town-
ship of Pixley was also named for a member of this family, that is,
her son Osman.
Harvey F. Pixley spent his life up to 1899 in Ingraham. After
receiving an elementary education in the common schools he attended
Eureka College, where he made an excellent record. He spent two
years at this institution, and then came home to work in his father's
store. For twelve years he assisted his father, and while he was
helping to build up a fine trade for his father he was at the same
time gaining a valuable training in the twists and turns of the busi-
ness world. In August, 1899, he came to Flora, and went to work in
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1267
the First National Bank, becoming its cashier on the 1st of January,
1900. He held this position for four years, at the end of this time
being elected vice president of the institution. After four years
spent in this capacity he was made president of the. bank by the vote
of the board of directors at their meeting in January, 1909. He has
done much to increase the prestige of this bank and to place it on a
solid foundation. It is today recognized as one of the most reliable
banks of Southern Illinois. His financial ability may be gathered
from cold statistics. When he first became associated with this bank
there was a surplus of only $12,000. This has been more than doub-
led, being now $25,000. The undivided profits were less than $1,000.
They are now $25,000. The dividends are now five per cent, payable
semi-annually.
Among the other interests that occupy Mr. Pixley are the Breese,
Trenton Mining Company, of which he was treasurer for some time,
and of which he is now president. This company operates three coal
mines, at Breese, Beckmeyer and Trenton, and the business trans-
acted by the company is one of considerable magnitude. He is also
treasurer of the Ebner Ice and Cold Storage Company, operating
four plants, at Vincennes, Seymour and Washington, Indiana, and
Flora, Illinois. In addition to his official connection with the above
corporations he is a director and large stock-holder in both of them.
Mr. Pixley also has an interest in the Flora Canning Company, and
is a stock-holder, as well as one of the organizers, of the Flora Tele-
phone Company. He has quite a bit of money invested outside of
his home town, notably the stock which he holds in two of the large
wholesale houses of St. Louis. His ability as an investor and his un-
questioned integrity brought him the responsibility of being made an
executor of the late General Lewis B. Parsons, of Flora. The es-
tate which he was called upon to administer was over $100,000, and
the responsibility was not a light one. He is a member of the direct-
ors of the Flora Mutual Building, Loan and Homestead Association.
Mr. Pixley has always had a keen interest in the public welfare,
and was at one time president of the school board. He is now one of
the trustees of the Carnegie Library, having held this position ever
since the opening of the library. He was a member of the building
committee and is now in charge of the financial affairs of the institu-
tion, being treasurer. Politically Mr. Pixley is a Republican, and
has done his duty by the party in serving on the county central
committee.
Mr. Pixley was married on the 22nd of October, 1891, to Gallic
Cisel, daughter of John Cisel, of Allendale, Wabash county, Illinois.
She was born on the farm adjoining the one on which Mr. Pixley 's
mother passed her girlhood. Mr. and Mrs. Pixley have one son who
was born on the 10th of December, 1892. After completing his ele-
mentary education he was sent to the Western Military Academy at
Upper Alton, Illinois, where he made a fine record as a bright student
and a manly boy. He is at present acting as private secretary to his
father.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Pixley is a member of blue lodge,
No. 204, of the Masonic order, and also of the Royal Arch Chapter,
No. 154. He and his wife are both members of the Eastern Star.
They are members of the Christian church, Mr. Pixley being a mem-
ber of the official board. He was also a member of the building
committee that had charge of the erection of the new church. This is
a splendid edifice, of which a larger city might well be. proud.
Mr. and Mrs. Pixley have one of the finest homes in the county.
1268 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
It contains every modern comfort and many luxuries, but best of all
it harbors a gracious and dignified hostess, and is consequently a
center for the social life of the community. Mrs. Pixley is a woman
of much refinement and taste, who enters into her husband's interests
with a whole-heartedness and an understanding that is rare. Mr.
Pixley has won his success through putting to good use the gifts with
which he was endowed by nature. He has a strong character, that
is not easily turned from a path he thinks is right, and his varied
experiences have given him the power of discriminating between
the false and the true. He has a fidelity of purpose, but with this a
kind heartedness that would bring hurt to no one, and so he has won
the respect of all, be they friends or enemies. He takes first rank
among the prominent men of his locality, and is a leader in every
field in which he has become interested, be in business, finance, edu-
cation, society or civics.
HENRY F. VOGELPOHL,. Among the public officials of Washington
county are found many men of force and capacity who have taken strong
hold on the rugged conditions of life and molded them into successful
and useful careers. Prominent in this class stands Henry F. Vogel-
pohl, who holds the responsible position of sheriff, in the discharge of
the duties of which office he has gained the respect and confidence of
the entire community. Mr. Vogelpohl was born in Covington town-
ship, Washington county, Illinois, March 12, 1868, and has here passed
his somewhat varied career. His father was William Vogelpohl, a na-
tive of Germany, who came to the United States in the blush of young
manhood, married soon afterward, and passed his life as a farmer. His
wife was Miss Minnie Klosterman, a daughter of Henry Klosterman, a
German farmer of Covington township, where Mr. Vogelpohl died in
1876, at thirty-six years of age. The qualities which William Vogelpohl
most exhibited were those common to his race, — industry unrestrained,
tireless energy and a wise economy. He was the only representative of
his family in the New World, and when he died left Henry F. ; Annie,
who is the wife of Henry Evers, of Covington ; and Fred, a resident
of Minnesota. The mother of these children is now the wife of Henry
Schneider, of Covington.
Henry F. Vogelpohl had merely the advantages of the country school
as he passed through childhood, and he established himself on a farm
in the Covington locality when he left his mother 's roof. When he quit
farming a few years since he became a stock dealer and shipper at
Covington, and about this time was appointed deputy sheriff by Sheriff
J. M. Winfree, in December, 1902. He received the nomination for
sheriff in 1906 against two other candidates, J. B. and William Gorman,
cousins, but was defeated by the Democratic candidate. When his
deputyship ended Mr. Vogelpohl engaged in the livery business in
Nashville and continued it until he was chosen sheriff of the county.
He entered the contest as a Republican, won the nomination after a
brisk fight and was elected by a majority of 779, when the normal
Republican majority was some 450 votes. He was installed as the suc-
cessor of A. H. Cohlmeyer for a term of four years. While this has
been a remarkably law-abiding community, Sheriff Vogelpohl finds
that his office places sufficient demands upon his time and attention,
and he has given an administration that reflects marked credit upon
him. He has rendered most efficient service in his important position,
and is intrepid and fearless in the discharge of his duties, being
feared by the criminal class and honored and esteemed by law-abid-
ing citizens.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1269
Sheriff Vogelpohl was married (first) in Clay county, Illinois, in
1900, to Miss Lola Gentry, who died March 2, 1901. His second mar-
riage took place at New Minden, Illinois, in November, 1903, when
Miss Helena Rheinhardt became his wife. Her father was Fred M.
Rheinhardt, a German farmer and the issue of the union are Harold,
Lewis, Esther and Henry.
RANDOLPH SMITH, prominent in real estate circles in Clay county,
and for the past thirty-eight years located in Flora, Illinois, is one of
the well-to-do men of Clay county who have achieved large and worthy
success as a result of their own efforts, unaided by outside influ-
ences of family or fortune. Beginning life as a poor boy, Mr. Smith
has been especially fortunate in his business ventures, and now has
large investments in stocks and bonds and is one of the big financial
men of his district.
Born in Marion county, Illinois, on May 31, 1849, Randolph Smith
is the son of Willis and Cynthia (Jones) Smith, the former a native
of South Carolina and the latter of Tennessee. "Willis Smith was a
farmer and stock-buyer. He came to Illinois in 1832 and located in
Marion county, where he bought a farm, living there until 1849, at
which time he went to Missouri. He then started for California, but
died on the way to that state. He was tax collector of Marion county
in 1847, and during the panic of that year he disposed of much of his
property to pay taxes for his neighbors and friends. His death oc-
curred in 1850. He was a son of John R. Smith, a planter, who was
born, reared and who died in South Carolina. The maternal grand-
father of Randolph Smith, of this review, was born in Tennessee. He
came to Illinois in 1833 and settled in Marion county, where he died
in 1836 after a life of worthy endeavor and accomplishment. He
was a veteran of the War of 1812, through which he served with
honor and distinction.
Randolph Smith was educated in Clinton county, Missouri, and in
Clay county, Illinois, coming to the latter place in 1868. He taught
school for one term after finishing school, after which he became con-
nected with the circuit clerk of the county as his deputy. He was
three years in that position, leaving it to take a clerkship in the First
National Bank of Flora of which he became cashier in 1878, and re-
mained thus until 1900, when he was elected president of the bank.
Six years afterward he took charge of the Breeze Trenton Mining
Company, with head offices in St. Louis, Missouri, remaining there
until 1910, and for one year (1907) he served as president of the Illi-
nois Coal Operators Association, and is still a member of the execu-
tive committee of that body. In January, 1911, Mr. Smith formed a
partnership with Robert S. Jones and they engaged in the real estate
business, with investments as a side issue to the business, and they
have conducted a thriving business since that time, with every in-
dication for a brilliant future for the new firm. During the years of
Mr. Smith's connection with the First National Bank he was particu-
larly successful, as he has been in all his business ventures, building
up a strong and substantial institution. He still retains an interest
in the bank and in the coal mining at Breeze, as well as in many an-
other enterprise of equally prosperous nature. Mr. Smith is a mem-
ber of the Masonic fraternity, being affiliated with the chapter and
the Knights Templar. He is past master of Flora lodge, No. 154, and
is a most appreciative member of the order. He has been an adherent
of the Republican party since 1884, and has done good work for the
cause on many occasions. He is a colonel on the staff of Governor
1270 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Deneen, and served in a like capacity on the staff of Governor Tanner
and of Governor Yates. Altogether, Mr. Smith is one of the most in-
fluential men of Clay county, as well as one of the wealthiest.
In 1873 Mr. Smith was united in marriage with Ximena Hanna,
the daughter of William II. Hanna, a lawyer of Clay county. In 18U9
she passed away, leaving her husband and four children, the names of
the children being as follows: Carroll, a practicing physician in St.
Louis ; Madora, who became the wife of Franklin A. Bond and live in
Chicago; Claude E., in a railroad office in Flora; and Ximena, who
married Roy L. Metcalfe, of Missoula, Montana. In 1908 Mr. Smith
contracted a second marriage, when Margaret Finty became his wife.
She was a daughter of John Finty, an early settler 'of Clay county.
She died in 1910. Mrs. Smith was a communicant of the Roman Cath-
olic church, while her husband is of the Methodist faith.
ELMER VAN ARSDALL. Talented and capable, possessing tact and
excellent judgment, Elmer Van Arsdall has attained high rank among
the leading educators of Southern Illinois, and as county superintend-
ent of the public schools of Richland county is an important factor in
advancing the interests and increasing the efficiency of the educational
institutions with which he is associated. A native of Illinois, he was
born in Edwards county, October 16, 1881, being without doubt of
Holland lineage, as his name would indicate, although he has no def-
inite knowledge of his paternal ancestry.
His father, William Thomas Van Arsdall, was born and reared in
Kentucky, where for several years he was prosperously engaged in agri-
cultural pursuits. Losing all of his property during the Civil war, he
moved to Missouri, from there coming to Illinois about 1870. Settling
in Richland county, he spent his remaining days in this part of the
state, being engaged in farming. He married Mary Ann Day, who was
born in Wheeling, West Virginia, of English ancestry. Her father,
Alfred Day, a native of England, immigrated to the United States,
locating first in West Virginia and later in Ohio, in both of those states
following' his trade of a glass blower. From Ohio he moved to Illi-
nois, where he was employed as a chef.
Laying a substantial foundation for his future education in the
rural schools of his native district, Elmer Van Arsdall was graduated
from the Parkersburg high school with the class of 1901. Then, after
teaching school for a time, he attended the Southern Illinois Normal
School, at Carbondale, one term, and the State Normal University, at
Normal, Illinois, three terms. Resuming then his professional work he
taught school successfully until 1908, completing his ninth year as a
teacher. In that year he was elected county superintendent of the
public schools of Richland county to fill a vacancy, a position for which
he was eminently qualified by education, training and experience. Fill-
ing the office ably and most acceptably to all concerned, Mr. Van Ars-
dall had the honor of being re-elected to the same responsible position
in 1910, and as he is never content with results that he thinks can be
bettered it is needless to say that under his management the schools of
the county, eighty-eight in number, are making notable progress along
practical lines.
Mr. Van Arsdall began life for himself with limited means, in ad-
dition to caring for himself supporting his widowed mother, who still
lives in Olney, and he is a fine representative of the self-made men of
the state. He is a Democrat in politics; a member of the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks; and an active and valued member of
the Methodist Episcopal church, to which his wife also belongs, and in
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1271
which he is rendering good service as superintendent of the Sunday-
school.
Mr. Van Arsdall married, May 2, 1908, Alta Belle Richards, a daugh-
ter of J. J. Richards, an early settler of Richland county, and to them
one child has been born, Howard Van Arsdall, a bright and interesting
little fellow, whose birth occurred October 31, 1911.
ELIJAH P. GIBSON, M. D. Since 1904 Dr. Gibson has been identified
with Louisville as a practicing physician and surgeon, and he has con-
tinued to merit in this city the same high reputation which was his
in the other localities that claimed his attention before settling here.
Since his graduation in 1878 he has confined his medical practice to
Clay county, Illinois, with the exception of his first two years of ex-
perience, which he spent in Indiana, and he is recognized today as the
oldest practicing physician in Clay county. He is regarded as a diag-
• nostician of exceptional ability, and his success in his chosen profession
has been of a generous nature, proving most conclusively the wis-
dom of the choice he made in early youth.
Dr. Elijah P. Gibson was born in New Providence, Indiana, June
10, 1850, and he is the son of Jesse and Nancy (Peyton). The father
was a son of William Gibson, a native of North Carolina, who came to
Indiana in his young manhood and where he passed the remainder of
his life. He was a colonel in the state militia, and was a man of con-
siderable position in his time. His son Jesse was born in Indiana in
the year 1812, and on reaching his majority embarked upon a farm-
ing career in Clark county Indiana, where he achieved distinctive suc-
cess during the years which he devoted to those interests. In later
life he moved to Unionville, Iowa, where he passed away. He was a
member of the Christian church and was a staunch adherent of the
Democratic party. His son, Elijah P., received his early schooling in
the schools of Mitchell, following his graduation from which he en-
tered the Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville Kentucky. He
was graduated therefrom on February 26, 1878, and began the prac-
tice of his profession in Mitchell, Indiana, where he remained for two
years. Thereafter his entire practice has been confined to Clay
county, his identity with that locality beginning in 1880, when he set-
tled at Hoosier Prairie. He practiced in that town until 1904, his ad-
vent into Louisville occurring then, and here he has made his head-
quarters ever since. In his college career he gave especial attention
to his studies in the dissecting room, prolonging them two years be-
yond the requirements, and, as mentioned previously, is known as a
specialist in diagnosis. When Dr. Gibson began practice he possessed
nothing but his training and his ambition and will to succeed. That
these possessions were all sufficient to tide him through the lean years
of his career, his later years give ample evidence. His accomplish-
ments have been worthy and his name is a synonym for conscientious
consideration and honesty in all his dealings with his fellow creatures.
The Gibson family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church,
and Dr. Gibson is a member of the Masonic fraternity. He is affiliated
with the Chapter, the Knights Templar, and has taken the thirty-
second degree in Masonry. He was treasurer for a number of years
in the blue lodge and has served as high priest of the Chapter. He is
a member of the County, State and American Medical Associations.
The Doctor has always been a Republican of strong views, and he has
taken a great interest in the success of the party.
On May 19, 1886, Dr. Gibson married Miss Jencie Burton, the
daughter of E. Burton, of Mitchell, Indiana. He was a native of North
1272 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Carolina, who came to Indiana in his young days, there passing the
remainder of his life. Four children were born to Dr. and Mrs. Gib-
son : Paul W., a student in college at Lebanon, Illinois ; Catherine, in
the parental home and attending school in Louisville ; Burton P. and
Nellie Jencie, also at home attending school. The family reside in the
fine old homestead which was once the property of ex-governor John R.
Tanner.
ADEN KNOPH. One of Richland county's most prominent and suc-
cessful business men, Aden Knoph has served for thirty years as
president of the First National Bank of Olney, during which time he
has become widely recognized as one of the most able and successful
financiers of Southern Illinois. A native of Lawrence county, Illinois,
he was born at Lawrenceville December 18, 1843, of Danish ancestry.
His father, Thompson Knoph, spent his early life in Denmark, his
birth having occurred at Copenhagen, September 4, 1801. Immigrat-
ing to America in 1831 he lived for a short time in Arkansas, and
afterwards, in company with a Mr. Bishop, was engaged in the whole-
sale grocery business at Evansville, Indiana, until 1840 or 1841. Com-
ing from there to Illinois, he embarked in the mercantile and pork
packing business at Lawrenceville, for a number of years being very
successful in his operations. Subsequently reverses occurred, and he
lost much of his wealth on pork, having been at the time of his death,
August 22, 1867, a comparatively poor man. He was a Republican
in politics, and cast his vote for John C. Fremont for president. He
married Lucinda Brunson, a native of Ohio. Both were held in high
esteem throughout the community, and both were valued members of
the Methodist Episcopal church.
Brought up in Lawrenceville, Aden Knoph there acquired a good
knowledge of the three "R's," although he never attended school
after ten years of age, being forced to work for a living after his
father became bankrupt. Entering his father's store, he continued
with him until the breaking out of the Civil war, after which he was
clerk in the store of his father at Vincennes, Indiana. Coming to
Olney, Illinois, two years later, Mr. Knoph enlisted in Company G,
Ninety-eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry which became a part of the
famous Wilder 's Brigade. Joining the Army of the Cumberland, he
fought in all the principal battles participated in by his command,
serving until the close of the conflict, during the last eight months of
the time serving as adjutant of his regiment. In the early spring of
1865, at the engagement in Selma, Alabama, he was severely wounded,
and having been taken on an ambulance to Macon, Georgia, remained
there until the war was ended.
Returning to Olney, Illinois, July 7, 1865, Mr. Knoph had a great
desire to fit himself for the legal profession, but was forced to aban-
don the idea on account of his exceedingly limited means. He clerked,
therefore, in a store for two years, when, in 1868, he was elected clerk
of the circuit court, a position to which he was re-elected for the next
two terms on the Republican ticket, each time carrying Richland
county, notwithstanding the county had normally a Democratic ma-
jority of from two hundred to five hundred votes.
Entering the commercial field in 1880, Mr. Knoph traveled for a
wholesale house of Cincinnati for two years, when, in 1882, he was
elected president of the First National Bank of Olney, a position
which he has since held. This bank is one of the strong financial in-
stitutions of Richland county, having a capital of $50.000; surplus
profits of $35,000 ; and deposits amounting to $500,000. Mr. Knoph is
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1273
one of the more wealthy men of Richland county, in addition to hold-
ing title to city property of value being the owner of a large farm and
a highly productive apple orchard. He has been successful in busi-
ness, meeting with far more prosperity than the average man, and is
highly esteemed as a man of worth and ability. During the Spanish-
American war he raised a regiment in ten days, and was elected
colonel, but was never called to the front.
Politically Mr. Knoph has been chairman of the Republican cen-
tral committee for a year. In 1904 he was a candidate for the office
of state treasurer, but failed to secure the nomination. Since its or-
ganization, he has been secretary of Wilder 's Brigade, to which he
belonged when in the army. For upwards of forty years Mr. Knoph
has belonged to the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, be-
ing a member of lodge, chapter, council and commandery, as a Knight
Templar being past eminent commander.
Mr. Knoph married July 1, 1869, Carliette Morehouse, whose
father, Othniel Morehouse, was born in that part of Lawrence county,
Illinois, that is now included within the boundaries of Richland county..
Mr. and Mrs. Knoph have two children living, namely: Edward, of
Freeport, Illinois, a railroad conductor; and Maude, wife of E. P.
Cochennour, a railway conductor, living at Pratt, Kansas. Both Mr.
and Mrs. Knoph are trustworthy members of the Methodist Episcopal
church.
STEVEN C. LEWIS. An able and influential member of the Illinois
bar, Steven C. Lewis has long enjoyed a substantial law practice, and
now, as county judge of Richland county, is fast building up an en-
viable reputation as a wise and impartial dispenser of justice. A son
of the late William Lewis, he was born September 12, 1862, in Law-
rence county, Illinois, of pioneer stock. His paternal grandfather,
Joseph Lewis, migrated from North Carolina to Illinois in an early
period of its settlement, and having taken up land from the govern-
ment improved a good homestead, on which he spent his remaining days.
Born in North Carolina, William Lewis was but a child when he
came with his parents to Lawrence county, Illinois. He was brought
up on the home farm, and Continued the pursuit of agriculture during
his entire life, being quite successful in his operations. A man of ster-
ling integrity, he was held in high respect throughout the community.
He was a Democrat in his political views, but he was not an office
seeker. He married Mary Gaddy, who was born in Tennessee, and came
to Illinois with her parents in childhood. Her father, James Gaddy,
served as a soldier in the Black Hawk war. Migrating from Tennessee
to Illinois, he took up a tract of government land in Lawrence county,
and having improved a good farm was thereafter engaged in tilling the
soil until his death.
Receiving his early education in the public schools of Lawrence and
Wabash counties, Illinois, Steven C. Lewis began working on the home
farm. His tastes and ambitions, however, as is natural to a man of
his mental calibre, turned towards a professional life, and he began to
read law under Judge Hugh Fields. Having concluded his studies
under the instruction of Judge Frank C. Meserve, Mr. Lewis was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1892. and immediately began the practice of his
chosen profession at Sumner, Illinois, where he met with such encour-
aging success that he continued there -sixteen years. Coming to Olney,
Illinois, in 1908, Mr. Lewis immediately became prominent not only in
professional circles, but in public affairs, within a year being elected
city attorney. In 1911 he was nominated for county judge on the Re-
1274 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
publican ticket, and notwithstanding that the county is a Democratic
stronghold was elected by a good majority, his vote at the polls be-
speaking his popularity with all classes of people, regardless of party
affiliations. Judge Lewis is admitted to practice in all the courts, and
has a large and remunerative patronage. Starting in life as a farmer's
lad, he has gradually climbed the ladder of success, and through his own
efforts has become exceedingly prosperous, in addition to having a val-
uable practice being the owner of two highly improved farms and city
property of value. Fraternally the Judge is prominent in Masonic
circles, being a member of Sumner Lodge, No. 364, Ancient Free and
Accepted Order of Masons ; of Chapter No. 35, Royal Arch Masons ; and
of Gorin Commandery, No. 14, Knights Templar.
Judge Lewis married, in 1880, Elizabeth Wright, a daughter of
Rev. James B. Wright, a preacher in the Christian church, who as a
pioneer of Lawrence county entered land from the government, and on
the farm which he improved spent his remaining years. The Judge and
Mrs. Lewis are the parents of five children, namely : Gallic, wife of F.
W. Westall, a dry goods merchant in Sumner, Illinois; Olive M., a
school teacher, who is highly educated, and in addition to having trav-
eled extensively in the United States will spend the summer of 1912
in Europe ; Ethel D., a teacher in the Bridgeport, Illinois, high school ;
0. E., a lawyer, in partnership with his father, is prominent in frater-
nal circles, being a Mason and a leading member of the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks; and Lawrence D., who is attending school.
Judge Lewis and his family are members of the Christian church, and
in their every day life exemplify its teachings.
WILLIAM H. HART. In the ranks of the legal profession in Frank-
lin county it is safe to say that no name is better or more widely known
that that of William H. Hart, former county judge and now conduct-
ing a most successful partnership with Walter W. Williams, the same
constituting a combination of professional ability second to none here-
about. Extensive as his practice may be. Mr. Hart's interests are by
no means limited to it, for he is identified in an important manner with
the coal commerce, his legal associate also being with him in this en-
terprise, which is known as the Hart-Williams Coal Company, Mr.
Hart holding the offices of secretary and treasurer.
William H. Hart is a native of Williamson county, his eyes having
first opened to the light of day within its pleasant boundaries on
August 31, 1862. He is the son of William Jasper and Sarah Ann
(Murphy) Hart, the former of whom was born in Kentucky and the
latter in Indiana. They came to Illinois at an early day, when the
state was still wild and the Red man still claimed it as his own hunting
ground, and here they lived their wholesome useful lives, carving a
home out of the wilderness and laying the paths of civilization straight
and clean. The father was a farmer, it goes without saying, and he
was prominent and honored by his neighbors, affording in his own
life a worthy example for the young men of his acquaintance. He was,
nevertheless, quiet and unassuming and took no decided part in poli-
tics and public life. He was a Democrat in his political faith. The
mother was a devout member of the Missionary Baptist church and a
worthy and • admirable helpmeet for her pioneer husband. The sub-
ject's grandfather was an early settler in Kentucky and was unknown
by him, the older gentleman's demise having occurred before his time.
The mother's family, the Murphys, were early Hoosier settlers.
Mr. Hart received his first introduction to Minerva in the Frank-
lin county schools and entered upon his career as a wage-earner in the
OF THE
OF WISSE
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1275
capacity of a teacher. For ten years he engaged in a pedagogical
capacity, but during most of that time he was arriving at the conclu-
sion that he wanted to be a lawyer and later effected his preliminary
studies. He taught in several localities — in Franklin, Jackson, Ran-
dolph and Monroe counties, — and always with satisfaction to all con-
cerned, for he had an enlightened idea of the duties of a preceptor.
In 1890, while engaged in teaching, he met and married Mary W. East,
a pioneer of Coulterville, Illinois. Mrs. Hart was also a teacher and
received her education in the Carbondale Normal School. To this
union a fine quartet of sons and daughters have been born, namely;
William W., Marion M., Mary M. and Mable E. All of them are in
attendance at school, and William W. graduated from the township
high school with the class of 1912.
Mr. Hart attacked his Blackstone under the able direction of Daniel
M. Browning, and to such good effect that he was admitted to the bar
in February, 1889. Subsequent to that he entered the office of Brown-
ing & Cantrell, and remained thus engaged until Mr. Browning was
made commissioner of Indian affairs during Cleveland's administra-
tion. He then formed a partnership with W. S. Spiller, and remained
with that gentleman in successful practice until Mr. Hart's high stand-
ing as a lawyer and citizen received signal recognition by his election
to the county judgeship in 1898. He served one term and then re-
entered the active practice of law. He now enjoys one of the largest
practices in all Southern Illinois, and he has been connected with a
great deal of important litigation. He has always been a Democrat
since he had any ideas upon the subject or was old enough to have the
right of franchise, and he is influential in party councils. From 1900
to 1902 he was a member of the State Democratic Committee. He
formed a partnership with W. W. Williams in 1906, which partner-
ship still exists. Their important connection with coal mining has been
previously noted.
Mr. Hart is a Mason, belonging to the Chapter and being very popu-
lar in the time-honored order. He and his family are members of the
Christian church.
SAMUEL MONROE DAILEY. Eleven years ago when Samuel Monroe
Dailey became connected with the enterprise in Louisville which he
has conducted with so much success since its inception, he possessed as
his sole asset H?is ten years of valuable experience as a clerk in an es-
tablishment similar to the one which he proposed to launch. To off-
set this asset he had a goodly handicap in the way of borrowed capital.
In spite of the meagreness of his resources as to material wealth, his
resources of shrewdness, far-sightedness and all around business abil-
ity have been sufficient to win to him a degree of success far in ad-
vance of that of his contemporaries, and he has from the first enjoyed
a prosperity and a generous trade almost in excess of his expectations.
Born in Perry county, Indiana, Samuel Monroe Dailey is- the son
of T. J. and Sarah Ellen (Whitmarsh) Dailey. The father was a na-
tive of Kentucky, and as a young man he moved thence to Grantsburg,
Crawford county, Indiana, and began the practice of medicine, in which
profession he had been trained in his native state. He carried on a
lucrative practice there from the year of his advent into Indiana (1867)
until the time of his death, which occurred in 1893. He died in Posey-
ville, Indiana. He was a member of the Methodist church all his life
and was a Republican in his political faith. The maternal grandfather
of Samuel Monroe Dailey, was born in New York city. He also was a
member of the medical profession, and after his removal to Indiana con-
1276 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
tinued there in practice for the remainder of his life. Young Dailey
attended the public schools of Poseyville, and after his graduation from
the high school took a two years' course at the normal at Danville,
Illinois. He then taught school for a period of five years, after which
he took a position as clerk in a general store in Poseyville, where he
remained for ten years, and where he gained a generous fund of expe-
rience and a working knowledge of the general run of such a business.
Thus equipped, and with practically no capital, Mr. Dailey determined
to launch out into business on his own responsibility. He accordingly
chose Louisville for the scene of his operations and in 1901 he located
there, putting in a stock of general merchandise and opening his doors
to the public. From the first he drew a large trade, and has continued
to hold the best business in Louisville. He has increased his lines from
time to time, always keeping well abreast of the popular demands, and
his establishment has a reputation for up-to-dateness that is one of its
most valuable characteristics. His complete interests are centered in
his mercantile establishment and he has made no other investments of
any kind regarding one well-protected investment as more profitable
than a number of less safe ones. Mr. Dailey is connected with the Ma-
sonic order, the Pythian Knights, the Elks and the Odd Fellows.
In 1902 Mr Daily was united in marriage with Lena Davis, the
daughter of J. B. Davis, who was born, reared and still lives in Posey-
ville, and where Mrs. Dailey also was born and reared. Mr. Davis is
postmaster in Poseyville, and he is a veteran of the Civil war, as was
also the father of Mr. Dailey. One child has been born to Mr. and Mrs.
Dailey, — Alan Dailey.
ALSIE N. TOLLIVER. Many of the prominent and valuable citizens of
Louisville of the younger generation are men who were born and bred
in Clay county and of such men Alsie N. Tolliver is a bright example.
The familiar aphorism — "far off hills look greenest" — has carried no
weight with Mr. Tolliver, and he has been well content to devote his
energies to the opportunities which presented themselves in his home
town and county. The very agreeable degree of success which he has
thus far experienced is ample evidence that his judgment of the future
of Louisville was well founded.
Born in Clay county, October 12, 1870, Alsie N. Tolliver is the son
of John H. and Margaret (Lauchner) Tolliver. The father was born
in Lawrence county, Indiana, in 1844, while the mother was born in
Tennessee in the same year. John H. Tolliver came to Illinois in the
fifties, where he was occupied with farming interests for a number of
years. He also became interested in the drug business, and was thus
connected for a period of twenty years. He is still a resident of Clay
county and is an honored and useful citizen. He is a veteran of the
Civil war, serving three years in the Forty-fourth Illinois, and seeing
much active service in the various campaigns he participated in. He
is a Republican of strong and sturdy character and has ever been a
faithful adherent of the party and an advocate of party interests. In
his own town he has filled practically all the offices of a public char-
acter. The father of John H. Tolliver was Isom Tolliver. born in In-
diana and there reared. He came to Illinois in the early fifties and
entered upon government land, which he improved and worked as a
farm of considerable value. He passed his life on the farm thus ob-
tained and there died. He was a particularly successful man in his
business, and was regarded as being exceptionally well-to-do for his
day and age. Certain it is that he possessed a wide acquaintance in
Southern Illinois and was prominent among the more important men
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1277
of his time. The maternal grandfather of Alsie Tolliver was Daniel
Lauchner, born in Tennessee, who came to Illinois in about 1850. He
settled on an Illinois farm in Clay county and devoted the remainder
of his life to farming pursuits, being known as one of the more solid'
and conservative men of his district.
Alsie Tolliver received his education in the common schools of Clay
county. Finishing his studies, he began life as a teacher, and for ten
years was thus occupied, in the meantime continuing his own studies
until in 1898 he gave up teaching and took up the study of the law.
In 1903 Mr. Tolliver was admitted to the bar, and he began the prac-
tice of his profession in Louisville in the same year. Since that time
he has made his headquarters in Louisville and has built up a fine and
lucrative practice. He has been an important factor in the political
and civic life of the town, and has done much for the uplift of civic
conditions within the sphere of his activity. In 1906, only three years
after his admission to the bar, he was elected to the office of county
judge on the Republican ticket, of which party he is an enthusiastic
supporter, and again in 1910 he was re-elected to that important office.
Mr. Tolliver has filled that office in a manner wholly creditable to his
ability as member of the legal fraternity and as a citizen of unblem-
ished integrity. Always deeply interested in the fortunes of the Re-
publican party, he has been "up and doing" for the cause since his
earliest manhood, and since his residence in Louisville has been prom-
inently identified with the party and its activities. He has been chosen
to represent the party in its state conventions on numerous occasions and
his name is always to be found on any committee of importance relative
to the labors of that political body in his county.
Mr. Tolliver and his family are members of the Baptist church of
Louisville, in which denomination he was reared by his parents, them-
selves members of that church ; and he is prominent in local Masonic
circles. He is a member of the Chapter and has been through all the
chairs of the blue lodge.
On June 15, 1892, Mr. Tolliver was united in marriage with Miss
Elizabeth Bryan, daughter of Josiah Bryan, an early settler of Clay
county, of which he is still an honored resident. He was actively en-
gaged in farming for years, but is now retired, and is passing his de-
clining years in the enjoyment of the fruits of his labors of earlier
years. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Tolliver, and all
are attendants of the Louisville schools. The wife and mother passed
away, and Mr. Tolliver was subsequently united in marriage with
Miss Rachel Kincaid, daughter of Jonathan Kincaid, of Clay county,
prominent in his district for many years as a stock-raiser and agricul-
turist of considerable importance. Of this latter union, one child has
been born.
SAMUEL H. FELDMEIEB. Well directed energy is an asset to every
modern business man, without which even the most favorably situated
may fail, and as an element of success it may be considered of first
value. When men of large capital or large corporations select officials
for important positions in their enterprises and undertakings they are
very liable to make choice from among those who have already dem-
onstrated business energy. In this connection attention may be called
to the present efficient secretary and treasurer of the Salt Lick Milling
Company doing an extensive business at Valmeyer, Monroe county. Illi-
nois— Samuel H. Feldmeier, who was born at Waterloo, Illinois. March
27, 1885. He is a son of Henry and Ernestine (Kurt) Feldmeier.
Henry Feldmeier was born March 2, 1861, at Maeystown, Monroe
Vol. 3—13
1278 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
county, Illinois, and at present is a resident of Waterloo. His father,
Frederick Feldmeier, was an early settler on the rich bottom land along
the river near Waterloo, and was a veteran of the Mexican war. Henry
Feldmeier engaged in farming near Waterloo until 1885, when he
moved into the town, where he is at present serving as superintendent of
the Waterloo electric light plant. He still owns his farm of one hun-
dred and twenty acres. He married Ernestine Kurt, who was born
in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, and they have three children, namely :
Samuel H., Louise and Florence, the last named being Mrs. M. A.
Koenigsmark. Henry Feldmeier and wife are members of the Lutheran
church.
In the public schools at Waterloo, Illinois, Samuel H. Feldmeier se-
cured an excellent education. A farmer's life did not appeal to him,
hence when seventeen years of age he left home and went to St. Louis,
Missouri, where he became an employe of the Standard Stamping Com-
pany and remained with the same firm until May 25, 1910, when he
became interested in the grain business in connection with the W. L.
Green Commission Company. He continued with the same firm until
April 1, 1911, and displayed such excellent judgment in this line that
he made a very favorable impression and severed his pleasant business
relations only to accept his present position, that of secretary and
treasurer, as above mentioned, with the Salt Lick Milling Company, at
Valmeyer. This enterprise is a stock company, backed by large capi-
tal, with J. J. Koenigsmark as president. The capacity of the mill is
two hundred barrels, the leading brands of flour being the Valmeyer
Patent and the Purity. Employment is afforded fifteen workmen, the
mill is equipped with modern, improved machinery, and the outlook
for the future is very promising.
On November 17, 1909, Mr. Feldmeier was united in marriage with
Miss Wilhelmina Koenigsmark, a daughter of J. J. Koenigsmark, and
they had one son, Robert Louis. Mrs. Feldmeier died at Valmeyer on
September 30, 1911. In his political views Mr. Feldmeier is a Repub-
lican and fraternally he is identified with the Masons and the Modern
Woodmen of America. He is a member of the Lutheran Evangelical
church.
WILLIAM MOHLENBBOCK. Among the well known citizens of Jack-
son county was William Mohlenbrock, who immigrated to the United
States in 1859, coming directly to Illinois, and located in Red Bud, Ran-
dolph county.
In 1861, loyal to his adopted country, he enlisted in Company C,
Ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and for four years did service in
the army. In 1866 he settled at Campbell Hill, and was here extensively
engaged in mercantile pursuits until his death, which occurred April
16, 1898. He was a man of great business enterprise and judgment, and
was largely influential in building up the interests of the city, which he
served as mayor several years. He founded the milling company which
bears his name, and took especial pride and pleasure in advancing the
cause of education, serving as an active and valued member of the school
board for many years. Fraternally he belonged to the A. F. and A. M.
and to the G. A. R.
He married while in Red Bud Minna Kroemer, a daughter of Conrad
Kroemer, a Randolph county farmer, and to them were born nine chil-
dren: Malte, Charles, Eva, Fortis, Eric, Haydee, Osser, Herman and
Ludwig. Charles and Eric are deceased.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1279
JOHN FRANKLIN PORTERFIELD. All the years of the life of this es-
teemed citizen of Carbondale since he left school have been devoted to
railroad work, and he has risen step by step in the service, as he dem-
onstrated his fitness for advancement, from the humble position of
messenger to that of superintendent of one of the busiest and most
important divisions of the road with which he is connected. His sev-
eral promotions have not come to him, however, as gratuities, or
through favoritism or influence. He has earned them, one after an-
other by fidelity to duty, capacity in his work and loyal devotion to
the interests of his employers, with due regard for the welfare of the
public.
Mr. Porterfield is a native of Pulaski county, Illinois, where his life
began on February 23, 1871. He is a son of Benjamin F. and Sarah
Margaret (Hunter) Porterfield. The father was a manufacturer of
lumber and prominent in the business. He died in 1907. The mother
is still living, and has her home in Chicago. While they were able to
provide the ordinary comforts of life for themselves and their off-
spring, they did not find the way to furnishing their son John with
opportunity for advanced scholastic training. And it is doubtful if
he would have availed himself of it if they had. For from his boy-
hood he was eager to do something for himself, and make his own way
in the world. He obtained a district school education and then en-
tered the employ of the Illinois Central Railroad Company as a mes-
senger at Pulaski in his native county. After serving the road for a
time in this capacity he became its telegraph operator and later its
agent at Pulaski. He was next chief clerk to a succession of super-
intendents at Cairo, New Orleans, Chicago and La Salle. He com-
pleted his apprenticeship in this department of the service with credit
to himself and benefit to the road and its patrons, and was made train-
master for a period sufficiently long to prepare him for higher duties
and more important responsibilities.
He served as division superintendent at Vicksburg, Mississippi,
New Orleans, Louisiana, Memphis, Tennessee ; in 1910 was transferred to
the St. Louis division, of which he has been superintendent ever since,
with headquarters in Carbondale and with a large and active territory
to supervise in his particular line of very important work.
On January 27, 1892, Mr. Porterfield was married to Miss Cora
Stewart, of Pulaski. They have one child, their son Robert Rowley,
who is a student at St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wiscon-
sin. The father is a prominent member of the Association of Railroad
Superintendents and chairman of the transportation committee of the
St. Louis lines in that organization. In fraternal circles he is a Free-
mason of the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite and a Noble of
the Mystic Shrine holding his membership in these branches of the
order in Memphis, Tennessee. His religious affiliation is with the Pres-
byterian church. He is zealous in his support of all commendable
undertakings for the progress and improvement of Carbondale and
Jackson county, the substantial welfare of their people, and all agen-
cies for good at work among them. He and his wife are welcome ad-
ditions to every good social circle, and are universally regarded as
among the most estimable and worthy citizens of the county.
C. D. STILWELL. Coming from Chicago to Harrisburg in 1905,
C. D. Stilwell soon gained a position of note among the leading mem-
bers of the legal profession of Saline county, and in 1906 was honored
by the voters of Harrisburg as their choice for city attorney. Posses-
sing great tact and good judgment, coupled with a splendid knowl-
1280 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
edge of the law, he has since met with every requirement of that re-
sponsible office. Enterprising and progressive, Mr. Stilwell takes an
active interest in municipal affairs, and is known as a consistent and
persistent "booster," and one who will do his full share in advancing
the public welfare.
When Mr. Stilwell located in Harrisburg the public thoroughfares
were well-nigh impassable three months in the year, the mails being
hauled from the depot to the postoffice in hand carts, while the com-
mercial men walked through the muddy streets, carrying their bag-
gage in their hands. Mr. Stilwell began talking sewerage and pave-
ments, and so aroused the people that many were induced to second
his efforts, the councilmen becoming particularly enthusiastic in the
matter. The materialization of well formed plans, for which he as-
sumed the legal responsibility, and shaped the necessary legislation,
resulted in the laying of nine miles of sewers, five miles of brick pave-
ments, and long stretches of concrete walks in the city, improvements
that are now absolutely indispensable.
Two or three years before a mile of stone road had been constructed
by the state, but was of no practical value in these low lands. Mr.
Stilwell advocated a brick pavement laid on a concrete foundation
for country roads, stating his reasons clearly. The Commercial Club
of Harrisburg took up the matter, and having $23,000 to spend for
road improvements appointed, in July, 1911, a committee to investi-
gate the subject. This committee appointed visited different places in
Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, in each county inspected hundreds of miles
of stone, gravel and brick roads, and each member of said committee
decided in favor of the brick material. Soon after the committee's
report was made public a contract was let for the construction of a
nine-foot, concrete base, vitrified brick road, which is now well begun,
and is surely to be the entering wedge to brick country roads through-
out Southern Illinois. Too much credit for the improvement of the
public highways cannot be given Mr. Stilwell, his championship of the
good roads movement having borne good results.
MARION S. WHITLEY, who occupies a prominent place among the
leading members of the Southern Illinois bar, has been a resident of
Harrisburg since 1892, when he moved to the county seat to enter
upon the duties of attorney for Saline county, to which office he had
that year been elected. A brief review of his life reveals the following
facts:
Marion S. Whitley was born three miles north of Eldorado, Saline
county, Illinois, June 17, 1860, son of Silas A. and Hannah (Craw-
ford) Whitley. His paternal grandparents, George and Sherel (Wal-
ler) Whitley, natives of North Carolina, came north about 1820 and
settled in Williamson county, and it was in Williamson county in
1837, that Silas A. Whitley was born. For a number of years Silas
A. Whitley was engaged in the sawmill business in Saline, Hamilton
and Johnson counties. -Finally he settled down at Eldorado, in Saline
county, where he passed the rest of his life, and where he died in
1900. He was twice married. His first wife, Hannah, was a daugh-
ter of William Crawford, a pioneer of Saline county who came here
from Virginia some time between 1820 and 1830, and who died at
about the age of sixty years. Hannah (Crawford) Whitley was born
in this county, and died here in 1866, at the age of twenty-three years.
She left three children: Silas A., a druggist at Eldorado; Angie, now
Mrs. Pemberton, at Forsythe, Montana; and Marion S., the subject of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1281
this sketch. By his second wife, who was Eliza E. Taylor, of Hamilton
county, Silas A. Whitley had five children, three of whom are living,
namely: Ed. S., George P. and Serel, all of Eldorado. The mother
of this family is still living and is a resident of Eldorado.
Marion S. Whitley while in his 'teens was engaged in the sawmill
business with his father. From sawmilling, in 1880, he turned to
teaching school and studying law. As a teacher he began on a salary
of $32.50 a month, and with this small amount paved his way to the
bar. Mornings and evenings and vacation times were spent with
his law books, his instructor a portion of the time being John J. Parish,
of Harrisburg. He taught in Gallatin, Hamilton, White and Saline
counties, the last two years of his career as teacher being spent at
Galatia, where, in 1888, he was admitted to the bar. He began the
practice of law at Galatia, and remained there until 1892, when, as
indicated in the opening paragraph of this sketch, he was elected to
the office which brought him to Harrisburg. He prosecuted the only
man who was ever hung in Saline county. Mr. Whitley 's abilities and
high standards soon brought him into prominence as a lawyer. Dur-
ing the past ten years he has been identified with the trial of almost
every important case in the county, and for five years he has served as
attorney for all the various large coal companies in the county. In
the famous contested election case, Choisser vs. York, involving the
question of validity of a judge of elections, initials being stamped with
rubber stamp on back of ballot before it is placed in box instead of
initials in own hand, an important precedent was established for Illi-
nois by the supreme court, where it was taken on appeal from deci-
sion of Judge Philbrick, of Champaign. Every contention of Mr.
Whitley that genuine initials were necessary to establish identity of
the ballot was sustained.
Mr. Whitley 's political affiliations have always been with the Re-
publican party. While a resident of Galatia he served as president of
the village board, and one term filled the office of mayor of Harrisburg.
In 1900 he was presidential elector for his district, and cast one of
the votes which elected McKinley. He was at one time a candidate for
nomination for circuit judge, but was defeated.
Fraternally Mr. Whitley is a Royal Arch Mason, and in his chap-
ter has filled the chair of high priest. Religiously he is identified with
the Christian Scientists.
In 1886, at Golconda, Illinois, Marion S. Whitley and Miss Alice
Thomas, of that place, were united in marriage, and to them have been
given three children, namely: Clifford W., a dentist of Harrisburg;
Yutha, wife of Carl W. Peterson; and Hannah, a high school student.
ABNER PALMER WOODWORTH. Crawford county, perhaps, owes
more of its financial and industrial growth to the life and influence of
the late Abner Palmer Woodworth than to any other one individual.
He was an important factor in the life of Robinson from 1850 up to
the time of his death, and contributed largely toward its advancement
during those years.
Mr. Woodworth was born in Palestine, Illinois, on June 20, 1829,
and was a son of John Spencer and Elizabeth (Greer) Woodworth.
The father was born on a farm near Albany, New York, on Decem-
ber 29, 1775. The mother was a native of South Carolina, born there
in 1779, and they were united in marriage in Lawrence county, Illi-
nois, where he died in 1850, his widow surviving him for several years.
John Spencer Woodworth came to Kentucky in 1812. It was about
then that he began to hear about the land lying along the Wabash
1282 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
river, and the reports were so attractive that he, with about twenty
others, came to Illinois to investigate the condition. Well pleased with
the prospect, they returned to Kentucky and when the Illinois land
was opened up in 1814 the party came back and settled. This party
comprised a pioneer group of settlers of Crawford county and they
lived there in primitive fashion, log cabins being the prevailing style
in architecture. Indians were constantly to be seen on the prairies
and wild animals abounded. Mr. Woodworth eventually bought land
near the present site of Palestine, on which he lived until the time
of his death. He was a man of no little prominence in Crawford
county and throughout the state in its early days. He was the second
sheriff of the county. At that time Crawford county included Chi-
cago, which was Mr. Woodworth 's apple market, freighting his produce
to Chicago by team. He was a prosperous farmer, owning at one
time one thousand acres of land, a large portion of which he cleared
and brought into a high state of cultivation. The family is one of
old Colonial stock, Roswell Woodworth, the grandfather of Abner P.
Woodworth, having served in the Revolutionary war, as did also his
maternal grandfather. On both sides of the house, prominent men
were to be found who played important parts in the early days of
our country.
Abner Palmer Woodworth was educated at Hanover College, In-
diana. He was well trained in the science of farming on his father's
place, to which he gave close attention in his school days. After two
years of college training the young man took a position as clerk in a
store, and in 1852 he was so well advanced that he was able to buy a
half interest in the business of C. B. Lagow & Company in Robinson,
and until 1863 the business of the store was conducted under the firm
name of Woodworth & Lagow. In those days theirs was the only store
in Robinson, then a straggling village of one hundred inhabitants per-
haps. In 1863 they sold the stock to the firm of Braden & Dorothy
and in the same year Mr. Woodworth engaged in the mercantile busi-
ness alone, continuing until 1868, at which time he launched a small
banking enterprise in connection with his mercantile business, with the
firm name of Woodworth Brothers & Company. This was later changed
to the Robinson Bank, the change occurring in 1875, and in 1896 was
reorganized and incorporated as the First National Bank of Robin-
son, with A. P. Woodworth as president, a position which he held at
the time of his death. In 1875 Mr. Woodworth gave over his mercan-
tile interests entirely, thereafter devoting himself without reserve to
the banking business until the reorganization of the bank in 1896.
In addition to his many other enterprises, Mr. Woodworth assisted
in the organization of the Paris & Danville Railroad, now known as
the "Big Pour," and was the founder of the Woodworth Hotel. On
reaching his majority he cast his first vote with the Whig party and
later helped to organize the Republican party in Crawford county. He
always was active in political matters, but never was prevailed upon
to hold public office. He was a member of the Presbyterian church
and was a trustee of that body for many years.
On August 18, 1868, Mr. Woodworth was united in marriage with
Ellen King at Binghamton, New York. She was a daughter of An-
drew King, and was born in Lexington, Kentucky, but later removed to
Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived until her marriage. Mr. King was
a member of the firm of King, Corwin & Company, wholesale dry-
goods merchants, and in later life removed to Leavenworth, Kansas,
where he passed away. No children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Wood-
worth.
OF THE
"tT<?jrv ri " ' I*T»
- S\
\ r
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1283
REV. KASPEB SCHAUERTE. The honored and popular pastor of St.
Andrew's church in the city of Murphysboro, Jackson county, is one
of the representative members of the Catholic clergy in this diocese,
and in his local field of endeavor he has accomplished most beneficent
work, both along spiritual and temporal lines. He has built up one
of the important parishes of this section of the state, is known as a
man of high intellectual attainments and as one whose life is conse-
crated to the high calling to which he is devoting his abilities and
energies.
Father Schauerte was born in the fine old province of Westphalia,
Germany, and is a scion of one of the old and honored families of that
part of the great empire. The date of his nativity was March 7, 1862,
and he is a son of William and Regina (Matzhauser) Schauerte, who
passed their entire lives in the fatherland. Their seven children, four
sons and three daughters, are now living, the subject of this review
being the first born. William Schauerte was a tailor by trade, but
the major part of his active career was one of close identification with
the great fundamental industry of agriculture. Both he and his wife
were most devout and consistent communicants of the Catholic church,
in whose faith their children were carefully reared.
He whose name initiates this article was afforded the advantages of
the excellent schools of his native land and in 1880, when about eigh-
teen years of age, he severed the gracious ties which bound him to home
and fatherland and came to America. He located at East St. Louis,
Illinois, and in the meanwhile began the work of preparing himself
for the priesthood of the great mother church of Christendom. He at-
tended Teutopolis College, a Catholic school in Effingham county, Illi-
nois, and thereafter completed his philosophical and theological studies
in St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in which institution
he was graduated as a member of the class of 1887. He was ordained
to the priesthood on the 24th of June, 1887, by Archbishop Heiss, and
on the 26th of the following month he was appointed substitute to Rev.
F. Bergmann, who was then pastor of St. Andrew's church, Murphys-
boro. Here he has since remained, his assignment to the full pastor-
ate of this parish having occurred in the same year which marked his
assuming connection with the parish. The church has been signally
prospered in both spiritual and material activities under his earnest
and effective regime, and the parish now has a representation of two
hundred and seventy-five families. Under the administration of Father
Schauerte has been erected the beautiful church, fine parish school
building, the parish home, as well as the hospital and convent which
form important adjuncts to the parochial work. Under his direction
were also erected the Catholic churches at Carterville and Ava, and he
was the dominating force in vitalizing the affairs of these parishes, in
which he continues to maintain the deepest interest, notwithstanding
the many and exacting demands of his home parish, in the work of which
he has a valued coadjutor in the person of Rev. Fred Witte.
Father Schauerte is a man of broad and liberal views and marked
public spirit. His genial personality has gained to him the high re-
gard of all who know him, and he has the affection and sympathetic
co-operation of the members of his parish. He takes an active part in
the affairs of the diocese of Belleville, of which his parish is a part,
and is chairman of the diocesan board of education as well as of the
board of building commissioners. His interest in the educational work
of his church has been of the most insistent and benignant type and he
is a member of the national educational association of the Catholic
church in America. His interest in all that touches the material and
1284 HISTOKY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
civic welfare of his home city is deep and active, and is measurably
signified by his membership in the Murphysboro Commercial Associa-
tion.
HON. WILLIS DUFF PIERCY. Prominent among Jefferson county's
most gifted and notable citizens is Hon. Willis Duff Piercy, author,
orator, scholar, editor of the Daily and Weekly News of Mt. Vernon,
representative from the Forty-sixth district to the Illinois state legis-
lature, and Southern Illinois representative of the Charles E. Merrill
Company of New York City, publishers of school and college text
books. Mr. Piercy is widely and favorably known as a gentleman of
high character, as well as unusual attainments, and his influence in the
community has been marked and salutary.
The birth of Mr. Piercy occurred April 28, 1874, in Hamilton
county, Illinois, his father being Dr. Sherwood Piercy, a native of Jef-
ferson county and a son of Anderson Piercy of North Carolina, who
came as one of the pioneers to Jefferson county and helped pave the
way for subsequent civilization. Dr. Piercy practiced medicine in Ham-
ilton county and then in Jefferson county, the period of his career as a
practitioner covering thirty-four years of signal usefulness. He died
March 21, 1906, at the age of sixty-nine. He was always actively inter-
ested in Democratic politics ; was a life-long Mason and a member of the
Methodist Episcopal church. He married Mary Mangrum, who survives
and makes her home with her son, the subject of this review, and with
her daughters. These worthy people reared a family of five children
to maturity, namely : Mrs. M. N. Corn, Carlinville, Illinois ; Mrs. J. C.
Jones, of Birch Tree, Missouri ; the subject ; Mrs. Clarence E. Danner,
of Jefferson county; and Mrs. (Dr.) R. R. Smith, of Mt. Vernon.
Mr. Piercy received his early education in the common schools of
his native county and then entered Ewing College, where he pursued
his studies from 1891 to 1892. Some years later he matriculated in
McKendree College, at Lebanon, Illinois, where he was a student from
1896 to 1901, in the latter year receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
He and his wife went through college together, after they were married,
Mr. Piercy saving the money for their education from his salary as
country teacher. Mrs. Piercy received her degree of Bachelor of Arts
in the year following that of her husband (1902). Mr. Piercy had pre-
viously been engaged in educational work, his first work as an instructor
being in the common schools of Jefferson county (three years), and one
year in the Mt. Vernon high school. In the fall of 1901 he went to
Greenville, Illinois, as superintendent of the city schools and served in
that capacity until the spring of 1903. In the ensuing fall he entered
Harvard University, and in the spring of 190-4 was granted the degree of
Master of Arts from that institution in the department of English. Pre-
viously, while teaching school in Jefferson county, he had read law and
had passed the bar examinations, being admitted to the bar in 1895.
He served as private secretary to Congressman M. D. Poster of the
Twenty-third district of Illinois, from March 4, 1907, to March 4. 1909,
and resided in Washington, D. C., during the winter of 1907-08. His
connection with the Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, of New
York City, had dated from a time several years previous and he had
represented this concern for some three years. In 1908, upon his re-
turn from the national capital, he again became associated with the
Merrill Company and still retains his connection with it in the capacity
of representative for Southern Illinois.
The fact that Mr. Piercy had gained the confidence and admiration
of the community in which he is best known is by no means difficult of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1285
explanation, and nothing could have been more appropriate than his
election, in the fall of 1910, as representative from the Forty-sixth dis-
trict to the lower house of the state assembly. He is now serving his
first term and has given "a taste of his quality," which has abundantly
proved the wisdom of his constituents and which makes subsequent
political preferment a logical outcome. He was by no means a figure-
head at. Springfield in one of the most important sessions of the assem-
bly, matching swords with Lee 0 'Neil Browne in the arena of debate, to
the discomfiture of that politician. He was instrumental in killing
Browne's "Libel Bill," working strenuously and speaking effectively
against a measure which he believed pernicious in the extreme. In fact,
he was credited by the St. Louis Republic and several other journals
as having himself dealt the death blow to the bill. His address against
the bill was published throughout the United States and made for him
more than a state-wide reputation in a day. In April, 1912, the Dem-
ocrats of the Forty-sixth senatorial district, comprising the counties of
Jefferson, Wayne. Richland and Jasper, nominated Mr. Piercy as their
candidate for state senator, without opposition.
He became connected with the Daily News as editor in January,
1910, and is a creditable representative of the Fourth Estate. This
sheet is owned and published by a stock company, Dr. Walter Watson
being president and J. J. Baker, secretary, treasurer and general man-
ager. It was established in 1871 as a weekly and in 1891 a daily edition
was inaugurated, the circulation being at the present time 2,800. It
is the official Democratic organ of Jefferson county and is an effective
one, and it is the only Democratic paper in the county. The daily
paper is an eight page, six column sheet, and the weekly is the same
size. It is not only remarkably newsy, but stands an enlightened
moulder of public opinion, its editorials being uniformly well conceived.
Mr. Piercy was married April 3, 1895, to Miss Eulalia Whitson, of
Jefferson county, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Whitson and their
charming and cultured home is shared by a daughter, Helen Whitson,
aged eight years.
Mr. Piercy is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks and with the Knights of Pythias. It is as an orator and platform
speaker, perhaps, that Mr. Piercy is best known, and has been "nick-
named" "the Silver-tongued Orator of Egypt." He is the author of a
number of publications, such as "Death and Its Sorrow," published
by the Neale Publishing Company, (N. Y., 1908); "Great Inventions
and Discoveries," intended as supplementary reading or library book
for school children, and published by the Charles E. Merrill Company
of New York. For the past five years he has been a member of the Mt.
Vernon township high school board of education and he has served as a
member of the city public library board. In whatever capacity he has
served his fellow men it has been with credit to himself and honor and
profit to the people.
MARION N. DRONE. In naming those who have been identified with the
business and financial interests of Gallatin county, mention should be
made of Marion N. Drone, cashier of the First National Bank of Ridg-
way, and a native of that place, who has devoted his active business
career to banking and enjoys the confidence and esteem of his fellow
townsmen. Mr. Drone was born in Ridgway, December 9, 1885, and
is a son of Alexander and Mary E. (Vilter) Drone, and a grandson
of Joseph Drone. The latter came to Illinois from Ohio and settled
two miles south of Ridgway, where he spent his life in agricultural
pursuits.
1286 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Alexander Drone was born in Ohio, and as a young man started out
on his own account by purchasing cheap land in this county. At first
he met with a number of minor disappointments, and soon it seemed
that he would fail disastrously, as within the space of a year his wife
died and he lost his house and barn by fire. However, he made a fresh
start, remaining single for seven years, and during that time had re-
covered his losses and started himself on the highroad to success. For
many years he was engaged in farming and stockraising at the edge of
the village of Ridgway, where he owned 1,200 acres of land, and his
fine roadsters and jacks were exhibited at a number of fairs, where they
took numerous prizes. In 1909 he was one of the organizers of the
First National Bank, which was capitalized at $25,000, a new building
erected for it and it now has $50,000 deposits and a surplus of $2.100.
For the past eight years Mr. Drone has resided in Evansville, and now
holds an official position with the Henneberger Ice and Cold Storage
Company of Princeton, Indiana, and Mt. Carmel, Illinois. A self-
made man in all that the word implies, Mr. Drone rose to his high posi-
tion through his own ability, and his success in life should serve as an
example to the aspiring youth of today and to show that a man may
attain a comfortable competency and secure the esteem of his fellows
through his own industry and integrity, and not through inherited ad-
vantages. He was very fond of out-of-door sports, and was never so
happy as when off on an outing with his rod or gun. In political mat-
ters Mr. Drone was a Democrat, but he was never an office seeker, while
in his religious views he was a life long member of St. Joseph's Catho-
lic church. Of his children, six still survive, namely: Marion N., Lu-
cretia, Vincent P., Leonard, Madeline and Philip Alexander.
Marion N. Drone received his education in the public schools and
Jasper College, Jasper, Indiana, from which he was graduated in 1904,
at that time becoming bookkeeper of the Commercial Bank of Evans-
ville. Subsequently he held a like position with the Mercantile National
Bank, and rose to the position of receiving teller, but at the time of
the organization of the First National Bank of Ridgway, in 1909, he
came here as cashier of this institution, a position which he has held
to the present time. Mr. Drone inherits his father's ability as a finan-
cier and business man, and his pleasant personality has made him many
friends among the bank's depositors, as it also has among his business
associates. Also, like his father, he has been fond of out-of-door exer-
cises, and is an expert at the game of tennis.
On July 14 ,1908, Mr. Drone was united in marriage with Miss Etta
Mary Zipp, of Evansville. They are members of St. Joseph's Catholic
church, and Mr. Drone is a member of the Knights of Columbus and is
financial secretary of the local lodge.
WALKER W. MCCREERY. A name that looms up large in the history
of Franklin county and Benton is that of Mr. Walker W. McCreery,
whose activities and interests entitle him to a place in the forefront of
the list of leading citizens of this part of the state. Mr. McCreery was
born on October 10, 1858, becoming one of the fourth generation of
his family in this state, the first member of which, John McCreery,
migrated to Southern Illinois in 1787. He was a man of sturdy cour-
age to thus push his way to the frontier beyond civilization, and his
young wife who accompanied him must have possessed the same qual-
ity in large degree. It is stated that when the young couple journeyed
from their Kentucky home to become the first white settlers in Gallatin
county, now Saline county, they had but one horse to ride and they
took turns in mounting it, and accomplishing the long, dangerous trip
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1287
by slow stages, albeit with final success. Indians were their only neigh-
bors for a time, but they proved to be friendly and the hardy young set-
tler and his wife were never molested by them in any way. He became
a trader and a farmer and accumulated a large fortune for that day.
His was the distinction also of being the first Squire in the county of
which he was the first settler.
Next in line came Alexander McCreery, son of John, who came to
Illinois with his father; the third generation was headed by J. W. Mc-
Creery, son of Alexander, born January 10, 1821, who in turn became
the father Walker W. McCreery, of this sketch. J. W. McCreery
married Mary E. Pace, who was born in 1824, the daughter of Joel
Pace, an early settler of Jefferson county, who built the first brick house
in that section and was one of the most prominent citizens there. He
filled the office of clerk of court for a number of years and was also
circuit clerk at one time. Mr. McCreery was an agriculturist and lived
on and cultivated the same farm all his life. He was a man who took
a leading part in public affairs and was widely known, having been a
member of the county board of supervisors for many years and post-
master at Cave Post Office for forty years and until that office was
abandoned. He was of Republican political faith. His business affairs
were carefully conducted and at the time of his death, on January 7,
1892, he was well fixed financially. His wife survived him many years
and died in 1903. Mr. and Mrs. McCreery were both devout members
of the Methodist Episcopal church, were people of high moral princi-
ples and their passing was mourned by a large circle of friends who
held them in the highest respect and esteem.
Walker W. McCreery received his education in the common schools
of Franklin county, but these were of the best class, with superior
teachers, and when he ceased his studies he was possessed of more than
the average learning. He had spent his life as a boy and young man on
the farm, but in starting out on an independent business career chose
to engage in livery work and made his initial venture. in that business
at Thompsonville. In 1886 he located at Benton, conducting a livery
stable for a time and later engaging in the lumber business, at first
with J. T. Chenault, but subsequently buying out the latter 's interest
and becoming sole owner of the business. Flattering success was his
and by judicious investment and the exercise of excellent business fore-
sight he was able to accumulate large financial interests. He retired
from the lumber business and erected the McCreery Block, an exten-
sive property in which is located the McCreery Hotel, the postoffice, a
drug store and a large number of fine up-to-date offices. Mr. McCreery
conducted the hotel that bears his name for one year, but has since
leased it to other parties. In 1909 he further added to his already large
holdings by purchasing the Benton Flour Mills, a large plant with
capacity for producing one hundred and twenty-five barrels per day,
and the product of these mills is shipped not only to all points in Illi-
nois, but enters into interstate commerce extensively. Besides his city
properties Mr. McCreery has some valuable farm holdings and is, al-
together, rated as one of the wealthiest men of this section. He has
lately made some large investments near Rosewood, New Mexico, and
will probably spend the winters there. His success is but the natural
result of the exercise of the superior business talents he possesses in the
conduct of his commercial and industrial operations. A man of great
capacities, he produces large and important results in whatever line
of endeavor he elects to devote his time and attention.
On June 6, 1883, occurred the marriage of Mr. McCreery and Miss
Lizzie Swain, daughter of John F. Swain, a merchant of Charleston,
1288 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mississippi. Five children have been born of this union. Kate, William
N., W. W., Jr., Vashti and John Alexander. All of the members of
the family belong to the Methodist Episcopal church and are important
factors in the moral and religious uplift of the community, as well as
influential members of leading social circles. Mr. McCreery belongs to
several fraternal orders, including the Masonic, being a past master of
Benton Lodge, No. 64, and is also first chancellor commander of the
Knights of Pythias.
JOHN MILTON SHEETS is one of that body of men who are either
a powerful force for good or a strong force for evil, depending on
the personality of the men themselves. This body of men are the
editors of our newspapers. Mr. Sheets is the editor of the Oblong
Oracle, and of all the editors in the state none is more active than he
in the cause of good government. He is a thorough believer in the
necessity for editorial fearlessness, and is particularly earnest in his
fight for the purity of the country press, which has such a tremendous
influence on the politics of the country. The Tribune in commenting
on a speech that Mr. Sheets, as president of the Illinois Press Asso-
ciation, had made before that association in Chicago says, "The suc-
cess of any movement for reform depends upon the courage and
breadth and force of the press." These words were practically
quoted from Mr. Sheets, but the Tribune adds, "Such a movement
depends upon the attitude of what may be called the lesser press but
which is in fact the greater press — the newspaper of the smaller cities
and towns, the so-called country press. The huge metropolitan news-
papers are likewise influential and bear upon their shoulders a tre-
mendous responsibility. But the country press is a greater power
and sustains a greater responsibility. It is fortunate for the American
people that this mighty force is not unfaithful to this service and
that so many of those who control and direct it maintain a high
sense of duty, courage and wakeful patriotism." Mr. Sheets is one
of the leaders of these men of whom the Tribune spoke in such glow-
ing terms, and while such men as he are standing in the positions of
responsibility, we may trust that the snarl into which the public af-
fairs of this commonwealth have been tangled will eventually be
straightened out.
John Milton Sheets was born at Oblong, Illinois, in Crawford
county, on the 29th of March, 1875. His father was also a native of
Oblong, the date of his birth being the 20th of November, 1853. His
great-great-grandfather, William Sheets, came to America from Ger-
many and fought through the Revolutionary war. His great-grand-
father was born in Virginia and was a veteran of the War of 1812,
and helped to defend Fort Knox at Vincennes. Indiana. His grand-
father was born in Indiana, in 1817. His son John was the father
of John Milton. The Sheets family has the distinction of fighting in
every war the country has had. including the Black Hawk war, ex-
cept the Mexican, and application was made for enlistment for that
war but the quota had been filled.
John Sheets, the father, has been engaged in a number of occupa-
tions through his life. As a young man he was a farmer, then he went
into the lumber business as the operator of a saw-mill, and his last en-
terprise has been the manufacture of concrete. He is now interested in
this business, which has proven to be very successful. He was married
on the 27th of January, 1874. to Harriet Winger, a daughter of Adam
Winger, who was born in Indiana. Eleven children were born of this
marriage, John Milton being the eldest. Of this large family nine are
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1289
living. Mr. Sheets, Sr., is a Democrat in his political views, and his
fraternal affiliations are with the Odd Fellows and the Modern Wood-
men of America. He is a devoted member of the Christian church.
John Milton Sheets was brought up in the environment of a coun-
try town, with no particular incentive to take up the work in which
he has spent the greater part of his life. He attended the public
schools and was graduated from the high school. On the completion
of his school work he entered the postoffice as a clerk, and when he
was twenty-one years of age he received the appointment as post-
master. He held this office until the change in administration brought
about a change of officials. He then went into the newspaper business.
He bought out a paper that had been in circulation for two years,
known as the Oblong Ledger, and changed the name to The Oracle.
He then had an opportunity to buy The Leader, which he seized upon
and combined this paper with the one he had just purchased. The
first issue of The Oracle was published on the 4th of June, 1897, and
from that day down to the present the circulation has steadily in-
creased. It is now about twelve times as large as it was originally.
The plant of the paper is new and contains much modern printing
machinery. Connected with the paper is a very fine job department,
where excellent work is done. The Oracle is an eight page weekly,
and its politics are Democratic, though as Mr. Sheets says the dis-
graceful situation in Illinois to-day is due neither to the Republican
nor to the Democratic parties, but to "bipartisan political dishonesty."
Consequently his paper, while loyal to the Democratic principles,
denounces those men who, hiding behind the shoulder of this great
party, work for the interests of "big business." The paper has been
instrumental in raising the price of real estate by bringing before
the public eye the merits of some of the properties in the county.
The paper is anti-saloon in policy and was very efficient in the fight
to drive saloons out of the county. When the question of good
roads came up before the public The Oracle led the forces, and kept
insisting day after day that good roads were necessary to the progress
of the county, and now the county owns many stone roads, and the
roads all through the section have been greatly improved and are
kept in good condition. The Oracle took the initiative in advocating
the laying of concrete walks, with the result that Oblong has now
more concrete walks than any other town of its size in the state.
Another valuable campaign in which the paper led was the one which
advocated the building of a railroad from Charleston to Mount Car-
mel. This line is now operating under the name of the Oil Belt Rail-
road, from Oblong to Hardinville. Mr. Sheets was not only active
in urging that the people do all in their power to secure the railroad,
but he was one of the incorporators himself and has always been in-
terested in its success, especially since it is owned by local capital.
He gave it the name it now bears. He is an ardent advocate of scien-
tific farming and it was mainly through his efforts that the town
established a small farm near the limits, which is under the direc-
tion of the agricultural department of the State University. Another
matter that is close to the heart of this editor is the general education
of the townspeople after they have completed their school life. The
ease with which people in the smaller towns drift into a rut and lose
interest in the affairs of the outside world, seldom attempting to
keep abreast of modern thought in either science, literature, the stage
or the pulpit, was clearly seen by Mr. Sheets and he did much towards
bringing good lecturers to the town. He first began the work speak-
ing from the columns of his paper, but later he took direct charge of
1290 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
it and has brought many noted men to the town. His business ability
is undoubted, and he was one of the incorporators of the First Na-
tional Bank, 'of which he is now one of the directors.
Mr. Sheets is deeply interested in historical subjects, especially in
the modern ways in which history is being handled, and in the psy-
chological and sociological phases of the study. He is a member of
the American Historical Society, which has headquarters in Washing-
ton, and also of the Illinois State Historical Association. In a pro-
fessional way he is a prominent member of the societies to which he
belongs, the Democratic Editorial Association and the Illinois State
Press Association. During 1911 he was president of the latter- or-
ganization, being the youngest man who had ever been elected to
that office. While he was presiding officer he made the address that
has been mentioned before, his subject being mainly the Lorimer
question. The address was a powerful one judging from the ap-
plause with which it was greeted and the comments which it elicited
from the reporters. The Tribune says, "President J. M. Sheets, editor
of the Oblong Oracle, was the man to take the bit between his teeth
and overturn association precedents at the close of a long, impas-
sioned plea for purity among the country newspapers, and a stand
for independence in politics when 'yellow dog' candidates were
named by party bosses." The sentiment of Mr. Sheets' address may
be gathered from the following : ' ' Shame on the situation in Illinois
to-day. Politics is good when wholesome and without taint, but in
Illinois to-day some men in power are a hindrance to good govern-
ment, and the sooner the Brownes, the men he has assisted to office,
and those of his ilk, regardless of party affiliation, are divorced from
the politics and official family of the commonwealth the sooner will
our great state make the retribution necessary to resume its position
in the vanguard of decency, honor, and statehood rank." From this
extract it should not be difficult to see where Mr. Sheets stands.
The Tribune in further comment says, "In Illinois we are passing
through a crucial period, in which the powers of misrule are making
a desperate stand against exposure and ruin. Whether this fight for
honest government shall triumph depends chiefly upon the courage
and conscience, the insight and candor of the so-called country edi-
tors whose enlightened civic spirit spoke out in the address of the
president of the Illinois Press Association. It is the still small voice
of the smaller paper that utters what the still small voice in the con-
science of the people speaks. And that voice is a voice of thunder."
No finer tribute could be paid to Mr. Sheets than the above words, and
we may only hope that he may be spared to continue the good work in
which he has been so active.
On the 25th of November, 1896, Mr. Sheets was married to Pearl
Odell, a daughter of W. J. Odell, who has since died. He was one of
the leading hotel men of the county, and was well known through-
out the section. Mr. and Mrs. Sheets have one child, John King Byron
Sheets, who was born on the 15th of January, 1912, being the fifth
generation of Johns in the Sheets family. Mr. and Mrs. Sheets are
members of the Methodist church and in the fraternal world Mr.
Sheets is a member of the Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the
Modern Woodmen of America.
C. P. BURNETT. A man of unquestioned integrity and ability, pos-
sessing sound judgment and excellent business tact, the late C. P.
Burnett, of Eldorado, founder of the widely known mercantile firm
of C. P. Burnett & Sons, spent the best years of his life in Saline
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1291
county, and was actively identified with the establishment of many
of its enterprises of importance and worth. He was born in 1851, in
Saline county, Illinois.
Coming from Raleigh to Eldorado in 1871, Mr. Burnett embarked
in business with his brother-in-law, under the firm name of Burnett
& Musgrave, and having put in a stock of general merchandise val-
ued at ten thousand dollars conducted a general store for ten years.
Selling out his interests in the firm to Mr. Musgrave in 1881, Mr.
Burnett opened a general store on the opposite side of the street, and
conducted it so successfully that in 1885 he admitted one of his sons
to partnership, the firm name becoming C. P. Burnett & Son. Four
years later another son was taken into the firm, which was then
changed to C. P. Burnett & Sons. On October 19, 1892, Mr. Burnett
was called to the life beyond, passing away at a comparatively early
age, his death being mourned as a public loss.
The business which Mr. Burnett established and which has since
been continued under the name of C. P. Burnett & Sons, was incor-
porated in March, 1903, with a capital of forty thousand dollars,
which has since been increased to fifty thousand dollars, and is now
ably conducted by the four sons constituting the firm. This enter-
prising firm has a well stocked store, containing three departments,
in which everything pertaining to dry goods may be found, and is
carrying on a very large and lucrative mercantile business, its sales
amounting to two hundred thousand dollars each year. In addition
to its dry goods store, this firm has established a lumber yard, and
in the sale of lumber, brick and building material does an annual
business amounting to seventy thousand dollars. The firm likewise
established a private bank at Eldorado, C. H. Burnett being made
president and L. E. Burnett, vice-president. The bank has a paid
up capital of forty thousand dollars, with deposits amounting to
three hundred thousand dollars, while its loans equal its deposits.
The firm also owns considerable valuable land in Saline county, in-
cluding the old Burnett homestead, and several of Eldorado's busi-
ness buildings.
Mr. C. P. Burnett married Clementine Musgrave, who survived him
about nine years. Nine children were born of their union, one of
whom, E. W. Burnett, the first son to be admitted to the firm, sur-
vived his father but nine months, dying at the age of twenty-nine
years. Four sons and four daughters are now living, the sons being
C. H. Burnett, L. E. Burnett, R. E. Burnett and C. P. Burnett. Fra-
ternally Mr. Burnett was a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted
Order of Masons, while living in Raleigh having served as master
of his lodge, and in Eldorado having been a charter member of the
local lodge.
REV. FREDERICK WILLIAM McCLUSKy. Union Academy of Southern
Illinois, one of the leading educational institutions of this section,
which is fully accredited with the State University at Champaign-
Urbana and with the leading colleges of the Central West, is located
amid picturesque surroundings, on the divide between Anna and
Jonesboro, and about one-half mile distant from the business center
of each place. It was founded in 1883, on September 17th of which
year it was opened with an enrollment of forty-seven pupils. Each
year has seen new buildings erected, numerous improvements made
and an increase in attendance, and the latter has been especially
marked during the last seven years, during which time the Rev. Fred-
erick William McClusky has acted as senior principal.
1292 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Rev. McClusky was born at Alder Creek, New York, June 27, 1866,
and when four years of age was taken to Forestport, where his father
was engaged as a merchant and lumber dealer until Frederick was
fifteen years old. He was educated in the graded schools of Forest-
port, and then attended Holland Patent Academy, Clinton Grammar
School, School Park College, Missouri, and the Union and Auburn
Seminaries, graduating from the latter in 1894, at which time he be-
came principal's assistant at the Evening High School, Brooklyn,
New York, which had an attendance of from fifteen hundred to eight-
een hundred students. In the same year Ee became Presbyterian
minister at Forestport, and from 1895 until 1899 had the charge at
the Memorial church of that faith in Brooklyn. While still in the
seminaries, Rev. McClusky was stenographer for the student volun-
teer movement for foreign missions, as well as precentor of the Sun-
day-schools of Olivet Chapel, with upwards of one thousand members.
For nine years he was a member of the Second Battery of the National
Guard, and during the summers of 1891 and 1892 served as orderly
and stenographer on the staff of Adjutant General Josiah Porter, at
Peekskill State Camp. Also, while at Auburn Seminary, Rev. Mc-
Clusky was baritone of the seminary male quartette. From 1899 until
1902 Rev. McClusky filled the charge at Whitesboro, New York, and
for nineteen months was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Union-
ville, Missouri, at the end of that time coming to Union Academy as
principal, in which capacity he has served to the present time, a wise
and unbroken administration of more than seven years. From the
first the large colleges have recognized the indispensability of prepara-
tory schools. The earliest efforts 'at realizations were crude and in-
effective ; but they have paved the way to the marked success of later
years. It is impossible and unnecessary to trace in detail the advance
in pedagogical thought ; it has been gradual, never revolutionary, and
more discernable in the present result than in the stages of its progress.
It would be invidious and inaccurate to attribute leadership in this
advance to one school or another, all have contributed to it in a
greater or less degree ; but no one will take exception to the assertion
that great credit is due, in the general reckoning, to the wisdom, in-
sight and persistence of the principal of Union Academy. Rev. Mc-
Clusky is a man of remarkable mental attainments, and it is rare to
find a man who has a grasp of more of the facts that constitute human
knowledge than he. Since coming to Union Academy he has taught
literature, history and elocution, and it has been the subject of uni-
versal remark that he is familiar with all the innumerable facts
throughout the whole realm of his departments. He has, furthermore
the faculty of apt illustration and is always able to apply the prin-
ciples under consideration. Rev. McClusky has been blessed by a
spirit of generous toleration, and although he is. a man of strong con-
victions, those convictions have never led him to intolerance of the
opinions of others, nor have his convictions ever led him to personal
prejudice against those who have held opposing views. Since he
has been in charge of the fortunes of Union Academy, the attendance
has nearly tripled and twenty thousand dollars of new buildings have
been erected. Rev. McClusky is very popular with the students, as
well as those who have met him ,in a social or business way.
In 1894 Dr., McClusky was married to Miss Lillian B. Dean, who
was born at Salem, Ohio, and four children have been born to this
union, aged as follows: Frederick D., fifteen years; Howard Y., eleven;
Margaret E., nine ; and William Kenneth, who died at the age of two
days. Mrs. McClusky moved to Kansas with her parents when she
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1293
was still in young girlhood and at the age of fourteen years entered
Park CoUege, Parkville, Missouri, having received her preliminary
training in the public schools of Clinton, Kansas. In 1888 she re-
ceived the degree of A. B. from Park College, and then studied music
under a private teacher, Mrs. Agnes Lockhart Richards. Eventually
she took a course in Frank Herbert Tubbs' private school, went to
the musical department of the Pierce City (Miss.) Baptist College for
less than one year, and the two years following were spent at Fort
Smith. Arkansas, where she maintained a private vocal studio. She
has taught music ever since, and has engaged in concert and lecture
work. While engaged in pursuing her musical studies Mrs. McClusky
taught for two years at Park College having the classes in history,
mathematics and Latin, then became superintendent of public schools
of Parkville for one year, and for some time was a teacher in the
grammar schools of Eureka Springs. She is a lady of culture and re-
finement, and has been an admirable assistant to her husband in his
arduous work.
THEODORE F. GEROULD, M. D., one of the best known physicians and
surgeons in Centralia, has brought to the practice of his profession a
well trained mind of natural ability, a sympathetic heart and warm
human interest in the lives of others. With such gifts, natural and ac-
quired, it is no wonder that today he has one of the largest practices
in the city and the surrounding country.
Dr. Gerould was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 15th of
September, 1879. His father was H. T. Gerould, who came from an
eastern family, being born in Massachusetts. The grandfather of Dr.
Gerould was Lyman Gerould, a native of New Hampshire. Here he
owned and operated a large woolen mill, but the attraction of the
great Northwest proved too strong for him, so he came out to Minne-
sota and settled in Minneapolis. Later he bought some farm land near
the city, and lived the quiet life of a farmer until he died. His son
H. T. moved to Cairo, Illinois, in 1874, where he held the position of
superintendent of the Gas and Electric Light Company. After a
time he went to Minneapolis, and moved from there to Centralia in
1893. He died February 2, 1912. In politics he was a Republican,
and his religious affiliations were with the Episcopal church.
H. T. Gerould married Sophia Fleming, whose father had migrated
from his native state of Ohio in his youth and had settled in Cairo,
Illinois. Here he became cashier of a bank and in time acquired con-
siderable wealth. Mrs. Gerould was born in Ohio, and Dr. Gerould was
an only child.
After the completion of his preparatory work, Dr. Gerould at-
tended the University of Illinois, at Champaign, and then, having
deeided to make medicine his profession, he entered Rush Medical
College at Chicago. After completing two years of the course offered
at the latter institution he went to the Jefferson College in Philadel-
phia, where he graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1901. For a
year he remained in the east, practicing at Wild Wood, New Jersey,
then he returned to the west and located in. Centralia, in 1902. In
addition to the large practice that he has built up from that time he
has considerable surgical work. He is surgeon for the Illinois Central
Railway Company, for the Marion Coal Company, and for the En-
velope Factory. He has devoted all of his time to the practice of med-
icine, and cares little for politics.
In his religion he is a communicant and regular attendant at
the Episcopal church. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge and
Vol. 3—1 4
1294 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Chapter in Centralia, and also belongs to the Elks, being past exalted
ruler in the Elks lodge, No. 493. From 1904 to 1908 he performed the
duties of coroner.
THOMAS BELL WILLIAMSON, M. D. One of the foremost Eclectic
physicians of Jefferson county, Thomas Bell Williamson, M. D., of
Opdyke, is associated by membership with the Missouri State Eclectic
Medical Society and with the National Eclectic Association, and in the
diagnosis and treatment of the various ills to which mankind is heir
keeps abreast of the times, being familiar with the more modern
methods now used. A native of Illinois, he was born October 4, 1885,
near Belle Rive, Jefferson county.
His father, the late Thomas Williamson, was born in 1833, in
Kentucky, and there spent his early life. Coming to Illinois in 1860,
he located in Jefferson county, where he became an extensive land-
holder, at one time owning a whole section of land. He died while
in manhood's prime, his death occurring in 1886. He was twice mar-
ried. He married first Peggy Butler, who died in 1881, leaving two
children, namely: .William H., deceased; and Mrs. Nancy Ann Lin-
veil. He married for his second wife Dora A. Phillips, a daughter
of William Phillips. In 1896 she passed to the life beyond, leaving
but one child, Thomas Bell, the subject of this personal narrative.
Left an orphan in boyhood, Thomas Bell Williamson received his
early education in the common and high schools of McLeansboro, Illi-
nois, and in 1902 was graduated from Ewing College, in Ewing, Illi-
nois. Then, at the age of seventeen years, he began the study of
medicine in Saint Louis, at the American Medical College, where he
was graduated with the class of 1906, having for a year previous to
his graduation been connected with the Metropolitan Hospital, the last
few months of the time being an interne. In June, 1906, Dr. William-
son began the practice of his profession in Opdyke, Illinois, and has
here built up an extensive and highly remunerative patronage, his
skill and ability being recognized and appreciated throughout the com-
munity. The Doctor has also been successful in accumulating prop-
erty, now owning two farms, one of eighty acres lying near Opdyke,
and another of one hundred and sixty acres in Franklin county. He
likewise owns considerable live stock, and has valuable residential
property in Opdyke. He is now vice-president of the Opdyke Bank.
On August 5, 1906, Dr. Williamson married Lillian D. Kern, a
daughter of Joseph Wesley Kern, formerly of Snowflake, Franklin
county, but now cashier of the Opdyke Bank, of which he is an ex-
president. The Doctor and Mrs. Williamson have one child, Lucille
Frances, born December 13, 1908.
Fraternally Dr. Williamson is a member and a past master of Jef-
ferson Lodge, No. 368, Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, -of
Opdyke; of H. W. Hubbard Chapter, No. 160, Royal Arch Masons, of
Mount Vernon ; and of Opdyke Camp, No. 6457, Modern Woodmen
of America. He is also a member and the past and present worthy
patron of Jefferson Chapter, No. 686, Order of Eastern Star, to which
Mrs. Williamson also belongs, being worthy matron, and which they were
both very influential in organizing, it having been instituted March
16, 1911.'
AMERICUS GASAWAY. Among the prominent and influential citizens
of Herrin. Illinois, Americus Gasaway holds prestige as a business man
whose dealings have all been of a fair and straightforward nature.
His civic attitude has ever been earnest and sincere and he has done
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1295
a great deal to advance the general welfare of this community and of
Williamson county at large. Since March, 1910, Mr. Gasaway has
devoted his attention to the real-estate and general abstract and title
business. At the present time, in 1911, he is deputy to Sheriff Duncan
of the Herrin precinct and he is noted for his stalwart support of
Republican principles.
Americus Gasaway is a native son of Williamson county, Illinois,
his birth having occurred in the vicinity of Alta on the 26th of Novem-
ber, 1874. He is a son of Mack Gasaway, who was born near the
line dividing Williamson and Saline counties in 1847. Mack Gasaway
was a farmer by occupation and he was summoned to the life eternal in
1881. His forefathers were of Irish descent and the original pro-
genitor of the name in Illinois came hither from Tennessee. The
paternal grandfather of him whose name forms the caption of this
review was a prosperous merchant along the east line of Williamson
county and his children to grow up besides Mack were: Marshall,
who served as a gallant soldier in the Union army during the war of
the Rebellion and who now resides at Galatia, Illinois; Martha be-
came the wife of John Gasaway and she passed to the great beyond
in Williamson county in 1899 ; Julia died single ; Anna wedded Sylves-
ter Phillips and died in this county in 1879; and Elvira is now the
wife of Hal Mason, of Seattle, Washington. Mack Gasaway married
Emily Karnes, now a resident of Herrin, and they became the parents
of four children, as follows, — Minnie is the wife of John Gogue, of
Saline county, Illinois; Olive is Mrs. Thomas Barrett, of Herrin;
Americus is the immediate subject of this review; and Pearl is now
single, living at Herrin, Illinois.
The childhood and youth of Americus Gasaway was passed in Wil-
liamson and Saline counties, to whose public schools he is indebted for
his early educational training. When he had reached his twentieth
year his mother located with her family at Crab Orchard, where he
became a student in the Crab Orchard Academy, which excellent in-
stitution he attended for a period of two years. At the age of twenty-
five years he began to teach school in Williamson county, devoting the
ensuing five years to pedagogical work. For two years he taught in
the schools at Corinth and his last term was spent in the Bandyville
district, just east of Herrin. In 1902 he gave up teaching as a pro-
fession and entered the employ of the Government as a clerk in the
Herrin postoffice, under Postmaster Stotlar. Two years later he was
appointed chief of the office to succeed Mr. Stotlar. He continued
the popular and efficient incumbent of the position of postmaster for
the ensuing four years, at the expiration of which he was succeeded
by Mr. Perrine, who holds the office at the present time. In 1901 he
was elected a member of the city council of Herrin, representing the
First ward.
In 1909 Mr. Gasaway again turned his attention to private mat-
ters, acting for a time as manager of the Herrin Mercantile Company.
In March, 1910, however, he decided to launch forth in the business
world on his own account and at that time he engaged in the real-
estate and general abstract and title business, the scope of his operations
being Williamson county. In addition to his other interests he is now
tending to the duties of deputy sheriff, under sheriff Duncan of the Her-
rin precinct. Mr. Gasaway is noted for his adherence to Republican
doctrine and stanch support of Republican candidates for political
office. In fraternal matters he affiliates with the Masonic order, be-
ing connected with the Blue Lodge and Chapter, of which latter organ-
ization he is secretary. He has passed all the official chairs in the
1296 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has rep-
resented the same in the grand lodge of the state. He is also a valued
member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Herrin.
On the 28th of July, 1903, Mr. Gasaway married Annie McNiell, a
daughter of Wallace and Sarah (Crenshaw) McNiell, of Herrin. Mrs.
Gasaway was the second in order of birth of her parents' five children.
Mr. and Mrs. Gasaway are the parents of three children, whose names
are here entered in respective order of birth,— Florine, Wilmay and
Americus, Jr.
THOMAS B. F. SMITH. Farmer, educator, lawyer, lecturer and pub-
lic official, Thomas B. F. Smith, of Carbondale, has proven his capacity
and the worth of his citizenship in many lines of endeavor and been
successful in them all, winning high credk and material advancenment
for himself and rendering valuable and appreciated service to the com-
munities in which he has lived and the ofte in which he now resides.
He is serving his third term as city attorney of Carbondale.
Mr. Smith is a Kentuckian by nativity, having been born in Lyon
county in the Blue Grass state on May 12, 1877. His parents were
William F. and Sarah (Nickell) Smith. They moved to Illinois in
1889 and located on a farm in Williamson county. On this farm the
son grew to manhood and obtained the beginning of his academic edu-
cation in the country school in the vicinity. He completed its course
of instruction and supplemented that by diligent and reflective reading
and study on his own account, and so prepared himself for the profes-
sion of teaching, in which he engaged for a few years. Then, feeling
the need of more extensive knowledge and better training for the work,
he attended the Southern Illinois Normal University, from which he
was graduated in 1901.
After receiving his diploma he again taught school for a time, and
while teaching began the study of law, which he continued in the law
department of the University of Illinois, being graduated therefrom
in 1905. He was admitted to the bar in February of that year, and at
once began the practice of his profession. He had been well prepared
for the contests of the legal forum by the knowledge of human nature
he acquired during his five years' experience as a school teacher, two
of which were passed by him as superintendent of the schools in Jones-
boro. Union county, as well as the teacher of one, giving him complex
duties and a wider range of vision.
In 1897 Mr. Smith moved to Carbondale, and since 1905 has been
actively engaged in an extensive general practice. The people of Car-
bondale have shown their appreciation of his worth as a man, high char-
acter and usefulness as a citizen and ability as a lawyer by electing
him city attorney three times in succession, and always with strong
manifestations of general esteem and admiration. He is a zealous Re-
publican in his political affiliations and one of the influential men of
his party throughout Southern Illinois. His services to the party are
always effective, his counsel in its campaigns is always good, and his
popularity as a leader and campaigner is coextensive with his acquaint-
ance in this part of the state, where he has long been prominent in all
political consultations on his side of the great and perpetual line of
battle.
In religious allegiance he is a Presbyterian and one of the deacons
of the congregation in which he holds his membership. Fraternally
he is a Freemason of the Royal Arch degree ; a member of the Order of
Elks; a Knight of Pythias with the rank of past chancellor com-
mander; an Odd Fellow; and a Modern Woodman of America of high
OF THE
OF i
.HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1297
standing in the order. In it he is clerk of the camp- to which he be-
longs, and has frequently been its delegate to the meetings of the
head camp. He is also in frequent demand as a lecturer on the tenets
and purposes of the order, and is serving as its treasurer in this state,
having held this office for the past three years. Socially he is con-
nected with the Twenty-fifth District and the social clubs. In addi-
tion, he is a member of the Carbondale board of education.
On the 9th of September, 1903, he married Miss Bessie Johnson, a
daughter James M. and Sarah A. (Harvey) Johnson, highly respected
residents of Carbondale, where the marriage was solemnized. Mr.
Smith is yet a young man, but by industry, thrift and determined per-
severance he has already achieved a great deal in life. He has made
his own way, without capital or other resources except his good health,
resolute spirit and fine natural endowments; and the progress he has
so far enjoyed and wrought out by his own efforts is an earnest of what
he will yet accomplish in higher lines of usefulness if his life and health
are spared. He has gained an advanced stepping-stone to a loftier
range of duties and more extended usefulness, and he is of the caliber
that never hesitates to take a step forward. The people of Jackson
county regard him as one of their most serviceable citizens at present
and one of their men of greatest promise for the future.
FANNY POSEY HACKEE. As superintendent of public instruction of
Alexander county Mrs. Fanny Posey Hacker has proved herself one
of the intellectual, alert and strenuous women of Southern Illinois, and
during the third of a century or more which she has passed in Cairo
her life has been both domestic and literary, — domestic in the rearing
and training of her family, and literary in its relation to the sphere of
public education, to the promotion of club work for women, and
semi-political in her advocacy of universal suffrage and in her incum-
bency of an important public office. Mrs. Hacker was born in 1855,
in Henderson county, Kentucky, and the blood of the scions of patriotic
Americans courses her veins. The name of Posey has been stamped
indelibly upon the communities along the Ohio Valley, where her illu-
strious ancestor, General Thomas Posey, did his work as a statesman,
soldier and citizen. This Revolutionary patriot was a factor in the
winning of American independence as a general officer in Washington's
army, and was a native son of Virginia. The family lived in Rich-
mond, and some years after the war he identified himself with Louis-
iana, being elected the first of that commonwealth's United States
senators. Subsequently he came up the Father of Waters and located
in Indiana and became, in time, governor of that state, and one of the
richest agricultural counties of Indiana is named Posey in his honor.
From there he crossed the river into Kentucky and entered politics,
following his natural bent, and was elected lieutenant-governor of that
state. He purchased a large tract of land in Henderson county,
established his family upon it, and there the remainder of his life was
spent.
Major Fayette Posey, one of the general's sons and the grand-
father of Mrs. Hacker, was born in Virginia, was a man with some of
his father's military instincts and habits, served as a major of United
States troops during, the war of 1812, and engaged successfully in
farming with slave labor during his active life. His son, Fayette
Washington Posey, the father of Mrs. Hacker, was born in Henderson
county, Kentucky, reared amid luxuriant environment and lived the
life of a gentleman before the Civil war. His sympathy ran with the
institution of slavery, and he was properly classed as a confederate,
1298 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS -
but he was without the military ambition necessary for activity in the
field and he took no part under the "Stars and Bars." His wife was
diametrically opposed in her attitude upon the issues of the war, and
would have shouldered a gun in defense of the Union without much
encouragement from others. Both she and her husband died at the
age of sixty -two years. Her father, Colonel John Sublette, of French
lineage, was an officer during the Mexican war.
Mrs. Hacker was the first child in a family of twelve, and her
childhood was passed amid the pastoral and agricultural surroundings
of an extensive plantation. She was fond of nature and communed
with all its forms, learned its varied language and studied in the home
under Northern teachers of culture, refinement and education. Her
whole being called for life in the open air, where she could hear the
music of the winds, mingle with the labor of the field, mount a horse
and enjoy the exhilaration of a daylight ride, or where, she could climb
the tall trees and swing out upon their swaying boughs and laugh at
the dangers she encountered. During her girlhood she became a stu-
dent in a preparatory school at Evansville, Indiana, conducted by
Professor Gow, and graduated from the Henderson high school at the
age of fifteen years, subsequently taking a post-graduate course. She
grew to be a student and to acquire a fondness for imparting knowl-
edge, and when the war made free men of the Negro race, the educa-
tion of those upon her father's plantation opened a field for the
exercise of her talents. "While she did not engage formally in the
work as a licensed teacher, she lost no opportunity in dropping the
elementary principles of an education into the mind of every seeker of
school advantages, and capped her career in the proper rearing of her
own family of six children.
Mrs. Hacker's election as county superintendent, in November,
1910, as a Democrat, was a surprise to her, as it came from the votes
of hundreds of Republicans whose votes controlled the politics of the
county. Nevertheless, her success brought her into the very position,
for which her life work had fitted her, and the office has given her an
opportunity of demonstrating the practicability of a few commendable
theories, and of making some changes in the conduct of the county
schools which have improved their morals. She is reaching school
boards and patrons weekly with newspaper articles upon vital matters
pertaining to their duties. She is raising the standard of teachers,
and is separating the colors and urging the independence of each of
the other in their social sphere, so that when her term closes it will
have marked an epoch in the common school history of Alexander
county.
On March 19, 1877, Fanny Posey was married in Chicago, Illinois,
to John S. Hacker, and came at once to Cairo. Captain Hacker has
spent his life on the river and for many years has been master of the
Tri-State Ferry here. To their home have come: Loulu, who be-
came the wife of A. W. Danforth and spent the first years of her mar-
ried life in China, where her husband was mechanical expert with the
firm of Li Hung Chang, the noted oriental statesman, and who sub-
sequently engaged in commercial pursuits in China and took an active
part in church work, but who is now a business man of Lowell, Massa-
chusetts; Miss Daisy, Mrs. Hannah, Gentry Nicholas, Miss Alice and
Miss Amanda Dimple, the latter a teacher in one of the county schools.
These daughters are all busy with some department of activity, busi-
ness or domestic, and the son is one of the bookkeepers of the First
Bank and Trust Company of Cairo.
Her interest in the work of women in Illinois has ever been near
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1299
the heart of Mrs. Hacker, and her connection with the movement for
women's clubs has covered a period of many years. She is always a
delegate to the state meetings of the society and has frequently rep-
resented Illinois as a delegate to the national association. She is a
sworn suffragist, and it has been asserted that she would wear the
senatorial toga from Illinois in Washington with dignity and ability
with the advent of universal suffrage in this state. In her religious
conviction Mrs. Hacker is an Episcopalian.
WILLARD W. ADAMS. Among the prominent representatives of old
pioneer families of Southern Illinois today one of the best known and
most influential is Mr. Willard W. Adams, whose ancestors were old
South Carolinians who early migrated to this section of the country.
Mr. Adams' grandfather, Gus Adams, came from South Carolina in
an early day, located in Franklin county, where he purchased land,
and remained here until his death. His son, Joseph Adams, was born
in South Carolina in 1839 and came with the family to Illinois, where
he married Eliza Murphy, a native daughter of Franklin county, and
in this location they spent their long and useful lives. Mr. Adams
operated a mill in Franklin county and was one of the most widely
acquainted and highly esteemed men of the community. He was un-
fortunate in a business way in having his milling plant burn down
twice, the fires being of supposed incendiary origin, but in spite of
this he was most successful in the conduct of his affairs and was able
to accumulate a considerable competence during his life. The ill will
which engendered these destructive acts against him were doubtless
inspired by Mr. Adams' fearless expression of sympathy for the Union
cause during the War of the Rebellion. In that great conflict he did his
duty at the front in a four years' campaign, he having been a captain
in Company F, Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry. His demise, regretted by
all, occurred in 1872. His wife survived him many years, her death
having taken place on April 10, 1908. She was a consistent member
of the Baptist church and a woman of many fine qualities, who was
loved and revered by all who knew her. The Murphy family was a
prominent one, and her father was one of the first settlers of Franklin
county.
Of such sturdy and courageous ancestry was born Willard W.
Adams on December 25, 1869, the place of his nativity being Mulkey-
town, Franklin county. Until he was fourteen years of age he at-
tended the common schools of that community and at that early age
took up the burden of self support. His first work was at shoe shin-
ing or boot blacking, was then a delivery boy in a grocery store at
Benton. but he soon rose to a clerkship and was so engaged for several
years, for a time in the Hubbard Grocery Store and later in the gen-
eral store of J. G. Mitchell and Company.
Mr. Adams' ambitions looked beyond that of merely working for
someone else for a salary and in 1893 he went into business for him-
self, beginning with a small stock of second-hand clothing and fur-
nishing goods and adding to his capacity as his trade grew until now
he carries an exceedingly large assortment of clothing and does an
immense business in that line of trade. He has at all times managed
his financial affairs with great sagacity, invested his surplus resources
with clear sighted judgment and has succeeded in amassing a consider-
able fortune, his property holdings being at the present time very ex-
tensive and including 1,400 acres of coal land and numerous valuable
town properties. In a mercantile way he holds the distinction of hav-
1300 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ing conducted business under the same firm name longer than any
other company in town.
In 1895 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Adams and Miss Kate
Chenault, daughter of John T. Chenault, the well known president of
the First National Bank of Benton. Mr. and Mrs. Adams are the
proud parents of two children, Charles C. and Jane. They are mem-
bers of the First Baptist church and take an active part in the activi-
ties of that organization.
Mr. Adams holds membership in the Masonic fraternity, a Knight
Templar, a Shriner, and a Thirty-second Mason, belongs to the Con-
sistory and is a past master of Benton Lodge, No. 64. Politically he
is in sympathy with the Republican party principles, taking a leading
part in its affairs, and he once served in the capacity of treasurer of
the Republican county central committee and was elected mayor of
Benton in 1902. He is a man of comprehensive talents, progressive
impulses and large inherent powers for executive affairs and is one
whose influence is constantly being felt in matters pertaining to the
social, civic and commercial welfare of the community which claims
him as one of its most valued citizens.
Since the compilation of the above Mr. Adams moved his family to
Boulder, Colorado, in September, 1911, and expects to make Colorado
his future home.
HENRY L. BURNETT, M. D. Among the men of Saline county, Illi-
nois, who by their industry have made their own way to local prom-
inence, mention must be made of Henry L. Burnett, M. D., the well
known capitalist of Raleigh. If history teaches by example, the lessons
inculcated by biography must be still more impressive. We see exhibited
in the varieties of human character, under different circumstances,
something to instruct us and encourage all our efforts in every emer-
gency in life. There is no concurrence of events which produces this
effect more certainly than the steps by which success has been ac-
'quired through the unaided efforts of youthful enterprise, as illustrated
in the life of Dr. Burnett.
Dr. Burnett comes from good old pioneer stock, and was born
near Raleigh, Illinois, September 22, 1848, a son of Hiram and Emily
(Bramlett) Burnett. Hiram Burnett was born in Spottsylvania
county, Virginia, and went thence to Kentucky and later to Illinois,
in 1818. His father was a blacksmith by trade and a country post-
master between Eldorado and Raleigh, this village being started at the
time Saline county was formed by dividing it from Gallatin county.
As a youth Hiram Burnett learned the trade of blacksmith with his
father, and during the Black Hawk war served in the American army.
When Saline county was formed he became the first clerk of the
county court, and served in that office for close to twenty years, or
until the county seat was moved to Harrisburg. He then engaged in
farming on a Black Hawk war grant and also was a school teacher for
some years, as he had been in early life, and later became a justice of
the peace, all of these offices coming to him as tokens of the respect and
esteem in which he was held by his fellow men and the confidence they
had in his fairmindedness and ability. For a number of years he was
known as a Hard Shell Baptist, but when he became a member of
Raleigh Lodge, No. 128, A. F. & A. M., some of his beliefs became less
radical. His son, Dr. Burnett, is now the possessor of an autographed
letter from Robert G. Ingersoll, written upon receipt from Hiram Bur-
nett, of the application for membership to Raleigh Masonic Lodge of
his brother Eben, over whom his famous eulogy was pronounced, and
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1301
which was signed by Dr. Burnett's father. Eben practiced law at
Raleigh prior to his removal to Peoria. Hiram Burnett continued to
farm until his death, in his eighty-second year, and the log house which
was his home is still standing on the land. His first wife, Sarah Mor-
ris, bore him three children who grew to maturity: William W., cap-
tain of Company E, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry, who was killed while leading his company at the battle of
Shiloh; Richard M., who served through the Civil war in the same
company with his brother, and died at the age of forty-eight years, be-
came captain of the same company, although he did not immediately
succeed his brother; and Charles. P., who was a merchant of the city of
Eldorado, where he built up the largest business in the county, now
being conducted by his four sons. Mr. Burnett was married (second)
to Emily Bramlett, whom he survived for twenty years, and they had a
family of six children to reach maturity : Lucinda ; Catherine ; Henry
L. ; Hiram A., who was a merchant of Raleigh, but for the past twenty
years has been a resident of Kansas, and is now president of the First
National Bank of Dodge City; Mary A., deceased, who married the
late Dr. J. W. Ross; and Eliza, who married W. W. Alexander, of
Covington, Kentucky.
Henry L. Burnett began teaching school when he was twenty-one
years of age, and continued to engage in that profession until he was
twenty-four, at which time he began reading medicine with Dr. J. C.
Mathews, who is now deceased. He entered the old Missouri Medical
College, at St. Louis, and after graduation therefrom entered into
practice, but finding that it did not agree with his health he gave it up
and began to sell goods, this occupying his attention for twenty years.
He finally sold a half-interest in his store, but has retained the rest.
While engaged in the mercantile business he began to accommodate those
who needed financial assistance, and he has found this so profitable that
he has given the greater part of his time to it for upwards of twenty
years, but has abandoned his practice entirely. Doctor Burnett is the
owner of several farms, to which he often pays a visit when he feels the
need of relaxation from business cares, and has always declared that
he was proud he had been born on a farm. He has kept out of politics,
preferring to give his time and attention to his business interests.
Until 1896 he was affiliated with the Democratic party, but since then
has been classed as a Republican although he is really independent
in his principles and gives his support to the candidate rather than
the party. Since 1887 he has been connected with the Masonic fra-
ternity, being past worshipful master and taking an active part in the
work of the Blue Lodge.
On July 29, 1877, Dr. Burnett was married to Miss Prudence Cor-
win, daughter of Dr. J. M. Crowin, who came from Indiana and was
engaged in practice in Raleigh for ten years. Two sons have been born
to Dr. and Mrs. Burnett, namely: Rex C., who is associated in busi-
ness with his father; and Henry L., Jr., who now attends the home
schools. Dr. Burnett is possessed of the qualities of industry, honesty
and integrity, attributes essential to an upright and successful busi-
ness life, and as a sociable and genial man is one of the most popular
citizens in Raleigh.
CHARLES C. DAVIS. A city or country owes much to her profes-
sional men, merchants and farmers, for to them is due the steady cir-
culation of money and trade, without which a place would stagnate,
but when a town has grown to any size then it needs some one who can
step in and turn this money to the best advantage, so that it will be
1802 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
used to advance the corporate growth of the community, in other
words, a capitalist. Such a man is Charles C. Davis. He started as a
poor boy with no prospects whatever; the early years of his career
offered nothing but deadly monotony, with no apparent hope for the
future, but, never allowing himself to become discouraged, believing
always that one could get almost anything if one worked for it hard
enough, he was ready to seize the opportunity when it offered. His
chance when it came seemed so small that men lacking his adventurous
spirit and confidence in fate would have refused to consider it. Not
so he, and the result is that he is one of the successful men of Marion
county, and has had a hand in practically every large enterprise that
has been launched in Centralia for years.
Charles C. Davis was born on the 2nd of April, 1855, the son of
Thomas P. Davis. His father was a native of Virginia, and left the
Old Dominion as a mere boy, coming to Illinois with his parents. They
settled in "White county, near Grayville, and when the lad grew to
manhood he adopted the carpentry trade, and as a carpenter and con-
tractor he soon became well known throughout the county. When
Centralia began to grow he moved to what was then a village and built
some of the earliest homes in the now thriving city. When the war
broke out in 1860 he willingly offered his services and for three years
served in Company H of the Eightieth Illinois Regiment. His politics
were Republican, but he was content to cast his vote at election time
and let others fill the offices. Both he and his wife were staunch mem-
bers of the Methodist Episcopal church. He married in Belleville,
Illinois, Wilhelmina Beal, the daughter of Jacob Beal. The latter was
born in Germany, and immigrated to America in 1844, settling in
Pennsylvania. He later moved to St. Clair county, where he took up
farming and gardening. During the later years of his life he moved
to Centralia, where he died. The father of Thomas P. Davis was
James Davis, who was born in Virginia, and moved to Illinois while
Thomas was quite young. He was a farmer and continued to operate
his farm to the day of his death. Thomas P. Davis and his wife had
ten children, eight sons and two daughters, of whom Charles was the
first born, and of these six sons and one daughter survive.
Charles C. Davis obtained all his knowledge of books from the public
schools. His first job was as a brakeman, and by the time he was
twenty he had climbed the rounds of the ladder until he had reached
the position of conductor. For twenty-one years he followed railroad-
ing, and apparently he was never going to do anything else, but some-
how the idea came into his head that there was coal around Centralia,
and although he knew nothing about coal mining he determined to
have a try for it. Giving up his position, he took his small savings
and came to .Centralia, where in company with Mr. G. L. Pittinger,
who had persuaded him to go into the venture with him, sunk a shaft.
They struck coal. This was the beginning of their fortune. After
this start the rest came easily, for his mind was peculiarly adapted to
the work of a financier, and he seemed to know almost intuitively in
what direction the real estate market was going to move. After the
lucky strike they sunk another shaft and bought others until they
owned the whole coal field around Centralia, then when the value of the
property had enormously increased they sold out, and the mines are
now owned and operated by the Centralia Coal Company. Mr. Davis
is connected with almost every leading financial enterprise in Cen-
tralia. He is president of the Pittinger Davis Mercantile Company,
which is a store of great importance to the commercial life of Cen-
tralia. He is a director and heavy stockholder in the Old National
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1303
Bank, and for many years he has been a director of the Building and
Loan Company. Much of his property consists of real estate, but he
always has money to invest in any enterprise that meets with his ap-
proval, and much of his income is derived from loans. He is known
as a friend to the poor and many of his small loans have been made
without interest, for, coming himself from the ranks of those who labor
with their hands, he realizes the value of a helping hand. The most
successful deals which were carried out by Mr. Pittinger and the sub-
ject and which seem to have been made with an intuitive sense of the
future were in reality the result of hours of thinking and planning.
Mr. Davis' long experience in railroading had given him a keen judg-
ment of men, and from a long study of conditions he is usually able
to prophesy how this or that affair is going to turn out.
On May 2, 1877, he married Ella Kell, the daughter of Matthew
Kell, who was a prominent business man of Centralia up to the time
of his death. Dr. Davis is deeply interested and very active in the
Masonic order, believing firmly in the principles of this great institu-
tion and he is a past master, past high priest and past eminent com-
mander. He is also a Consistory Mason and a Shriner, and has taken
the thirty-third degree. At present he is grand high priest of the
state of Illinois. He is a member of the Elks, having been one of the
charter members of the Centralia Lodge.
HARRY 0. PHILP, M. D. Among Franklin county's able and emi-
nent physicians Dr. Harry 0. Philp is entitled to representation as
one of the deservedly prominent, possessing a large country practice
and enjoying the confidence of both laity and profession. Beloved as
the kindly friend and doctor of hundreds of families in this part of
the state, it might well have been such as he who inspired the famous
couplet of Pope,
' ' A wise physician, skill 'd our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal."
Dr. Philip was born in Jefferson county, Illinois, October 1, 1869,
the son of James W. and Augusta (Kinne) Philp. The father was a
native of Illinois, and his parents were among the earliest settlers of
Jefferson county, their arrival on the Illinois plains having occurred
when the Redman still looked upon them as his own hunting ground,
his trail being clearly marked across them. The mother, who was a
Hoosier by birth, was reared on a farm in Jefferson county, Illinois,
whence she came as a little girl. James Philp was a farmer and
school teacher and was a Union soldier in the Civil war, being cap-
tured and incarcerated in Andersonville prison. He was a member of
Company I of an Illinois regiment. The founder of the family of Philp
in this country was the subject's grandfather, Thomas Philp, who was
born in England and came to this country when a young man, locating
in Illinois and taking an active part in the many-sided life of the new
community. He was noted as a musician in his day and locality and
furnished tunefulness for many interesting occasions. He could be
practical also and made all the shoes for the neighborhood. The
maternal grandfather of him whose name inaugurates this review was
a native of Indiana, in which state he lived and died. Thus the sub-
ject's forebears on both sides of the house have been personally con-
cerned with the growth and development of the middle west.
Doctor Philp received his education in the public schools of Jef-
ferson county and worked on a farm until he attained to the age of
1304 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
twenty-one years. In the meantime he arrived at a decision to enter
the medical profession and accordingly matriculated in the Missouri
Medical College at St. Louis, from which he was graduated in 1893.
Soon after receiving his degree he located in Ewing and he has con-
tinued in active practice ever since that time. His practice, which is
large, takes him over a wide rural territory. He has been very suc-
cessful, financially and professionally, and he owns considerable prop-
erty, having an excellent farm and other material interests.
Dr. Philp was happily married in 1894 to Daisy Neal, daughter
of Thor Neal, an extensive farmer and stock dealer. He resided in
Franklin county for a number of years, but now makes his home in
Missouri. They have one child, a son named James, who is a pupil
m the public schools. Dr. and Mrs. Philp belong to the Methodist
Episcopal church, taking an active interest in its good works. He is
a member of Ewing lodge, No. 705, of the Masons, and is identified
with the Southern Illinois and Franklin County Medical Societies, He
is Republican in politics and is inclined to the cause of Prohibition,
in whose beneficial influence upon a community he has great faith.
WILLIAM H. GILLIAM. One of the prominent figures in the journal-
istic field of Southern Illinois, and a man who has been identified with
educational movements here for many years, is William H. Gilliam,
editor of the Vienna Weekly Times. Mr. Gilliam, who has the best
interests of the community at heart, is editing a clean, wholesome
sheet which wields a great deal of influence among the people of this
part of the country and may always be counted upon to support all
movements of a progressive nature. William H. Gilliam, who is serv-
ing in the capacity of postmaster of Vienna, was born December 1,
1856, in Weakley county, Tennessee, and is a son of Thomas H.
Gilliam.
Thomas H. Gilliam was born in Dinwiddie county, Virginia, and
was there married to Sarah E. Hill, daughter of Thomas Hill, a Vir-
ginian by birth. After his marriage Mr. Gilliam went to Gibson county,
Tennessee, thence to Henry county, and eventually to Weakley county,
in the same state. Later he removed to Galloway county, Kentucky,
but in 1862 disposed of his interests there and came to Johnson county,
Illinois, buying a fine farm in Burnside township, on which the village
of Ozark is now located, and there he died November 18, 1892, aged
sixty-two years, his wife having passed away in 1889. Six children had
been born to them, namely : Joseph, William II., Alice, Charles, Robert
and Mary of whom Robert, William H. and Mary survive.
William II. Gilliam was six years of age when the family came to
Illinois and after completing his studies in the public schools he
entered Ewing College. When nineteen years old he commenced
teaching during the winters and working on the farm during the
summer months and then became clerk in the postoffice at New Burn-
side, subsequently filling a clerical position in the circuit clerk's of-
fice at Vienna. In 1882 he was appointed deputy sheriff of Johnson
county, serving in that capacity and in the circuit clerk's office
until 1885, and in that year purchased a half interest in the Weekly
Times, with G. W. Ballance as partner. In October, 1886, he became
sole proprietor of this newspaper, which has become one of the leading
news sheets of this part of the state. Mr. Gilliam has always tried
to give his subscribers the best and latest news of both a national and
local nature, and the rapid growth of this periodical shows that his
labors in the field of journalism have not been in vain and that the
people have not failed to appreciate his efforts in their behalf. In
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1305
connection with his plant he conducts a job printing office, where
only the best class of work is done, and he has built up quite a large
trade in this line. Mr. Gilliam has been prominent also in the educa-
tional field. From 1893 to 1898 he was clerk of the board of education,
serving as such at the time the new high school was erected. In 1897
he was appointed postmaster at Vienna, and his work in this capacity
has been so successful that he is now serving his fourth term. He is
an efficient and courteous official and has discharged the duties of his
office with so much ability and conscientiousness that his service in his
important position has been an eminently satisfactory one. Frater-
nally Mr. Gilliam is connected with Vesta Lodge, No. 340, I. 0. 0. F.,
and Vienna Encampment, No. 53 ; Romeo Lodge, No. 651, Knights of
Pythias ; and is popular in all. His wife is a member of the D. of R.,
Vienna Lodge, No. 187. Politically he adheres to the principles of
the Republican party.
In June, 1890, Mr. Gilliam was married to Miss Dimple Perkins, a
native of Howard county, Missouri, and daughter of Henry Stewart
Perkins, deceased. Three children have been born to this union:
Frank, born in 1891 ; Lois, born in 1894 ; and Marian, who died in
May, 1908, aged twelve years. Mr. and Mrs. Gilliam are faithful
church members, he of the Baptist and she of the Methodist.
IRA BEATTE was born in St. Francois county, Missouri, on Septem-
ber 8, 1881. He is the son of Henry Beatte and Vercella (Wyams)
Beatte, the latter of Jefferson county, Missouri, and is the eldest of the
five children of his parents. Henry Beatte was born in Washington
county, Missouri, about 1852. For a time he followed farming and
later embarked in the mercantile business in Danby, Missouri, where
the family still conducts the store. The father of Ira Beatte died in
1910. He was a Democrat, was affiliated with a number of fraternal
orders and was a member of the Baptist church. The mother is still
living.
The early life of Ira Beatte was spent in the counties of St. Fran-
cois and Jefferson, and he was educated in the public schools. He
started in the blacksmith business at an early age at Kinsey, Missouri,
and in 1906 he came to Monroe county, where in Maeystown he opened
a blacksmith and wagon shop. He remained there for two years, com-
ing to Valmeyer about two years ago, and establishing a similar
business. He has prospered most agreeably, and now has a thoroughly
modern shop, equipped with gas engine, trip hammers, and other
modern power apparatus. Mr. Beatte is a member of the Evangelical
Lutheran church and of the National Protective Legion.
On Christmas day, 1903, he married Lorena Busking, of Monroe
county, and they are the parents of two children : Freeman and Archie.
VIRGINIUS W. SMITH. The man who buys land today in Gallatin
county has no idea of the obstacles which confronted the ones who
began developing this property. Now fertile fields yield banner crops,
the ground once covered with mighty forest trees smiles beneath culti-
vation, and where worthless swamps gathered green slime and sent
forth pestilential fevers, the rich soil eagerly responds to the modern
methods of the farmer. All this was not attained without endless
hard work through all seasons. When summer crops did not require
effort the fences had to be repaired, there were new buildings to be
erected, and other improvements to be inaugurated. No man who
has brought out success from his years of endeavor ever attained it
unless he was ready and willing to make any kind of sacrifice of in-
1306 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
clination or strength to bring it about, and one who has through his ef-
forts in this way become more than ordinarily prosperous and has
developed some of the best land of Gallatin county is Virginius W.
Smith, of Ridgway, Illinois, who is widely known and highly re-
spected. Mr. Smith was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, March 20, 1842, and
was brought to Illinois by his parents Joseph and Eliza Jane (Akins)
Smith.
Joseph Smith was a farmer by occupation, and on first settling in
Illinois located at Equality, where he had friends. Subsequently he
rented the Crenshaw farm, three miles south of Ridgeway, but during
the fall of 1849 came to the present farm of Virginius W. Smith, lo-
cated one mile east of Ridgway, where he purchased eighty acres of
land, for about $500. Fifteen acres of this land were cleared, and a
small log cabin had been erected thereon, and here Mr. Joseph Smith
started to develop a farm, it being very conveniently located, as it
was but a two or three-hour journey to Equality, about eight miles,
and three or four hours to New Haven, which was ten miles away,
although the land at that time was all a wilderness and there had not
yet been a settlement made at Ridgway. Joseph Smith started a
store at New Market, one-half mile south of his home, but later all
the business there was removed to Ridgway. He continued to operate
his farm, putting a great deal of it under cultivation, and served for
some years as justice of the peace, to which office he had been elected
as a Democrat. His death occurred in May, 1863, when not much past
fifty-five years, his widow surviving until 1895 and being seventy-
three years old at the time of her death. They had the following chil-
dren : Virginius "W. ; Dennis, a soldier, a member of the One Hundred
and Thirty-first Illinois Regiment, who died at Vicksburg, Mississippi,
in 1863; Margaret, who died as a young married woman; John P., a
farmer, who died in 1911, at the age of fifty-five years ; Catherine, who
married John Hammersley and died at the age of thirty years ; Christ-
opher, a farmer near Eldorado, Illinois; and Lucinda, who married
Thomas Riley and died when about forty years of age.
Virginius W. Smith received his education in the public schools of
the vicinity of the home farm, and remained with his parents until
the outbreak of the Civil war. In August, 1861, he enlisted in Com-
pany D, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, a com-
pany recruited about New Haven Captain Whiting, and with this
organization he served until securing his honorable discharge, Novem-
ber 20, 1864. This regiment saw some of the hardest fighting of the
war, and among its battles may be mentioned Belmont, Missouri;
Columbus, Kentucky; Paducah and Ports Henry and Donelson, Shiloh,
Corinth, Jackson, second Corinth, Holly Springs and Coldwater. The
regiment was captured at Holly Springs but his company, with an-
other, was sent back on detail to Jackson Tennessee. In April, 1863,
the regiment was sent to Vicksburg to man the gunboat "Tyler," as
sharpshooters, on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and this boat was
constantly in the severest part of each action. At the battle of Vicks-
burg the vessel was sent to the Arkansas side to ward off the Con-
federate Generals Marmaduke and Price, and after this engagement
Mr. Smith and his companions rejoined their regiment, which in the
meantime had been exchanged. They were on guard at Vicksbiirg
and on the Black river until Sherman's Atlanta campaign, as far as
Jackson, but eventually were sent back to Vicksburg, and Mr. Smith
then became a member of a scouting party which went to Natchez,
and at that point he received his honorable discharge. He had been
twice wounded, in the left side and right leg, and the effects of these
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1307
injuries did not entirely pass away for a long period. On liis return
to Illinois he again took up farming, and for five years rented a prop-
erty, then purchased forty acres, which he sold after developing, and
eventually purchased one hundred and twenty acres, to which from time
to time he added until he now has a magnificent tract of three
hundred and forty acres, including the old family homestead. For
some of this land he paid only ten dollars per acre, and when he
bought the homestead it cost him only forty-three dollars per acre,
this land now being all worth upwards of one hundred dollars per acre.
His large, comfortable home is situated on a hill one mile east of
Ridgely, and his other buildings are well built and modern in equip-
ment. Mr. Smith raises wheat and corn, and gives a good deal of at-
tention to the raising of pure-bred stock. He was one of the original
stockholders of the First National Bank of Ridgway, but outside of
this has given most of his time and attention to his farm. He has done
more than one thousand dollars worth of tiling, and his land is per-
fectly drained and ditched, although at first much of it was swampy
and unproductive. Modern methods, however, have done much for
this property, and it is nearly all now black soil. Mr. Smith is a Re-
publican in politics, cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864,
and for ten years has served as supervisor of his township. He is a
popular comrade of Loomis Post, Grand Army of the Republic. On
the breaking out of the Spanish-American war in 1898, a regiment
was organized and Virginius W. Smith was appointed captain, await-
ing the call of his country, but the service was not required, there being
no more calls necessary for troops.
In 1875 Mr. Smith was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Mc-
Dermott, who died less than two years later, leaving one child : Joseph,
who is now engaged in cultivating a part of the home farm. In 1900
he was married to Orvilla Shain, a native of Gallatin county, and three
children have been born to them : Susie, Eliza and Virginius, Jr. Mr.
and Mrs. Smith have numerous friends in this part of Gallatin county.
He is remembered as a brave and faithful soldier during the war, and
he has discharged his duties just as faithfully as a private citizen.
His success has been the result of his own efforts and his career is
typical of the successful American agriculturist.
ANDREW JACKSON WEBBER. Among the prominent and highly
esteemed citizens whom Saline county has been called upon to mourn
within the past few months none will be more greatly missed than
Andrew Jackson Webber, one of the leading men of Galatia, who was
familiarly known among his acquaintances and associates as "Jack"
Webber. A native of Southern Illinois, he was born September 11,
1845, on a farm lying two miles southeast of Galatia, a son of the late
Henry Webber.
His paternal grandfather, who was also the grandfather of his
widow, Mrs. Annie J. (Webber) Webber, was John M. Webber, the
immigrant ancestor of the Webber family of America, the name hav-
ing been spelled in the old country "Weber." John M. Webber was
born in Holland, on the banks of the Rhine, November 10, 1794. When
twelve years old he came with his mother to the United States, and
for several years lived in Philadelphia, where he was educated. Go-
ing to Tennessee in 1823, he lived in Rutherford county until 1830,
when, with his family, he came to Saline county, Illinois, and purchased
land near Galatia where he improved the fine estate now known as
the Webber homestead. He was there prosperously employed in till-
ing the soil until his death, in 1867. He married, in Philadelphia,
1308 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Elizabeth McQueen, who was born in Virginia, in 1793 and died on
the home farm in 1869, having survived him but two years.
Henry Webber was a small lad when he came from Tennessee to
Saline county. He grew to manhood on the homestead, as a boy and
youth becoming familiar with all branches of agriculture. He was a
man of great energy and enterprise, and in 1855 erected the first steam
mill in Saline county. The following year he located in Galatia, and
here erected the first steam mill in this section of the county. lie had
previously operated a threshing machine while living on the home
farm, and for several years after settling in Galatia he was engaged
in milling. Finally making a change of occupation, he disposed of
his mill and, in company with his son "Jack," opened a general store
under the firm name of H. Webber & Son, and in addition to selling
general merchandise handled tobacco on an extensive scale, selling
about a million pounds annually. In 1888 he disposed of his store,
which had become the largest mercantile establishment in the county,
although he retained ownership of a second mill which he had erected,
placing his son "Jack" in charge of that plant, which is still owned by
the Webber estate. After selling his store, Henry Webber established
the Bank of Galatia, which was owned by the old firm of H. Webber
& Son, and placed the son in charge of the institution, while he, him-
self, devoted his time and attention to the care of the home farm, liv-
ing on the place until his death, April 18, 1899, at the age of seventy-
six years, five months and four days, his birth having occurred in
Philadelphia, September 14, 1822. His wife, whose maiden name was
Mary Jane Rhine, died in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she had gone
for her health, April 20, 1884.
Succeeding to the ownership of the old homestead the mill and the
bank established by himself and his father, Andrew Jackson Webber
became very active in the commercial world, and was identified with
various enterprises connected with the development of the resources
of Saline county, including the Galatia Coal Company, one of the lead-
ing industrial organizations of this part of the county. He carried on
a substantial business, and through legitimate channels of industry,
trade and finance accumulated property which at the most conserva-
tive estimate is valued at a million or more dollars. As a banker, a
miller, and a farmer he met with eminent success, fortune smiling
upon his every effort. Mr. Webber made a part of his fortune through
the increase of land values in Saline county, where he owned thousands
of acres, while the Bank of Galatia, the mill and the farms, brought
him in handsome annual returns, and his large investments in town
property were of great value. In 1876 Mr. Webber erected several
business houses in Galatia, one of which, the two story brick building
in which his store was located, having been burned in 1896. He im-
mediately rebuilt it, and in May, 1911, that structure was destroyed
by fire and is being rebuilt by the estate for store and hotel purposes.
The death of Mr. Webber, which occurred on the old Webber home-
stead near Galatia, November 4, 1910, was a loss not only to his im-
mediate family, but to the community, and was a cause of general
regret.
Mr. Webber married, March 20, 1875, his cousin, Annie J. Webber,
a daughter of John Webber one of the leading supporters of the Meth-
odist Episcopal church, as was his father, John M. Webber.
John Webber was born January 24, 1819, in Philadelphia, and at
the age of four years moved with his parents to Rutherford county,
Tennessee. In 1830 he came with the family to Saline county, and
until nineteen years of age assisted his father in the pioneer labor of
OF THE
OF ILUE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1309
clearing and improving a farm. Soon after attaining his majority he
married Eliza Powell, who was born in Gallatin county, Illinois, in
1824. In 1844 he migrated to Phelps county, Missouri, and having
purchased a tract of land near the present city of Rolla, built the first
house erected in that vicinity and donated the site of Rolla. He met
with great success as an agriculturist, and likewise became one of the
leading merchants of Rolla. He gave a tract of land lying on the north
side of the town on which Fort Webber was built, the site of the old
fort being now occupied by the Missouri School of Mines. His wife
died in 1859.
Annie J. Webber was born in Phelps county, Missouri, on her
father's farm, and well remembers many of the thrilling incidents
connected with pioneer days in Missouri. She recalls when the city
of Rolla was started, and has distinct recollections of the precau-
tions which the farmers had to take to prevent the destruction of cat-
tle and stock by the wild animals that held nightly carnival near her
home. During the Civil war she came to Saline county to complete
her education in the Raleigh schools, and there became acquainted
with "Jack" Webber, who wooed her ardently, followed her to her
Missouri home, and brought her back to Illinois to become his bride.
They were married at Eldorado, Illinois, March 20, 1876. She is still
living in Galatia, where she is held in high respect for her many vir-
tues and charms. She has two children, namely : John Henry Webber,
of Galatia, born December 28, 1877, and Mrs. May Olive Burns, of
Thompsonville, born September 18, 1885. Another son, William Jack-
son, died in infancy. He was born February 8, 1880.
JOHN M. BURKHABDT. Waterloo, Illinois, has several contractors
whose operations are upon a very extensive scale, and whose work is
known not only in the immediate vicinity of their home city, but
throughout the southern part of the state. One of the best-known and
most busily employed of these men is John M. Burkhardt, whose con-
tracting is in well drilling, and whose activities have gained him more
than a local reputation in his chosen line. Mr. Burkhardt was born
November 14, 1861, near Renault, Illinois, and is a son of Conrad and
Mary (Fauerbach) Burkhardt, natives of Germany. John M. Burk-
hardt has one brother, Phillip Burkhardt, and half-brothers and sis-
ters as follows: Conrad, Theodore, Henry, Lottie, Sofia and Lena.
The father, came to the United States in 1842, settling at Renault Grant,
Monroe county, where he became engaged in agricultural pursuits and
followed that line until his death. Phillip Burkhardt now serves as
superintendent of the Alms House at Waterloo.
John M. Burkhardt was educated in the public school at Renault,
after leaving which he engaged in farming for a number of years.
Machinery has always interested him, however, and he eventually be-
came engaged in well drilling, building up a large business from a very
humble start. He now employs a small army of men, and carries on
his business throughout Monroe and the adjoining counties. One of
the leading Republicans of his section, Mr. Burkhardt served as con-
stable of Renault in 1894 and as sheriff of Monroe county from 1906
until 1910, and displayed much executive ability in discharging the
duties of office. He and his family attend the German Evangelical
church, and have been active in its work. Mr. Burkhardt gives a good
deal of attention to the cultivation of his farm, a finely improved prop-
erty of one hundred acres in the American Bottoms, twenty miles
south of Waterloo, which is principally devoted to corn. His hand-
some residence, however, is located at Waterloo. Mr. Burkhardt has
vol. m— 15
1310 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
been prominent in fraternal work, and now belongs to the Masonic or-
der and the Modern Woodmen of America.
In 1878 Mr. Burkhardt was united in marriage with Miss Louisa
Wood, of New Design, Monroe county, Illinois, and they have four
children, namely : William, Olga, Sofia and Armin. Mr. Burkhardt is
a skilled machinist, and has been able to give his attention to every
little detail of his business. This careful management is largely re-
sponsible for the success which has attended his efforts, and he is now
ranked among the stable and prosperous citizens that go to make up a
stable and prosperous city.
JOHN HUEGELY, JR., is one of the successors of the founder of the
Huegely Milling Company of Nashville, Illinois, and was born in this
city February 25, 1858, his father being John Huegely, the pioneer
industrialist of the place whose substantial achievement is reflected
in the live and vigorous flouring mill whose management he sur-
rendered more than a score of years since, and whose retirement from
the activities of life came only after years of devotion to a purpose and
the accomplishment thereof.
John Huegely was born November 11, 1818, in Hassloch, Bavaria,
Germany, and after a limited education was called upon to face the
stern realities of life alone at a tender age. Having reached his ma-
jority March 9, 1840, he came to America, landing in New Orleans,
and as his finances were at a low ebb he worked there sawing wood
until the opportunity came to continue his journey further north. He
made his first stop in Monroe county, Illinois, where he obtained work
with Mr. Sauers, father of the gentleman now conducting the Sauers
Milling Company at Evansville, Illinois. Two years later he found
employment with Mr. Conrad Eisenmayer in his water mill, located
at Red Bud, Illinois, where he received wages at the rate of twelve
dollars per month and board. From Red Bud he removed to a farm
near Mascoutah, Illinois, but soon after entered the employ of Ph. H.
Postel, with whom 'he remained until 1853. In that year, in partner-
ship with Ph. H. Reither, he bought the saw and grist mill located at
Nashville, Illinois. Being quite successful, in 1860 they built the pres-
ent mill, which then had two hundred barrels' capacity, and in 1871
Mr. Huegely purchased the interest of Mr. Reither. Prosperity con-
tinuing, the mill was enlarged and remodeled from time to time, so
that it is now an up-to-date mill of over five hundred barrels capacity.
In 1890 Mr. Huegely retired from the active management of the busi-
ness and was succeeded by his sons, John Huegely, Jr., and Julius
Huegely, and his son-in-law, Theodore L. Reuter, who are conducting
the business along the lines established by Mr. Huegely and they also
are meeting with his success in the undertaking.
Mr. Huegely served the county as associate judge, and was dele-
gate to the Republican National Convention in Baltimore in the year
1864, which nominated Mr. Lincoln for his second term as president.
For more than sixty years he has been a consistent member of the
Methodist Episcopal church. Now past ninety-three years, he is still
in comparitively good health, and is fond of reading and enjoys look-
ing after his farms. He takes a lively interest in the events of the
day, and bids fair to round out his century. Mr. Huegely is a man
of rugged, sterling character, kind of heart, with an open hand for all
needing assistance, and is respected and admired by all who know
him and that means the entire population of Washington county, one
of whose villages bears his name.
John Huegely, Jr., was aducated with the means at hand and pro-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1311
vided by the public and while his training was not extensive it has
proved ample for the demand made upon him through subsequent
years of business. When he was through school he entered the office
of his father's mill as a bookkeeper and his talents have been em-
ployed in behalf of the industry since. When his father left the com-
pany as an active factor in its management John became one of the
trio of new blood which has been responsible for the success of the
plant for twenty-two years. As a citizen he has manifested a dispo-
sition to perform whatever public service to which his fellows called
him, chief of which has been that of alderman of Nashville. He has
reared his family under righteous influences as a Methodist, and has
equipped his children with educations more liberal than his own.
He follows the example of his venerable father in his political ac-
tions and has supported Republican policies at every opportunity.
On May 24, 1884, Mr. Huegely was united in marriage with Miss
Annie S. Keller, who died September 1, 1892, having been the mother
of two daughters : Ella C. and Florence. In September, 1894, Mr.
Huegely was married to Miss Setta E. Weihe, daughter of Fred Weihe,
and two children have been born to this union, namely: Olive and
Homer.
HARVEY C. VISE. Probably no citizen of Pranklin county has been
more closely identified with conditions in the monetary and commer-
cial fields than Harvey C. Vise, of Macedonia, and few have demon-
strated their ability in as many different fields. Country bred, and
reared originally for agricultural pursuits, he has been successful alike
as farmer, merchant and financier, and has been educated for one of the
professions. Today he is one of the leading capitalists of Franklin
county, president of the Farmers Exchange Bank of Akin and of the
Bank of Macedonia, and a worthy representative of an old and honored
family. He was born in Hamilton county, Illinois, October 17, 1856,
and is a son of Eliphas H. and Ester (Choiser) Vise.
Hosea Vise, the grandfather of Harvey C., one of the most renowned
Missionary Baptist preachers the state of Illinois ever knew, was born
in 1811, in the Spartanburg district of South Carolina, the seventh of
the nine children of Nathaniel and Dorcas (Meadows) Vise, the former
of Welsh descent and the latter of English and descendants of Poca-
hontas. His grandfather served with Washington at Braddock's defeat,
and subsequently fought during the Revolutionary war at Eutaw Springs
and Guilford Court House, as captain of the famed Virginia Blues. He
died at the age of one hundred and three years, and his wife when
one hundred and seven. In 1835 Hosea Vise moved to Posey county,
Indiana, but a short time later came to Illinois and settled in Hamilton
county, where he commenced farming and expounding the Gospel. In
1864 he established a general store at Macedonia, which he owned until
his death, and which is now being conducted by his grandson. In
1861 he enlisted as a captain in an Illinois regiment, served therewith
for twenty months, and on his return again took up merchandising, farm-
ing and preaching. He served for twelve years as postmaster at Macedo-
nia and for ten years as pension agent. In 1871 he sold his Hamilton
county farm and purchased a tract in Franklin county, on which he
lived until his death. He preached forty-eight years and during that
time filled all of his appointments but four, was moderator of his district
for a period covering thirty-eight years, during which time he missed
but two meetings ; delivered the first temperance lecture in the counties
of Hamilton and Franklin, and organized more churches than any man
in Southern Illinois. He cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson, as a
1312 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Democrat, but at the time of Lincoln 's nomination became a Republican
and so continued throughout the remainder of his life. Fraternally he
was connected with Governor Yates Lodge of Masons, and was buried by
the order at the time of his death, February 11, 1897. His wife, Lettie
Moore, was a daughter of Ellsworth Moore, and was born in 1814 in
South Carolina and died in 1886. Their son, Eliphas H. Vise, was
born in the Spartanburg district, October 11, 1835, and died May 25,
1888, having been a successful farmer and merchant all of his life. He
married Ester Choiser, daughter of William Choiser. The latter was
born in Illinois and lived in the state all of his. life, serving in the Black
Hawk, Mexican and Civil wars, and dying at the age of eighty-six years,
at Eldorado, Illinois. His father, also named William Choiser, was
born in Canada and came to KaskasMa, Illinois, later removed to Shaw-
neetown, where he reared a family of fourteen children, and eventually
removed to Saline county, where until his death he maintained a tavern
on the road for the accommodation of travelers headed west.
Harvey C. Vise was educated in the common schools and Ewing Col-
lege, and after studying law for some time was admitted to the bar.
His tastes did not run towards the legal profession, however, and in
1872 he turned his attention to the operation of the store at Macedonia,
where he has been a merchant ever since. He now has the largest
stock of merchandise in Franklin county, and in addition owns a fine
farm of three hundred and twenty acres. He is president of the Farm-
ers Exchange Bank of Akin and of the Bank of Macedonia, the latter
of which was organized in 1897, with a capital of eight thousand dollars,
and has a surplus of five thousand dollars, with annual deposits averaging
fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Vise has been too busy looking after his busi-
ness interests to engage actively in politics, but he supports Republican
principles and has served as supervisor of his township. Fraternally,
he is connected with Royal Lodge, No. 807, Macedonia, in which he
has served as master, and belongs also to H. W. Hubbard Chapter, No.
160, R. A. M., Mount Vernon. As a member of Oddfellowship he has
been noble grand of Macedonia Lodge, No. 315.
In 1872 Mr. Vise was married to Miss Sarilda Plaster, daughter of
John Plaster, an old resident of Franklin county, and she died in 1886,
having been the mother of three children : John, an implement dealer of
Macedonia ; Nellie, who married J. W. Johnson, of this city ; and
Hosea A. On October 16, 1888, Mr. Vise was married to Miss Ellner
McGuyer, daughter of William McGuyer, and a sister of John B. Mc-
Guyer, Mr. Vise 's business partner. Four children have been born to Mr.
and Mrs. Vise, namely : Ava, who became the wife of B. F. Sparks and
lives at Mount Vernon, Illinois; Orrie A., at home; and Clyde H. and
Evan H., who also reside with their parents. The family is connected
with the Missionary Baptist church, and its members are well and
favorably known in religious and charitable work. Mr. Vise during
his residence in Macedonia has been active in almost every movement
for the public good, and the benefit that the city has derived from his
activities in the financial and commercial world cannot be estimated.
His business ventures, however, have been conducted in such a manner
that he has earned the reputation of being a man of the highest in-
tegrity, and as a consequence he has the respect and esteem of a wide
circle of friends and well wishers.
WILLIAM ALBERT PERKINE. The man to whom all Herrin turns in
gratitude for the prosperity which has come to her, largely through the
work of his brain, started out in life in a modest way, as a country
school teacher, and now he is president of two mining corporations,
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1313
handling an output of three thousand tons of coal a day. This is in
brief the remarkable success of William A. Perrine. Aside from the
leading part he has played in the industrial world he has been almost
equally active in the political world, the long list of public offices with
which he has been honored culminating in his election as a delegate to
the National Republican Convention in 1908.
William Albert Perrine was born only a few miles from Herrin, in
Bainbridge Precinct, on the 17th of October, 1858. His father, the ven-
erable Daniel Perrine, was one of the ante-bellum settlers of the county
of Williamson. He was of rural stock, his parents living in Mercer
county, Pennsylvania, at the time of his birth in 1831. With commend-
able energy he acquired enough education to make him capable of
teaching a country school. When he came to Illinois this, therefore, was
his first undertaking until the inpouring rush of settlers offered such a
rich field of the carpenter that he abandoned the blue-backed speller for
the hammer and saw. Later he returned to the simple life of the farm,
and save for his absence during the Civil war, has been content to re-
main a modest farmer. So for fifty-five years he has been an influential
member of that large body of sincere and high principled citizens who
make Williamson county their home.
In his political alliance Daniel Perrine is a strong Republican, and
in the election of 1860 was an enthusiastic partisan of Mr. Lincoln, hav-
ing the distinction of being one of the three men in his precinct to cast
a ballot for the martyred president whom we have all come to almost
worship. In 1862 Mr. Perrine enlisted in Company G of the Eighty-first
Illinois Infantry, and his command formed a part of General Sherman 's
army, operating in Mississippi. In the engagement at Guntown, on the
10th of June, 1864, he was taken prisoner, and after undergoing many
hardships reached the dreaded stockade at Andersonille, where much
worse things than hardships had to be endured. Six months of this
existence had to be borne before he was exchanged and was enabled to
rejoin his command and to take part in the last sad scenes of the fall
of the Confederacy and the surrender of gallant Lee and his army. He
was mustered out after the Grand Review at Washington, and visited
his parental home in Pennsylvania before returning to his family in
Illinois. For twenty-four years he has acted as justice of the peace, a
long and faithful service. He is a Master Mason, belonging to a family
noted for its strong Masonic allegiance. In religious matters he has been
a member of the Missionary Baptist church since 1866.
Daniel Perrine married, in Williamson county, Illinois, December 10,
1857, Susan Reeves, a daughter of William and Mary P. (Moore) Reeves,
of Robinson county, Tennessee. Mrs. Perrine was born there in 1833,
coming to Illinois with her parents as a baby in 1835. She lived to
witness the success of her sons, dying on the 18th of September, 1911.
Mr. and Mrs. Perrine had three children, William A., of Herrin ; George
H., also a citizen of this city; and Melissa, who married Samuel Evetts
and died on the 3rd of November, 1880.
William Albert Perrine grew up amid country surroundings, receiv-
ing his education at the district schools. His first ambition to become
a teacher was soon gratified, and for seventeen terms he led the strenuous
and disciplinary life of a country school teacher in the vicinity of Her-
rin. With this for a winter diversion, he carried on farming in season,
but eventually abandoned both to take up what afterwards became his
life work. Foreseeing in the development of the coal fields all about
Herrin a source of future wealth and power, he turned his tireless
energy towards making this development as rapid as possible, with the
result that Herrin. with its wonderful growth, bids fair to rival the
1314 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
county seat for metropolitan honors. Mr. Perrine first engaged in the
lumber business at Creal Springs, but only remained a lumber dealer
for three years before turning to mining. He opened a number of the
leading properties between Herrin and Marion, the list of mines em-
bracing the Chicago-Herrin, the Carterville Big Muddy, the Hemlock,
the Watson's Pittsburg and the Big Muddy. Having opportunities
to sell at considerable profit, he disposed of all save the last two named,
and he is the chief stockholder and president of both of these com-
panies. He has handled the development and management of these
companies alone until recently, when skilled successors reared in his
own household and under his own direction assumed much of the re-
sponsibility.
Mr. Perrine has taken considerable part in the actual building of
Herrin, erecting many houses for renting, and, being shrewd enough
to forsee the trend which real estate was likely to take, has bought and
sold considerable land from time to time. He is financially interested in
the First National Bank of Herrin, being a stockholder, and, knowing
that in a growing town one of the greatest aids to its growth is a
Building and Loan Association, he lends his support to the one in
Herrin as one of its directors. He was the propelling force which
brought the Coal Belt Electric Railroad into Herrin, and together with
others. secured about half the right-of-way between Herrin and Marion.
Mr. Perrine has been identified with political thought longer than
he has been a voter. His Republicanism is as old as he is and his ac-
tivity at conventions and as a member of the county committee covers
a period of more than twenty years. He has several times served his
party as a delegate from his county to the Illinois State meetings. In
1908, as a delegate to the national convention, he had the honor of
casting his ballot for the nomination of President Taft. On the 1st
of April, 1909, he was appointed postmaster by "wire" and succeeded
Mr. A. Gasaway in that office.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Perrine has shown his steadfast de-
votion to a cause, for in spite of the many advantages which might ac-
crue to him if he became a member of other secret orders, he has pre-
ferred to give all his interest and attention to Masonry. He has filled
all the chairs of the Blue Lodge, having been worshipful master seven
terms. He was the first high priest of Herrin chapter, No. 229, and he
is a member of the Metropolis Commandery, No. 41. He is also affiliated
with the Chicago Masons, being a member of the Oriental Consistory and
of Medinah Temple of that city. Three generations of his family have
been members of the Herrin lodge and all have received the degree of
Master Mason from it or its predecessor.
On the 1st of August, 1880, Mr. Perrine was married to Miss Mary
A. Cruse, a daughter of John M. Cruse, of Tennessee, and of Rebecca
A. (Sizemore) Cruse, of Kentucky. Mrs. Perrine is the oldest of eleven
children. Of the children born to this successful capitalist and his
wife, Bert E. is superintendent of the Watson Coal Company and is
married to Sudie Tune; Cass C. is superintendent of the Pittsburg
Big Muddy Coal Company, his wife being Meda Russell ; Bessie May
is the wife of W. A. Wilson, of Herrin ; Jesse J. died as a young boy ;
Susie C. is Mrs. Chester Childress, of Herrin; John D. ; Melissa; Mc-
Kinley and Effie, both of whom died in infancy ; W. A. Jr. ; and Joseph
Edward.
The life of this man should be of especial interest to young men,
for it shows how, unaided, a man with courage, perseverance and con-
stant care can win a position for himself where he not only possesses
great wealth and prestige, but where he has the chance to aid others
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1315
on the upward journey. Mr. Perrine has always been so closely identi-
fied with his town that Herrin would not be Herrin without him, but had
he been born in some other section of the country, where there was no
opportune mineral wealth to be developed, his ability would have found
some other outlet, for his is the nature that never knows defeat, whose
calm optimism forces others to believe in him ; in short he is a natural
leader of men, a strong and forceful personality in whom other men
naturally trust and believe. However, his is a leadership not through
hate or fear, but from admiration and respect.
GUSTAVE E. Eis. Marion county numbers among her wealthy men
who has perhaps surpassed all others in the amassing of a fortune and
who is a recognized leader in practically every known local enterprise
demanding the application of capital and executive ability, as well as
many others of a similar nature in various other sections of the coun-
try. As a capitalist Gustave E. Eis is in the front ranks in his city
and county. As a good citizen and a family man his position is no
less prominent.
Gustave E. Eis was born in Dayton, Ohio, January 6, 1857. He is
the son of John and Mary (Engle) Eis, the former a native of France
and the latter of Germany. He was the son of Henry Eis, who lived
and died in France ; a tanner by trade, and nicely situated with refer-
ence to worldly endowments. He gave his son John a suitable educa-
tion, and when he came to America in 1836 he engaged in teaching.
He first settled in Newark, Ohio, but later removed to Dayton, Ohio.
There he married, and was for many years an instructor in the French
language in Dayton. He enlisted in the One Hundred and Fourth
Ohio at the inception of the Civil war and returned home on a fur-
lough after three years of service. He met his death shortly there-
after by drowning in the Licking river.
Gustave Eis was one of a family of nine children. His maternal
grandfather was Frank Engle, a native of Germany, who came to
America in 1833. He settled in Newark, Ohio, but later moved to Day-
ton, where he passed the remainder of his life, dying there at the age
of ninety-six. He was a merchant and always prominent in the busi-
ness and social life of the city in which he made his home. The educa-
tion of Gustave Eis was of necessity of a very meager nature, as the
exigencies of fortune made it incumbent upon him to begin life's
struggle alone at the tender age of thirteen years. In Kentucky,
where he found himself after some traveling about, he became em-
ployed in a cigar factory, and in the eleven years of his residence
there he thoroughly learned the trade of a cigar maker. He then re-
moved to Franklin, Indiana, where he remained for three years, and
on May 15, 1881, he arrived in Centralia, which has been the scene of
his principal operations in the years which have since elapsed. He be-
gan his career in Centralia by opening a cigar factory, and he con-
tinued in that business until 1910, when he sold out his interests and
engaged in the real estate business, which had become particularly at-
tractive to him by reason of his extensive holdings of Marion county
realty. He deals in real estate, stock and bonds and since he became
connected with that line of business the industry has taken on a re-
newed activity, as a result of his modern methods and his reputation
for square dealing. Mr. Eis has acquired an interest in practically
every financial or industrial organization of note in the county. He is
a director in the Old National Bank, and holds one twentieth of the
stock in that institution. He is a one-fourth owner in the Marion
Coal Mine property, and a stockholder of prominence in the Centralia
1316 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Envelope Factory. He is the principal stockholder in the Home
Building & Loan Association, and has always evinced deepest interest
in the operations of the Association as an instrument in the upbuilding
of the city. He is heavily interested financially in the Conly Frog &
Switch Works at Memphis, Tennessee. He is president of the Wizard
Products Company, the largest manufacturers of sweetening com-
pounds in the world. The main factory of this firm is in Chicago,
with a prominent branch in Nashville and another in Wichita, Kansas.
He is president of the Lead & Zinc Company at Galena, Illinois, and
is secretary and treasurer of the Ten Strike Mining Company at
Galena, Illinois. This is a particularly rich and productive mine. He
is president of the Florence Lead & Zinc Mining Company, another
extremely rich property. The company own three hundred and twenty
acres in the heart of the lead and zinc district, much of which has al-
ready been proven, and a portion of which is now being worked. The
property is particularly rich in moulders sand, and is considered to
be one of the most valuable holdings in the neighborhood of Galena.
Mr. Eis is also one of the principal stock-holders in the Glen Ridge
Mercantile Company at Junction City, Illinois. Undoubtedly Mr. Eis
is one of the wealthiest men in Marion county today, and his phenom-
enal success in the world of finance may be ascribed solely to his own
inherent ability.
On September 16, 1884, Mr. Eis married Miss Anna Merkel, a
daughter of Edward Merkel, a native of Germany. Four children were
born of their union. They are : Clarence M., an instructor of voice
in Chicago; Walter R., employed in the office of the Centralia En-
velope Factory; Valette R., also with the Envelope Factory; and Flor-
ence M., a student at the Rockford, Illinois, College.
FRED HOPPMEIEB is one of the large and successful farmers of Pu-
laski county, whose long life has been a checkered one, and who owes
his present prosperity to his willingness to work, his clear head and
the thrift and honesty inherited from a long line of German ancestors.
He began with nothing, depending on two willing arms to conquer
for him whatever difficulties he might meet. His youthful optimism
and self confidence came out victorious after many battles, and the
chronicle of his life should provide an object lesson to Young America
today, for if it were followed many of the future failures could well
be avoided.
Fred Hoffmeier was born on a farm near Bohmte, near Osnabruck
in Hanover, now a part of the German Empire, on the 1st of February,
1846. His father was Clamar Hoffmeier, a farmer, and his mother
was Engel Boedecker. Of their four children Fred was the oldest ;
William was lost in the Franco-Prussian war fighting for his Father-
land before the gates of Paris ; Engel and Louisa married and passed
their lives near the place of their birth.
Fred Hoffmeier was sent to the public schools of his native town,
but showing no particular inclination for the life of a scholar, at the
age of fourteen he was taken from school and put to work on the farm.
In this work he spent the years until his majority was passed, and
then to evade the military service which he soon would be forced to give
his country he came to the United States. He sailed from Bremer-
haven, and landed in Baltimore. Having no friends and no idea of
where to go, he naturally turned towards the western land of promise.
He reached Cincinnati, where he spent two years before going to Liv-
ingston county, Illinois. Here he first attempted farming, but found
it quite different from the same industry in the old country. The cold
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1317
weather during the long winters on his farm near Dwight made him
decide to go further south, so he drifted down to Cairo. The climate
here was better suited to his constitution, and here he decided to lo-
cate. Without funds and with no way to secure any save by the work
of his hands, matters looked pretty black to the young German. Hon-
est labor did not seem to be in demand, but at last he drifted over to
Ullin, and there found employment in the big saw mills that were
rapidly denuding the surrounding district of its crowning glory, its for-
ests of oaks and poplars, which were the only things that gave the
country any value at that time. This was in 1871 and after his mar-
riage in 1874 he decided to try farming again, buying a forty-acre
tract of land in the woods, whose sole claim to being called improved
land was that it had been cultivated to some extent and that a log
cabin homestead had been erected upon it. To this primitive spot he
took his bride and they began together to tread the pathway which has
at times meandered somewhat crookedly, as Mr. Hoffmeier was forced
to turn aside from the straight way that led to his goal in order to
meet the constantly changing conditions. His calm faith that ultimately
everything would come out for the best was rewarded, for now he has
a good measure of financial independence and knows that none of his
household will have to suffer for lack of the material things of life.
His clear and practical head managed his finances along sane lines,
he never had to ask his wife to sign a mortgage, and he was never
swept off his feet into any rash investment by the enthusiasm of others.
He coolly examined a proposition, and if it met his approval then his
money was freely poured out, but not impulsively. He actually
grubbed his farm of four hundred and seventy acres out of stump-
land, and today is raising fine crops of grain and many head of stock.
It is not his industry alone that has numbered Fred Hoffmeier
among the valuable citizens of Pulaski county. He possesses the spirit
of progress along the lines of public enterprise to such an extent that
any movement inaugurated for the purpose of establishing new or ad-
vanced enterprises always finds him among its leaders. He has ever
felt that education was the best gift to a community, and his service as
a trustee of his home school has indicated the warm sympathy he felt
for public education. In politics Mr. Hoffmeier is a Republican, and
has served his party as county commissioner for one term. As vice-
president and one of the directors of the First National Bank of Ullin,
the peculiar ability of Mr. Hoffmeier as a financier has been brought into
full play. The reputation of this bank as being a sound and conserv-
ative institution may be traced directly to his influence. In religious
matters Mr. Hoffmeier is Lutheran and Mrs. Hoffmeier, a Baptist.
On the 24th of December, 1874, Mr. Hoffmeier was married to Miss
Ferban Atkins, a southern girl. She was the daughter of Robert
Atkins, who was killed fighting for the Union. He was an Alabaman,
and this state was the birthplace of Mrs. Hoffmeier. Mrs. Hoffmeier
had two brothers. One of these is J. T. Atkins, a farmer near Ullin;
the other. Samuel Atkins, has been dead for several years. Mr. and
Mrs. Hoffmeier have three children, "William ; Frederick, who has been
graduated from the Ullin high school; and Samuel, who is still a stu-
dent there.
A long life nobly spent, the well earned respect of his fellow men,
the inborn characteristics of simplicity, a love of the truth and honor,
what a heritage this German farmer can hand down to his children.
It is of such stock as this that heroes are made. Coiild he. a poor
young German standing on the banks of the Mississippi, not knowing
where he would lay his head that night, have looked forward to his
1318 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
present comfortable home, surrounded by a happy family, he would have
thought he was "fey." Yet it has all come true, and is the work of his
own brain and hands, helped by the courage of his wife, who has ever
stood by with words of encouragement when things went wrong.
ALBERT W. LEWIS, judge of the first judicial circuit court, Harris-
burg, Illinois, looks back to Clinton county Ohio, as the place of his
birth, the date being November 30, 1856. His parents, Aquilla and
Harriet (Fletcher) Lewis, were both natives of Ohio, the father of
Aquilla having at an early day removed from Virginia to the Western
Reserve. In 1864 Aquilla Lewis and his family left the Ohio home
and came across Indiana and over into Southern Illinois, where he
settled on a farm in Saline county, two miles and a half southwest of
Harrisburg. Here he devoted his energies to agricultural pursuits for
a number of years, until his retirement and removal to Harrisburg,
where he died in 1893, at the age of seventy-one years. Politically he
was a Republican, and his religious creed was that of the Friends'
church. His widow survived him six or eight years. Of their three
sons and two daughters, Albert W., the subject of this sketch, is the
eldest; Clark, for several years a farmer and merchant of Harrisburg,
is deceased ; Edgar is proprietor of a hotel in Harrisburg, and the
daughters, Ella and Eva, the former the wife of John E. Ledford and
the latter of Emmett, are deceased.
Albert W. Lewis spent his boyhood on his father's farm. Two
years he attended Wilmington College, at Wilmington, Ohio, and at
the age of eighteen he began to teach district school. Later he was
employed in the Harrisburg school, where he taught two terms, one
term being principal. That was in 1881, when the Harrisburg school
had only three teachers. Teaching was only a stepping stone to his
life work. He took up the study of law at vacation time, and with
Mr. Boyer, of the firm of Morris & Boyer, as his preceptor, he pursued
his legal studies. In November, 1882, he was admitted to the bar and
at once began the practice of law, at first under his own name and
later in partnership with William M. Christy, with whom he was as-
sociated for four years in general practice. In 1888 he was elected
state's attorney, for a term of four years, and it was while the incum-
bent of this office that the noted Slayton murder case came up and
attracted no little attention throughout the country. James C. Slay-
ton, a wealthy farmer, killed one of his tenants, Hugh Morris. Judge
Lewis prosecuted the murderer, and he was sent to the penitentiary for
a term of thirty-five years. In 1892 Mr. Lewis was honored by elec-
tion to the lower house of the state legislature, where he served as a
Republican in a Democratic body. Two years later he was made
county judge for a term of four years. In 1904 he was again elected
state's attorney, and when Judge Vickers, of the circuit court, was
elected to the supreme bench, the choice fell to Albert W. Lewis as his
successor to fill out the term. In 1909 he was re-elected for a full term
of six years, which he is now serving. Fraternally Judge Lewis is both
a Mason and an Elk.
He has been twice married. In 1883 he married Miss Fannie Baker,
a native of Harrisburg and a daughter of the late Dr. Cornelius 'Baker,
of Harrisburg, a veteran of the Civil war, who died in 1880. Mrs.
Lewis died in December, 1900, soon after the birth of her youngest
son, leaving a family of seven children, as follows: James B., now a
member of the law firm of Dorris & Lewis, of Harrisburg; Aquilla
Cornelius, a member of the class of 1912 in the law department of the
Michigan State University; Edna, of the class of 1912 in the Illinois
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1319
State University; Alice, a teacher in the Harrisburg schools; Arthur,
William and Prank. In June, 1909, Judge Lewis married his present
companion, who was Mrs. Maud Rathbone, widow of the late Walter
R. Rathbone.
HENRY R. HALL. It seems as if the possession of that thing known
as "business ability" fits a man for a successful career in almost any
line of work. Henry R. Hall, the prominent lumberman and banker
of Sandoval, Illinois, is generously endowed with this gift, and he has
been in enough businesses for a half dozen men, winning some degree of
success from each attempt, ranging in dignity from that of a shoe-
maker to that of a bank president. Perhaps a large measure of his
success came to him through hard work, for he was early left fatherless,
with the support of his mother and sister devolving upon him, and he
early learned the meaning of toil. His early years were one constant
struggle, he had little time for recreation of any sort, for during the
time when he might have been free from work he was not free from
worry. He had the problem of the care of two women, mother and
sister, when the funds at his disposal were not much more than enough
for one. In some way though he managed to save a little money, and
as soon as he had this small capital to build on he began to rise. The
story of his life is one of persevering effort and a determination to con-
quer no matter what the odds.
Henry R. Hall was born in Monroe county, Georgia, on the 1st of
May, 1842. His parents were of Northern and Southern birth, his
father being Charles Hall and claiming Vermont for his birthplace.
His mother was Mary (Swift) Hall, and she was a native of South
Carolina. During the thirties they were married in Forsyth, Monroe
county, Georgia, where they lived until 1851. From 1851 to 1856
they made their home in Dalton, Georgia, at the end of this time
removing to Tennessee. Here the father died in October, 1856, and
the widow, finding herself alone and among strangers, took her little
family back to Dalton. Charles Hall was a shoemaker by trade, and had
never been able to do more than to keep his family in comfortable
circumstances. Although they had always been poor, affairs were
now blacker than ever, but in 1857 they came to Marion county, Illi-
nois, and here young Henry secured work and life began to take on a
brighter hue. Henry Hall's paternal grandfather was a native of
Vermont, and had come west in 1818, settling in Portage county, Ohio.
Here he became a farmer, and continued in that occupation until his
death. The maternal grandfather of Henry Hall was likewise a farmer.
He was born in South Carolina and moved to Columbus, Georgia,
where he settled on a farm near the now city. Here he spent the re-
mainder of his life.
With such an ancestry it is not surprising that young Henry,
thrown upon his own resources, should turn instinctively to farming.
His education had been obtained in the common schools of Georgia
and Tennessee, arid since he was only fourteen years old when his
father died he had not had the opportunity to learn a trade, so he
turned to farming. He worked on a farm for five years, and then he
learned the shoemaker's trade. He worked at this for two years, after
serving three years as an apprentice, and with the aid of his mother
and sister succeeded in scraping together enough to enter the business
field in a modest way. At Kinmundy, Illinois, where he then lived,
he engaged in the grocery business, gradually working up a good pat-
ronage. As his business grew his popularity and good reputation kept
pace with it, and in 1872 the people showed their confidence in him
1320 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
by electing him sheriff of Marion county. He served in this capacity
for two terms, and then served two terms as circuit clerk. He lived
at this time in the county seat, Salem, and he remained here until 1886,
when he came to Sandoval to manage a coal mine near-by. While
living in Salem he had been elected mayor of the town, and was one of
its most prominent citizens.
He was connected with the coal mining business in Sandoval until
1897, and then he sold out and went into the lumber business. This
business has become one of the largest enterprises in Marion county,
and it is all due to the force of character and good business methods
of the owner. Since entering this field he has branched out into other
parts of the county. He now has a lumber yard at Vernon and one
at Junction City. All of these various branches are under one firm
name, H. R. Hall and Company. Recognition of his abilities as a
financier and as a man with a good head for the management of large
enterprises came to him with his election to the presidency of the First
National Bank of Sandoval. He also holds the same relation to the
Farmers and Merchants Bank of Vernon, Illinois. In the political
world he has always been active, giving his allegiance to the Dem-
ocratic party. Although interested in national politics, he believes
in keeping one's own "back yard clean," consequently gives all the
time that he has to spare for politics in endeavoring to better local
conditions. He has been mayor of Sandoval, and during his term of
office much was done towards improving civic conditions.
Mr. Hall was married on the 2nd of October, 1865, to Eliza J.
Wolfe, a daughter of Joshua and Martha Wolfe. The latter was born
in Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Hall was born in Indiana. Mr. and Mrs.
Hall have five children, all of whom are married. Carrie married
Charles D. Merritt; Nellie is the wife of D. E. Tracy; May married
Adis Bryan, a cousin of W. J. Bryan; Martha became the wife of
Robert Bellemy; and Charles W. Hall married Elizabeth Edwards, of
Sandoval. Charles W. Hall was educated in Eureka College, where
he spent three years, later attending Bryant and Stratton's Business
College in St. Louis, Missouri. He is now in business with his father,
and promises to grow into a man of as fine a character and as good
business sense as his father. He is the father of two girls and one
boy, Henry R. Hall, Jr.
ERWIN DAVIS Fox. As a type of the wide-awake, progressive and
enterprising Illinois business man no better example could be found
than Erwin Davis Fox, of Keyesport, who deals in general merchandise,
hardware, farming implements and lumber, and has also been called
to high positions of honor and trust by his fellow townsmen, who have
recognized and appreciated his natural abilities. During the years
that Mr. Fox has been identified with the business interests of Keyes-
port he has displayed those characteristics of industry, integrity and
progressiveness that are bound to have a beneficent effect on the com-
mercial activities of any community, and as a public official has
brought those same characteristics into play, with the result that he
won the admiration not only of those who have belonged to his own
party, but of his opponents as well. Mr. Fox is a native Illinoisan,
having been born at Hilesburg, Fayette county, August 12, 1878, a son
of Julius C. and Maria (Bourner) Fox.
Julius C. Fox was born June 12, 1837, in the Kingdom of Prussia,
Germany, and in his native village attended the public schools, after
leaving which he entered the University of Berlin, being graduated with
the degree of Doctor of Medicine. On coming to America, in 1860, he
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1321
located first in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took a course in English,
and eventually went to Indiana, in which state he practiced his profes-
sion for a short time. After following the same line of endeavor at
Pleasant Mound, Illinois, for about seven years, Dr. Fox came to
Keyesport, and after a short term of practice moved to a farm in
Fayette county, where his family grew up. He then retired from active
life and moved back to Keyesport, where he lived quietly until his
death, in 1905, while his widow still survives him and makes her home
in this city. She is the daughter of James Wellington Bourner, an
Englishman, and has been the mother of four children, as follows:
Hermann ; Pauline, who married Russell Duloma ; Erwin Davis ; and
Edith. Dr. Fox was a stanch and active Republican in his political
views, and served in various offices within the gift of his fellow-
citizens.
Erwin Davis Fox spent his early life on the Fayette county farm,
and until he was sixteen years of age attended the country schools of
that vicinity and the public school's of Keyesport. He was married in
June, 1898, to Miss Jessie Davis, daughter of John M. Davis, a native
of Wales and one of the earliest residents of Keyesport, where he was
engaged in the general merchandise business until his death, in 1903.
During the Civil war Mr. Davis served four years and four months,
as sergeant of company I, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under General
Logan, and had an admirable war record. Mr. and Mrs. Fox have
had two children : Shubert and Erwin Davis, Jr.
After his marriage Mr. Fox was engaged in clerking for one year
for his father-in-law, and after Mr. Davis' death he carried on the
business for several years. Eventually he sold out and purchased the
stock and business of William Langham, and under his management
it has grown to be one of the largest business concerns in Clinton
county. His ability to discern opportunities, and then to grasp and
make the most of them, has made his name familiar in the business
world of Southern Illinois, but he always recognizes the rights of others
and his dealings with his fellow men have been without a blemish.
He has been prominent fraternally for some years as a member of the
Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America, in both of which
he is extremely popular. It is, perhaps, as a public man that Mr. Fox
has come most favorably into the notice of his fellow-citizens, for his
prominence is remarkable when it is considered that is a Republican
in a strong Democratic county. This, however, has only proved his
popularity and the confidence in which he is held, confidence that he
has shown to be not misplaced by his admirable administration as
mayor, treasurer and postmaster of Keyesport. He is known as one
of the leaders of his party in this part of the state, and has served on
both the County and State Republican Central Committees.
JAMES MARION LONG, of Stubblefield, engaged at that point in the
general merchandise business and also holding the office of postmaster,
is one of the well-known and highly esteemed citizens of Bond county.
He has spent his entire life in this district and is very loyal to its in-
stitutions. His life record began October 26, 1874, on his father's
farm situated about a mile and a half north of Stubblefield. His father.
Thomas Jefferson Long, was a native Tennessean. his birth having
occurred in Knox county, that state, April 19, 1846. His youth was
passed in Tennessee and several years before he attained to his ma-
jority the outbreak of the Civil war disturbed the even tenor of life
in the United States. He was a patriotic young fellow and uninflu-
enced bv the sentiment of the section in which he lived and when he
1322 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
enlisted it was as a member of the Seventh Tennessee Regiment of
the Federal army. In 1869 the elder Mr. Long removed to Illinois
and located near the Smith's Grove settlement. Here in 1872 he mar-
ried Caroline Watkins of Bond county, Illinois. To their union were
born six children, the eldest of the number being James Marion, im-
mediate subject of this review, and only two brothers survive besides
himself, namely: John Finesse, a farmer in Bond county; and Wil-
liam Thomas, also a Bond county agriculturist. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Long survive, making their home on their farm near Stubblefield, and
happy in the possession of many friends and the respect of the com-
munity which for nearly half a century has had them in its midst and
found them in every way desirable citizens. The father is actively en-
gaged in farming. In politics he has always given allegiance to the
' ' Grand Old Party, ' ' and although too young to vote for Father Abra-
ham, to whose call he so cheerfully answered, he has supported with
his vote all succeeding candidates. As a member of the Grand Army
of the Republic he renews association with the comrades of other days
and he and his wife attend the Baptist church.
The boyhood and youth of James M. Long were spent in Bond
county on his father's farm, where he became well-grounded in the
many departments of agriculture, and to the country schools he is
indebted for his education. He found occupation after his school days
as an assistant to his father in his agricultural endeavors and contin-
ued thus engaged until September, 1901, when he opened a general
merchandise store in Stubblefield. In the same year he was appointed
postmaster, and the office he still holds after the lapse of ten years, his
services having ever been faithful and efficient. His mercantile busi-
ness has steadily increased since he opened his store and he has trade
from all the surrounding farming country. He also owns a small
farm of twenty-four acres, which is under successful cultivation, and
has forty acres in Alabama. He is a Republican in politics and a Bap-
tist in religion. He is unmarried and makes his home with his parents.
WILLIAM W. McFALL. The city of Benton, Illinois, is fortunate in
that it has been made the field of operations of some of the most prom-
inent and wealthy business men of Southern Illinois, for in this way its
industrial and commercial future is assured and the growth and devel-
opment of its interests made sure. A number of these men have been
the architects of their own fortunes; economists claim that the only
men worth considering are those who have developed their characters
and fortunes without outside assistance. Experience seems to prove
that it is such men as these who are self-reliant and purposeful and can
be depended upon in any crisis that may come to the country or com-
munity. One of the successful business men of Benton who certainly
belongs to the self-made class is William W. McFall. who was born
August 31, 1844, in Williamson county, Illinois, a son of John and Jane
(Cantrell) McFall.
John McFall, the grandfather of William W., was born in North
Carolina, where he was a planter and slave-holder. Deciding to go to
Tennessee, he sold his slaves and property, accepting state money, which
he found to be worthless when he reached his destination. Although
well along in years, he did not allow his misfortunes to dishearten him,
and set out to make a new start in order to provide for his family,
which, after many hardships, he eventually succeeded in doing. His
death occurred in Tennessee. His son, also named John, was born in
North Carolina, and was a child when he accompanied his parents to
Tennessee. As a young man he became engaged in the flat-boat busi-
OFW
2SS1TY 6? !
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1328
ness on the Cumberland River down to New Orleans, but in 1840 sold
his interests and came to Williamson county, Illinois, where he bought
out an improvement, which he proceeded to farm. In 1853 Mr. Mc-
Fall bought his first government land, but sold it in 1856 to move to
Benton, then a small village. He continued to farm, however, and in
1865 and 1866 was engaged in the mercantile business, and his death
occurred in 1871. He was a stanch and active Democrat in his politi-
cal views, but was never an office seeker, and was faithful member of
the Methodist church. His wife, who died in the faith of the Baptist
church in 1863, was a daughter of Richard Cantrell, a native of Ten-
nessee and the progenitor of the well-known Cantrell family of Frank-
lin county.
As a youth William W. McFall was not given many educational
advantages, although he attended the Benton schools for some time,
but the most of his schooling was secured in the school of hard work.
Early in life he displayed marked business ability and the happy
faculty of making money. His first venture of a business nature was
in the woolen mill and cotton gin enterprise, in which he was success-
ful, and in 1872 he sold his interests at a healthy profit and engaged in
the flour milling business with John Ward, with whom he built one of
the first mills in Franklin county, this later being rebuilt as a roller
mill. After continuing with Mr. Ward very successfully for some time
he sold his interest and engaged in a livery business, and for eight years
had the contracts for carrying the mail on some of the leading routes,
then engaging in lumbering with Ward & Moore, under the firm name
of Ward, Moore & McFall. After some years spent in the flour mill,
sawmill and timber business he contracted to furnish the timber for
the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad in the construction of that
company's track from Mount Vernon to Marion, and this proved to be
a very successful enterprise, netting him a handsome profit. In 1897
he went into the general hardware and implement business, which has
since been incorporated under the name of the McFall Hardware Com-
pany, with Mr. McFall as president and A. L. Esken, vice-president and
general manager, and this business is now the largest of its kind in
Franklin county. In addition Mr. McFall owns a large amount of city
property and farming lands, and takes great pride in the achievements
of his city and county. He is a member of the board of local im-
provements, and a leader in movements calculated to be of benefit to
Benton. In 1902 he helped to organize the First National Bank of
Benton, becoming its first vice-president, a position which he held until
he was elected president in 1912, and this is now one of the strongest
financial institutions in the southern part of the state, having a capital
of fifty thousand dollars, a surplus of a like amount, and deposits aggre-
gating over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In political mat-
ters he has always been a Democrat, but he has given his time and at-
tention to business rather than to politics, and has never desired public
office. Everything with which he has been engaged has turned out
successfully, but it has been the characteristics of the man which have
made him, not the development of his surroundings. He is the sort of
a man who would have been successful at any time, in any place, at
any sort of enterprise. His career is worth study, and will be of ben-
efit to the aspiring members of the rising generation.
In 1867 Mr. McFall was married to Miss Helen A. Denning, daugh-
ter of Judge William A. Denning, who sat on the circuit bench of
Franklin county for a number of years, and was an early settler and
very prominent Democrat of this section. Five children have been born
to this union, namely: Hallie, Maude, Gussie, William and Pearl, of
1324 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
whom William is now deceased. Mrs. McFall died September 1, 1906, in
the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which Mr. McFall and
his children are consistent members and liberal supporters.
WILLIAM THOMAS EASLEY, M. D. One of the leading physicians and
surgeons of Southern Illinois, William Thomas Easley, M. D., of Green-
ville, is a practitioner of much experience and a close student of the
science which he wisely chose as a profession. Keeping abreast of
the times in this era of progress, when the diseases that manifest them-
selves in the different organs of the human body demand special treat-
ment, he has made special study of the eye and ear, making these his
specialty, and his practice along these lines has so constantly increased
within the past few years that it now requires a large share of his at-
tention, eliminating to a large extent his general practice.
Born in Montgomery county, September 1, 1857, Dr. William T.
Easley was brought up on the home farm and acquired his rudimen-
tary education in the rural schools of his native district. Ambitious
to further advance his studies, he attended Hillsboro Academy the
two years prior to attaining his majority, after which he taught for
awhile in the old schoolhouse in which he received his early training.
He subsequently studied medicine with a country physician, Dr. Bax-
ter Haynes, and in 1880 entered the Saint Louis College of Physicians
and Surgeons, from which he was graduated with the degree of M. D.
in 1883. The ensuing eighteen months Dr. Easley was engaged in the
practice of medicine at Smithboro, Bond county, from there coming to
Greenville, where he has since enjoyed an extensive and remunerative
practice, being now the longest-established physician in the place.
Wishing to specialize in regard to diseases of the eye. Dr. Easley
took a course of study at the South Western Optical College, Kansas
City, Missouri, where he received the degree of Doctor of Optics, after
which he studied in Chicago, there receiving the degree of Doctor of
Ophthalmology. In addition to his special work, the Doctor is often
called upon to do delicate and difficult surgical work, and is now serv-
ing as surgeon for the Vandalia Railroad Company. He is very promi-
nent and influential in professional circles, being president of the
Bond County Medical Society and an active member of the Illinois
State Medical Association. For several years he served as coroner
of Bond county.
On September 28, 1882, Dr. Easley was united in marriage with
Minnie DeShane, of Coffeen, Illinois, who is of French parentage and
ancestry and they have two children, Grace and Charles Euclid. Po-
litically the Doctor ' is identified with the Republican party, and is
ever interested in advancing the public welfare. For nine years a
member of the Greenville Board of Education, he served as its presi-
dent two years, and was largely influential in having erected one of
the largest school buildings in the city. A valued member of the
Methodist church, he is chairman of its Board of Stewards, and a
liberal contributor towards its support.
Louis A. HAWKINS. A native of Germany and brought to America
by his parents when he was a mere infant, the entire life of Louis A.
Hawkins since his advent in this country has been passed in Illinois,
save for a few brief years spent in St. Louis county, Missouri, as a
small boy. Since 1870 he has been a continuous resident in the vicinity
of Mounds, and there he has established a home and built up a farm
which is on a parity with any similar tract of land in Southern Illinois.
The exact spot of his nativity in the Fatherland is not known, but
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1325
the date of his birth was December 9, 1844. His father was George
Hawkins, who on immigrating to this country with his family first
settled in St. Louis county, Missouri, among the German speaking
people of that district. He settled near the Mississippi river in Jack-
son county, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away in
about 1856, when he was in the neighborhood of forty-four years of
age. His first wife died in Germany, and he was married the second
time there. His second wife died a short time after his passing away,
and of the two unions, Louis is the only child known to have reached
maturity.
At the death of his father Louis Hawkins fell into the keeping of
Hiram Lee, a neighboring farmer, and he also died before the un-
fortunate boy came of age. The usual lot of the orphan was his and
the only education he was privileged to receive was acquired in the few
scattering months he was able to attend the country school of the vil-
lage in which he was reared. Before he reached the age of twenty-one
he married, and the sum total of his assets when he began life as a
married man was one horse. He farmed the widow Lee's land on
shares one season and his share of the crop was sufficient to secure for
him another horse, as a result of which his second year was more suc-
cessful. While the Civil war was in progress he made an attempt to
enlist in the Eightieth Infantry of Illinois. He went to Centralia,
where he contracted fever and ague, and he became so debilitated as to
warrant the commanding officer in sending him home without enlist-
ment.
In the main, farming has occupied Mr. Hawkins' attention from
first to last, although he has been employed in other capacities in his
time. In Missouri he spent some time as a laborer about the mines in
Madison county, and when he first came to Pulaski county he was em-
ployed for a year in hauling lumber from the mill of his father-in-law.
This latter employment was the indirect occasion of his acquiring his
first piece of real estate, of which he took possession in the early seven-
ties and began to improve the "cut over" area of the land in his initial
efforts at building him a home. His tract of one hundred and seventy
acres of fertile bottom lands, practically cleared and under cultivation,
represents in large measure the nature and results of his employment
during the years of his residence upon it. In addition to this tract he
owns two other pieces of land, totaling sixty-five acres in all, which,
combined with his other holdings, constitutes a modest and worthy com-
petence as a result of the labors of the orphan boy of years ago. His
first tract of forty acres, one-half mile south of Mounds, was his first
home. He lived there about twenty years and then moved to the one
hundred and seventy acre tract about one and one-half miles west of
Mounds. His third tract of twenty-five acres lies about two miles west
of Mounds. Mr. Hawkins has made his winnings as a stock and grain
farmer. His is the repetition of the story of the tortoise and the hare,
and after more than forty years of continuous industry the battle
against adversity has been completely overcome, and provision for the
evening of life has been assured. He has taken a good citizen 's interest
in politics as an adherent of the Republican party, and for twenty-
eight years he retained the office of justice of the peace. He cast his
first presidential vote for General Grant, and has voted for every pres-
idential candidate of the Republican party since that date.
On August 20, 1865, Mr. Hawkins married Sallie Walbridge, a
daughter of Henry Walbridge, from Vermont. ' The issue of the union
of Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins are : John, who married Kate White and is
a farmer in Pulaski county ; Addie, the wife of Warren Grain, a farmer
Vol. Ill— 16
1326 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
near Mounds ; Mary S., who spent several years as a teacher in Pulaski
county before she was elected county superintendent of schools by the
Republican party in 1908, and who is now successfully serving her sec-
ond term as the incumbent of that responsible office; Lizzie, the wife
of Marion Shifley, of Mounds; Hattie; Sallie, who married Thurman
Carson, of Mounds ; and Louis H., as yet in the parental home.
DR. JOHN P. MILLER has for four years been actively engaged in the
practice of his profession -in Valmeyer, and in that time has built up a
representative practice and a creditable reputation which bids fair to
increase in its scope with the passing of the years.
Born in Harrisonville, Illinois, on May 12, 1879, John P. Miller is
the son of P. G. Miller, a native of St. Louis county, Missouri, born
there on June 15, 1849. The latter came to Monroe county thirty-five
years ago and settled in Harrisonville, where for a number of years he
conducted a ferry over the Mississippi river. Later he engaged in the
liquor business, in which he is still prominent in Harrisonville. He
married Catherine Ehlen, of Germany, and of the children born to Mr.
and Mrs. Miller six are living. Dr. Miller is their fourth child. Mr.
Miller is Democrat in his political faith, and he and his wife live at Har-
risonville.
Dr. Miller received his early schooling in the public schools and on
completing the course prescribed by the common schools of his town he
entered the Normal University at Normal, Illinois. He followed that
course of training with four years of practical work as a school teacher,
and then entered St. Louis University as a student in the medical de-
partment. Later he entered the Baltimore Medical College, where he
finished a complete course, and in 1906 was graduated from that in-
stitution with the degree of M. D. His first field of practice was at
Chalfin Bridge, where he labored for one year, then removed to Val-
meyer, which has since been the center of his operations in his profes-
sional capacity. He has been successful in establishing a flourishing
practice, which is in a state of constant growth, and his reputation
among the medical fraternity in his section of the state is of a partic-
ularly high order. Dr. Miller is a member of the State Medical Asso-
ciation and the County Medical Association, being active in both or-
ganizations, and is local surgeon for the St. L. I. M. & S. Railroad and
the St. L. & S. -W. Railroad companies. He is also a member of the
Masonic order and of the Modern Woodmen of America. In his politi-
cal allegiance he shares in the views of the Democratic party, and is
active in its interests.
In 1906 Dr. Miller married Miss Cecil A. Stoey, of Pittsburg, Penn-
sylvania. No children have been born to their union.
DANIEL J. BRADLEY. A large proportion of those who have become
successful in the mercantile field in Franklin county are men who have
been brought up in farming communities, reared to agricultural pur-
suits, and left the peaceful vocation of tilling the soil for the busy
vicissitudes of trade when they have felt that by thus acting they could
enlarge the scope of their activities and profit accordingly. Many of
these have chosen as their field the villages and cities adjacent to agri-
cultural centers, knowing that their early experience would stand them
in good stead in choosing the goods most acceptable to their trade, and
no exception to this rule is found in the case of Daniel J. Bradley, a
prominent business citizen of Elkville. whose career furnishes an ex-
cellent example of successful farmer turned more successful merchant.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1327
He was born January 12, 1865, at Tamaroa, Illinois, and is a son of
Michael and Ellen (Linnehan) Bradley, natives of Ireland.
Michael Bradley was born in 1820, and in his native country re-
ceived educational training that fitted him for a school teacher, an oc-
cupation which he followed until coming to the United States in 1848.
He located at Tamaroa, and during the rest of his active career fol-
lowed agricultural pursuits, although on various occasions he engaged
in the work with which he had first identified himself. He was an ac-
tive adherent of Democratic principles, and a faithful member of the
Catholic church, in the firm belief of which he died in 1909. In 1850
he was married to Miss Ellen Linnehan, and they had a family of nine
children, Daniel J. being the next to the youngest. Mrs. Bradley is
still living and makes her home at Elkville.
Daniel J. Bradley spent his early life much the same as other
farmers' sons, attending public school when he could be spared from
the duties of the home place, and being taught every detail that would
enable him to successfully follow an agricultural career. However, the
youth had an ambition to enter merchandising, and at the age of twenty-
three years secured a position as a clerk in a general store. During the
years that followed he applied himself assiduously to acquiring a capital
with which to establish himself in business as a merchant, and in 1903
embarked as the proprietor of a general store at Elkville. His subse-
quent success has been such as to place him among the substantial men
of his community, and his reputation is that of a man of sterling busi-
ness integrity and one who has aided in developing the interests of his
adopted village while advancing the scope of his own affairs. From a
small beginning he has built up a trade that covers the territory for a
number of miles surrounding Elkville, and he now has a stock of ten
thousand dollars, the largest in this part of the county. In political
matters, like his father, he is a Democrat, and the confidence and esteem
in which he is universally held by his fellow.townsmen has been made
manifest by his election to the office of township treasurer. He is a
member of the Red Men and keeper of the wampum in the local lodge,
and also holds membership in the Catholic Knights of Columbus.
In 1896 Mr. Bradley was married to Miss Ellen Redden, of Johnson
county, daughter of Patrick Redden, a railroad man. Two children have
been born to them : J. Paul and R. "Welden. The family is connected
with the 'Catholic church.
AUSTIN IRVIN BROWN, M. D. The physician occupies one of the
most responsible as well as confidential relations in our social existence.
To him are intrusted our innermost secrets, as well as the lives and
welfare of our dearest friends. To worthily and acceptably fill such
a position is one of the most difficult tasks ever imposed on man, and
such a task has been assumed by Austin Irvin Brown, who has had a
long and varied experience. Gifted with a love for his chosen pro-
fession, quick of intuition, and generous and sympathetic in his work,
he has won the respect and esteem of the people of Vienna, Illinois, his
chosen field of practice. Dr. Brown was born on a farm near Bun-
combe, seven miles west of Vienna, in Johnson county, Illinois, March
16, 1858, and is a son of R. W. and Mary A. (Peterson) Brown.
Richard Brown, the grandfather of Dr. Brown, was a native of
Tennessee and a pioneer settler of Southern Illinois, settling in Massac
county, near Metropolis, in the early '40s. His son, R. W., also born
in Tennessee, was a lad when the family came to Illinois, and here he
learned the trade of carpenter, which he followed at Anna for a few
years previous to settling on a farm near Buncombe, Johnson county.
1828 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Later he bought another tract of land, one and one-half miles west of
Vienna, and there continued to engage in agricultural pursuits until
his death in 1899. Early in life he was united in marriage with Mary
A. Peterson, who was born in 1834, at West Eden, daughter of Owen
and granddaughter of Thomas Peterson, natives of Tennessee, and she
died in March, 1910. Mr. and Mrs. Brown had six children, as fol-
lows: Mrs. Ellen Thacker, George W., Olive (deceased), Owen P.,
Albert (who died in infancy), and Austin Irvin.
Austin Irvin Brown received his primary education in the district
schools, and later attended select schools in Vienna, taught by Pro-
fessor W. Y. Smith and Joseph W. Smith. Beginning in 1887, he
taught school for three years, and in the meantime, in 1889, began
the study of medicine. In 1890 he entered the P. M. College, in In-
dianapolis, which he attended for one term, and then, after passing
the examinations of the State Medical Board of Arkansas, he practiced
medicine in that state for a period of six months during 1891. In the
fall of that year he entered Marion Sims College of Medicine, at St.
Louis, and by pursuing his studies during an extended term of seven
and one-half months, in order to meet the requirements of the State
Medical Board, he graduated in the spring of 1892, with the degree
of M. D. Locating at Belknap, Johnson .county, he practiced medicine
successfully until 1900, and then after a three months' stay in Cairo,
in partnership with Dr. Hall Whiteaker, he established himself in
Vienna. Dr. Whiteaker subsequently located in Mound City, and since
that time Dr. Brown has been in charge of a constantly increasing
clientele. He is progressive in his ideas and is constantly seeking to
advance himself in his profession, having taken three post-graduate
courses during his professional experience. In 1899 he took a course
in the Chicago Polyclinic Institute ; in 1906 he pursued a post-grad-
uate course in the New York Polyclinic, and in 1909, took another
course in the Chicago school. Dr. Brown is an active member of the
Egyptian Medical Association, comprising the physicians of Johnson,
Williamson, Massac and Pope counties, and has served as president of
this society for two terms. He is also a member of the Illinois State
and American Medical Associations. His fraternal connections are
with the A. P. & A. M., Blue Lodge, of Vienna; Royal Arch, of
Vienna; Knights Templar, of Cairo; the Modern Woodmen; the
Royal Neighbors; the Eastern Star; the Odd Fellows; the Rebekahs
and the Modern Brotherhood of America, all of Vienna, His religious
belief is that of the Methodist Episcopal church, and both he and his
wife have shown much interest in religious and charitable work.
In 1889 Dr. Brown was married to Geneva Whiteaker, a daughter
of Captain Mark and Elizabeth (Denton) Whiteaker, of Vienna, and
they have two children: Essie, who is twenty-one years old, and
Charles R., thirteen years of age. More extended mention of Captain
and Mrs. Whiteaker, both of whom belong to the old families of South-
ern Illinois, appears on other pages.
Dr. Brown is a man who may be said to have chosen well. Pos-
sessed of a kind, sympathetic nature, a keen sense of discrimination, a
natural taste for the various branches of the medical profession, he has
made a signal success.
4
CAPTAIN MARK WHITEAKER, a prominent and highly respected
citizen of Johnson county and a veteran of the Civil war, now retired
after a busy life devoted to agriculture and public service, is the scion
of one of the oldest families of Southern Illinois. His birth occurred
on the 28th day of March, 1833, on a farm in the southwestern corner
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1329
of Williamson county, his parents being Hall and Elvira (Hall)
Whiteaker, natives of Tennessee. Hall Whiteaker was the son of
Mark Whiteaker, who came to Southern Illinois among the earliest
pioneers, but who lost his life shortly after his arrival, in 1818.
Mark Whiteaker was reared upon the farm, receiving a practical
training in its many departments and receiving his introduction to the
"Three R's" behind a desk in the district school-room. He enlisted in
Company G, of the One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment, Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, at the outbreak of the Civil war. He took the
initiative in the organization of the company in Johnson county and
received the rank of captain. He was in service nearly one year, but
was mustered out in June, 1863, on account of disability. He served
in and around Memphis and did scout duty in Arkansas, Mississippi
and Tennessee. In May 1862, he went to Vicksburg, but soon returned
to Memphis and was quartered at Fort Pickering. Two brothers, Will-
iam H. and John A., were in the same regiment and engaged in Gen-
eral Forrest's raid.
Captain Whiteaker was not the first of his family to come to the
defense of the country in its hour of need, his maternal grandfather,
John Dameron, having served in the Revolutionary war. John Dam-
eron, who was English by birth, was one of the first pioneers of Burn-
side township, Johnson county.
When Captain Whiteaker was twenty-five years of age he purchased
forty acres of land in Burnside township, one mile west of New Burn-
side. Not long afterward he bought twenty acres more and later one
hundred and twenty, making in all a good sized farm of one
hundred and eighty acres. Upon this he resided from his marriage in
1860 until 1882. In that year he was elected sheriff, and rented a
farm one mile north of Vienna and lived there during his term of
sheriff, which lasted until 1886. He then bought the one hundred and
sixty acre farm which he had been renting and upon this made his
residence until 1902, when he sold it and bought forty acres in Bloom-
field township, where he lived until 1907. With the competence won
by many years of diligence and thrift, he decided to retire from the
more strenuous duties of life, and disposing of his farm land, removed"
to Vienna, where he now lives, secure in the high regard of all who-
know him.
Captain Whiteaker has made a good record as a public official,
always serving with credit to himself and profit to his constituents.
He was a county commissioner, or member of the county court, from
1864 to 1868; he served a four year term as constable of Burnside
township ; was twelve years justice of the peace in the same township
and held the same office" in Vienna township for four years. For the
past two years he has been police magistrate. In all the length and
breadth of Johnson county it is safe to say no one is better or more
favorably known than this venerable and public-spirited citizen. He
has ever given heart and hand to the men and measure of the Republi-
can party and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Fra-
ternally he is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows.
Captain Whiteaker was happily married October 24, 1860, to Eliza-
beth Deaton, daughter of William and Martha Beaton, natives of Ala-
bama, who located in Southern Illinois at an early date.
Captain and Mrs. Whiteaker became the parents of eleven children,
two of whom died when young and the following being an enumeration
of the number: Arista Ann (McElroy) ; Martha Elvira (Burris) ;
Geneva A. (Brown); Dr. Hall Whiteaker, Jr.; William J. ; Thomas
1330 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
H., who lost his life on the Illinois Central Railroad; Charles Franklin,
deceased; Elizabeth (Mathis) ; and Daisy Gertrude (Compton.)
HARL L. GEE, M. D. In thirteen years devoted to the practice of
medicine in southern Illinois Dr. Gee has made rapid strides in the
profession of his choice, and is openly recognized as one of the leaders
in that profession in this section of the state. As a physician Dr. Gee
enjoys the confidence and esteem of a wide circle of patrons, drawing
his clientele from all walks in life ; while as a man his position is no less
secure in the hearts of all who have come in contact with him.
Born March 25, 1874, in Jefferson county, Harl L. Gee is the son of
Isaac G. Gee, M. D., and the great-grandson of John Sandford Gee, an
early pioneer of Jefferson county. John Sandford Gee was born on Janu-
ary 10, 1777, in Virginia. He married Susan Tudor in 1798, and, cross-
ing the mountains in 1803, they settled in Metcalf county, where he
entered land from the government and engaged in farming, his oper-
ations in that line being rewarded with a fair degree of success. He
also conducted a surveying business as a further means of livelihood,
and was regarded as one of the important pioneers of his time in that
section of the country. He left one son, William Gee, born October
16, 1810, in the old Kentucky home, who in his early manhood married
Malinda Billingsby, the marriage occurring in 1837. They were the
parents of five sons. They were: John A., now of Tamaroa, Illinois;
I. G., the father of Dr. Harl L. Gee ; W. S., of Tarkio, Missouri ; M. D.,
of Mountain Grove, Missouri; and Henry M., now deceased. In
October, 1852, William Gee moved to Illinois and settled in Perry
county. In 1883 he went to Nebraska, but returned to Illinois in 1886.
He and his wife were members of the old Paradise Baptist church in
Perry county for more than forty-eight years, and in dying left the
noble heritage of beautiful lives well spent in the care and nurture of
a family of sons who have reflected credit on a good old name.
Isaac G. Gee, the father of Dr. Harl L. Gee, was born in Simpson
county, Kentucky, September 19, 1841, and when his parents moved
to Illinois he was eleven years of age. He worked on the home farm
as a boy and as he advanced in years taught in the district schools
while in his 'teens. His ambition to enter the medical profession was
deep-seated, and no slight difficulties were sufficient to deter him from
his long cherished purpose. He entered the Eclectic Medical Institute
of Cincinnati and was graduated from that institution in 1865, begin-
ning the practice of medicine at Fitzgerald, in Jefferson county. In
1892 Dr. Gee settled in Mount Vernon, since when he has retired from
the activities of professional life and lives in the quiet of a semi-retired
life. He has many business interests which demand his attention and
which constitute a sufficient occupation for a man of his years. Dr.
Gee is a director of the Third National Bank, president of the Walton-
ville Bank and a stockholder in the Mount Vernon Car Manufacturing
Company. He has been president of the Royal Building & Loan Com-
pany, and has served as alderman and supervisor of Mount Vernon
township. He is a member of the First Baptist church of Mount Ver-
non and is a member of the blue lodge, Royal Arch and Knights Temp-
lar in Masonry.
On December 26, 1867, Dr. Gee was married to Elzina J., daughter
of J. J. Fitzgerald, a native of Indiana. Five children have been born
to them: James William, deceased; John Stanton, deceased; Harl L.,
of Mount Vernon; Earl, who died at the age of six years; and Knox,
cashier of Waltonville Bank.
Dr. Harl L. Gee was educated in the Mount Vernon public schools
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1331
and in Shurtleff College. He later entered the medical department of
the Northwestern University at Chicago in the fall of 1894, studying
there for three years. He then matriculated in the Washington Uni-
versity of St. Louis, graduating therefrom in 1898, with his medical
degree of M. D. Dr. Gee began the practice of medicine in Mount Ver-
non, and is fast forging to the front in the ranks of his profession in
Southern Illinois. His consulting room is a part of the finely ap-
pointed suite of rooms maintained by six prominent physicians of
Mount Vernon, and known as the Hospital Consultation Rooms. For
over thirteen years Dr. Gee has been intimately associated with Dr.
Moss Maxey of the Egyptian Hospital, in both a professional and fra-
ternal way, through which time the association has endured without a
rupture. Dr. Gee is a member of the Jefferson County, Illinois State
and American Medical Associations, and is active and prominent in
all three. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with the Knights Templar,
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias, and a
member of the Baptist church, in which religious denomination his fore-
bears held membership for many previous generations.
On November 2, 1899, Dr. Gee was united in marriage with Nebraska
Evans, daughter of George "W. Evans, who conducted a private bank
in Mount Vernon for many years, which was finally merged with the
Third National Bank by purchase. Dr. and Mrs. Gee have one child,
Martha Evans, now five years of age.
EUGENE M. DAKE. A man of energy and ability, with an aptitude
for work, Eugene M. Dare is a worthy representative of the successful
business men of Bonnie, where he is favorably known as cashier of the
Bonnie Bank, which was organized in 1910 by Mount Vernon and Bon-
nie capitalists, the local men having been Isaac Hicks, A. N. Hicks, T.
M. Hughey, J. H. Crosno and Eugene M. Dare. J. H. Crosno was the
first president of the institution, and was succeeded by Albert Watson,
who is now serving in that capacity. The other men interested in the
founding of the bank were Louis Pavey, of the Home National Bank,
Dr. J. T. Whitlock, Burrell Hawkins, circuit clerk and recorded, all of
Mount Vernon, and Dan G. Fitzgerald, cashier of the Ewing Bank.
The Bonnie Bank is in a most excellent condition, its business having
doubled within the past year. In 1911 the stockholders erected the
modernly equipped building in which the bank is now housed, the cost
amounting to $3,000.00, one of its important features being a fireproof
vault, which is greatly appreciated by the home people and by the rural
population. The bank is patronized by every business man in Bonnie,
and by all the farmers in the surrounding country, it being of great
benefit and much convenience to the community.
A son of Thomas W. Dare, Eugene M. Dare was born August 21,
1873, on a farm in* Jefferson county, Illinois. His grandfather, John
Dare, came from Tennessee to Illinois in pioneer days with his father,
John Dare, and filed on government land in Jefferson county. He was
exceedingly prosperous as an agriculturist, at one time being the largest
landholder in Elk Prairie township, where he settled with his brothers,
Hubbard and James. Hubbard Dare was active in public affairs, and
it is said was the first Republican voter of that township.
Thomas W. Dare was born on the home farm in Jefferson county,
and early selected farming as his life occupation. He acquired title to
much land, and carried on general farming with undisputed success for
many years, but is now living retired from active pursuits, his home
being in Bonnie. He was born in 1846, and although young when the
Civil war broke out enlisted as a soldier in Company D, Illinois Volun-
1332 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
teer Infantry, in which he served faithfully ninety days. He married
Avaline Boswell, a daughter of Isaac Boswell, of Jefferson county. She
died in 1896, leaving three children, namely : Eugene M. ; Guy, of Bon-
nie ; and Mrs. Margaret Shelton, of Watsonville. He married for his
second wife Affy R. Mason, and of this union two children have been
born, but only one is living, Ernest Dare.
Gleaning his first knowledge of the common branches of study in
the district schools, Eugene M. Dare subsequently attended the Southern
Illinois Normal University and the Mount Vernon Business College.
When but twenty years old he embarked in educational work, and for
twelve years taught school, spending four years of the time as a teacher
in Bonnie, the remaining eight years being passed in three other schools.
Mr. Dare was afterwards tie and lumber inspector for the Chicago and
Eastern Illinois Railroad Company for a year, and the ensuing four
years was engaged in farming. In April, 1910, he accepted his present
position as cashier. of the Bonnie Bank, and is filling the office in a very
acceptable manner. Mr. Dare also conducts an insurance business, and
is financially interested in the Bonnie Creamery Company, incor-
porated.
Mr. Dare married, November 12, 1895, Lucy Puckett, daughter of
Thomas Puckett, and of their union seven children have been born, but
only two are living, Jewell, born June 18, 1907, and Eugene M., Jr.,
born February 5, 1911. Fraternally Mr. Dare is a member of Allen
Lodge, No. 904, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Bonnie.
HENRY L. DAVIS, M. D. The multiplicity of experiences of Dr.
Davis which interspersed the years covered by his medical training from
• an especially interesting attribute to his life, and in divers ways add
to his many qualifications as a competent practicing physician and
surgeon. His two years of army service as a nurse in the Philippines
after a brief medical course was wonderfully rich in life's experiences,
and serves as a most valuable adjunct to his regular medical training.
Since his degree was awarded to him in 1906 Dr. Davis has been active
in the practice of his profession, and in the years which have elapsed
since then he has accomplished much from a humanitarian point of view,
as well as winning to himself a pleasing reputation in a professional way.
Henry L. Davis, M. D., was born on December 11, 1878, in Anna,
Union county, Illinois. He is the son of Stephen M. Davis, born 1843,
and who died in 1899, a native of Union county, Illinois, and the son of
Reverend Levi Davis, also a native of Union county. For sixty years
Reverend Levi Davis was an able expounder of the faith of the Cumber-
land Presbyterian church in Southern Illinois, and when he passed away
he left the rich and undying heritage of a life of well spent endeavor
in a worthy cause, and of good he was able to do among the people for
whom he labored no reasonable estimate can be made. He was the son
of Thomas Davis, who immigrated from Wales, and represented a family
which, since its foundation, has been known by its good works.
Stephen M. Davis, the son of Rev. Levi Davis and grandson of
Thomas Davis, who founded the family in America, married Amanda
Day, a native of Cumberland county, Tennessee, who moved to Union
county, Illinois, when she was ten years of age, in company with her
brother, Henry Day, in 1857. Mr. and Mrs. Davis were the parents of
ten children, of whom three sons and five daughters are now living.
They are: William, H., a practicing physician of Castle, Oklahoma;
Virgil B., an attorney of note in Indianapolis; Etta H., in Okemah,
Oklahoma; Henry L., of Mount Vernon; Mrs. Alice H. Williams, living
in St. Louis, Missouri; Lulu May, who died at the tender age of two
OF THE
0? 1LJKJ3
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1333
years; Mrs. Cora B. Davis, living in Murphysboro ; Martha E., of the
same place; Mrs. Eunice A. Huck, living in lola, Kansas; and Stephen
M., who died in infancy.
Henry L. Davis was educated in the common schools of Union county,
the Dexter, Missouri, high school and the Illinois Normal University at
Carbondale. On May 28, 1898, when he was but twenty years of age,
he enlisted in Company I of the Sixteenth United States Infantry for
service in the Spanish-American war. He was sent with his regiment
to Santiago de Cuba, where they were in service one month and returned
to Montauk Point, New York. From there they were sent to Huntsville,
Alabama, and discharged under the act of Congress of 1899. On his
return home he attended the Southern Illinois Normal during the winter
and spring term which ended in July of 1900. He then enlisted in the
hospital corps of the United States Army, his former experience in the
army having been 'sufficient to whet his appetite for larger accomplish-
ments, and was sent to Manila, where he served two years as a nurse,
and returned to his home in August, 1902, after having circumnavigated
the globe in the two years of his absence. His taste for foreign travel
appeased, the young man once more entered the medical department of
St. Louis University in the fall of 1902, and was graduated therefrom in
May, 1906, receiving his degree of M. D. Dr. Davis immediately began
the practice of medicine in Carbondale, remaining there until August 1,
1907. He next located in Herrin, where he remained from August 10,
1907, until September 10, 1908. The place did not meet with his ex-
pectations and he next settled in Oakland, Coles county, where he re-
mained until August 10, 1910. It was then that he located in Mount
Vernon, which it would seem is the ideal spot for him, and where he
already commands a wide and constantly growing practice, and is
prominent in .both a social and professional way.
Dr. Davis is a member of the Spanish War Veterans, and among the
fraternal societies he is connected with the Knights of Pythias and the
Modern "Woodmen. He is a member of the Baptist church.
On October 24, 1907, Dr. Davis was married to Miss Tallie Link,
of Ewing, Illinois, daughter of William J. Link. One child, Theodore,
born October 24, 1908, has come to them.
GEORGE LEON MEYER. The substantial and enterprising citizens of
Greenville have no better representative than George Leon Meyer, who
stands high among the keen, energetic and progressive business men of
the city. A son of the late Conrad Arthur Meyer, he was born Febru-
ary 7, 1865, in the city of Saint Louis, coming from German and French
ancestry.
Born near Strasburg, Germany, in 1835, Conrad Arthur Meyer was
seized with the wanderlust when young, and at the age of twelve years
left home to see something of Europe, traveling through different parts
of the country. Returning to his native town, he pictured life in Amer-
ica in such glowing colors to his parents that he induced them to come to
America with him. Crossing the ocean in 1848, they located in Texas
just after the close of the Mexican war, and soon afterward took up a
homestead claim in San Antonio, where General Winfield Scott, with
whom they afterwards became well acquainted, was then stationed, and
where they found Mr. Conrad Arthur Meyer's uncle, Lucas Meyer, who
had served as a general in the army during the Mexican war. The par-
ents suffered all the hardships of frontier life, in addition having siich
trouble with the Indians and Mexicans, who stole their horses and stock,
that they became discouraged and migrated with their family to New
1334 HISTOEY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Orleans. From there they proceeded up the river to Saint Louis, where
they resided many years.
On arriving in Saint Louis Conrad Arthur Meyer embarked in the
drug business on his own account and began to read medicine, although he
never completed his medical studies. Subsequently forming a partner-
ship with Mr. Samuels, he opened a clothing store, which he conducted
with good results. During the Civil war Mr. Meyer was a sutler in Gen-
eral Grant 's army, and after the war moved with his family to Vicksburg,
where he and his partner were engaged in mercantile pursuits until
burned out. Returning to Saint Louis, the firm there resumed busi-
ness, and carried it on successfully until another fire destroyed their
stock. Coming then to Greenville, Illinois, Conrad A. Meyer opened a
small store, but later bought land not far from the city limits, and was
there engaged in farming until his death, July 30, 1897. He was a stead-
fast Republican in politics, and a member of the Ancient Free and
Accepted Order of Masons. Both he and his wife were reared in the
Christian faith, but gave up their church associations during their
later years.
While living in Saint Louis, Missouri, Conrad A. Meyer wooed and
won Catherine Ravold, to whom he was married August 6, 1861. She
was a daughter of Nicholas Ravold, a silk weaver, who spent his en-
tire life in France. She came to America in 1856, in early woman-
hood, and for a time taught music in St. Louis and also clerked in her
brother's store. She survived her husband, dying on the home farm,
near Greenville, June 14, 1898. Five children were born of their
union, namely: Emil, deceased; Emily, wife of John White; George
Leon, the special subject of this biographical record; Elvere, wife of
James Vaughn ; and Walter, deceased.
Brought up on the home farm in Bond county, George Leon Meyer
obtained the rudiments of his education in the district schools, and
subsequently worked his way through the Greenville high school, from
which he was graduated with the class of 1884. He afterwards con-
tinued his studies at Greenville College, where he received the degree
of Commercial Law in 1890. Mr. Meyer subsequently took a three
years' law course at the Illinois Wesleyan University, in Blooming-
ton, Illinois, from which he was graduated with the degree of LL. B.
in 1897, and in May, 1897, was admitted to the bar at Springfield, Illi-
nois. For twelve years, while he was engaged in the study of law,
Mr. Meyer taught school to pay his expenses, having served as prin-
cipal of schools at Reno, Van Burensburg, Bingham, Irving, Marissa
and Litchfield, all in Illinois.
Just after his admission to the bar Mr. Meyer was called home on
account of the serious illness of his father, and subsequently had charge
of the home farm until after the death of his mother, in 1898. He
then opened a law office in Greenville, Illinois, and has since been ac-
tively and prosperously engaged in the practice of his profession, and
has also built up a good business in real estate dealing and money loan-
ing. In 1904 he was elected state's attorney, and for four years filled
the office ably and acceptably.
Mr. Meyer is a leading member of the Republican party, and fre-
quently attends the state conventions as a delegate. Fraternally he
is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the
Knights of the Maccabees. He is a bachelor, heart and fancy free.
Mr. Meyer is a distant relative of George L. Von Meyer, ex-Post
Master General, and later Secretary of the Navy. Mr. George Leon
Meyer has a bit of literary taste and is the author of a song, the words
and music of which were his own composition and was sung with ef-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1335
feet during the 1896 William McKinley campaign. He is also the com-
poser of several poems, one of which, his favorite, is entitled "Wash-
ington," and is here given:
WASHINGTON.
I
In February, thirty-two,
When earth put on her robe of white;
Was born at dawn, the child of truth,
Who made principle prevail o 'er might.
II
The air was keen, the heavens were bright,
O'er Virginia's West Moreland hills;
An unseen Power awoke the light,
To make transpire to him who wills.
Ill
All nature seemed in worship bent,
The winds kept peace, and angels sung
To honor him whom God had sent,
This noble being, Washington.
IV
In rural home so nice to charm,
Grew this boy's nature, as the sun;
With mother's counsel, wise and warm,
Which moulded thoughts of Washington.
V
In his brief rules of behavior,
He showed decorum in his youth;
'Was in honor like his Savior,
For George always would tell the truth.
VI
Trials taught him to master self,
Before he commanded others;
He always watched to find himself
Blameless ere he censured brothers.
VII
He taught all men strength in defeat,
To show mercy in victory;
His disposition frank and meek,
Disproved their best planned story.
VIII
A man unmaliced much was he,
And filled with courage to do right ;
That, when the hired foe's soul did flee,
He grasped his hand in Christian rite.
IX
Who had LaFayette help us quick?
Whose justice made the British run?
Who made Cornwallis grow so sick?
It was the force of Washington.
1336 HISTORY OF SOUTHEEN ILLINOIS
X
No crown wore he. the King to play,
No child gave Providence this one;
Good will, all won gave he away,
For America was his son.
XI
All hail to him, our guide, our chief,
Who gave to us what we live for ;
The seed he sowed we now do reap,
Peace gave us as the fruits of war.
XII
And shall we have his name forgot?
To be no more as is his dust;
Revere his name what'er our lot,
Let's praise him for our precious trust.
XIII
Whose name in history doth shine?
America's wise and brave son;
Whose soul on high should live as time?
It is our George, George Washington.
DAWSON MANON FARMS. Even in an age that expects much from
its young men in the profession, public life and business, and in a state
which has become noted for the men of the younger generation who are
holding places of importance in every field, few have achieved the suc-
cess that has come so early to Dawson Mauon Farris, who with his
father is engaged in dealing in implements at Vienna, Illinois. Mr.
Farris was born April 16, 1889, on a farm in Vienna township, John-
son county, Illinois, and is a son of James Franklin Farris.
The education of Dawson M. Farris was secured in the public schools
which were located in the vicinity of his father's farm, and from which
he graduated at the age of sixteen years, and the Southern Illinois
Normal University, where he was a student during the years 1906 and
1907. He then associated himself with his father, who had entered the
farming implement business at Vienna, and this association has con-
tinued unbroken to the present time with the exception of about one
year. In October, 1909, Dawson M. Farris decided to take a trip
through the western and northwestern states to find out if he could get
a better locality in which to settle and establish himself in business, but
in October, 1910, returned to his home county, fully confident that it
was the best field for his activities. He is possessed of more than
ordinary business ability, and the success which he has gained has come
through the medium of his own efforts. Fraternally he is connected
with the Masonic Lodge and the Modern Woodmen of America, at
Vienna, in both of which he is very popular.
On October 10, 1910, Mr. Farris was married at Vienna to Miss Zona
Allard, of Simpson, Illinois, daughter of W. C. and Gertrude (Huffman)
Allard. Mr. 'and Mrs. Farris are consistent members of the Methodist
Episcopal church and are well and favorably known in religious and
.social circles of Vienna.
SAM A. THOMPSON, M. D. For fifteen years a practicing physician
and surgeon in Southern Illinois and since June, 1911, a resident of
Mount Vernon, Dr. Thompson is a wholesale example of what may be
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1337
accomplished by a man in the way of advancement when he is the pos-
sessor of a legitimate ambition, with the determination and ability to
supplement that ambition. Beginning life with merely a common school
education, Dr. Thompson when a boy of sixteen began to work with the
intention of ultimately continuing his studies as a result of his labors,
to the end that he might later become a member of that profession to
which he aspired, and whose ranks he has graced through fifteen years
of careful and efficient service.
Sam A. Thompson, M. D., was born on February 5, 1869, in Cale-
donia, Minnesota. He is the son of J. R. Thompson, a native of Mis-
souri, -who migrated to Minnesota. In his earlier life J. R. Thompson
was a steamboat captain, but in 1873 he engaged in the wholesale grocery
business. He later removed to Sioux City, Iowa, but now resides in
Louisiana, Missouri, where he is again engaged in the steamboat business.
Together with a company of other men in Louisiana, Missouri, he is the
owner of a line of river steamers, and they are conducting a thriving busi-
ness in that line of industry. Mr. Thompson served in the Union army
as captain of a company which he raised for the service, and did valiant
duty for the cause during the period of his enlistment.
J. R. Thompson married Maggie E. Damron, of Missouri, a daughter
of James and Maggie (Thurman) Damron, of Virginia. She was a
cousin of Allen G. Thurman, one-time candidate for the vice-presidency.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson reared five children, all of whom are living.
They are Harry L., in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Myrtie E. Moore, living in
Grand Junction, Colorado ; Sam A., of this sketch ; Claude D., of Colon,
Panama ; and Maud J.
Sam A. Thompson was a regular attendant of the public schools of
Sioux City, Iowa, in which city he was reared. "When he was sixteen
years of age he left school and secured employment in a retail store in
Sioux City, remaining there for some little time. His next move took
him to Austin, Texas, where he was employed as traveling salesman for
a wholesale dry goods firm, being thus occupied for the space of three
years. In 1893 he had accumulated sufficient from his labors of the
previous years to permit him to enter Barnes Medical College in St.
Louis, and there he completed the studies he had been conducting through
several years past, graduating from that institution in April, 1897, with
his well earned degree of M. D. The young doctor began practice im-
mediately, settling in Ina, Jefferson county, and remaining there for
fourteen years, where he built up a wide general practice and made a
host of warm and admiring friends the while. In June, 1911, Dr.
Thompson came to Mount Vernon and opened an office in the hospital
consultation rooms. In the brief time of his location here Dr. Thomp-
son has become well and favorably known among the profession, and is
identified with the foremost people of the city in numerous ways. He
has become the owner of two valuable farms of one hundred and twenty
acres each near Springfield. Illinois, and is a director of one of the Ina
banks. He has been identified with Masonry for a number of years and
has attained to the thirty-second degree in that fraternity. He is a
member of the Blue Lodge of Ewing, the Chapter of Mount Vernon and
the Oriental Consistory of Chicago.
In April, 1902. was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Thompson with
Mary C. Berger. of Jefferson county, but born and reared in Menard
county. Three children have been born to them. They are Louis, aged
seven years; Henry, five years old; and Margaret, who came to them
one year ago.
1338 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
DEWITT C. YOUNGBLOOD. "An honest man is able to speak for him-
self, when a knave is not," so, according to the Bard of Avon, Dewitt
C. Youngblood should be allowed to tell his own story, for honesty is
the keynote of his character, and realizing this his fellow citizens have
done him the honor of electing him county treasurer, but since his
modesty is too great to permit him to give a fair idea of what he has
accomplished, the task must fall to another. All of his life save the
time that he has spent in the service of his friends and neighbors in
some political capacity has been devoted to farming in Jefferson county
and his relations with the life of the county have been of the closest.
Dewitt C. Youngblood was born on the 15th of February, 1849, on
a farm near Crab Orchard in Williamson county. He was the son
of John J. Youngblood, who was born in Tennessee, in 1827. The
paternal grandfather of Dewitt was James Youngblood, who settled in
Williamson county when it was still practically a wilderness and when
clearing the land was one of the heaviest tasks that fell to his lot as a
farmer. During a deer drive he was accidentally shot, and though he
apparently recovered he died a few years later from the effects of the
wound, and he now lies buried about six miles southeast of Marion.
John J. Youngblood was yet a boy when his father came to Southern
Illinois, this migration taking place somewhere in the thirties. Until
near the middle of the century he was content to stay on the home farm
and assist his father. During the early 'fifties, however, he decided to
strike out for himself and settled on a farm in Elk Prairie. In 1854,
growing restless, he took a trip through the northwest, which at that
time was the haunt of the Indian, the buffalo and the fur trader. He
was gone about five years, returning home by way of the southwest.
Before settling down to a farmer's life he had served in the Mexican
war, from 1846 to 1848, under General Zachary Taylor, therefore he
was particularly interested in the country through which he passed on
the latter part of his journey, for much of it had -been won for the
United States during the Mexican war, and when he realized the vast
extent of the country and the riches which could be only guessed, he
was more than ever proud that he had helped to secure this great area
for the country of his birth.
The wife of John J. Youngblood was Miss Mary Ann Fisher, the
daughter of Jason C. Fisher, who was a native of North Carolina and
one of the earliest settlers in Williamson county. In the spring of 1855,
following the example of his son-in-law, he set out for a trip through
the northwest, going by boat to St. Paul, but he did not proceed far on
his journey before death overtook him and he passed away in Iowa in
May of that year. John J. was the father of six sons and four
daughters: John J., who died in Missouri; Dewitt C. ; Elizabeth, who
became Mrs. Robinson and resides in California; James M., who died
in 1880; Parlee, now Mrs. Hudson, of Oklahoma; Albert, who died in
his youth; Mary Jane (Buoy), who lives in Iowa; Ransom A., also
living in Iowa ; Milley L., who died at the age of four years; and Henry
who also died, in southwestern Missouri. Mr. Youngblood himself did
not live to reach his prime, dying in 1873, on the 7th of December.
Dewitt C. Youngblood was reared on the farm and received his edu-
cation in the district schools. When he was twenty-one years of age he
left home and began to work for himself. He married and took his
bride to a little log cabin on a farm in Spring Garden township, where
he began as a tenant farmer. The young couple put away every penny
and resorted to every manner of self sacrifice until finally they had
saved up enough to buy a farm of their own. The first farm consisted
of seventy acres, but by dint of careful management they succeeded in
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1339
accumulating two hundred and forty acres, which has since been divided
among the children, Mr. Youngblood having reserved only eighty-seven
acres for himself. This farm lies in Spring Garden township, where he
first started out, and it is all under a high state of cultivation.
In politics Mr. Youngblood is a Democrat, and he has served his
party many times in different capacities. He acted as highway com-
missioner in 1891, served as township assessor and has filled numerous
township offices, such as township supervisor, which post he held for
two terms. In 1910 he was elected to the office which he now holds,
that of county treasurer, his term to expire in 1914.
His marriage to Parlee Harmon took place in October, 1871. She
was the daughter of Littleton Harmon, of Jefferson county, and died
on the 20th of January, 1894. She was the mother of seven children,
most of whom are married and have families of their own. Ida May
(Holeman), who lives in Arkansas, is the mother of eight children;
Mary J., who is Mrs. Gibson, and lives in California ; Alice, now Mrs.
Rankin, is living in Jefferson county ; Rosa, who married Mr. Boyle,
has one child ; Ollie, is Mrs. Fitzgerald ; Myrtle, now Mrs. Claude Nel-
son, lives in Colorado ; and Jessie, who is teaching school at Windfield,
Illinois.
WILLIAM THEODORE GLASS. Public-spirited, enterprising and pro-
gressive, William Theodore Glass occupies a position of prominence
among the foremost business men of Harrisburg, which has been his
home for a score of years. A son of Francis S. Glass, he was born
September 4, 1855, near Golconda, Pope county, Illinois, coming from
honored pioneer ancestry. His paternal grandfather, David Barnhill
Glass, a native of North Carolina, migrated to Tennessee in early man-
hood, and there married. About 1810 he came with his bride to Illi-
nois, settling on the Old Cape Girardeau road, , near what is now Gol-
conda, Pope county, but was then called Green's Ferry. He took up
land, and there trained his children to habits of industry and honesty.
On the farm which he redeemed from its primitive wildness one of his
sons, James L. Glass, lived until his death, in 1904. Another son, John
B. Glass, who lived to the venerable age of ninety years, was a leading
member of the Presbyterian church from his boyhood days until his
death, serving for many years as an elder, while his house was head-
quarters for all the church people of that denomination.
Francis S. Glass was born on the home farm in Pope county, Illi-
nois, where he learned the trade of a carpenter and builder. During
the progress of the Civil war he enlisted in the One Hundred and
Twentieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and continued with his command
until honorably discharged at the close of the conflict. One of his
brothers, William Glass, was in the employ of the government at the
same time, building gun boats on the Ohio river. Francis S. Glass at-
tained a good old age, passing away at the age of seventy-eight years.
He married Emily Modglin, who was born in Pope county, Illinois. Her
father, James Modglin, came from North Carolina to Illinois in an
early day, locating at what is now Golconda, just opposite the pioneer
home of the Glass family, where he was for years a frontiersman mer-
chant and trader. Francis S. Glass became identified with the Cum-
berland Presbyterian church, of which he was an active and valued
member during the greater part of his life. To him and his wife six
children were born and reared, namely : Felix and Amzi who died in early
manhood ; William Theodore, the special subject of this brief sketch ;
Louis A., died at the age of forty years ; Ellen, wife of Porter A. Rector,
1340 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
of Cass City ; and Emma, wife of John L. Marberry, of Johnson county,
Illinois.
After leaving the district school, in which he gleaned his early edu-
cation, William T. Glass learned the carpenter's trade, which he fol-
lowed in Pope county until thirty years of age, having a shop and mill
near the village of Golconda. Coming from there to Saline county in
November, 1891, Mr. Glass opened a mercantile establishment at Har-
risburg, and, in company with the late M. Johnson, dealt in agricultural
implements, wagons, machinery, etc., until the death of his partner.
Buying out then the interests of Mr. Johnson's heirs in the business,
Mr. Glass conducted it successfully until 1906, at which time it had
assumed large proportions, its stock being valued at from $8,000 to
$10,000, while its annual trade amounted to about $20,000. Mr. Glass
in the meantime had also dealt a good deal in real estate, buying good
farming property, which he sold at an advance.
For the past five years he has been an extensive trader, and has
taken contracts for building road bridges in Saline county, in 1911
having erected four steel and concrete bridges, varying in length from
twenty to forty feet, at the same time continuing his dealings in realty.
An active worker in Republican ranks, Mr. Glass has served as town-
ship supervisor, and is now, in 1911, assessor of Harrisburg township,
which includes the city of Harrisburg. Fraternally he is a member of
the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, belonging to both the
lodge and the chapter ; and to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
the Grand Lodge. Religiously he and his wife are members of the
Presbyterian church, in which he is an elder.
Mr. Glass married, at the age of twenty years, Mary J. Dill, of Pope
county, who died in Harrisburg, Illinois, leaving seven children, namely :
Rherla, wife of Morris Gaskins, a Saline county farmer ; Era, wife of
Webb Ingraham, a traveling salesman ; Lula, wife of Edward Horning,
a grocer; Mabel, wife of Arthur Michem, a mine examiner; Esther,
wife of Sherman Wilie, a coal miner; Bessie, wife of Louden McCor-
mick, a clerk in a coal office ; and Theodore, a coal mine operator. Mr.
Glass married for his second wife Miss Georgia A. Rude, who was born
in Cottage Grove township, Saline county, where her parents, John
Slayton and Hannah Rude, spent the later years of their lives.
WILLIAM S. PAYNE. The sheriff of Jefferson county, William S.
Payne, is known throughout the county for his personal bravery and
for his faithful devotion to his rather arduous duties. He comes of an
old pioneer family, his grandfather having been one of the first settlers
in Jefferson county, and his father having been born in this county.
Mr. Payne is in reality a farmer and a very successful one, but he
operates his farm from the city of Mount Vernon, where he lives mainly
to give his family the advantages they might not be able to have on the
farm. Although in his duties as sheriff he is forced into contact with
the seamy side of human life and sees much that might shake his faith
in humanity, he is a firm believer in the innate goodness in every human
being and it is perhaps the knowledge of this kindly trait that makes
him so popular throughout the county.
William S. Payne was born in a big old farm house on the 9th of
November, 1867. The house of his birth was situated in Shiloh town-
ship. Jefferson county, and his parents were Joseph T. Payne and
Monica (Hutchinson) Payne. Joseph T. Payne was born in 1846. and
was raised in the section where he first saw the sunlight, namely. Shiloh
township. His father, Joseph Payne, was a native of Tennessee, but
spent most of his long life in Shiloh township, dying at 'the age of
HISTOKY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1341
eighty. Joseph T. Payne devoted himself to agricultural pursuits dur-
ing many years of his life. But this was only a side issue, for he felt
that his real work was in his service as a Baptist minister, and all of his
life he has labored for the betterment of humanity and the improve-
ment of the conditions under which we live. He is now retired and is
living quietly at home on the old farm, but his influence, though no
longer an active one, is still strongly felt and the memory of words he
has spoken are treasured up in many hearts. His gift of eloquence was
of great service to him when he was elected to the state senate as a mem-
ber from the forty-sixth senatorial district, and he gave efficient service
to his constituents during his term of four years.
William S. Payne is the eldest of fourteen children, eleven of whom
are living. Besides William these are James H. ; Ella, who is Mrs. Wat-
kins, wife of the cashier of the bank at Woodlawn ; Lawrence, who is a
farmer; Alpha (Webb), who married a farmer; Hattie (Alvis), the wife
of one of the principals of the city schools of Cairo, Illinois ; Joseph H.
and Arthur, both farmers ; Gleason ; Edith, a teacher in the Mount Ver-
non schools ; and Gincie, as yet a student in the township high school.
William S. Payne was reared on the farm and brought up to realize
that the simplest joys in life are the hardest to get and the easiest to lose,
and that the possession of these are what brings the most happiness, con-
sequently he has never hungered for the possessions of a millionaire or
the evanescent joys of life in a big city. He received a liberal educa-
tion in the schools of the district, but being the oldest in his family his
help was too valuable to permit him to leave home and take work in any
higher institutions of learning, so he remained at home and helped his
father until he was twenty-five, when he began to farm for himself. He
purchased a farm of a hundred and forty acres, which he still owns and
operates. He lived on the farm until 1906, when he removed to Mount
Vernon.
In politics Mr. Payne has always been an enthusiast, his affiliations
being with the Democrats. His election to his present office took place
in November, 1910, and the term for which he was elected is one of four
years. Fraternally Mr. Payne is a member of the Odd Fellows and of
the Red Men of Mount Vernon. With the father that Mr. Payne has
it is small wonder that he is an active member of the church to which he
belongs, namely, the First Baptist church of Mount Vernon. He is a
regular attendent, at both the church services and at Sunday-school,
and is one of the deacons, taking much of the responsibility of the finan-
cial affairs of the church upon his shoulders.
Mr. Payne was married on the 16th of November, 1892, to Miss
Minnie Jones, the daughter of S. W. Jones. Mr. Jones was one of the
oldest pioneers in Jefferson county, and met a sad death in an accident
on the railroad in September of 1906. Mr. and Mrs. Payne have had
three children, two of whom died in infancy, leaving Howard, a bright
little chap of seven years, his birthday being on the 20th of November,
1904.
DANIEL G. FITZGERBELL. One of the most prominent men of this
part of Southern Illinois is Daniel G. Fitzgerrell, banker, large land
owner and leading Mason. He is connected with no less than three of
the substantial monetary institutions of this section, namely : the private
bank of Watson, Fitzgerrell & Company, which he assisted in organizing
and of which he is cashier; the First National Bank of Sesser, Illinois;
and the Bank of Bonnie, Illinois. Of calm, sane and judicious char-
acter, and even more careful of the interests of others than his own, he
is of the best possible material for a financier and the county is indeed
Vol. Ill— 17
1342 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fortunate in possessing one of his calibre in a position of such im-
portance. Mr. Fitzgerrell is a man of property and has eloquently
manifested his confidence in the present and future prosperity of this
part of the state by making himself the possessor of several hundred
acres of land located in Franklin, Jefferson and Gallatin counties.
Among his other interests he deals extensively in stock.
Mr. Fitzgerrell is a native son of Jefferson county, his birth having
occurred within its boundaries February 10, 1869. He is the descendant
of James J. Fitzgerrell, who removed from Indiana to Illinois when a
young man, where he became a farmer and passed the remainder of his
days. His maternal grandfather also lived in Franklin county for a
number of years, having come there as one of the early settlers. All of
Mr. Fitzgerrell 'a forebears gave hand and heart to the men and measures
of the Democratic party. His father and mother were James J. and
Sarah (Whitlow) Fitzgerrell, the birth of the former having occurred
near Richmond, Virginia, and that of the latter in Franklin county,
near Ewing. The mother, whose demise occurred in 1903, and who was
a member of the Missionary Baptist church, was the father's second
wife, the death of his first wife, whose name was Patsy Ann Martin,
having occurred in 1861. Evan Fitzgerrell, a leading citizen of Ben-
ton, is a son of the previous marriage. The father's death was in 1889,
and he is remembered as one of the most successful farmers and stock-
raisers in the history of Jefferson county. He eventually became the
owner of a large tract of land. He was a Mason and an active member
of the Missionary Baptist church and all good causes were sure of his
support.
Mr. Fitzgerrell received a good education, and after leaving his desk
in the public school room became a student in Ewing College, from
which he was eventually graduated. His first experience as a wage-
earner was in the capacity of a bookkeeper at Marion, which position
he held for one year. He then embarked in business on his own account,
choosing the hardware field. After a time in this occupation he accepted
the position of deputy postmaster at Mount Vernon, which he held for
three years. After that he traveled extensively as salesman. In 1903
he entered upon his career as a banker, in which he has been eminently
successful, and in which he has displayed ability of a high order. In
that year he organized the private bank of Watson, Fitzgerrell & Com-
pany, and in the division of offices himself assumed that of cashier.
This bank has a large capital stock and is conducted upon the securest
and most admirable principles. Mr. Fitzgerrell is a man of wealth,
the nucleus of his fortunes having been a heritage left to him by his
father.
On May 25, 1887, Mr. Fitzgerrell was happily married to Pauline
Goddard, daughter of Monroe Goddard. an early settler of Williamson
county, her grandfather having brought his family here as one of the
earliest of the pioneers. He was a merchant and played a prominent
and praiseworthy part in the many-sided life of his community, leav-
ing behind him for generations to come an example worthy of emulation.
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerrell have reared a family of three children, all
promising young citizens. Monroe G. is his father's assistant in the
bank ; Jack A. is a student in Ewing College ; and Mary K. is pursuing
her public school studies.
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerrell are valued members of the Methodist
Episcopal church and the former is a widely known Mason, belonging
to Ewing lodge, No. 705; H. W. Hubbard Chapter, No. 160, Mount
Vernon; and the Knights Templar, No. 64. Mount Vernon. He is the
district grand deputy of the Forty-fifth Masonic district and is also
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1343
grand lecturer of the state of Illinois. He is now master of the Masonic
lodge at Ewing and has held that office for five years. In the ancient
and august order he is held in high esteem and affection and successfully
lives up to its high ideals. In his political faith he subscribes to the
tenets of the Democratic party, in whose wisdom his father believed.
DR. LEWIS C. MORGAN. A man prominent in the social, professional
and business circles of Southern Illinois is Dr. Lewis C. Morgan, of
Mount Vernon. While devoting himself heart and soul to the practice
of his profession, yet he manages to . find the time to devote to other
things and in this way has prevented himself from growing narrow
minded and out of step with the world, as do so many men whose lives
are given to scientific pursuits. He has been closely connected with
various financial institutions, and has endeavored to take his share of his
responsibilities as a citizen. So highly thought of is his capacity along
such lines that his fellow citizens elected him as mayor, and never were
they better satisfied with their choice.
Dr. Lewis C. Morgan was born in Hamilton county, Illinois, near
the present thriving town of Dahlgren. He was the son of Phillip W.
Morgan, who, as might easily be guessed from his name, was a native of
the Blue Grass state. Phillip Morgan was born in 1832 and spent his boy-
hood on the farm upon which his father had settled on his migration from
Virginia, which was the original home of the Morgan family in America.
In 1840 Phillip Morgan settled in Hamilton county, where he speedily be-
came a successful farmer and prominent citizen. He was one of the first
county commissioners, serving in this capacity before the county went into
township organization. He was known everywhere as Judge Morgan,
which is significant of the respect and love which his neighbors felt
for him, for a man must be above the average in order to win one of
these honorary titles from a community. His wife was Harriet Damon,
who was born in Massachusetts in the town of Athens. She was the
daughter of Owen L. Damon, who was one of the early comers to Illi-
nois, settling in Hamilton county in the forties. A number of children
were born to this couple, Mary, now Mrs. Riddle, of St. Louis; Anna
(Irwin), who lives in Dahlgren; Dr. Lewis; W. G., who makes his home
in St. Louis; Nora N., who is now Mrs. Grigg and lives in Mount Ver-
non ; Owen L., who is the general manager of a large wholesale house
in Marion; and Alice, Mrs. Wigginton, of Mount Vernon.
Lewis C. Morgan was educated in the common schools of his home
county, and when he became old enough to go to college he felt that
since his father had a large family and about all he could do to sup-
port and clothe and educate the rest, he would get his further education
by his own efforts, for he was determined that he would go through
college. Consequently when he was eighteen he began teaching school.
For five years he kept this up, teaching through the long, cold winters
for the sake of the all too brief period of happiness which he found
every summer in poring over his books in Ewing College. By this
time he had decided what should be his vocation, and so, in 1884, entered
the Hospital Medical College at Evansville, Indiana, graduating from
this institution on the 4th of March, 1886.
His professional career was opened in Dahlgren, Illinois, where
he practiced medicine from March, 1886, until September, 1905, at
which time he removed to Mount Vernon. He has been uniformly suc-
cessful in his practice, and is fitted through the strength of his person-
ality, his coolness and perfect self control for the profession which he
has chosen.
He was an important factor in the formation of some of Dahlgren 's
1344 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
most prosperous institutions, being a leader in the movement to organize
the First National Bank of Dahlgren. When he moved to Mount
Vernon he did not allow his interest in such matters to flag but became
interested in the affairs of the Jefferson State Bank, and at present
is a director in that institution.
Politics always came in for a large share of Dr. Morgan's attention,
for he felt that there was not enough thought taken in such matters by
the better educated classes, and that this attitude of indifference was
harmful to the country. He is a Republican by creed, and his term
as mayor extended from April, 1909, to April, 1911. He also acted
as president of the city board of Dahlgren. The deep insight which
he gains into human nature through the daily practice of his profession
has deepened in his own heart that regard for fraternity which finds
its best expression outside of the churches in some of the fraternal
orders, consequently he is very active in their behalf. He is a member
of the Masonic order, of the Blue lodge, of the chapter and the com-
mandery of Mount Vernon. He likewise belongs to the order of Elks
and to the Odd Fellows of Mount Vernon. Along professional lines
he is affiliated with a number of medical societies, being a member of
the Jefferson County Medical Society, of the Southern Illinois Medical
Association, of the Illinois State Medical Association and of the Amer-
ican Medical Association. Through his membership with these societies
and by constant reading and study Dr. Morgan endeavors to keep
abreast of the time as regards his own profession.
He was married on the 12th of March, 1883, to Jennis Brumbaugh,
who was born in Hamilton county. She is the daughter of Dr. A. M.
Brumbaugh, of this county. Three children have been • born to Dr.
Morgan and his wife ; Delia, who is the wife of W. P. Wood, and has
one child, Vermadell; Chloe, who is a student in Belmont College, at
Nashville, Tennessee; and Paul W., who is attending Brawn's Business
College at Marion, Illinois.
WILLIAM E. HAREELD. Prominent among the wealthy men of Union
county who have added very materially to their store of this world's
goods through the fruit growing industry is William E. Harreld, a resi-
dent of Alto Pass for the past quarter of a century, and engaged there,
first in a mercantile way, carrying on the business his father established
in former years, and later in the brokerage and fruit growing business,-
with which he is now identified.
William E. Harreld was born February 16, 1863, on a farm in Jack-
son county. His father, Cyrus Harreld, also born and reared in Jack-
son county, was the son of James Harreld, who migrated to Jackson
county in 1817. The state of Illinois was then in a most primitive state,
and offered many opportunities to the far sighted pioneer. James Har-
reld entered upon government land under the homestead laws, and
further engaged in buying and selling farming and other lands then to
be had for a mere pittance. He also engaged in the merchandising busi-
ness and carried on a lucrative trading business. He died in 1844, while
building a steamboat convoy on Big Muddy river, leaving a family. The
Harreld family was of a somewhat warlike tendency in its earlier
history, the ancestors of James Harreld having fought in the Revolu-
tionary war, five of his great uncles having fallen at Kings Mountain.
He, himself, was a first lieutenant in Captain Jenkins company in the
Black Hawk war in 1832. After his father's death, Cyrus Harreld con-
tinued to reside on the old homestead until 1851, at which time he
opened a store in the vicinity. In 1860 he went to Carbondale and en-
gaged in the mercantile business there for a period of eighteen months.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1345
In 1872 he again ventured out in that line of business and^ continued so
for six years. In May, 1883, he bought a store and business in Alto
Pass, and there he remained until the end of his life. The business pros-
pered, and he became a comparatively wealthy man. He owned two
thousand acres of f arm lands in Jackson and Union counties, in- addition
to the business in Alto Pass and other holdings in that city. In 1857
Cyrus Harreld married Miss Amelia Tuttle, a daughter of Matthew
Tuttle, a native Pennsylvanian. Three children were born to them:
James, William and Cora.
When Cyrus Harreld died in October, 1902, his son William E. suc-
ceeded to the mercantile business in Palo Alto, and for fifteen years he
conducted it successfully, after which time he sold out the place and
engaged in the brokerage business. For the past two years he has
bought and shipped fruit in Utah and other western points. His brok-
erage business will exceed $15,000, in addition to which he owns a fine
residence, eight public buildings and twenty lots, the latter of which
will aggregate in value fully $10,000. In addition to the above, Mr.
Harreld is the owner of five hundred acres of land, and is part owner of
a company owning two hundred acres. A portion of Mr. Harreld 's
holdings lie in Jackson county, on which is grown annually a consider-
able quantity of fruit and grain. In 1911 he raised one thousand
bushels of wheat, three thousand boxes, or six hundred barrels, of apples,
and quantities of other products.
Mr. Harreld has been three times married. His first wife was Emily
Cheney, and they were separated by divorce, some time subsequent to
their marriage, in 1890. On February 24, 1894, he married Miss Molly
Parsons. She died in December, 1906, leaving one son, William E. His
third marriage took place in October, 1907, when Ora B. Hartlins be-
came his wife. They are the parents of two children, Cora Amelia and
Mary Louise.
JOHN G. YOUNG, county clerk of Jefferson county, has been active in
the politics of his county ever since he was old enough to understand
the intricacies of this phase of public life, for his father was an influen-
tial figure in politics and the lad absorbed it with the very air he
breathed. He has been both a business man and a farmer, and has
carried the success which he had in these two branches of industry into
his present position. He is widely known and liked throughout the
county.
The father of John G. Young is William L. Young, a prominent busi-
ness man and farmer of Farrington. He was born in Mississippi, in
December, 1842, the son of Robert S. Young. When he was but ^boy
he migrated to Southern Illinois, locating in Farrington township.
Since 1880 he has conducted a merchandise store at Farrington, and in
addition has extensive farming interests. In the northeast part of Jef-
ferson county he owns over six hundred and forty acres, which, taken as
a whole, forms one of the richest tracts of land in Southern Illinois, and
owing to the care that is used in its cultivation, and the scientific man-
ner in which this is carried on, the yearly crop is uniformly large. Mr.
Young was married in about 1870 to Laura C. Byard, who died in
August. 1901. She and her husband were the parents of seven children,
four of whom are now living. Two of these died in infancy, and James
E., who was next to the eldest son, is deceased. John G. is the eldest, and
the three girls of the family are all married. Cora is Mrs. Gibson, Ra-
chel A. is Mrs. Ganaway and Winnie became Mrs. Price.
John G. Young was born on the 30th of July, 1871, on a farm in
Farrington township. He was reared on the farm and attended the
1346 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
common schools until it was time for him to go away to college. Ewing
College was the institution of his choice, and he spent the school year
of 1889-1890 studying there. Then, having come to believe that a busi-
ness education would be more useful to him than a purely academic one,
he entered Bryant and Stratton's Business College in St. Louis, where
he completed the course offered. On his return home no favorable open-
ing appearing in the business world, he turned to the first thing that
turned up and began teaching school. He entered this profession when
he was twenty-two and taught in Jefferson county until 1899, spending
his summers farming. In this way he managed to accumulate consid-
erable capital, and moving to Mount Vernon he invested in the mercan-
tile business. He continued in this field until 1905, when he returned
to his farm. Here on his beautiful farm in Farrington township he
spent the next six years of his life. His election as county clerk in
November, 1910, forced him to give up the agricultural life for a time.
He was elected for a term of four years. Mr. Young has always been a
factor in securing victories for his party, which is the Democratic, and
previous to his election as county clerk had held various township offices.
A taste for administering public affairs seems to run in the family, for
in addition to his father's activities his uncle, W. T. Summer, was super-
intendent of the county schools for a period of twelve years.
Mr. Young is very active in the various fraternal orders to which he
belongs. He is a loyal and firm supporter of the tenets of Masonry,
being a member of the blue lodge and of the chapter at Mount Vernon,
as well as being a Royal Arch Mason. The other orders with which he
is associated are the Knights of Pythias and the Red Men of Mount
Vernon.
In May, 1897, Mr. Young was married to Miss Minnie J. Cox, who
was born in Williamson county, Illinois. Her father was Thomas A.
Cox and her mother was Kate Rendleman, who was a member of one of
the largest and oldest of the pioneer families of Southern Illinois. Mrs.
Young was reared on the old home near Carbondale, and has spent all
of her life in this section. Two sons and two daughters constitute the
family of Mr. and Mrs. Young, Edward Bernays, James, Helen and little
Katherine, aged four.
HON. GEORGE VERNOB. There is something exceedingly attractive
in the voluntary retirement of a man who for a quarter of a century
has taken an active and influential part in the affairs of the govern-
ment. He leaves public life in the fullness of his strength, exchang-
ing the exciting scenes of political turmoil, which present the most
powerful attractions to the ambitious, for the peaceful labors of his
profession, in the pursuit of which he, mayhap, finds time to rumin-
ate on past events, on those that are passing and on those which the
future will probably develop. Standing pre-eminent among the mem-
bers of the bench and bar of Southern Illinois is the Hon. George
Vernor, of Nashville, ex-judge of Washington county, who on his
retirement from office in 1902 had a record of the longest continuous
service in the history of the county. Judge Vernor was born in Nash-
ville, October 23, 1839, and is a son of Zenos H. and Martha (Watts)
Vernor.
Henry Vernor, the grandfather of the Judge, was born in county
Armagh, Ireland, and died in Alabama. He was a Primitive Baptist
minister and "steam doctor," and married a Miss Enloe, who bore
him the following children : Ezekiel, who died in Tennessee during
the Civil war ; Zenos H. ; Benjamin, who passed away in Jefferson
county, Illinois, during the 'sixties; Noah, who was a resident of Mis-
Tib LIBRARY
OF THE
OF SVJS-1T.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1347
sissippi, where he died; James, who moved to Texas and there spent
the remainder of his life; Jane, who married a Mr. Hodge; Nancy,
who was the wife of a Mr. Stewart ; and Sallie, who died in Alabama.
Zenos H. Vernor was born in 1808, in 1830 moved to St. Glair
county, Illinois, and two years later removed to and entered land in
Washington county. He enlisted for service against Black Hawk in
1832 and was in the field several months before the old chief surren-
dered his warriors at Prairie du Chien in 1833. Zenos H. Vernor is
remembered now by but few people of the county. He was not a man
of culture and broad education, but possessed a good mental poise,
and his native ability commended itself to his countrymen, for they
sent him to the constitutional convention of 1848 and made him a mem-
ber of the lower house of the state legislature in 1850. In political
matters he was a Democrat. He died in June, 1856, in Nashville, on
his farm, after having spent some years as a blacksmith and in mer-
cantile pursuits. Zenos H. Vernor married Miss Martha Watts, a
daughter of James and Charlotte (Parker) Watts, who came to Illi-
nois from Georgia, James dying in St. Clair county about 1827. The
Watts were of Welsh origin and moved to Illinois about 1818. Mrs.
Vernor was the oldest of four children, the others being as follows:
Miriam, who married W. B. Peelwiler; Rebecca, who passed away
as Mrs. John Alexander; and Judge Amos Watts, who occupied a
prominent place at the bar of Southern Illinois and spent many years
of his life on the bench. Martha Vernor died in Nashville, Illinois,
in 1866, at the age of seventy years, the mother of these children:
James, who died unmarried; William H., of Nashville; Augusta, who
married John Leeter and died in Nashville in 1911; Judge George,
of this review ; Daniel, who left a family here at the time of his death ;
Frank M., of Salem, Illinois; Dr. R. E., of Nashville; John H., who is
engaged in agricultural pursuits in Washington county; Mary C.,
who died as Mrs. James B. Stoker; and Laura H., who married Sid-
ney Moore and is now deceased.
Judge Vernor acquired his education prior to the inauguration of
the public school. As a youth he took up the study of law with his
uncle, Amos Watts, at that time state's attorney of the county, and
was admitted to the bar at Salem in October, 1860, before Judge H.
K. S. Omelveny. He became a member of the firm of Watts & Vernor
by forming a partnership with Judge Watts, and was so associated
until the latter was elected to the bench of the Third Judicial Circuit.
He was elected county judge a few years later and his practice from
the dissolution until recent years was done without an important part-
nership. In 1904 his nephew, Frank N. Vernor, who died in 1912,
joined him and caused the law firm of Vernor & Vernor to launch itself
and enroll as an active factor in the legal profession.
In 1877 Judge Vernor was first elected county judge, succeeding
Judge M. M. Goodner. He had been associated with Judge Watts
politically as well as professionally, and had his political tendencies
greatly strengthened and his talent for organization and campaign work
brought to the point of perfection. He possessed a belief in Democratic
policies and principles that have ever received his support, and his
faith was well known. Notwithstanding this he was elected in 1877.
He inherited an extra year from the action of the Legislature changing
the date of the election during this term, and in 1882 succeeded him-
self. He was chosen again in 1886, in 1890 defeated his Republican
opponent again, as well as in 1894 and 1898, and retired from office in
1902 with a quarter of a century of public service to his credit and the
longest continuous service in the history of the county.
1348 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Judge Vernor was married in "Washington county, in February,
1860, to Miss Martha Mitchell, daughter of John and Susan (Hunt)
Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was an agriculturist and an emigrant from
Kentucky. Judge and Mrs. Vernor have been the parents of the fol-
lowing children: Kate and Hattie, who died in childhood; Zenos H.,
who died in St. Louis in 1892, leaving a son ; Daniel H., a prominent
merchant of Nashville; Mrs. Alice Stroh, a teacher in the Nashville
schools ; Deide, a resident of St. Louis, Missouri ; and Edgar, a soldier
in the regular army, serving in the Philippine Islands.
Judge Vernor has been an active Odd Fellow, attended the Grand
lodge of the state as representative on many occasions, and served on
the judiciary committee of the organization at various times. He is
not a member of an orthodox church, but comes from the ' ' Hardshell ' '
Baptists, as indicated in the reference to his grandfather Vernor. The
roster of distinguished jurists who have brought honor to the bench and
bar of Southern Illinois contains many names of deserved eminence,
and the place which Judge Vernor holds among these leaders is one of
high credit and distinction. As a judge he made a record that held
out a stimulus and example to all men who are called upon to bear the
high responsibilities of a place upon the bench. The sound judgment,
the well balanced, judicial mind; the intellectual honesty and freedom
from bias which are required in a judge— these attributes were all his
and enabled him not only to give opinions which today are quoted as
authority, but to maintain the best traditions of the judicial office.
From his return to private practice he has been a conspicuous and in-
fluential force not alone in the legal profession, but as a leading citizen
interested in the important public movements of the day. As a lawyer
his gifts as a speaker and his capacity for close, logical reasoning have
made him a peculiarly forceful and effective advocate. Probably -no
citizen in Washington county is better known, and certainly none are
more highly respected.
CARL D. SANDERS, M. D. It is seldom that a young physician en-
tering upon the practice of his profession achieves instantaneous and
striking success. The path that leads to a large and lucrative practice
is in nearly every case a weary and tortuous one, but to all rules there
are exceptions. The physician whose life is discussed in this sketch, Dr.
Carl D. Sanders, although one of the younger of Union county's medical
men, has, nevertheless, in the few brief years that he has followed his
calling attained an eminence that places him well in the van as a prom-
inent and successful physician and surgeon. He was born in Jones-
boro, Illinois, his present field of practice, in 1880, and is a son of Dr.
David R. and Lydia (Rauch) Sanders, and a grandson of Abraham
and Mary Sanders, farming people of Tennessee.
Dr. David R. Sanders was born in Tennessee, in 1845, and came to
Williamson county, Illinois, when a lad of eight years. He resided on
his father's farm there until 1863, in which year he enlisted in Com-
pany E, Eighty-first Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with which
he served until the close of the Civil war. For some years he was a
school teacher in Williamson county, was ordained a minister of the
Missionary Baptist church, and for thirty-five years was engaged in the
practice of medicine, the last six years of his life being spent as as-
sistant surgeon at the Southern Illinois Hospital for the Insane. His
death occurred in 1907, while he was discharging the duties of that
office. Dr. Sanders was much interested in political matters and one of
the leaders of the Republican party in his section. His widow, who
survives him, makes her home at Jonesboro with her son.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1349
Dr. Carl D. Sanders attended the public schools of Jonesboro, after
which he took a literary course in the Union Academy, Anna, and
graduated therefrom in 1899. For some time he was engaged in hos-
pital work, which experience was a most valuable one, enabling the
young physician to observe various medical and surgical cases, as well
as to come in contact with some of the most skilled and prominent phy-
sicians and surgeons of the state, and to note their methods of diagnosis
and treatment of difficult and baffling cases. In 1904 he entered the
Ensworth Medical College, at St. Joseph, Missouri, from which he was
graduated in 1908, at which time he entered the medical field at Jones-
boro. As has been said, his success here was instantaneous and com-
plete. Being naturally endowed with a genial nature and agreeable
manners, he made hosts of friends and the extent of his practice rapidly
increased.
In 1908 Dr. Sanders was united in marriage with Miss Ella Jane
Pickles, who was born in Johnson county, Illinois, in 1883. They have
had no children. Dr. Sanders belongs to the Masonic Blue Lodge, No.
Ill, and the Odd Fellows, both of Jonesboro, and his profession con-
nects him with the Union County and Illinois State Medical Associations
and the American Medical Association. He is a learned and skilled
physician, and a young man in every way entitled to the admiration and
respect of all who are acquainted with him.
WALTER S. MAXEY. One of the oldest families in Jefferson county,
or indeed, in the United States, has its representative in Walter S.
Maxey, since 1884 actively connected with the drug business, and for
a number of years a member of one of the leading drug firms in Mount
Vernon. The early history of this interesting family is well worth some
consideration, in view of its direct bearing upon the communities with
which the family became identified and the fact that they have been
American pioneers since 1725.
Walter S. Maxey, born March 8, 1854, in Jefferson county, is the
son of James C. Maxey, who was born in Shiloh township, Jefferson
county, on June 14, 1827. He has the unique distinction of being the
oldest living native born citizen of that county. He was the son of •
Burchett Maxey, the grandson of William Maxey and the great-grand-
son of Jesse Maxey, the latter having been one of the oldest or earliest
settlers of Tennessee. He was shot and scalped by Indians in a general
massacre near Gallatin, Tennessee, and left for dead, but he revived
and lived for twenty years thereafter. Jesse was the son of Edward
Maxey, whose father was Walter Maxey, the first who immigrated to
America from Wales in 1725, settling first in Maryland. The descend-
ants of Walter Maxey settled in Virginia, later removing to Sumner
county, Tennessee, and thence to Jefferson county, Illinois, where the
family has been active and prominent since that time. Burchett Maxey,
representing the fourth generation of American born Maxeys and the
grandfather of Walter S. Maxey, of whom we write, came to Jeffer-
son county with his wife and two children in 1818. They came over-
land, and his son, Perigan. was the first white person buried in the
county, he having died at Morse's Prairie. The family soon afterward
settled near Mount Vernon and in 1823 Mr. Maxey built a log house,
the site of which is now occupied by the Third National Bank. Bur-
chett Maxey 's log cabin was the first building to be erected on what is
now the public square. He also built the first jail in Jefferson county.
It was a crude affair, constructed of logs at a cost of $320.00, but it
was well built and answered the needs of the time. He also built the
first residence on the public square of Mount Vernon. His sou, James
1350 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
C., born after their advent into Jefferson county, attended school in a
log school house near Walnut Hill taught by Henry G. Hook. The
mother and father of William Jennings Bryan also attended that little
school, all unconscious then of the fame and name to be theirs in later
life as a result of the public character of a son of theirs.
The schooling of James C. Maxey was of necessity limited, and he
remained in the Mount Vernon home until he was of a sufficient age to
undertake the responsibilities of looking out for himself. He became
interested in farming and stock-raising, and as time went on branched
out in that industry, buying land and then more land, increasing his
herds gradually until he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, en-
abling him to retire from the pressing activities of the busy life he had
led for so many years, and he is now living quietly and comfortably, his
declining years amply provided for by the thrift and industry of his
earlier ears. On October 31, 1850, was solemnized the marriage of
James Maxey and Nancy J. Moss. She was a descendant on the ma-
ternal side of an influential pioneer family, Louis Johnson, being her
maternal grandfather. Her father, Ransom Moss, settled near Shiloh
Church, and when his first wife died Old Shiloh cemetery was laid out,
and she was the first person to be buried in that famous cemetery.
They were the parents of eight children. They were: John R., de-
ceased; Walter S., of whom we write; Oliver W., deceased; Oscar S. ;
Albion P. ; James Henry, agent of the Standard Oil Company and sec-
retary and treasurer of the Mount Vernon Ice & Storage Company;
Lillie, the wife of I. F. Sugg, a merchant of Kinmundy, Illinois; and
Moss, a physician and surgeon in Mount Vernon. The father, James C.
Maxey, is a veteran of the Civil war, having fought in Company L, Fifty-
eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He has in his time filled numerous
responsible positions of a public nature, thus demonstrating his public-
spiritedness and willingness to advance the general welfare of his home
community, if further demonstration were necessary. He is now in his
eighty-fifth year, and his wife is in her seventy-ninth year.
Walter S. Maxey was educated in the common and high schools of
his native county. When he was twenty years of age he began teach-
ing, and devoted himself to the pedagogic art for nine years in Jeffer-
son county. In the fall of 1880 he discontinued his labors in the field
of education and took a position as a clerk in the grocery store of the
late S. K. Latham, where he was employed for three years, a part of
the time in the employ of S. G. H. Taylor, who was the successor of
Mr. Latham. In the winter of 1884 Mr. Maxey served on the grand
jury at Springfield for three months, being clerk of that body. In
July, 1884, he entered the drug store of Porter & Bond as a clerk, with
'the express intention of learning the drug business, and how well he
lived up to his intentions and expectations is evidenced by the flourish-
ing business of which he is now one of the proprietors. In 1889 he be-
came a registered pharmacist as a result of his carefully pursued studies
in connection with his regular duties, and he formed a partnership with
Dr. A. C. Johnson and J. H. Rackaway to conduct a drug business. In
1900 Maxey & Rackaway became the owners of the entire business,
under which firm name the business is still being conducted in a man-
ner most creditable to both gentlemen in charge.
In 1888 Mr. Maxey was married to Miss Almeda Hicks, a daughter of
Colonel S. G. Hicks of Jefferson county. In 1891 Mrs. Maxey died,
and in 1900 Mr. Maxey contracted a second marriage, when Miss Es-
tella Wiedeman, a graduate and teacher of the Mount Vernon schools,
became his wife. Of this latter union four children were born. They
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1351
are : Walter Charles, aged ten years ; James Wayland, aged eight ;
Margaret Moss, five years old ; and Taylor, aged two years.'
Mr. Maxey is prominent in political circles, and is a Democrat in
his faith. He has filled the office of assessor for his township, also col-
lector, and he was for several terms a trustee of the schools of Mount
Vernon township. He was once the Democratic candidate for the office
of mayor of his city, and ran better than a hundred votes ahead of his
ticket, but was defeated by a small majority, Mount Vernon being a dis-
tinctly Republican city. Mr. Maxey is a man of much enterprise, al-
ways prominent in the front ranks of the leaders of his city, and his
reputation is of a high order that permits of no adverse criticism.
Ross SETEN, of the firm of R. Seten & Son Hardware Company,
Harrisburg, Illinois, came to Saline county when a young man, and as
a farmer, merchant and coal prospector and operator, has helped to
make history here. As one of the leading citizens of the county for
many years, a sketch of his life is of interest in this work, devoted as it
is to a portrayal of the lives of the representative men and women of
Southeastern Illinois.
Ross Seten was born near Salem, in Washington county, Indiana,
July 18, 1835, and on a farm in that county spent his boyhood days. He
remained in Washington county until 1858, when, with four hundred
dollars in cash and a two-horse team, he came over into the neighboring
state of Illinois and established himself on a farm of one hundred and
sixty acres near Sulphur Springs, ten miles southeast of Harrisburg.
This land he purchased at four dollars and fifty cents an acre. Later
he sold it and bought and sold other lands, and he still owns three hun-
dred and sixty acres, eighteen dollars an acre being the highest price
he ever paid foe any land. Here for twenty years he made his home and
gave his attention to farming and stock raising, raising and buying and
selling cattle and hogs, also trading for all kinds of stock, and making
large shipments to market.
About 1873 Mr. Seten bought a small hardware and furniture store,
and placed his son George in charge of it. A few years later he left
the farm and moved to Harrisburg, where he has ever since made his
home. On the present site of the Trust & Savings Bank he built a large
two-story frame building, and subsequently he bought and built on the
north side of the block. In the meantime he had taken his son as a part-
ner in the business. In 1891 the furniture and hardware stock was di-
vided, and his son took the furniture end of the business. Mr. Seten
sustained loss by fire three times at his original location, and after the
last fire he sold out to the bank. For several years he carried a stock
of general merchandise, including dry goods, but of recent years he has
confined his stock to hardware, and now under the firm name of the
R. Seten & Son Hardware Company, has one of the finest hardware
stores in Southern Illinois, handling general hardware, steam fittings,
auto fixtures, mining tools and miners' supplies. His stock will exceed
$12,000 and the annual trade of the firm amounts to between fifty and
sixty thousand dollars.
Mr. Seten and his sons were stockholders in the Saline County Coal
Company, pioneers in the coal industry in this county. It was about
1898 or 1899 that they began operations. They sunk a shaft three miles
and a quarter west of the Big Four Railroad, and developed a mine that
had an output of 600 tons when, in 1904, they sold to the O'Gara Coal
Company. The old name was then dropped, although soon afterward
a new company took the same name. They believed that coal in paying
thickness could be found. Accordingly they secured an option on land
1352 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
three miles west of Harrisburg and, sinking a hole ostensibly for stock
water, they found coal in a seven to eight foot vein and at once began
operations, and thus when the O'Gara Coal Company came to Saline
county it was a ready buyer of the property. Mr. Seten's farm of three
hundred and sixty acres, eight miles from Harrisburg, is all underlaid
with coal, but as yet no mines have been developed on this tract, it being
held for future use. Mr. Seten was one of the original directors of the
Saline County Trust & Savings Bank, and is still one of its stockholders.
While he has never been active in politics he has always been a pub-
lic-spirited citizen. He cast his first presidential vote for Fillmore in
1856, and remembers having heard Fremont speak in that campaign.
At one time, when Saline county was Democratic by six hundred votes,
Mr. Seten was elected on the Republican ticket to the office of county
commissioner, and served as such for eighteen months, at the end of-
that time resigning. Fraternally he is a Mason. The degrees were con-
ferred upon him in Equality Lodge, No. 2, the oldest lodge in Illinois,
in 1860, and he at once became a worker in the lodge. In the early days
he used to come to Harrisburg to assist in the lodge work. Also he is a
member of the Chapter.
On September 20, 1857, Ross Seten and Miss Mary Ann Speeks, a
native of Campbellsburg, Indiana, were united in marriage, and with
the passing years sons and daughters to the number of nine have come
to bless their home. Their children in order of birth are as follows:
George W., who is engaged in the furniture business; D. K., a grocer;
Sigel and John L., in the hardware business ; William, a farmer ; Alice,
wife of J. P. Harmon, of Phoenix, Arizona ; Mollio, wife of Robert
Macklin ; Millie, wife of William Walker ; and Pearl, wife of Caliborn
Cecil.
EARL GREEN, M. D. The son and the grandson of able and prom-
inent physicians, Dr. Earl Green, himself a talented exponent of the
medical profession, occupies no insignificant place in the professional
and social life of Mount Vernon, the city in which he was born and
reared, and where in maturer life he has conducted his medical prac-
tice. Born on September 1, 1861, Dr. Earl Green is the son of Dr.
Willis Duff Green, a native of Kentucky and born near Danville. His
father, Dr. Duff Green, was a native of Virginia and was of English
parentage.
Dr. Duff Green served as surgeon in Barbee 's Regiment . of Ken-
tucky Volunteer Infantry in the War of 1812. He practiced medicine
in Danville, Kentucky, until 1844, at which time he removed to Pulaski,
Tennessee. In 1846 he migrated to Mount Vernon, Illinois, where he
spent the remainder of his life, passing away at the age of seventy-three
years. His son, Willis Duff Green, followed in the footsteps of the
father and entered the medical profession. He was educated in Centre
College, Transylvania University at Lexington, and was graduated from
the Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1844. He eventually became one
of the more eminent practitioners in Illinois, and aside from his profes-
sional attainments, was particularly prominent as a citizen of note. He
was president of the company which built the first railroad into Mount
Vernon, and was connected with various other enterprises of a public
nature. He was prominent in fraternal circles, and was grand master of
the Illinois Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1858 and grand rep-
resentative to the Odd Fellows national convention in 1859. He was
prominent, in a political way, being an adherent of the Democratic party,
and was a delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1876, which
nominated Samuel J. Tilden for the presidency. In 1845 Dr. Green
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1353
married Corrirma L., daughter of Isaac Morton, a merchant of Hartford,
Kentucky, of New England ancestry. Dr. and Mrs. Green were the
parents of ten children', six of whom are living at present. They are
Alfred M., an attorney in Gainesville, Texas; Inez I., instructor in
Southern Illinois Normal University at Carbondale; Laura Reed;
Minnie ; William H., judge of circuit court, and of whom more extended
mention is made elsewhere in this sketch ; and Earl, practicing physician
of Mount Vemou. The four deceased were Duff, Cora Lee, Maidelyn
F., and Lucille. The father, Dr. Duff Green, passed away on Septem-
ber 5, 1905, at the age of eighty-four years.
The youth and boyhood of Dr. Earl Green were passed in attendance
upon the public schools of Mount Vernon, and finishing his studies
there, he entered the State Normal at Normal, Illinois, following which
he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, studying there
from 1881 to 1883. He then entered the Bellevue Hospital Medical
Schools of New York City, graduating therefrom in 1884. He began the
practice of medicine in Mount Vernon, than which no fitter place could be
named for the son of the leading member of the medical profession in
that city for many years. He has carried on the good works of his
honored father, winning to himself an extensive practice, as well as the
unqualified respect and esteem of the best citizenship of his native town.
Dr. Green's prominence in the communal life of Mount Vernon is
not alone confined to his profession and its practice. He is a stock-holder
in the Jefferson State Bank, as well as a member of its directorate. He
is a member of various fraternal organizations of a social and other na-
ture, one of them being the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
of Mount Vernon, and as an adjunct to his professional labors, he is a
member of the County, State and American Medical Associations. Dr.
Green is a man widely read and of fine scholarly attainments, and his
circle of friends in Mount Vernon is bounded only by the limits of his
acquaintance.
Among other members of the family of Dr. Willis Duff Green who
have attained a generous portion of prominence in Mount Vernon and
Southern Illinois is Judge William H. Green, a brother of Dr. Earl
Green of this sketch, and it is not unfit that a few words be said here
in connection with the life and accomplishments of Judge Green.
William H. Green was born in Mount Vernon on October 14, 1858.
He was educated in the public schools of the city, and following his
graduation therefrom he entered the University of Michigan in 1877,
pursuing a literary and legal course in that splendid institution in 1878.
For two years thereafter he studied law in the offices of a prominent firm
and in 1880 he was admitted to the bar. Mr. Green began the prac-
tice of his profession in Mount Vernon, his efforts from the first being
attended by a pleasurable degree of success. In 1882 he served as mas-
ter in chancery, and in the same year was elected to the office of city at-
torney, retaining the office for two years. In 1884 he was elected state's
attorney of Jefferson county, filling the office in such a manner that he
was re-elected in 1888. From the beginning of his public career honor
followed upon honor, and no office within the gift of his fellowmen in
Jefferson county and his district has been withheld from him. In 1894
Mr. Green was elected to the house of representatives in the Illinois
Legislature, serving one term, with honor and credit to himself and his
constituents. In 1909 he was elected to the office of circuit judge in the
judicial district comprising the counties of Hardin, Gallatin, White,
Hamilton, Franklin, Jefferson, Wayne, Edwards, Wabash, Richland,
Lawrence and Crawford, and is still the incumbent of that office. In
1896 he was a delegate to the national Democratic convention at Chicago,
1354 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and he was a member of the notification committee which informed Wil-
liam J. Bryan of his nomination. Judge Green has been president of
the Jefferson State Bank and is now a member of its directorate and a
stockholder in the institution. He served as president of the Illinois
Bankers Fire Insurance Company during its life, and has been active in
the administration of the affairs of numerous other concerns. Judge
Green is prominent as a fraternalist, being a member of the Benevolent
jand Protective Order of Elks, Knights of Pythias, Ancient Free and Ac-
cepted Masons, including the Chapter and Knights Templar, and of
the Independent Order of Red Men.
CHARLES CLARENCE DINWIDDIE. As the capable, efficient and popular
superintendent of the public schools of Pocahontas, Charles Clarence
Dinwiddie occupies a noteworthy position among the educators of Bond
county, and is eminently deserving of more than passing mention in a
work of this character. He comes of honored Virginian ancestry, being
a lineal descendant of the founder of that family from which Robert
Dinwiddie, one of the early governors of Virginia, was sprung. He is
a true type of the self-made men of our times, having measured his own
ability, and through his own efforts having hewn his way straight to
the line thus marked out. A son of the late Joseph M. Dinwiddie, he
was born near Woburn, Bond county, Illinois, March 6, 1880.
Joseph M. Dinwiddie was also a native of Illinois, his birth having
occurred August 1, 1832, in White Hall, Greene county. Succeeding to
the occupation in which he was reared, he was engaged in farming and
cattle dealing throughout his entire life, which was comparatively brief.
He died February 28, 1881, while in manhood's prime. He married, in
1869, Millie A. Anthony, of Woburn, Illinois, and she is now living in
Smithboro, Bond county. He was a stanch Republican in politics, and a
member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The youngest of a family of five children left fatherless when small,
Charles Clarence Dinwiddie spent his earlier years in Smithboro, ac-
quiring his elementary education in the public schools and at the home
fireside. At the age of eighteen years he began his active career as a
teacher, and for two years had charge of a school in Concord, after which
he taught for a time in Seagraves. Going then to Decatur, Illinois, Mr.
Dinwiddie worked in the railway shops for awhile, and after his re-
turn to Smithboro was variously employed, for a year being connected
with the Vandalia Railroad as an employe. Resuming then his profes-
sional labors, he taught in Union, Illinois, in* 1904 and 1905, later hav-
ing charge of schools in different places in Southern Illinois. In 1909
he accepted the principalship of the Pocahontas schools, and has since
filled the position to the eminent satisfaction of all concerned. Under
his management the schools, which are housed in a large, well-lighted
brick building, have made rapid progress, the course having been en-
larged and now embracing two years of high school work.
Mr. Dinwiddie married, in 1905, Grace Stubblefield, of Pleasant
Mound, Illinois, and they have two children, Geneva and Joseph H.
Politically Mr. Dinwiddie is a sound Republican ; religiously he is a
member of the Christian Church ; and fraternally he belongs to the
Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons and to the Modern Wood-
men of America.
ALBERT C. MILLSPAUGH. The entire career of Albert C. Millspaugh
has thus far been marked with many honors, which as a public man the
people have bestowed upon him. As city clerk, city attorney, mayor of
his city for two terms, then chief clerk of the Southern Illinois Peniten-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1355
tiary for a number of years and clerk of the appellate court since 1902,
Mr. Millspaugh has been a man of affairs since he began the practice
of law in 1889. In addition to the many public offices he has filled so
admirably he has been honored in divers ways as a private citizen, and
the esteem in which he is generally held in his community is evidenced
by the many important positions of trust he holds in connection with
financial and other organizations in Mount Vernon.
Albert C. Millspaugh was born on September 26, 1858, in White
County, Illinois. He is the son of John and Sarah (Began) Millspaugh,
of Dutch and Irish descent. John Millspaugh was a native of Orange
county, New York, born there in 1815. He was a member of the medical
profession and passed his life in the practice of medicine. He was the
son of Daniel G. Millspaugh, born December 26, 1781, in Orange county,
New York, and the grandson of John Millspaugh, born January 22, 1758.
The latter was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and fought and was
wounded at Bunker Hill, and his father was Peter Millspaugh, who
immigrated from Germany to America in about 1750.
When quite a young man Dr. John Millspaugh went to Kentucky,
thence to White county, Illinois, where he remained for some years en-
gaged in the practice of medicine, and later, in 1876, he removed to
Gallatin county, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away
there in 1898. Dr. and Mrs. Millspaugh reared a family of nine chil-
dren, including: J. W., in Shawneetown; Mrs. Margaret A. Joyner, of
Equality ; Daniel, a farmer in Gallatin county ; Mrs. Emma Fowler, also
of Gallatin county; Robert L., of Shawneetown; J. M., a farmer and
stock breeder of Equality ; William L., of Equality ; and Albert C., clerk
of the appellate court of the fourth district.
The preliminary education of Albert C. Millspaugh was obtained in
the schools of Shawneetown, which he attended after he was twenty-one
years of age, paying for the privilege five cents per day as tuition. After
leaving his studies he was employed for some years in the offices of the
circuit clerk and the county sheriff, reading law in his spare moments.
In 1889 he had so far advanced with his studies that he was admitted to
the bar, and in that same year he was elected to the office of city at-
torney. For a number of years he served the city as clerk, and in 1894
he was elected mayor of Shawneetown. He discharged the duties of his
office in such a manner that he was again elected in 1896, serving from
April of that year to January, 1897, at which time he was appointed
chief clerk of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester, and he re-
signed from the mayoralty to assume the duties of his new position. He
held that office for a period of six years, and was still in office when he
was elected clerk of the appellate court of the fourth district, which com-
prises the thirty-four southern counties of the state. He resigned his
position as clerk of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary to assume, as in
former years, the place higher up, and after six years of praiseworthy
service in that berth was re-elected in 1908. He bears the honor and
distinction of being the first and only Republican ever elected to that
office since the court was established in 1877. Following his resignation
at the State Penitentiary and his election to the clerkship, he moved to
Mount Vernon, where he has since been a resident. In January, 1912,
Mr. Millspaugh was elected to the directorate of the Third National Bank
of Mount Vernon, and he has been variously connected with the leading
enterprises of that city since he established his residence in it. In 1906
he was one of the leaders in the organization of the Jefferson County
Fair Association, and served as president of that organization until 1911,
when he resigned, owing to the pressure of other matters of a more im-
portant nature. Mr. Millspaugh is a member of the Poultry Raisers'
1356 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Association, which he has assisted very materially in financial and other
ways. He bears an enviable reputation not only in Mount Vernon and
Jefferson county, but throughout all Southern Illinois, where he has a
wide acquaintance. Mr. Millspaugh is in line for further honors at the
hands of the people and his party, if popular sentiment is any criterion
as a guide to the future. In addition to the many calls upon his time and
attention he has been able to give some consideration to the claims of the
many fraternal organizations extant in Mount Vernon, and has become
affiliated with the A. F. & A. M., being a member of the Blue Lodge, H.
W. Hubbard Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, and Patton Com-
mandery, No. 69, Knights Templar, of Mount Vernon. He is also a
member of the Knights of Pythias of Mt. Vernon and the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks of East St. Louis, and a member of the
Council at Mt. Vernon.
On January 14, 1894, Mr. Millspaugh married Miss Julia Scanland,
of Shawneetown, the daughter of William Scanland, at one time a lead-
ing business taan and prominent citizen of that city.
PETER J. VALTEK, vice-president of the Gallatin County Bank, of
Ridgeway, Illinois, and one of his section's leading capitalists, has been
engaged in various lines of business for a number of years in Ridgeway,
has associated himself with enterprises for the development of Gallatin
county land, and is now the owner of much valuable real estate in this
part of the state. Mr. Valter is a product of Brown county, Ohio, and
was born December 26, 1864, a son of Nicholas and Barbara (Pfarr)
Valter.
Nicholas Valter was a native of the province of Alsace, France, and
came to the United States as a young man, settling in Ohio, where he.
was married to Barbara Pfarr, a native of Bavaria, Germany. During
the spring of 1883 he came to Gallatin county, Illinois, and purchased
a tract of sixty acres of farming land adjoining the village of Ridge-
way, erecting the present family home during that same year. He also
owned a farm near Bartley Station, and the remainder of his life was
devoted to clearing and cultivating these properties, on which he erected
four tenant houses. His death occurred in 1887, when he was fifty-
eight years of age, in the faith of the Catholic church. His widofa sur-
vived her husband three years and was also fifty-eight years old at the
time of her death. Three of their children grew to maturity, as follows :
Mary, wife of Alexander Drone, of Evansville, Indiana, whose son,
Marion, is cashier of the First National Bank of Ridgeway ; Peter J. ;
and Katie, who is the widow of Henry Zirkelbach.
Peter J. Valter assisted his father to clear the home farm until he
was twenty years of age, and then, having secured a good public school
education in Ohio, became a teacher and continued as such for four
years. At the time of his father's death he returned home and took
charge of the farm, being appointed administrator of the estate, and
subsequently laid out Valter 's Addition to Ridgeway, a tract of nine
acres. He acquired the Bartley Station farm and a part of the old
homestead, and subsequently sold the addition, on which the public
school now stands. In 1890 Mr. Valter embarked in the lumber and
building material business at Ridgeway, but after five years of suc-
cessful operation sold his interests and rented his farms. He had been
one of the original stockholders when the Gallatin County State Bank
was organized in 1895, and since that time he has served as its vice-
president and also acted for a time as assistant cashier. In 1898 the
Ridgeway Dry Goods Company was organized, and Mr. Valter was its
president for three years, devoting a part of his time to the store, but
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1357
eventually sold his interest and began to invest in land. He added to
the Bartley farm and secured twenty acres inside of the corporation
limits, which has subsequently become the Citizens Addition to Ridge-
way. This farm is operated by tenants, as is also his 280-acre tract
situated east of Ridgeway, and both are in an excellent state of cul-
tivation. This land, which cost Mr. Valter from twenty-two to seventy
dollars per acre, is now all worth in excess of one hundred dollars an
acre. Mr. Valter is possessed of the happy faculty of recognizing an
opportunity and being able to grasp it, and his large operations have
made him known in the business, realty and financial fields. No man
stands higher in the esteem of his business associates and fellow towns-
men, and any enterprise with which his name is connected has the en-
tire confidence of the people.
On June 20, 1906, Mr. Valter was married to Miss Celia Zirkelbach,
who was born in Indiana and reared in Illinois, and they have had
two children : Arnold, who is four years old ; and Dolores, who is two.
The family is connected with St. Joseph's Catholic church. Mr. Val-
ter is a Democrat in his political views, and has served very acceptably
as village clerk and as a member of the board of trustees.
J. CYRIL BEGG. Thus far in hi£ life the career of J. Cyril Begg has
been one of abounding interest, filled with experiences which do not
make up a part of the existence of the average man. He has traveled
widely, in a capacity calculated to permit him to see a side of life with
which few of us are familiar, and after fifteen years of roving has set-
tled down in Mount Vernon as vice-president and general manager of
the Collins Produce Company, organized and incorporated on March 1,
1907, as a direct result of his efforts. It is one of the largest concerns
of its kind in the country, and under the able management of its vice-
president and manager is making steady and persistent strides in con-
servative advancement.
J. Cyril Begg was born October 7, 1875, in Canada. He is the
son of Victor Begg, also a native of Canada and still residing at Moose
Creek, Ontario, where his father, James Begg, the grandfather of J.
Cyril Begg, settled when he immigrated from Dundee, Scotland, as a
young man. Victor Begg married Martha Blair, the daughter of
Joseph Blair, a native of Drogheda, Ireland, who immigrated to Canada
when a young man, and they were the parents of eight children, two of
whom are deceased. Those living are Wilbert, a farmer near the old
homestead in Canada ; J. Cyril, of Mount Vernon ; Walter, in New York
City; Melvin. on the old homestead; Laura, married and living in
Canada ; Nellie, who is at home. Cevilla and Mary are deceased.
J. Cyril Begg was reared on the farm home at Moose Creek, Ontario.
His schooling was, for the most part, given him in the Cornwall high
school. After leaving school he clerked in a country store in a small
town in Ontario, and in 1892 he left there and went to Cleveland, Ohio,
where he was in the employ of his uncle in a store for the space of a
year. In 1893 he went to Chicago, attracted by the great World's Fair
then being carried on in that city, and he followed various occupations
there for several months. In the latter part of that year .he went to
New York, where he was variously employed for some time, after which
he took a position on a stock farm at Oradell, New Jersey. From there
he went to Spark Hill, New York, where he was employed in a similar
capacity, and on his next move he went to Liverpool, England, with a
load of trotting horses for his employer, who was engaged in the horse
business, handling, training and trotting horses, with headquarters in
New York City. A few years later he was sent to Vienna, Austria, in
1358 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
charge of eighteen head of trotting horses valued at $38,000. He lived
in Vienna for sixteen months and on his return trip to America made
a tour of Germany, Ireland and Scotland, arriving in Philadelphia in
1898, with the intention of enlisting in the United States army. His
application was refused, however, and he accordingly went to Belle-
mead, New Jersey, where he was again employed in the horse business.
Some little time after that he gave up his connection with that line of
work and opened a restaurant in Guttenberg, New Jersey, continuing
with that business until 1901, when he removed to New York and again
had charge of two stables, which sheltered the most famous trotting
and pacing horses known to the world at that time, which was at the
opening of the New York speedway. Later he became engaged with
the West Washington Poultry Market, remaining with that firm for one
year, after which he went into business for himself as a live poultry
dealer in New York City. He was soon crowded out of that business by
a combination of interests, and he went on the road as a buyer of poul-
try for the firm of Charles Collins Company of New York City. His
territory was wide in its scope, covering a stretch from New York to
Arkansas. In Southern Illinois he was deeply impressed by the every-
where visible opportunities for opening a business similar to that in
which he was then engaged, and returning to New York City he suc-
ceeded in interesting sufficient capital to float the enterprise for which
his keen mind had already laid plans, and on March 1, 1907, the Collins
Produce Company was incorporated with a capital stock of twenty
thousand dollars. The concern is officered thus : President, E. V. Dwyer ;
vice-president and general manager, J. Cyril Begg ; secretary and treas-
urer, A. G. Dwyer. The firm has grown apace since its inception, and
now has six branch houses in Southern Illinois and Indiana, they being
located severally at Mount Vernon, Cypress, Centralia. Vincennes, Flora
and Olney. The volume of business done by this young concern is
phenomenal, in 1911 aggregating over $551,000. The main office is in
New York City, and the firm ships live poultry to points extending from
Portland, Maine, to Tampa, Florida.
In addition to his business interests Mr. Begg has come to be rec-
ognized as a man of many splendid qualities. His citizenship is of an
unusually high order, and he is particularly active in any work or move-
ment intended for the betterment of the general welfare. He is a mem-
ber of the Presbyterian church of Mount Vernon, and active in all de-
partments of its work, serving as one of the board of deacons of that
church. He is also and has been for three years past the president of
the One Hundred Men,'s Bible Class, which he was instrumental in or-
ganizing. He is prominent in fraternal circles, being a member of
Mount Vernon lodge, No. 31, A. F. & A. M.; H. W. Hubbard Chapter,
No. 160, Royal Arch Masons; Patton Commandery, No. 69, Knights
Templar ; and is the worthy patron of Mount Vernon Chapter, No. 233,
Order of Eastern Star, as well as being a member of Marion lodge, No.
13, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
On October 24, 1900, Mr. Begg was married in New York City to
Miss Anna Dickson, a native of Manchester. England.
Mr. Begg is an author of well known ability, and among other popu-
lar productions he has written:
"THE MISSOURI HEN SONG"
We read about the "Nutmeg State" and the State of the Red-men's
home.
The "Granite State," the "Creole State" and the State where the
gophers roam,
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1359'
They tell about the "Golden State" and the State of William Penn.
But give me old Missouri, with her Hen-Hen-Hen.
Chorus :
Indiana has her Hoosiers, Illinois her mines,
Kentucky has her blue-grass, and Maine, her lonely pines,
Arizona has her sand-hills, Ohio, famous men,
But give me old Missouri, with her Hen-Hen-Hen.
They call Missouri the great mule State, and "Kick that yeller houn,"
And preach about the many things that 's hid beneath the ground.
They boast about her famous Ozarks, but — Crawl into my den,
And I '11 sing to you the praises of the Hen-Hen-Hen.
Chorus :
Montana has her mountain land, Virginia, "Pan Handle Pete,"
North Carolina has her turpentine, Wisconsin's hard to beat,
Nevada is the "Sage Hen State" but — Let us say Amen — •
For the ' ' Show Me State, ' ' Missouri, with her Hen-Hen-Hen. ' '
CHARLES DREW TUFTS, or as he is familiarly called, Drew Tufts, is
an interesting son of an interesting father. The father is now dead, but
the son is in the prime of life, and each day sees new triumphs added to
his career. Samuel P. Tufts, the father, was born in Fitchburg, Massa-
chusetts, on the 28th of January, 1827. When he was a child of seven
his parents went to Missouri to live, and there his childhood days were
passed. When he was twelve years old they moved to Collinsville, Illi-
nois, and here he received the greater part of his education. His ele-
mentary education was obtained in the near-by city of St. Louis, where
he attended both private and public schools. He afterward attended
the high school in Collinsville, where he completed his education. His
father, believing that every man should have a trade or a profession,
sent the lad to Racine, Wisconsin, to learn the carpenter trade, but before
he was ready to make use of the knowledge thus acquired the Mexican
war broke out. He lost no time in enlisting, and was enrolled in Com-
pany F, Fifteenth United States Infantry. This regiment was enlisted
for five years or until the close of the war. They first spent a month
drilling and geting into shape for the real work later on, at Camp Wash-
ington, near Cincinnati, Ohio, and then marched southward to the Gulf
of Mexico and embarked on board a ship that landed in Vera Cruz.
They then proceeded to Pueblo and joined the command of General
Winfield Scott. From this time until General Scott entered Mexico City
the regiment was with him in all of the engagements, among these being
Cerro Gordo, where a narrow pass was the scene of action ; Churubusco,
where the American army numbered eight thousand, and the Mexicans,
twenty to twenty-five thousand ; Chapultepec, in which a strong castle,
well fortified and garrisoned, was the center of the fighting, which was
perhaps the fiercest of the war. To the regiment of which Mr. Tufts
was a member was given the honor of holding this castle of Chapultepec.
The city of Mexico was entered on the 14th of September, 1847, and the
war was ended. Mr. Tufts was mustered out of service at Covingtou,
Kentucky, and immediately returned to his home in Collinsville, Illi-
nois. He remained here for a short time, but the scenes of excitement
through which he had passed made the quiet life of the little town seem
unbearable. He was essentially a man of action, and if there were a
1360 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
dearth of activity in the world around him he set to work and manu-
factured it, as we shall see later.
He now decided to go west and seek his fortune in the gold fields of
California, so with an ox-team and a party of six set out on a long and
dangerous journey in 1850. The first part of the way, across the great
plains, was accomplished without great difficulty, but when the arid lands
were reached their troubles began. They lost all of their stock and suf-
fered tortures through lack of food and water, and finally, when they
reached their goal, their friends would not have known them, so thin and
emaciated, sun-burnt and ragged did they appear. Samuel Tufts at
once bought an outfit and started mining. He kept industriously at it
for two years, and achieved a fair success. The longing for home at last
came over him, and like so many others who had found at least a little
of the gold which they sought he decided to return home. He came back
by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and reached Illinois in 1853. The
following winter he was perfectly content to spend in Belleville, quietly
pursuing his trade as a carpenter. In 1854 he came to Centralia and
engaged in the carpenter trade until the outbreak of the Civil war. When
this occurred he hastened to enlist in the First Illinois Cavalry, Com-
pany H. He assisted in raising this company and was elected first lieu-
tenant. It was under the command of Colonel Oglesby, who was after-
wards governor of Illinois. Lieutenant Tufts took part in the battles of
New Madrid and of Island Number Ten. He had the unique duty of
carrying the first flag of truce known to the Union. He was mustered
out of the service at St. Louis, Missouri, in July, 1862, and was ap-
pointed deputy collector of internal revenues. He held this office for two
years, and shortly after his term had expired, in 1864, he was appointed
as delegate to the National Republican Convention in Baltimore that had
the honor of nominating Abraham Lincoln for his second presidential
term.
In 1866 Mr. Tufts was appointed mail agent between Cairo and Cen-
tralia, and until 1869 he performed the duties of this office. The year be-
fore, 1868, he had been very active in establishing the first Democratic
paper in the city, the Democrat. He served as secretary and manager of
this publication and in 1871, so interested had he become in its success,
that he acquired complete control of it. For twelve years, or until his
son was old enough to take charge, he managed the affairs of the paper,
in addition to all the other activities in which he was concerned. In
1870 he was given the contract for building a railroad through Christian
county, Illinois. This task had been abandoned by two contractors be-
fore him, for the road bed had to be cut through solid rock in some places.
At about this time he was also granted the contract for building the Cairo
Short Line between Pinckneyville and DuQuoin. He held numerous
political offices, both under appointment and by election. He was post-
master of the house of representatives in 1883-4 and was postmaster of
Centralia during Cleveland's administrations. He served one term as
alderman and three terms as city clerk.
Mr. Tufts was a prominent Odd Fellow and was elected to represent
his lodge at the Grand Encampment of the state. He was also president
of the National and the State Association of Veterans of the Mexican
war. He was married on the 4th of October, 1857, to Zerelda Goodwin,
who was born and reared .in Clark county, Indiana. She was a well-
educated woman, having done her advanced work in Bloomfield Semi-
nary, Bloomfield, Kentucky. Her father, John Goodwin, was a native
Kentuckian, having been born in Nicholsville. When he moved to Indi-
ana he went into the farming industry on a large scale and was very
successful. He had been a soldier in the War of 1812, and had taken
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1361
part in the battle of Tippecanoe. He died in Clark county, Indiana, in
1859. Samuel Tufts passed through some of the most exciting years in
the history of our country and was a participant in some of the events
that were to mould the future life of the nation. His death on the 4th
of October, 1903, was a severe loss not only to his family, but to the whole
community.
Charles Drew Tufts was born in Centralia, Illinois, on the 27th of
January, 1864. He was educated in his home town, and was graduated
from the high school in 1882. He immediately went into newspaper
work, beginning to edit the Democrat in 1883. Since this time the paper
has been recognized as a power in newspaperdom. The editorials are
eagerly read, for Mr. Tufts has a clear insight into modern affairs and
has no hesitation about expressing himself. His writing is keen, clever
and goes straight to the heart of the matter. It is singularly free from
the faults of modern newspaper writing, while it possesses all the virtues,
of being clear, concise and vivid. Mr. Tufts is the author of a book which
has been published by the McClurg Publishing Company, of Chicago.
This is in the form of a political novel, entitled Hiram Blair, and has
met with a cordial welcome by the public.
Drew Tufts has been honored with several positions of public trust.
He was president of the board of education for one term, and during
the administration of Governor Altgeld, was private secretary to the
lieutenant-governor. He was a member of the Democratic state com-
mittee, and has been master in chancery for Marion county. Needless to
say, he is an active supporter of the Democratic party, and in the coming
struggle he will be relied on as one of the strongest Democrats in the
state. In his own profession he is a member of the Illinois Press Asso-
ciation and has served as president of this body. He is deeply interested
in the fraternal orders and is a member of several. He is a Mason, be-
longing to Centralia Lodge, No. 201. He is also a member of Centralia
Chapter, No. 93, Royal Arch Masons, Centralia Council, No. 28, Royal
and Select Masters, and 'of Gyrene Commandery, No. 23, Knights Tem-
plar. He is a Knight of Pythias and also an Elk. He belongs to the
Eastern Star in addition to all of the others. His activities in these
various orders take no small share of his time. In the business world he
is known as one of the organizers of the Centralia Water Supply Com-
pany and as its president. This company furnishes the city with water
and they own the largest artificial body of water in the state of Illinois.
The people of the state will do well to keep their eye on Drew Tufts, for
he has shown of what stuff he is made in his past activities in the field
of politics, and now that the crisis in political affairs is approaching, it
is quite evident that he will be called into action as one of the leaders.
ILLINOIS STATE TRUST COMPANY. Among the substantial and
admirably managed institutions which contribute in an important degree
to the financial stability and commercial prestige of Southern Illinois
is the Illinois State Trust Company, of East St. Louis, which conducts'
a general banking and trust business and which bases its operations on a
capital stock of three hundred thousand dollars, with a surplus fund
of one hundred thousand dollars. This important corporation rep-
resents a coalition of various banking interests. It was organized and
incorporated in 1902, and its original executive corps was as here noted :
President, J. C. Van Riper; vice-presidents Paul W. Abt, Thomas L.
Fekete and Dr. H. J. DeHaan ; cashier, Paul W. Abt ; secretary and
treasurer, R. L. Rinaman. The new institution was incorporated with
a capital of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and in January,
1907, upon its consolidation with the First National Bank, the capital
1362 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
stock was increased to three hundred thousand dollars, with the provi-
sion also of a surplus of one hundred thousand dollars. In 1909 the
Illinois State Trust Company also absorbed the City National Bank,
and thus it still farther expanded its field of operations and sphere of
usefulness. In 1907 the company erected for its use a fine modern
structure of six stories, known as the Cahokia building, and the first
floor is devoted to the commercial banking departments ; the second floor
to the savings and trust departments ; and the remaining four floors to
general office purposes through rental. The banking house and real
estate of the institution represent a valuation of $186,536.06, as in-
dicated in the official statement of the corporation, and from the state-
ment given at the close of business on the 21st of February, 1912, the
following significant figures are taken : Loans and discounts, $1,706,-
561.77 ; bonds and stocks, $405,956.90 ; cash on hand and in banks,
$481,147.20; undivided profits, $11,963.72 ; .reserve for taxes, $11,314.81;
deposits, $2,161,917.67. Besides conducting a commercial banking bus-
iness of general order the Illinois State Trust Company maintains and
gives special attention to its saving department, has a well equipped
safety-deposit department, and is authorized under its charter from the
state to act as administrator, executor, guardian, assignee or receiver,
and to receive and execute trusts of all kinds. It has as its stockholders
the highest order of business and professional men, — citizens whose
very association with the enterprise stands as a voucher for its leg-
itimacy and value and assures unqualified popular approbation. The
personel of the executive corps of the institution at the time of this
writing is as follows: Robert E. Gillespie, president; Paul W. Abt,
vice-president and cashier; Louis B. Washburn and Thomas L. Pekete,
vice-presidents; Joel M. Bowlby, secretary; and Arthur W. Baltz, as-
sistant cashier.
There is all of consistency in giving in this connection a brief record
concerning the genesis and history of the institutions of which the Illi-
nois State Trust Company figures as the lineal successor. In 1865
there was organized the East St. Louis Real Estate & Savings Bank, of
whose capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars seventy-eight thou-
sand were paid in. The president and cashier of this institution were
Messrs. Toomer and Karst, respectively. This early banking house
was succeeded by the East St. Louis Bank, of which Henry Ocbike be-
came president and Theodore Messman, cashier. In 1891 was organized
(as successor to this bank) the First National Bank of East St. Louis,
which continued to conduct under this title a large and prosperous
business until the consolidation with the Illinois State Trust Company,
in 1907, as already noted. The officers of the First National Bank at
the time of this amalgamation of interests were as here noted : Paul W.
Abt, president; Dr. H. C. Fairbrother, vice-president; and Henry C.
Griesediek, cashier. The bank had a capital of one hundred thousand
dollars and a surplus of five thousand. The City National Bank, merged
with the Illinois State Trust Company in 1909, was incorporated on the
29th of October, 1907, with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dol-
lars, and at the time of its consolidation M. M. Stephens was president
and Robert E. Gillespie, cashier, the latter being now president of the
Illinois State Trust Company, as has already been noted.
PAUL W. ABT. Far and wide throughout our vast national domain
are found palpable evidences that no foreign land has contributed to
our complex American social fabric a more valuable element than has the
great empire of Germany. The German citizen in our republic has as
similated thoroughly the essence of our laws and institutions and, while
TJtelLIBRARY
OF THE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1363
cherishing the best heritages of his fatherland, has brought to bear in-
sistent and well directed energy, maturity of judgmezit and marked
business perspicacity. The value of all this may well be appreciated, and
that community is fortunate which has had German citizens to foster its
development and progress. In the city of East St. Louis one of the most
honored and influential citizens of German birth is he whose name in-
itiates this paragraph. He has won through his own ability and efforts
a large success in connection with the legitimate activities of business
and has proved himself liberal and loyal in all that signifies model
citizenship. He is at the present time treasurer of St. Glair county and
vice-president and cashier of the Illinois State Trust Company, one of
the most solid and important financial institutions of this favored section
of the state. He has been for many years a prominent factor in the
financial and business activities of his home city, has done much to
further its material and civic advancement and holds impregnable van-
tage ground in popular confidence and esteem, so that he is eminently
entitled to recognition in this history of Southern Illinois.
Paul William Abt was born in the town of Esslingen, kingdom of
Wurtemberg, Germany, on the 25th of April, 1845, and is a son of Wil-
liam and Caroline (Class) Abt, who passed their entire lives in that sec-
tion of the empire, the father having been a prosperous merchant in the
ancient walled town or city of Esslingen, and having been honored for
his sterling character. Both he and his wife were earnest members of
the German Evangelical Association. The excellent schools of his na-
tive city afforded Paul W. Abt his early educational advantages, which
included the curriculum of the gymnasium or high school. In 1864, at
the age of nineteen years, he set forth to seek his fortunes in the United
States, as he was confident that this country afforded better advantages
for the gaining of independence and prosperity through individual ef-
fort. He had received excellent training in his father's mercantile
establishment and for a number of years after coming to America he
gave his attention to clerical work, in connection with which he was
employed in stores in Cincinnati, Chicago, Omaha and St. Louis. It will
thus be seen that he traveled in various parts of the country, but he was
at all times alert to avail himself of the opportunities presented and in his
nature was naught of predilection for idleness. In 1873 Mr. Abt identi-
fied himself with the wholesale liquor business in East St. Louis, Illinois,
where he has maintained his home during the long intervening years and
where he has risen to secure place as one of the representative citizens
of this thriving community. He continued in the business mentioned for
fourteen years, with ever increasing success, and then withdrew from the
same to assume, in 1887, the position of cashier in the East St. Louis
Bank, in which he became a stockholder. In 1890 he effected the organi-
zation of the First National Bank of East St. Louis, of which he became
the first president. Under his careful and conservative administration
as chief executive this institution forged rapidly to the front and became
one of the solid and representative banking houses of this part of the state.
In 1902 Mr. Abt became one of the organizers of the Illinois State Trust
Company, and in January, 1907, was effected the consolidation of the
same with the First National Bank, under the original title of the former,
the City National Bank having been merged with the other two in the
same year. Mr. Abt thus continued president of the First National
Bank for fourteen consecutive years, at the expiration of which he as-
sumed his present dual office of vice-president and cashier of the Illinois
State Trust Company, which has profited largely through his able services
as an executive. He was also one of the organizers of the Provident
Association, of which he served as president for six years.
1364 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
As a progressive and public-spirited citizen Mr. Abt has shown a vital
interest in local affairs and has given his support to those measures and
enterprises which have fostered the general good of the community. He
served ten years as a valued member of the board of education, in which
he was chairman of the finance committee, and in 1910 there was given
emphatic evidence of his strong hold upon the confidence and esteem of
the people of the county in his election to the office of county treasurer,
for a term of four years. It is unnecessary to state that in the super-
vision of the fiscal affairs of the county he is showing the same careful
and honorable methods that have conserved his personal success in busi-
ness. In politics he accords a staunch allegiance to the Republican party
and is well fortified in his opinions. Both he and his wife are zealous
members of the German Evangelical Association, to the support of which
religious denomination they contribute with consistent liberality. Mr.
Abt is a popular factor in the business and social activities of his home
city, where he is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of
Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks.
On the 3d of December, 1874, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
Abt to Miss Ottilie Ida Buettner, of East St. Louis, and they have four
children, — Ernest, Martha, Paul and Ferdinand.
JAMES WARREN HAMILTON, M. D. For fifteen years a practicing
physician and surgeon in Mount Vernon, and since 1909 in charge of the
Egyptian Hospital of that place, Dr. Hamilton takes precedence over
many of his confreres in Southern Illinois by reason of his splendid abil-
ity and worthy accomplishments in the field of his profession. His high
professional standing is no less important than the esteem in which he is
generally held in the city which he has made his home during fifteen
years of service, and his ever widening circle of well-wishing friends is
indicative of the genuine worth of the man, aside from his professional
capacity.
Born on April 24, 1871, in Waltonville, Illinois, asd reared in that
place, James Warren Hamilton is the son of Josiah A. Hamilton, a na-
tive of Ohio and the son of Orange Hamilton, also a native of the Buck-
eye state. Josiah A. Hamilton came to Jefferson county, Illinois, in 1836,
when he was four years of age. He was born in 1832, and died in Sep-
tember, 1896. He passed his life in Jefferson county as a farmer, and in
that business was always fairly prosperous. He married Hannah E.
Boswell, the daughter of Samuel Boswell, an old pioneer settler and a
native of Tennessee, who was justice of the peace in his town for forty
years. Josiah A. Hamilton was a veteran of the Civil war, having
served one year in Company A, of the Thirty-second Illinois Regiment.
Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton reared a family of six children of the ten born to
them. They are : Orange, a resident of Waltonville ; Elenora, who be-
came the wife of Daniel R. Webb and died in 1909, leaving two children,
Raymond Edward and Ruby May ; Lucretia, who married Leslie C. Man-
nen and is still living at Waltonville, Illinois; Vincent, a farmer near
Sheller, as is also Charles ; and James Warren, a practicing physician at
Mount Vernon.
James Warren Hamilton was educated in the common school of his
home town, and when he was eighteen years of age be began teaching,
continuing with that work for three years. His determination to study
medicine was early formed, and in 1892 he entered Barnes Medical Col-
lege of St. Louis, and was graduated from that institution in 1895. Dr.
Hamilton began the practice of his profession at Ina, Illinois, in April.
1895, continuing there for two years. He then located in Mount Vernon.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1365
in which highly prosperous city he has remained continuously since then.
He has taken a number of valuable post-graduate courses in medicine
and surgery, the latter being his specialty, and for the past five years has
devoted his time entirely to that branch of the work. Dr. Hamilton is
a member of the Jefferson County, Illinois, and Southern Illinois Medical
Associations, being president of the latter named society in 1908, and is
a member of the American Medical Association, in all of which he is
active and prominent. He is a member of the National Association of
Railway Surgeons, and is the official surgeon of the Chicago & Eastern
Illinois, Louisville & Nashville and Wabash, Chester & Western. Dr.
Hamilton has for some time lectured regularly before the class in Surgical
Diagnosis at the Barnes Medical University of St. Louis, of which he is a
graduate.
Since 1909 Dr. Hamilton has been in charge of the Egyptian Hospital,
which came into existence in the summer of 1903, and until November,
1908, was conducted at 1919 College avenue. The building was a frame
affair, and was partially burned in 1904. It was rebuilt, but one Sunday
morning in November, 1908, a second fire, due to defective wiring, broke
out, and the hospital was practically destroyed. Early in January, Drs.
Hamilton and Gilmore assumed the management of the hospital, and
since then it has been in their charge. On September 1, 1909, the new
hospital was completed and the name changed to the Egyptian Hospital,
but the training school, which was established in 1906, has retained the
name of the Mount Vernon Training School for Nurses.
The new building is centrally located on North Eleventh street, one
and one half blocks from the public square, and is a model of complete-
ness from every standpoint. It is a three-story building built of brick,
and is practically fire-proof. On the top floor is situated the operating
room, one of the finest in the state, as is also the sterilizing room and nine
large, airy rooms for patients. The halls on this, as on the other floors,
are ten feet wide, making splendid apartments for convalescents and in-
suring plenty of ventilation. On the second floor are situated the doctors'
private library, superintendent's room, obstetrical ward and a four bed
ward, which is used chiefly for railway injuries. This floor is reserved as
much as possible for medical cases and contains nine fine, airy rooms.
The first floor, or American basement, contains the offices of Dr. J. "W.
Hamilton and Dr. W. H. Gilmore, with the laboratory in the front
part, while the rear is given up to nurses' quarters, rooms for help,
dining room, and kitchen and store rooms. The entire building is heated
throughout with hot water furnished by the Citizens' Gas, Electric and
Heating Company, and insures a temperature of seventy-two degrees
Fahrenheit on the coldest day or night.. The operating room has been
equipped with sufficient radiation to hold a minimum temperature of
eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. All rooms and halls are lighted with
electricity, and the equipment is such that the hospital can offer the
best of service at a minimum figure.
The Egyptian Hospital is distinctly a private affair, although the
proprietors welcome the patients of other physicians, and they are as-
sured the same careful attention that is given to their own private
cases. The hospital library is a very complete collection and is equipped
with all the standard medical journals and books on nursing, the library
being at all times at the disposal of students, and members of the profes-
sion not connected with the hospital are free to make use of the library
at will. The laboratory is one of the most complete of its kind in the
state, and is much in demand by members of the medical fraternity in
and about Mount Vernon who wish analyses at any time.
Since the hospital has been under the direct management of Dr.
1366 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Hamilton it has handled an average of five hundred surgical operations
yearly, with a mortality rate of two per cent, — a record which is unsur-
passed elsewhere in the United States, attributed directly to the skill of
the attendant physicians and surgeons and the conscientious and unremit-
ting care of the combined staff of doctors and nurses. The hospital has
a state charter, and its nurses' training school in connection with the
hospital is thoroughly modern in every respect. The training depart-
ment is in charge of Miss Lena Estes as superintendent, and they have
accommodations for a class of twelve. The hospital has done a deal of in-
vestigating along the lines of vaccine therapeutics, with marked suc-
cess, and have specialized in the treatment of tubercular diseases.
The staff of physicians connected with the hospital are Dr. Moss
Maxey, in charge of internal medicine ; Dr. Wilbur Hawley Gilmore,
pathologist and bacteriologist ; Dr. George Tupper, specialist in diseases
of eye, ear, nose and throat; and Dr. Hamilton, manager and surgeon
in chief.
While the hospital is under the ownership and control of Dr. Hamil-
ton, the policy of the institution in exceedingly liberal to the public
and towards other physicians, and the unqualified success of the hospital
since it came into the management and ownership of Dr. Hamilton is
ample evidence of the ability of the doctor in his professional capacity,
and of his enviable standing in the community as a man of splendid
character and intrinsic worth.
In 1892 Dr. Hamilton was united in marriage with Cora A. Webb,
daughter of Daniel R. Webb. Two children have been born to them.
They are Clarence, a student in the St. Louis Medical College, and
Wilma Opal, now fifteen years of age and a student in the Mount
Vernon high school.
GEORGE W. ZIEBOLD. Men contribute by various services and diversi-
fied gifts to the building up of a city — some by the foundations of
law and municipal order; others give themselves to founding churches
and schools; still others open up avenues of commerce and furnish
facilities for the transaction of business; in a thousand different but
converging directions they bend their energies, according to some
occult law of organization, to the common weal. Among all the
various lines of activity none has been more promotive of the reputa-
tion of Waterloo, Illinois, than the milling business, and the men who
are at the head of the large industries here have been the city's real
benefactors. Among those who have identified themselves with the
milling business in Waterloo, George W. Ziebold occupies a prominent
place. As secretary, treasurer and general manager of the Waterloo
Milling Company he has charge of one of the largest enterprises of
this section, and he has also served as chief executive of the city with
such distinction that it was difficult for him to resign the office. Mr.
Ziebold was born March 1, 1860, at California, Missouri, and is a son
of Gottlieb and Magdalena (Schnaiter) Ziebold.
The political struggles of some of the European countries have
contributed largely to America's best citizenship, and it was thus that
this country gained benefits accruing from the activities of Gottlieb
Ziebold. Born in Baden, Germany, as a young man he became identi-
fied with the movement to secure independence for that country, ally-
ing himself and his fortunes with the young band of patriots who
were destined to exile. He was forced to flee from his native land in
1848, in which year he came to the United States and located at Pough-
keepsie. New York, subsequently going to Ohio and later to Missouri.
In 1863 he engaged in the milling business at California, Missouri,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1367
and in 1867 transferred his activities to Monroe county, Illinois, where
the remainder of his life was spent, his death occurring at Red Bud,
Illinois, on the 26th of December, 1911, at the age of eighty-nine. He
was first married to Miss Magdalena Schnaiter, and they had five chil-
dren, as follows: George W. ; Nelson G., who died in 1900, at Red Bud,
Illinois ; Mrs. Joseph W. Rickert, who died in 1900, at Waterloo ; Mrs.
Mary Bonnet, wife of the famous perfume maker of Geneva, Switzer-
land, and Paris, France ; and Charles F., one of the most eminent at-
torneys of St. Louis, author of the Free Bridge Bill, originator of the
well-known phrase "No Bridge, No Bonds," president of the West
End Business Men's Association. Gottlieb Ziebold married for his
second wife Mrs. Margaret (Schneider) Miller, of Bavaria, and they
had three children : Mrs. Anna Helber, of Red Bud ; and William and
Gottlieb, who are engaged in the milling business at that place.
George W. Ziebold secured his education in the schools of Monroe
City, Illinois, although the greater part of his knowledge has been
gained in later years. His advantages in youth were somewhat
limited, but he has been a great reader, a keen observer and a deep
thinker, and thus has secured the education which was denied him as
a lad. Reared in the atmosphere of the mills, it was only natural that
Mr. Ziebold should choose that vocation as his life work, and the posi-
tion that he has attained in the commercial world is ample evidence
that he chose well. The Waterloo Milling Company was established
in 1886 by Mr. Ziebold, and from a small and modest start it has grown
into one of the leading industries of the city, having a capacity of 250
barrels per day, and an elevator storage of 75.000. The following well-
known brands are sold throughout the southern states : ' ' Monarch, ' '
"America," "Blue Seal," "Oneeta." Mr. Ziebold is also president
of the G. Ziebold Milling Company, at Red Bud, this mill having a
capacity of 400 barrels and storage of 50,000 bushels. He is a direc-
tor in the Harrisonville Telephone Company, and since June 1, 1900,
has been a co-partner in the Commercial Bank of Waterloo. From the
beginning of its organization Mr. Ziebold has been a large stock holder
in the Central National Bank of St. Louis, one of the strongest and
most progressive as well as widely known financial institutions of St.
Louis. In January, 1912, he was elected a member of its board of
directors, by a unanimous vote.
While Mr. Ziebold 's business activities have made him well-known
in the commercial world, it has been as a public official that the general
public has known him best. From 1894 until 1904 he acted as mayor
of Waterloo, and upon retiring from that office was nearly elected
again, the voters freely scratching their tickets to substitute his name
in place of the regular party candidate. During his able administra-
tion the electric lighting plant and water works, owned by the eity,
were installed, and with the hope that he would secure for the city a
thorough sewerage system, the voters endeavored to send him back to
the chief executive's office even against his wishes. The sewerage sys-
tem is still conspicuous by its absence. Mr. Ziebold is a member of the
Commercial Club, and no movement for the public or civic welfare is
considered complete unless his name is enrolled with its supporters.
For nine years he has been an elder of the German Evangelical church,
in the work of which he is very active. His wife and children, how-
ever, belong to the Roman Catholic faith. Mr. Ziebold 's home life has
been beautiful and it has been a matter of almost general comment
among his neighbors that a cross word has never been heard in his
household. Examples are not few of men who have achieved prom-
inence in any one chosen field, but to attain eminence in the realm of
1368 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
business, earn the gratitude of the general public in the highest office
in its gift, and withal conduct oneself as a true, Christian gentleman,
is deserving of more than passing mention.
In 1883 Mr. Ziebold was married to Miss Minnie E. Hoffmeister, of
St. Louis, Missouri, daughter of Christian and Margaret (Hemm)
Hoffmeister, natives of Prussia, and sister of Christ, Charles, Jacob,
John, Fred, Nicolaus and Maximillian Hoffmeister, of whom John,
Nicolaus and Maximillian are deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Ziebold have
had the following children : George C.f who is engaged in business with
his father and acts as his assistant; Adina C., who is studying music
in New York; Clara M., Evelyn A., Florence M., Maximillian G. and
Loretta L. A., who reside at home; and Minnie, who died at the age
of seven months.
Although this sketch is brief, Mr. Ziebold 's life has been a busy one.
The various large enterprises with which he has identified himself have
served to take a great deal of his time and attention, but he has man-
aged to find leisure moments in which to entertain a hobby, and he
and his son George C. are joint owners of one of the finest show stables
in Southern Illinois. Here may be found such fine animals as "Forest
King, ' ' 1354 American Hackney Society, one of the best bred hackneys
in the United States; "Blondie Rose," champion five-gaited saddle
and high school horse; "Golden King" and "Golden Prince," car-
riage horses which have won prizes all over the southern part of the
state and have never been defeated; and "Glory Montrose," daughter
of "Artist Montrose," champion of the World's Columbian Exposi-
tion. A true lover of fine horse-flesh, Mr. Ziebold is recognized as an
authority, and his advice is eagerly sought in equinal matters.
GEORGE C. ZIEBOLD. Among the younger business men of Water-
loo, Illinois, none occupies a more prominent place than George C. Zie-
bold. Connected with the milling business, as assistant general man-
ager of the Waterloo Milling Company, of which his father is general
manager, he plays an important role in that industry which has done
so much towards building up the city of Waterloo. He has enjoyed
the benefits of a fine education, and he takes the attitude of the pro-
gressive, well-educated, broad minded university man. He is an active
and enthusiastic worker for the furthering of the interests of his home
town, and although still a very young man is recognized as one of the
leaders in the progressive development of Waterloo. He is filled with
the enthusiasm of youth, but he is too practical and level-headed to
let himself be swept into false channels. In short, he is a fine example
of that healthy clean-minded, intelligent class of American young
manhood that make American women the envied of all the feminine
world.
George C. Ziebold was born in a log house at Monroe City, Monroe
county, Illinois, on the 3rd of April, 1886. He is the son of George W.
Ziebold. His' mother was Minnie F. Hoffmeister, and the marriage of
his parents occurred in 1883. George C. Ziebold is the eldest of eight
children, seven of whom are living. Lack of space prevents more
than this brief mention of his father, who has had- a most interesting
and successful career, and who is one of the most prominent men in a
business, social or political way in Waterloo. On both his father's
and his mother's side Mr. Ziebold is descended from German ancestry,
and is thus one more example of why we so eagerly welcome members
of this nationality into our country.
In the fall of the year in which George C. Ziebold was born his
parents came to Waterloo, where Mr. Ziebold, Sr., established the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1369
Waterloo Milling Company. Here George C. Ziebold grew up, receiv-
ing his elementary education in St. Joseph's Academy in Waterloo,
and attending the University of Notre Dame, at Notre Dame, Indiana,
for his advanced work. He was a conscientious student at college, but
he was not a "grind," realizing that there are more valuable lessons
to be learned in college than those from books. He therefore found
the time to take an active part in athletics, and was an important mem-
ber of the social, literary and musical life of the university. He ac-
cordingly returned from college with a broad minded view of the ques-
tions of the day, and with a 'knowledge of men and affairs that could
not have been gleaned solely from books. In 1904 he became his
father's assistant as general manager of the plant of the Waterloo
Milling Company, in which capacity he is still engaged. Under his
father's tutelage he has proved to be an able and practical business
man, and should the time come when Mr. Ziebold, Sr., should choose
to retire he could do so with an easy conscience, for not only is he him-
self firmly convinced of his son's ability, but the younger man has won
the confidence of all of the business men of the community.
In politics Mr. Ziebold is a Republican, but he, like most of the
thinking men of the day, sees that it has become a question not of
parties but of men. The great parties, when it is brought down to a
last analysis, no longer stand for great and diverse principles, and
therefore Mr. Ziebold believes in voting for the best man for the office,
regardless of his party affiliations. This fact, which is typical of the
younger generation, is the great hope of the country to-day, and is one
reason why the citizenship of men like Mr. Ziebold means so much to
their communities. In his religious affiliations he is a communicant of
the Roman Catholic church, and in his religious views he is practical
and broad-minded. He is a member of St. Vincent's Benevolent So-
ciety. Mr. Ziebold was the prime mover in the organization of the
board of charities of the Waterloo Commercial Club and is the chair-
man of the board. He is a charter member of the Knights of Colum-
bus, being a trustee of the council and past grand knight of Waterloo
Council, No. 1334. He is also treasurer of the Waterloo Flower Asso-
ciation.
Despite his youth he is a prominent leader in the Waterloo Com-
mercial Club. Much of his time has been given to the various projects
which this club has set on foot for the development and growth of
Waterloo, and he is now treasurer of the club. He is a musician by
gift of Nature, and performs on almost every kind of musical instru-
ment. He is not only an interpreter of the compositions of others but
he has composed music of considerable merit himself. As director of
the Orpheus Orchestra, he has probably done more than anyone else in
creating an interest in music among the young people of Waterloo. He
has supervised the production of a number of entertainments, among
the most successful being his elaborate production of the comic opera
"A Night in Holland." This will long be remembered by all who saw
it, and the beautiful production was not only managed by him, but he
also selected and perfected the material, designed the costumes, designed
and painted the stage effects and the scenery, and contrived the stage
lighting. This sounds more like real work than the musical pursuits
of most young people, and it was indeed, but Mr. Ziebold finds a true
source of recreation in his out-of-door life and with his dogs and horses.
He is a well-known breeder of blooded horses and dogs, and is not only
a member of the American Breeder's Association, but a contributer to
the American Breeders Magazine. The "Morning Glory Home."
owned by himself and his father, has won a wide reputation for the
1370 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
animals that have been bred there. His animals have taken prizes all
over the United States, and show the result of intelligent breeding and
management. Regardless of the weather, Mr. Ziebold takes a horse-
back ride every day, considering this the most healthful, as well as the
most enjoyable, of all exe'rcises.
MAURICE J. SEED. The press of Jefferson county has a particularly
able representative in the person qf Maurice J. Seed, for the past ten
years the owner and editor of the Mount Vernon Daily and Weekly
Register, the exponent of Republicanism in that county. Since Mr.
Seed assumed ownership and control of the paper it has increased in
its efficiency and popularity until it is today one of the most reliable
publications in the county.
Maurice J. Seed is the son of Thomas H. and Emma (Pope) Seed.
He was born December 31, 1871, at Lawrenceville, Lawrence county,
Illinois, and was there reared. His father was a native of Lawrence
county, born there June 12, 1843. He was ever a man of action, and
during the Civil war he served as sergeant in Company A, of the Sixty-
third Illinois Infantry. He was with Grant at the siege and capture
of Vicksburg, and took part in the Atlanta campaign under General
Sherman, participating in the "march to the sea" and the later march
through the Carolinas, being in active service with his regiment until
the close of the war. Thomas H. Seed was a miller by trade, and fol-
lowed that business in Lawrenceville and Belmont until 1889, when
he bought the Sumner Press, at Sumner, Illinois. In 1902 he sold out
his interests there and removed to Mount Vernon, where he has since
lived. His wife, Emma (Pope) Seed, was born July 29, 1850, in
Burlington, Ohio. The mother of Thomas H. Seed was Sabilla Ryan,
the daughter of an old Virginia family, early settlers in that state. Her
grandmother was a Zane, of the Zane family, and her people removed
to Illinois in 1838. The Seed family is of distinctly Irish origin, the
founders of the family having passed their lives in Ireland for genera-
tion upon generation. It is known that in 1686, two brothers, John
and William Seed, came over from England with William of Orange,
and took active part in the famous Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. At
the close of the war the brothers settled in county Down, where for one
hundred and forty-eight years their descendants have dwelt. In 1837
the family removed to America, settling in Illinois. Two children were
born to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Seed. They are Maurice J. and
Rhoda. The latter named is an instructor of English in the Mount
Vernon Township high school, and is a graduate of the Northwestern
University at Evanston, of the class of 1906. She is a young woman
of fine attainments in educational and other ways, and is most popular
in whatever circles she finds herself.
Maurice J. Seed passed his early life in Lawrenceville and Bell-
mont in attendance at the public schools. Finishing the course pre-
scribed by the common schools he entered the Northwestern Academy
at Evanston, graduating therefrom in June, 1899. He completed a
course in the University, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1902, hav-
ing devoted special attention to English and political economy. He
was awarded the N. W. Harris prize of $100.00 for his thesis on the
trust question, and was awarded Phi Beta Kappa honors. On the com-
pletion of his university course, Mr. Seed purchased the Mount Vernon
Daily and Weekly Register, the official Republican organ of Jefferson
county, and he has since that time conducted the paper in a manner
that has brought it up to a high standard of excellence, both as a dis-
penser of the news and a paper especially suited to the needs of the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1371
home. Mr. Seed has been secretary of the Republican central committee,
and is especially prominent in political circles. He is affiliated with a
number of fraternal organizations, among them being Mt. Vernon
Lodge, No. 31, A. F. & A. M., H. W. Hubbard Chapter, No. 160, Royal
Arch Masons, Patton Commandery, No. 69, Knights Templar, and Jef-
ferson Lodge, No. 131, Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the
First Methodist Episcopal church of Mount Vernon.
On October 18, 1905, Mr. Seed married Elizabeth Fickes, of Steu-
benville, Ohio, a graduate of Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan. Three
children were born to them, one of whom died in infancy, those remain-
ing being Ruth Elizabeth and Helen Georgia.
MCDANIEL CARROLL, postmaster at Ina, was for thirty years a teacher
in the public schools of Jefferson county, and in that capacity did much
towards promoting the educational interests of Southern Illinois. A son
of John Thomas Carroll, he was born January 27, 1858, on a farm in
Jefferson county, Illinois, coming from excellent Virginian stock, his
paternal grandfather, James Carroll, having been a native of the Old
Dominion state.
Born in Tennessee, March 13, 1830, John Thomas Carroll subse-
quently migrated to Illinois, locating in Jefferson county, where he was
engaged in agricultural pursuits until his death, March 11, 1863, while
yet in manhood's prime. He married, December 8, 1850, Anna M.
Shafer, and they became the parents of six children, namely : William
R., living near Bonnie, Illinois ; James H., of Ina ; Luranie J., deceased ;
McDaniel, the subject of this brief biographical record; Sarah E., de-
ceased ; and Rosalee, deceased. After the death of her husband, Mrs.
Anna M. Carroll married Joseph Etherton, a native of Tennessee, and
to them five children were born, as follows : Mrs. Laura Sweeten ;
George C., deceased ; Arizona, deceased ; Zora, deceased ; and Mrs. Mary
O. Keller. The mother also died at a comparatively early age, her
death occuring February 20, 1881.
After leaving the public schools of Jefferson county, McDaniel Car-
roll continued his studies at the Southern Illinois Normal University
in Carbondale, entering in 1881 and completing the course in 1884.
Fitted for a professional career, he began teaching school in 1881, and
for thirty years was employed as an educator in Jefferson county.
During his vacations and his leisure time Mr. Carroll has worked at the
carpenter's trade, making good use of his mechanical talents, and since
1901 has served continuously as postmaster at Ina,
Mr. Carroll married, November 11, 1886, Mary Elizabeth McCul-
lough, a daughter of James and Susan McCullough, and to them four
children have been born, namely: Ina, wife of John Tippi, of Mount
Vernon. Illinois; Nona, attending Ruskin Cave College, in Tennessee;
Ada, who was graduated from Ruskin Cave College in the spring of
1912 ; and B. De Graw, attending school. Fraternally Mr. Carroll is a
member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and religiously he belongs
to the Methodist Episcopal church.
WINFIELD S. PHILLIPS. The records of Gallatin county show that
never before have there been so many able members of the bar within
its confines. With so many important matters before the country which
involve serious problems of jurisprudence, it is exceedingly necessary
for the lawyer of today to be able to cope with them and lend his aid
in obtaining justice. Because of the necessity for successful qualifica-
tions, the present day lawyer is being asked to occupy positions of trust
and responsibility, and among those heading large institutions where
1372 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the interests of many are to be conserved, the proportion of lawyers is
large. One of those representatives of this learned calling who has
attained to considerable prestige both as a lawyer and financier is Win-
field S. Phillips, of Ridgway, Illinois, president of the Gallatin County
State Bank. Mr. Phillips was born at Normandy, Bedford county,
Tennessee, January 20, 1854, and was nine years of age when brought
by his parents to Golconda, Pope county, Illinois.
At the age of twenty years Mr. Phillips began to teach in the country
schools near Golconda, continuing therein for six years, and pursuing
his law studies with Thomas H. Clark, of Golconda and D. M. Kinsall,
of Shawneetown. He came to Ridgway in 1880. and on July 8th of
that year was admitted to practice, in which he has continued here to
the present time with great success. The general high esteem in which
Mr. Phillips is held was made manifest in 1906 when, in a Democratic
county of 6,000 majority, he was elected county judge on the Repub-
lican ticket, and at the end of four years was presented by the bar
association with a beautiful gold-headed cane, an honor never before
conferred at the end of four years, although on two occasions it has
been given to others after eight years of service. He has been prom-
inent in conventions of his party, served as chairman of the county
central committee for fifteen years, was chairman of the congressional
committee for a long period, and is now state central committeeman
for the twenty-fourth district. He was appointed a trustee of the
Southern Illinois State Normal University by Governor Yates and re-
appointed by Governor Deneen, serving in that capacity for eight years,
and was also one of the first trustees of James Millikin University at
Decatur, Illinois. He is a prominent member of the State Bar Asso-
ciation. Mr. Phillips has been equally prominent in financial circles,
being president of the Gallatin County Bank, of which he has been the
head since its organization as a state institution. This bank, which
has its own handsome building and is equipped with modern fixtures
throughout, is known as one of the solid and substantial banking busi-
nesses of the southern part of the state and its officials are men of the
highest integrity and standing in the business and financial world. Mr.
Phillips is also one of the original stockholders of the Norris City State
Bank, of White county, and he and his son have owned the controlling
interest in the bank at Omaha, Gallatin county, for two years.
On May 11, 1879, Mr. Phillips was married to Leuella Porter, of
Gallatin county, who was born in Covington, Kentucky, daughter of
Captain B. C. Porter, an old steamboat captain who is now deceased.
Mr. and Mrs. Phillips have had the following children : Sarah Agnes,
who married Otis C. Moore, of Chester, Illinois; W. Braxton, a graduate
of the business college at Quincy, and now assistant cashier of the
Gallatin County Bank; Anna Alice, who resides at home with her
parents; and Clyde W., who like his brother completed his education
in the Quincy business college! Mr. Phillips is a Master Mason and
belongs to the Odd Fellows. He and Mrs. Phillips hold membership in
the Presbyterian church, with which he has been connected since boy-
hood. He has been active in church work for a number of years, and
is now acting in the capacity of elder. Mr. Phillips has associated
himself with every movement that would tend to advance Ridgway
in any manner, and in every field of endeavor his standing has been
high. His popularity is not confined to the members of his profession
or his business associates, but extends throughout this section of the
state, where he is well known and highly esteemed.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1373
Louis LINCOLN EMMEESON. Conspicuous among the really big men
of Mount Vernon who have attained to high places in financial circles
in Southern Illinois is Louis Lincoln Emmerson, for twenty-five years
past a resident of Mount Vernon, and a participator in practically
every enterprise worthy of note in his section of the country. He has
from the beginning of his association with Mount Vernon filled various
positions calling forth qualities of strength and dependability, and in
his present connection with some of the most thriving commercial and
financial institutions in the country those splendid traits have increased
commensurately with the added responsibilities.
Born December 27, 1863, at Albion, Illinois, he is the son of Jesse
Emmerson and Fannie (Suardet) Emmerson, and the grandson of
Alan Emmerson, a native of Kentucky who migrated to Indiana and
later settled in Illinois, near Albion, in 1817. There Alan Emmerson
married a daughter of the Mounts family. He was but twenty years of
age at that time, and he and his wife lived together in harmony for
sixty-five years. They reared a family of fourteen children, and in
1876 the aged pair passed away within a period of three months. He
was a veteran of the Black Hawk war, rendering valiant service to his
country in that conflict. Their son Jesse married Fannie Suardet, as
previously mentioned, and four children were born of their union ;
three sons and one daughter. They are Morris, who is publisher of the
News Herald in Lincoln, Illinois ; Charles, cashier of the First National
Bank at Albion; Louise, the wife of Otto Krug, of Sullivan, Indiana;
and Louis Lincoln, of Mount Vernon. The father, Jesse Emmerson,
was a prominent and familiar figure in his locality throughout his life
time. He was always active in political circles, serving in a number
of public offices. At one time he was clerk of Edwards county, and
during the Civil war served as county sheriff. He died in 1891, and
the wife and mother survived him for almost twenty years, passing away
in 1911, on November 16th.
Louis Lincoln Emmerson passed his boyhood and youth as a student
in the public schools and the high school of Albion, in which city he
lived until he had reached his twentieth year. Completing his school-
ing, he became engaged in business in Sullivan, Indiana, and was thus
occupied for one year. In 1886 he located in Mount Vernon and be-
came interested in mercantile pursuits, in which he continued success-
fully for a number of years. In 1901 he became cashier of the Third
National Bank, filling that position acceptably and capably until 1909,
when he was elected to the presidency of the bank. In that year further
honors became his, when he was appointed to the secretaryship of the
Steele-Smith Dry Goods Company of Birmingham, Alabama, a depart-
ment store owned principally by Mount Vernon capital, and in which
he is a prominent stockholder. Mr. Emmerson has become connected
with numerous other commercial and financial enterprises in and about
Mount Vernon, by reason of his peculiar ability in the successful admin-
istration of any business requiring traits of progressiveness, aggres-
siveness and, withal, proper conservatism. He is a stockholder and
director of the Mount Vernon Ice Company, the Illinois Knitting Com-
pany and the Mount Vernon Car Manufacturing Company, all of them
being institutions of solid organization, and branching out with the
passing of time with an avidity consistent with safe managership. Mr.
Emmerson has been secretary of the Mount Vernon Building & Loan
Association for the past ten years, and is connected with numerous
other smaller banks and commercial organizations throughout Southern
Illinois as a director and stockholder. He was one of the principal
organizers of the Albion Shale Brick Company recently incorporated,
Vol. Ill— 19
1374 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and he is president of the company. This is adjudged to be the largest
shale brick plant west of the Allegheny mountains, having a capacity
of 100,000 bricks daily, and incorporated with a capital stock of
$200,000. In addition to his many other positions of trust and honor,
Mr. Emmerson was at one time appointed to fill a vacancy as commis-
sioner of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary, which post he accepted and
discharged the duties in connection therewith in a highly creditable
manner.
Mr. Emmerson is an adherent to Republican principles, and has
always been an enthusiastic supporter of the party, as well as a dom-
inant factor in Republican state politics. He has been county chair-
man of the Republican party for the past ten years, and is state com-
mitteeman from his district. He is prominent as a fraternalist, being
especially so in Masonic circles, in which society he has taken the thirty-
third degree. He is also a member of the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks and of the Modern Woodmen. He is a communicant of
the First Presbyterian church of Mount Vernon, materially aiding the
work of that organization on all occasions.
In 1887 Mr. Emmerson married Miss Anna Mathews, the daughter
of Thomas Mathews, of Grayville, Illinois. Two daughters have been
born to them : Aline, aged eighteen, now a student in the Belmont Col-
lege of Nashville, Tennessee, and Dorothy, aged fifteen, a student in the
Mount Vernon high school.
SIGEL CAPEL,. A lawyer by profession, Sigel Capel, of Harrisburg,
has won a high place for himself at the Saline county bar, and by reason
of his untiring industry and comprehensive knowledge of the law and
its application has built up a substantial patronage. A son of John I.
Capel, he was born September 8, 1870, in Saline county, on the home
farm about eight miles west of Harrisburg.
Born in Wilson county, Tennessee, in February, 1845, John I. Capel
was left fatherless when a small child, and as a lad of fourteen years
came with his widowed mother to Illinois, living first for a short time
in Wayne county, from there coming to Saline county. During the
progress of the Civil war he enlisted in Company F, One Hundred and
Twentieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served as corporal of the
company until the close of the conflict, at times having command of
the men in his company. He subsequently bought land in Saline
county, and has since .been actively and profitably engaged in tilling the
soil on the farm which he improved from its wildness. He is a stanch
Republican in politics, and a very active and enthusiastic worker in
the Methodist Episcopal church, having been very influential in the
building of the New Ebenezer church of that denomination. He mar-
ried, just previous to his enlistment in the Civil war, Mary E. Nolan,
who was born in Tennessee, and came to Saline county, Illinois, as a
child with her parents.
Brought up on the home farm, Sigel Capel acquired his rudimentary
education in the rural schools of his district, after which he attended
Hayward College two terms. At the age of seventeen years he began
teaching school, and at the same time made such good use of his leisure
moments in reading law that in 1893 he was admitted to the bar. Since
that time Mr. Capel has been constantly engaged in the practice of his
profession in Harrisburg. Elected state attorney in 1896, he served his
constituents ably for four years in that capacity, and was later ap-
pointed by Governor Yates to a position in the state insurance depart-
ment, with which he was officially connected for three years. Mr. Capel
is widely known as a skilful and able lawyer, and is enjoying a large
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1375
and lucrative practice, while in private life he is held in high esteem
by all who know him.
Mr. Capel married, in June, 1893, Jennie Parks, who was born in
Harrisburg, and into their home three children have been born, namely :
Hobart; Gwendola; and Leonore, who died in infancy. Mrs. Capel is
a valued member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and Mr. Capel is
identified with various fraternal organizations, including the Ancient
Free and Accepted Order of Masons, the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows and the Knights of Pythias.
THOMAS B. SULLINS. The standard of excellence among educators
all over the country is being raised higher and higher, and especially
is this true in Illinois, where the people are so proud of their public
school system. One of those who have been prominent in the educa-
tional field of Clinton county for some years is Thomas B. Sullins,
superintendent of the schools of the city of Trenton, and editor and
half-owner of the Trenton Sun, an independent newspaper devoted to
the best interests of the community. Mr. Sullins is a native Mis-
sourian, having been born in Ripley county.
He received his early education in the public schools of Madison
county, after graduation from which he became a student of the West-
ern Normal College, at Bushnell, Illinois, and subsequently took the
course in the Eastern Normal School at Charleston and Austin College,
Effingham, from which he was graduated in the class of 1905, with the
degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then "became principal of the ward
schools of Effingham, a position which he held for three years, and
eventually became superintendent of the city schools of that place, and
in 1910 he came to Trenton, where he had been appointed superintend-
ent of the city schools. Since accepting this position Mr. Sullins has
made numerous improvements in the school system here, agricultural
and bookkeeping courses being added to the curriculum in 1910, and in
1911 a complete commercial course. He is a man of high ideals, a deep
student and thinker and an efficient educator, a man who can truly be
said to have found his work. He is not satisfied that the educational
methods of yesterday will do for tomorrow, but is constantly laboring
to better conditions in every way, realizing that many improvements
are to be made before the system will have become perfect. He is popu-
lar alike with associates and pupils, and has numerous friends in Tren-
ton. The Trenton Sun is an up-to-date, wide-awake sheet, containing
clean, breezy articles, pithy local news items, and well-written edito-
rials, Mr. Sullins wielding a virile and trenchant pen. The paper is
recognized as one which wields a great deal of influence and does much
to mold public opinion in this part of the county, but has not given its
allegiance to any political party, its proprietors preferring to take an
independent stand.
On August 22, 1902, Professor Sullins was united in marriage with
Miss Daisy Gullick, of Alhambra. Illinois, and they have been the par-
ents of three children, namely: William Perry, Hattie Fern and Ruby
Marguerite. Politically Mr. Sullins is a Democrat, but he has never
cared for public office. In fraternal matters he is associated with the
Modern Woodmen of America, Trenton Lodge. For fifteen years he
was an adherent of the faith of the Presbyterian church, but later joined
the Christian denomination, having served for several years as superin-
tendent of the Sunday school of the Trenton church, which his wife also
attends. She was born in Sebastopol, Madison county, Illinois, May
21, 1880, and is a daughter of William and Frances (Berthous) Gullick,
both of whom were born near Highland, Illinois. Both Professor and
1376 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mrs. Sullins are well and popularly known in the society circles of
Trenton, where they have a beautiful home.
JOHN ALEXANDER. It is held by some that there is no longer room at
the top, that there is practically no chance for the youth of moderate
circumstances to rise to the head of affairs because of the changed con-
ditions of modern business. This theory is refuted, however, in the
career of John Alexander, who, starting in life with no particular advan-
tages, has triumphed over all obstacles in his way and has set an example
of success won without double dealing or unfair advantage over any man.
Today there is no better known man in the business world in Jackson
county, and his life may prove an encouraging example to the aspiring
youths of the present generation. Mr. Alexander is a native of Scotland,
having been born in Glasgow, June 12, 1862, a son of James and Jessie
(Glenn) Alexander.
James Alexander was born in January, 1837, in the city of Glasgow,
where his father, John Alexander, was forester to Lord Douglas. He
was educated in his native country, where he spent four years in a mer-
chant's office to learn the business, and then apprenticed himself to the
machinist's trade. In 1865 he came to the United States, and for two
years was employed by the Eagle Foundry in St. Louis, Missouri, from
whence he went to Galesburg, Illinois, and for a like period was employe
of the machine shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. In
1871 Mr. Alexander came to Murphysboro, where for three years he was
engaged in a general merchandise business, and at the end of that time,
with his brother, Walter Alexander, founded the firm of Alexander
Brothers Foundry and Machine Shop, which did a large business until
the brothers sold out in 1897. Mr. Alexander was president of the Jack-
son County Homestead and Loan Association and of the Southern Illi-
nois Building and Loan Association, and a director in the First National
Bank. He was a man of the highest business integrity, and in his death
the county lost one of its foremost citizens. In 1859, in Scotland, he was
married to Miss Jessie Glenn, and five children were born to this union :
John, Walter, Mary, Kate and Janet. Mr. Alexander was a trustee in
the Presbyterian church, and was fraternally connected with the Masons,
the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient Order United Workmen, in which he
was a master, and the Knights of Honor, and with the exception of the
first named, represented all of these in the Grand Lodge. His wife was
a member of the Ladies of Honor, and was a most estimable woman, be-
ing possessed of those qualities of mind and heart that go to make up the
highest type of Christian womanhood. Mr. Alexander's brother, Walter
Alexander, with whom he was engaged in business for so many years,
was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1837, and came to the United States
in 1863, working for some time at the trade of machinist in Pottsville,
Pennsylvania, where he was working when he was sent by the Government
to Mound City, Illinois. For two years he worked in the navy yard there
during the Civil war, and subsequently went to the Eagle Foundry, at
St. Louis. He became foreman of the shops of the Grand Tower Min-
ing, Manufacturing and Transportation Company, a position which he
held until he engaged in business with his brother, but in 1897 the firm
sold out and Mr. Alexander retired from business activities and until his
death, July 14, 1909, he lived a quiet and contented life. He was a
director in the Chicago-Herrin Coal Company, and a business man of
rare judgment.
John Alexander received his education in the public schools of Mur-
physboro, and at the age of thirteen years began to learn the trade of
molder in his father's shops. He then served one term as court reporter.
OF iht
HSIYERSITY OF IILIKOI3
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1377
being the first to follow this line of work in Jackson county, and when
twenty years of age secured employment as a stenographer with the firm
of Kingman & Company, of St. Louis, implement dealers, and during the
eighteen years that followed he continued with this firm, rising from the
position of stenographer to that of bookkeeper and subsequently became
cashier. In 1901 he returned to Murphysboro, where he became one of
the organizers of the Chicago-Herrin Coal Company, of which he is secre-
tary, treasurer and general manager, and organized the Carterville and
Herrin Coal Company, with which he holds like positions. He is sec-
retary and treasurer of the Chew Mercantile Company, of Herrin, sec-
retary of the St. Louis-Carterville Coal Company, and a director in the
Anchor Ice and Packing Company of Murphysboro, the First National
Bank of Murphysboro and the Herrin Building and Loan Association,
of which latter he was organizer. In 1907 the First National Bank of
Herrin was organized, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and a
surplus of ten thousand dollars, the officers being: John Alexander,
president ; R. A. Karr, vice-president ; and Paul D. Herrin, cashier. The
bank building, a structure thirty-four by one hundred and ten feet, two
stories in height and built of steel gray brick with granite pillars, is fur-
nished in mahogany, and modern in every respect, being one of the
finest business edifices to be found in this town. The bank is on a sound,
substantial footing, and the business integrity of its officials has been all
that is necessary to win the confidence and patronage of the people of
this community. Mr. Alexander is a trustee of the First Presbyterian
church of Murphysboro, and is fraternally connected with the Masons,
the Knights of Pythias, and several social clubs. In political matters he
is a Republican. His integrity and honesty have never been questioned,
and his public spirit as a citizen is commendable. Such a man, naturally,
has many friends, and Mr. Alexander is no exception to this rule, as
those who feel a warm, natural regard for him are numerous in this city.
HENRY BURKHARDT. Prominent among the more solid and con-
servative citizenship of Burkesville, Monroe county, Illinois, is Henry
Burkhardt, who has made that town his home and the center of his
business interests for a number of years. There he is rearing a goodly
family of promising offspring, is giving them every advantage con-
sistent with his means, and is laboring diligently and enthusiastically
in his endeavor to give the best service to his home, his town, his county
and the commonwealth.
Henry Burkhardt was born August 20, 1870, at Renault, Illinois.
He is the son of Conrad and Wilhelmina (Pehl) Burkhardt, who came
to America from Germany in 1842, locating in Monroe county at
Renault Grant, where they passed the remainder of their lives. His
early education was obtained through the medium of the public schools
of Renault, and on leaving school he remained at home on his father's
farm until he had reached the age of twenty-two, when he went into the
farming business on his own responsibility.
On August 27, 1892, Henry Burkhardt married Miss Julianna
Schmidt, the daughter of Nicolaus and Julianna (Junk) Schmidt, both
of German origin. Mr. and Mrs. Burkhardt are the parents of five
children, all living in the family home. They are Henry W. C. ;
George T. F. ; Margaret J. "W. ; Alma H. C. ; and Otto H. W. The
Burkhardt family are of the German Lutheran faith, and Mrs. Burk-
hardt is particularly prominent and active in church circles. Mr. Burk-
hardt is inclined to be of domestic tastes and tendencies and enjoys
home life in the extreme, although he is a man of much public spirit,
and is deeply interested in the affairs of the community. He served
1378 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
his town as district commissioner in 1808-9-10, and previous to that
served as school commissioner.
ARMIN B. PINKEL. During the forty-eight years of its existence the
general merchandise firm of Armin B. Pinkel has grown from a small,
struggling general store, typical of the country, into one of the largest
and most prosperous establishments in Southern Illinois, and its trade,
at the start limited to the immediate vicinity, has expanded in com-
parison and now covers the whole countryside. The growth and de-
velopment of this business has been commensurate with the growth and
development of Waterloo, in the confidence of whose people it is firmly
established. The present proprietor, Armin B. Pinkel, a business man
of ability and enterprise, is a son of the founder, George Pinkel, and
was born September 9, 1864, at Waterloo, the year in which the con-
cern was founded.
George Pinkel was born June 14, 1834, at Nordenstadt, in Herzog
Thum, Nassau, Germany, and was brought to the United States by his
parents in 1837. At the age of sixteen years he commenced to learn
the trade of saddler at Belleville, Illinois, and after following that
trade for some time came to Waterloo and opened a modest general
store on the present site of the handsome Pinkei Block, which latter was
erected in 1893. Mr. Pinkel became one of the leading capitalists of
Southern Illinois, and was for a long period identified with the State
Bank of Waterloo, holding the office of vice-president of that institu-
tion until failing health caused him to refuse re-election. His death
occurred April 10, 1898. Mr. Pinkel married Miss Elizabeth Koechel,
who was born at Waterloo, September 12, 1842, and she died May 4,
1877, having been the mother of the following children: Armin B. and
Herman, of Waterloo ; Albert, cashier of the State Bank of Waterloo ;
William, who died August 22, 1907, at the age of thirty-eight years;
Louisa, who married Dr. Louis Adelsberger ; and Mrs. Albert Gauen,
wife of the prominent Waterloo merchant.
Armin B. Pinkel was reared in Waterloo, received his education in
the public schools of this city, and has spent his whole life here. His
entire business career has been devoted to the concern of which he is
now the sole owner, and which his progressive ideas and inherent ability
have helped to develop. He has always made it a practice to handle only
the best grades of goods obtainable, and his stocK is as well selected as
any to be found in Southern Illinois. Enterprise, industry, fair deal-
ing, honest principles, all these traits have combined to make his busi-
ness successful, and the reputation that is his after so many years of
business is proof of the esteem and respect in which he is held. In ad-
dition to his mercantile business Mr. Pinkel is the owner of a farm of
three hundred and forty-eight acres, situated thirteen miles southwest
of Waterloo, this property being in bottom lands and devoted to wheat
and corn. He is one of the most public-spirited of Waterloo's citizens,
and has been the main factor in a number of movements which have
culminated in advancing the welfare of the municipality.
In 1891 Mr. Pinkel was married to Miss Fannie E. Payne, of Water-
loo, daughter of Thomas J. and Margaret (Rainer) Payne, the former a
native of Missouri and the latter of Illinois, and five children have been
born to them : Pearl, who is eighteen years of age ; Viola, aged sixteen
years; Armina, fourteen years old; Esther, who is eleven; and Robert
A., the baby, who has only seen one birthday.
JOHN DAVENPORT, deceased, was the pioneer coal operator of Saline
county, Illinois, his residence being at Harrisburg, where for many
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1379
years he was a prominent factor in financial affairs. Briefly, a review
of his life is as follows :
John Davenport was born December 29, 1848, in the coal region of
Warwickshire, England. As a boy he worked in the mines of his native
locality until he was fourteen. Then he ran away from home and got
passage as a stow-away on a vessel which landed him in America. Com-
ing direct to Illinois, he found employment as a miner in the vicinity
of Belleville, where he remained until coming to Saline county. Here
he worked as a miner in the mine in which he afterwards began opera-
tions on his own account, which was as soon as he could raise a little
money to start with, which, doubtless, was borrowed. And during the
thirty years of his career as a mine operator he accumulated nearly a
million dollars.
It was about 1875 that John Davenport began to dig coal in a small
mine on the Ingraham farm, a mile and a half south of Harrisburg, he
being a resident of Harrisburg at that time. Here he operated on a
small scale for a few years. Then he took the Ledford Slope mine,
three miles from Harrisburg, on the Big Four Railroad, both being the
No. 7 vein of coal, the first vein found profitable to work, and here he
operated on a large scale for several years. He worked the first shaft
at Black Hawk mines, a mile and a half west of the Big Four Railroad,
on the site of the present O'Gara mines, and at the same time operated
the Clifton mines. Also during this time he assumed charge of the New
Castle mines, ten miles from Harrisburg, on the Big Four, working
No. 3 vein of coal sixty feet below the surface. That was about 1890,
and up to this time it may be said that his work was experimental. It
proved a valuable experiment, however, for Saline county. For sev-
eral years Mr. Davenport operated under the name of Davenport &
Company, but after 1890, with William White and W. H. Alsop, he
incorporated, with a capital stock of $25,000, and with larger capital
increased operations. They opened up No. 5 vein of coal three miles
west on the Big Four Railroad, going one hundred feet deep with a
six to a seventy-five foot vein of fine quality of coal — quality and
quantity both increased. The output here was nine hundred tons a
day, with a railroad trade ; two hundred and fifty men were employed,
and the operations covered forty or fifty acres. These mines are still
in operation, known as the O'Gara mine No. 14. At the termination
of his lease Mr. Davenport turned his attention for a while to another
mine he had opened in the meantime, which at present is Saline No. 1.
This was his until his death. He had organized the Egyptian Coal &
Coke Company, with a capital stock of seventy thousand dollars and
with T. J. Patterson as president, for the operation of the present
O'Gara No. 2 and No. 3. Also he organized the Harrisburg Mining
Company, now O'Gara No. 4. While a stockholder of each company
he took all the coal of both, and had put both on a paying basis. He
continued president of the old Davenport Coal Company until his
death. In the meantime the stock of this company had been increased
from twenty-five thousand dollars to two hundred thousand dollars.
The last mine he started was Saline Company Coal Mine No. 2, five
miles south of Harrisburg on the Big Four Railroad, and was superin-
tending the sinking of its shaft at the time of his death, the work hav-
ing progressed to within ten feet of coal. This is now one of the best
paying mines in Southern Illinois. Mr. Davenport invested in a thou-
sand acres of coal land in this vicinity, and it was his activity and suc-
cess here that induced outside capital to come in and operate. This
land still brings in handsome royalties to his estate. For fourteen
years O'Gara No. 14 annually paid dividends of one hundred per cent.
1380 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mr. Davenport was a director of the City National Bank; was direc-
tor and president from its start until his death of the Eldorado State
& Savings Bank at Eldorado, and also was one of the original directors
of the State Savings Bank, the first and last named being of Harrisburg.
Mr. Davenport's estate is still undivided and is under the business
management of his son, George 0. Davenport.
Of his immediate family, we record that Mr. Davenport was twice
married. By his first wife, who was a Miss Dean, he had one son. His
second wife was formerly Miss Laura Sweet, daughter of Enos Sweet,
a pioneer farmer of Saline county, whose home was five miles southwest
of Harrisburg. Mrs. Davenport was born in this county and was
twenty-one years of age at the time of her marriage. The children of
this union are as follows: George 0., Dick, Lilie (wife of M. D. Nesler),
Glair (wife of S. B. Goodage), Earl and Ann.
HARRY TAYLOR. A man of high mental attainments, talented and
progressive, Harry Taylor, of Harrisburg, is well known among the
leading educators of Saline county for his efficient work as superin-
tendent of the township high school, and has won a more than local
reputation in his chosen profession. A son of Pleasant Taylor, he was
born in Saline county, Illinois, and has here spent the larger part of his
life.
Mr. Taylor's paternal grandfather, Darius Taylor, was born in
Alabama, in 1809, and as a young lad came with his father, John Tay-
lor, to Illinois. After attaining his majority he embarked in business
at Golconda, Illinois, a thriving little town on the Ohio river, where
he fitted out two flat-boats for the river trade, loading them with grain
or provisions and floating them down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to
New Orleans, where a ready market was found for his cargo. Starting
down river with a load of goods in 1850, he was taken ill on the way,
and on reaching Vicksburg he boarded a boat coming north, but he
died of that dreadful scourge, the cholera within twenty-four hours
after reaching his home. His widow, whose maiden name was
Brancey Mick, then returned with her children, one of whom was
Pleasant Taylor, to Saline county, to the home of her brother, the
late Robert Mick, who was the founder and for many years the presi-
dent of the First National Bank of Harrisburg. She subsequently
cared for her parents as long as they lived. Her mother, however,
died not long after her arrival at her old home, but her father, Charles
Mick, was a bed-ridden invalid for fifteen long years, during which
time she kindly administered to his wants. She died in Harrisburg in
1870. Three of her sons, Joseph, Robert and Pleasant, enlisted for
service in the Civil war, Robert and Pleasant serving under General
John A. Logan, but Joseph was a victim of the measles, dying before
joining his regiment.
Pleasant Taylor, with his brother Robert, served in the famous
"Thirty-first," commanded by General Logan, and in August, 1864,
through the unerring aim of a sharpshooter, lost his right arm while
fighting in battle near Atlanta. Receiving then his honorable dis-
charge from the army, he returned to his Illinois home, and for a time
was variously employed. He was subsequently elected treasurer of
Saline county, and while at his office in the court house at Harrisburg,
was stricken with disease and died at his post, April 21, 1890, his death
being deeply deplored throughout the community. He married a young
girl who had been brought up in the family of his uncle, Robert Mick,
and of their union four sons were born, namely : Charles A. Taylor, of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1381
Harrisburg, an abstractor; Harry, the special subject of this sketch;
William, of Harrisburg, a painter and capitalist; and Dan.
ROBERT M. TAYLOR. A worthy representative of an honored pi-
oneer family of Saline county, Robert M. Taylor, now living retired
from active business at Harrisburg, has long been prominently identi-
fied with the agricultural interests of this section of the state, and as
opportunity has occurred has given his influence to encourage the es-
tablishment of beneficial enterprises. He was born August 16, 1841,
on the parental homestead, about ten miles southeast of Harrisburg, a
son of Darius Taylor and grandson of John Taylor, who came from the
South to Illinois at an early day, settling in Saline county.
Born in 1809, in Alabama, Darius Taylor was a young lad when he
came with his parents to Saline county, where the larger part of his
life was spent. About 1850 he moved with his family to Golconda,
Pope county, Illinois, and having built a flatboat he began trading in
New Orleans, taking grain, provisions and vegetables down the rivers
and selling them in that city. Being quite successful in his ventures,
he built two flatboats, one of which he loaded with flat rock to be used
in the construction of wharves in New Orleans, investing all of his
property, including his household goods, in the venture. At Vicks-
burg he was stricken with the cholera, and boarded a vessel returning
northward, but reached home only twenty-four hours before his death.
The young man whom he left in charge of his loaded boats took them to
New Orleans, disposed of the cargoes, and returned to Golconda, but
as no settlement in regard to the money he received for the goods was
ever made the family was left in a state of destitution.
Darius Taylor married Brancy Mick, a daughter of Charles Mick,
and sister of the late Robert Mick, a Harrisburg banker and a citizen
of prominence. Charles Mick and his wife, Susan, were born, reared
and married in Virginia, from there coming to Saline county, Illinois,
and locating on a farm in Somerset township. He outlived his wife, »
and for fifteen years prior to his death, in 1855, was a helpless invalid,
confined during that time to his bed. After the death of Mr. Darius
Taylor, Robert Mick went to Golconda, and brought his sister and
her family back to Illinois, and Mrs. Taylor subsequently tenderly
cared for her father and mother as long as they lived. She passed to
the higher life on July 21, 1870. To her and her husband five children
were born, as follows : Charley, who died at the age of twenty -two years ;
Robert M., the special subject of this brief biographical sketch; Pleas-
ant, deceased; Joseph, who enlisted for service in the Civil war, and
died of the measles at Camp Butler before joining his regiment; and
Mary, who died in childhood.
Robert M. Taylor grew to manhood in Saline county, Illinois, and
soon after the breaking out of the Civil war enlisted, with his brother
Pleasant, in Company 'G, Thirty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under
command of Captain "W. A. Stricklin, of Harrisburg, and Colonel John
A. Logan, and the two brothers kept together until August, 1864, when
Pleasant Taylor was shot by a sharpshooter, receiving a wound that
necessitated the amputation of his right arm just below the shoulder,
although he persisted in remaining with his comrades until honorably
discharged from the army in July, 1865. Very soon after his enlist-
ment Robert M. Taylor was taken ill, having first a siege of measles,
afterwards succumbing to an attack of pneumonia, and finally being
stricken with typhoid fever. Recovering his health, he rejoined his
regiment in time to take an active part in the siege of Corinth, and was
afterwards with it in every engagement while marching to the sea, and
1382 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
with it took part in the Grand Review, at Washington, D. C. Being
mustered out of service on July 19, 1865, he returned to the Mick
homestead in Somerset township, where his widowed mother was then
living, and to the ownership of which he succeeded. In 1880 Mr. Tay-
lor sold that property and purchased two hundred and eighty acres of
land in Somerset, where he carried on general farming with most satis-
factory pecuniary results until 1910, making a specialty of buying and
selling stock. Mr. Taylor still retains the ownership of his farm, but
is now living retired at his pleasant home in Harrisburg. He was as-
sociated with his uncle, Robert Mick, in the founding of the First Na-
tional Bank of Harrisburg, one of the most successful financial insti-
tutions of Saline county, and of which he and Mr. W. P. Scott are now
the only charter members living. Mr. Taylor has been a director of
this bank since it started, having been elected to the position twenty-
two times.
Mr. Taylor married, in 1871, Prances Jane Colbert, a daughter of
Joseph Colbert, of Eagle township, Gallatin county, Illinois, and of
their union seven children have been born, namely : Robert W., engaged
in farming in Somerset; Mary Etta, wife of B. B. Baker, a farmer in
Somerset; Effie, wife of Dr. E. W. Cummins, of Harrisburg; Ida, liv-
ing at home ; Bratcher, having charge of the home farm ; Dean, wife of
Charles Mitchell, who is engaged in farming in Somerset; and Brancy,
wife of Matthew Parker, of Harrisburg. Mr. Taylor cast his first presi-
dential vote for Abraham Lincoln, and has voted with the Republican
party ever since. Both he and his wife are valued members of the
United Baptist church of Somerset.
JAMES BORAH WALL, a highly honored and eminently successful
man of affairs in and about Cairo, Illinois, is by inheritance and in-
stinct a southerner, but he lays just claim to the rights of a northerner
by reason of his northern birth. He is the son of George E. and Flor-
'entyne (Meeks) Borah, both of whom died when their son, James
Borah, was an infant, passing away within a few days of each other.
The orphaned boy was reared by Anderson L. Wall, and he assumed
the name of his benefactor in his boyhood, going by that name ever
since.
Anderson L. Wall, the foster father of James Borah Wall of this
review, was born in Wayne county, Illinois, in the year 1836. When the
War of the Rebellion broke out in 1861 and there came the call to arms
he enlisted straightway to fight in the cause of honor and justice. He
left the farm home of the family to enlist as a private in Company G,
Fortieth Illinois Infantry, and he fought throughout four bloody, bitter
years. He was with the army of General Grant when operating through
the Cairo country and down the Mississippi river. He was engaged in
the campaign which resulted in so disastrously overcoming the Rebel
forces, and he was in active service at the capture of Vicksburg. Fol-
lowing the evacuation of Vicksburg, his regiment was transferred to
General Sherman's magnificent band of men, and it was his privilege
to take part in the Atlanta campaign and the famous "march to the
sea;" back through the then devastated and suffering Carolinas. when
they besieged and captured the army of General Johnston, and thence
on to Washington for the Grand Review and final mustering out of the
army which marked the close of hostilities.
Peace restored once more. Anderson Wall settled down to the quiet
and uneventful life of the agriculturist, and he prospered very materi-
ally in the following years. In the early 'nineties he decided to leave
his country place and engage in the real estate and insurance business
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1383
in the nearby town of Pairfield, in which business he was especially
successful from the beginning. Mr. Wall was married a few years
subsequent to the close of the war to one Sarah J. Porterfield, a repre-
sentative of the Pennsylvania branch of the Porterfields. A daughter
was born of their union. The daughter is Mary E., the wife of T. P.
Moore, editor of the Olney Times. Following the death of George E.
Borah and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Wall adopted the orphaned son of
their deceased friends, and James Borah was reared as they would have
reared their own son had they been given one.
James Borah Wall was born in Wayne county, Illinois, on July 25,
1877. He passed his early boyhood days in the delightful freedom
and happiness which are the attributes of country life, and when a
youth of fifteen years his parents removed to Pairfield, where his foster-
father engaged in business as heretofore mentioned. Here he attended
school, graduating from the Pairfield high school, after which he entered
the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. But he was rest-
less, and disinclined to the life of a student, and in his junior year he
left the university and started on an exploring tour through the north-
west, finally bringing up in the Klondyke regions. No sooner did he
find himself in the mining camp than the "gold madness" seized upon
him, and the young adventurer was fired with the burning ambition to
make a "strike" in the richest mining district then known to the civil-
ized world. For five years the glamour of the far famed Eldorado held
him enthralled — a willing victim. During that time he prospected in
every known part of the Klondyke district, but with only indifferent
success. He had the experience of seeing his cabin mate strike pay dirt
on a claim adjoining his own, and he followed many a promising lead
blindly and doggedly, only to have it finally peter out, leaving him al-
ways in the depths of despair, but, consistent with the prevailing spirit
of the camp, always ready to take one more chance. After five years
of roughing it, in the truest acceptance of the word, James Wall turned
homeward. The call of home and friends was stronger than the entice-
ments of the golden west, and he found himself longing for a sight of
his native state and all who were dear to him. When he finally made
his way back to Fairfield, he did so in the conscious knowledge that the
only reward of his five years of self-imposed exile lay in the generous
fund of experience he had gleaned in the prospector's school of hard
knocks, and in the further knowledge that the greatest opportunities
are not always those that lie farthest from us.
Returning home, Mr. Wall engaged with his foster-father in the
flourishing business which he found Anderson L. Wall still conducting,
and he applied himself with energy and brains to the thorough mas-
tering of every detail of the real estate and insurance business. That
he succeeded admirably in his ambition is well attested by the fact
that in a comparatively short time he found the field of Fairfield too
restricted for his efforts, and he accordingly removed to Cairo, Illinois,
where he opened offices for the carrying on of a general real estate and
insurance business, which has grown apace from that day to the pres-
ent time, and James Borah Wall is recognized in Cairo and Southern
Illinois as a successful and representative business man.
In 1906 Mr. Wall married Miss Mercedes M. Vincent, a daughter
of Francis and Virginia (Verin) Vincent, Mrs. Wall being one of the
four children of Mr. and Mrs. Vincent.
Mr. Wall is a man of quiet and homelike inclinations. Thus far
in his promising career he has not permitted himself to be drawn into
any political alliances. As a matter of conscience he casts a straight
Republican ballot at the proper times each year, but beyond that he has
1384 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
never gone. Mr. Wall is a Pythian Knight and an honored and use-
ful member of the Cairo Commercial Club and as a prosperous and
honorable man and an all around good citizen the city of Cairo does
well to evince pride in him and his achievements.
R. C. FULLER, M. D. He whose name initiates this brief review is
a talented and skilful physician and surgeon of Caline county, and has
gained not only marked success and prestige in his profession, but has
won a place of distinction among the foremost citizens of Carriers Mills,
which has been his home for a number of years. A son of H. J. and
Mary Jane (Baker) Fuller, he was born April 18, 1872, in "Williamson
county, Illinois, near Pittsburg, and about nine miles northeast of
Marion. His paternal grandfather, Rev. Horace- Fuller, was born, bred
and married in Tennessee. Coming with his family to Illinois in 1845,
he continued his ministerial labors, and having organized the Davis
Prairie Missionary Baptist church served, without remuneration, as
pastor for a number of years. He died in 1863, when but fifty-eight
years of age.
Born in Tennessee in 1838, H. J. Fuller was but seven years old
when brought to Illinois. During the progress of the Civil war he en-
listed in Company E, Sixtieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, as a private,
and ere long was advanced from the ranks to the position of corporal
of his company. He took part in many engagements, and on one occa-
sion, when in command of a squad of forty men he was detailed to
hold a road, but was overwhelmed by a large body of Confederate sol-
diers, forty -four of whom were shot down, although he lost but one man
from his ranks. He, himself, was taken prisoner, but two days later,
meeting a Confederate captain whom he knew, he was paroled instead
of being sent to Andersonville prison. Rejoining his regiment, he sub-
sequently marched with Sherman to the sea, thence through the Caro-
linas to Washington, where he took part in the Grand Review, after
which he was honorably discharged from the army, in which he had
served bravely for three years. Returning to his farm in Williamson
county, he engaged in agricultural pursuits, but also entered the minis-
try, and was a very active worker in denominational work, becoming
noted as a revivalist and organizing many churches in Williamson
county. He continued his pastoral labors as long as able, but for the
past few years has devoted his time to the management of his farm.
He married Mary Jane Baker in 1870 ; she is a woman of much force of
character, and has ably assisted him in all of his labors. Their son
Remulus, twin brother of R. C. Fuller, is a well known farmer of Will-
iamson county, and a successful and popular teacher.
Having received an excellent preliminary educational training in
the public schools, H. C. Fuller read medicine for a time under Dr.
Denison, and in 1898 was graduated from the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, at Saint Louis, with the degree of M. D. Beginning the prac-
tice of his profession, Dr. Fuller remained at his first location four
years. Coming to Carriers Mills in 1902. he has won a lucrative prac-
tice in this vicinity, and in addition has dealt in real estate to some ex-
tent, in his professional life and in his business propositions having met
with satisfactory success.
The Doctor is a • member of numerous medical societies, and has
served most acceptably on the village board of Carriers Mills, and on
its board of health. Fraternally he is an active member of the Ancient
Free and Accepted Order of Masons, and belongs to the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, to the Modern Woodmen of America and to the
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1385
Royal Neighbors. He married Mattie Heisser, of Golconda, Pope
county, Illinois.
JOSEPH HAMPTON TAYLOR. One of the good, reliable citizens of
Johnson county, who has seen the resources of the country grow and
develop during his long residence here, is Joseph Hampton Taylor, a
veteran of the great Civil war, owner of a tract of two hundred and
twenty-four acres of excellent farming land, and proprietor of a success-
ful sawmill business. Mr. Taylor was born on a farm in Bloomfield
township, Johnson county, February 25, 1844, and is a son of Giles and
Elizabeth (Kuykendall) Taylor, and a grandson of William Taylor, the
latter a native of Virginia, who migrated first to South Carolina and
then to Williamson county, Illinois, in 1800, where he was one of the
very earliest settlers.
Giles Taylor was born in 1818. in Williamson county, near Creal
Springs, and his whole life was spent in agricultural pursuits, being,
at the time of his death in 1895, one of the successful and prominent
farmers of Johnson county. He married Elizabeth Kuykendall, a sister
of Major A. J. Kuykendall, and they had a family of ten children, of
whom one, Elizabeth, is deceased, while the survivors, all of whom are
residing in the same neighborhood, are as follows: Joseph Hampton,
W. C., James M., G. B., Lydia C., Sarah E., John 0., A. J. and Louisa
Jane.
Joseph Hampton Taylor was educated in the common schools of his
native locality, and was working on his father's farm at the time of the
outbreak of the Civil war. Like other youths of his day he was fired
with patriotism and anxious to go to the front in defence of his country 's
flag, but he was of such youthful appearance that the recruiting officers
refused to accept him on three different occasions, and it was not until
May, 1864, that he finally succeeded in becoming a soldier in the Union
army. Enlisting in Company A, One Hundred and Forty-fifth Regi-
ment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Captain T. Chapman and
Colonel George W. Lackey, he saw active service in Missouri, Kentucky,
Tennessee and Kansas, being principally engaged in skirmish duty and
relieving the old guard, and also participated in a raid through Kansas
chasing bushwhackers. After a brave and meritorious service, during
which he won a reputation for cheerful and faithful discharge of duty,
he received his honorable discharge in November, 1864, and, returning
home, secured a farm of eighty acres situated on the bluff east of Simp-
son. He continued to operate this land until 1872, when he sold it and
gave all of his attention to the milling business which he had started at
Sanburn at the close of the war, and which he subsequently sold in
1885, to engage in the sawmill business, in which he has continued to
the present time. In 1880 he became the owner of his present farm,
then a partly-improved tract of eighty acres, to which he has added
from time to time until he now has two hundred and twenty-four acres,
all good second bottom land situated in the center of Simpson township.
He has large modern barns and outbuildings, and gives a great deal of
attention to the raising of stock, having at the present time nine head of
cattle, sixteen horses and fourteen hogs. Nine men are employed in his
mill and on his farm, but Mr. Taylor still works as hard as any of his
employes, being of a robust, hearty constitution which the years have not
been able to affect. He is conceded to be an excellent business man, a
scientific farmer and an intelligent judge of stock, and among his fellow
townsmen has the reputation of being a public-spirited citizen who will
always lend his assistance to any movement that promises to be of bene-
1386 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fit to his community. Mr. Taylor belongs to the Grand Army of the
Republic Post at Vienna, and Delta Lodge, No. 717, I. 0 . 0. F.
In 1866 Mr. Taylor was married to Miss Eliza Herell, daughter of
John and Jane (Branchomb) Herell, and eleven children have been born
to this union, as follows: W. G., who is married and has one -child,
Walter; John C. ; James M., who is married and has three children,
Arthur, Oran and Gladys; Mrs. Lydia C. Trigg, who has three children,
Alice, Ethel and Hazel; Mrs. Cora Smoot, who has two children, Nora
and Elbert; Fred; Bertha; Thomas, who married Lesty Choate and has
one child, Thelma ; Mrs. Clara Kerley ; Pearl ; and Sarah, the last-named
being deceased.
JOHN EZRA PHILLIPS, M. D. No profession demands so much of its
followers as that of medicine. The life of the physician of today is one
of constant study, his spare moments filled with familiarizing himself
with the various discoveries being made, his mind alert to take ad-
vantage of each opening to defeat disease. In the farming communities
conditions for the doctor are not so favorable, for the time consumed in
reaching patients, often miles away, gives the physician but little
relaxation, and it is often only love for his profession that keeps him
actively in its ranks. John Ezra Phillips, M. D., is not only a country
physician with a large practice, but is also cultivating an excellent
farm of two hundred acres, situated about eight miles northeast of
Benton, in Franklin county. Dr. Phillips is a member of a family
which settled here when this section was but a vast, heavily timbered
forest, with Indians still lurking in ambush and wild game in plenty.
He was born October 31, 1872, in Franklin county, and is a son of
Horace and Minerva (Estes) Phillips.
Jacob Phillips, Sr., the great-grandfather of Dr. Phillips, was born
in North Carolina, a son of a French-Huguenot who was driven from
France during the religious troubles, came to America at an early day
and participated in the Revolutionary war. Jacob removed from
North Carolina to Ohio in 1804, and to Illinois in 1815, settling in
White (now Franklin) county, where he was one of the very earliest
settlers. His son, Jacob, Jr., was born in Ohio in 1811, and came to
Illinois with his parents when four years of age. His life was spent
on the farm now operated by Dr. Phillips, where he died at the age
of thirty-three years. He served as captain of a company during the
Black Hawk war, and the hardships of soldier life undermined his
health and hastened his death. Jacob Phillips had two sons: Horace
and James, the latter of whom served during the Civil war and now
resides in Franklin county. Horace Phillips was born and reared on
the old homestead, received three months' schooling in a log school-
house, and throughout his life was engaged in agricultural pursuits. He
was a faithful member of the Christian church. Horace Phillips mar-
ried Minerva Estes, also a native of Franklin county, daughter of John
Estes, who was born near where Ewing is now located, Franklin county,
in 1809. He was a farmer and school teacher, served in the Black
Hawk war, and died in Franklin county. He was a son of Joseph and
Rita Estes, the former of whom came to Illinois from Kentucky in 1802,
and with his horse and axe cleared a place near where Ewing now is,
and returned to Kentucky for his family. During the remainder of his
life he followed farming in Franklin and Jefferson counties.
John Ezra Phillips received his education in the public schools and
took a scientific course at Ewing College, and then spent one year in the
medical department of the University of Tennessee, at Nashville. Three
years later he was graduated from the St. Louis University of Medicine,
OF
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1387
in 1903, and after spending three years in a hospital in St. Louis, opened
up an office and was engaged in practice for two years at Tenth and
Price streets. About this time his father was taken sick and he re-
turned home to take charge of the farm, which he has operated since his
father 's death. Dr. Phillips then settled down to the life of the country
doctor, and is now known for miles around among the agriculturists of
Franklin county. Giving the best and most sympathetic care to his
patients, willing at all times to go to the bedside of the sick, no matter
how far removed, he has won the affection of the entire countryside,
and his practice is correspondingly large. Dr. Phillips finds time from
his professional duties to superintend the farm, and has developed one
of the best properties in his township. He has never married. In
political matters he is a Democrat, fraternally he is a member of Ewing
Blue Lodge, No. 705, A. F. & A. M., and in his professional capacity
holds membership in the state and county medical associations. He
has done much to influence public opinion in behalf of movements for
the betterment of his community, is highly regarded in his profession,
and has the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens, who have rec-
ognized and appreciated his many admirable qualities of mind and
heart.
RICHARD G. FLEMING. The country in general is recognizing the
definite relationship of the farmer to modern civilization, for he is at
the focus point of civic forces and the great living currents of life emin-
ate from him and his work. Because of the strenuous life a farmer is
forced to lead it is necessary for him to provide for an early retirement,
on account of the drain made upon his strength during all seasons. For
this reason the thrifty farmer makes his arrangements to retire from the
scene of his earlier labors, and in his resulting days of leisure goes more
deeply into civic matters than he was able to when the demands of his
farm absorbed all of his attention.
One of the men who has worked unceasingly in order to provide for a
comfortable old age is Richard G. Fleming, president of the First Na-
tional Bank of Johnston City, Illinois, who spent a third of a century on
the farm. He was born in Logan county, Kentucky, June 26, 1851, but
was brought up in Trigg county and educated sparingly in the subscrip-
tion schools. His education was necessarily neglected owing to the rather
indigent situation of the family, and also because of lack of facilities for
the children of the rural districts in ante-bellum days. In 1871 his
father, William A. Fleming, took his family overland to Texas, following
a little drift of Kentucky citizenship to the Lone Star state, but condi-
tions in the northeast section of that commonwealth, where he had in-
tended to locate, were unfavorable and he decided to return to Kentucky.
Having a brother in Illinois, he drove through to this state, and while
visiting in Franklin county he was induced to stay and make a crop and
to rest from his long journey. Farming conditions were then more favor-
able in Illinois than in Kentucky, and prospects seemed brighter for the
future, and he decided to remain here, and subsequently he spent the
rest of his life in this section, dying at the age of sixty-six years, during
the seventies. He was a native of Sumner county, Tennessee, and when
approaching manhood accompanied his father, Beverly Fleming, to Illi-
nois, settling in Williamson county, where he enlisted in the army and
served during the Black Hawk war, and also was an Indian fighter in
Florida. In political matters he was a Democrat, and his religious faith
was that of the Methodist church.
Beverly Fleming was born in the state of North Carolina, and died
at Crab Orchard, Illinois, in 1867, when more than eighty years of age.
1388 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
He married a Miss Aspley, and their children were ten in number, those
to raise families being: William A., who died in Johnson county; John,
who passed away in Alabama ; Jacob, who spent his life and died near
Union City, Tennessee; Margaret, who married a Mr. Shackelford and
died in Kentucky ; James, who died at Paducah, Kentucky, in February,
1862, as a Confederate soldier ; William A. ; Samuel, who died in White
county, Illinois ; and Rebecca, who became the wife of John Deering and
died in Kentucky. William A. Fleming married Mary Byrn, a daugh-
ter of John Byrn, of Sumner county, Tennessee, whose people were from
North Carolina, and she died in 1896, at the age of eighty-two years.
Their children were as follows : John and David, of Johnson county,
Illinois ; Richard G. ; Maggie, who married Dr. Joseph Walker and re-
sides at Hot Springs, Arkansas ; and James, who is carrying on agricul-
tural operations in Johnson county.
Richard G. Fleming remained under the parental roof until he was
twenty-four years of age. He then married and purchased an eighty-six
acre farm near the site of Johnston City, and was busy with the various
affairs that go to make up a successful life. His efforts were made to
prosper and his substance was made to multiply, independence coming
to him long before the ground under him was known to contain coal.
In 1908 he leased his farm to the Carterville District Coal Company, as
a mining proposition, and under their direction it is yielding up its daily
output of carbon. Having consented to convert his farm into a coal mine,
Mr. Fleming decided to locate in Johnston City, and in 1908 he estab-
lished his family here. When the First National Bank was organized
Mr. Fleming became a stockholder, and was soon made a member of its
official board. In 1909 he was chosen president of the bank, as successor
to J. S. Lewis, of Carbondale.
On October 27, 1875, Mr. Fleming married, near Marion, Illinois, Miss
Mary E. Newton, a daughter of Henry and Sarah A. (Barham) Newton,
the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of Tennessee. The
Newton children were Mrs. Fleming, and Thomas, George, John and
James Newton, of Williamson county. The children of Mr. and Mrs.
Fleming are: John, a farmer of this county, who married Ollie Mc-
Donald, and for his second wife Miss Ora Skaggs ; Maggie, who married
Samuel Auhls, of Marion; Thomas, who is engaged in farming near
Marion, married Lucile Skaggs ; and Alice, Minnie, Bessie, Newton and
Hugh, all living at home. Mr. Fleming brought up his family under a
church influence, being a member of the Missionary Baptist denomination.
Although a Democrat, he has taken no part in practical politics.
HIRAM HART PIATT. An active and prominent business man of
Carriers Mills, Hiram Hart Piatt is conspicuously concerned with
various industrial enterprises, and as secretary of the H. H. Piatt
Brick & Lumber Company is officially identified with one of the most
prosperous manufacturing and mercantile firms of Saline county. A
son of H. John Piatt, he was born September 6, 1860, at Mount Carmel,
Indiana, just on the border of the Ohio state line. He comes of excel-
lent French ancestry, being a direct descendant, several generations re-
moved of John Wocoff Piatt, whose sons immigrated from France,
their native land, to America, settling at Coldwater Run, Pennsylvania,
in early colonial days.
Starting forth in boyhood to make his own way in the world, Hiram
Hart Piatt secured a very humble position in a saw mill, being at
first employed in scraping up saw dust. He was so faithful in the
performance of his work that he was speedily promoted to more im-
portant positions, and ere he had attained his majority he had thor-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1389
oughly mastered the details connected with the manufacture of lum-
ber, and when ready to embark in business on his own account became
operator of a saw mill. Coming from Carroll county, Indiana, to
Saline county, Illinois, in 1899, Mr. Piatt purchased the land included
in his present lumber yard, erected a saw mill, and within six years had
sawed out all the timber in this vicinity, his mill having a capacity of
upwards of four million feet a year. Mr. Piatt subsequently added
a planing mill to his plant, and carried on a large business, employing
from one hundred and twenty-five men to one hundred and thirty men
in the manufacture of lumber. When timber became very scarce Mr.
Piatt began dealing in brick, and finally manufactured brick for two
years, although at present he buys what brick he needs for supplying
building materials. With an ample supply of first-class building mate-
rials always on hand, it was but natural that he should utilize his stock
for building purposes, and he become a builder of dwelling houses and
business blocks, many of which he has erected in this vicinity.
Mr. Piatt built up a part of the town, having laid out an addition
of five and one-half acres to Carriers Mills, and having assisted in the
development of the coal mines in this vicinity, the coal industry alone
employing nearly two thousand people, or the supporters of that num-
ber of persons. The H. H. Piatt Lumber and Brick Company, of
which Mr. Piatt is secretary, is one of the more important enterprises
of Carriers Mills. It was capitalized at $25,000, and its annual sales
amount to $75,000, in 1910 the company having handled over one hun-
dred car loads of building materials. A man of excellent business
qualifications, Mr. Piatt has accumulated considerable property, among
which is a valuable farm of eighty acres lying near Carriers Mills.
Although not a politician, Mr. Piatt uniformly supports the prin-
ciples of the Democratic party by voice and vote and for two years has
been a member of the town board, of which he is now the president.
He married in Indiana Amelia Travelbee, of North Manchester,
Indiana, and they have one son, John P. Piatt.
FERDINAND SALZMANN. Numbered among the prosperous and capa-
ble business men of Golconda is Ferdinand Salzmann, who as a drug-
gist has built up a profitable trade, his patronage being large and
lucrative. He was born in 1874, in Germany, the native country of
his parents. William and Christina Salzmann. Leaving the Father-
land in 1881, William Salzmann came with his family to Illinois, locat-
ing in Pope county, where he resided until 1892. Going then to New
Jersey, he settled in Newark, where his wife died.
Seven years of age when, with his parents, he crossed the ocean,
Ferdinand Salzmann attended the country schools of Pope county
until fourteen years old. Beginning life then for himself, he found
employment in a drug store, and in the course of a few years he had
so mastered the details of the drug trade that he decided to start in
business on his account. Looking about for a favorable investment,
he bought in 1891 the drug store of Dr. J. A. Trovillion, and has since
managed it wisely and well, having through his own unaided efforts
built up a fine business.
Mr. Salzmann married in 1904, L. M. Young, who is of Scotch and
American parentage, her father, Dr. J. B. Young, having been born in
Scotland, while her mother, Mrs. A. M. Young, is a native of Illinois.
Mr. and Mrs. Salzmann have two children, namely: Ferdinand, Jr.,
born in 1908; and Mary Louise, born in 1911. In his political affilia-
tions Mr. Salzmann is a sound Republican, and fraternally he belongs to
vol. m— 20
1390 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons. Born and bred in
the Lutheran faith, he is a valued member of the Lutheran church.
THOMAS MOFFAT. The coal-mining interests of Randolph county,
Illinois, are substantially represented by Thomas Moffat, president of
the Moffat Coal Company of Sparta. His connection with the coal in-
dustry in Southern Illinois dates almost from the close of the Civil war
and his relation to it as an owner and an employer of men dates from
1870. The Moffats of this section are distinctly Scotch and Thomas is
the founder of his branch of the family in America. He was born at
Donaldson's Lodge, near Coldstream, Scotland, the date of his nativity
being the 14th of January. 1836, and he is a son of Andrew Moffat, who
died in 1891, at the age of ninety years. Andrew Moffat was a man of
liberal education and he was employed as foreman on the government
highways for a third of a century or more. He had some military his-
tory as a soldier in her majesty's troops and maintained the honor of
the family name as a loyal subject of the British queen. Andrew's father
was Robert Moffat, a nurseryman and fruit gardener at Twissel, —
"Twissel's Nursery" being widely known during its palmy days.
Robert Moffat lived to the patriarchal age of one hundred and four years.
He represented a long line of Moffats, whose home was established in
the vicinity of Coldstream, Scotland, as far back as fifteen hundred.
Industrious and studious habits seemed to prevail among the members
of the family, for many of the sons were men of learning and possessed
scholarly attainments. Andrew Moffat married Ellen Donaldson, a
daughter of Andrew Donaldson, of Donaldson 's Lodge. Mr. Donaldson
was in the service of Sir Francis Blake as a contractor upon his estate
for many years. Mrs. Andrew Moffat died in 1895, at the age of eighty
years. She and her husband were the parents of nine children, con-
cerning whom the following brief data are here incorporated: John is a
gardener at Middlesboro, England; Margaret married Thomas Johnson
and resides at Corn Hill. England ; Robert and Andrew are both de-
ceased; Thomas is the subject of this sketch; Roger has passed away;
Jane is the wife of Richard Trumble and lives at Hurst, England ; Wil-
liam lives at Corn Hill, England ; and James is yet with the community
of Donaldson's Lodge, Scotland.
Thomas Moffat was reared to maturity in his home place, where he
received a good common-school education. Leaving the old home at
the age of eighteen years, he went to the iron mines at Estes Hill, Mid-
dlesboro, England, where he rapidly familiarized himself with the iron
industry and where he was made foreman of the Roseland & Ferry Hill
Iron Company. In 1864 he made his first trip to the United States, and
while he passed most of his time at Pittston, Pennsylvania, he managed
to explore the mineral belt west of the Alleghenies before returning to
his native heath in 1865. There was so much of promise in the condi-
tions in the United States that Mr. Moffat returned to this country in
1869 and established his home at DuQuoin, Illinois. There he entered
the employ of Holliday Brothers and later assumed charge of a mine
belonging to Henry Horn. In 1873 he came to Sparta as "boss" for
R. H. Rosborough and subsequently became the latter 's partner in the
Rosborough's Coal Company. In 1902 he severed his connections with
all other concerns and purchased and leased lands to the extent of one
thousand acres, on which he began sinking a shaft for the Moffat Coal
Company. This company consisted of Mr. Moffat and his three sons
and Mr. Rosborough and the latter 's two sons, but the Rosboroughs sold
all their interests in the Moffat Coal Company to the Moffats in May.
1910. Mr. Moffat is president of the company, and it is largely to his
HISTOKY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1391
ingenuity and splendid executive ability that the concern is achieving
such marked success. In politics Mr. Moffat is aligned as a stalwart in
the ranks of the Republican party. From personal observation he has
discovered that the principle of protection to American industries has
tended to better conditions for the man who works with his hands and
in lieu of this discovery he became a Republican.
Mr. Moffat has been twice married. At Rosedale Abbey, England,
in 1867, he wedded Miss Alice Fell, who died at Sparta, Illinois. This
union was prolific of four sons, — Andrew, deceased; and Robert,
Thomas, Jr., and James, all of whom are members of the Moffat Coal
Company. In 1896 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Moffat to Mrs.
Hattie Brown, a daughter of James Snodgrass, of Randolph county.
There have been no children born to the latter union. In religious
matters Mr. and Mrs. Moffat are members of the Presbyterian church
and they command the esteem of their fellow citizens at Sparta, where
they have so long resided.
WALTER E. MEERIPIELD. A citizen whose sterling worth and in-
tegrity, as aligned with exceptional business ability, have won for him
the important and responsible position of superintendent of the Illi-
nois division of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Com-
pany, is Walter E. Merrifield, who maintains his business headquarters
and residence at Chester, Illinois. Mr. Merrifield was born at Great
Bend, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of November, 1867, and he grew to
manhood under the influence of a railroad atmosphere. His father,
Conductor James K. Merrifield, who runs a Missouri Pacific passenger
train between St. Louis and Kansas City, has spent forty-two years in
the service, beginning at Scranton, Pennsylvania, soon after the close
of the war coming to the Mississippi valley country. Conductor Merri-
field was born in the old Keystone state of the Union in 1844, and at
the time of the outbreak of the Civil war he was in Illinois, where he
enlisted as a soldier in the Eighty-eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in
La Salle county. He was with Sherman's army that divided the Con-
federacy with its Atlanta campaign and then returned with Scofield in
pursuit of General Hood and fought the battles of Franklin and Nash-
ville, two of the momentous engagements of the war. Returning to his
home in Pennsylvania after the close of hostilities, Mr. Merrifield, Sr..
entered the field of railroad work, as already stated, and he was mar-
ried at Great Bend, that state, to Miss Rhoda Crandall. He settled in
the city of St. Louis, Missouri, many years ago, and as a Republican
made the race in 1890 for railroad commissioner as the nominee of his
party. Missouri had not then turned its back upon the Democratic
party and the whole ticket met defeat.
Walter E. Merrifield is the only child of his parents. His education
was obtained in Sedalia, Missouri, and his career in the railroad service
began before he had attained his legal majority. He grew up in the
Mississippi valley, is a product of the common schools and as a youth
learned telegraphy at Sedalia, under the supervision of the Missouri,
Kansas & Topeka Railway. His first position was as an operator on the
above road at Pleasant Grove. Missouri. Subsequently he worked for
the Wabash Company at various points in Missouri and eventually
entered the employ of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Com-
pany as operator in Kansas. His first promotion came from the last
mentioned company, when he was made train dispatcher at Nickerson.
Later he was appointed trainmaster at Dodge City and he finally left
the service at Raton, New Mexico, whither he had been transferred. He
subsequently accepted a position with the Missouri Pacific Company as
1392 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
chief dispatcher at Hoisington, Kansas, and later he went to Concordia
as trainmaster. From the latter place he was sent to Sedalia, Mis-
souri, and thence he went to Atchison, Kansas, as superintendent of
the company 's central branch division. In 1908 he was selected for the
supervision of the Illinois division of the Iron Mountain road, and from
East St. Louis to Cairo comprises the line under his management. Long
association with railroad work of various kinds has made Mr. Merri-
field an expert in his particular line, and in his present position he has
done a great deal for the progress and improvement of the section of
road under his management.
At Nickerson, Kansas, on the 7th of September, 1887, Mr. Merri-
field was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Frease, a daughter of
Captain Cyrus Frease, an old soldier of Canton, Ohio. This union has
been prolific of one child, Josephine. In politics Mr. Merrifield is a
stalwart Republican, and his fraternal connections are with the Masonic
order at Newton, Kansas, where he is a past master of his lodge.
COMMODORE FEIGANZA. Though a half century has intervened since
began the stirring events of the Civil war and the greater number of the
boys both of the blue and the gray have joined the silent majority, a
halo of interest still centers around the actors and their deeds in that
great conflict. The State of Illinois has a proud record in her defense
of our national life, for she not only gave us Lincoln and Grant, but
many other names adorn the roll of her illustrious and useful military
men. One of these was the late Commodore Friganza, of Mound City,
who was conspicuously identified with the municipal affairs of that city
for a long period and with the Federal naval interests all through the
era of the Civil war.
An unusual amount of romance and adventure entered into the life
of Commodore Friganza. He was born on the Island of Minorca, on
the east coast of Spain, in August, 1818, and the few years he passed
with his parents were of little advantage to him in a preparation for
life. His father owned practically the whole island, the most of which
was in vineyards, and the ships which plied to and fro in commerce with
the community interested the lad more than the quiet life in a wine-
maker's home. He has scarcely reached school age when his desire to
become a sailor persuaded him from home without the consent of his
parents. He found a place as cabin boy on an Atlantic sailing vessel
and spent six years on the ocean, crossing between Europe and America
some seven times before he abandoned the sea and sought employment
on American soil.
His education was obtained principally in the stern but broad school
of experience. What information was gained from books came to him
while mess or cabin boy, and it was limited to the elementary principles
only. His long service aboardship served to instruct the Spanish youth
in the construction of vessels, and it was but natural that he seek em-
ployment where his education fitted him. He was fifteen years old when
he secured a position as water boy in a Brooklyn navy yard and he re-
mained there until he was made a master-joiner, a position next to that
of superintendent of the yard.
During the late '50s it was seen by the government authorities that
civil war between the states was unavoidable and imminent and that a
successful prosecution of it demanded a naval base somewhere in the
interior. The control of the Mississippi was a point both sides were
already considering, and the value of the junction of the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi rivers as an important strategic point had been foreseen and se-
lected by the government for both an army and navy base. A navy
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1393
yard was also essential, and to aid in the selection of a suitable site for it,
Mr. Friganza, then in the navy, was sent out, his previous nautical ex-
perience and training being of especial value in this direction. In con-
junction with Admiral Foote he chose Mound City as offering the best
location, and in 1858 he began the construction of the yard there. He
was commissioned as chief officer of the yard, which repaired and built
war vessels and maintained the government's river war fleet in fighting
trim until the conflict ended in 1865. He entered upon the arduous
duties of the post with marked industry and energy and with a zeal
born of loyalty to his convictions on the issue at hand and to his adopted
country. Those were busy and exciting days until after the fall of
Vicksburg and even until the close of the war, but from thence forward
the importance of the yard began to wane and its affairs were brought
gradually to a point where its "muster out" could take place. This
act was accomplished in 1867, and the man who had been its chief spirit
for nearly ten years was retired with the rank of commodore on account
of his valuable service rendered the Union.
He then for the first time assumed his station as a private citizen of
the United States, having while working in the navy yard at Brooklyn
taken the steps leading to his naturalization. In choosing his political
party he espoused Democracy and when he separated himself from the
government service he entered somewhat actively into local politics. His
party enthusiasm ran high and he permitted the St. Louis Republic to
become his closest political organ and teacher. He was appointed post-
master of Mound City by President Cleveland and served continuously
through that term, through that of General Harrison and the second
term of President Cleveland. He was repeatedly elected mayor of
Mound City and displayed his prowess as the executive head of that city
during the trying times of the big flood and the smallpox scourge, and at
all times proved himself the master of difficult situations. Following his
retirement from the government service, Commodore Friganza engaged
in the stationery and news business and his store became the popular
rendezvous of the city, its proprietor being the central figure in these
gatherings. His geniality, his likeable and interesting personality, his
broad and extensive information and his evident love of humanity all
combined to give him the first place among his neighbors and to endear
him to an unusually large circle of friends. He possessed a decided
weakness for helping those in distress and his signature as security for
a loan was as easily acquired as the asking, notwithstanding it dissipated
his fortune steadily.
Commodore Friganza married his first wife in Brooklyn, New York.
She died in the East, but was buried in Mound City, Illinois. To this
union were born two sons, Henry and Joseph, both of whom lived to
middle life, were employed in the navy yard at Mound City and passed
away about the same time as their father. The second marriage of Com-
modore Friganza was to Mrs. Mary A. Huckleberry, a daughter of
Thomas Herrington, of Metropolis, Illinois. Mrs. Friganza was born
near New Columbia, Massac county, Illinois, and from her first marriage
she became the mother of Mrs. M. N. McCartney, of Metropolis, Ira
Huckleberry, of Mound City, and Charles Huckleberry, who was super-
intendent of the Marine Railway and Cock Company of Mound City for
thirteen years prior to his death. To this second union was born "Willis
T. Friganza. Commodore Friganza passed away in July, 1897, after a
long, useful and eventful career, and his wife died June 6, 1908.
WILLIS T. FRIGANZA, commercial manager of the Central Union Tele-
phone Company, of Cairo, Illinois, is a son of the late Commodore
1394 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Priganza, one of Mound City's best known men of affairs and a prom-
inent figure there during the Civil war period.
Mr. Priganza was born at Mound City, June 8, 1881, and is the only
son of his parents, Commodore and Mary A. (Herrington) Priganza.
He acquired his education in the public schools of Mound City and be-
gan his independent career while yet a youth as a laborer for the electric
light plant of Mound City. Later he became an employe of the local
telephone company, and during the eleven years he remained with this
company he mastered every detail of the business. Success in any line
of occupation, in any avenue of business is not a matter of chance but is
the result of well-directed efforts. Faithful, thorough and efficient
service in the behalf of these employers was not only to their advantage
but to his own as well, for when his opportunity came for an advanced
position he was qualified and prepared to avail himself of it, and on
January 1, 1911, he came to the Central Union office in Cairo as local
manager for the Bell Company.
In Mound City Mr. Friganza was united in marriage to Miss Alice
B. Mertz, a daughter of Charles W. Mertz and a granddaughter of one
of the prominent merchants of Mound City, a citizen there during the
ante bellum days and a bosom friend of Commodore Friganza. Charles
W. Mertz was reared in Mound City and is a well known merchant of
that city. Mr. and Mrs. Friganza have one son, Gilbert, born in 1907.
Mr. Priganza is a member of the Alexander and Commercial Clubs
of Cairo, and fraternally affiliates with the Knights of Pythias and the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
HARRY B. WAKD is the able and efficient postmaster of DuQuoin,
having held this position through the official lives of three presidents.
He is a native of the city of DuQuoin, having been born in this city
on the 30th of July, 1871. He received his education in the public
schools, later attending the Illinois College at Jacksonville, and com-
pleting his studies with a business course in Bryant and Stratton's
Business College in St. Louis.
The active business career of Harry Ward began when he entered
the employ of the Blakeslee Manufacturing Company of DuQuoin, as
book-keeper and cashier. Later he went into business with his father,
operating a retail shoe store. It was while he was interested in this
that he first got a taste for politics. He was nominated by the Repub-
lican party in Perry county for representative to the lower house of
the Fortieth General Assembly in 1896 and was elected on the ticket
with President McKinley. He served one term in this law-making body.
This election had the effect of giving him recognition later as one of the
party managers in his county. In 1900 he was chosen chairman of the
county central committee and has filled that post continuously ever
since. In 1898 his faithful services were recognized in his appointment
by President McKinley as postmaster.
Mr. Ward is a son of the late teacher and successful educator, John
B. Ward, who died in DuQuoin, in July, 1908. The latter was born in
Cayuga county, New York, in July, 1836. His parents moved to Cler-
mont county, Ohio, when he was a small child and he grew up there.
His father was Alva Ward, who spent most of his life in the mercantile
business, dying at DuQuoin at the age of sixty-nine years. His mother
was Miss Priscilla Branch and John B. was one of their family of seven
children.
John B. Ward lived in the days when a college education was a
rarity in his section of the country, and he secured the more advanced
parts of his education by delving into the books for himself. He was
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1395
a man of close application and possessed the ability to concentrate his
mind on the subject in hand, both attributes of the true student, and
his years of study resulted in giving him a wide knowledge of many
subjects and a firm grasp on the relative values of things. When he was
twenty-two years old he began his pedagogical ' career, entering upon
the work with greater vigor and enthusiasm. He came to Illinois in
1858. In 1861 he was chosen principal of the DuQuoin schools.
He remained in this position for some thirty years, his administration
being most efficient and his patrons most appreciative, which is evinced
by the "John B. Ward" school building, standing as a monument to
his loyal service and in a local way doing honor to his memory. The
people may rest assured that in no other way would John B. Ward have
felt more fully repaid, for the advancement of the cause of education
lay close to his heart. He was a Republican, but had little active in-
terest in politics, his sole official connection with the party being in
the capacity of county superintendent of schools, which office he held
for three successive terms.
AMOS NEWTON STOUT, M. D. Endowed . by nature with talents of
a high order, and scholarly in his attainments, the late Amos Newton
Stout, M. D., was engaged in the practice of medicine during his active
career, which was comparatively brief, and was reputed one of the
most skillful and able physicians of Southern Illinois. The fourth
child in succession of birth of William J. and Minerva (Klutz) Stout,
who reared seven children, he was born October 8, 1859, on a farm in
Cobden, Union county, Illinois.
Gleaning his elementary knowledge in the public schools of his
native county, Amos Newton Stout continued his studies at the Carbon-
dale Normal School, and later was graduated from Ewing College, in
Ewing, Illinois. His inclinations leading him to choose a profession,
he then went to Philadelphia, where he was graduated from the College
of Medicine with the degree of M. D. Returning to his native town,
Dr. Newton practiced for two years in Cobden and Bryden, and then,
in order to further advance his knowledge and usefulness, he took a
post graduate course in Louisville, Kentucky. Returning then to Bry-
den, the Doctor continued his practice there until 1895, when he re-
moved to Ava, Jackson county. His professional wisdom and skill was
soon recognized, and he built up a large and remunerative practice,
becoming one of the physicians of that part of the county, and was
there a resident until his death, in 1904, while yet in the prime of life.
Dr. Stout was an active and popular member of the Democratic party,
and for a time served as mayor of Ava. Fraternally he belonged to
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and to the Woodmen of the World.
Dr. Stout married, in 1895, Miss Anna Smith, a daughter of A. J.
and Mattie Smith, of DuQuoin, Illinois, and of their union two children
were born, Lawrence and Ross. After the death of her husband Mrs.
Stout opened a general store at Sand Ridge, Jackson county, and has
since carried on a lucrative business, being well patronized, and is also
serving as postmistress. She is an active, brainy woman, and is held in
high esteem throughout the community. She is conscientious, Christian
woman, and a member of the Baptist church.
SAMUEL TASKER BRUSH. To say that he has been tried by both ex-
tremes of fortune and never seriously disturbed by either will tersely
tell the life-story of Samuel Tasker Brush of Carbondale and forcibly
suggest the salient traits of his character. The warp and woof, of the
story — his orphanage in childhood and consequent dependence on a
1396 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
generous uncle for sustenance and schooling; his early work at making
a livelihood for himself; his honorable record in the Civil war; his
youthful appointment to positions of great responsibility in the serv-
ice; his subsequent business successes and reverses; the broken thread
of his domestic life ; his bounty to his church — these and other details
of his career will be briefly shown in the following paragraphs. But
the full measure of his usefulness could not be given here, even if space
were available for the purpose.
Mr. Brush was born in Jackson county, Illinois, on February 10,
1842. He is a son of James and Jane (Etherton) Brush, and of New
England ancestry on his father's side. His paternal grandfather, El-
komo Brush, was among the early pioneers of Illinois, having moved
to this state from Vermont in 1820, and located in Morgan county,
whence his father, James Brush, came to Jackson county in 1830. He
was a manufacturer of lumber all his life from the dawn of his manhood
to his early death in 1849, when Samuel was but seven years of age-
The mother was not spared long to care for her offspring, as she died
in 1852.
Thus doubly bereft while he was yet of tender years, the helpless
orphan found a comfortable home and considerable attention under the
roof of his uncle, General Daniel H. Brush, a gallant soldier in the
Union army during the Civil war, and the founder of Carbondale. He
sent his nephew to subscription schools, in which the latter obtained the
foundation of his education. He was ambitious, however, to be doing
something for himself, and when the Illinois Central Railroad ran its
first train, in October, 1854, he was on it as a newsboy.
After remaining on the road two years in this service his uncle took
him into a store he owned, and sometime afterward into the old Jack-
son County Bank, in which he held a controlling interest. In 1858 he
learned telegraphy and then worked in the office of the Illinois Central
two years as an operator, being also under the direct supervision of
his uncle in this work. He had been a diligent student while in the
store and bank, and so pleased his uncle with his progress and his skill
as a telegrapher that the next thing for the aspiring youth was a course
of instruction at Jackson College at his uncle's expense.
When the first call came in 1861 for volunteers to defend the Union
from dismemberment, both he and his uncle were fired with patriotic
zeal and offered their services to their country. The uncle raised a com-
pany of which he was made captain, and the nephew enlisted first at
Jacksonville, Morgan county, in a company raised by Captain King.
Captain King's company could not be accepted at the time because the
number of volunteers asked for by the call of President Lincoln had
already been supplied. What then? The boy in years but man in
spirit and development of faculties promptly entered his uncle's com-
pany, and was soon afterward detailed military telegraph operator,
serving first at Mound City and later at Cairo until July, 1862. While
at Cairo, on account of his capacity in the work and unwearying at-
tention to it, he received an appointment as general manager of all the
telegraph operations there and on the lines running south from the city,
although he was but little over twenty years old at the time, and not
only the youngest manager but one of the youngest operators in the
service. But the manner in which he performed the duties of the posi-
tion fully justified the confidence expressed in his appointment. This
also led to still higher promotion. Because of the executive ability he
displayed he was made wire adjutant of the regiment before the end of
the year, on September 5, in fact. He served as adjutant until February,
1863, and was then detailed aid-de-camp at the headquarters of General
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1397
Nathan Kimball. This detail was unsought by him and undesired, and
he protested against it. But, good soldier that he was, he yielded to
superior authority, and accepted the position.
When General Kiinball was relieved of the command he recommended
that Mr. Brush be made acting assistant adjutant general of the Second
Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, under command of General
Joseph R. West, and he received the appointment. He continued to
fill the position to the end of his term of service and one month longer
in order to get as creditable a discharge as possible when he was mus-
tered out of the service, as he was on July 1, 1864, being then only
twenty-two years and five months old, lacking nine days, and with a
military record of which many a veteran would be proud. Before his
discharge General West offered him the position of acting assistant
adjutant general with the rank of captain, and pending the appoint-
ment he was induced to accept the post of superintendent of telegraph
lines in Arkansas, in which he served two months. He finally declined
to accept the offer made by General West because of the refusal of the
authorities to assign him to the army commanded by General Sherman,
of which he ardently longed to become a part.
When he returned to Carbondale after his discharge from the army
Mr. Brush engaged in farming, mining coal and manufacturing lumber
in Jackson, Williamson and other counties. He organized the St. Louis
& Big Muddy Coal Company in 1889, of which he was made general
manager. In this enterprise he had as his associates Major E. C. Daws,
of Cincinnati, S. M. Dodd, of St. Louis, and former Vice President
Charles E. Fairbanks, of Indiana. The company encountered many
difficulties from the start, and in 1900 was put in the hands of a re-
ceiver. Mr. Brush bought the property from the receiver the same year
and owned it until 1905, when he sold it. During his ownership of the
mine and other assets of the defunct company he also had many diffi-
culties from labor strikes and other causes.
Mr. Brush is now living retired from active pursuits in business
and occupies his time in looking after the properties he has acquired.
From 1889 to 1905 he was actively engaged in business as a coal operator,
and for a much longer period as a manufacturer of lumber, and in the
year last mentioned felt that he had earned the right to a more quiet
life and total, release from the worry and vexation of managing any
business enterprise, however profitable. To some extent, too, he began
to feel the weight of years, and the inevitable longing for leisure and
rest that follows long continuance in the galling harness of toil.
Mr. Brush is a member of the Illinois Commandery of the LoyaJ
Legion. Army of the Tennessee. He also belongs to John W. Lawrence
Post, Grand Army of the Republic. For many years he has been an
earnest, active and devoted member of the Presbyterian church, and
this is an organization in which all the members of his family of the
present and past generations have taken a great and serviceable interest.
His uncle, Daniel H. Brush, built the first Presbyterian house of wor-
ship in Carbondale, in 1858, and in 1906, when the congregation needed
a new one to accommodate its increased and still increasing numbers,
he was himself chairman of the building committee. The old structure
cost $3,500, and the new one $35.000.
Mr. Brush loaned the congregation half of the money required to
build the new church, and the sum did not long remain unpaid, the
church having been dedicated in 1907 free from debt. He has shown
his deep interest in the moral well being of the city in many other ways,
one conspicuous evidence being his ceaseless war on the saloon. He
served seven years as president of the anti-Saloon League, and in every
1398 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
case he has furnished the money required to carry the saloon question
up to the supreme court of the state when litigation over it has arisen.
In fact, it is due largely to him that there are no saloons in Carbondale.
This is not to be wondered at. Two circumstances give him a peculiarly
warm interest in the city: After it had been founded and laid out
by his uncle Daniel, his mother's family was the third to settle in it;
and he is himself the only person who has lived in it continuously since
1852.
On October 3, 1864, just after his return from the war with all
' ' his blushing honors thick upon him, ' ' Mr. Brush was married to Miss
Sophia L. Freeman, of Anna, Illinois. Two of the children born to
them are living. One is James C., of Carbondale, a farmer and coal
operator, who was long associated with his father in that business. He
was born on February 2, 1868, and completed his education at the
Southern Illinois Normal University. He married with Miss Blanche
Brown, of Hillsboro. this state, and has six children : Clara .B., Francis
B., James Curtis, Jr.. Sophia Louise, Samuel Tasker and Edgar John.
The other living child is George M., a resident of Boulder, Colorado,
and unmarried. He is a musician, writer and critic of considerable
reputation all over the country.
The mother of these children died on September 5, 1874, and in
1882 the father contracted a second marriage, uniting himself in this
with Miss Jennie Candee, of Galesburg, Illinois. They have had two
daughters, one of whom, Alice, died at Carbondale in 1906, at the age of
twenty-one. The other, Elizabeth P., is a graduate of Smith College,
Northampton, Massachusetts, and is now a teacher in the State Uni-
versity in Champaign, following the example of her distinguished father
in rendering exalted service to her day and generation, although in a
very different field of action from any that ever engaged his powers.
GENERAL DANIEL H. BRUSH. Every town or city of consequence
which is not the sudden and recent product of trade conditions venerates
the memory of some sterling, though it may be rugged, founder who,
anticipating the tide of immigration which has flowed from the Atlantic
seaboard steadily toward the sunset until it has overspread the whole
country, planted his foot in the wilderness and there hewed out for him-
self a new home wherein his hopes might expand and flourish. These
were men of heroic mold, fashioned by their time for sturdy work — fit
progenitors of the people they begot. No toil deterred, no danger
daunted, no hardship dismayed them. With unyielding will they
pressed their way over every obstacle, often challenging Fate herself into
the lists, and meeting her on almost equal terms.
The dreams that impelled them to and sustained them in their per-
ilous undertakings we may not know, for they have left no record of
them. Perhaps they were inspired only by hope of immediate gain, and
saw no farther. It may be that some of them sought naught but relief
from the irksome restraints of society in the wild life of the forest. Yet
men of either of these classes must have awakened to wider vision in
their close communion with Nature, and come to see themselves, as many
others must have seen them, the planters of new communities, the
patriarchs of people, to pass away in their time but to be revered ever
afterward, and, remote from the period when their wasted tenements
were laid to rest, to be kept standing in the gaze of posterity, heroic
figures, dimly glorious, far up the valley of years. To this class belongs
General Daniel H. Brush, the founder of Carbondale. He had both the
lessons of the past and the impressive events of what was the present to
him to give him hints of what might happen anywhere in this country.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1399
But he had also a wide sweep of vision and foresight, and it must have
revealed to him much for what he was preparing the way, extravagant
as his view might have looked to others.
General Brush was born at Vergennes, Vermont, in 1813, and in 1820
moved with his parents to Illinois. In 1836 he married Miss Julia Ether-
ton, of Jackson county, and in 1852 they moved into the county from
their former home and took up their new residence in a small settlement
which had not then a name, but which subsequently, through his enter-
prise, became Carbondale and received its geographical baptism from
him. He and ten other men acquired the land on which the city now
stands, and, after due deliberation, determined to lay out a town on it.
Being a strong temperance man, Mr. Brush, for he was not then a
general, had incorporated in each contract for the sale of a town lot a
provision forbidding the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a condition of
the sale. He also looked after the moral and religious welfare of the
town in another important respect, by making provision for four churches
and setting aside a lot for each of them when he laid out the village he
was starting as the nucleus of the city he hoped would follow.
In 1856 he was chosen trustee and a member of the building com-
mittee for the erection of a Presbyterian church. The facilities for
building were meager and the structure was not completed until 1859,
but it was dedicated on July 12 of that year. On December 18, follow-
ing, he was elected ruling elder of the congregation. Thus was started
in motion the beneficent force that has resulted in the present large con-
gregation of the Presbyterian sect in the city and the splendid church
edifice which it uses.
Up to this time his work in connection with his bantling was one of
peace and progress only. But the time was near at hand when he would
be called to sterner duties and take the flower of the community with
him. When the Civil war began the whole of his following was against
the partition of the Union, and he raised a company of volunteers in and
around Carbondale to assist in defending it against this disaster. This
became Company K, Eighteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and he was
chosen captain of it by the united voice of its members.
The command was soon at the front and engaged in active hostilities,
although it was formed in response to the first call of President Lincoln
for volunteers. At the battle of Fort Donelson in 1862, Captain Brush
received a rather serious wound which disabled him for service for a
time. On his recovery and return to the company he was promoted
major for his bravery in the engagement. At the battle of Shiloh he
commanded the regiment and received another wound. He recovered
from this, however, in time to take part in the battle of Little Rock,
Arkansas. In 1863 he resigned from the army, and was discharged with
the rank of brevet brigadier general.
When he left the military service he returned. to Carbondale, and
thereafter served Jackson county for a number of years as county and
circuit clerk. In 1867 his wife died, and in 1868 he married a second
time, being united in New York on this occasion with Miss Elizabeth
Ward, a Carbondale lady, with whom he lived in domestic happiness un-
til 1879, when he was killed by a falling tree in the yard of his home.
General Brush did more for Carbondale than any other one man. He
was a merchant and helped to give the town mercantile importance. He
also dealt extensively in land, and in this way aided greatly in develop-
ing and improving the surrounding country. He was an earnest advo-
cate of everything that was good and was universally beloved.
1400 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Louis DELL 'ERA. The very substantial and dignified aspect of the
town of Herrin is due in particular to one of her most loyal citizens,
Louis Dell 'Era, who belies his Italian birth in not only being strenuously
progressive himself but in inspiring his fellow citizens with civic pride
and with sufficient confidence in the future growth of the city to invest
their money in home enterprises and to erect permanent structures in-
stead of the makeshifts that are usually built in a new town. His pru-
dence and foresight in real estate deals have won for him the trust of
others, so that now where he leads others follow, consequently his in-
fluence in building up the town has been great. He is not only in-
terested in real estate but in other phases of business and whatever he
handles seems to turn out fortunately.
Louis Dell 'Era is a child of the sunny Southland, the land of blue
waters and bluer skies, of gray-green olive trees and purple grapes. Per-
haps his optimistic, happy belief in the ultimate good in everything is a
result of his childhood in the warm soft Italian sun. He was born at
Cuggiono, in the province of Milan, on the 8th of February, 1866, the
son of Charles Dell 'Era and Josephine (Frejerri) Dell 'Era. His
brother John now lives in St. Louis, while his sister, Mary is the wife of
Jo Cheodini, of Murphysboro, Illinois. Louis Dell 'Era grew up in his
native town, gathering a rather meager education from books, but a
plentiful knowledge in the art of taking care of himself. When he was
sixteen circumstances compelled him to earn his own living. This was
not easily done, for he had no trade and was forced to become a wan-
derer, drifting from place to place, picking up a bit of work here,
another yonder, sometimes able to pay for a bed, oftener sleeping
under the stars. He crossed the Alps into France and spent several
years among the French people, becoming proficient in their langauage
and managing somehow to earn a livelihood. While roaming over the
southern provinces of France he picked up considerable knowledge of
Spanish. The sound of this liquid tongue made him long for home, so
he went back to his native land and enlisted in her service as a mem-
ber of the engineering corps of the army. The next two years were
spent in that strangely remote country, tucked off down there under the
wing of Egypt, Abyssinia. Here he picked up not only a knowledge
of the surrounding country but also of African conditions in general,
for his fellow soldiers had seen much service on the continent and knew
Africa as well as that dark land of many mysteries could be known.
His years of army life gave him an acquaintance with engineering that
was to be of great use in after life in furnishing him with a profession.
On his discharge from the army he took a contract for railroad
grading in the Congo Free State and led a force of six hundred men far
into the interior of Africa, where they remained two years. On his
reappearance he took a similar contract for a piece of work in Salonika,
Turkey, and when this was completed he returned to the Congo to handle
another job like the first. He stayed in the jungle some fifteen months,
then the heat, the incessant rains, the insectivorous pests, the snakes and
wild beasts that sometimes get on a man's nerves, in short, the intoler-
able life that a white man must endure in a tropical country was too
much for him and he had to get out, and he did, just in time to save his
life.
Having friends in America, he decided to try his luck in that land of
many promises, and turned his face westward in 1896. He came to Illi-
nois with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, looking for work in his
own line. Finding none, he opened a saloon in Murphysboro, and in
1898 he came to Herrin. The town was embryonic then, and Mr. Dell
'Era may in truth be said to have grown up with it. He established
TEE UBRMN
OF THE
OHVERSITY OF ILLIBfflS
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1401
a retail liquor trade which was so successful that he was soon enabled
to put back into the town some of the money that was flowing from it
into his pocket. He bought considerable property and upon the most
desirable sites erected substantial business houses. His own handsome
and commodious brick hotel occupies one of the most prominent corners
in the business section and the splendid structure that attracts the eye
of the stroller along Park avenue is the three story brick opera house
also erected by him. There are many minor improvements which he has
carried out that add materially to the sum total of Herrin 's welfare.
This interest in real estate and his belief in the potential possibilities
for the growth of new towns through this great mineral belt of Southern
Illinois have led him, in conjunction with his partner, Mr. Berra, to buy
a large property some four miles north of Herrin. Here a town site
of fifty-five acres in one plat, called Franklin, has been platted, and
sixteen acres in another, called Dell 'Era, in honor of its most dynamic
owner. It is in the region of the newly developed coal fields and with
the inrush of workmen and the further development of the mines the
success of this rather daring venture is practically secured. Mr. Dell
'Era is also interested in the City National Bank, becoming one of the
original stockholders when the institution assumed a corporate exist-
ence, and now being a member of the directorate.
Before coming to this country Mr. Dell 'Era was married to Dora
Biotti, the ceremony taking place on the 17th of June, 1893. Of their
three children, Joseph is a student in the Catholic school at Quincy,
Illinois, while Ida and William are attending school in Herrin.
Mr. Dell 'Era was quick to adopt the political views of his new
country and became a Republican. He is one of the leading spirits of
the Lombardo Society of Herrin, having been its president for seven
years. He belongs also to the Eagles and to the Red Men. He it was
who inaugurated the practice of observing Columbus day in Herrin,
this being the anniversary of the discovery of America by his great
compatriot of Genoa. At first this celebration consisted of little flocks of
Italians, with decorations proclaiming their nationality, passing through
the streets, the recipients of the curious stares of their fellow citizens.
How different was the celebration of last year! The grand parade,
with its many floats, on which were contrasted the customs of old Italy
with those of the New Italy, gallant knights in armour, a long string
of automobiles bedecked with the stars and stripes, platoons of foot-
men and horse, and the crowning joy of all, a bevy of girls in white with
gayly floating ribbons. The moving spirit of all this splendor was Louis
Dell 'Era. He was the organizer, and raised the funds necessary to
carry the affair out on a spectacular scale, and to give the brilliant pyro-
technical display that followed in the evening. It was he who insisted
that order should be preserved all along the line of march ; that the
Italians were on exhibition and that no disorder coming from them
should mar the occasion. His commands were obeyed, and suffice to
say, the citizens of Herrin were delighted with the demonstration made
by their adopted fellow citizens and October 12th will not soon be for-
gotten by them.
It shows much strength of character and a determination to succeed
for a man differing in nationality, with all the differences in speech and
temperament and mode of thinking, which that implies, to come into a
community and forge to the front, at the same time working for the best
welfare of the city with as loyal a heart as Mr. Dell 'Era has done. It
was a great disappointment to him when he could find no work in his
chosen profession on coming to this country, but did he sit down and
bemoan his fate. No, with a smile on his lips he turned to the first thing
1402 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
that offered. Herrin is proud to have as one of her citizens a man who
has passed through many hardships and bitter experiences, but has
brought to his latest home a calm belief in the good of his fellow men
and the silver lining in every cloud.
HON. CHARLES ALBERT DAVIDSON. As one who has attained distinc-
tion in his profession and has been chosen to fill high office, Charles
Albert Davidson, of Newton, is recognized as one of the 'able members
of the Jasper county bar. He was born in Shelbyville, Indiana, Feb-
ruary 17, 1861, and is a son of Benjamin D. and Mary E. (Andrews)
Davidson, the former of whom was born in 1824, at Lexington, Ken-
tucky. In 1835 Benjamin D. Davidson was taken to Indiana by his par-
ents, and there followed the trade of blacksmith. In 1850 he was mar-
ried to Mary E. Andrews, a native of the Hoosier state, and they
had a family of eight children, Charles Albert being the sixth in order
of birth. In 1872 Mr. Davidson brought his family to Illinois, and
after spending about four years in Clark county, removed to Jasper
county, where the remainder of his life was spent in working at the
trade of blacksmith, and his death occurred April 2, 1909, his wife hav-
ing passed away in 1865. Both were consistent members of the Meth-
odist Episcopal church, and in political matters Mr. Davidson was a
stanch Democrat.
Charles Albert Davidson attended the public schools of Jasper
county, and continued his studies in the Valparaiso University, Val-
paraiso, Indiana, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of
Science in 1880. Returning to Newton, he entered an attorney's office
and faithfully prosecuted his law studies, being admitted to the bar in
1885. In that year he was elected city attorney of Newton, and served
in that office until 1888, when he was chosen state 's attorney, a capacity
in which he acted until 1896. In 1898 Mr. Davidson received the
nomination for the office of state senator from the forty-fifth district
of Illinois, and was elected by a handsome majority, serving with dis-
tinction until 1902. At present he is serving as a member of the Kas-
kaskia Land Commission, to which, he was appointed by Gov. Charles
S. Deneen in 1911. In that year he formed a partnership with Charles
D. Fithian, present state's attorney, and in addition to having a large
and representative law practice is successfully engaged in the mortgage
and IOEJI business. Of great executive ability and business sagacity,
he has satisfactorily met every demand made upon his versatile talents
and long experience as a man of affairs. He is one of the leaders of
the Democratic party in Jasper county, where he has made his influence
felt in various ways. Fraternally he is prominent as a member of the
Modern Woodmen of America, of the Red Men, the Odd Fellows and
the Court of Honor, and is popular with the members of the local
lodges.
In 1887 Mr. Davidson was united in marriage with Miss Cora M.
Bogard, of Newton, Illinois. Mrs. Davidson is a member of the Pres-
byterian church, and is active in religious and charitable work. In
his profession Mr. Davidson has not only the technical and practical
knowledge essential to eminent success, but also the tolerance, breadth
of view and generous public spirit which characterize the superior man.
HON. ISAAC HILL WEBB. After holding a foremost place among the
practitioners at the Hamilton county bar the Hon. Isaac Hill Webb is
making a record as judge of the county court that holds out a stimulus
and example to all men who are called upon to bear the high responsi-
bilities of a place upon the bench. The sound judgment, the well-bal-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1403
anced judicial mind, the intellectual honesty and freedom from bias which
are required in a judge — these attributes have been his and have enabled
him to maintain the best traditions of the judicial office. Judge Webb
was born July 15, 1856, in Hamilton county, Illinois, and is a son of
John and Sarah (Mitchell) Webb.
John Webb was born in Ireland, about 1825, and came to the United
States when but a lad with a family named Wallace, his own parents
both having died when he was only a few years old. About 1837 he
came to Hamilton county, and until the outbreak of the Mexican war
was engaged in working by the month on various farms, but when
volunteers were asked for during that struggle he enlisted in the army
of his adopted country, and for his brave and faithful services was
given a patent for one hundred and sixty acres of land in Hamilton
county, about three miles east of McLeansboro. There he spent the
remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits, and died September 20,
1883. He married Sarah Mitchell, who was born in Hamilton county
in 1829, daughter of Ichabod and Mary (Lane) Mitchell, and she still
resides on the old Hamilton county homestead. They had a family of
children as follows: Robert T., who married Sarah Laughmiller and
resides in Hamilton county; Mary, who married Dr. Asbury, of Mc-
Leansboro; Aletha, who is living on the old homestead with her mother;
Isaac Hill ; Laura, who married George W. Donnely and lives near Mc-
Leansboro ; John, who married Sarah Anderson, and is engaged in farm-
ing in Hamilton county; James M., who died single; Charles W., who
married Telia Lassater ; Cora, who married John M. Plannigan, a well-
known banker of Walpole; and Teresa, who married Arthur T. Dow.
During the war of the rebellion, John Webb enlisted for service in
the Union army, but after about a year was discharged on account of
disability and left the service with the rank of sergeant. He served as
county commissioner for a number of years, being a well known worker
of the Democratic party in this section. His religious affiliation was
with the Methodist church, while fraternally he was connected with the
Masons.
Isaac Hill Webb received his education in the common schools and
subsequently graduated from Hamilton College, at McLeansboro, and
until twenty-one years of age followed the life of a farmer. At that
time he began to teach school, and continued to engage in that profes-
sion for four years, in the meantime spending his summer vacations in
assiduous study for the legal profession. He entered the law depart-
ment of Illinois University in 1881, and after his graduation returned
to McLeansboro and formed a law partnership with Judge John C.
Edwards. In 1888 he was elected to the office of state's attorney, and
after serving in that office for two terms resumed his law practice with
Judge Edwards and J. H. Lane, the firm eventually becoming Webb &
Lane. Since 1905, however, Judge Webb has practiced alone. For
two terms he served as master in chancery, and in 1910 he was elected
county judge, being the present incumbent of that office. As a lawyer
Judge Webb held a position of high credit and distinction, his gifts as a
speaker and his capacity for close, logical reasoning making him a
peculiarly forceful and effective advocate. He has been a conspicuous
and influential force not only as a prominent member of the bench and
bar, but as a leading citizen interested in the important public move-
ments of the day, and he is held throughout the county in the highest
respect and esteem. Politically Judge Webb is a Democrat, and fra-
ternally he is connected with the Knights of Pythias and the Modern
Woodmen.
On February 14, 1904, Judge Webb was married in McLeansboro,
1404 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Illinois, to Estelle Baker, who was born at Golconda, Illinois, January
15, 1872, daughter of John C. and Mary (Boicourt) Baker. Two chil-
dren have been born to this union, one of whom survives : John Robert,
who was born July 16, 1909. Judge and Mrs. Webb are faithful mem-
bers of the Methodist church, and have been widely known in religious
and charitable work.
ANDREW L. SNIDER. One of the enterprising and progressive mer-
chants of Jackson county, in whose career the ambitious youth of today
who seeks to attain success in the mercantile field may find much that
is worthy of emulation, is Andrew L. Snider, of Sand Ridge, who has
attained his present enviable position in the commercial world as a re-
sult of exercising an inherent business ability and always confining his
business operations to legitimate lines. He is a native of Jackson county,
and was born in Pomona township, August 17, 1861, a son of Andrew
Jackson and Liza A. (Lattie) Snider.
Andrew Jackson Snider was born in the state of Pennsylvania, from
whence he was taken by his parents when a youth to Ohio. He began
his career as a railroad man, but subsequently drifted into the sawmill
business, which he was following at the time of his death, which oc-
curred when his son Andrew L. was about fifteen years of age. Mr.
Snider 's demise was caused by an accident in his mill, when he was in
the prime of life, while his widow, a native of Pulaski county, Illinois,
still survives him and makes her home at Sand Ridge. A public-spirited
and patriotic citizen, at the outbreak of the Civil war, Mr. Snider en-
listed in the Federal army and served throughout that struggle. He and
his wife had eight children, Andrew L. being the third in order of birth,
and three other children still survive, namely: Willis Sheridan, Wil-
liam Sherman and Erin.
Andrew L. Snider received his education in the public schools of
Pomona township, but at the time of his father's death his mother
brought the children to Sand Ridge, and Andrew, as one of the eldest,
was compelled to give up his studies and go to work to assist in sup-
porting the family. Choosing farming as a vocation, he was engaged
therein until thirty years of age, at which time he saw an opportunity
to establish himself in the mercantile business at Sand Ridge, and dur-
ing the past twenty years he has built up a large trade. He does an
extensive business in the surrounding agricultural community, and car-
ries in his stock those articles which his own experience as a farmer
taught him were most desirable. A Republican in his political views,
Mr. Snider has always taken a keen interest in the success of his party
in this section, and for twelve years he demonstrated his ability as a
public official in the office of postmaster.
When he was twenty years of age Mr. Snider was married to Miss
Annie Cauth, and they had one child, Martin, who is deceased. Mrs.
Snider passing away soon after the birth of the child. In later years
Mr. Snider was united in marriage with Miss Florence Stewart, daughter
of A. J. Stewart, a veteran of the Civil war and prominent Jackson
county citizen, and to this union there have been born three children :
Larkin, Wilton and Roland. Coming to Sand Ridge as a poor boy,
without friends or influence here to aid him, Mr. Snider has forged his
way to the front, and has become one of the substantial and influential
men of his community. Foresight and industry have been the keys
that have unlocked for him the door of success, and he has numerous
warm personal friends who take a gratified interest in the prominence
that has come to him.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1405
PROFESSOR EDWARD Louis BLAKE. The educator of today has to
meet and overcome many obstacles with which those of an older day
knew nothing. The enlarging of the curriculum of the public schools
with the demand for the practice of pedagogy necessitates a long and
careful training and constant subsequent study and reading on the part
of those to whom is entrusted the training of the plastic mind of youth.
Popular demand has resulted in the production of a class of men who
have no equal in the history of the world as educators. Their knowl-
edge of their work and matters in general is extensive and profound,
and at the same time they possess sound judgment and a keen insight
into human nature that makes it possible for them to give to each pupil
the individual attention now regarded as so necessary for the proper
rounding out of character. Among those who have thus distinguished
themselves along these lines in a broad and comprehensive way is Pro-
fessor Edward Louis Blake, principal of the public school system of
Grand Tower, Illinois, whose long and faithful service here entitles
him to a place among the eminent educators of Southern Illinois.
Professor Blake is a product of eastern Kentucky, and was born Octo-
ber 27. 1866, a son of William Jasper and Octavia V. (Tanner) Blake.
William Jasper Blake was born in Greenbrier county, West Vir-
ginia (then Virginia), and was a farmer and carpenter by vocation.
As a young man he moved to Kentucky, where he was married and
during the latter part of the Civil war he was mustered into the Con-
federate service, but on the same night deserted to the Union lines and
joined the Federal army. After serving several months the war closed
and he returned to his home, but shortly after the birth of Edward L.,
the family came to Illinois. Mr. Blake later went back to his native
state and subsequently settled in Steubenville, Ohio, where his death
occurred in 1874, after which the family located in Gallatin county,
Illinois, where Mrs. Blake's death occurred ten years later.
Edward Louis Blake was the second in order of birth of a family of
five children, and his preliminary educational training was secured in
the public schools of Steubenville, Ohio, and Gallatin county. Illinois.
For one year he attended Hayward Collegiate Institute, at Fairfield. and
spent a spring and summer term in the schools at Normal, Illinois, al-
though he had at that time been engaged in teaching for three years in
Gallatin county. In 1894 he located in Carbondale, where he continued
until 1900, in the meantime teaching in Gallatin, Union- and Jackson
counties, and after finishing his course spent twelve weeks in the Uni-
versity of Illinois. On taking the state examination he was granted
a life certificate. Mr. Blake first taught school in Grand Tower in
1897, and since that time, with the exception of a few short terms, he
has served as principal of the schools here. In 1902 he was a can-
didate for the office of county superintendent, but owing to political
conditions at that time he met with defeat. His principles are those
of the Republican party, and he and his wife attend the Presbyterian
church. Professor Blake's reputation as an educator is high in the
profession, and personally he is very popular, many of his warmest
friends in this community being former pupils. He has found time to
exert his influence in behalf of progressive movements of benefit to the
city, but has not entered the public field to any extent.
In June, 1902, Professor Blake was married to Miss Ida Schulze,
of Grand Tower, and three children have been born to this union, namely :
Helen and Evelyn, twins, and Edward.
RUDOLPH J. KASSERMAN. Among those who have achieved a position
of prominence at the Jasper county bar is Rudolph J. Kasserman, junior
1406 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
member of the firm of Fithian & Kasserman, attorneys and counselors
at law in Newton. The firm holds a foremost position and is concerned
in important litigation and retains a clientage of signally representative
character. Mr. Kasserman was born on a farm in Richland county, Illi-
nois, January 27, 1870, and is a son of Stephen and Annie (Tomi) Kas-
serman.
Stephen Kasserman was a native of Switzerland, where he was born
August 16, 1829. Coming to America with his parents when still a lad,
he settled in southeastern Ohio, where he grew to manhood and followed
farming, in addition to engaging in steam-boating on the Ohio river.
About 1866 he moved to Richland county, Illinois, and after he had en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits for a time he became a general contractor,
his field of operation being Olney. He removed to a farm in Jasper
county in 1879, where his death occurred in 1893. He married Miss
Annie Tomi in Ohio, and she died in 1895, having been the mother of
nine children, of whom Rudolph. J. was the fourth in order of birth.
Rudolph J. Kasserman 's early life was spent in Olney and his edu-
cation was secured in the public schools of Jasper county. He event-
ually became private secretary to Congressman George W. Pithian, of
Newton, and while discharging the duties of that position found time to
prosecute his law studies under Mr. Fithian 's preceptorship, and be-
came his partner after his admittance to the bar in 1895. Mr. Kasser-
man as a counselor is safe and duly conservative, and well merits the
reputation he has gained as one of the able and honored attorneys of
the county. Politically he is a Democrat, and has served as master in
chancery of Jasper county.
In 1894 Mr. Kasserman was united in marriage with Miss Lydia L.
Moore, and they have had three children : Homer, George and Anna.
Mrs. Kasserman attends the Presbyterian church, and is well known in
religious and charitable work. Mr. Kasserman belongs to the local lodge
of Masons.
NOAH M. TOHILL is a fine combination of professional and business
man. He is of that type of men who can never devote themselves to one
thing to the exclusion of all other interests, but must have other chan-
nels into which to direct their surplus energy. As a lawyer he has been
highly successful, proof of which is to be found in his services as state 's
attorney and as city attorney. He is one of the men who is doing much
to allay the distrust that has sprung up in the minds of the public con-
cerning law and lawyers. He has a brilliant and well trained mind, his
knowledge of legal lore being very thorough, but better than these qual-
ities is that of a sincere determination to do what he considers the right.
He has a native eloquence and knows how to sway the jury, but he was
never known to take an unfair advantage and he pleads that in the
courts of justice at least justice should be shown.
Noah M. Tohill was born in Crawford county, Illinois, on the 10th
of December, 1864. His father was Lewis N. Tohill, who was born in
September, 1829, in Crawford county, Illinois. The founder of the
Tohill family in this state was John Tohill, the grandfather of Noah
Tohill, who came to Illinois from Virginia about 1822. This pioneer in
the days of Indians and bears was a millwright by profession, but like
all the settlers of that early date he took up farming, and followed his
trade at intervals only. On the farm of his sturdy old father Lewis
Tohill grew to manhood. He was early made familiar with the work
of the farm and it was inevitable that he should in time follow in his
father's footsteps and become a farmer. This was the profession that
he has followed throughout his life, the only break in his life as an agri-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1407
culturist being when he enlisted and went to the front as one of the
Ninety-eighth Illinois. His war record is an honorable one, and when
he received his discharge at the end of his term of service he returned
home and settled down to the old life again. His marriage to Cynthia
A. Jones took place in 1861. She was a daughter of John M. Jones,
who was a farmer of Crawford county. Six children were born
of this union, and Noah was the second of these. Mrs. Tohill died
on the 2nd of August, 1874, but Mr. Tohill is still living, at the old
home in Crawford county. He is a firm believer in the doctrines of the
Republican party, and his religious affiliations are with the United
Brethren.
Noah M. Tohill, like his father, had the wholesome influences of the
farm as his early surroundings. He grew up in Crawford county, and
the schools of the county provided him with an education. He after-
wards went to the State Normal University at Normal, Illinois. He was
ambitious to acquire as much education as possible and saw no way of
securing what he wanted except by his own efforts, so during the period
while he was attending school he was also teaching. After the two years
which he spent at Normal were over he went to Valparaiso, Indiana, and
entered Valparaiso University, where he remained for one year. Dur-
ing all this time while he was attending school he taught for six years.
This process of studying for a time, then breaking it off and plunging
into pedagogical work, only to resume the studies when enough money
had been earned to carry him a few months further along the road,
was a slow one, and entailed endless patience. He never faltered, how-
ever, and before him always he kept the goal of his ambitions bright,
for it was ever his intention to become a lawyer.
He was postmaster at Plat Rock, and taught the public schools of
that place for a number of years, three of which were spent in the prin-
cipal's chair. He had always desired to read law in the office of Calla-
han, Jones and Lowe at Robinson, Illinois, for his admiration for the
senior member of the firm had always been intense. At last his wish was
fulfilled, and he spent two years in the offices of the above mentioned
firm. He feels that the thorough training which he here received is
in a large measure responsible for his success, and he will always feel
the influence of the high ideals for which the above firm of lawyers stood.
He was admitted to the bar in February, 1895, and located at Lawrence-
ville in March of the same year. After practicing for one year he was
elected state 's attorney, and proved to have been chosen wisely. In 1897
he formed a partnership with B. S. Kingsbury, and this partnership con-
tinued until the 1st of January, 1906. In 1909 he formed a partner-
ship with Mr. J. E. McG-aughey, and this partnership is still active.
They are doing a large amount of business, and some of the cases which
they handle are very important. For a period of six years Mr. Tohill
held the office of city attorney, and his work won the approbation of all
who knew of it. He is much interested in politics, and believes that the
preservation and safety of the nation will be best effected with the Re-
publican party in power, consequently he is active in behalf of that party.
He has been delegate to both state conventions and to congressional con-
ventions, and is always willing to work for the glory of his party and
the good of the people.
In the business world Mr. Tohill is especially well known through
his connection with the oil business, for he has been greatly interested in
promoting the opening up of the oil fields in all of the surrounding coun-
try. He is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Lawrenceville,
and is vice-president and a stockholder of the Citizens' Telephone Com-
pany, which has been in operation for over ten years. He is a member of
1408 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the Christian church, and his fraternal affiliations are with the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks.
Mr. Tohill was married on the 12th day of November, 1888, to Rose
Otey, of Robinson, Illinois, now deceased. On the 4th of January, 1899,
he was married to Fannie E. Barnes, of Flat Rock, Illinois. She was a
daughter of George D. Barnes, a well known merchant of Flat Rock, who
is now dead. She died on the 15th of April, 1901, leaving a little daugh-
ter, Mona. Mr. Tohill married again, Inez M. Hill, of Mount Carmel,
Illinois, becoming his wife.
FRANCIS B. THACKER. An excellent type of sturdy American man-
hood is found in the person of Francis B. Thacker, who, although he
has passed the allotted time of three score years and ten, is still engaged
in active pursuits and is carrying on operations on his fine farm situ-
ated about three miles northwest of Vienna, Johnson county. Through-
out his life Mr. Thacker has been one of this section's most energetic
and public-spirited citizens. When the call for troops to protect his
country's flag came he was one of the first to enlist from his section,
and after he had served gallantly throughout the Civil war, he returned
to the peaceful occupations of life and proved himself worthy of the
esteem of his fellow men. Mr. Thacker is a native of Johnson county,
and was born on a farm on Simpson's Road, two miles southeast of
Vienna, a son of Joel Sampson and Sarah (Bain) Thacker, and grand-
son of Nathan Thacker. of Tennessee.
Joel Sampson Thacker was born in Stewart county, Tennessee, and
as a youth migrated to Illinois with his mother, locating in Johnson
county in 1830. He continued to engage in agricultural pursuits
throughout his life, and his death occurred on his farm, situated near
Pond, Illinois, in 1855. He married Sarah Bain, daughter of John
Bain, a native of South Carolina, who migrated to Kentucky and then
to Southern Illinois, and they had a family of five children: Francis
B.; S. P.; Mrs. Martha Fort; Charles A., of Oklahoma; and G. N., of
Weatherford, Oklahoma. The mother of these children passed away
in March, 1908.
Francis B. Thacker began his education in the district schools of his
native community, but was left fatherless when fourteen years of age
and was compelled to leave school and start to work on the home farm.
He was twenty years of age when the Civil war broke out, and on Au-
gust 22, 1861, he enlisted in Company D, Thirty-first Regiment, Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until July 19, 1865. At the
time of his enlistment his captain was Captain Williamson, and he saw
much service under General John A. Logan. The first engagement in
which Mr. Thacker took part was the battle of Fort Donelson, in Feb-
ruary, 1862, and during the summer of that year his regiment partici-
pated in several minor engagements before a severe conflict with Con-
federate cavalry at Burnt Bridge, Tennessee. Following this came the
battle of Corinth, October 3 and 4, and in the winter the army went to
Coldwater Station, near Vicksburg. On January 1, 1863, the regiment
was ordered to Memphis, and during the following month descended
the river to Lake Providence, above Vieksburg. On May 1st the river
was crossed, the blockade run, and the battle of Fort Gibson fought,
and following this Mr. Thacker 's division was stationed at various
camps until finally engaging the enemy at Jackson, Mississippi. Re-
turning to Champion Hill, a battle was fought at that point, and later
on the regiment went to Vicksburg, where they took an active part in
the siege, marching into the city on the morning of July 4th. Subse-
quently a series of engagements were fought to Black River, twenty
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1409
miles east of Vicksburg, and here Mr. Thacker veteranized. In the
spring of 1864 his regiment was transported up the river to Cairo,
and later became a part of Sherman's army at Big Shanty, Georgia.
Almost daily skirmishes followed, constant action under a heavy fire
was nothing out of the ordinary, and sharpshooting on both sides be-
came deadly. After the surrender of Atlanta, in August, the regiment
became a part of the division that was sent after Hood's retreating
army. Subsequently the regiment to which Mr. Thacker was attached
returned to Atlanta, took part in the famous ' ' March to the Sea, ' ' win-
tered at Buford, South Carolina, and in the spring of 1865 marched
north and on March 19 met and defeated Johnston's army at Golds-
borough. The surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court House
followed three weeks later, and the war was closed. After participat-
ing in the Grand Review at Washington, D. C., Mr. Thacker was mus-
tered out of the service at Louisville, Kentucky, July 19, 1865, and on
August 6th, following, received his honorable discharge at Springfield,
Illinois. As a soldier who always did his full duty cheerfully, bravely
and faithfully, Mr. Thacker won the respect of his officers and the es-
teem of his comrades. No duty was too irksome, no march too long or
hard, no battle too fierce or skirmish too dangerous to keep him from his
place in the ranks, and the record which he made through nearly four
years of fighting is one of which any soldier might well be proud.
If Mr. Thacker was a good soldier, so has he proven himself a good
citizen. On his return from the war he engaged in the sawmill busi-
ness, being thus engaged until 1868, and then traded his mill for a tract
of one hundred acres of land five miles north of Vienna, to which he
added from time to time until he had nearly two hundred acres. Sub-
sequently he moved to Grantsburg. where he again was engaged in mill-
ing, but selling his farm and mill he purchased a portable mill, and in
1873 went to Lick Creek, Union county. During the following year,
however, he returned to Johnson county, and resumed operations on
his old farm, but in 1892 sold that land and soon thereafter purchased
the tract that he now owns. This comprises one hundred and fifty acres
of some of the best cultivated land in Johnson county, and includes an
orchard of fourteen acres of apple trees and a large vineyard. He has
carried on general farming and stock-raising, and whatever he has
taken up he has followed to a successful conclusion. Always a stalwart
Republican, he has been elected to positions of honor and trust by his
fellow-townsmen, including those of assessor and justice of the peace,
and in 1888 he was elected clerk of the circuit court of Johnson county,
a position which he held until 1892. During this time he was engaged
in the nursery business in partnership with Mr. W. A. Galeener. Pre-
vious to this time he had served as county treasurer, from 1877 until
December 1, 1882, and subsequently from 1903 to 1909, acted in the
capacity of county commissioner for two terms. In his official capaci-
ties he has shown himself able, conscientious and competent, and his
best efforts have been given that the affairs of his community might
prosper. Fraternally he is connected with the A. F. & A. M., No. 150,
of Vienna ; he is a popular comrade of the Vienna G. A. R. Post, and he
and his family attend the Methodist Episcopal church.
On October 25, 1866, Mr. Thacker was united in marriage with Miss
Nancy C. Peterson, daughter of Owen and Elizabeth (Mercer) Peter-
son, of Cache township, Johnson county. Mr. Peterson, who was born
in Arkansas, came to Johnson county with his parents, Thomas and
Lucy (Arbor) Peterson. Mr. and Mrs. Thacker have had ten children,
namely: Marcus, Minnie, Ida May and Sarah Ellen, who died in in-
fancy; Mary Frances, born December 6. 1875, who married a Mr.
1410 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Dundas, and has one child, Leona, aged thirteen years ; Harry ; Sam-
uel, who married Fannie Stewart, deceased, by whom he had two
children, Jeanette and one who died in infancy ; and Kate, Nola and
Charles. Harry Thacker was born February 10, 1878, and re-
ceived his education in the schools of Vienna, also spending two terms
in McKendree College, Lebanon. He had been reared to agricultural
pursuits and was engaged in assisting his father, to whom he was
deeply attached. A misunderstanding having occurred between his
father and a publisher, and the latter publishing an unwarranted at-
tack on Mr. Thacker, the son, out of filial devotion, endeavored to have
it retracted. On September 10, 1910, the people of this community
were shocked to learn that young Thacker had been the victim of a
brutal murder. His loss was one that was felt not only by his imme-
diate family, but by all who had come into contact with this bright,
promising young farmer-citizen. His remains lie in the Vienna Ceme-
tery.
HENRY VOGEL.. One of the foremost agriculturists of Jackson
county, Henry Vogel, of Fountain Bluff township, holds a high position
among the energetic, progressive and successful farmers who thoroughly
understand the vocation which they follow and are enabled to carry it
on with both profit and pleasure. He was born January 16, 1850, in
Perry county, Missouri, and is of thrifty German ancestry.
His father, August Vogel, was born and reared in Germany, and as
a young man served as a soldier in the German army. Immigrating to
the United States soon after his discharge from the army, he soon made
his way to Missouri, where he settled permanently. Buying land in
Perry county, he improved a good farm, which he managed with ex-
cellent results until his death, about 1868. He was a member of the
German Evangelical Lutheran church, and was not only a farmer of
prominence, but was a citizen of influence. He married, in Scott county,
Missouri, Catherine Doering, and of the seven children born into their
home three are living, as follows: August and Samuel, of Missouri, and
Henry.
The fourth child in succession of birth of the parental household,
Henry Vogel grew to manhood on the home farm in Perry county, Mis-
souri, in the meantime gleaning a good education in the public schools.
In 1879 he made his way to Illinois, and having bought land in Foun-
tain Bluff township has since been actively and prosperously engaged
in agricultural pursuits, having one of the most highly cultivated and
productive farming estates of Southern Illinois. Mr. Vogel is a man of
solid worth, possessing in a marked degree those traits of character that
command respect in business life and gain esteem among one's neigh-
bors and associates. He has ever evinced an intelligent interest in pro-
jects calculated to benefit town or county, and as one of the organizers
of "The Big Lake Drainage District" was largely influential in having
the drainage canal pass through Fountain Bluff township into the
Mississippi. A Republican in politics, Mr. Vogel has served as one of
the first drainage commissioners for many years and as school trustee.
Religiously he belongs to the German Evangelical Lutheran church of
the Missouri Synod and contributes liberally towards its support.
Mr. Vogel married, in 1875, Amalia Palich, a daughter of Ernest
Palich, of Frohna, Perry county, Missouri, and they have a fine family
of eight children, namely : Anna, Ernest, Hulda, Adelia, Clara, Gustav,
Arthur and Dorathea.
f»t llu.^fj)
OF Iht
•=-.! r w ,*fcill,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1411
MIKE LEVY, secretary of the Carterville & Big Muddy Coal Com-
pany, and one of the leading business men of his community, has acted
in his present capacity since 1904, and has made his name familiarly
known to the coal trade. The plant of the company is situated adjacent
to the town of Cambria, and its owners are citizens of Jackson county.
Mr. Levy passed the years of his minority in Murphysboro, to which
point his father brought the family from Cincinnati, Ohio. In the
latter city Abe Levy, his father, was a merchant, who had added his
presence to the Hebrew population of the United States in 1865.
Abe Levy was born in Germany in 1847, and sought America after
his schooldays were passed. Reaching his destination on April 15th,
the day following the assassination of President Lincoln, he was soon
in the employ of one of his countrymen in the big metropolis along the
Ohio river. Subsequently he went to Indianapolis, Indiana, and he re-
turned to the former city some months later, prior to coming to Illi-
nois. He was married in Cincinnati to Miss Paulina Rittenberg, and
they had the following children : Simon, of Murphysboro, a machinist ;
Harris, of Murphysboro, a clothing merchant ; JVlike ; Sadie, residing in
Murphysboro ; Isaac, who is state 's attorney of Jackson county ; and
David B., who is a lawyer and his brother's assistant.
Mike Levy has been a resident of Murphysboro since the 'seventies.
He was educated in the graded schools, and when he was thirteen years
of age began to make his own way in the world. As a messenger boy
for the Western Union Telegraph Company Mr. Levy performed the
duties incident to that position and also carried the mail from the post-
office to the depot, and for this double service he was paid the sum of
thirteen dollars per month. The lad was ambitious, however, and soon
learned telegraphy, being subsequently employed by the old Cairo Short
Line as operator at different points for a few years, and became agent
of the company at Murphysboro. When that road was absorbed by the
Illinois Central, Mr. Levy was made agent of the consolidated company
at Murphysboro in 1898. In 1904 he gave up that position to accept
the one he now holds, which has since received the benefit of his best
energies.
On September 30, 1911, Mr. Levy was married at Carbondale, Illi-
nois, to Mrs. Etta Grammer, a daughter of Allen Holder, a farmer and
old settler of Carbondale, while the new Levy home is situated in
Murphysboro. Mr. Levy has given his attention to business rather
than to promiscuous affairs. He is a Republican in politics, but they
have no attraction for him other than as a voter, and his connection
with fraternities is told when it is stated that he is an Elk.
THOMAS B. NEEDLES. Pre-eminent among the men. of Nashville who
are the authors of large and worthy accomplishments in a public way
is Thomas B. Needles, president of the First National Bank of Nash-
ville and the possessor of no little fame as a member of the Dawes Com-
mission, which wound up the affairs of the Five Civilized Tribes of
Indians and thus prepared them for full entry into civil relations as citi-
zens of the United States. As marshal of the Indian Territory district
at one time he took an important part in the actual opening up of that
territory to settlement, and he has in many and various ways given
valuable service to the state in an official capacity.
Born in Monroe county on the 26th of April. 1835, he is the son of
James B. and Lumima (Talbert) Needles. The former was born in
Baltimore, Maryland, in 1786 and came to Illinois in 1820. He had re-
ceived the advantage of an oxceptionally good education, and during
the first six years of his residence in Monroe county he taught school
1412 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
there. He later served as sheriff of the county for six years, but with-
drawing from public life he engaged in mercantile business in Water-
loo, Illinois, remaining there until 1851. He then made several moves,
being two years in Keokuk, Iowa, two years at Mt. Sterling, Illinois, and
two years at Belleville, Illinois. He then moved to Richview, Washing-
ton county, Illinois, in 1857, where he carried on a mercantile business
until his death, which occurred in 1860. He was reared in the Quaker
faith, but late in life he became an adherent of Methodist principles
and died as a member of that church. He was thrice married. His
first wife, Lumima Talbert, was a daughter of Elijah Talbert, who came
to Illinois from Virginia and settled in Monroe county. When Mrs.
Needles died she left three children -. Thomas B., of this review, Sarah
E., who passed away in Washington county as the wife of S. P. Cooper,
and James B., who died in 1862. Mr. Needles next married Sarah
Decker, who died, leaving a son, Edward Needles, of Prairie du Rocher,
Illinois. The third wife of Mr. Needles was Miss Christina Mace, and
of this union one son was born, Henry Needles, a prominent lawyer of
Belleville, Illinois.
Thomas B. Needles was liberally educated in so far as the common
schools were able to advance him, after which he attended a seminary at
Mt. Sterling, Illinois, spending two years in study there. When he had
finished his training he joined his father in business and continued with
him until 1860, when he started a mercantile business in Nashville,
Illinois, on his own responsibility. The following year he became active
in the political life of Nashville, and he was elected county clerk of
Washington county, filling that office by successive elections for sixteen
years. He was the first Republican to be elected county clerk of the
county, and in 1876 he was elected state auditor of Illinois. One pol-
itical honor followed another, and in 1880 he was elected to the upper
house of the general assembly, and while a member of that body was
chairman of the committee on revenue. In 1889 he was appointed by
President Harrison to the marshalship of the district of the Indian Ter-
ritory and filled the office until he was succeeded by J. J. McAlester, the
appointee of Grover Cleveland when he entered the presidential office.
It was during Mr. Needle's term of service that Oklahoma was opened
to settlement, and the police arrangements for the management of the
famous horse race were made by him and the actual opening of the
country to settlement was accomplished under his management.
Resuming his active connection with home affairs once more. Mr.
Needles was elected in 1894 to the lower house of the general assembly
was given the chairmanship of the committee on appropriations. He
was returned by the Republicans in 1896 as his own successor and con-
tinued to work at the head of the same important committee. In 1899
he was appointed to the Commission of the Five Civilized Tribes, other-
wise known as the Dawes Commission, and he served throughout the eight
years of the life of that Commission. The immense and important work
done by this body was of far-reaching consequence to the Indian and
to the nation, and will be written in history as among the great pieces
of work done under and for the government. As a member of that
commission, if he had done nothing else to establish his name in the
history of Illinois, he would have succeeded admirably in that one
respect.
Throughout the course of his political life Mr. Needles was closely
affiliated with the affairs of the Republican party in Illinois, and he
was a member of its state conventions on many occasions, and possessed
a wide acquantance among the more prominent men of the state. In
1872 he became interested in banking and it was about that time that he
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1413
assisted in organizing the Washington County Bank, with which he has
been connected continuously since that time. Following its conversion
into the First National Bank on June 1, 1903, Mr. Needles was made
president, the office which he now holds, and since his retirement from
public life he has devoted himself completely to the welfare of that
institution. Mr. Needles is one of the oldest Odd Fellows in the state.
He has served as grand warden and grand master; he is a member of
the Grand Lodge and was a member of the Sovereign Grand Lodge, and
has been grand treasurer of the order for twenty-eight years and which
office he still holds. He is a Royal Arch Mason.
On December 16, 1860, Mr. Needles was married at Richview, Illi-
nois, to Miss Sarah L. Bliss, a daughter of Augustus Bliss, who came to
Illinois from Ohio. Mrs. Needles passed away March 4, 1905, as the
mother of Jessie, who died in Nashville in 1902 as Mrs. Frank Genung,
and Winnie, the wife of Paul Krughoff, of Nashville.
JOHN W. MATHENY, who is holding the office of city clerk for the
fourth term and who for the past decade has been engaged in the fire
insurance business, has attained a prominent and influential position in
the affairs of Newton and Jasper county. Since first becoming a factor
in the world of affairs he has been engaged in more than one line of
industry, — mercantile, grocery and the hotel business, — and has found
success in all. Essentially public spirited, he has long been recognized
as a safe man to whom to entrust important public interests and he has
been the incumbent of a number of offices. It is a pleasure to the biog-
rapher to take up the record of his life, which has ever been of the most
praise-worthy character.
John W. Matheny was born with what seems to be the greatest ' ' open
sesame" to success — his birthplace was upon the farm, and the date of
his nativity was March 15, 1870. His father, Norman C. Matheny, was
born January 12, 1850, also in Jasper county, and spent his earlier life
upon his farm, but subsequently engaged in public life, holding a num-
ber of offices. He died February 14, 1912, at his home in Newton. He
was engaged for a number of years in the hotel business at Newton, con-
ducting the Hudson House. He was married in' 1869 to Sarah Hunt,
of Jasper county, and they became the parents of six children, three of
whom are living, and the subject being the eldest in order of birth. The
first wife died in 1884 and in 1889 the elder Mr. Matheny was united
to Nancy A. Matheny. Six children were born to the second union and
three of this number survive. The subject's father was a Democrat of
staunch conviction and took no small interest in public affairs. He was
for several years constable of Wade township and was also acting
special deputy sheriff. He had at all times taken much interest in the
affairs of county, state and nation and was a man of such character as
goes to make up the better element of citizenship in any community.
He maintained his residence in Newton and was an honored member
of the Lutheran church, in whose advancement he took an active part.
He was a lodge man, belonging to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and the Court of Honor.
The early life of John W. Matheny was spent on his father's home-
stead farm and its pleasant, if strenuous, experiences constitute some
of his happiest memories. He received his early education in the pub-
lic schools and then, desiring to drink deeper of the "Pierian Spring,"
he matriculated at Hayward College, in Fairfield, Illinois, where he
pursued a commercial course. He then returned to Jasper county and
for a short time was engaged in a general mercantile business at Gila.
In October, 1890, he came to Newton and for a period of six years was
1414 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
employed in a store in this place. Subsequent to that he engaged in
the grocery business in association with other parties, the firm having
the caption of T. D. Foster & Company. He remained thus engaged for
three years and then acted as clothing salesman for another firm for a
period of three years. In 1902, following the example of his father, he
entered the hotel and fire insurance business, conducting the Evans
House, but his career as "Mine Host" was limited, for after seven
months the Evans House was destroyed by fire. It was then that Mr.
Matheny went into the fire insurance business, in which he has met with
great success.
Mr. Matheny, like his father before him, is a loyal supporter of the
men and measures of the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland.
He was first chosen for public office in 1892, when the people elected
him town clerk of Grove township. He could not have begun his career
any younger, for that was the spring he became of age. He held the
above-mentioned office for a year, and then came to Newton. In 1895
he was elected alderman of the Third ward and as such served one term
of two years. In 1897 he was appointed city collector and served one
year, and in 1898 he was re-elected city alderman of the ward he had
previously represented so well. In 1905 he was elected city clerk and
has ever since held the office, having now entered upon his fourth term.
He is one of the most progressive and enlightened members of the board
of education and has served in that body for twelve years. At the
present time he is also deputy county coroner. Mr. Matheny has
achieved that highest success — good citizenship. His methods are in
keeping with the progressive spirit of the twentieth century. He is a
man of broad humanitarian principles, of earnest purpose and upright
life and he does all in his power for the uplifting of his fellow men and
the promotion of the moral welfare of the community.
Mr. Matheny was married in 1894 to Irene B. Foster, daugthter of
Thomas D. Foster, and their happy union has been blessed by the birth
of a trio of interesting children — Nellie S., Alta E. and John A. They
are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and the subject is a
member of the Court of Honor, in which he enjoys well-deserved pop-
ularity.
SAMUEL DEBEBBY PEELEB. One of the foremost citizens of Cache
township, Johnson county, and a man whose activities in public and
agricultural life have made his name well known all over this section
is Samuel DeBerry Peeler, chairman of the board of commissioners of
the Cache River Drainage Project, and the owner of Lincoln Green
Stock and Grain Farm, a magnificent tract of 634 acres of well-culti-
vated land. Mr. Peeler was born August 8, 1861, on a farm in the
southwestern part of Johnson county, Illinois, and is a son of William
DeBerry and Catherine Elizabeth (Bishop) Peeler.
William DeBerry Peeler was born in North Carolina, and as a boy
of ten years was taken to northern Alabama by his father, John Peeler.
While in that southern state he was married to Catherine Elizabeth
Bishop, a lady of Puritan descent, who is still living on the old home-
stead farm, and in 1860 they came to Southern Illinois and settled on a
farm. In the spring of 1862 William D. Peeler enlisted in Company
E, Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry, for service in the Civil war, and con-
tinued with that organization until the spring of 1865, participating in
Stoneman's raid through Tennessee after Hood, barely escaping cap-
ture at Nashville and seeing much hard fighting. His record was one
that would honor any man, and he was known as a brave, cheerful and
faithful soldier, popular with his comrades and respected by his officers.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1415
On his return from the army he engaged in farming and became very
successful as an agriculturist, accumulating some 1,500 acres of land.
He was elected to various township offices by his fellow-townsmen, who
recognized and appreciated his many admirable qualities, and was for
a long period tax collector of Cache township. Three children were
born to William D. and Elizabeth Peeler, namely: Samuel DeBerry;
William Olin, a farmer on the old family homestead ; and Mrs. Mary
F. Wilhelm, who resides in Cache township. William D. Peeler died
May 17, 1899.
Samuel DeBerry Peeler was educated in the district schools and
the Southern Illinois State Normal University at Carbondale, finishing
his course in 1882. During this time he taught school for six years in
Belknap and at various other points in Johnson and Pulaski counties,
but in 1882, on account of the failing health of his father, he returned
home and became superintendent of the home farm, and thus continued
for seventeen years. In 1886 he purchased a small farm of his own,
and also managed a merchandise store on his farm, which was owned
for thirty years by father and son, and resided near his father until
1899, keeping the Lincoln Green postoffice in addition to looking after
his farm and store. In 1899 Mr. Peeler removed to a farm residence
about one-half mile south of the old home, selling his first farm to his
brother, William Olin, and then purchased what is known as the old
Andrew Jackson Axley farm, consisting of 282 acres, to which he has
since added until he now owns 634 acres, 500 of which are under cul-
tivation. This he operates as a livestock and grain farm, under the
name of the Lincoln Green Stock and Grain Farm, and his annual pro-
duction, for which he has no trouble in finding a ready market, is as
follows: Thirty head of cattle, one hundred and fifty hogs and ten
horses and mules. His net income from his farming operations averages
from $2,000 to $3,500 per year. He was one of the original organizers
and promoters of the Cache River Drainage Project, and his adminis-
trative abilities were recognized in his election to the position of chair-
man of the board of commissioners of this great enterprise. A Re-
publican in politics, in 1890 he was elected a member of the board of
county commissioners, serving on that body until 1896, and for fifteen
consecutive years he was road district clerk of Cache township. Fra-
ternally he is connected with the Masonic lodge at Belknap, the chapter
at Vienna, and the Knights Templars at Cairo ; and with the Knights
of Pythias, the Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America at
Belknap. He and his family are active members and liberal supporters
of the Methodist Episcopal church.
On March 9, 1884, Mr. Peeler was married to Miss Mary D. Rees,
daughter of .Dr. Alonzo P. and Jane (Krews) Rees, the former of whom
is deceased, and six children have been born to this union: Seth H.,
who died at the age of twenty years ; Bertie, Carl, Doris and Mabel, who
died m infancy; and Ralph D., who is eighteen years old. Mr. Peeler
is certainly a man who merits the esteem of all who appreciate pro-
gressiveness, industry, enterprise and honest dealing, and his person-
ality is such that he has made many warm, personal friends in his com-
munity, who have watched with a gratified interest his rise to a fore-
most place among the men of this section.
FREDERICK H. KOENNECKE. One of the most successful of the in-
dividual operators in the mineral district of Carterville, Illinois, is
Frederick H. Koennecke. owner of the Donaly-Koennecke Coal Com-
pany, an active enterprise some two and a half miles north of the city.
He is rather a novice in the business of mining when compared with
1416 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
those whose lives have been devoted to this industry, but notwithstand-
ing his recent entry into this now hazardous field he has demonstrated
his capacity for handling a considerable enterprise with favorable re-
sults to its owner, as well as to those who help to dig out the coal.
Mr. Koennecke has been a resident of Southern Illinois for a quarter
of a century and of the United States since 1884. He sought the new
world in order to evade the military service incumbent upon all able-
bodied young men of his native land and came hither equipped with a
knowledge of the trade of baking. He was born at Magdeburg, Prussia,
October 26, 1863, a son of Christoph Koennecke, a farmer and one
of seven children. As a good education is imperative for German chil-
dren, Frederick Koennecke had the advantage of a high school training
and he might have remained a subject of his Kaiser but for the burden
of military service demanded of the Fatherland's young men.
He sailed from Hamburg as quietly as possible and landed at Phil-
adelphia. As he failed to secure work at his trade, he began to look
outside of it and found work on a farm in northern Illinois. In re-
sponse to an advertisement telling of the demand for tradesmen in the
city of New Orleans, he went there during the exposition of 1885, and
upon his arrival he found to his great dismay that similar pilgrims in
quest of work were being shipped away in great numbers. Hearing of
the possibility of securing labor at Delta, Mississippi, he spent almost
his last dollar to reach there by boat, only to find that he had followed
another ignus fatuus. Without means for further transportation he set
out on foot for Shreveport, Louisiana, and reached there "broke."
Luck favored him, however, and he kept busy for several months and
when he had accumulated four hundred dollars, in the light of the les-
son taught by former advantures, he deposited three hundred of it in
a bank and with the remainder bought a trunk and some good clothes.
But alas for good planning, the bank subsequently closed its doors and
he was again stranded. He thereupon went to St. Louis and there se-
cured work for a time, in the meantime keeping on the lookout for a
position at his trade. Presently an inquiry came from Carbondale for
a baker and he first set foot within the limits of the Southern Illinois
coal field in 1886.
While in Carbondale Mr. Koennecke again had a somewhat varied
financial career. He engaged in the baking business and later drifted
into merchandising in connection with it. He let a small start get
away from him a time or two as a result of too much confidence in am-
bitious Americans, but he finally got out of that city with enough to set
him up in business as a baker in Carterville in 1891. His industry
served him well as a merchant, for he soon made himself felt in this
line, and until 1898 he did a leading business, controlled the trade of
the Brush mines, favored that company materially in its contest with
its employes when on a strike and was subsequently taken up by Mr.
Brush, of the St. Louis Big Muddy Coal Company, who used his store
as a base of supplies when he introduced colored labor into his mines.
He finally sold his store and was made manager of the mercantile busi-
ness of the St. Louis Big Muddy Company and served in this capacity
until 1901, when he resigned to take active charge of the office and finan-
cial affairs of the embryonic company — the first Donaly-Koennecke
Coal Company, formed in 1899. The new company secured a lease near
the city on the north and sold it soon after opening it up to the Chicago
Coal Company. They then leased a tract of a few hundred acres at
Brush Crossing on the Illinois Central Railroad and began development
work there in 1902. This proposition embraces a half section of land
and is equipped to operate to the capacity of a thousand tons a day.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1417
In 1911 Mr. Donaly retired from the concern as the result of a sale of
his interest to Mr. Koennecke and the latter is the head of the corpora-
tion, while his daughter, Esther E., acts as secretary and treasurer.
As a resident of Carterville Mr. Koennecke has added his capital
and influence toward the material development of the city. He took
stock in the Carterville State & Savings bank and is one of its directors.
He responded to the demand for substantial business houses and erected
a few fronting on the main streets of the place. He built residences
and has a rental list which indicates a considerable financial outlay.
He has built a small mining town adjacent to his place of business and
operates a store in connection with the town.
Some years ago he served Carterville as an alderman and took a
fervent interest in urban affairs. He was then a Democrat, but certain
policies of the party have displeased him in late years and he supported
President Taft for the presidency in 1908. He is a Scottish Rite Mason,
a member of the Carterville Blue lodge, of the Oriental Consistory and
Medinah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, at Chicago. He also belongs to
the Knights of Pythias.
On March 12, 1891, Mr. Koennecke married Miss Mary Louisa Don-
aly, daughter of William and Mary (Ganley) Donaly, the former of
Scotland and the latter from the city of Dublin. The children of the
union of Mr. and Mrs. Keonnecke are as follows: Esther, who grad-
uated from St. Theresa's Academy of St. Louis and is associated with
her father in business; Dorothy, a student of St. Theresa's Academy;
and Catherine L. Mr. Koennecke in 1907 took his family on a visit to
his old home for the first time since he left it, and spent four months
in Europe, seeing the leading cities of Germany, and traveling into Hol-
land, France and the British Isles, the tour being for his children an
unsurpassed educational opportunity.
ISAAC MONROE ASBUBY, M. D. For nearly forty years an eminent
member of the medical profession of Southern Illinois, Dr. Isaac Mon-
roe Asbury, of McLeansboro, well merits the esteem in which he is held
by the people of this section, and is able to fill the high position which
he now holds, that of medical director for the Grand Army of the Re-
public for the state of Illinois. Dr. Asbury was born in Hamilton
county, July 6, 1848, and is a son of Wesley and Susan M. (Mitchell)
Asbury.
Wesley Asbury, who was born July 5, 1805, in North Carolina, was
a tanner by trade, and came to Hamilton county, Illinois, in 1838,
where he continued to follow the tanning business for twenty years.
For about ten years he was engaged in school-teaching near McLeans-
boro, and was also engaged in farming to some extent, purchasing a
place about four miles southeast of McLeansboro. He died near Mc-
Leansboro in 1897. He was a stalwart Republican in his political views,
and belonged to Polk Lodge, No. 137, A. F. & A. M., of which he was
the last charter member at the time of his death. He and his wife were
faithful members of the Baptist church, in which they reared their chil-
dren. Wesley Asbury married, October 1, 1844, Susan M. Mitchell,
daughter of Ichabod and Mary (Lane) Mitchell, the former of whom
settled in Hamilton county in 1818, and the latter also a member of a
pioneer family. Mrs. Asbury was born July 10, 1822, on her father's
farm three miles east of McLeansboro, and her death occurred Novem-
ber 24, 1876, on a property four miles southeast of that city. She and
her husband had the following children : John M., who died while serv-
ing in the Union army during the Civil war; Mary and Elizabeth, who
died in infancy; Isaac Monroe; Wesley L., who married Nancy Coker
1418 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and died September 15, 1895 ; Rowena, living in Oregon, who married
Edward Pratt, of McLeansboro; Isabelle, who was married in Oregon
to W. H. Hutchinson; Martha, the wife of Rev. N. Crow, of Fairfield,
Illinois ; Daniel I., who resides in Oregon ; James T., a resident of Los
Angeles, California; and Elizabeth, who died in infancy.
Isaac Monroe Asbury attended the common schools of Hamilton
county until he was fifteen years of age, and in March, 1864, enlisted
in Company H, Sixtieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, from
which he received his honorable discharge July 31, 1865. He saw active
service during the Atlanta campaign, and participated in Sherman's
famous march to the sea, returning through the Carolinas. He had an
excellent war record, and his record since he has settled down to the
pursuits of peace has been just as admirable a one. He returned to his
studies for a time and then taught school until 1871, in order to secure
the means to pursue his medical studies, having decided to follow that
profession as his life work. In 1871 he entered the Eclectic Medical In-
stitute at Cincinnati, Ohio, from which he was graduated May 19, 1873,
and he at once entered into practice in Gallatin county, Illinois. There
he spent the next thirty years of his life, building up a large and lucra-
tive practice, and becoming widely known for his ability in his profes-
sion, as well as for his kindliness of manner and sympathetic nature.
In 1902 he came to McLeansboro, to live a retired life, and at the last
state encampment of the G. A. R. he was elected medical director for
the state of Illinois. He is a stanch Republican in politics, but his ac-
tivities have been devoted to his profession, and he has found little time
to engage in public affairs. Fraternally he is a well-known Mason, and
is serving as secretary of the local lodge.
On January 1, 1877, Dr. Asbury was united in marriage with Mary
E. Webb, who was born in March, 1850, near McLeansboro, daughter of
John and Sarah (Mitchell) Webb. They have had no children. Dr.
and Mrs. Asbury are consistent members of the Methodist church, to
which they are liberal contributors, and both have been active in relig-
ious and charitable work. Dr. Asbury 's standing is high both in and
outside of his profession, he has the esteem and respect of his entire
community, and is eminently fortunate in being the possessor of a host
of warm, personal friends.
EZEKIEL R. JINNETTE. After nearly thirty years spent as an edu-
cator in the schools of Union county, Illinois, Ezekiel R. Jinnette gave
up teaching in 1897, and since that time has become an authority on
matters agricultural, a lecturer before various farmers' institutes and
a contributor to a number of farm journals. He belongs to a family that
has long been identified with the interests of Union county, and was
born here in 1847, a son of William E. and Thirza (Miller) Jinnette.
William E. Jinnette was born in North Carolina, and accompanied
his parents to Union county when a child. He was brought up to agri-
cultural pursuits, and was engaged therein at the time of the outbreak
of the Civil war. A stanch Republican, and one of forty-six men in
Union county to vote for John C. Fremont, the first presidential candi-
date of that party, he was also a strong Union sympathizer, and in 1862
enlisted in Company H. Eighteenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer In-
fantry, with which organization he served until the close of the war.
On his return from the army William E. Jinnette took up the peaceful
occupation of farming again, and he was engaged therein until his
death. Mr. Jinnette married Thirza Miller, who was born in Union
county, her mother having come to Illinois at a time when only one
white man was seen while the family was crossing the state. Mrs. Jin-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1419
nette's grandparents first settled in Missouri, but soon thereafter moved
to the Illinois side, on Clear Creek, but when Mr. Miller was shown the
high-water mark by a friendly Indian chief he decided to move farther
•into the state and subsequently settled in Union county, near Dongola.
When he was seventeen years of age Ezekiel R. Jinnette ran away
from home to enlist in the Union army, becoming a member of Com-
pany L, Sixth Illinois Cavalry, and served until the close of the war.
On his return from the front he went to school for one winter to Ed-
win Babcock, and in the fall of 1868 applied for a school, from which
time until 1897 he was absent from school as a teacher only three win-
ters. His labors were practically confined to three districts, those of
Anna, Nimmo and Friendship, although for one term he taught En-
glish and algebra in Union Academy at Anna. Mr. Jinnette became
widely and favorably known, and the friendships thus made have con-
tinued to last to the present time. In 1891 he went to California for
the benefit of Mrs. Jinnette 's health, and traveled in the interests of
The Occident, a Presbyterian journal. On his return he was for one
year engaged as a traveling salesman for a Chicago commission house.
During the years that he was engaged in teaching Mr. Jinnette
had carried on farming during the summer months, and since 1897 he
has given all of his attention to agricultural matters. He is the owner
of "Sunnyside Farm," containing one hundred and twenty-three acres
of some of the best land in Union county, making a specialty of canta-
loupes and strawberries, and the products from ' ' Sunnyside ' ' are known
for their size and excellence. He is a director in the Anna Fruit Grow-
ers Association, a position which he has held for fifteen years, and was
the first secretary of the Southern Illinois Fair, held at Anna in 1880,
at which time he helped to plant trees on the Fair Grounds. He has
always interested himself in breeding full-blooded Jersey cattle and
now has a fine herd. Mr. Jinnette is of a literary bent and is a well-
known contributor to various agricultural papers and conducts a de-
partment in the Farm Journal, under the caption "Truck Patch."
He was one of the founders and the first local editor of The Talk, a
weekly, non-partisan newspaper, which was established at Anna in
1883, and the broad foundation and the principles advocated have never
been lost sight of although the paper has changed owners two or three
times. It was due to Mr. Jinnette 's activity and wise planning that the
large permanent circulation of the paper was gained. It is a tribute to
him to say that his successors have adhered pretty closely to the orig-
inal editorial policy and business rules. For five years the horticultural
department of the State University conducted an experimental station
on his farm. An absolute authority on matters of an agricultural na-
ture, Mr. Jinnette has lectured before a number of farmers' institutes,
and his advice is often sought in matters of an important nature per-
taining to farming methods and appliances, particularly in the realm of
horticulture.
In 1870 Mr. Jinnette was married to Miss Sarah A. Faris, who was
born in Ohio, in 1849, and they have had two children, namely: Agnes
J., who was a former teacher in Union Academy at Anna, later in the
Philippines, and is now the wife of Professor T. H. Rhodes, of Lowell
High School, San Francisco, a graduate of Harvard University and a
former teacher in the schools of the Philippine Islands ; and William P.,
a graduate of Union Academy, who married Myrtle Hileman and is now
engaged with his father in the management of "Sunnyside Farm." Mr.
Jinnette and his family are members of the First Presbyterian church
of Anna, where he has served as an elder since 1876, and for several
years was superintendent of the Sunday-school. He is commander of
1420 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic, No. 558, and was
formerly adjutant. For a long period Mr. Jinnette was connected with
the Knights of Pythias and served as keeper of the records and seal for
two years, but has lately severed his connections with that order. Like •
his father, he is a stanch adherent of Republican principles, and during
1908 was chosen by the county central committee to edit the Republican
columns in the newspapers. Mr. Jinnette has found much to occupy his
time and attention, but he has never been too busy to listen to an appeal
for aid, and has been liberal in his support of religious and charitable
movements. Probably no man is better known to the agriculturists of
Union county, and his standing is that of an honest, upright, desirable
citizen who has always had the best interests of his community at heart.
ROBERT MICK. Success in any of the pursuits of life usually chal-
lenges the admiration of the world. It matters not whether in the pro-
fession of law, medicine or literature, or in the theological domain, in
the military or civil life, or mercantile pursuits, it is the one distinguish-
ing and distinctive characteristic of all business transactions. In the
financial world alone the late Robert Mick in his sphere of labor and ac-
tivity distinguished himself as an active, energetic business man, and
demonstrated the fact that to a man of merit belongs the full measure
of success and worldly prosperity.
Robert Mick was born in 1819, in Saline Mines, Gallatin county, Illi-
nois, a son of Charles and Susan (Simmons) Mick, the former born in
1772 in Maryland, of German ancestry, and the latter in 1789 in Wil-
mington, North Carolina. They were married in Wilson county, Ten-
nessee, from whence in 1815 they came to Gallatin county, Illinois, where
Charles Mick entered one hundred and sixty acres of land for his son
Robert, the only other child born to him and his wife, Margaret, being
now the wife of James C. Ward, of Texas. Charles Mick died in Galla-
tin county in 1856, while his wife passed away two years previous to
that time, and both were there buried.
Robert Mick remained at home with his parents until he was twenty-
four years of age, and in 1844 was married to Martha Jane Strickland,
who was born in Saline county. From the time of his marriage until
1851 he was engaged in shipping goods down to New Orleans via the
river, in the latter year forming a partnership with Dr. John W. Mitch-
ell, a connection that continued until 1862. They were first engaged in
the mercantile business, and came as merchants to Harrisburg in 1856,
where in 1860 and 1861 they were the contractors of the original court-
house, the stone tablets from which, bearing the date and the names of
the contractors, being now in the possession of John H. Nyberg. Mr.
Mick and Dr. Mitchell were the largest dealers in merchandise at this
point and handled almost everything, including tobacco, in which they
did an especially large business. Mr. Mick continued in the mercantile
line until 1887, in which year he sold his stock for $15,000. In 1876 he
became the organizer of the Saline County Bank, with a capital of
$24,000, which he controlled until the organization of the First National
Bank of Harrisburg, Illinois, March 23, 1889, at which time he became
president of the new concern, and held that office until his death, Octo-
ber 10, 1893. This large concern, which has a capital of $60,000, and
assets of $329,500. is one of the most solid and substantial banking in-
stitutions of Southern Illinois, and does business with the largest con-
cerns in the state. Mr. Mick also owned the controlling interest in the
Harrisburg Woolen Mill, and had 3,000 acres of land in this county,
1,000 of which were under cultivation.
In 1868 Mr. Mick's first wife died, and during the year 1869 he was
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1421
married to Mrs. Hardenia Nyberg, nee Spencer, who was born in Galla-
tin county, Illinois, in 1836. Charles Nyberg, a native of Sweden, came
to the United States in 1853 and in 1855, with his brother Axel, opened
a general store in Harrisburg, of which he was a proprietor until his
death in 1860. His brother then sold out and the next year entered the
Union army, volunteering in the Sixth Illinois Cavalry, and later being
promoted to lieutenant and then captain of the Fifteenth Kentucky Cav-
alry. After completing two years' service he returned to Harrisburg,
where he was a merchant until 1906, and since that year has been living
in St. Louis, Missouri, with his children. Mr. and Mrs. Nyberg were
married in 1856, and one son was born to this union : John H. Mr. and
Mrs. Mick had no children of their own, but reared Mr. Mick's two
nieces, of whom Katherine became the mother of Charles and Harry
Taylor; and Alice Strickland married Laban J. Dollands and moved to
Florida.
Mrs. Mick has kept her husband's interest in the bank, and with her
son, John H. Nyberg, erected the new bank at a cost of $20,000, Mr. Ny-
berg being a director and stockholder in the bank, and having his busi-
ness office in the building. This is one of the handsomest structures in
Harrisburg, and does credit to the bank and the community, as it would
to any bank or community. Mr. Mick formerly had a store on the
corner, with the bank next door and the hotel up stairs, but had for some
years intended to make improvements. The present Saline Hotel was
erected by Mrs. Mick, and she also owns considerable land in the county,
which, under the supervision of Mr. Nyberg, has been divided into
farms.
Mr. Mick was first a Whig and later a Republican, but outside of tak-
ing a stanch interest in the success of his party he did not engage ac-
tively in public matters, preferring to give his time and attention to his
varied and extensive business interests. He was one of the early Masons
of Illinois, belonging to the first local lodge, and had been a Baptist since
about 1870. The church of this denomination was organized here in
1868, and in 1885 Mr. Mick erected a structure costing $10,000, which
was replaced in 1911 by a new stone building costing about $30,000, to
the fund for which Mrs. Mick was a liberal contributor. Mr. Mick's
open honesty and practical methods showed him to be an able business
man, and, being the architect of his own fortune, he was in sympathy
with every young man who embarked in business, showing it on all
proper occasions by lending a helping hand to those in need of good ad-
vice or financial assistance. He was known as a public benefactor who
had the welfare of his fellow men at. heart. Such men as he make the
foundations of our commonwealth, cement the solidity of our institu-
tions and are the men to whom the state of Illinois points with pride
during their lives, and for whom she deeply mourns after death.
JAMES W. GIBSON, for nine years county judge of Jasper county, is
himself one of that splendid representation of the flower of American
manhood who risked and lost their lives in the great struggle between
the states, and he comes of a family of soldiers and patriots, his father
having served in the Mexican war and given up his life to its cause,
while his grandfather was a veteran of Waterloo. Judge Gibson is a
man of potent and interesting personality and his reputation as one of
the prominent lawyers of this part of the state has been reinforced with
the passing years, during which he has appeared in connection with
many important cases. He is a strong advocate before court or jury
and not only marshals his causes with great ability, but brings to bear
the strength of a fine and upright character, so that he has gained and
Vol. 3—22
1422 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
held the inviolable confidence and regard of his fellow practitioners and
also of the general public.
Judge Gibson was born in Detroit, Michigan, October 26, 1845, and is
of Irish descent, his father, William Gibson, being a native of the vi-
cinity of Castle Blaney, province of Ulster, Ireland. He came from Erin
to America at about the age of twenty years and first located in Detroit,
where he followed the business of an architect and builder. He was
married on Christmas day, 1844, and by this union became the father of
two children, Judge Gibson being the elder. Adelaide, who became
Mrs. Foote, is deceased. The Mexican war broke out when the children
were infants, and the father, who was a young man, enlisted in Company
K, of the Third Dragoons, and was killed in a fight with the Mexican
Lancers on the night of August 10, 1847. His party consisted of ten
men and the lancers numbered one hundred and fifty. Mr. Gibson and
another comrade were killed and two comrades were taken prisoners, but
the rest of the party escaped, among them being the subject's uncle,
Isaac Gibson, of the dragoons. The grandfather of our subject, James
Gibson, lived to the great old age of ninety-nine. He served twenty-
one years in the British army, as a member of the celebrated ' ' Pusileers. ' '
The two most important battles in which he participated and of which
he frequently spoke in his later life were Talavera and Waterloo, at
the latter of which he was wounded and carried the French lead to his
grave. The subject's mother survived her husband for many years and
remarried.
After the death of his soldier father the fortunes of the little family
to which James W. Gibson belonged became precarious. The mother
resided with her parents for a time and, until the age of fifteen, young
James dwelt in the home of his grandfather. At that age he came to
Illinois and located at Olney, where he lived with his uncle, Isaac Gib-
son, of whom previous mention has been made. He received his educa-
tion in the public schools of Michigan and Illinois and after finishing
his general education he read law with his uncle Isaac, passing his ex-
aminations and being admitted to the bar in 1867. He was then a vet-
eran of the Civil war, having enlisted when in his teens in Company I,
of the One Hundred and Forty-third Illinois Infantry. This veteran
of twenty-two settled 'down to practice in Newton and in the interven-
ing years has gained high repute and professional success. He is a
Democrat of tried and true conviction and has always been of influence
in party ranks. In 1877 he was elected county judge of Jasper county
and served in such capacity for nine years, making the most enviable of
records. In his home county he has always been able to count upon the
support of both parties, for his ability and devotion to the public wel-
fare are generally recognized and are above mere partisanship. In
1897 he was nominated by the Republicans for the circuit judgeship and
was defeated. He is not an aspirant for political preferment and is
well content to devote his energies to his profession.
Judge Gibson was married November 19, 1870, to Vendia C. Brooks,
the scion of one of Jasper county's pioneer and highly honored fam-
ilies. Three children were born to them, Lela being the only survivor.
Launee and Ralph are deceased. Mrs. Gibson is a valuable member of
the Methodist Episcopal church and they are generally esteemed in the
community, their lives being filled with good deeds and their delight-
ful home being one of the favorite gathering places, its hospitality and
culture being unsurpassed.
MARSHALL EDWARD DANIEL. It is a well-established fact that the
newspapers of today mold public opinion to a large extent, and have the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1423
power of influencing the people of a community in advancing or de-
feating measures of public importance. The degree of effectiveness of
this influence, however, rests entirely upon the confidence with which
the reading masses accept the statements of any publication, and this in
turn devolves in a large degree upon the men in whose hands the making
up of the publication lies. The city of McLeansboro, Illinois, is to be
congratulated upon being the home of such a clean, wholesome news-
paper as the McLeansboro Times, the editor and publisher of which,
Marshall Edward Daniel, is known as a man of the highest principles
and an earnest and zealous worker in the journalistic field. Mr. Daniel
was born March 11, 1867, in Wayne county, Illinois, and is a son of
Woodson R. and Elizabeth T. (Sullinger) Daniel.
Woodson R. Daniel was born in Steward county, Tennessee, in 1845,
and in 1857 moved to Wayne county, Illinois, with his parents, Daniel
and Frances (Roberts) Daniel. In 1861, when but sixteen years of
age, he enlisted in Company D, Sixtieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, and after serving three years and nine months was honorably
discharged with the rank of sergeant. In 1867 he moved to Hamilton
county, and in the following year came to the city of McLeansboro, where
for about six years he was engaged at the carpenter's trade. Here his
father died in 1884, at the age of sixty-four years, his mother having
passed away the year before, when she was sixty-six years old. Mr.
Daniel was married (first) in 1864, to Frances Boswell, of Wayne
county, who died before he returned from the army, and in 1866 he mar-
ried Elizabeth T. Sullinger, of McLeansboro, who passed away in this
city in 1873, leaving three children, one of whom died in infancy : Mar-
shall Edward; and Charles R., who died in Texas in 1906, aged thirty-
five years, was married to Cora D. Riley, at Houston, Texas, and had
two children, namely, — Woodson R., Jr., who died September 27, 1910,
and John Marshall, who makes his home with his grandfather. Wood-
son R. Daniel's third marriage occurred April 30, 1874, to Mary J.
Goodwin, who is still living and makes her home in McLeansboro. To
this union were born three children : Mamie, who died in infancy ; John
W., who died February 19, 1903 ; and Minnie E., who married L. L.
Smith and lives in San Diego. California. Mr. Daniel was elected deputy
county clerk in 1873 and acted in that capacity for four years, was then
justice of the peace for twelve years, after which he again served
as deputy county clerk for eight years and six months, and in 1895
was elected police magistrate of McLeansboro, being the present incum-
bent of that office. During this long period he has served at different
times as coroner, acting sheriff, alderman, member of the board of edu-
cation and supervisor of McLeansboro township. He has been an ex-
cellent official, and is recognized as a power in Democratic politics in
Hamilton county. He belongs to the G. A. R. and the Odd Fellows,
while Mrs. Daniel holds membership in the Rebekahs, and both are
consistent members of the First Baptist church.
Marshall Edward Daniel received a common school education, and
as a lad started to work in the office of the McLeansboro Times for Gen-
eral Campbell, starting as roller boy at a salary of fifty cents per week
and working his way up to the position of foreman. In 1891 he left
the Times and went to Shawneetown, where he purchased the Gallatin
Democrat, which he continued to publish until 1898. and in that year
returned to McLeansboro and bought the Times from his former em-
ployer. This paper was organized in 1867, and is the oldest newspaper
in Hamilton county, where it is also the only Democratic publication.
In 1898, when Mr. Daniel took charge of its fortunes, it boasted 500 sub-
scribers, with a force of two persons beside the proprietor, while today
1424 HISTOKY OF SOUTHEEX ILLINOIS
it is the leading newspaper of the county, with 2,400 paid-up sub-
scriptions and an office force of eight people. Mr. Daniel has endeavored
to give his readers the latest national and international news, the bright
est and most interesting local happenings, timely editorials and accurate
statements of all kinds at all times, and that he has succeeded in his
object is evidenced by its popularity throughout the county. A promi-
nent Democrat in politics, Mr. Daniel has served as Democratic county
committeeman for eight years and as chairman of that body, and for a
like period acted as master in chancery. Fraternally he is connected
with the Woodmen, the Court of Honor, the Knights of Pythias and the
Mutual Protective League. A firm believer in the benefits of life insur-
ance, he holds several large policies.
In 1892 Mr. Daniel was united in marriage with Miss Lizzie E. Har-
rison, at Russellville, Kentucky, where she was born in 1867, daughter
of Carter H. Harrison. She was one of a family of seven children, and
died March 11, 1908, in the faith of the Methodist church, leaving three
children, namely : Carter H., born April 2, 1893, associate editor of the
Times; Marshall Edward, Jr., born March 26, 1895 ; and Paul W., born
June 16, 1897. Mr. Daniel was married in McLeansboro, Miss Myrtle
E. White, who was born in October, 1886, in Hamilton county, daughter
of Frank H. White, becoming his second wife.
GEORGE N. PARKER, while primarily a lawyer, is one of the promi-
nent men in Robinson, Illinois, in other fields than this, his chosen one.
As was quite natural he was drawn from the law into politics, and has
been a member of the state Democratic committee. In the business
world his activity has increased with the years. He is interested in the
real estate business and in the oil business. In both of these he has made
use of his training and experience as a lawyer to win his success. He
has the reputation of being one of the hardest working men in Robinson,
and when he is retained his client feels that if the case is lost it will
not be the fault of the lawyer, for when Mr. Parker accepts a case he
works indefatigably for victory. He does not know the meaning of the
word "discouraged" and this very confidence of his often serves to win
cases that in the hands of a less persistent man would be lost. He is
always in a hurry, yet usually seems to have time to discuss a business
deal or a law case. His faithfulness to his clients has helped to win the
confidence of business men, and they have placed him in a number of
positions of responsibility.
George Newman Parker was born in Crawford county, Illinois, on
the 9th of April, 1843. His father, Samuel Parker, was a native of
Ohio, having been born in Miami township, Butler county, Ohio, on the
22nd of May, 1816. He was the son of Jonathan and Mary (Newman)
Parker, and he was the grandson of James Parker. When Samuel
Parker was a babe of two years his parents moved to Crawford county,
Illinois, arriving in their new home on the llth of October, 1818. Here
the lad grew up and as soon as he was old enough took up the vocation
to which his father had devoted his life, that is, farming. He spent all
of his life in this pursuit, and made a fair success. He was married
to Emeline Lanham. Her father was a veteran of the War of 1812, and
died as a member of the Volunteer army. Emeline Lanham was born in
Louisiana. Of her three children, George N. is the youngest. His oldest
sister, Mary J., is Mrs. Barrick, of Robinson, and his older sister, Sab-
rina Ann, who became Mrs. Dean, is now deceased. In politics Samuel
Parker was a Whig-Democrat. He died on the 7th of September, 1904,
his wife having died at the age of seventy-two, on the 16th of August,
1888.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1425
George Newman Parker was brought up on the farm, and while given
some advantage in the way of education, had the healthful life of the
farm as a background. The many hours a day that he spent out-of-doors
cleared his brain and assisted him in comprehending cube root and the
complexities of English grammar. His elementary education was re-
ceived in the common schools, and when he outgrew these he was sent
to Palestine Academy. He later attended Union Christian College,
Merom, Indiana. He lived at home on the farm until he was twenty-
two yers of age, but at seventeen had started out in life as a school
teacher. He taught school for several years and in November, 1865,
was elected county superintendent of schools. He filled this position for
four years, at the same time reading law in the office of C. C. Fletcher.
He then gave up his school teaching and matriculated at the University
of Michigan, in the law department. He left the University in 1870,
and was admitted to the bar by the Illinois state supreme court in June,
1870. In 1878 he was admitted to practice in the United States supreme
court. As soon as he was entitled to practice he settled in Robinson,
Illinois, and opened an office. From that time up to the present he has
been in practice in this city. Mr. Parker first practiced alone, but. after
eleven years he formed a partnership with J. C. Olwin. This association
lasted for two years, and then he formed a second partnership with J. B.
Crowley. Judge Crowley was appointed special treasury agent in
charge of the United States fisheries in Alaska in 1893, and during his
absence on this duty Mr. H. S. Bogard became a member of the firm.
He subsequently became attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad Com-
pany, and is general attorney for other corporations.
In politics Mr. Parker is a Democrat, and for twelve years he has
been a member of the Crawford county central committee. His term of
service as a member of the state central committee lasted four years. He
has done good work in both of these committees, and the Democratic-
party count him one of their most valuable men. In 1908 he had the
honor of being sent as a delegate to the national convention in Denver
when William Jennings Bryan received his third nomination for presi-
dent. Mr. Parker is a member of the Elks, of the Modern Woodmen of
America, of the Modern Americans, and of the Tribe of Ben Hur. His
wife is a member of the Presbyterian church.
Mr. Parker has been a very successful dealer in real estate and this
business has always held a great fascination for him. For some time
he published the Real Estate Exchange, a journal devoted to the needs
of those who bought and sold property of any kind. He is also much
interested in the oil business and a large share of his fortune is invested
in oil lands or in the stock of oil companies. He is a member of the E.
Lindsay Oil Company, the J. B. Crowley Oil Company, the George N.
Parker Oil Company, the McKean Oil Company and several others. He
is also president of the Robinson Oil Company, which carried on ex-
tensive operations in Indiana. He is interested in other lines of busi-
ness as well, being secretary of the Robinson Pipe Tong Company, and is
president of the Meyers Motor Company. His training as a lawyer has
given him the ability to think rapidly and to act quickly, and in his
business experience he has found this a large factor in his success.
On the 5th of May, 1870, Mr. Parker was married to Julia Alice
Crowley, the daughter of Samuel B. and Elizabeth Crowley. Mr. and
Mrs. Parker are enthusiastic lovers of flowers and have one of the largest
collections in Crawford county.
WILLIAM H. HILL. The Murphysboro Paving Brick Company, a
large industry situated at Murphysboro, Illinois, is one of the concerns
1426 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
which have in late years made the industrial interests of Jackson county
become a potent factor in the business world, and have assisted in build-
ing up and developing this part of the country in a manner that could
have been accomplished, perhaps, in no other way. The agitation for
good streets, probably fostered by the advent of the automobile, has
caused even the smallest and poorest of towns and villages to make im-
provements in the way of street paving, and as the center of a com-
munity that is the home of progressive, wideawake citizens, Murphys-
boro offers all the advantages that could be found for a business carry-
ing on operations in Southern Illinois.
This company was organized March 31, 1909, with a capital of one
hundred thousand dollars, which has been increased to one hundred and
thirty thousand dollars, and the present officers are William H. Hill,
of East St. Louis, president ; H. D. Sexton, of East St. Louis, vice-pres-
ident; and H. H. Jenkins, of Murphysboro, secretary and treasurer.
Owning a fifty-acre tract of land, the company uses about twenty-five
acres, giving employment to one hundred and twenty-five persons. In
1911 the output, which had formerly been but six millions yearly-, had
increased to eleven millions, this enormous increase being due to the
fact that an innovation was made in the manner of manufacture, which
not only has been a success financially, but produces a better grade of
brick. Both large and small brick are manufactured, and the output
of 1911 would pave twenty miles of street. In addition to furnishing
nearly all the paving brick for the southern Illinois towns, the company
ships to Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago and to other points in the
country.
William H. Hill, the president of this thriving industry, and one
of East St. Louis, representative business men, is a native Illinoisan, hav-
ing been born in the village of Summerfield, June 4, 1867. He received
his education in the public schools, Poster Academy at St. Louis, and in
a business college at Poughkeepsie, New York, and after some business
training succeeded his father, who was a building supply dealer. Mr.
Hill continued in that enterprise until 1909, and also carried on general
contracting at East St. Louis. In addition to being president of the
paving brick company, he acts in the same capacity for the Queen City
Quarry Company, of East St. Louis, which is located at Alton, Illinois,
and a director of the Southern Illinois National Bank and the Southern
Illinois Trust Company, both of East St. Louis.
On November 5, 1890, Mr. Hill was united in marriage with Miss
Jennie Thomas, of East St. Louis, and two children have been born to
this union, namely : Gertrude E. and Ruth Jeanette. Mr. Hill is a con-
sistent member of the Methodist church, while fraternally he is con-
nected with the Masons, in which he has attained the thirty-second de-
gree and belongs to the Shrine, Knights Templar and Commandery, and
with the Elks and the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Hill is an excellent
organizer, and his talents in this line have not been confined to his own
interests, as he has always been a leader in movements for the better-
ment of civic conditions. Although he has been in business in Mur-
physboro for only two years, he has attained a secure position in the
esteem of the citizens of that community, and the character of the en-
terprises with which his name has been connected has shown that this
confidence is well merited.
WILLIAM E. TEAINOE. One of the most prominent, promising and
highly respected young citizens of Jasper county is William E. Trainor,
who was born here and who is one of those particularly excellent native
sons whom the county is so well pleased to claim as its own. He has iden-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1427
tified himself with all movements which seem likely to contribute to the
advantage of the community and is a leader in all worthy enterprises.
Mr. Trainor was born in St. Marie township, Jasper county, January
15, 1876. His father, William Trainor, was a native of Pittsburg, Penn-
sylvania, the date of his nativity being May 4, 1836. He became a citi-
zen of Illinois and was engaged here in agricultural pursuits during his
active career. He was a youth fifteen years of age when his parents
came to this state from the Keystone state. In 1864 he was married to
Rebecca Bowen, of Lawrence county, Illinois, and seven children were
born to them, William, the immediate subject of this review, being the
youngest in order of birth. The elder gentleman removed to Newton
with his family in 1880 and went into the office of the sheriff. He was
subsequently elected to that office and remained continually in some
public capacity until his demise in 1898, being a member of times elected
to the offices of sheriff and treasurer. He was a tried and true Democrat
and he will long be remembered as a man who lived in accordance with
the Golden Rule. He was reared a Catholic, but eventually affiliated
with the Baptist church. His widow, a much respected lady, survives
and makes her home in this place. William Trainor, Sr., was a soldier in
the great conflict between the states, becoming second lieutenant in Com-
pany B, of the One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Illinois Infantry. He was
one of the leading members of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The earliest years of William Trainor, the son, were passed on his
father's farm, but when he was about five years old the family came into
Newton. He received his education in the Newton public schools and
was graduated from the high school in the class of 1894. Upon leaving
school he went into the treasurer's office, under his father, who was then
the incumbent of the office. When his father was succeeded by John H.
Isley as treasurer he was made deputy treasurer and he held the same
office with the two succeeding treasurers, Taylor Randolph and John W.
Hamilton. It is safe to say that no one is more familiar with financial
affairs in Jasper county than Mr. Trainor, who was identified with them
for so many years and in so many administrations. In 1908, in recog-
nition of his ability and fitness for public trust, he was elected by the
Democratic party to the office of circuit clerk and still holds the office,
his services having been of such character as to redound to his credit
and to the honor and profit of his constituents.
On November 14, 1906, Mr. Trainor became a recruit to the Bene-
dicts by his marriage to Mayme E. McCullough, of Newton, daughter of
Nicholas McCullough, and they now share their delightful home with a
small daughter, Emma Katherine. Mr. Trainor belongs to the Presby-
terian church, but his wife and daughter are Catholics. His only fra-
ternal order is the Ben Hur lodge. He stands as one of the most public
spirited citizens of the township, ever ready to aid in all things that tend
towardthe public weal, and with such citizens as he the prosperity of any
community may be well assured as a certainty.
JOHN ROBERT CROSS. An eminent member of the legal profession of
Southern Illinois, whose connection with a number of important cases
of litigation has brought out his legal talents and his knowledge of law
and jurisprudence, is John Robert Cross, of McLeansboro, ex-mayor of
this city and a man who for many years has held positions of honor and
trust within the gift of his fellow-townsmen. Mr. Cross belongs to a
family that has been connected with the history of Hamilton county for
more than seventy years, and was born on a farm not far from McLeans-
boro, December 15, 1859, a son of Pleasant Marion and Sarah A. (Wil-
liams) Cross.
1428 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Pleasant Cross, the grandfather of John Robert Cross, was born in
1799, near Ellijay, Gilmer county, Georgia, and came to Hamilton
county, Illinois, in 1839. He was a mechanic by occupation and also
owned a farm, which he hired others to operate for him, his shop being
situated about six miles west of McLeansboro. He was a Democrat in
his political views, and religiously was connected with the Methodist
church, his wife being a Presbyterian. Mr. Cross was married in Ten-
nessee, to Elmira Stacy, and they were the parents of twelve children,
as follows : Angelina, who married Alfred Cams and lived in Gallatin
county; Lucinda, who married William Whipple and resided 'in Hamil-
ton county; Matilda, who married Thomas Babbington, and moved to
Nevada; John C., who married Nancy Burton and resided in Hamil-
ton county, Christopher C., who died young; Elizabeth, who married
Asa Cross and lived in Hamilton county ; Sarah, who became the wife of
Charles Epperson, now deceased, and then married Jacob Stelle,
and now lives in McLeansboro ; Pleasant Marion ; Elmira, who became
the wife of J. W. Goins, of Hamilton county ; Nancy, who married Mas-
ton Williams and now lives in Mt. Vernon, Illinois ; Lury Ann, who mar-
ried John Davis and resides near McLeansboro; and Mary Jane, who
married Elijah Goins and lives in Hamilton county.
Pleasant Marion Cross was born January 8, 1833, in Tennessee, and
came to Hamilton county, Illinois, in 1841, the remainder of his life be-
ing spent in agricultural pursuits on the old Cross homestead, which
was situated about six miles northwest of McLeansboro, where he died
March 4, 1891. He was a Mason and a Democrat, and with his wife at-
tended the Missionary Baptist church at Middle Creek, Illinois. On Au-
gust 26, 1856, Mr. Cross was married in Hamilton county to Sarah A.
Williams, who was born March 20, 1835, in Tennessee, and came to Ham-
ilton county in 1837 with her parents, Wiley and Mahala (Bond) Wil-
liams. Mrs. Cross died June 24, 1903, in Hamilton county, having been
the mother of four children, as follows: Pleasant Walter, who married
Nancy Jones Clore and now is engaged in farming in Hamilton county ;
Gilbert Wiley, also a farmer of Hamilton county, who married Eliza-
beth J. Gates, daughter of J. A. and Sarah Gates ; John Robert, of Mc-
Leansboro; and Elza Marion, who married Mary Tennyson and lives in
this county.
John Robert Cross attended the common schools in the vicinity of
his father's farm, on which he worked until he was twenty-one years of
age, and also spent one year in teaching school. He was married May
29, 1881, in Hamilton county, to Emma Ellis, who was born February
9, 1863, in Shelby county, Indiana, daughter of Lewis and Olive (Bas-
sett) Ellis, and to this union there have been born four children : Iva M.,
born January 20, 1882, married Isaac Hardesty, of McLeansboro, and
has two children, Helma and Walter Wade ; Inez M., born June 1, 1884,
who married Joseph F. Reeder; and Nona, born April 13, 1888, and
John E., born July 20, 1900, who live with their parents.
After his marriage Mr. Cross continued to farm until 1889, when he
moved to McLeansboro and purchased a residence. On November 4,
1889, he began to read law with Judge T. B. Stelle, and on June 27,
1892, he was admitted to the bar. He practiced in partnership with
Judge Stelle until 1905, when on account of ill health he was obliged to
give up his activities and retire. On June 1, 1907, having recovered his
health, he entered into a partnership with David J. Underwood, this
association continuing until April 1, 1911, when the firm was mutually
dissolved, and since that time Mr. Cross has practiced alone. He has
been very prominent in Democratic politics, serving as city attorney for
four terms and as mayor of McLeansboro from 1909 to 1911. Frater-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1429
nally he is connected with the Odd Fellows and the Woodmen, and is a
consistent member of the Missionary Baptist church, in the faith of
which he was reared. Mr. Cross has proven his ability as a lawyer in a
number of notable cases. Of a sound, logical mind, he is also possessed
of the gift of oratory, being an effective and convincing speaker. In his
handsome residence in McLeansboro he has one of the finest and most
complete law libraries to be found in Hamilton county, and in addition
to valuable city property he is the owner of several tracts of excellent
farming land near McLeansboro. The family is very well known in this
part of the state, where its members have achieved prominence in every
walk of life, and Mr. and Mrs. Cross are popular with all who know
them, especially in church circles, where they have been active workers.
WILLIAM S. TITUS. One of the moving spirits of the town of Law-
renceville is William S. Titus. There is scarcely an industry in which
he has not had a share in some way, either as promoter, stockholder, or
as the man who was instrumental in persuading them to locate in Law-
renceville. A great part of his energy has been given to making Law-
renceville a modern and prosperous city. He was twice elected mayor,
and during these terms the campaign of publicity that he inaugurated
brought some of the largest and most important industries that the city
now owns knocking at her doors. The successful man of to-day is either
fawned on by parasites or looked at rather askance by respectable peo-
ple who have not been able to win any very large portion of this world's
goods. In the case of Mr. Titus, however, the parasites know flattery
is useless, and his methods are so open and above-board that he has the
trust of all people, be they successes or failures.
William S. Titus was born at Mount Carmel, Illinois, on the 24th
of July, 1868. His father was Daniel B. Titus, who was a native of
Canada, having been born at Burmosh, Nova Scotia, in -1826. When
Daniel Titus was only a small boy he was taken to Toronto to live,
and there he grew up. He was educated in the public schools, and when
the time came to choose a profession he selected engineering, so in ad-
dition to his earlier schooling he had a course in engineering. He came
to Illinois a widower with one child, Ruah, and with the engineering
crew of the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad, as it was then called. The
line is now part of the Big Four and the New York Central System.
Mount Carmel was very attractive to the young engineer and he
decided to locate in the town. He built a furniture factory and soon
had a flourishing business established. For many years the operation
of this plant was his occupation, but one night it was destroyed by
fire, and since his health had been failing for some time he did not re-
build, feeling that the strain and responsibility of this business was
too great. During the later years of his life he went into the insurance
business and was very successful. He followed this line of work until
his death*; which took place in 1901, on the 2nd of March.
Daniel Titus married Judith Harvey, of Mount Carmel. Five chil-
dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Titus, of whom William Titus was the
third child. Mrs. Titus lived until March, 1911, and was able to en-
ter into and sympathize with her son in his successes. Mr. Titus was
an enthusiastic Democrat, but he never cared to hold office. He and
his wife were both members of the Methodist Episcopal church and
he was a member of the Odd Fellows.
The boyhood of William Titus was spent in Mount Carmel and his
elementary education was received in the public schools of the town.
All during his school life he was eager to enter the business world, and
as soon as he was released from the school room for his vacation he im-
1430 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
mediately entered on his business career as a clerk in different stores.
Thus while he was yet a school boy he began to acquire a reputation,
for keenness and business ability. During the four years of Cleveland's
first administration he served as deputy postmaster. He then came to
Lawrenceville and entered the Bank of Lawrenceville. This bank was
later organized as the National Bank and subsequently became known as
the First National Bank. Mr. Titus was first the assistant cashier and
then was elected cashier. He held this place for nineteen years, re-
signing four years ago to go into the real estate business. After one
year in which he conducted the business alone he went into partnership
with Thomas T. Jones. The main part of this business is operated on
the plan of the building and loan associations. The company builds
houses and then sells them on monthly payments. This method is not
only profitable to the firm, but it enables men to own their homes where
it would be otherwise impossible.
Mr. Titus is a director of the First National Bank and also of the
Citizens Banking Company. He is a stockholder in the Farmer's Bank
and is vice-president of a private bank known as the ' ' Bank of Birds. ' '
It will be seen from his connection with these various institutions that
his financial abilities are of a high order, and that they have speedily
been recognized by his associates in the world of finance. He is one of
the stockholders in the Citizens Telephone Company, and is a heavy
stockholder in the Lawrenceville Laundry Company. One of his chief
interests is located outside of the state of Illinois. This is the Adrian
Gas and Oil Company, which is located at Adrian, Texas. He is pres-
ident of this company, which struck salt in large proportions on their
property a few years ago, and soon expect to begin operations for
mining this mineral.
Mr. Titus is a Democrat, and has served two terms as city treasurer.
He was first elected as mayor on the non-license platform, and his sec-
ond term was won on the street paving platform. It will be seen from
these platforms that Mr. Titus stood for the progressive element, and
that he was determined that Lawrenceville should be the equal of any
town of her size in the land. His enthusiasm and insistence on the
practicability of the measures he wished passed fairly forced the coun-
cil to vote as he desired. During his administration the street lights,
sewers and paved streets came into being; the water mains were ex-
tended and the city hall was built; the area of the city limits was ex-
tended, and many manufacturing concerns were induced to locate here.
Among these were the Indian Refining Company, which is capitalized
at a million dollars; the Central Refining Company, which operates a
half a million dollar plant ; the American Asphalt and Rubber Company,
with a large plant. In fact this was the Golden Age for Lawrenceville,
and Mr. Titus was the power that made all this possible.
To an active man like Mr. Titus the very practical ways in which
the fraternal orders live up to their principles, and the large amount
of good which they accomplish in an unostentatious manner, would
naturally have a strong appeal. This is seen to be the case in the num-
ber of orders of which he is a member. He is a Mason, belongs to the
Knights of Pythias, to the Elks, the Modern Woodmen of America, and
to the Yeomen of America.
Mr. Titus was married on the 28th of September, 1890, to Adda E.
Musgrave, of Lawrenceville, a daughter of Joseph and Amanda Mus-
grave.
CECIL WALKER. Among the many talented attorneys at law in South-
ern Illinois few surpass the members of the bar now in active practice in
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1431
Jasper county, among whom Cecil Walker, city attorney, is one of the
leaders, although in years still to be accounted one of the younger gen-
eration. He has a fine legal mind and has proved successful in much im-
portant litigation. In affairs political he plays a leading role, and from
his earliest voting days has given hand and heart to the men and meas-
ures of the Democratic party.
Cecil Walker is a native son of Newton, a fact of which Newton is
justly proud. The date of his nativity was September 11, 1875. His
father, Alfred N. Walker, was born near Mt. Meridian, Indiana, Febru-
ary 12, 1849. This gentleman was a well known representative of the
Fourth Estate and for a long period conducted the Newton Press, or as
it was at that time known, the Newton Weekly Press, a paper of Demo-
cratic sentiment and the official organ of the county. He edited this sheet
for eighteen years, and his able and logical editorials did much to in-
fluence public opinion. In 1881 he sold out to the present owners. He
was also engaged in the ice and dairy business, and when his health de-
clined he went into the business of stock raising. His stock farm was
the scene of most intelligent endeavors in this line, his specialty being
Jersey cattle and his was the first venture in thoroughbred cattle rais-
ing in the county. He set the pace and it is not to be gainsaid that his
precedent was the chief factor in bringing about the present general
excellence in stock in the county. The death of this valued and worthy
citizen occurred May 8, 1893, but his influence will not soon be lost or his
memory obliterated. The maiden name of the subject's mother was
Ella A. Gibson, and she is a cousin of Judge Gibson. They became the
parents of three children, two of whom, Edith C. and Kenneth, are de-
ceased, Mr. Walker being the only survivor. The mother survives and
makes her home at Newton, Illinois. The elder Mr. Walker was greatly
interested in public matters, but was never an office seeker. In religious
conviction he was a Presbyterian and he was affiliated with the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows.
The early education of Cecil Walker was received in Newton's public
schools, in whose higher department he pursued his studies for a time.
After the death of his father he left school and soon afterward entered
upon the study of law under the direction of Judge Gibson, his kinsman,
the firm of that well-known jurist "being known as Gibson & Johnson.
The subject's preparation for the profession with which he aspired to
become identified was interrupted by a long period of illness, but upon
regaining his health he continued his studies with the firm of Gaines &
Kasserman. He remained with them until 1897, in May of which year he
was admitted to the bar. His recognition was speedy and in a short time
he was elected city attorney, which office he held for four years. Sub-
sequent to that he was appointed master in chancery, which office he held
for eighk years, and in January, 1907, he became associated with Judge
Gibson in a law partnership. When there occurred a vacancy in the office
of city attorney, in consideration of his former fine record as its in-
cumbent Mr. Walker was appointed to fill it, and in the spring the people
confirmed their satisfaction in the matter by electing him.
Mr. Walker was married April 26, 1902, the young woman to become
his wife being Stella Hester, daughter of Joseph H. and Letitia B. Hes-
ter, of this place. They have no children. The subject is an affable
and courteous gentleman and is very popular in the social circles of
this place, as well as with his professional brethren and the general
public.
CHARLES M. LTON, M. D. Few citizens of McLeansboro, Illinois, are
better or more favorably known than Charles M. Lyon, the oldest phy-
1432 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
sician in Hamilton county in point of practice, editor of The Leader,
the second oldest newspaper in the county, veteran of the Civil war
and a man who has always been prominent in public and professional
life. Born October 8, 1843, at Cuyahoga Falls, Summit county, Ohio,
Dr. Lyon is a son of William and Catherine E. (Elrod) Lyon, the former
born in 1815 and the latter in 1816, in Canada, in which country they
were married. Dr. Lyon's parents moved to Pennsylvania about 1835,
later removing to Ohio, and both died at Cleveland in 1854 of cholera.
They had a family of ten children.
As a youth it was the ambition of Charles M. Lyon to become a doc-
tor, but as his parents died when he was still a lad and he was thrown
more or less on his own resources,, it proved a hard struggle. However,
at odd times when he could leave his work he applied himself assiduously
to his studies, which were interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil war.
In August, 1861, he enlisted from Mt. Vernon, Illinois, to which city he
had come two years before, in Company I, Forty-fourth Regiment, Illi-
nois Volunteer Infantry, as a private, and served throughout the war
with that organization, being mustered out October 20, 1865, at which
time he was captain of the same company, having won promotion through
faithful, brave and meritorious service. On his return to Illinois he
again took up his studies, and in 1867 began the practice of medicine at
McLeansboro, where he has followed his profession to the present time.
In November, 1882, he became the founder of The Leader, a weekly pub-
lication devoted to the best interests of McLeansboro and Hamilton
county, and it soon became recognized as a sheet of much influence in Re-
publican politics. Alwaye a hard and faithful worker in the ranks of the
Republican party, Dr. Lyon was appointed postmaster at MeLeansboro in
• 1881, and again in 1890, and made an excellent official. He was a mem-
ber of the thirty-first and thirty-second general assemblies of Illinois,
and while acting in that capacity was a fearless advocate of the rights of
his constituents, and earned the respect and esteem of his colleagues in
those august bodies.
On May 13, 1880, Dr. Lyon was married to Miss Anna Wilson, who
was born in McLeansboro about 1857, and she died January 13, 1882,
leaving no children. On March 26, 1884, Dr. Lyon was married to Miss
Vashti Ravenscroft, who was born in 1867 at Owensville, Indiana, the
estimable daughter of William and Catherine (Jackson) Ravenscroft,
and to this union there has been born one child : Katharyn, May 28, 1885,
who makes her home with her parents. Dr. Lyon is an excellent ex-
ample of the best type of American citizenship. Showing his patriotism
as a soldier in his country's time of need, proving himself an eminent
member of Hamilton county's medical profession, making his mark in the
journalistic field and attaining prominence as a public official, he has a
record in every walk of life that is without stain or blemish, and he well
merits the esteem and respect in which he is universally held.
THOMAS F. HOOPES, banker, financier and the leading business men
of Sumner, was born in Lawrence county, Illinois, on the 4th of May,
1857. He is the son of Caleb and Margaret (Dennison) Hoopes. Caleb
Hoopes was a native of the state of Pennsylvania, born in Westchester,
that state, on- June 11, 1827. He came to Illinois in 1851 and became in-
terested in farming, in connection with which he ran a tannery, which
trade he had learned while he was a resident of Indiana, between 1834
and 1851. He was a veteran of both the Mexican and Civil wars. In
the Mexican war he served in the Third Indiana under General Lew
Wallace : and in the Civil war he was a member of Company I of the One
Hundred and Thirtieth Illinois. He held the rank of sergeant during the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1433
latter named war. When peace was once more restored after the Civil
war Mr. Hoopes returned to his home in Lawrence county, there becom-
ing engaged in the mercantile business at Sumner. In 1867 he was ap-
pointed postmaster of Sumner, and he retained that office during twenty-
one consecutive years. He was supervisor of his township for several
terms, and was the first mayor of Sumner under city organization. He
was a strong Republican in his political affiliations and was always ac-
tive and foremost in the political affairs of the county. In Decemoer,
1852, he married Miss Margaret Dennison, of Lawrence county, a daugh-
ter of William Dennison. He was one of the oldest settlers of Law-
the county, settling here in 1818, and witnessing the steady growth of
the county and state through half a century of years, well spent in use-
ful endeavor in the upbuilding of the country. Eight children were
born to Caleb and Margaret Hoopes. Mr. Hoopes was a member of the
Methodist Episcopal church, as was his wife. He was a charter member
of the Sumner church and a member of the board of trustees throughout
his life time. He was a Mason of the Knight Templar degree and was a
member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Thomas F. Hoopes was the third child born to his parents in a goodly
family of eight. As a boy he lived as the average son of a farmer until
he was six years of age, at which time the family home became centered
in Sumner. He was educated in the public schools, after which he com-
pleted a business course in the Terre Haute Commercial College. His
first position was that of assistant postmaster continuing for about four
years, after which he was bookkeeper for the May Mercantile Company
for three years. In 1879 he went into the mercantile business on his own
responsibility, one year later forming a partnership with his brother-in-
law, the firm being known as Echenrode & Hoopes. In 1892 Mr. Echen-
rode retired from the firm and it became Hoopes & Barnes. Mr. Hoopes
bought the interest of his partner, Mr. Barnes, in 1901, and thereafter
conducted the business for himself until 1905, when he sold out to Mr.
Barnes. In 1909 he with others organized the Farmers & Merchants
State Bank, Mr. Hoopes holding the office of president of the institution,
and under his conservative and able management the bank is prospering
in a manner highly creditable to him and its board of directors, and alto-
gether consistent with their methods of operation. Mr. Hoopes is secre-
tary of the Citizens Oil Company and is in other ways extensively con-
cerned in the oil business of the district. He was one of the company
who drilled the first oil well in Lawrence county, and much of the prog-
ress made in this industry in recent years has been due to his activities
in the work. A staunch Republican, Mr. Hoopes has always given gen-
erous and hearty support to the cause of that party, but is exceedingly
averse to office-holding for himself, and has consistently withheld him-
self from that phase of political life. He is a member of the city coun-
cil, on which body he has done good work for Sumner.
On May 16, 1883, Mr. Hoopes was united in marriage with Cornelia
F. Leeper. daughter of Rev. John Leeper, of Sumner, one of the pioneer
Methodist Episcopal clergymen of the southern part of the state. Three
sons were born of this union: Thomas W., a student of law at Blooming-
ton, Illinois ; Robert V., a student in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at
Troy, New York ; and John C., who died in youth. The wife and mother
died in December 7, 1909, while on a visit at the home of her father at
Nashville. Illinois.
Mr. Hoopes is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is
also a member of the board of trustees of that body. He is a Mason of
the thirty-second degree, holding membership in the Knights Templar
and in the Consistory of Chicago.
1434 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
EDGAR F. JOHNSON. One of the important figures in the business
life of Newton is Edgar F. Johnson. For many years he was identified
with the mercantile life of the town, and now he is doing even more to-
wards the development of Newton by his activity in the real estate and
loan business. He is the son of a remarkable father, a man who pos-
sessed all the qualities that go to make the successful man, that is, an
indomitable determination to let nothing stand in the way, the power
of perseverance and self confidence united with a willingness to take ad-
vice. These qualities that made of the father a successful doctor have
made of the son a successful business man.
Edgar F. Johnson was born at Alma, in Marion county, Illinois, on
the 24th of April, 1867, the son of John B. Johnson. The latter had
been born in Ohio, during the month of February, 1819, and had spent
his childhood in learning the first principles of how to look out for him-
self, for his father had died when John was a mere babe. Determined to
get an education, he had attended school whenever he could, his duties
at home often preventing. When he had finally acquired all the knowl-
edge his home schools could give him it seemed as though he would have
to be content, for the nearest college was miles away, and he did not
have the money to take him there had he had the money to pay for his
tuition at the higher institution of learning. Nothing daunted, the lad
rolled his clothes into a bundle, strapped his few books across his back
and set out to tramp the hundred and fifty miles to the college of his
choice. On his arrival, foot-sore and weary, his first move was not to
enter the college building* and matriculate, but to hunt for work. It
took much pluck and'hard work but supported by a burning desire for
knowledge he worked his way through college, taking an elective medical
course in the Medical College at Cincinnati. During the Civil war Dr.
Johnson was assistant surgeon in the Seventy-second Indiana Regiment
in Wiler's Brigade. He served through a good part of the war, and was
discharged finally on account of ill health. There being no way in
which he could longer serve his country he returned to Indiana and in
1866 moved to Illinois, where he located on a farm in Marion county,
near Alma. His practice was a large one, covering the territory about
Alma and Shumway, and he stuck manfully by his guns, doing the work
of two men, until his health permitted active work no longer, and he
was forced to retire to Alma. His last years were spent at the home of
his son, Edgar F. Johnson, at Newton, and here he died of heart failure
in 1892.
He had always been an active political worker and upheld the ban-
ner of the Whig party. As the people's candidate he served as a mem-
ber of the house of representatives for one term, and fulfilled their ex-
pectations to the highest degree. In religious matters he was a member
of the Church of Christ and of the Missionary Baptist. In the latter
denomination he preached for several years. His only interest in the
fraternal world was in the Masonic order, in which he was a loyal
worker.
Doctor Johnson was twice married. His first wife was a Miss David-
son, whom he married in Indiana. By this marriage he had three chil-
dren, but the wife and mother died. He later married Rebecca Adylotte,
a native of the state of Indiana, and of this'second marriage six children
were born, E. F. being the next to the youngest. Mrs. Johnson's death
preceded that of her husband, taking place in 1876.
Edgar F. Johnson spent his childhood in Alma, but when he was
fourteen a great change came into his life, for his father went to live for
a few years in Arkansas. The country had not yet recuperated from the
disastrous years following the war, and the rough state of the country
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1435
was a most decided contrast to the comfortable Illinois farm house that
the boy had known as his only home. He acquired an education in the
public schools and on his return from Arkansas went to Altamont, where
he went to work in the postoffice. He held this position for two years
and then took a commercial course in Evansville Commercial College,
Evansville, Indiana. In 1886 he found himself ready to start out in
business, and had only to settle on a location. He was attracted to New-
ton, and decided that the town offered just the inducements for which he
was looking, so he came hither and opened up a mercantile establish-
ment. For seventeen years he continued in this business and by his
honest business methods and the good values which he offered his pa-
trons in exchange for their money, he made a reputation for himself and
his store that was founded upon the. stable foundation of genuine worth.
Eight years ago he sold out the business and went into a new line, that
of real estate, loan and insurance. He has been engaged in this ever
since, and the reputation which his straight-forward methods of buying
and selling brought to him he has since upheld in his new field.
In politics Mr. Johnson is a Prohibitionist, and is much interested in
the affairs of his local government, being always willing to fulfill the
obligations which he owes as a citizen. He has served one term as a
member of the school board and is always active in urging any move-
ment conducive to the growth of Newton. To this end he is a member of
the Commercial Club, which comprises the most progressive men in the
town. In religious matters he is a member of the Church of Christ, and
in the fraternal world belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America.
In 1889 Mr. Johnson was married to Effie Humphreys, of Kinmundy,
Illinois. She is the daughter of John Humphreys, a farmer of Marion
county. One daughter has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, Margaret
Urilla.
AUSBY LAWRENCE LOWE is one of the best equipped and most able
lawyers in Crawford county. He is not only a lawyer by training but
one by nature, it being instinctive with him to weigh the merits of a case
and look at it from every point of view. This natural tendency towards
a judicial mode of thought has given him a great advantage over his
fellows who were not so gifted, and in addition he possesses the capacity
for hard work, so his success is not to be wondered at. He is a mem-
ber of a firm which has perhaps the largest clientele of any firm in the
county, some of the biggest cases in this section of the country having
been handled by them. Not only as a lawyer, but as a member of the
judicial body has Judge Lowe won fame. He has served several terms
as county judge, and has shown himself to be possessed of so impartial a
mind and so vast a store of knowledge that there is no doubt but that he
may attain other positions on the bench if he so desires.
Ausby Lawrence Lowe was born in Hutsonville, Illinois, on the 18th
of November, 1857. His father, Isaac N. Lowe, was the son of William
Lowe and Elizabeth (Swain) Lowe. He was born in Lawrence county,
Illinois, on the 9th of November, 1829. When the boy Isaac was only
eleven years old his father died, and the support of the family fell prin-
cipally upon his young shoulders. He was a courageous youngster, and
took up this load bravely, and learned the lessons of hardship and re-
sponsibility all too early. His boyhood was spent on a farm and he
worked early and late, doing tasks that a grown man would think too
hard, but he only thrived on hard work. His great regret was that he
had no more opportunities for education, but he made up for his lack
as best he could. When he became a man he went into the mercantile
business at Hutsonville, which continued to be his vocation until the
1436 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
breaking out of the Civil war. An interruption came to the quiet course
of his affairs when this dawning calamity broke out, for, being young
and enthusiastic, yet being old enough to fight, not because the excite-
ment of the day had swept him off his feet, but because he thought the
cause of the Union was right and just, he enlisted in the army and served
in Company C, One Hundred and Fifty-second Illinois regiment. After
the war he again took up the life of a merchant, but in 1868 was elected
justice of the peace and became a property agent. He spent the re-
mainder of his life in that capacity, and died on the 6th of May, 1882. He
was married on the 16th of October, 1856, to Amanda Hurst, a daughter
of John R. and Nancy (Barlow) Hurst. The death of his wife occurred
on the 13th of March, 1860, after a short married life of four years.
Ausby Lawrence Lowe was the only child.
Judge Lowe was only a baby when he lost his mother, and he is the
more to be commended on his success in life, not his material success, but
his spiritual success, one might say, for a boy without his mother is like
a ship without a rudder. A boy 's mother has a quiet influence over him
of which he is scarcely conscious, but which often saves him from losing
sight of the ideal which she has set before him. He grew up in Hutson-
ville, and received his early education at the village school. He later
went to Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana, which was at that time
a Quaker school. He remained there for one term and then returned to
Crawford county, and entered the office of the clerk of the circuit court.
This event took place in 1877, on the 4th of December. He had not been
in this office long bftfore his remarkable ability for finding and rectify-
ing mistakes was noted and the lawyers commented more and more upon
his accuracy. Through the influence of his friends he was persuaded
to take up the law and the firm of Callahan and Jones invited him to
study in their offices, with the expectation of making him one of the
firm when he should be prepared. His service in the circuit clerk 's office
was therefore terminated in 1884, and after three years spent in reading
law with Callahan and Jones he was admitted to the bar in May, 1888.
He was at once made a partner in the above firm, the name becoming
Callahan, Jones and Lowe.
Judge Lowe has served two terms as master in chancery. In 1893,
when Judge Crowley was appointed treasurer of the fisheries depart-
ment, by a special election Judge Lowe was elected to the vacant seat
on the bench. He was a candidate for this office in 1894, but was de-
feated, however in 1898 he was again elected and was re-elected in 1902.
He is a senatorial committeeman for the forty-eighth senatorial dis-
trict, having held this position since the primary law. For sixteen years
he was chairman of the Democratic central committee, and is intensely
interested in politics. The Democratic party may always rely on his
support and he is one of the most influential workers they have.
In 1906 Judge Lowe was made a member of the board of directors
of the First National Bank of Robinson. By the death of Mr. Wood-
worth on the 12th of November, 1911, the office of president was made
vacant. Until the regular meeting of the directors in January the place
remained vacant, and at that time Judge Lowe was elected to the presi-
dency, which the members of the directorate believe him unusually well
qualified to fill.
Judge Lowe was married on the 20th of November, 1879, to Miss
Alice C. Hodge, born September 19, 1859, a daughter of William B. and
Calista (Hillebert) Hodge, of York, Illinois. Mrs, Lowe was a charm-
ing woman, with a sweet and noble character, and it was a great sor-
row not only to her family but to a large circle of friends when she de-
parted this life on the 28th of August, 1905. She left a family of four
HISTOKY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1437
children. Ausby Lyrnan, who first graduated from the high school in
Robinson, then went to De Pauw University, from which he was gradu-
ated with the degree of Bachelor of Science. He received his profes-
sional training at Rush Medical College, holding a degree of M. D. from
that well known school. At present he is practicing in Robinson. The
second son, Clarence Hodge, after taking a high school course took up
the study of dentistry at the Chicago College of Dental Surgery and is
now practicing his profession here, where he was born and reared. Ethel-
bert Coke, after graduating at the city high school, took his Bachelor of
Arts degree at De Pauw, and is now studying law at the University of
Chicago. The only daughter, Florence, is now a student at De Pauw.
GEORGE W. LACKEY has the distinction of belonging to a family who
have lived for five generations in Illinois. This is inclusive of Mr.
Lackey's children. This is indeed a rare occurrence and on account of
this it is easier to understand Mr. Lackey's love and loyalty to his
native land. He is of that type of citizen that serves to give the op-
timists foundation for their belief in the good of the human race and
the evolution of society into a higher and better state of being, and it is
such men as he who give the pessimists faint hope, and encourage those
who are working to better conditions to take up their burdens and go
forward. He is a lawyer by profession, but he has taken such a promi-
nent part in both the business world and in the educational field that
one must rank him as all three, lawyer, business man and educator. He
believes that with the education of the masses, meaning not a rudi-
mentary education, but a thorough education, particularly along the
practical lines of modern sociology and economics, a truer understanding
of themselves and their social and economic conditions will come, and
with such an understanding they wil be able to drag this country from
the mire in which she seems to be now sinking. He pins his faith on the
great American people, and believes that when we have assimilated the
foreign element, it will be a much easier task to straighten out our civic
affairs. Mr. Lackey keeps abreast of the times, and being a man of wide
acquaintance and of a forceful personality, he has a very great influ-
ence over the thought and actions of the community in which he lives.
What a blessing it is that he is a man of so fine a character, for he could
wield a strong power for evil.
The great-grandfather of George W. Lackey was Adam Lackey, who
was a native of South Carolina. He was a soldier during the Revolu-
tionary war and had been an aide to General Merriman. He came to
Illinois about 1811, bringing his family. In these days there were only
a few scattered settlements, and most of these were clustered about a
block house. The War of 1812 soon followed and with the massacre at
Fort Dearborn the bloody strife with the Red Men was begun anew.
Adam Lackey took his family to the fort at Russellville, but after the
Indian troubles had been partially settled he went to farming. His son,
John Lackey, whose birth had occurred in Tennessee, grew to manhood
at the little frontier settlement west of Russellville. In time he became
a farmer, and raised a family of eight children. His wife was Nancy
Pinkstaff, who was a daughter of John Pinkstaff. Her father had set-
tled in this section about 1818, and Mrs. Lackey was a fine type of the
frontier woman, courageous, resourceful, strong in body and mind.
James Lackey, the third of her children, is the father of George W.
Lackey.
James Lackey was born on the 14th of October, 1842. in Lawrence
county. He also grew up in the Russellville settlement, following in the
steps of his fathers and becoming a farmer. He was married in 1862
Vol. Ill— 23
1438 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to Susan Seitzinger, who was a daughter of Leonard Seitzinger. The
latter was a native of Pennsylvania, who had come to Illinois during
the early sixties. He was a blacksmith by trade, but very naturally be-
came a farmer when he came to the frontier country. Mr. and Mrs.
Lackey had three children, of whom George W. was the eldest. The
two daughters both married farmers. Priscilla is the widow of N. E.
Parker, and Mary is the wife of William W. Zehner. Mrs. Lackey died
in 1872 and Mr. Lackey married again. His second wife was Eliza
Highsmith, of Crawford county. Five boys and one girl were born of
this union, and the parents are now living on the farm where Mr.
Lackey has spent his life, three miles west of Russellville. Mr. Lackey
is a Democrat in politics, and has held various township offices. His re-
ligious affiliations are with the Baptist church.
The boyhood days of George W. Lackey were spent on the farm of
his father in Russell township, where he lived a happy, wholesome exist-
ence, going to school in the old log school house and helping on the farm
when he was not in school. He attended this country school until he was
eighteen, and then he went to the Danville Normal School, at Danville,
Illinois. He remained there for two years, and then the money gave out,
and he was forced to stop. He turned to teaching as a means of earning
the necessary funds, and then returned to school. He attended the Dan-
ville (Ind.) school, and took courses in the academic, law and commercial
departments. He finally graduated from the classical course in 1890
•with the degree df Bachelor of Arts, in addition taking the degree of
Bachelor of Science. Before he was graduated he had had much experi-
ence as a teacher, and had held executive positions, being principal of the
schools in Lawrenceville for a year.
In 1890 he was elected county superintendent of schools of Lawrence
county, and served in this position for four years. Mr. Lackey's po-
sition in educational matters was that of a progressive. He established
the state course of study in schools. He raised the standard, both of
the teaching and in the courses offered, at the same time advancing the
salaries of the teachers. An innovation for which he was laughed at at
the first was the introduction of music into the schools, but how popular
it has become. For one year he was occupied as United States postal
service inspector. During all this time, busy as he was, he was diligently
studying law, and in January, 1897, he was admitted to the bar.
He began the practice of his profession in Lawrenceville, and in
1900 recognition of his ability came to him in his election as state 's at-
torney. Since the end of his four years' term in this office he has been
conducting a general law practice in Lawrenceville and is one of the most
popular lawyers in this section of the country. During his term as
state's attorney he set before himself the task of ridding the county
of the "blind tigers" with which the district was infested. He was suc-
cessful in this by no means easy job, and this triumph will redound to
his glory for years to come. On the 12th of February, 1912, Mr. Lackey
was appointed master in chancery.
In the business world Mr. Lackey is well known for his good com-
mon sense and the facility with which he is able to grasp the salient
points of a question. He is director and vice-president of the Farmer's
State Bank. He is director of the Lawrence County Lumber Company,
and is a stockholder of the Shaw Oil Company. He for many years
argued and pleaded for establishment of a township school, and after
a long time he saw his wish realized. He is now president of the town-
ship high school board. He is a strong supporter of higher education,
and urges a college course on every one who can possibly take one. In
reply to the famous speech of the late Mr. Crane against colleges, Mr.
TCt UBRMn
OF THE
WBVERSITY OF
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1439
Lackey says, "You can't put a thousand dollar education on a ten cent
boy and make a man of him."
Mr. Lackey is a Democrat in his political beliefs, and has been
active in behalf of the party. He has served on the county committee,
and has been a delegate to the judicial, congressional and state conven-
tions. He is a member of the Christian church, as are likewise his wife
and his two eldest children. For fifteen years Mr. Lackey has been
superintendent of the Sunday-school. His chief pleasure is in being
with children, and keeping in touch with their ever growing minds. In
all educational circles his influence is felt, and it is always one of in-
spiration. He is a firm believer in the principles of brotherhood as ex-
emplified in the fraternal orders, and is a member of the Masons, the
Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of
America.
Mr. Lackey was married on the 1st of April, 1891, to Theresa White-
nack, a daughter of Abraham and Caroline Whitenack, of Hendricks
county, Indiana. They have four children : Rush, Kate, Alice and
George A.
NICHOLAS SAUER. Of the late Nicholas Sauer, who died at his home
in Evansville, Illinois, on the 21st of October, 1908, it may well be said
that he coveted success but scorned to gain it except through industry
and honest means. He acquired wealth without fraud or recourse to
equivocal agencies, and the results of his life are full of inspiration and
incentive. Mr. Sauer was a native son of Southern Illinois and a scion
of one of its most honored pioneer families. Here he passed his entire
life and here he attained to distinctive prominence and influence as a
citizen of progressive ideas and marked public spirit. He was the prime
factor in the development and upbuilding of one of the most important
industrial enterprises of the county; he was one of the founders and
president of the Bank of Evansville ; his was the positive and dynamic
force which secured to Evansville its railroad facilities; it was through
his untiring efforts that the river at Evansville was bridged and his life
was guided and governed by those exalted principles of integrity and
honor that ever beget objective confidence and esteem. He did much to
foster the civic and material advancement of his home town and county,
and no shadow rests on any portion of his career, now that he has been
called from the scenes and labors of this mortal life. His success, and
it was pronounced, was principally gained through his connection with
the milling industry, and the extensive business enterprise which he thus
developed is still continued by his sons. He was a man of broad mental
ken, marked circumspection and mature judgment. He placed true
valuations on men and affairs; and his character was the positive ex-
pression of a strong, resolute and noble nature. His death left a void
in the business and civic activities of his native county and in its history
his name merits a place of enduring honor. From the foregoing state-
ments it may well be seen that there is all of consistency in according in
this volume a tribute to the memory of this honored and valued citizen.
Nicholas Sauer was born on the old homestead farm of his father,
near Redbud. Monroe county, Illinois, on the 21st of March, 1841, and was
a son of Philip Sauer, who was born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany. Philip
Sauer was reared and educated in his native land and as a young man
he immigrated to America, which he looked upon as a land of better op-
portunities for the gaining of independence and prosperity through in-
dividual effort. He landed in the city of New Orleans and thence made
the voyage up the Mississippi river to St. Louis. He finally secured a
tract of land in Monroe county, Illinois, the same being located near the
1440 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
present city of Redbud, and he reclaimed the same into a productive farm,
to the work and management of which he continued to give his attention
until after the close of the Civil war. He then joined his eldest son,
Nicholas, subject of this memoir, in the purchase of the mill property in
Evansville, but after a brief active association with the enterprise he
retired from active business. He passed the residue of his earnest and
worthy life on his farm, where he died in 1891, at the age of eighty-six
years. His devoted wife was summoned to the life eternal in 1878, at
the age of fifty-six years, both having been consistent members of the
Evangelical church. Of their children Nicholas was the first born ; Wil-
liam is one of the proprietors of the Evansville flouring mills, in the oper-
ation of which he was long associated with his elder brother ; Philip is a
resident of Redbud, this county; Mary became the wife of John Ritter
and her death occurred at Redbud ; Catherine is the wife of August Steh-
fest, of Hecker, Monroe county ; Elizabeth is the wife of George Homrig-
hausen, and they reside in Redbud; and Sophia is the wife of Prank
Homrighausen of Redbud.
Nicholas Sauer was reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm which
was the place of his nativity, and after availing himself of the advantages
of the common schools of the locality and period he pursued higher
academic studies in a well ordered institution in the city of St. Louis. As
a young man he put his scholastic attainments to practical test by teach-
ing two terms of country school, but pedagogy made no special appeal to
him and he soon found a more productive field of endeavor. He en-
gaged in the general merchandise business at Mascoutah, St. Clair county,
in 1865, but in the following year he discerned a better opportunity in
connection with the milling business at Evansville. Here, prior to the
Civil war, John Wehrheim had erected and placed in operation a flour
mill, equipped with the old-time stone buhrs, which were still utilized
at the time when Nicholas Sauer became associated with his father in the
purchase of the property, in 1866. The new firm inaugurated operations
under the title of N. & P. Sauer, which was retained until 1868, when
William Sauer succeeded his father and the firm name of N. & W. Sauer
was adopted. It was incorporated as The Sauer Milling Com-
pany in 1899, with a capital of $60,000. As has already been noted,
the younger of the two brothers, William, is still interested in this old
established and important industrial enterprise.
When the mill came into the possession of N. & P. Sauer its daily out-
put did not exceed one hundred barrels, and it was conducted purely as
a -merchant mill. Under the new ownership the plant was forthwith
enlarged and otherwise improved, and the same progressive policy has
been continued during the long intervening years, with the result that
the equipment and facilities of the plant have been kept up to the best
standard. This was among the first mills in the state to adopt the new
roller-process and to install the best modern machinery of this order.
The Sauer Company was also one of the first in the state to utilize the
improved Corliss engine, one of these engines having been installed within
a short time after they were put on the market.
In 1904 the fine plant of the company was destroyed by fire, which
started in the cooper shop and compassed the complete obliteration of
the principal industrial plant of Evansville. Undaunted by this mis-
fortune, the owners -of the property promptly began the erection of the
present fine plant, the building being substantially constructed of brick
and being four stories in height. The most approved modern mechanical
equipment was installed, with all improved accessories, including an in-
dividual electric-lighting plant and steel bins for the reception and stor-
age of grain. These bins have a capacity of one hundred and fifty thou-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1441
sand bushels, and the output of the mill now averages seven hundred
barrels of flour a day, the superior quality of the products constituting
the basis on which has been built the large and prosperous business of
the concern, the high reputation of which is its best commercial asset.
In connection with the various departments of the enterprise employ-
ment is given to a corps of thirty-five men.
The excellent success attending the operation of the Evansville mill
inspired Nicholas Sauer and his sons to expand their sphere of operations
in this line of industry. At Cherryvale, Montgomery county, Kansas, a
point accessible to the hard-wheat district of that extensive wheat belt,
Nicholas Sauer purchased and remodeled a milling plant, and the same
has since been operated under the original title of The N. Sauer Milling
Company, the while the success of the enterprise has been on a parity
with that at Evansville. Nicholas Sauer continued as the executive head
of the company until his death. Realizing the imperative demand for
banking facilities at Evansvile, he effected, in 1894, the organization of
the Bank of Evansville, and under his supervision the same was conducted
along conservative lines, with the result that it soon became known as
one of the substantial financial institutions of this section of the state.
This bank, of which he continued president until his demise, is a private
institution, with a capital of twelve thousand dollars and with individual
financial reinforcement behind it to the amount of nearly four hundred
thousand dollars.
Mr. Sauer was distinctively a man of initiative and constructive abil-
ity,— a man of action. What he believed should be accomplished, in-
dividually or in a generic way, he promptly began to work for. The in-
dustrial and commercial advancement of Evansville was handicaped by
the lack of transportation facilities. A railroad was an imperative need
and none had greater cause to realize this than Mr. Sauer. Vigorously
and with marked discrimination he planned and labored to bring about
the desired improvement. From the time he conceived the idea until
the realization of the same was effected in a practical way there was a
lapse of about fifteen years, — years marked by insistent agitation and
determined promotive work on his part. He was a member of the com-
mittee representing Evansville in the raising of the necessary cash bonus
and the securing of the right of way for the present Illinois Southern
Railroad, and in addition to his earnest labors he contributed liberally
to the fund required to gain the desired end.
All that touched the material and social welfare of his native county
was a matter of definite interest to Mr. Sauer, and, in an unostentatious
way, he was ever ready to lend his influence and co-operation in support
of measures and enterprises projected for the general good of the com-
munity. A man of broad views and well fortified opinions, he was a
staunch supporter of the cause of popular education and served for
twenty-one years as a valued member of the Evansville board of educa-
tion. Others fully realized his eligibility for public office, but he had
naught of ambition along this course, as was shown by his positive declin-
ation to become his party 's candidate for nomination as representative of
his district in the state senate. He was unswerving in his allegance to the
Republican party and, from personal experience, knew the value and
expediency of the protective tariff policy of the party.
In the social phase of his life Mr. Sauer was an interesting man, with
democratic and genial personality. His mind was matured by well di-
rected reading and by the lessons gained in the school of experience, so
that he was able to draw upon a large fund of information, the while
his conversational powers were liberally developed. His interests, aside
from business, centered in his home, the relations of which were of ideal
1442 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
order, and to those nearest and dearest to him his passing away was the
greatest possible loss and bereavement, besides which the entire com-
munity manifested the same attitude, appreciative of his sterling char-
acter and of his usefulness as a citizen. With strong religious convic-
tion and an abiding faith, Mr. Sauer was a devout member of the German
Evangelical church, as are also his wife and children, and he was liberal
in the support of the various departments of church work. He was also
a Mason and a firm believer in its teachings and precepts.
The fine family residence erected by Mr. Sauer is a substantial brick
structure standing on an eminence above the mill, and the grounds have
been beautified with shade trees, shrubbery and beautiful lawns, the
entire appearance of the place signifying peace and prosperity. This
home has long been known for its gracious and unostentatious hospitality
and has found a most pleasing chatelaine in the person of Mrs. Sauer,
a devoted wife and helpmeet.
On the 22d of July, 1866, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Sauer
to Miss Elizabeth Gerlach, who was born in Virginia and reared in
Monroe county, Illinois, and whose parents, early settlers of this state,
were natives of Hesse-Cassel, Germany. In conclusion of this memoir
is entered record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Sauer, but it
should be stated prior to giving such data that the death of Mr. Sauer
was the result of an accident. He fell through a trap door that had been
left open at night on a porch of his home, and in falling to the cellar
beneath he received internal injuries which resulted in his death three
days later, on the 21st of October, 1908, as has previously been noted in
this context.
John, the eldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Sauer, was educated
in Europe as a mining engineer, and for six years after his return to
America he followed the work of his profession in Colorado. He is now
manager of the milling business of the N. Sauer Milling Company at
Cherryvale, Kansas. He married Miss Leonora Wolff, of New Haven,
Missouri. Miss Magdalena E. Sauer remains with her widowed mother
in the beautiful home in Evansville. Philip E. the next in order of birth,
is more definitely mentioned in the appending paragraph. Dr. William
E. was graduated in the St. Louis Medical College, after which he com-
pleted post graduate courses in leading universities in Berlin and Vienna,
and he is now engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of St.
Louis, as a specialist in the diseases of the ear, nose and throat, besides
which he is a lecturer in the medical department of Washington Univer-
sity, in that city. He wedded Miss Irene Borders of Sparta, Illinois, and
they have one son, William Nicholas. George N., the youngest of the
children, is one of the active factors in the Sauer Milling Company, and
concerning him more specific mention is made in the closing paragraph
of this memoir.
Philip E. Sauer was born at Evansville, on the llth of January, 1873,
and after duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools
of his native town he prosecuted higher academic studies in the Southern
Illinois Normal University and in Shurtleff College. He gained his
early business experience in connection with the milling business con-
ducted by his father and uncle and has been actively identified with this
enterprise during the intervening years. After the death of his father he
became president of the company, which has brought to him much of the
responsibility of administering the practical and executive affairs of
the business. He is also vice-president of the Bank of Evansville and is
a man of great public spirit and civic progressiveness. On the 18th of
September, 1907, he married Miss Alice Harmon, of Chester, Illinois, and
they have a winsome little daughter, Elizabeth.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1443
George N. Sauer, who is secretary and treasurer of the Sauer Milling
Company, was born in Evansville, on the 10th of February, 1879, and as
a citizen and business man he is well upholding the prestige of the honored
name which he bears. He completed his educational discipline in Shurt-
leff College and after the death of his father he was elected president of
the Bank of Evansville, in which position he has since given effective ad-
ministration of the business of this institution as chief executive. He is
a bachelor. Both he and his brother Philip E. are unwavering in their
allegiance to the cause of the Republican party and both are affiliated with
Kaskaskia Lodge, No. 86, Free & Accepted Masons, the headquarters of
which were changed from Ellis Grove to Evansville. At the time of its
organization, as the first Masonic lodge in Illinois, this body was located
at Kaskaskia, which was then the capital of the territory.
HON. HENRY M. KASSEEMAN. Perhaps at no time in the history of
the United States have both people and communities been so awake as at
the present to the necessity of progress and reform, and this sentiment
has grown so universally that it is reflected in the choice made of all
public officials. Thus it has fortunately come to pass that the choice
of the public for men to fill high office, in the majority of cases, re-
sults in the election of individuals who have personal standing, un-
blemished character and also the ability not only to initiate reforms
where needed, but also the courage to push them forward to acceptance.
Such a man in every particular is Hon. Henry M. Kasserman, county
judge of Jasper county, Illinois, a prominent member of the bar at New-
ton and for two years mayor of that city.
Henry M. Kasserman was born January 4, 1864, in Monroe county,
Ohio, and is a son of Stephen and Annie (Tomi) Kasserman. Stephen
Kasserman was born in Switzerland, August 16, 1829, and was a son of
Stephen Kasserman, who brought his family to America and died in
Ohio in 1891, at the age of ninety-two years. Stephen Kasserman, the
second, grew to manhood in southeastern Ohio and followed farming and
also steamboating on the Ohio river. In 1864 he moved to Richland
county, Illinois, where he followed farming for a time but later became
a general contractor at Olney, Illinois. He was married in Ohio to
Annie Tomi, who died in 1895, having survived her husband for two
years. They were the parents of nine children.
Prior to his fifteen birthday Henry M. Kasserman attended the
public schools at Olney and then accompanied his parents to Jasper
county, where the family resided for several years and then he returned
to Olney, where he attended the high school, after which he taught school
in Jasper and St. Clair counties. Having made choice of the law, he
entered McKendree College, at Lebanon, where he was graduated with
his degree of LL. B. in 1891, and in the same year he was admitted to
the bar. In 1892 he opened his law office at Mt. Vernon and entered
upon practice. In February, 1893, owing to delicate health in a member
of his family, Mr. Kasserman made a change of residence, at that time
coming to Newton. With the exception of a period of eighteen months
spent in the South he has been a continuous resident of Newton ever
since and has been a useful and representative citizen, active in business
and professional life and prominently identified with Democratic
politics.
In January, 1894, Judge Kasserman was appointed county judge by
the late Governor Altgeld ,and later was elected to the bench for the full
term of four years. At the close of this period he partially retired from
politics and for some time gave his entire attention to his law practice
and to his large real estate interests, since 1901, when for one year he
1444 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
was a member of the Fithian Land Company, having handled extensive
tracts of land in different counties in Southern Illinois. In the spring
of 1905, however, Judge Kasserman was recalled to public life and he
was elected mayor of Newton, with a handsome majority. It required
courage to face the problems of municipal governing at that time. The
city was practically in a bankrupt condition, it had no public utilities
and but indifferent sidewalks. A dilapidated and totally inadequate sys-
tem of water works had once been installed and to the improvement of
this utility the new mayor first devoted his efforts, and during his two
years of incumbency succeeded in satisfactorily extending the water
mains and greatly improving the system. The same might be said of
the electric light plant and other needed improvements. Without
authorizing undue taxation or unnecessarily burdening the people, he
brought about much better conditions and paved the way for still fur-
ther improvements. During his first year as mayor he secured the con-
struction of three miles of concrete sidewalks. After a satisfactory ad-
ministration of this office for two years Mayor Kasserman found the
strain on his health too heavy and resigned and afterward spent some
months recuperating on his large farm in Arkansas. In 1909 he was
elected city attorney of Newton, and in the fall of 1910 was elected
county judge, when he resigned his former office. Judge Kasserman
seems particularly well qualified for the bench, seldom having had an
appeal made from his judgment and possessing the confidence of the
public in his integrity. He is a citizen in whom Newton takes justifiable
pride.
In 1889 Judge Kasserman was married to Miss Lizzie Doty, of Wil-
low Hill, Illinois, and they have six children, namely : Frederick, who is
teaching school in Jasper county; Don Henry, who is a member of the
class of 1912 of the Newton high school; Lulu B., who is also a high
school student; and Rush A., John J. and James S. Judge Kasserman
and family attend the Baptist church. He belongs to the Odd Fellows
and the Modern Woodmen of America.
MONTREVILLE HEARD. One of the enterprising and energetic busi-
ness citizens of Thompsonville, Illinois, Montreville Heard, is the pro-
prietor of the leading hardware establishment at this place, where his
activities during the twenty years in which he has been engaged in
business here have been such as to develop the best resources of the com-
munity, and whose integrity and ability have been recognized by his
elections to various positions of public trust.
Montreville Heard was born in Hamilton county, Illinois, October 3,
1852, and is the son of Charles M. and Kizzie (Varner) Heard. Charles
Heard was the son of Stephen Heard, who in turn was the son of Charles
Heard, with whom the authentic history of the American branch of the
family begins. He, Charles Heard, was born in Abbeville county, South
Carolina, in 1750, and in 1776 enlisted in the Continental army as a
captain, and he served thus for eight years, giving valiant and heroic
service in the cause of the struggling colonies. At one time the captain
and his men were taken prisoners and crowded into a small prison where
a number of his men were smothered to death. Captain Heard, who
was a member of the Masonic fraternity, made himself known to the
British officer in command who was a brother Mason, who released the
captain on his honor. Captain Heard was convinced that the British
officer was in sympathy with the Continental army, and he approached
him with a proposal to warm the key to the prison and make an impres-
sion of the key in wax and give it to him. The officer proved himself
to be a man with a price, and for the consideration of the sum of five
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1445
dollars agreed to the arrangement suggested by Captain Heard. The
captain was a silversmith of no small ability, and with a wax impress
of the key he had no difficulty in finding a way into the prison. On the
following morning all the Continental prisoners were free.
When the war was over Captain Heard settled down to civilian life
again. He married, and among his children was Stephen, who became
the father of Charles M. and was the grandfather of the subject of this
review. Stephen Heard was born in Tennessee in 1780 and when a
young man he located in Nashville. In 1803 he married Delia Wilcox
and moved to Walpole, Hamilton county, Illinois, in 1820, where he set-
tled on a farm, there continuing engaged in agricultural pursuits for
the remainder of his life, his earlier years of business activity having
been devoted to the blacksmithing business. He died during the Civil
war. His son, Charles M., was born in Nashville in 1829, at a time when
his parents were visiting in that city, and he was reared on the Hamilton
county farm in Illinois. In later years, when he had reached years of
independence, he acquired a farm of his own and worked it until his
retirement, when he and his wife went to make their home with their son,
Montreville. Charles M. Heard was supervisor and justice of the peace
of Flannagin township for many years, and was prominently identified
with the Democratic party for a long period, but he is now connected
with the Prohibitionists. Peter Varner, who was the maternal grand-
father of Montreville Heard, was also a pioneer settler of Illinois, to
which state he came from Virginia in early life and where the remainder
of his life was spent actively engaged in tilling the soil and doing all in
his power as an agriculturist to settle the then wilderness regions, and
pave the way for advancing settlement and progress.
Montreville Heard was educated in the schools of Hamilton county
and was reared to agricultural life. Tilling the soil, however, did not
appeal to him sufficiently strong to keep him on the farm, and in 1891
he decided to enter the mercantile field, and accordingly established him-
self in business in Thompsonville, Illinois. He is now the proprietor
of the leading hardware establishments in this place, and carries a com-
prehensive stock of hardware, furniture, implements of all kinds, wagons
and carriages, and also conducts an undertaking establishment. He has
by the exercise of his splendid business faculties and the application of
strictly business methods, combined with his sterling character, suc-
ceeded in building up a highly representative business in this vicinity,
and has long been known for one of the most progressive, able and
worthy business men and citizens of the city or county. Mr. Heard has
become interested in matters of a financial import in the city, and is
vice-president of the Thompsonville Bank, in which he is a stockholder.
He is also identified with the banking interests of Hanaford, Illinois,
and in that thriving place is the owner and proprietor of a department
store as well. His activity during the twenty years in which he has
been engaged in business in Thompsonville have been of a nature cal-
culated to develop the best resources of the community, and he has
done much for the upbuilding of the city in a financial, commercial and
industrial way. His integrity and ability have been further recognized
by his fellow men by his election to various positions of public trust, and
his reputation as a business man of sterling worth is equalled by his
value as a public-spirited citizen and an able official. Mr. Heard is a
staunch prohibitionist in his political views, and everywhere recognized
as a man of high moral character and courage. He served the city for
some time as its mayor, and for many years he has acted in the capacity
of a police magistrate. With his family, Mr. Heard attends the Mission-
1446 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ary Baptist church, of which they are members. Mr. Heard also is a
member of the Masonic order.
On January 13, 1876, Mr. Heard was united in marriage with Miss
America Hall, the daughter of Wilson H. Hall, an early settler of Saline
county, who served as justice of the peace for more than twenty-five
years, at Galatia, Saline county. One child was born of their union, —
Alice, who is the wife of Art M. Stone and lives at Harrisburg, Illinois,
where Mr. Stone is the manager of the O 'Gara Supply Company of that
city. Mrs. Heard died on June 13, 1877, and Mr. Heard in 1879 married
Miss Catherine Plaster, daughter of Joseph Plaster, also an early settler
and a farmer who lived in Hamilton county for many years. Mr. Plaster
was one of the most successful men in his business in the county, being
widely known as a stock raiser. Eight children were born to this latter
union : Charles G. is cashier of the Hanaford Bank at Hanaford, Illi-
nois; William B. is associated with his father in the business of M.
Heard & Sons; Griffie B. is clerk in a dry goods store; Claudia, is a
bookkeeper for the Hanaford Bank; Larkin B., is assistant cashier of
the Thompsonville State Bank ; Lura and Lulu reside with their parents,
and Ross, who is engaged in the poultry business at Thompsonville,
Illinois.
ENOCH ELLERY NEWLIN. In the life of Judge Enoch E. Newlin the
young men and boys of his community ought to find the inspiration to
meet and overcome all obstacles, for in knowing what he has accom-
plished they may say to themselves, "What this man has accomplished
I also can." It will, however, take a boy who is above the average to
make as complete a success of his life as has Judge Newlin. He placed
his goal high, and started out in the race with lofty resolves. He has
never lowered his ideals for a moment, and all the disillusionment that
has come to him since, as a mere sqhool-boy, he began the battle of life,
has never caused him to feel that the greatest things in the world were
aught but faith, hope, charity and love. As a lawyer he is noted for
the thorough way in which he prepares his cases. He never neglected
a case however trifling it might have been, and this, together with his
integrity and honesty, have brought him many clients who might have
gone elsewhere. He is one of the best known judges of the circuit court,
and lawyers are always glad to try cases before him because they are
certain of obtaining a full measure of justice. His early struggles for
an education make him extremely sympathetic with young men who are
beginning life, though but few have the difficulties to overcome that he
had. This warm and sympathetic side of his nature adds to his suc-
cess as a judge, for though he is strict in the enforcement of the law,
yet he is merciful, and from his long experience in judging human
nature, he seldom errs in his conclusions.
The father of Enoch Ellery Newlin was Thomas Newlin, who was
born in Crawford county, Illinois, in 1821. His father was Eli Newlin,
who was a native of North Carolina and came to Illinois about 1814.
He settled on government land in Hutsonville township and here he con-
tinued to reside until his death. He was the father of eight children,
as follows: Mahala, who married Alfred Correll; Jonathan; Sarah,
who became Mrs. William Patten ; Enoch ; Mary, who married William
Sutherland ; Thomas ; Frederic and Kelly. All of these children are
now dead, but since all of them married and raised families the de-
scendants of Eli Newlin are numerous. Thomas Newlin followed in
his father's steps and engaged in farming. He was married to Mary
E. Ruelle. a daughter of George and Susan Ruelle, who were both natives
of Licking county, Ohio. Four sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. Newlin.
of whom Enoch E. was the second. The eldest born, George A., died
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1447
at the age of fifteen. The other two sons are Doctor LeRoy Newlin,
who is a prominent physician in Robinson, and Thomas J., who is a
lawyer of considerable repute in the same city. Thomas Newlin man-
aged his farm until the war clouds began to gather and then he dropped
the plough and shouldered the gun. He enlisted on the 1st of April,
1860, in Company I of the Seventy-ninth Illinois Volunteer Regiment.
He bade his family a cheerful farewell and marched bravely away like
so many others never to see his home again. He died in the hospital
at Murphysboro, Tennessee, in April, 1862. In the regiment with him
were his brother Kelly and his two nephews, Cyrus Patten and Luther
Newlin. All of them were killed on the battle-fields of the southland or
died in Confederate hospitals or prisons.
Mrs. Newlin was now left a widow with four small boys, Enoch be-
ing only four at the time of his father's death. His mother had
scarcely any ready money, and even the farm upon which they lived
was rented. With a horse to help in the plowing and a cow to supply
the milk, which was often the only supper the boys had, she managed
to struggle along. Her efforts were directed simply toward keeping
her little family together and bringing up her boys to be noble, upright
men. As soon as the boys were old enough to attend school she sent
them to the district school in the winter, and during the summer they
worked at whatever they could find to help make a living. After the
day's work was over, and supper had been eaten, Mrs. Newlin would
gather her little flock about her, and from six until eight they would
be busily engaged with school books. Then the mother leading them
they would kneel in prayer before going to bed. Her rule was a firm,
but gentle one, and her high ideals were so firmly planted in the minds
of her sons that they have never been lost. With such a mother it is
easy to understand the characters of the sons. At the age of fifteen her
eldest son died, and with this additional burden to bear she still faced
the world cheerily and bravely. Enoch, now being the eldest, was hired
out at the age of thirteen to work on a neighboring farm. Until he was
seventeen this was the way he spent the summers, in the winter time con-
tinuing to attend school. At the age of seventeen he secured a position
as teacher of a district school, and for eight successive terms he taught
school in Crawford county. All of his salary he turned over to his
mother, but so frugal was she, and so careful was the young school teacher
with the money that he was supposed to use for his personal expenses,
that in time he and she together had saved enough money to permit him
to continue his education. What a story of self-sacrifice is written in
those few words ! What energy and industry and perseverance ! It was
in 1879 that he left his home county for the first time and, going to
Terre Haute, Indiana, entered the State Normal School. He remained
there a year and on his return home carried out the determination that
he had formed of studying law in the office of Callahan and Jones. To
obtain the money for his board and his law books he taught school dur-
ing the winter, and during the summer studied law in Robinson, un-
der the tutelage of the above well known lawyers. In 1882 he was
admitted to the bar, and, paying almost his last dollar for the rent of
his office and a few chairs, he hung out his sign and sat down to wait for
clients. He knew that if they did not come speedily he would have to
go back to teaching school again. He had not realized that in his work
as a farmer boy and as a school teacher he had made many and warm
friends, and these friends were not slow in seeing that he had clients.
His practice soon began to increase and it was not long before he was
firmly established as a lawyer.
In 1883 he was appointed city attorney for the city of Robinson, and
1448 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
served in this capacity one term, to the satisfaction of all concerned.
He was heart and soul in his work, and after being admitted to the bar
he kept on with his studies, adding daily to his knowledge of the law.
Today he is one of the best informed lawyers in this section. In 1884
he was elected state's attorney for Crawford county, and in 1888 he
was re-elected without opposition. In 1892 he was again proposed for
the office, but he declined to accept the nomination. As a state's at-
torney he was extremely careful and vigilant. He won the confidence
of the juries through his honesty and sincerity, and it was practically
impossible for a guilty man to evade the penalty of the law while he
was in office. During the eight years in which he served as state's at-
torney he collected annually enough money from fines and forfeitures
to pay his fees and even then had a surplus to turn over to the county.
He was admired and respected by the judges in whose courts he
tried his cases and it was well known that they need not expect trickery
or evasion in any of his prosecutions. His reputation spread to other
sections of the state where he happened to be called through the de-
mands of his profession ; therefore it was far from unexpected when
in 1897 he was elected to the office of judge of the circuit court in the
second judicial circuit of Illinois. During the years intervening he
served two years as master in chancery, and the remainder of the
time was devoted to his law practice. He formed a partnership with
J. C. Olwin and under the name of Olwin and Newlin the firm did a
large business until the death of Mr. Olwin in 1890. During the next
year Judge Newlin formed a partnership with Judge William C.
Jones, which lasted until the former was called to the bench.
The second judicial circuit over which Judge Newlin was elected
to preside consists of twelve counties, and nowhere in all this section
is there a man more respected. He is popular with both the lawyers
and their clients. His care in weighing testimony and his skill in judg-
ing human nature make him particularly fitted for the judicial office.
That the people realized this was proved when in 1903 he was re-elected
and again in 1909. He still holds the office, and he is one member of
the bench who has nothing to fear if a law permitting the recall of
judges should be passed, for his popularity is based on the solid foun-
dation of true merit.
Judge Newlin has always been a Democrat, and has been a promi-
nent leader in his party, giving valuable assistance, both as an organizer
and as a speaker. For eight years he was chairman of the county cen-
tral committee, and during this time showed his splendid powers of
organization, and his mind trained for battle, be it of tongues or pens.
In his religious affiliations Judge Newlin is an active member of the
Methodist Episcopal church, and for twenty years has been president
of the board of trustees. In the fraternal world he places his whole
allegiance with the Masons, being a Royal Arch Mason and a Knight
Templar of Olney, Illinois. The greatest sorrow of his life occurred
when his mother, who had lived to see her sons all grow into the sort
of men she had tried so hard to make them, passed away, on the 7th
of January, 1903. She had been married a second time, her husband
being Thomas Lewis, and three children had been born of this union.
On the 1st of January, 1885, Judge Newlin was married to Clara
A. Coulter, a daughter of Melville and Mary Coulter. Both of her
parents were natives of Crawford county, where they lived and died.
She is the niece of the late Judge Jacob Wilkin, of the supreme court
of Illinois. Judge and Mrs. Newlin have three children. The eldest,
Mary Fay, is now Mrs. Landgrebe, and lives at Huntingburg, Indiana,
where her husband's work calls him at present. Her husband, Mr. E.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1449
C. Landgrebe, is a civil engineer. Frank E. Newlin, the only son, has
chosen the profession which his father honors, and was admitted to
the bar in July, 1911. He is now practicing law in Robinson. The
youngest, Marian O., is going to school and is at home.
CHARLES STAHLHEBER. For the past quarter of a century Grand
Chain has known Charles Stahlheber as one of her successful and pro-
gressive farmers. Coming to this place in 1886 from Monroe county,
Illinois, he located here and while the first years of his residence as a
farmer were attended by more than unusual hardships, there is noth-
ing in his life today to indicate that he has not always been the pros-
perous and representative citizen which he now is.
Charles Stahlheber was born near Hecker, a small town in Monroe
county, on January 25, 1851. He is the son of Martin Stahlheber, a
German immigrant born at Michaelstadt, a small province of the Ger-
man Empire, in about 1820. When Martin Stahlheber was twenty-one
years of age he immigrated to America, stopping at Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania, for perhaps twelve years. He there married Miss Katie Kun-
kel, who died after the removal of the family to Monroe county, Illinois,
in 1855, when she was forty years of age. Ten children were born of
their union. They included: John, of Pinckneyville, Illinois; David,
a farmer in St. Clair county, Illinois ; William, of St. Louis ; Charles,
of Grand Chain ; George and Henry, of Hecker, Illinois ; Wilhelmina,
the wife of Charles Esienf elder, of Pinckneyville, Illinois; Sophia, the
wife of Henry Schaffer, of Freeburg, Illinois; and Mary, who married
John Hepp, of Hecker, Illinois.
Such education as was possible to the Stahlhebers was of a most
meager order, and Charles came to manhood with but a limited knowl-
edge of books. He continued to be an active support of the parental
home until he reached the age of twenty-eight years, when he married
and established a new house of Stahlheber in the midst of the com-
munity. While he lived in his native county he resided on a rented
farm, but he later removed to Pulaski county, where he became a prop-
erty owner. He was one of the first German farmers to settle in Grand
Chain. After he had rented a few years he was able to purchase
eighty acres of farm land, which forms the center of his present estate.
His industry at grain and stock raising brought him a degree of pros-
perity sufficient to enable him to purchase another eighty acres in five
years, and thus he has continued to add to his holdings from time to
time, so that he now ranks among the foremost farmers of his locality.
The success which Mr. Stahlheber has enjoyed has been the positive
result of his constant, unremitting toil in the years that have elapsed
since he first located in Grand Chain. "Rome was not built in a day,"
neither is it possible to make a verdant and prolific farm out of a
stump-covered area of disheartened looking land without the applica-
tion of time, money and genuine hard labor. His hands and those of
his growing family have ever been busy in the making of this fine
homestead, until now the sons and daughters of the home have gone
out in to the world to make careers for themselves, and the burden of
the years has begun to leave its mark upon the master of the house and
his faithful helpmate.
On March 30, 1880, Mr. Stahlheber married in Monroe county, Illi-
nois, Miss Louisa Ramseger, a daughter of George Ramseger, who was
born at Kelen, Rhine Province, Germany, and, coming to the United
States, married Miss Kate Schneider in Monroe county. Mrs. Stahl-
heber was born November 11, 1857, and is the eldest child of her parents.
The others were Peter, who died near Grand Chain in 1911 ; Mary, who
1450 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
married Abraham Seitz; and Lizzie, who became the wife of Joseph
Cange. Mr. Ramseger died near Grand Chain in 1891, at the age of
seventy-seven, and his wife passed away in Monroe county.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Stahlheber are : Lizzie, who married
Arthur Gaskill, a Pulaski county farmer ; Jacob is a farmer and is mar-
ried to Annie Barthel; Emma is the wife of Edward Weisenbor, of
Grand Chain ; and Henry is still in the parental home. The Stahlheber
family are communicants of the Lutheran church, and the male mem-
bers of the family are adherents to principles of Republicanism, although
not especially active in political circles.
GEORGE "W. DOWELL. Lovers of the romantic say we have no heroes
in these days, that the courage that attempts the impossible is dead ; they
forget that the heroes of modern times often fight their battles in their
own homes, that there is no list upon which their prowess might be dis-
played, save the lists of the modern business world, in which the struggle
is as much more terrifying than that between Ivanhoe and Front de
Boeuf as the refinement and civilization that shudders at the thought of
a mortal combat is greater than that of the time of Richard Coeur de
Lion. In these days the fall of a man means not only his own ruin, but
usually the hurt of all those dependent on him. Those that do not be-
lieve that we have modern heroes, read the story of George W. Dowell.
This man was just one among hundreds of other grimy toilers, each day
that he spent under the ground stifling more and more the power of initi-
ative that burned within him, but each day his ambition to become some-
thing more than a miner increased. He was a grown man, too old to
enter the high schools, too poor to go to even the most inexpensive colleges,
had he had the education that would permit him to enter. Did he sit
down in front of this problem and say, "It is impossible, nothing but a
miracle could make me anything but what I am. ' ' He did not, he ground
his teeth together and said, "I will," with the result that today, after
only four years of practice, he is one of the most successful lawyers in
DuQuoin and his popularity is growing every minute.
George W. Dowell was born in Williamson county, Illinois, on the
18th of August, 1879. He is the son of William J. Dowell, who was
born in Tennessee. The latter acquired a fair education, and when his
father, David Dowell, went to Arkansas in ante-bellum days the son ac-
companied him. David Dowell was a merchant and a race-horse man,
and died near Salem, Arkansas. William J. separated from his parents
before the outbreak of the Civil war and came to Southern Illinois. On
the 26th of August, 1861, he enlisted in Company E of the Thirty-first
Illinois Infantry, which was General Logan's old regiment. He became
color bearer of the regiment and when his three year term of enlistment
expired he re-enlisted and was in the service nearly five years. He was
one of the few who took part in the fighting in the heart of the Con-
federacy and escaped both wounds and captivity. He returned home in
the fall of 1865, with the consciousness of having performed a patriot's
part in the preservation of the Union. He is now one of the rapidly
thinning band that compose the Grand Army of the Republic, and is
the only member of his family that fought on the side of the Union. He
married Mary E. Robinson, a daughter of John Robinson, who came to
Illinois from Kentucky, having previously lived in the state of Virginia,
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Dowell are : John L. S., who is general
manager of the Moke and Impson Mine ; Clifford, who died in infancy ;
W. L., who is a contractor at Elkville, Illinois ; James, who died in baby-
hood ; A. B., living in Carbondale ; Sarah, the wife of John Lounsberry,
of Texarkana, Arkansas; Maggie, who married John Cox and lives in
TTIEIIBWRK
OF THE
".;.;» y e: '"..
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1451
Centralia, Illinois ; Thomas, who died in his youth ; George W. ; L. N., of
Caldwell, Washington ; Nannie and Mary, who passed away as little chil-
dren. Mr. .Dowell is a Republican, but has never entered very prom-
inently into politics, preferring to work in a quiet way for the party to
which he owes allegiance.
George W. Dowell grew up in Marion, Carterville and Elkville, Illi-
nois, learning something of farm life and later taking his place in the
ranks of the miners. His home was that of a man of toil, for his father
had followed the butcher business, farming and mining, and in conse-
quence the dinner pail became a close companion of the son as soon as he
left the common schools. As the lad grew to manhood his soul revolted
at the thought of spending all of his days down in the depths of the
earth, the miner's cap became the symbol of all that was hateful to him
and he did not even wish to be connected with the mines in the capacity
of a superintendent, which position he would surely have reached in time.
He had the mind of a lawyer and the eloquence of a lawyer, he possessed
the power of concentration and the ability to reason logically. Even in
those days it was evident that the professional world was the one for
which he was naturally adapted. But, how to get past' the portal? Since
he could not enter high school because he was too old, he decided to at-
tempt a high school course of his own. Therefore every night he would
come home from the mines, weary from the physical labor, and after
his often meagre supper, for it took so much money to buy books, would
sit down close to the lamp and there in the company of his young wife
would labor over knotty problems in algebra and geometry, and try to
understand what Chaucer was talking about, or why ' ' Equal volumes of
gas at the same temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of
molecules." Think of the struggles we ourselves had with the best of
teachers and the most modern apparatus, studying at a time when our
brains were most receptive and when facts found an easy lodgment
therein, and compare our comparatively easy time with what this man
had to contend with. With no scientific apparatus, no teacher to
straighten out tangles, and with a brain that had passed the stage when
it resembles a sponge, yet he determined that he would conquer, and he
did. He completed all the work required in the curriculum of the high
school and passed the examination on questions given to him by the super-
intendent of schools. He had now taken the first and longest step. While
he had been toiling over his school books he had also been poring over
the massive tomes of legal knowledge that lay near by on his table. So
he was ready to begin at once on his professional work. His first work
was done by correspondence, in the Sprague Correspondence School of
Detroit, after which he read under the instructions of Judge Ellis, of
Carbondale, and later entered the offices of Harker and Harker and Light-
foot in the same city. From Carbondale he moved to Herrin, and in
1907 took the bar examination in the Northwestern University in Chicago,
Illinois. He was one of fifty-two successful ones among more than two
hundred applicants. He was admitted on the 23rd of June and was the
first man to hand in his final paper to the examining commission, of which
Judge George W. Wall, of DuQuoin, was president.
He now began to practice, having charge of the branch office of Harker
and Harker and Lightfoot in Herrin. On the 5th of October, 1909, he
came to DuQuoin, resigning his position with the above firm and entering
the field for himself. His knowledge, having been won with so great dif-
ficulty, stayed by him better than if it had come to him easier, and the
thoroughness with which he prepares his cases and the clearness and sim-
plicity with which he puts them before the jury have won him a reputa-
tion as one of the coming lawyers. He entered actively into politics be-
1452 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fore he was admitted to the bar, and with his natural eloquence and his
sincere belief iu the power of right as against that of might, he won the
confidence of all who heard him. In 1908 he made the race for state sen-
ator, but he was not yet well enough known, so was defeated for the
nomination. The political party of his choice is the Republican. Mr.
Dowell is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity and is a Modern Wood-
man. In his religious affiliations he is a member of the Missionary Bap-
tist church of DuQuoin. In this church he is clerk, and is a licensed
preacher.
On the 16th of December, 1899, George W. Dowell was married to Miss
Anna Midyett, a daughter of John H. Midyett. The latter was an archi-
tect and carpenter, who had come to Franklin county, Illinois, from Ken-
tucky. Mr. Midyett died on the 4th of March, 1899. Mrs. Midyett was
Rebecca S. Malory, a sister of Hon. 0. R. Malory, of Benton, Illinois.
Mrs. Dowell was one of nine children. Mr. and Mrs. Dowell have three
children, Noble Yates, Clara V. and Reola Marker.
ADOLPH MATHIAS LEONHABD. Prominent among the younger men
of Trenton, Illinois, is Adolph M. Leonhard, the cashier of the Farmers
Bank. Inheriting from his father the spirit of progressiveness and of
broad-minded citizenship, he has united his efforts with those of his
father in practically every direction, for the betterment of local con-
ditions. His business ability and reputation for reliability won for him
the responsible position which he now holds, although he had had no
previous experience along such lines. His deep interest in civic affairs,
as well as the confidence which his fellow citizens place in him, is
shown by the positions which he has held in the city council and on the
board of education.
At Trenton, Illinois, on the 27th of November, 1872, Adolph Mathias
Leonhard was born. He is the son of Frank Leonhard, who was born
on the 4th of January, 1843, at Highland, Illinois. The early life of
the latter was spent partly on the farm and partly in town, and conse-
quently his education was rather spasmodic. He realized this defect
as he grew older and determined to remedy it himself. To that end
he read and studied earnestly and is now a well informed and cultivated
man. While he was a boy his father, Mathias Leonhard, moved to
Trenton and bought a farm not far from the town. The lad grew up
here, but when he reached manhood and thought of starting out for
himself he turned to the mercantile business. He was so successful in
this field that he has kept to it ever since and is now one of the most
prominent merchants of Trenton. Active not only in the business
world but in the public affairs of his city, he has willingly accepted
various public offices. He has served both as councilman and as member
of the school board and is an active member of the Business Men 's League.
In politics he is a Republican, and fraternally he affiliates with the
Masonic order. On the 25th of June, 1868, he married Elizabeth Emig,
of Trenton, Illinois. Nine children were born to them, seven of whom
are living; Adolph M. ; Louis N. ; Edwin; Kathryn, who is the wife of
Senator Griggs of Texas ; Elmer Arnold and Ina.
The early days of Adolph Leonhard were spent like those of his
father on a farm, but also like his father he had no inclination for this
sort of life and when he was not in school he was to be found behind the
counter of his father's store. He received his education in the public
schools and then went to the State University at Champlaign, where he
remained one year. He then returned to Trenton and took a position
in his father's store, which he held until he was twenty-six. This train-
ing in business methods which he received under the critical eye of his
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1453
father was invaluable to him when he went into business for himself
as the partner of A. C. Brefeld. The firm was Leonhard and Brefeld,
hardware merchants, and for five years knew nothing but prosperity.
In June, 1905, the Farmer's Bank of Trenton was organized and Mr.
Leonhard was offered the position of cashier of the new enterprise.
This is the position which he has held ever since, being in addition a
heavy stockholder.
On the 7th of June, 1900, his marriage to Emma Locey, of Car-
lyle, Illinois, took place. They are the parents of one daughter, Dorotha
Locey Leonhard. In politics Mr. Leonhard is a Republican, while in
religious matters he is a member of the Presbyterian church. He is en-
thusiastic over the beneficial effects of the fraternal orders and is a
member of the Masons and of the Knights of Pythias.
He is a member of the Illinois State Banker's Association, taking
an interested part in their meetings. For eight years the citizens of
Trenton displayed their trust in him by electing him to the office of city
treasurer, while at present he represents them as alderman from the
first ward, through the medium of the Business Men's League he is
one of the most active workers for the growth of the city of Trenton,
his official position in the League being that of secretary-treasurer. He
is also secretary of the board of education and is treasurer of the local
Federation of Musicians, being an able musician himself, playing both
the piano and the cornet.
Mr. Leonhard is one of Trenton's most enterprising and ambitious
business men. He feels that he must not only succeed himself but "that
he must bring as much good and prosperity to the town as he is able.
He is a clean cut, energetic man, just the type whom men instinctively
like and trust and when he has some reform at heart, he is sure of a
large number who will support him to the last ditch. Since he is clear
sighted enough to distinguish between the real and the sham, or between
what may be of only an evanescent value and what is lasting, his in-
fluence for good is very great.
WALTER B. PLUMMEB. Conspicuous among the wide-awake and
prosperous business men of Opdyke is Walter B. Plummer, who has
built up a substantial trade as a dealer in lumber and builders' sup-
plies. He was born in June, 1861, in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, a son
of Judge William Plummer, and grandson of Benjamin Plummer, Jr.,
a pioneer settler of Kentucky. His great-grandfather, Benjamin Plum-
mer, Sr., and his great, great-grandfather, James Plummer, were like-
wise early settlers of that state.
James Plummer spent all of his earlier life in Maryland, his native
state. In 1794 he migrated to Kentucky, where he had at least one son
living, going down the Ohio river on a flat boat and landing at Lewis-
town, now Maysville, and subsequently devoted his time to hunting. He
left a fine estate in Maryland and a number of slaves, intending when
he left home to go back there and settle up his affairs. On account of
the many dangers then attending a trip between the two states, he kept
putting off the journey, and finally abandoned his Maryland property,
continuing his residence in Kentucky until his death, in 1818.
Benjamin Plummer, Sr., was born in Maryland, and for awhile after
"his marriage lived in Virginia. Daring and venturesome, he accom-
panied the world-famed Daniel Boone on his first trip to Kentucky, and
took an active part in the stirring scenes enacted during the settlement
of the "Dark and Bloody Ground."
Benjamin Plummer, Jr., born in Virginia, January 10, 1793, was
but a child when he accompanied his parents to Kentucky. A typical
VOL. Ill— 24
1454 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
backwoodsman, he began hunting when too young to shoot excepting
over a log, and became an expert marksman, his skill with the gun at
the age of sixty years far surpassing that of most young men. During
the War of 1812 he responded to the last call for troops, enlisting in
the company commanded by Captain Matthews, and was accidentally
wounded while matching at the mouth of Mad river, near the present
site of Dayton. He married on August 15, 1816, and settled at Plum-
mers Mills, where he spent his remaining years, passing away January
5, 1866, at the age of seventy-three years. Nine children were born of
their union, including: Mrs. W. B. Evans; Mrs. W. G. Montgomery,
whose husband was a minister, died in Ohio in 1858 ; Mrs. T. J. Cram
died September 1, 1865, in Missouri ; James moved to Missouri in 1854 ;
John settled in Texas ; William ; became the father of Walter B. ; Dr.
Henry, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was a prominent physician; and
Franklin, who located in Missouri. Benjamin Plummer, Jr., was a miller
by trade, an honest, upright citizen, and a devout member of the Meth-
odist church. During the Civil war his sympathies were naturally with
the South, and two of his sons served in the Confederate army. His
death was the result of brutal treatment received from the "Home
Guards."
William Plummer was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, in 1833,
and was there educated. In 1857 he began the study of law with John
A. Gavan, in Flemingsburg, and two years later was admitted to the
Kentucky bar. In the spring of 1859 he was elected police judge of
Flemingsburg, and in 1866 was elected county judge on the Democratic
ticket, and served in that position until his death, in 1870. He was en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits for a few years after his marriage, retir-
ing from farming after his election to the judgeship. He was a man of
sterling integrity and upright character, and a valued member of the
Presbyterian church. William Plummer married, October 13, 1859,
Mary E. Jones, a daughter of James Jones, who came from Maryland
to Kentucky with James Plummer in 1794, and who lived to the re-
markable age of ninety-four years. Three children blessed their union,
as follows: Walter Benjamin, the special subject of this brief biograph-
ical review; Anna Mary, who died at the age of twenty years; and
Julia Fleming, now a resident of Flemingsburg, Kentucky.
Left an orphan at an early age, Walter B. Plummer was brought
up by his aunt, Mrs. Amanda D. Norwood, of Peoria, Illinois, and was
educated in the Peoria schools. Selecting farming as his first occupation,
he was engaged in agricultural pursuits until twenty-eight years of
age, when he moved to the city, where he learned the builder's trade,
which he followed continuously in Peoria for eight years. Migrating
then, in 1899, to Mississippi, Mr. Plummer purchased land, and was
there a tiller of the soil until 1906, when he traded his Mississippi prop-
erty for a farm in Jefferson county, Illinois, near Opdyke. On this
farm of two hundred and forty acres Mr. Plummer resided until Janu-
ary, 1911, in the meantime making improvements of value, including
the erection of a modernly equipped house, at a cost of $2,500.00. Tak-
ing up his residence in Opdyke in January, 1911, he has since been pros-
perously engaged in business as a dealer in lumber and builder's sup-
plies, and is also president of the Opdyke Bank, a nourishing financial
institution. Fraternally he is a member of Jefferson Lodge, No. 168,
Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, of Opdyke; and of H.
W. Hubbard Chapter, No. 160, Royal Arch Masons, of Mount Vernon.
Religiously he belongs to the Methodist church.
Mr. Plummer married first, in March, 1888. Alice Ramsden, daughter
of James Ramsden, who immigrated from England to the United States,
HISTOEY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1455
settling in Peoria, Illinois. She died, leaving one son, Harold W., born
February 11, 1894. Mr. Plummer again married, January 2, 1896.
Mrs. M. L. Howarth, a daughter of Jeremiah Harker, of Peoria, Illinois.
ANDREW WATSON. The realty interests of any progressive, wide-
awake community are very valuable, and those engaged in the develop-
ment and upbuilding of various sections are not only advancing their
own affairs, but are proving public benefactors. One of the leading
business men of Murphysboro who has for some years interested him-
self in the real estate, insurance and loan business is Andrew Watson,
who during his residence here, a period of nearly forty years, has built
up a reputation for business integrity and moral probity that has had
a beneficial influence upon the community at large. Mr. Watson was
born in Lennoxshire. Scotland, July 8, 1857, and is a son of Thomas and
Elizabeth Watson, the former of whom was engaged in coal mining.
Andrew Watson was something over fourteen years of age when he
came to the United States, and in 1872 he settled in Murphysboro, Illi-
nois, where for the next ten years he worked in the coal mines. Possess-
ing the thrifty Scotch spirit, he was saving with his earnings, and after
leaving the mines was for four years engaged in farming, at the end
of which time, under the firm name of Watson Brothers, he and his
brother Arch engaged in the grocery business, which they continued
for eleven years. Mr. Watson's next venture was in the life insurance
field, in which he was uniformly successful and continued therein for
nine years. In 1908 he established a real estate, insurance and loan busi-
ness, and in this line has become known as an industrious and enterpris-
ing addition to Murphysboro 's progressive commercial element. He is
now a director in the Southern Illinois Building & Loan Association.
Mr. Watson has taken not a little interest in public matters in Mur-
physboro, serving as alderman for one term and as township assessor
for a year. He is a member of the English Lutheran church, financial
secretary thereof, a member of the church council and teacher of the
men 's Bible class in the Sunday-school. He was a president of the County
Sunday School Association for two years, and of the adult department
for a like period, and has been superintendent of the county missionary
department of the Sunday-school for one year and still holds that posi-
tion. His fraternal connections are with the Odd Fellows, in which he
is a past noble grand.
Mr. Watson was united in marriage with Miss Carrie Everts, a native
of Ohio, and she died in 1899. He is thoroughly convinced of the truth
of the teachings of the Bible, and earnestly and efficiently has set forth
the faith of that Book. He has the courage of his convictions, and not
only does he declare them in vigorous language that does not fail to im-
press, but lives up to his beliefs and carries them out in every-day life.
He is an excellent business man and possessed of much civic pride, and
any movements having for their object the betterment of Murphysboro in
any way will find in him an earnest supporter and liberal contributor.
WILLIAM ORWAN HALL. One of the youngest and most promising
business men of Cypress, Illinois, whose career presages a brilliant future,
is Mr. William Orwan Hall, who, although still in his early twenties,
holds the responsible position of cashier in the Bank of Cypress. Mr.
Hall is a native of Wichita City, Kansas, where he was born August 3,
1887, the son of William Franklin and Tiny Hall. His father was a
Kentuckian by birth, but became a resident for a time of Kansas, re-
turning again to his native state, however, in 1891. Ten years later he
sought a new location and removed his residence to Williamson county,
1456 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Illinois, where he located on a farm, and he died on August 24, 1911.
He is survived by his wife and eight children, one child, Zella Cleveland,
having preceded him to the land beyond. The living children are
Verdin Lilian, Lola Mont, William Orwan (the subject of this sketch),
Frederick Darrell, William Harland, Dorris Morton, Dewey and Glee.
William Orwan Hall attended school in Wichita, Kansas, Sebree,
Kentucky, and Johnston City, Illinois, and succeeded in attaining a
good education before his early entrance into the commercial world.
Previous to becoming cashier of the Bank of Cypress he worked as a
bookkeeper and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He has achieved flat-
tering success in whatever line of endeavor he has directed his talents,
and has already attained a position rarely reached by men of his
young age.
Mr. Hall carries a good policy in the Aetna Life Insurance Company
and has laid the foundation for a successful financial career.
On December 31, 1910, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hall and
Miss Nola May McClintock, daughter of Charles E. McClintock, a
wealthy merchant of Johnston City and owner of stock in the Bank
Cypress, of which Mr. Hall is cashier.
Mr. Hall is affiliated with several of the leading fraternal organiza-
tions and holds membership in the A. F. & A. M., the Woodmen of the
World and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is a man of
genial personality, and enjoys the respect and confidence of the com-
munity of which he is a leading citizen.
Louis WIEGMANN is cashier of the German State Bank of Hoyleton,
Illinois, with which community this influential family began its con-
nection in 1875. It was founded by the late Dr. Karl Wiegmann, father
of Louis, who brought his family from Hamm, Westphalia, a province
of the German Empire, in 1867, and settled first near Sheboygan, Wis-
consin, subsequently going to St. Paul, Minnesota, and eventually be-
ginning his career among his countrymen in Washington County, Illi-
nois. Like professional men of his nationality generally, Dr. Wiegmann
was a university man, and his modest history was made in the domain
of science. He died here in 1884, at the age of sixty-five years. His
first wife was Louise Schniedermann, and their two children were Rev-
erend Karl and Louis. He married for his second wife Caroline
Scheuten, of Crefeld, Germany, and she died at Hoyleton in 1894. The
surviving issue of this union are : Gustav, a teacher in Chicago ; and
Mrs. Henry Weigel, residing in St. Louis.
The public schools of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Hoyleton educated
Louis Wiegmann, and Elmhurst College, Illinois, prepared him for a
professional career. He was organist and teacher in the parochial schools
of the German Evangelical church at Davis, Illinois, and remained
there from 1885 to 1893, when he took a like position with the church
school at Waterloo, Illinois, remaining there until 1900. He continued
his educational work at Hoyleton until 1906. At that time he resigned
to aid the movement for opening a bank in Hoyleton, this being con-
summated in 1906, and the institution was chartered as the German
State Bank, with a capital of $25,000. This bank now has deposits ag-
gregating $150,000; J. E. Haun is president. L. Wiegmann cashier and
W. E. Breuner, vice-president. The board of directors includes the of-
ficials, with H. F. and W. C. Rixmann and H. W. Schnitker of Hoyleton,
and H. W. Rixmann of Irvington, Illinois.
Mr. Wiegmann was married in Davis, Illinois, March 16, 1886, to
Miss Sophia Meier, a daughter of Henry and Barbara (Weber) Meier
of German and French nativity, respectively. They celebrated their
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1457
sixtieth wedding anniversary before death parted them. Louis D. is
the only child of his parents. He was born in 1887, was educated in
the public schools and business college, and is now his father's assistant
in the bank. He married Miss Minta Roper.
The Wiegmann politics are those of the Democratic party, and in
religious matters the family is connected with the German Evangelical
church.
FRANK F. NOLEMAN. Among the prominent and prosperous law-
yers of Centralia and Marion county, Frank F. Noleman takes enviable
rank. He has been a practicing attorney of Centralia since 1889, which
year marked the beginning of his legal career, and in the years that
have elapsed since then he has made steady progress in the pathway of
success.
Born on July 2, 1868, Frank F. Noleman is the son of Robert D. and
Anna M. (White) Noleman. The former was born in Adams county,
Ohio, in 1816 and came to Illinois in 1843, settling in Jefferson county.
He established the first sawmill in Jefferson county, prominently known
as Noleman 's Mill. He continued to operate this mill until in 1858,
when he moved to Centralia and established a lumber yard. In 1861,
promptly on the breaking out of the Civil war, he organized Company
H, First Illinois Cavalry, known as Noleman 's Cavalry, and he served
in the war one year as captain of his company. Returning to Centralia,
he was appointed postmaster of that point and served acceptably until
1863, when he was appointed to the office of collector of internal revenues
for the Eleventh District, which office he filled in a creditable manner
for eleven years. He was afterwards a commissioner of the Joliet peni-
tentiary for four years. He was generally regarded in his community
as being one of its best citizens, and his success as a man of public posi-
tion was admittedly good. He died in 1883, leaving a good name and
a modest estate, and he was sincerely mourned by all who knew him.
His wife was a native of the state of New York. She died in 1902, hav-
ing survived her husband by a number of years. Both were members
of the Methodist Episcopal church. The father of Robert Noleman and
the grandfather of Frank F. Noleman was Richard Noleman, born in
Maryland. He moved first to Pennsylvania and then to Ohio. In 1843
he brought his family to Illinois, soon after which he died. He was a
successful farmer, and a veteran of the Black Hawk war. The maternal
grandfather of Frank F. Noleman was James White, born in county
Kildare, Ireland, and coming with his wife to this country in about
the year 1830. They settled in New York state, where he followed
farming and raised a large family, and there he and his wife departed
this life.
Frank F. Noleman had the advantage of only a moderate schooling
in his boyhood and youth. When he had completed the course of study
in the common schools of his town he entered McKendree College at
Lebanon, Ohio, taking a two year collegiate course. • Following that
course of study he entered the law office of Casey & Dwight. of Centralia,
reading law with them until 1889, when he was admitted to the bar.
He promptly opened an office in Centralia and there began the practice
of his profession. From a necessarily small beginning Mr. Noleman
has built up a practice wide in its scope and of a remunerative nature.
He is the local representative of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
Railroad Company and for the Southern Railway, and is the representa-
tive of a number of the local corporations. He has a considerable busi-
ness of a professional nature in the adjoining counties and in the Fed-
eral courts.
1458 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Aside from his legal connections he is affiliated with a number of the
more important financial organizations of Centralia, among which are
the Old National Bank, of which he is a director; he is the secretary
and a director of the Marion County Coal Company ; he is vice-president
of the Centralia Envelope Company; and is a member of the directo-
rates of the Home Building & Loan Association, the Centralia Water
Supply Company, the Centralia Commercial Club and the Centralia
Public Library. Mr. Noleman is a Republican in his political adherence,
but has never held any public office beyond that of city attorney in
the early days of his profession, although he is alive to the best interests
of the party at all times. He is a Mason, and a member of the Chapter
and the Gyrene Commandery, No. 23, of Centralia.
In 1894 Mr. Noleman married Miss Daisie Schindler, a daughter of
F. Schindler, a shoe merchant of Centralia. One child, Irene, was born
of their union. In 1902 his wife died, and in 1909 Mr. Noleman mar-
ried Miss Ella Jones. She is a daughter of James Jones, a native of
Perry county, and a farmer. Mrs. Noleman is a member of the Presby-
terian church. Mr. Noleman, while a contributor to the Methodist church,
of which his mother was a member, has never become a member of any
church.
WILLIAM SCHWARTZ. Prominent among the more prosperous German
farmers of Southern Illinois, and especially Pulaski county, William
Schwartz takes high rank as a representative and valuable citizen of his
community. From a small beginning in 1890 he has increased his in-
terests from time to time until he now has one* of the finest farms in
the state, fully equipped with the most modern appliances and with a
dwelling and other buildings which would do credit to any man.
Born January 6, 1859, in St. Clair county, Illinois, Mr. Schwartz
is a son of Peter Schwartz, a native of Germany who settled in that
county many years before the war of the rebellion. He was born in
Schleswig-Holstein, on November 2, 1828, in which place he received
the advantage of a good education, and was trained in the craft of the
blacksmith. He served his country in the army during the war of 1848
and in 1853 he emigrated to America in company with a brother, Wil-
liam, who became a resident of Arizona, near El Paso, Texas. Peter
Schwartz was followed to the United States a few years later by a
brother and sister, John and Margaret (Luedemann) Schwartz, who
settled in St. Clair county. For a number of years following his ad-
vent to America and the state of Illinois, Mr. Schwartz followed his
trade as a blacksmith, but with the acquisition of a tract of land he
was emboldened to branch out into farming, a move which proved to be
most profitable on his part, as he proved that he was as capable in the
role of a farmer as in- that of a blacksmith. In 1856 Mr. Schwartz mar-
ried Barbara Ruebel, who was born near Weisbaden, Germany. She
died in 1868, leaving her husband and four children to mourn her loss.
The children are : John, a farmer of St. Clair county ; William, of this
sketch ; Christopher, also a farmer of St. Clair county ; and Fritz, who
died in East St. Louis on December 20, 1911. Mr. Schwartz contracted
a second marriage in later years, when Mary Gauss became his wife.
She survives her husband, who passed away in 1899.
The education of William Schwartz was secured in the district
schools of his locality, and he was for a short time an attendant at a
German school near his home. He came to know the life of a farmer
by his actual experience with it, and when he was twenty-three years
old his father turned the county home over to him and his brother for
cultivation and management. During the years which intervened be-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1459
fore he came to Pulaski county he accumulated some stock, farming
implements and other necessary paraphernalia incidental to successful
farming, and he came to Southern Illinois prepared to acquire a farm
of his own. He purchased a hundred and sixty acres of land possess-
ing rather primitive improvements, and began to raise stock and grain.
He reaped a liberal reward from his applied industry and in a com-
paratively short time was able to add another quarter section to his
estate. In 1900, ten years after he located in Pulaski county, Mr.
Schwartz built himself a handsome residence, suited in every way to the
demands of country life and entirely modern in the best sense of the
word, in addition to which he has erected a fine lot of buildings which
give him an ideal equipment for the housing of his products and his
stock. All things considered, his place is one of the best and most suit-
ably equipped that may be found in the county. In addition 'to his ex-
tensive farming interests, he is a stockholder in the Grand Chain Mer-
cantile Company, one of the leading concerns of the village of Grand
Chain. He shares in the political faith of his father, which was that
of the Republican party, and is interested in the advancement of the
cause, although his time is so fully occupied by his manifold duties in
connection with the proper management of his farm that he has little
time to devote to political matters. He has been a school-director for
his district, giving praiseworthy service in that capacity.
On November 20, 1884, Mr. Schwartz was married to Miss Eva K.
Daab, a daughter of Louis and Johanna (Pahrbeck) Daab, both of
German birth and residents of Monroe county. Mr. Daab died in 1864,
and two of his four children were living at that time. Mr. and Mrs.
Schwartz became the parents of six children, all of whom are living.
They are : "William D., a farmer of Pulaski county, married Miss Lizzie
Allif, who died after a few months and he took for his second wife Miss
Angie Riffner; Julius, a resident of Belleville; Walter P.; Eddie P.;
Frederick W. ; and Albert Philip.
WALTER DAVIS PAEMLY. Among the most intelligent and progress-
ive fruit growers of Union county is Mr. Walter Davis Family. Hav-
ing lived in this section all of his life, he has become closely identified
with the affairs of the county and is a man whose public spirit may be
depended on when any important issue arises. As an agriculturist he
has been very successful, owing this success not only to his own thor-
ough knowledge of this great basic industry, but to a natural ability for
farming and fruit raising, inherited from his father.
Walter D. Parmly was born on the farm where he now lives, Septem-
ber 18, 1867, his father being John Parmly and his mother, Sarah
(Biggs) Parmly. The former was the son of Giles Parmly, and was
born in October, 1816. Giles Parmly was a Kentuckian by birth, who
migrated to Southern Illinois in 1808, but finding the Indians on the
warpath and peaceful farming impossible, he returned to Kentucky,
where he resided until 1811. At this date he again came to Union
county, settling about one mile west of Alto Pass. Here he reared a
large family and died on the farm where he had spent the later years of
his life. His son John, with the exception of one year's residence in
Stoddard county, Missouri, lived in Union county all of his life. In
1861 his first wife, Susan Hanson, died. By this marriage he had seven
children, three of whom are now living. When the Mexican war threat-
ened Mr. Parmly responded to the call for volunteers and enlisted in
the army, but he saw no active service. In 1857 he began to experi-
ment with fruit growing, thus becoming one of the first orchardists in
his county. He was a good farmer, believing in embracing every op-
1460 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
portunity for improving his property and methods of cultivation, and
his views have been ably carried out by his sons. After the death of
his first wife he married Sarah Biggs, and Walter D., the subject of
this sketch, is the third of five children, four of whom are living.
Walter D. Parmly was born and reared in the clean atmosphere and
among the strengthening influences of a healthy farm life, having always
lived on his present place of one hundred and twenty acres. He has
planted his farm largely in fruit trees, as follows: fifteen and a half
acres in apples, which are just beginning to bear; twenty acres in
peaches, also young, but producing in 1911 a light crop of five hundred
cases; five acres in rhubarb, largely young plants, from which he ob-
tained seven hundred packages in 1911 ; also shipping this year four
hundred barrels of sweet potatoes. He owns another large farm of
one hundred and five acres, which he has likewise planted mainly in
young fruit trees, nine acres being planted in apples, eight in peaches,
four in rhubarb and ten in sweet potatoes. In cultivating these various
crops Mr. Parmly uses the most modern methods. He has two machine
sprayers, operated by gasoline, and believes in their frequent use, all of
his trees receiving a spray about five times a year.
Fraternally Mr. Parmly is affiliated with the Cobden Chapter of the
Knights of Pythias, and is an ardent supporter of all for which this
order stands. In religious matters he is a Baptist, being a member of
the Missionary Baptist cKurch of Limestone.
On the 7th of October, 1888, Mr. Parmly was married to Nancy
Elizabeth Sumner, a daughter of Winstead and Ellen (Farrell) Sum-
ner. They are the parents of three children, two of whom, Faith and
Ulva, are living.
ANTHONY DOHEBTY. Self-made is a word that comes quickly to
mind when a man has overcome difficulties that have beset his path and
used them as stepping-stones by which he has climbed to a large meas-
ure of success in life. It is an honorable word and. stands for industry,
perseverance, courage and self-denial, and may justly and appropri-
ately be used in commenting on the life and career of Anthony Doherty,
one of the prominent business men of Clay City, Illinois. That success
should come to such a man is in justice due, for the untrained lad who
overcomes obstacles by sheer persistency and indefatigable labor cer-
tainly deserves such reward. Mr. Doherty was born in the state of
Louisiana, August 11, 1858, and is a son of Robert H. and Sarah A.
(Smith) Doherty, and grandson of Anthony and Charlotte (Swayzee)
Doherty.
Mr. Doherty 's grandfather was a wealthy Louisiana planter and
slave-owner, and died just before the Civil war, while his grandfather
on the maternal side was a native of Massachusetts who moved to
Louisiana and there spent the rest of his life. The latter had a family of
five children, to all of whom he left a good estate. Robert H. Doherty
was born in Louisiana, November 3, 1831, and received excellent educa-
tional advantages, being a graduate of Bethany (Virginia) College.
He was engaged in sugar planting in his native state. He died Septem-
ber 27, 1860. His widow was left with the estate that had been given
her by her father, but this was lost, like thousands of other fortunes,
when the Confederacy went to its doom, and Mrs. Doherty was per-
suaded to move to a little farm belonging to a maiden aunt in Illinois.
Accordingly, she came to this state in 1871, settled on the little prop-
erty and proceeded to rear and educate her children as best she might,
and Anthony secured a good education in the schools of Clay City.
After completing his mental training he started life on his little forty-
OF THE
HfflVERSITY OF ILUMB
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1461
acre farm, but he had no inclination for the vocation of an agriculturist
and after giving the life a trial entered a drug store, working for a
year without pay, except his board, in order to learn the business. Dur-
ing the next two years he worked as a clerk in drug stores at a salary
of thirty dollars per month, but found he was not advancing fast enough,
and so secured employment as a school teacher. During the next six
years he was employed as an educator in various parts of the county
and for one year was principal of schools in Clay City, and in 1882
found he had saved enough, by constant economy, to purchase a one-
half interest in a drug store. Subsequently he and his partner divided
the stock and Mr. Doherty took his brother as partner, under the firm
name of Doherty Brothers, a concern that has conducted a pharmacy
in Clay City for more than twenty-eight years. In 1881 Mr. Doherty
first went on the road as a commercial traveler for a drug house, and he
has traveled nearly all the time since. At one time he decided to leave
the road, but after a short trial found that his health demanded travel-
ing, and accordingly took up the work and again became a "Knight of
the Grip." Since 1899 Mr. Doherty has been in the service of the J. S.
Merrill Drug Company, and he is known to members of the trade all
over the country. Mr. Doherty has invested much of his capital in
valuable lands in Illinois, and nows owns an excellent, well-paying farm
of one hundred and forty-eight acres, located near Clay City. He is a
capable business man, and to each of his several enterprises brings a
complete and intricate knowledge of detail, showing the result of care-
ful and conscientious study. He is a prominent Mason, belonging to
Clay City Lodge, No. 488, A. F. & A. M. ; Flora Chapter, No. 154, R, A.
M. ; Gorin Commandery, No. 14 K. T. of Olney, and has served as mas-
ter of his lodge and as district deputy grand master for a number of
years He gives his political allegiance to the Democratic party, but
has been too busy to think of seeking public preferment. With his
family he attends the Christian church.
Mr. Doherty was first married to Miss Maggie Smith, who died July
5. 1880, daughter of John Smith. On December 28, 1881, his second
marriage occurred, when he was united with Miss Clara Souther, daugh-
ter of Simon Souther, a native of Wurtemberg, Germany. Mr. Souther
who was a carpenter by trade and came to the United States when a lad
of eight years, lived for a number of years at Salem, Illinois. Mr. and
Mrs. Doherty have had seven children, namely : Ethel, who married Dr.
C. E. Duff, a well-known dental practitioner of Lawrenceville, Illinois;
Robert, an electrical engineer at Schenectady, New York, in the employ
of the General Electric Company, and a graduate of the class of 1909,
University of Illinois ; Maude, who lives at home with her parents ;
Stephen Swayzee, who in April, 1912, graduated from the Chicago Vet-
erinary College; Thomas Anthony, traveling in Illinois for a wholesale
drug establishment; Chester C., a student at the Lawrenceville high
school ; and -Kathleen, who lives at home and is attending school.
JAMES R. WEAVER. Conspicuously identified with Mounds for up-
wards of five years as a coal and ice dealer and as a member of the livery
and trading firm of Scruggs & Weaver, James R. Weaver is one of the best
known and most prominent men in Pulaski county. He was born at Wa-
thena, Kansas, November 29, 1862. His mother died at his birth, and his
father, Barnett Weaver, brought his two children back to their old home
at Grand Chain, Illinois, around which point the son, James R. Weaver,
remained until his removal to the county seat to assume the duties of the
office of sheriff of the county, in 1902.
Barnett Weaver, the father of James R. Weaver, was born in Union
1462 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
county, Illinois, in 1832, and he passed his youth near Mount Pleasant,
where his father, Barnett Weaver, Sr., had settled as a pioneer in early
days, and where he passed away after rearing a family of six children.
Barnett Weaver, Jr., was an average citizen of his community from the
standpoint of education, and came from a home where patriotic senti-
ments flourished. He with his two brothers, Jasper and John, were vol-
unteer soldiers and are Civil war veterans. At the cessation of hostilities
Barnett Weaver removed to Indian Territory and was a resident there
when he died, in 1908. He is buried at Sapulpa, Oklahoma, where his
family by his second marriage still lives. His first wife was Susan White,
and besides James R., she left a daughter, Florence, now Mrs. Abe
Mobley, of Seattle, Washington.
The childhood of James R. Weaver was passed under the guardianship
of one of the eccentric characters of Pulaski county, Dr. James B. Ray.
The Doctor practiced medicine at Grand Chain for a number of years,
coming to Southern Illinois before the war. He was a native of Kentucky
and was reared in a household which took up arms against the Union. He
became a most rabid, uncompromising and partisan Republican, and this,
with other peculiarities, marked him conspicuously among his fellows.
His ward, young "Jim" Ray, as he was called, imbibed many of the traits
of the singular old Doctor. As a school boy, Jim cared little or nothing
for books. He abused his privileges in school by inventing schemes to
evade his responsibilities as a student, and his school days were a con-
tinuous round of frivolities, rather than the serious preparation which
the average youth finds necessary. He was later sent to Ewing College,
where he might have taken a degree, but for the old failing which clung
to him with the passing years. When he left school he was as little in-
clined for serious work as he had been in his school days, and for several
years he roved about through the west, securing occasional employment
when necessary, but for the most part getting money from home for his
needs. As he neared the close of the third decade of life he began to
show a disposition to fasten to something serious and make a name for
himself, and he was encouraged in his new motives by being chosen as
constable of his township ; he was shortly thereafter elected justice of the
peace, and while the encumbent of that office acquired a solid footing with
the politicians and voters of his county, which eventually resulted in his
being chosen to the office of county assessor and treasurer. In his po-
litical opinions Mr. Weaver is a Republican and believes that all good and
true policies of a political nature emanate from the Republican party.
In 1898 he was chosen assessor and treasurer of Pulaski county, as men-
tioned previously, and after serving four years in that capacity he was
elected to the office of sheriff and collector, and when his term in that ca-
pacity expired he was returned to the office of assessor and treasurer, in
all passing twelve years in the courthouse in the service of Pulaski county.
Save for the execution of Eli Bugg for conspiring to murder Chris
Mathis, Mr. Weaver's regime as sheriff was void of incident beyond the
regular routine of duty.
On January 6, 1890, Mr. Weaver married at Olmstead, Illinois,
Miss Myra Smith, a daughter of Judge H. M. Smith. Mr. and Mrs.
Weaver became the parents of three children: Susie, born November 4,
1890 ; Mid, born January 22, 1894, died January 1, 1896 ; Maurice, born
March 14, 1896, died October 30, 1901. Susie attended the public schools
of Mound City, following which she became a student in the M. C. F. I.
at Jackson, Tennessee, and was duly graduated from that institution in
1907. She married on April 27, 1909, to Fred S. Keiser, of Union City,
Tennessee. Mr. Keiser is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. At the
time of their marriage he was in the employ of the Illinois Central Rail-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1463
road Company at Mounds. They now reside in Chicago, where Mr.
Keiser is in the employ of the same company in their general offices.
Following the years of his public service as an official of Pulaski
county, Mr. Weaver moved to Mounds and engaged in the livery, ice and
coal business with George M. Scruggs, which firm deals actively as trad-
ers in horses and mules for the home markets. The firm has contributed
to the improvement of Mounds in the erection of a concrete barn and in
building a number of cottages to rent. Mr. Weaver has other permanent
interests in the county, and leads rather a busy life, but he always has
plenty of time for his friends and is always glad to meet them.
JOHN E. DAUGHEBTY is secretary of the Chester Knitting Mills, was
one of its active spirits as a promoter and has been identified with this
section of Illinois since 1903. He is indigenous to the soil and climate
of this state, his birth having occurred at Pontiac, Illinois, January 17,
1879. He grew up in that city and his early educational training was
acquired in the township high school, in which he completed" a commer-
cial course, thus equipping himself for a business career, which he began
upon reaching his majority.
The father of the subject of this review was James M. Daugherty, a
native of Ireland, whence he came to the United States with his parents
when a mere child. He grew up and was educated in Rhode Island.
James M. Daugherty married Miss Nancy Sharkey, and the two came
out to Pontiac, Illinois. There he passed his life and died in 1899, at
the age of sixty-six years. Concerning the five children born to Mr.
and Mrs. Daugherty, James is an instructor in the trade school of the
Pontiac Reformatory; Mrs. A. J. Renoe resides at Leavenworth, Kan-
sas; Elizabeth is a teacher in the Pontiac public schools; John E. is
the immediate subject of this sketch ; and Edward S. resides with his
mother and sister at Pontiac.
When ready to engage in. business John B. Daugherty was con-
fronted with an opportunity to become a volunteer soldier and help
fight a battle for humanity or seek employment in some commercial or
industrial capacity at home. He chose the former and enlisted as a
soldier in Company F, Third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Col-
onel Fred Bennett, for service in the Spanish-American war. The regi-
ment was ordered from Springfield to Chickamauga Park, Georgia, and
there remained in camp for three months. In July it was ordered to
join the troops bound for Porto Rico and was disembarked at Arroya.
The command proceeded on the Guyama and encountered the Spanish
at a few points, but met with little resistance. When the Spanish do-
minion collapsed in America, August 12, 1898, the Third Illinois be-
came one of the regiments of occupation. It remained on police duty
until November, 1898, when it was ordered home. Upon reaching Joliet,
Illinois, the regiment was furloughed until January, at which time it
was mustered out.
Upon resuming the responsibilities of civil life Mr. Daugherty en-
tered the Paramount Knitting Company's service at Pontiac as an ordi-
nary hand about the plant and he came to Chester for the company in
1903. He had been rewarded with a forernanship by this time and
when the factory removed to Waupun, Wisconsin, in 1904, he accom-
panied it and was absent from Chester till 1905, some eighteen months.
When the Paramount mills left Chester a movement was soon inaug-
urated for the establishment of an independent plant here, with J. H.
Rickman as its prime mover. Mr. Rickman was joined by Mr. Daugh-
erty and upon the organization of the new concern the latter was
chosen secretary of the company. Both Mr. Daugherty and Mr. Rick-
1464 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
man had mastered the details of the knitting business and, as a mat-
ter of course, the management of the new company fell to them. The
several expansions of the plant and the erection of another mill at Col- '
linsville, Illinois, are some of the indications of the efficiency of the
work of the management.
On April 24, 1907, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Daugherty
to Miss Mabel V. Homer, of Chester. Mrs. Daugherty is a daughter of
Hon. Henry Clay Horner, one of the leading members of the Randolph
county bar and a citizen of prominence and influence in Southern Illi-
nois. Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty have two children, — Mary Elizabeth
and Catherine Isabel.
Mr. Daugherty, while he has never participated actively in public
affairs, is deeply and sincerely interested in community affairs and does
all in his power to advance progress and development. He is affiliated
with a number of representative fraternal organizations. The family
home of the Daughertys is one of great attractiveness and is a center of
refinement and hospitality.
JOHN JUDSON JENNELLE, D. D. S. One of the leading members of
the profession of dentistry in Southern Illinois, John Judson Jennelle
has been engaged in practice in Cairo for a quarter of a century con-
tinuously. His first advent hither was in 1872, and after passing two
years he went back to his old home, DuQuoin, Illinois, to remain a few
years, and then returned to the commercial center at the mouth of the
Ohio for permanent identity with its citizenship. He was born at Leroy,
New York, August 3, 1850, from whence his parents migrated in 1865 to
Pontiac, Michigan, his father, John J. Jennelle, following the trade of
tinner and plumber, which he had learned at his native place, Quebec,
Canada, where he had been born of French parents. He died in 1901, at
the age of eighty-five years, and his widow, who had been Miss Melvira
Bartef, of Ogdensburg, New York, followed him to the grave in 1904.
Of their family five children lived to grow to maturity.
Dr. John J. Jennelle acquired his education in the common schools
and took up the study of dentistry when there were but two dental col-
leges in the United States. He learned his first lessons in the office of
a practitioner, thereby equipping himself for real professional work,
and in 1870, having properly experienced himself, he took up the prac-
tice in DuQuoin, and that place and Cairo constitute the scenes of his
professional activity. Dr. Jennelle entered the profession before the
State Association of Dentists was organized and he is a charter member
of that body. When the movement for legislation for the protection of
the profession was being urged, the Doctor adds his influence to it and
was appointed by Governor Cullom a member of the first board of den-
tal examiners of Illinois. He is a Republican in politics, and has become
allied with the public services as one result of his iinalloyed citizenship
and Republican proclivities. He was elected county commissioner in
1904, again in 1907 and a third time in 1910, and during all these years
he has been chairman of the board. He has given a few years of service
to the city as an alderman and, while in DuQuoin. he served very ably
as a member of the board of education.
On August 6, 1874, Dr. Jennelle was married in DuQuoin, Illinois, to
Miss Lucy E. Dyer, a daughter of the late Dr. L. Dyer, prominent in
Southern Illinois affairs for many years, a member of the Eighty-first
Illinois Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war, a surgeon in Grant's
army and actively identified with professional interests almost to his •
death in 1897. He was born in Vermont and married a Miss Purdy.
Dr. and Mrs. Jennelle have had the following children : John, who is
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 3465
general manager of one of the largest lumber companies of the Pacific
coast, maintains his home in Seattle, and is married to Miss Edith Halli-
day, of Cairo, and has two children, Edith and John Judson ; Marian,
the Doctor's second child, married R. E. Given, a business man of Fort
Stockton, Texas; and June, the third child, became the wife of H. N.
Calhoun, well known in business circles of Chicago. Dr. Jennelle has
ever comported himself quietly and unobtrusively, and his life has been
devoted to his family and his profession, and to a modest effort to serve
his adopted community.
RALPH E. SPKIGG, of Chester, whose name occupies a conspicuous
place on the roll of Illinois' eminent lawyers, during some three decades
connection with the bar of the state has won and maintained a reputa-
tion for ability that has given him just pre-eminence among his pro-
fessional brethren. In the law, as in every other walk of life, success is
largely the outcome of resolute purpose and unfaltering industry, —
qualities which are possessed in a large degree by Mr. Sprigg.
A native of Illinois, Ralph E. Sprigg was born at Prairie du Rocher,
October 9, 1859. His father was James D. Sprigg, a merchant at Prairie
du Rocher during a goodly portion of his active career. He was likewise
born in Illinois and was a son of Ignatius Sprigg, who came west from
Hagerstown, Maryland. The original progenitor of the Sprigg family
in America was born1 and reared in England and was one of the first
governors of Maryland after his arrival in this country. William
Sprigg, another ancestor of the subject of this review, served on the
bench as presiding judge of all the country west of Virginia, then styled
the Northwest Territory. Men of the Sprigg family have been engaged
in various vocations — bankers, merchants, doctors and lawyers — and all
have proved themselves able representatives of their respective crafts.
Ignatius Sprigg in his youth was a surveyor and was associated in that
work in Illinois with Judge Thompson. Making his home in Randolph
county, this state, he was chosen one of the early sheriffs of the county.
James D. Sprigg, father of Ralph E., passed away in 1872, at the age of
forty-four years. He married Miss Amanda Mudd, a daughter of Wil-
liam Mudd, of Virginia, Mrs. Sprigg long survived her honored hus-
band and she died in 1901, leaving Ralph E. as her only heir.
Ralph E. Sprigg grew to maturity in his native place and as a
youth he attended St. Vincent's College. He spent five years in the
Cape Girardeau (Mo.) Normal School, and eventually pursued the study
of law in the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. After his gradu-
ation in the last-mentioned institution he took advanced work in the
University of Georgetown, at Washington, D. C. In 1880 he was admit-
ted to practice at the Illinois bar and he entered upon the active prac-
tice of his profession in Chester, where he has resided during the long
intervening years to the present time. He immediately assumed a
prominent position as a member of the legal fraternity, developed the
art of public-speaking to a remarkable degree, and was chosen state's
attorney of his county in 1884. He continued as the able and popular
incumbent of the latter office for a period of eight years, at the expira-
tion of which he left it with the reputation of a vigorous prosecutor and
defender of the law. His long experience as the state's representative
before the court uncovered for him the real career of his life — criminal
law. He gave prominence to this feature of law when he returned to
private practice and his successes have established for him a fine reputa-
tion and clientele in all Southern Illinois. He is an adept at the art
of getting testimony and is a master of the subject of evidence. His
manner in trials is vigorous and determined and his arguments before
1466 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
court and jury come from a heart filled with anxiety for his client and
are supported with facts and precedents that seldom fail to win him a
verdict.
Mr. Sprigg was reared a Democrat. He remained with the regular
organization until the Chicago convention nominated Bryan and took
up the free-silver heresy, when he joined the Palmer and Buckner wing
of the party and stumped the state with Hon. W. S. Foreman, the gold
Democratic candidate for governor. He was elected mayor of Chester
for three terms consecutively, filling the office for six years, and his con-
nection with state politics extended to a service of five years on the
State Democratic committee. He 'was a member of the Chester school
board two terms and has rendered service to his town and community
in defense of their welfare on every and all occasions. In the contest
for the relocation of the county seat he rendered his community inval-
uable assistance in brushing away the inducements offered by the com-
petitive point for capital honors. In a business way Mr. Sprigg is vice-
president of the bank of L. H. Gilster, of Chester, is connected with the
Buena Vista Milling Company and is local attorney for the Illinois
Southern, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, and the Cotton Belt
Railways. In fraternal circles he is an Elk, a Knight of Pythias and a
Modern Woodman. As a man he is thoroughly conscientious, of un-
doubted integrity, affable and courteous in manner, and has a host of
friends, and few, if any, enemies.
On June 9, 1880, Mr. Sprigg was united in marriage to Miss Eliza-
beth Florence Lindsey, a daughter of Judge John H. Lindsey. Their
only child, Nora, is the wife of J. Frank Gilster, law partner of Mr.
Sprigg and a promising member of the Chester bar.
JAMES HENRY HOGUE. The junior member of the firm of Hogue &
Son, of Vienna, Illinois, James Henry Hogue, young though he is, has
by persistence and application to his chosen vocation forged to the front
until he is now one of the best known and capable contractors and house
movers in the city. Many structures throughout this part of the county
attest his mastery of the building trade, and the several large contracts
which he now has on hand indicate that his ability and workmanship are
fully appreciated. He was born on a farm near Vienna, in Johnson
county, August 31, 1884, and is a son of Isaac S. and Vesta (Bridges)
Hogue.
James Hogue, the grandfather of James Henry, was a native of the
Blue Grass state, and migrated to Southern Illinois in 1853, settling
on a farm in Johnson county. He was a timber and lumber dealer,
operating in Kentucky and Illinois, and became the owner of nine hun-
dred acres of land. He was married (first) to a Miss Morris, of Gol-
conda, a daughter of Overman Morris, of Virginia, and granddaughter
of William Morris, who was of Colonial parentage, and there were two
children born to this union: Mrs. Alice Bellamy and Isaac S. By his
second marriage, with a Miss Mathis, he had seven children. Isaac S.
Hogue was born in 1849, in Kentucky, and was four years of age when
he was brought to Southern Illinois. He was reared to agricultural pur-
suits and for some years followed that line of endeavor, but during
later years has devoted himself to contracting and house moving, as
senior member of the firm of Hogue & Son. Mr. Hogue married Miss
Vesta Bridges, daughter of H. T. Bridges, a former justice of the peace
and highly esteemed farmer of Vienna. Her grandfather, James D.
Bridges, was a native of North Carolina, and a son of Francis Bridges
and grandson of William Bridges, a native of England, who immigrated
to the colonies during an early day and settled in North Carolina. Fran-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1467
cis Bridges married Sarah Cudle, daughter of Jesse Cudle, of North
Carolina; and James D. Bridges was united with Elizabeth Thompson,
of Maury county, Tennessee, daughter of Benjamin and Sarah (Schef-
ner) Thompson, North Carolinians.
James Henry Hogue is the only child of his parents, and his educa-
tion was secured in the public schools in the vicinity of his father's farm.
He was reared to agricultural pursuits, but early in life decided to en-
gage in some more congenial occupation, and the year 1903 found him in
the employ of the Big Pour Railroad Company. He was connected with
this line, and subsequently with the Cotton Belt Line, for four years,
but since 1906 has been engaged in business with his father. Aside from
being a skilled contractor, Mr. Hogue has a well-equipped outfit for
house moving, and he and his father have done much of this kind of
work in recent years. He has gained a reputation for living up to the
letter of each contract that the firm accepts, and the confidence that has
thus been instilled in the public has assisted in building up a large
trade. Mr. Hogue is a member of the Modern Brotherhood of America,
with the members of which he is very popular. He owns a handsome
residence in Vienna, and has many warm, personal friends in the city.
In 1904 Mr. Hogue was married to Miss Delia Pugh, daughter of
Leander Pugh, and they have had one child, Morris Isaac, an 'interest-
ing lad of five years.
ROBERT B. TEMPLETON is one of the leading educators in Southern
Illinois, not only working with all his forces for the advance of educa-
tional work in his own town and county, but also through the various
educational associations is actively interested in the advance of the
work all over the state. In addition to his professional ability he is a
practical man of affairs, who is able to cope with the problems that arise
in a. business-like fashion. This is perhaps due to tRe early age at which
he began his life work, and the many types of people that he has had
under his management during his years of executive work.
Robert B. Templeton was born in Perry county, Illinois, on the 12th
of September, 1877. He is the son of a remarkable man, who had a
varied and interesting career. This man was the late Rev. William H.
Templeton, who spent more than half a century in missionary and pas-
toral work in the Presbyterian church. He was born in Chester county,
Pennsylvania, on the 13th of October, 1824. His forefathers were
Scotch and the American branch of the family was early founded in the
New England colonies. His great-grandfather on his mother's side was
a chaplain in the army of General Washington, and had the nerve-
straining task of bringing cheer and comfort to the suffering soldiers
in the ice bound camp at Valley Forge through the winter of 1777 and
'78. Some of this ancestor's courage and fortitude must have passed
into the soul of his descendant, for after having finished his college edu-
cation he went to the Indian Territory as a commissioner to the Indian
tribes, and spent seven years of his life in missionary work among the
Choctaws. Chickasaws and Seminoles. He had prepared himself for this
work in Washington and Jefferson College in his native state, where he
was a classmate of James G. Elaine, and it was in the late forties that
he went out into the wilderness. On his return to civilization he took
up his residence in Perry county. Illinois, and here the years of his
ministry passed until at the end of the nineteenth century he was forced
to retire from active work on account of failing health. He died on the
27th of March. 1910, and in his death the Presbyterian church lost one
of its strongest forces for good in Perry county, for not only was the
strength of his character a dominating influence in the life of his people,
1468 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
but the beauty and nobility of his long life of service was an ever pres-
ent reminder of the ideals they all were reaching towards.
Rev. Templeton married Elizabeth M. Craig, a daughter of John M.
Craig a farmer of Perry county, who had settled there on his removal
from Kentucky. Mrs. Templeton is still alive, keeping the old house
open for any of her children who may chose to come home, for most of
them are scattered from the old place in Pinkneyville. The children
are the Rev. William C., pastor of the Presbyterian church in Kirks-
ville; Jeanie E., who is lovingly carrying on the work which her father
began among the Chickasaws in Oklahoma ; Emma, of Pinkneyville ;
John F., a farmer of Perry county ; Dr. James S., of Pinkneyville ; Mary
M., the wife of C. E. Malan, of the same city ; Thomas, who has a farm
not far from here ; and Robert B., the principal of the John B. Ward
school in DuQuoin.
After the completion of his preparatory work in the public schools,
Robert B. Templeton attended first the Southern Illinois Normal Uni-
versity at Carbondale and then the Normal School at Kirksville, Mis-
souri. When he reached the age of nineteen he began teaching in the
country schools of his native county, and after two years of this sort of
work he entered the grades of the Pinkneyville schools. In just a year
he was elected principal of the high school, and served in this position
for three years, when he was elected city superintendent of schools.
He remained at the head of the educational department of the city until
January, 1911, when he took office as county superintendent of schools.
He had been elected to this position in November of the previous year
to succeed Walter R. Kinzey. This post he filled for four years, when
he was elected to his present position, as principal of the John B. Ward
school in DuQuoin.
In his professional connections he is a member of the Illinois State
Teachers Association, in which he served as director for one year. He is
also a member of the Southern Illinois Teachers' Association, of which
he has acted as president. He is unmarried and is actively identified
with church work. He is particularly interested in the work of the
Sunday-schools and represented his church in the state Sunday-school
convention in Bloomington in 1903.
The success with which Mr. Templeton organized his work as a
teacher was prophetic of the success he was to meet in his official capac-
ity as principal and superintendent. He has been, in all cases, able to
unite warring factions and by the use of a strong will and firm determina-
tion not to let the cause of education suffer has been able to keep
peace between those two hereditary enemies, the school-boy and his
teacher. His popularity is great, for with the understanding of the
little man and woman that he has gained through his years of teaching
has come an understanding of the older man and woman, therefore his
circle of friends has grown with the years, until now it includes every
one who has been brought into friendly contact with him.
NEWTON W. DRAPER, principal of schools and editor and proprietor
of the Wayne City News, is essentially one of the foremost men of this
city, in which he has been active since 1906. that being the year which
marks the purchase of the plant of the Wayne City News by him. Mr.
Draper is a native son of Wayne county, born here on December 22,
1875, the son of John W. and Rebecca J. (Witter) Draper, of whose
life and ancestry it is fitting that a few brief words be said here.
John W. Draper was a native of Tennessee, and a son of William
L. Draper, who migrated to Illinois from Tennessee, in 1856. He was
the grandson of Joshua Draper, also a native of Tennessee, but who
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1469
was of Virginia parentage and ancestry since the beginning of the
Virginia colonies. Joshua Draper fought in the Revolutionary war,
and his ancestors came directly from England in the latter part of the
seventeenth century, settling in New England, where the family con-
tinued to abide until in the early part of the nineteenth century, when
the direct ancestors migrated to Tennessee. John W. Draper, the father
of Newton W., married Rebecca J. Witter, a daughter of James and
Sarah Witter, of North Hamilton county, Illinois, her parents coining
from Kentucky. Five children were born to them : Newton W. ; Mrs.
Sarah E. Simpson ; Francis Marion ; Daniel, deceased ; and Otha C.
Mrs. Draper died in 1882, and in later years Mr. Draper married
Malinda Ballard. Two children have been born of this union, — Cly
and Rebecca.
Newton W. was educated in the common schools of Wayne county,
later attending the Southern Illinois Normal at Carbondale, and gradu-
ating from the Northwestern University Academy at Evanston, Illi-
nois, in 1904, his education thus being of a high order and well suited
to his calling in life. In 1904 and 1905 Mr. Draper was principal of
the Fairfield high school, and in the fall of 1905 came to Wayne City
as principal of schools, and he has labored continuously in educational
work, with the exception of two years which he gave to exclusive news-
paper work. In June, 1906, Mr. Draper bought the plant of the
Wayne City News, which had been established there in 1903 by Woods
Brothers, and since that time he has conducted the newspaper in con-
junction with his other duties. The paper has a circulation of five -hun-
dred and is especially well patronized as an advertising medium. It
is an eight page sheet, newsy and instructive, and is the organ of Re-
publicanism in this locality.
Mr. Draper is a member of the Baptist church of Wayne City and
is prominent in the allied work of that body, being superintendent of
the Sunday-school and active in other branches. He was secretary of
the Wayne County Sunday School Association for four years.
On June 6, 1906, Mr. Draper married Miss Mary P. Carter, of Fair-
field, the daughter of William H. Carter. They have two children, —
Dorothy, aged four years, and Elvira, two years old.
JAMES CLINTON CHAPMAN. In the affairs of his part of the grefct
state of Illinois James Clinton Chapman is a leader, and happily in the
case of a man of so much influence as he possesses, he is progressive and
public-spirited. Although for many years identified with mercantile
business, Mr. Chapman since 1905 has given the greater part of his at-
tention to agriculture, owning a fine farm of five hundred and thirty
acres and a half interest in the old Oliver farm north of Vienna. He
is scientific in his agricultural methods, and not only has lent his as-
sistance to certain experimental endeavors, but has also profited by them
very materially in the cultivation of his own land. He has been partic-
ularly successful as a stock-breeder and has raised some of the finest
stock in this part of the state. He has taken an active part in the
adoption of the best educational methods procurable, for he is fully cog-
nizant of the important part education plays in the life of the nation.
Mr. Chapman was born February 10, 1856, in Johnson county, Illi-
nois, the son of Daniel C. and Mary Elizabeth (Groves) Chapman, the
former a brother of Hon. P. T. Chapman. The Chapman family is,
in truth, one long established in this country and some of the subject's
ancestors were soldiers in the Revolutionary war. James Clinton Chap-
man was educated in the district school and worked upon the old home-
stead farm until the age of twenty-three years. He then concluded to
Vol. 3—25
1470 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to try town life for a time and became a clerk in a mercantile business in
Vienna, in which capacity he remained for the space of seven years. In
1885, when thoroughly familiar with the business in all its departments,
he, in association with his brothers, Tobias and Pleasant, established a
mercantile business, the firm being known as Chapman Brothers, and,
good fortunes being the result of their fine management and unimpeach-
able business methods, they continued together for a period of twenty
years, or until 1905. In that year Mr. Chapman disposed of his inter-
ests in the concern and removed to his present farm of five hundred and
thirty acres, in whose management he has ever since been successfully
engaged. As previously mentioned, he also owns a half interest with C.
H. Gillespie in the old Oliver farm of four hundred acres north of Vi-
enna. He is an extensive raiser of draft horses and Angus cattle, having
eight head of the latter on one of his farms and sixty-six head on the
other. He has twenty-one head of draft horses at the present time. He
built a handsome and commodious home, which further enhances the
attractiveness and desirability of his property.
For five years Mr. Chapman has been a director of the Pair Associ-
ation and in 1910 he served as president of the Vienna school board,
having on several occasions been a member of the same. He was serving
in 1899 when the Vienna school board authorized the erection of the
new high school building. Prom 1896 to 1902 he was a member of the
State Board of Agriculture of Illinois. At the present time he is vice-
president of the Illinois State Live Stock Breeders' Association. He is
one of the most popular and prominent of lodge men and he is repre-
sented in various orders. His Masonic affiliation is with the Blue Lodge,
the Chapter and he is eligible to the white-plumed helmet of the Knight
Templar. He belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in-
cluding the Encampment, and he is also connected with the Knights of
Pythias and the Eastern Star. He is a member of the Methodist Epis-
copal church and in politics is Republican ; having given his allegiance
to the "Grand Old Party" since his earliest voting days.
On November 28, 1889, Mr. Chapman laid one of the most important
stones in the foundation of his success by his marriage to Eliza Ann
Oliver, daughter of James and Aveline (Smith) Oliver. Her grand-
father Oliver served as county judge for many years in Johnson county.
Aveline Smith is the daughter of Barney Smith, one of the pioneers of
Southern Illinois. They share their happy and hospitable home with
six children, five of whom are sons. They are as follows : Oliver, a grad-
uate of the Vienna high school, class of 1911 ; James, of the class of
1912 ; Robert ; Joseph ; Mary, and George.
THOMAS T. JONES was born on his father's farm in Coles county, Illi-
nois, in the year 1853, and there he was reared and passed the best part
of his life until in recent years he located in Lawrenceville. For many
years a prominent and successful farmer in Coles county, he has been
not less prosperous or prominent in his business in Lawrenceville, where
he has carried on a thriving real estate business for a number of years.
An honest citizen, faithful in every detail to the duties of citizen-
ship and a kind and indulgent husband and father. Mr. Jones has lived
a life in every way worthy of his better self, and is held in the high
esteem of all who come within the sphere of his influence.
Mr. Jones is the son of William R. Jones, a Kentuckian born and
bred, who was ushered into this world on a Kentucky farm in Harrison
county, on the 14th of August, 1808. Half his life was spent on the
farm whereon he was born. In 1831 Mr. Jones came to Illinois on a
tour of inspection, making the entire journey on horseback. In the
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1471
same year he returned to his Kentucky home, making his way back to
Coles county, Illinois, in the following year, where he farmed for the
season. In the autumn he returned to Kentucky and remained there
until 1837, when he again turned his face towards Coles county. His
brother had become interested with him by this time, and the two en-
gaged in the stock-raising business, which meant, in those days, more
trading than outright selling. William Jones made fifteen trips on
horseback from Harrison county, Kentucky, to Coles county, Illinois,
and always with the same horse. By 1837 he reached the conclusion
that from the viewpoint of the success of his business the Coles county
location would be preferable to the Kentucky location, and he accord-
ingly moved his family from their Kentucky home to the new place in
Coles county. In 1853 Mr. Jones married Miss Eliza P. Threkeld. In
their new Illinois home they had a vast wooded prairie to themselves,
with not a human habitation in gunshot, but Mr. Jones lived to see the
day when that same barren prairie was a thickly settled region. On
the last day of December, 1856, the young wife and mother passed
away, leaving her husband with two small sons to mourn her untimely
death. The elder of the children was Thomas T. Jones, and he was less
than three years of age at the time. William, Jr., was a mere infant.
Mr. Jones gave to the little ones the best a lonely man might offer and
remained loyal to the memory of their sainted mother until 1862, when
he married Elizabeth Ewing, of Coles county. She became the mother
of one child, Lulu, who is now deceased. For twenty-five years Wil-
liam Jones pursued the quiet, even life of the well-to-do farmer and
built up in Coles county a reputation for general stability and worthi-
ness of character which was well in keeping with the blameless and up-
right life he led. He was a staunch Whig-Republican, and was in his
early days a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, in the days when he
was still giving his attention to rail-splitting in Illinois. Mr. Jones
never had any ambitions to hold office, other than the minor offices of his
township and county, and these he filled when occasion demanded, in
the interests of unselfish citizenship. He was a man of deeds rather
than words, and he made no religious professions, but lived a life of
spotless integrity that surpassed in its purity that of many a man of
more churchly pretensions. His death, which occurred on the sixth day
of April, 1889, proved an inestimable loss to the community and to all
who were privileged to share in his friendship and acquaintance.
Thomas T. Jones, his eldest son, was born on the Coles county farm,
near Mattoon, and the greater part of his life was there spent. During
his motherless childhood his father sent him to the district school near
by the farm, and later gave him a year of training at Lee 's Academy in
the same county. For many years he worked with his father on the
home land, but ultimately purchased a farm of his own. In 1888, seven
months before his father, who had been his life-long companion, passed
away, Thomas Jones married Rosa Clark, the daughter of Parker Clark,
a neighboring farmer. They became the parents of nine children,
namely : Robert W., a clothing merchant of Mattoon ; Stella, the wife
of Ernest Howell, of Marshall ; Carrie, who married L. R. Smith, of
Lawrenceville ; Samuel E., in the laundry business in Lawrenceville ;
Horace, Helen, Dumas W., Lulu and Richard, who are still in the
family home. On May 21, 1902, the wife and mother passed away,
leaving the younger daughters to make a home for their father. Life
in the farm home where the presence of the mother had so bright-
ened and cheered everything became unendurably lonely for all after
her passing, and the family left the old home, moving onto a tract of
land adjoining Lawrenceville, which the father had but recently pur-
1472 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
chased. This land was shortly incorporated into the city of Lawrence-
ville by Mr. Jones, who platted the farm and began selling it in the
form of city lots, thus gaining his first interest in the real estate busi-
ness. In 1908 he formed a partnership with W. S. Titus, one of the
popular land dealers of the county, and he has since devoted his entire
time to the business of real estate and building. Aside from this, he is
a director and part owner of the Lawrenceville Steam Laundry. Mr.
Jones has given good and true service to the city of Lawrenceville as a
member of the city council, to which he was elected five years ago on the
Improvement ticket, and on which body he has been ever active and en-
thusiastic in all work for the betterment and advancement of the com-
munity during the four years of his service. Mr. Jones is associated
with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and is an appreciative
member of the order.
HON. JOHN ADAM NAUMAN. Very frequently it is found that a suc-
cessful business man is the citizen best qualified for public office in a
community, the management of public affairs requiring the same firm-
ness, foresight and good judgment that are necessary to insure prosperity
in carrying on commercial undertakings of a personal nature. Thus the
people of Valmeyer, Illinois, have undoubtedly done well in selecting as
the president of their village the present incumbent, John Adam Nau-
man. He was born in Jefferson county, Missouri, December 4, 1884,
and is a son of John William and Mary (Arnold) Nauman.
John William Nauman was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, De-
cember 4, 1849, and was about eight years old when he accompanied his
parents to America. They located on a farm in Monroe county, Illi-
nois, and there John William grew to manhood. After his marriage to
Mary Arnold, of Jefferson county, Missouri, he moved to Frederick-
town, Missouri, where he went into the butcher business, subsequently
moving from there to Kimmswick, in the same state, where he acquired
property and continued in the meat business until his death, which oc-
curred November 1, 1904. He was twice married, his first wife dying
in 1889, the mother of seven children. His second marriage was to
Christianna Mann, who was born in Germany, and five children were
born to this union. They were members of the Lutheran church and all
were worthy and respected people.
John A. Nauman obtained his education in the public schools of
Jefferson county. His father was a very practical, sensible man, and as
soon as the son was old enough he had duties to perform in his father's
market and subsequently learned the business in all its details, after
the family moved to Kimmswick. In 1909 he came to Valmeyer, Illi-
nois, where he embarked in the meat business, in which he has continued,
having the leading market in the place. In his business affairs he has
prospered and through his public spirit and personal integrity has be-
come a leading citizen here. Prior to being appointed president of the
village, which honor was accorded him in 1911, he had served as a mem-
ber of the board of aldermen. Politically he is a Republican, as was his
late father.
On August 19, 1907, when in his twenty-fifth year, Mr. Nauman was
united in marriage with Miss Mary Louer, a daughter of Frederick
Louer, and they have one son, Elmer. Mr. and Mrs. Nauman are mem-
bers of the Lutheran church.
WILLIAM H. HOWELL was born in Monongalia county, West Vir-
ginia, on the 4th day of May, 1845. He is the son of George and
Mary Howell. His great-grandfather, Samuel Howell, immigrated
TOE U8WM
OF THE
RSITY OF SLUK0R
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1473
from England to Maryland, and his grandparents, Annie and Laban
Howell, came from Maryland into West Virginia.
William H. Howell 's father, George Howell, was one of seven sons,
good old English stock. His father died when he was only three years
old and his mother married again two years later, which caused Wil-
liam to live with his grandfather Howell until he was sixteen years old.
In March, 1862, he came west to Carbondale, Illinois, and there learned
fine carpentering and soon became a contractor. In 1869 he went to
Kansas and during the boom in that, state he carried on an extensive con-
tracting business.
He afterwards returned to Marion, Illinois, and went into the mer-
cantile business, remaining there eight years. From there he moved
in 1879 to Harrisburg, Illinois, and was a partner of Robert Micks in
the dry goods business for one year. In 1880 he formed a partnership
with Jack Davenport, William Alsopp and E. 0. Roberts, and went
into the coal business under the firm name of the Cliffton Coal Com-
pany, operating a coal mine known as the Cliffton mine, which they
operated very successfully together for two years. At the end of that
time William H. Howell bought out two of his partners, which gave
him 75% of the business. In two years he bought out his remaining
partner and continued in the business alone, in which he was particu-
larly successful. In 1892 he leased his coal mine to Davenport & White
for a term of five years, and upon the termination of their lease he
incorporated a new company known as the Cliffton Coal Company and
sunk a shaft to No. 5 vein of coal, retaining a controlling interest in
the new company and leasing his property to the new company on a
royalty basis. Under the management of Mr. Howell this arrange-
ment was a very profitable one.
In 1905 the Cliffton Coal Company sold out its interests to the
O 'Gara Coal Company at a figure which represented a handsome profit.
Mr. Howell also sold all his coal lands to the O'Gara Coal Company
and retired from the coal business.
Two weeks after selling his coal mine and coal lands Mr. Howell
found himself out of a business. He began to get restless, his time
heretofore having always been employed by his various business inter-
ests, and he began to prospect about for a new business. His atten-
tion became centered upon Vincennes, Indiana, and there he purchased
three acres of land, well nigh the center of the city, with a view to start-
ing a factory to manufacture corrugated paper, single and double faced
board, and manufacturing it into boxes of all sizes for shipping cases,
taking the place of wood.
In June, 1906, this firm was incorporated as the W. H. Howell Man-
ufacturing Company, of Vincennes, Indiana, with a capital stock of
eighty thousand dollars. William H. Howell is president and general
manager and owns a controlling interest in the business. Thus far
the new concern has done business at a profit, and Mr. Howell is firm
in his opinion that the industry has a great future. He manifests a
great deal of pardonable pride in the success it has achieved thus far,
and it is not too much to say that that success is for the most part due to
the splendid management of Mr. Howell as president of the concern and
its general manager. He still retains his beautiful home in Harris-
burg, Illinois, where he lives, going and coming each week from there
to the factory in Vincennes.
On September 15, 1874, Mr. Howell was married to Mary M.
Mitchell, at Grayville, White county, Illinois. She is the daughter of
M. P. and C. W. Mitchell. The father, Mardonius Paterson Mitchell,
was the second son of Sion Hunt and Elizabeth (Cook) Mitchell. He
1474 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
was born in Williamson county, April 19, 1821. His father, Sion Hunt
Mitchell, was the third son of William and Elizabeth (Hunt) Mitchell,
and he was born in Franklin county, North Carolina, September 13,
1797. He was one of a family of eleven children, and his father was
William Mitchell, son of John Mitchell, who lived at Whitehall, Lin-
coln county, England, and was knighted some time in the eighteenth
century. William Mitchell married Elizabeth N. Hunt, March 3, 1790.
She was born at White Hall, Lincoln county, December 18, 1771. Lord
Hunt, the great-great-grandfather of Mary M. (Mitchell) Howell, was
famous by reason of his leadership in the Hunt rebellion.
One daughter, Lelle Mitchell Howell, was born to Mr. and Mrs.
William H. Howell. She was born at Marion, Illinois, on the 21st of
July, 1878. She married J. M. Pruett at Harrisburg, Illinois, April
25, 1900, and to them one son has been born, — John Howell Pruett, born
August 21, 1902. The Pruett family also reside in Harrisburg, Illinois.
William H. Howell is a thirty -second degree Mason and an old school
Presbyterian. He is a past master of Harrisburg Lodge, No. 325, and
is vice president and a member of the directorate of the First National
Bank of Harrisburg. He has achieved a worthy measure of success
because of his exceptional ability to make the most of every business
opportunity, and throughout his life all his dealings have been open
and above board.
As citizens the character of himself and his wife is without blemish,
and sucft men and women cannot fail to advance the best interests of
the communities with which they become identified, and the precept
and example of their lives is one that the present generation would do
well to emulate.
THE PRUETT FAMILY. One of the old and honored families of
Southern Illinois, members of which are well known in the commercial
world, especially as the owners of large coal mining properties, is that
of Pruett, which traces its history back to John Pruett, a native of
Georgia, who was born in 1777. In 1803 he founded the Illinois branch
of the family, settling on the Ohio River at what is now Elizabethtown,
Hardin county, with four or five other families, among them the Mc-
Farlands. Soon thereafter he went to Eagle Creek, in what is now
Saline county, and there spent the remainder of his life, attaining a
ripe old age and becoming a' prominent and highly respected citizen.
His son, Benjamin Pruett, had died some time previous, and both are
buried in the cemetery on the old homestead known as the Pruett
family burying ground. Benjamin Pruett left one son, who was called
John, born at Eagle Creek, September 4, 1826, and he was reared by
his grandfather to the age of eighteen years. At that time he took up
the work of flatboating on the Ohio river and for three years or more
he was thus engaged. He then took up the carpenter trade and after
becoming proficient in the work he devoted his time to that trade in
the southern states for some time as a stage and house carpenter. The
opening of the Civil war brought an end to his labors in that section
of the country, and in 1863 he located in Harrisburg, Illinois, where
he engaged in the undertaking business, at the same time following his
trade as a carpenter and cabinet maker. When he was thirty-five years
old he married one Margaret Christian, born in Christian county, Ken-
tucky, in 1842, and coming to Illinois when a small child. She was
twenty-two years old at the time of her marriage. Six children were
born of their union, three of whom died in infancy, and three sons,
Frank, Albert and Milo, yet survive. They are well known and repre-
sentative citizens of Harrisburg and are heavy property owners, prom-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1475
inent among their possessions in the way of realty being the Pruett
block, a handsome structure used for a store and office building. The
family holdings aggregate a wide acreage of valuable lands, richly un-
derlaid with deep veins of coal. The old homestead of the Pruett fam-
ily, which came into their possesion in 1866, is now occupied by Al-
bert, who was married in Peoria, Illinois, in 1891, to Cora Armstrong.
One daughter, Margaret, has been born to them. Frank married Mar-
garet O'Dwyer, of Vienna, Illinois, in 1900, and Milo married Lelle
Howell, of Harrisburg, on April 25, 1901. She is the daughter of
William H. Howell, of that city. One son, John Howell Pruett, is
the issue of their union.
HON. SIDNEY B. MILLER. A man who both as a public official and as
a prominent citizen has been an important factor in moulding Cairo's
municipal history is Sidney B. Miller, the popular and efficient post-
master of this city, a position which he has held for the last ten years.
Mr. Miller was born in Rowan county, North Carolina, and is a son of
Milford Green and Mary A. (Walton) Miller.
Milford Green Miller was born in the same county in North Caro-
lina, of German descent, and had a brother, Daniel, and a sister, Mrs.
Barbara Mowery, who also came to Alexander county and reared fam-
ilies. Milford G. Miller was twice married, his first wife being a Miss
Cauble, who at her death left him one son, George, now a resident of Dis-
wood, Illinois. Mr. Miller's second marriage was to Mary A. Walton,
who was born in North Carolina, of German and English descent, and
in 1857 they came to Illinois and settled in the rural community of Elco,
Alexander county. Mr. Miller engaged in agricultural pursuits, to
which the remainder of his life was devoted, his death occurring in
1892, when he was seventy-two years of age, while his widow survived
until 1909, and was eighty-four years old at the time of her demise.
They had the following children : Margaret, the wife of Henry Whitta-
ker, died in Alexander county ; Sidney B. ; Clinton Eugene, who lives at
Miller City, Illinois; Susie, who married J. S. McRaven^ of Marion, Illi-
nois; Jesse E., of Cairo, who is serving his fourth term as county clerk
of Alexander county ; and Mary J., who married William Brown, a well-
known citizen of Cairo.
Sidney B. Miller was reared in the vicinity of Elco, was educated
liberally in the public schools, was reared to the work of an agriculturist,
which he followed in youth and part of young manhood, and for a few
terms taught district school. He then joined his brother in the erection
of a flour mill at Elco and operated it for a time, and -was engaged in
the grain and milling business when he yielded to the local clamor for
his candidacy for a public office. He was elected county clerk in 1886
and again in 1890, and in 1894 was elected sheriff for four years. At
the expiration of this term he engaged in the timber business, operated
a sawmill in Alexander county and handled timber extensively. In
1900 Mr. Miller was elected a representative to the Illinois General
Assembly for the fiftieth district, and served one term. His service
in that body gave him an extensive acquaintance with prominent Re-
publicans in the state and the political friendships he made were a
factor in his further interest in political activity. He has been a
member of the Republican county and congressional committee, has
helped organize state conventions and contributed to the success of
many Republican candidates for state and congressional office. He was
appointed postmaster of Cairo by President Roosevelt in 1901 and was
commissioned by him a second time in 1905, President Taft reappointing
him in 1909.- Although a firm Republican and steadfast in his loyalty to
1476 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
his party, Mr. Miller has never been animated by any controversial
spirit that would antagonize those of opposite political belief. Conse-
quently he has hosts of warm friends and supporters among his political
opponents, whose votes have often been given him when he has been a
candidate. Mr. Miller has never married.
JOHN BBUPP STOUT. The position of an editor is one of great re-
sponsibility, for in spite of this being an age of doubt and of much inde-
pendent thought, and in spite of the commonly heard remark "I believe
nothing I see in the newspapers," people are unconsciously influenced
by what they read. The seed is sown, and there are ten chances to one
that it will grow. An editor, therefore, should be a man of great dis-
crimination, and instead of retiring into a literary shell he should be
out among the people, for he, more than anyone else, should know the
conditions of the people who read his words and he must keep in touch
with the thought of the day, for which his paper should be only a mirror.
John B. Stout comes very near the realization of this ideal. For many
years previous to his entering the field of journalism he was connected
with educational work in one Way or another, and in this work he had
a great opportunity to learn how people really thought and felt. With
this as a foundation he has been able to keep in close touch with the
people, and he has always stood as the champion of any cause that would
improve conditions and would benefit the social and civic life of the
people.
John Bruff Stout was born in Lawrence county, Illinois, on the 5th
of August, 1863. His birthplace was a farm near Clancy, Illinois. He
was the son of George Stout, who was born at Coshocton, Coshocton
county, Ohio, on the 18th of October, 1836. He was not yet grown
when he came to Illinois, the year being 1853. He located in Lawrence
county, and there took up farming. He has been a farmer all of his
life and is now living a very quiet life at his home in Sumner. At the
age of twenty-one he was married to Sarah Mushrush, who was at the
time a resident of Lawrence county, although she, like her husband, had
been born in Coshocton, Ohio. She is now seventy-three years of age
and is enjoying the companionship of her husband, as she was never able
to when she had the cares of a household and he had the work of the
farm. Her family of children numbered eight, seven boys and one girl,
and of these John B. was the third. George Stout is a Republican in his
politics and both he and his wife are members of the Methodist church.
The early years of John Bruff Stout were spent on the farm in the
western part of -Lawrence county, and, as farmer's lads usually do, he
spent about as much time working on the farm as he did in the school
room. Being one of the older boys, he was of great assistance to his
father, and it was hard to spare him, even for the few hours he spent in
school. He had inordinate thirst for knowledge, however, and when
this was clear to his parents they were as anxious that he make the most
of his advantages as he was himself. He first attended the public
schools, and then knowing that the money could not be spared from the
family exchequer for any further education, he determined to earn some
through the medium of a teacher. He taught school until he had saved
enough to enable him to enter the state university at Lawrence, Kansas,
and by making every penny do double duty, and by working while he
was studying, he managed to remain at the university until he had a
fair education.
On leaving the university he first taught in the county schools, and
then was elected assistant superintendent of schools at Sumner, Illinois.
He remained here for two years as assistant, and then was elected prin-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1477
cipal, holding the latter position for two years. In 1894 he was elected
county superintendent of schools for Lawrence county, and he threw
all his forces into the work of improving and developing the school sys-
tem of the county. He modernized and improved the course of study,
raised the standard of scholarship in the schools and infused into the
life of the community a new enthusiasm for reading and for general
culture by the introdxiction of a reading circle which he organized and
developed. During his work as superintendent he had great difficulty
in placing his projects before the people, and he realized that the county
needed a newspaper that would stand for progress and would not only
fight for political reform but would also stand for civic and social
reform.
It is not surprising, therefore, that at the expiration of his term as
county superintendent he should buy the plant of The Republican, the
oldest newspaper in this section of the state, having the prestige that
age always gives to anything. It was established in 1847, and ever since
the founding of the Republican party the policy of the paper has been
consistently Republican. Into this staid, conservative publication Mr.
Stout infused new life, and now the paper has the largest circulation of
any in the county. It is popular because its editor is afraid of no one.
Catering directly to the people, he is not forced to pander to the men
who advertise in his pages. Being independent, he can say to men who
threaten to take their advertising away from him, "Take it out, if you
choose, the people believe in me, and you will be the loser in the fight. ' '
It is a great thing to have the trust of the people in this way, but the
responsibility is also a heavy one.
During the past years Mr. Stout has built a fine new fire-proof build-
ing, the ground floor of which is occupied by the offices of the paper.
He has the most modern machinery, and the attractive sheet which is
issued would be a credit to any community. The policy of the paper is
now, as it has always been, Republican, and opposed to the saloon ele-
ment and the liquor dealers. Mr. Stout was appointed postmaster by
Roosevelt in 1907 and he still holds the office. He has been a strong ele-
ment in the civic affairs of Lawrenceville, serving for four years on the
city council, and for one year acting as mayor. He is one of the
strongest men in the Republican party in this part of the state, and will
doubtless be of great value in the coming campaign.
He is a very active member of the church in which he was reared,
that is the Methodist Episcopal. He is a member of the board of stew-
ards, was elected as delegate to the General Conference in East St.
Louis in 1911, and since 1894 has been superintendent of the Sunday-
school. He was a member of the building committee that had the erec-
tion of the $35,000.00 church in charge. This edifice was completed in
1911, and is a very fine piece of architecture. In the fraternal world he
is prominent, being a member of the Masons, the Knights of Pythias,
the Modern Woodmen of America and of the Elks.
In 1891 Mr. Stout was married to Miss Jennie Dobbins, who lived
in the northwestern part of the county. She was the daughter of a
retired farmer, Vincent Dobbins. Three children were born of. this
marriage, but they were early bereft of their mother, who died at the
age of twenty-eight. The eldest of these children, Lela, is dead, and the
other two are Mable and Leslie. In December, 1898, Mr. Stout married
again, his second wife being Sarah A. Salter. She is the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. William Salter, who lived at that time in Lawrenceville,
but who have since moved to Wisconsin. There are no children from
this second marriage.
1478 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
WILFOBD F. DILLON. One of those men whose influence has been
deeply felt in Franklin county, Illinois, because of the part he has
played in promoting the best development and progress of this sec-
tion of the state, is Mr. Wilford F. Dillon, the well known lawyer of
Benton. Mr. Dillon first saw light of day in Franklin county, Novem-
ber 25, 1853, his parents, Isaac, Jr., and Malinda (Rea) Dillon, hav-
ing also been natives of the same community. Jesse Dillon, grandfather
of Wilford F., was one of the earliest pioneer settlers of Franklin
county. Both he and his son followed the pursuit of agriculture and Wil-
ford Dillon is owner of a fine two hundred and forty acre farm, the cul-
tivation of which he superintends during the time he spares from his
legal practice. Our subject's father was a Douglas Democrat and a man
of wide acquaintance. His death occurred February 6, 1861. Mrs.
Dillon survived him many years and died on February 14, 1890. Her
father, Colonel Abraham Rea, came to Franklin county in an early day,
when the country was very sparsely settled and the Indians trouble-
some, and Mr. R«a was a colonel in the army which fought the Black
Hawk war.
Wilford F. Dillon received his early education at the city schools
of Benton, later supplementing that training with a course at Ewing
College. Upon completing his educational training he adopted the
pedagogic profession and for fifteen years was engaged as a teacher
in the schools of Franklin and Monroe counties, and was at one time
principal of the Benton schools.
In 1886 Mr. Dillon began the study of law in the office of D. M.
Browning and was admitted to the bar in 1889. He did not, however,
engage in active practice at tha.t time. He was appointed a master in
chancery, in which capacity he served until 1890, when he was elected
county superintendent of schools, receiving the nomination at the
hands of the Republican party, in the principles of which he believed
and in whose councils he was always interested and active. The follow-
ing year, 1891, Mr. Dillon was appointed by Governor Yates as superin-
tendent of stone at the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester and
resigned that position. In 1894 Mr. Dillon was called to official position
again in Franklin county and served as county judge for a term. He
later received the nomination for circuit judge, but was defeated at the
election by a small margin in one very heavily Democratic district.
Locating in Benton, Mr. Dillon formed a partnership with A. A.
Strickland, and the firm has ever since done a very large general prac-
tice in all the courts. Mr. Dillon is a man of many attainments and
acute foresight and has conducted his personal business affairs in such
a manner as to have won for himself through his own unaided efforts
a comfortable fortune. Whatever his official or private interests he
always maintained great activity in educational lines and has done
much to promote higher education in this part of the state. The pub-
lic schools owe much to his efforts for their present high efficiency and
it was through his influence that the Benton township high school, with
one of the finest buildings in the state, was established here.
The marriage of Mr. Dillon to Miss Nellie Hudelson occurred on
November 17, 1889. She is the daughter of Joseph A. Hudelson, who
came to Franklin county from Indiana in early days and still lives on
his farm in this county. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Dillon has been
blessed in the birth of four children, all of whom are in school. Joseph
and Dorothy are high school students, while Richard W. and Nellie C.
attend in the lower grades. Mrs. Dillon is a member of the Baptist
church.
In fraternal circles both Mr. and Mrs. Dillon are prominent, being
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1479
members of the Eastern Star order and Shriners. Mr. Dillon is a mem-
ber of the Masonic order and is a past master of Benton Lodge, No. 64.
He is a man whose attainments and position fit him for leadership
among his fellows, and he has a wide circle of friends and acquaintances,
by whom he is held in the highest respect and esteem.
WILLIAM F. BUNDT. The sturdy pioneer ancestors of William F.
Bundy bequeathed him a heritage of pluck and perseverance sufficient
to carry him through any trials the fates might send him in life. He
has given ample evidence of his possession of those traits on various
occasions, and in a residence of upwards of a quarter of a century in
Centralia he has made for himself a name and fame that is singularly
worthy of emulation.
Born in Marion dounty, June 8, 1858, William F. Bundy is the son
of Isaac and Amanda M. (Richardson) Bundy. They were both born
in Marion county, the former in 1828 and the latter in 1832. The
Bundy family were originally from North Carolina. John Bundy, the
grandfather of William F. Bundy, was born in North Carolina in 1796,
on the 13th day of March, and came to Illinois with his family, which
included Isaac Bundy. The latter was reared with the purpose on the
part of his parents that he become a minister of flie gospel, and he
served for three years as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church,
but gave up the ministry and became a farmer. In 1847 he enlisted for
service in the Mexican war, and with his regiment marched from what
is now Kansas City to Mexico, reaching there immediately after the cessa-
tion of hostilities and too late for active service. The regiment was mus-
tered out on October 31, 1848, and Mr. Bundy returned to his home after
which he finished his schooling and entered the ministry. He had an
opportunity to render active service to his country, however, when the
Civil war broke out in 1861, and in September of that year he enlisted
in the Forty-eighth Illinois Volunteers. He first served as regimental
sergeant, but was very shortly appointed to the post of chaplain. He
resigned from the service on August 24, 1864, and returned to his farm
home, where he remained until his death, which occurred in 1899. Mr.
Bundy was one of -the old time Republicans, and always a stanch sup-
porter of the cause. He was well known throughout his own and ad-
joining counties as a citizen of great intrinsic worth, and in his passing
Marion county suffered a permanent loss.
Among many interesting facts in connection with the life and work
of John Bundy, paternal grandfather of William F. Bundy, is partic-
ularly noted that he sat, upon the first grand jury ever convened in
Marion county. The maternal grandfather of William F. Bundy was
also a man of considerable prominence and note in his time. He was
James I. Richardson, born in Tennessee, and came to Illinois about 1826.
He served through the Black Hawk war, enlisting in Captain Dobbins
spy batallion on May 14, 1832, and was active in various engagements
of that brief uprising. He was mustered out of the service on August
16, 1832. He became the owner of a valuable tract of land, which he
entered upon as a homesteader, but his calling in life did not permit
him to live upon the land continuously. He was a minister of the
Methodist Episcopal church, and served for twenty years in that work.
He was presiding elder of his district for several terms, and was promi-
nently known throughout all southern Illinois. He died in 1871. leav-
ing the heritage of a worthy life well spent in devotion to the labors
of his church.
William F. Bundy passed through the common schools of "his home
town, and in 1879 attended the Southern Illinois Normal University
1480 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
at Carbondale for a year. His finances were low, and with no one to
depend upon for assistance in that way he was compelled to return to
the farm and work for a year before he might continue his studies. But
his inherent perseverance made it possible for him to surmount all dif-
ficulties of that nature, and in 1881 he secured a position teaching school,
by means of which he was enabled to return to the University at Car-
bondale for another term. He repeated that performance in 1882 and
also in 1884. In 1887 he was so far along with his studies that he began
to read law, and in 1889, after two years of constant application to his
books, he was admitted to the bar, and he has been in active practice
through the intervening years, attaining an unusual measure of success.
From the beginning his practice was wide in its scope, and he was
so fortunate as to experience none of the lean years which so frequently
characterize the early efforts of men who finally -achieve brilliant suc-
cesses. In addition to his wide general practice Mr. Bundy is the at-
torney for the Southern Railway Company, the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy Railroad, the Centralia Coal Company, the Centralia Electric
Company and the Centralia State Bank. Aside from his official capac-
ity, he is a trustee of the Southern Illinois Normal University at Car-
bondale. as well as being a member of the directorates of the Mer-
chants State Bank and the Centralia Water Supply Company. Mr.
Bundy is a stanch Republican, and has served the party in various
capacities during his career. He was a delegate to the forty-second
and forty-third general assemblies in 1901 and 1903. During the forty-
third assembly he was chairman of the committee on general apportion-
ment and the committee on judicial department of practice, his labors
while chairman of those committees resulting in much good. As a citizen
his influence in a political way has always been of a nature calculated
to serve the best interests of his community, and he can be depended
upon to lend his aid in the furtherance of any upward movement con-
tributing to the welfare of the people.
In 1890 Mr. Bundy married Miss Mary E. McNally, a daughter of
James McNally. The latter was a native of New York who settled in
Centralia, becoming connected with a nail factory in this city, with
which he remained until the dissolution of the firm, his death occurring
shortly thereafter. Three daughters were born to the union of Mr. and
Mrs. Bundy; Dorothy E., now a student in Rockford College; Sarah
Pauline, attending the Centralia high school ; and Margaret, also a
student in the Centralia schools.
Mr. Bundy is particularly active in Masonic circles, being a member
of the Chapter, Knights Templar and the Chicago Consistory. He is
also a member of the Blue Lodge and is now eminent commander.
WILLIAM 0. HOLSHOUSEB. From the beginning of the establishment
of the rural free delivery service the men to whom this important
branch of the country's mail department has been entrusted have been
recruited from those who have shown themselves faithful and reliable
citizens. As so much responsibility rests in their hands it is necessary
for them to be men of strict honesty and integrity, and that William
O. Holshouser has carried the mail on rural free delivery route No. 2
for seven consecutive years speaks well for the confidence in which he
is held by his fellow citizens. Mr. Holshouser was born July 20, 1881,
on a farm in Williamson county, Illinois, and is a son of Wiley J. and
Mary (Smith) Holshouser.
Wiley J. Holshouser was born May 3, 1857, in North Carolina, a
son of Jacob and Annie (Beaver) Holshouser, natives of the Tar Heel
state, of German descent, the former of whom was born July 16, 1822,
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1481
and died December 30, 1885. In 1880 Wiley J. Holshouser was married
to Mary Smith, daughter of Joseph and Sophia Maria (Klutts) Smith,
natives of North Carolina, and granddaughter of Richard Smith. Sophia
(Klutts) Smith was born in 1830, the daughter of Daniel Klutts, who
went from North Carolina to Tennessee and thence, in 1849, to Union
county, Illinois, later moving to Williamson county, Tennessee. The
Smith family settled in Williamson county in about 1840, and from
that section Joseph Smith enlisted for .service during the Civil war, but
died before the war was finished, while at home on a sick furlough. Wiley
J. Holshouser left Williamson county, Illinois, in 1885 and located at
McClure, but two years later went to a farm of one hundred and seventy
acres located in Cache township, near Cypress, where he now resides.
He is the father of four children, namely : William ; Dennis, who is
carrying on operations on the home farm ; and Ida and Emma, who live
with their father.
William 0. Holshouser received his education in the district schools
of Cache township, and was reared to agricultural pursuits. Eventually
he started farming on his own account, accumulating a well-improved
property of eighty acres in Cache township, but this he disposed of
January 1, 1911. In 1904 he was appointed rural free delivery car-
rier No. 2, traveling out of Cypress, and this position he has held to the
present time. He is a general favorite all along his route, his genial,
courteous manner having made him very popular, while his conscien-
tious, faithful discharge of the duties of his office has made him one
of the service's most trusted employes in this section.
In 1896 Mr. Holshouser was united in marriage with Miss Eva E.
Parker, daughter of Dr. C. A. C. Parker, formerly a well-known physi-
cian and surgeon of Cypress, who is now possessed of a large practice
in Dougale, and Alice (Henard) Parker. Mr. and Mrs. Holshouser
have three children, namely : Maude Marie, Hazel and Paul. Frater-
nally Mr. Holshouser is connected with the Odd Fellows, the Knights
of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America, and is popular with
all. ,
DAVID EDWARD KEEPE. Among the most prominent of the many
well-known lawyers of Southern Illinois is David Edward Keefe, of
the firm of Wise, Keefe & Wheeler, of East St. Louis. Mr. Keefe is a
self-made man, and although the phrase has become hackneyed from
over use, yet in this case nothing else is applicable. Forced to earn
the money for his education, he early learned to depend on himself.
With no backing, he started out to win a place for himself in a profes-
sion already overcrowded and succeeded by his own merit, alone. As
a lawyer he is keen, a clear and logical thinker, and above all possesses
that rare quality among lawyers of having a deep sense of honor and
of truth. He is one of the men upon whom the country will have to
depend to raise the legal profession from the depths to which it has
been dragged by unscrupulous lawyers. It is fortunate that here and
there such men are to be found, and it is more than fortunate in this
case, for Mr. Keefe is also interested in politics and has considerable
influence in the councils of his party.
David Edward Keefe was born in Madison county, Illinois, at Dorsey
Station, on the 13th of December. 1863. His father was John Keefe,
who was a native of Ireland. He emigrated from Ireland in 1848,
and settled in St. Louis in December of the same year. He later moved
to Madison county, Illinois, and in 1855 settled on a farm near Dorsey
Station. Here he spent the remainder of his life, continuing his occu-
pation of a farmer till his death, which occurred on the llth of May,
1482 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
1893. Mr. Keefe's mother was also a native of the Emerald Isle, and
her name was Honorah Quiiilan. She was the daughter of the superin-
tendent of the beautiful Goskin estate in county Limerick, Ireland.
Mr. Keefe was educated in the common schools and later attended
the Northern Illinois University at Dixon, Illinois. His father was
none too well supplied with this world's goods and in order to obtain
his college education the boy was forced to teach school and to put by
every penny towards his education. He taught for five years and then
began the study of law under Solomon H. Bethea, who was afterward
made judge of the United States court at Chicago. Mr. Keefe was
admitted to the bar in 1890 and opened his office at Bunker Hill, Illinois.
The fame of the young lawyer soon spread, for he inherited from his
Irish forefathers the facility of tongue, for which they are noted, and
his experiences had given him the steadying influence which the Irish
temperament often lacks. In 1898 he was elected county judge and
served in this office four years. So satisfactory was his service to the
people that he was urged to accept another term, but refused in order
to enter into partnership with Wise and McNulty at East St. Louis,
Illinois. This firm of Wise, McNulty & Keefe ranked as one of the
best firms of lawyers in Southern Illinois. The present firm of Wise,
Keefe & Wheeler has one of the largest practices in the southern part
of the state. Mr. Keefe was appointed corporation counsel of East
St. Louis in 1905, and it fell to him to handle the largest financial
questions with which the city has ever had to deal. Strong pressure was
brought to bear in the attempt to persuade him to run for congress in
1912, from the twenty-second district in Illinois, but he declined, prefer-
ring to devote himself to his profession.
In politics Mr. Keefe has always been a Democrat and he has given
much of his time to campaign speaking, where his eloquent tongue has
helped the cause of many candidates. In his religious affiliations he
is a Roman Catholic, having been raised in the church and having al-
ways been a consistent member of the same.' He is a member of the
Knights of Columbus and of the Elks. He is grand knight of the
East St. Louis Council and has filled various offices in this order, tak-
ing a deep interest in the work of the society.
Mr. Keefe was married at Bunker Hill, Illinois, on the 29th of
November, 1893, to Jennie C. Eline, of Littlestown, Pennsylvania. She
received her education at St. Joseph's Academy, McSherrystown, Penn-
sylvania, being a graduate of this institution. She is the daughter of
John W. and Annie Eline. Her father was a general contractor and
his great-grandfather served in the Revolutionary war, taking part in
the battle of Brandywine. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs.
Keefe, namely : Robert, May, Virginia, Agnes, Helen and David.
WILLIAM URIAH BARNETT. The development of the United States
mail service has been rapid and sure, but not until recent years has it
attained its highest efficiency, although it at present ranks with any
in the world. The various improvements made, the cutting down of ex-
penses in every department and the general rapidity with which the
mail is handled have kept pace with the increase in the amount of
matter handled by the government employes, and this speaks well for
the ability of those who have been entrusted with the management of
this branch of governmental work. William Uriah Barnett, one of the
well-known citizens of Buncombe, Illinois, has been connected with the
mail service during the past five years as assistant postmaster and post-
master of this village, and during this time has not only proven him-
self a valued and efficient official, but by his courteous and genial man-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1483
ner has won wide popularity. He was born on a farm two and one-half
miles east of Buncombe, Johnson county, Illinois, and is a son of Gil-
bert and Mary (Johnson) Barnett.
William A. Barnett, the grandfather of William Uriah, was a native
of Tennessee, who located in Johnson county during the 'twenties, tak-
ing up government land and becoming one of the earliest settlers of this
part of Southern Illinois. He was married to a Miss Mangum, also of
an early pioneer family of this section which originated in Buncombe
county, North Carolina. Gilbert Barnett, who was born in Johnson
county, was engaged in farming here throughout his active life, and
became well and favorably known to the citizens of his vicinity. He
served during the Civil war for three years, as a member of Company I,
One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
and his death occurred on March 22, 1911, when he was seventy-three
years old. He and his wife had the following children : William Uriah ;
Narcissa A., deceased ; Thomas C. ; Flora A. ; George H. ; John G., who
is deceased ; Francis M. ; Rosa ; Robert F. ; and an unnamed child who
died in infancy.
William Uriah Barnett received his education in the district schools
and was reared to the life of an agriculturist, which he followed until
he was twenty-five years of age. From 1886 until 1906 he was engaged
in operating a threshing machine on the farms of Johnson county, and
in the latter year became assistant postmaster at Buncombe. On April
6, 1911, he was appointed postmaster, a position which he has held to
the present time to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. Mr. Barnett
is the owner of a business building and two residence properties in
Buncombe. Fraternally he is connected with Buncombe Lodge and
Vienna Encampment, I. 0. 0. F. ; and the Modern Brotherhood of
America. His religious views are those of the Presbyterian church.
On October 5, 1884, Mr. Barnett was married to Miss Amanda Bell
Boomer, daughter of Benjamin F. and Emily J. Boomer, natives of In-
diana, and later farming people of Johnson county. Five children have
been born to this union, namely: Mrs. May Kerr, of Buncombe, who
has two children, Marie and Pauline ; Charles, who is a telegrapher
by occupation; and Maude, Jennie and Fay, who live with their par-
ents. Mr. Barnett is a public-spirited citizen and one whom all can de-
pend upon to support movements of interest or benefit to his section.
He keeps himself well informed on the movements of his party, and is
well read on all current topics, finding a great help in his excellent
memory.
CHARLES MARSHALL. One of the largest landholders of Johnson
county, and a man who is widely known as an agriculturist and stock
breeder, is Charles Marshall, of Belknap, a member of a family that
has distinguished itself in various walks of life. He was born on a
farm in Mason county, Kentucky, September 17, 1863, and is a son
of R. M. Marshall.
The progenitor of the family in this country came from England
during Colonial days and settled in Virginia, from whence Charles
Marshall, great-grandfather of Charles of Belknap. and a brother of
Chief Justice John Marshall, enlisted for service in the Colonial army
during the Revolutionary war. Martin P. Marshall, son of Charles,
was born in Virginia and was a pioneer settler in Kentucky, where he
became speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives during the
Civil war, and cast the deciding vote which held the state in the union.
He had been a large landowner and slaveholder, and also owned much
land in Ohio, and when he was forced to leave Kentucky to escape
1484 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
capture by the Confederates he crossed the line and took up the prac-
tice of law. This, however, he abandoned after the close of the rebellion,
and returned to his fa,rm. on which a division of the Confederate army,
under General Marshall, had camped at one time. He served as state's
attorney and in other important offices, and died in 1880, one of the
best known men in his state. Martin P. Marshall married a first cousin,
Elizabeth Marshall, one of the Kentucky Marshalls, whose two brothers,
Generals Charles A. and Humphrey Marshall, were officers in the Con-
federate army. R. M. Marshall, who served in the Kentucky Home
Guards when a young man, resided in Rock Island, Illinois, for sev-
eral years, where he practiced law, but eventually returned to Ken-
tucky, where he remained on the farm until his death at the ripe old age
of eighty years. He married Miss Porman, of Kentucky, daughter of Wil-
liam Forman, whose father, Joseph Forman, of Kentucky, entered con-
siderable land in Southern Illinois. Joseph made a trip to New Orleans
via flat-boat to market his produce, and returning in 1824 with several
of his neighbors they landed on the Illinois side of the Ohio River and
entered two sections of land apiece at the government office at Shawnee-
town. This land is now in the possession of Charles Marshall of Belknap.
Mr. and Mrs. R. M. Marshall had nine .children, but of the number
Elizabeth F., Martin P., William P., Thomas and Louis are deceased.
Those living are : John, residing on the home farm in Mason county,
Kentucky ; Logan, who resides in Texas ; Robert M., a practicing physi-
cian in Denver, Colorado ; and Charles, the subject of the present sketch.
Charles Marshall spent his boyhood on the home farm, and his educa-
tion was secured in the public and private schools. When he was
seventeen years old he entered Lebanon University, at Lebanon, Ohio,
and studied two years, graduating with the degree of B. S., and during
his second year pursued a general course which included engineering,
etc. In 1882 he returned to his father's farm and worked for two
years, and during the fall of 1884 came to Belknap, his. maternal grand-
father having given him 100 acres of timbered land to clear for him-
self. After his grandfather's death, in 1890, Mr. Marshall purchased
the entire tract of 1200 acres, cleared the timber, and added to his
holdings until he now owns 2500 acres, about 300 acres of which are
inside of the Cache River Drainage District, 1500 acres being under
cultivation. He makes a specialty of raising and feeding stock, and at
the present time has a large bunch of cattle, horses and mules, hogs and
sheep, the care of which necessitates the hiring of from ten to twenty
employes. Mr. Marshall's vast operations have made his name well
known among the agriculturists and business men of this part of South-
ern Illinois, and he is known as an enterprising, progressive agricul-
turist and as a good and public-spirited citizen who is ever ready to
do his full share in advancing the interests of his community. In po-
litical matters a Democrat, his private operations have demanded so much
of his time and attention that he has never actively entered the public
field. Fraternally he is connected with the Modern Woodmen of Amer-
ica, and he and his family are consistent members of the Methodist
Episcopal church.
In 1889 Mr. Marshall was united in marriage with Miss Effie Wil-
liams, daughter of Marion Williams, a pioneer settler of this section
and partner of W. L. Williams, and she died in 1893. leaving two chil-
dren : Elizabeth P. and Robert M., both residing at home. Mr. Mar-
shall was married (second) to Miss Clara Evers, the daughter of George
Evers, of Belknap, and they have one son, William P.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1485
EDMUND J. HODGES. One of the well known and most prosperous
farmers of Alexander county is Edmund J. Hodges, recognized as being
foremost in the ranks of the heavy landowners of the state. He is also
prominently identified with the saw mill and grist mill business in
Tamms, his home town, and is a man of considerable importance in local
political circles. He represents the third generation of his family who
have added their quota to the growth ahd up-building of Southern Illi-
nois, and who have achieved a pleasurable degree of success in their
lifetime.
Born December 22, 1859, at Thebes, Illinois, Edmund J. Hodges is
the son of John Hodges and the grandson of Edmund J. Hodges. The
first home of the family in Illinois was established at Jonesboro, Union
county, by Edmund J. Hodges and his family, who came there from
middle Tennessee. In Jonesboro the elder Hodges engaged in farming
and the son John established a hattery, following that line of business
until he was crowded out of the industry by the big manufacturers.
From that he went into merchandising, locating in Thebes many years
previous to the Civil war, and he carried on a successful business for
years in that town. He was one of the prominent and well-known
Democrats of Alexander county, and before the war was a member of
the lower house of the general assembly. He made a lasting impression
during his term of service as the servant of the people and a man of
purpose. He numbered among his personal friends Abraham Lincoln,
and after the secession of the southern state he became a devotee of the
Republican party, after having spent the best years of his life in the
Democratic faith. So strong was his sentiment in the cause of the
Union that he was able to turn his back upon the party for whom he had
labored for so many years and give his allegiance henceforward to the
party which upheld the Union. Born in 1812, John Hodges died in
1867, at the age of fifty-five years. In early life he married Miss Mar-
garet Hunsaker, a daughter of George Hunsaker, who came to Southern
Illinois from Kentucky. Mrs. Hodges died near Hodges Park, the sta-
tion on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad named in honor of Judge Alexan-
der Hodges, a brother of John Hodges. Eight children were born of
the union of Mr. and Mrs. Hodges. They are: John Hodges, deceased,
who was sheriff in his county and recognized as one of the prominent
citizens of Cairo ; Mary, who married Thomas Wilson and lives in Cairo ;
Elizabeth became the wife of T. Jefferson Craig and later died at
Hodges Park; Jane married Alexander Burke and passed away in the
same town; Margaret is now Mrs. 0. G. Vincent, of Hodges Park;
Annie, who became the wife of James Fitzgerald, and George, a mer-
chant, both reside in that place ; Edmund, Jr., the youngest of the fam-
ily resides at Tamms.
The life of the average country boy fell to the lot of Edmund J.
Hodges and he attended the rural schools as a care free boy. "When he
reached his majority he became engaged in merchandising, in company
with his brother George of Hodges Park. After ten years the firm was
dissolved and he continued business in that place on his own responsi-
bility, remaining there for five years. He then abandoned commercial
life and gave his attention to the real estate business in Cairo, remov-
ing his family to that city, but after five years of life in that business
he came to Tamms, where he engaged in the lumber business, and his
interests have expanded steadily with the passing of the years until he
is now one of the well-to-do men of his section. He acquired a goodly
acreage of fertile farm lands, and he has realized a pleasing degree of
success as a grain producer. His domain of sixteen hundred acres
maintains a considerable tenantry and adds very materially to the
1486 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
prosperity of the village to which he is attached. His grist mill com-
prises an industry chiefly of the manufacture of feed, and was but re-
cently established, and both his mill plants are shippers to markets be-
yond the confines of his county. Mr. Hodges was reared in a Demo-
cratic influence and espoused the cause of that party, but in later years
he has been active in the interests of the Republican party. He has
aided party work as a delegate 'to state conventions, as well as county
meetings, and is the township committeeman and a member of the
county central committee. Mr. Hodges is a member of the Modern
Brotherhood of America, the Eagles and the Hoo Hoos.
On January 16, 1886, Mr. Hodges married Miss Amanda Powless, a
daughter of Henry and Jane (Miller) Powless, old settlers of Union
county. Three children were born to them. Edmund J. married Miss
Gertrude Lutz, and is employed as a traveling salesman for the Harris
Saddlery Company of Cairo. Two daughters, Winifred and Mildred,
are the companions of their father in the home at Tamms, the mother
and wife having passed away on March 17, 1907.
ALFRED HANBY JONES. When a man has been active in so many
fields and has reached as high a pinnacle of success in each one of
them as has Alfred Hanby Jones, his deeds are usually allowed to speak
for themselves, but attention must be drawn to some of the facts con-
cerning him with the hope that his life might be an inspiration to some
of the young men just starting out for themselves who may read this
account. His only asset when he started out in life was a good educa-
tion, and with this as a foundation he first built up a prosperous law
business, then attained a wide-spread reputation as an honest and trust-
worthy politician, a paradox it would seem but, occasionally, truths
are paradoxical. Later the scientific side of his nature was permitted
to develop, and with his appointment as state food commissioner, he
began his years of service along these lines. He became a recognized
authority on the subject of food and dairy products, and was honored
by the presidency of the National Association of the State Pood and
Dairy Departments. After the time that he spent in his professional,
political and scientific work, he yet had time to spare for -commercial
pursuits, being one of the first men in this section to discover the wealth
that lies in the old fields of the county. How could one man be so ver-
satile is the natural question that comes into the reader's mind. Ver-
satility is a gift, and not to be acquired, but how he became success-
ful in all these lines is another matter. He did not have more oppor-
tunities than the average man, but he never allowed one to slip past,
and no matter how small it was he did his level best, so that he never
failed to leave behind him an impression of faithfulness to details.
He was a keen observer and learned through his varied interests to
estimate a man very closely, and never to allow the most insignificant
detail to pass from his mind unconsidered. He has now passed his
three score, but his strenuous life does not seem to have exhausted
either his mental or physical vigor, and if a young business man desires
wise counsel or advice, let him sit at the feet of Mr. Jones.
Alfred Hanby Jones was born at Flat Rock, Crawford county, Illi-
nois, on the 4th of July, 1850, his middle name "Hanby" having been
given him in the hope that he would emulate the worthy bishop of the
United Brethren for whom he was named. The family of which he is
a member was founded in this country during the early part of the
eighteenth century by his great-grandfather, Moses Jones, who was a
native of Wales. This old pioneer settled in the beautiful Shenandoah
Valley in Virginia, and there acquired a large estate, which at his death
TflEIUBRMW
9f- M
DIVERSITY OF HUMS
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1487
passed into the hands of his eldest son, Moses. Five other sons were
born to him, and Aaron and two of his brothers decided to try their
fortunes in the wilderness to the westward. Aaron, who was born in
1776, went first to southern Pennsylvania in 1798, and there he re-
mained for four years. In 1802 he moved still further west, settling
down on the banks of the Little Miami river at Clough, Ohio, and in
1810 again moved, this time to a farm in Butler county, Ohio. He had
married about the time he left Virginia, his wife being Mary Shepherd,
and by this time he had a large family of children, among whom was
John M., father of Alfred. When the former was a boy of seventeen,
in 1832, his father made what was destined to be his last move, when
he took his wife and ten children to Crawford county, Illinois, and lo-
cated upon the land that is known to-day as the Aaron Jones farm. He
entered this claim, paying $1.25 per acre, the holding consisting al-
together of one hundred and twenty acres. This was the first claim
entered west of the road known as the Range road, running from
Chicago to Cairo, and was nothing but the uncleared wilderness, so
the father and his eight sons had days of felling trees and clearing
away brushwood before the land began to approach a fit condition for
planting. On this original farm, which is now owned by William J.
Jones, the great-grandson of Aaron Jones, lies the old burying ground
where most of the Jones family are interred. Aaron and Mary Jones
passed the remainder of their lives here, both dying in 1847. This
courageous couple by the hardest of labor and careful self-denial suc-
ceeding in educating each of their sons, and the father was able to enter
in the name of each one of them, save John, a fine farm of eighty acres.
John, unfortunately, was not yet of age at the period of his father's
prosperity.
John Miller Jones was born on the 25th of December, 1815, at Ox-
ford, Ohio, and received three months of schooling in that state. The
school to which he was sent was a subscription school, and he was
taught to read, but he did not learn to write until he was a grown man.
On the 19th of November, 1837, he was married to Elizabeth Ford, a
daughter of John Ford, who came to Illinois from Kentucky in 1832
and settled on the Allison Prairie. At that time the country was in-
fested by Indians, and it was almost certain death to attempt to live
on their holding, so for two or three years the Ford family, with many
others, lived in a fort known as Fort Allison, which was surrounded by
a strong stockade, expecting at any moment the blood-chilling whoop
of Indians on the war-path. Elizabeth was born on the 25th of Decem-
ber, 1818, at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the life and scenes of her
girlhood made her the worthy wife of a pioneer. She was willing, to
marry John M. Jones knowing that his two hands were all that stood
between her and starvation, and her trust was more than rewarded.
Immediately after their marriage the young husband bought an ox
on credit, and hired himself out to cut cord wood. During that first
winter they saved fifty dollars, enough to enter twenty acres of land.
Here he built his home and toiled, as few men have toiled, to rear and
educate his family of children. His wife was well versed in all the ways
of thrift and economy and with her help he saved enough to buy more
land, until at one time he owned eight hundred acress, all within four
miles of his home. Having been forced to content himself with a very
meager education, he was determined that his sons should not suffer.
To that end he and his wife endured real suffering and privation in
order that the boys might go through the common schools, and later
that they might go to college, though in the education of their later
years they were all able to help themselves to some extent. The family
1488 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
of Mr. and Mrs. Jones consisted of four sons and two daughters, a
modest number compared with his own brothers and sisters, who num-
bered fifteen, he himself being the eleventh and a twin. The eldest
of Mr. and Mrs. Jones' children is J. William Jones, who is a farmer
residing near the old farm; Absalom W., Alvira and Cynthia A. are
deceased; Alfred Hanby will receive further notice; and Henry F. is
a physician at Flat Rock, Illinois. The father of this family was a Re-
publican in his political beliefs, and held various township offices. Both
he and his wife were members of the United Brethren church. Mrs.
Jones died in 1885, at the age of sixty-seven, and he survived her only
a few years, dying in 1887.
Alfred Hanby Jones spent his early life on his father's farm, at-
tending the common schools until he was sixteen. He then was sent
to a United Brethren school, Westfield College by name, situated at
Westfield, Illinois. Here he remained for a period of three years, and
then went to Lebanon Normal College at Lebanon, Ohio. In 1870 he
received the degree of B. S. from this institution, and put his education
to immediate use by entering upon the career of a school teacher. He
had no intention of making this his life work, but used it solely as a
means to earn enough money to take up the study of law. After one
year spent in Saint Mary 's, Kansas, as superintendent of schools, he re-
turned to Illinois. In 1872 he came to Robinson and began to read law
in the offices of Callahan and Jones, at that time the leading firm of
lawyers in that part of the country. Under the tutelage of two mem-
bers of the profession, whose legal knowledge and experience were un-
excelled, Mr. Jones made rapid strides in his studies and was soon
ready for his bar examination. He was admitted in 1875, and his abil-
ity was soon recognized by his appointment as state's attorney in 1876,
to fill the unexpired term caused by the death of Colonel Alexander. In
1886 he was elected to the state legislature from his district, and served
one term, but has never cared to accept an elective position of this
kind since.
His interest in political affairs has always been of the keenest, and
he seems to enter as enthusiastically into local politics as into state
and national matters. For eight years he was city attorney and mem-
ber of the city council, and it was during this period that Robinson
was raised from the status of a village to that of a city. For thirty-
two years Mr. Jones was a member and chairman of the Republican
county committee, not a break having occurred in this long term of
service. For ten years he was a member of the Republican state cen-
tral committee and he has. twice been a delegate to the national conven-
tion, participating in the nominations of William McKinley and Presi-
dent Taft.
He has been very active in public work in educational matters, hav-
ing served for fifteen years as a member of the school board for his city.
In 1898 he was appointed president of the board of trustees of the Illi-
nois Eastern Normal School, and served in this capacity until 1899,
when he was appointed state food commissioner. The duties of this of-
fice take up a large share of his time, and, as has been mentioned, he has
been president of the National Association of State Food and Dairy De-
partments, which is composed of all the state food commissioners from
every state as well as the national food officials.
Many of Mr. Jones' business investments have been made in the
oil and gas region, and he has also been much interested in railroad
affairs throughout his district. He has been the attorney for the "Big
Four" Railroad and its predecessors for twenty-five years. When the
Paris and Danville Railroad was to be built he did the contracting for
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1489
the work, and when it was rebuilt about five years ago he secured the
right of way for the new road. This road was the Danville and Indiana,
and is now a part of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis
Railway system. In his religious affiliations Mr. Jones is a member of
the Methodist Episcopal church, being a trustee of the church and was
chairman of the building committee that built the new Methodist Epis-
copal church.
Mr. Jones' first marriage was the result of a love affair in which
his wife was little more than a school girl. She was Ella M. Thomp-
son, and he married her at Greenhill Seminary on the day of her grad-
uation. She only lived three years, and on her death left a son, Gus-
tavus Adolphus, who is now assistant cashier in the First National Bank
of Robinson. Mr. Jones was again married in 1878, to Catherine A.
Beals, a daughter of William G. Beals, of Pickerington, Ohio. She
likewise is a member of an old pioneer family, her grandfather having
been one of the early settlers in that state. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have
no children living.
GEORGE WASHINGTON GUM. One of the younger generation of busi-
ness men in Clinton county who is doing much towards advancing his
community's commercial interests is George Washington Gum, the
proprietor of a nourishing mercantile business at Keyespqrt and a
member of a family that has long been identified with the county 's ac-
tivities. The Gum family was founded in this part of the state by the
Rev. Isaac Gum, a pioneer circuit rider of the Methodist faith. John
R. Gum, the father of George W., was born about four miles from Keyes-
port, in Bond county, Illinois, November 22, 1851 and during pioneer
days carried the mail from Litchfield to Greenville. He was too young
to enlist in the Civil war but an elder brother participated in it as a
member of an Illinois regiment. He grew to manhood on the old Gum
homestead in Bond county, where he has been engaged in agricultural
pursuits all of his life, and where he still makes his home. He is a
Democrat in politics. Mr. Gum was married to Matilda E. Barth,
daughter of Jacob Barth, a native of Germany, and five children were
born to this union, namely: E. G., who is rural free delivery mail car-
rier at Delmore ; Clara C., who married E. J. Barcroft ; George Wash-
ington ; Anna Belle, who resides with her father, for whom she is keep-
ing house ; and Bert E., who is engaged in teaching school in Keyesport.
The mother of these children met death in a runaway accident Septem-
ber 4, 1907.
George Washington Gum spent his youth on his father's farm in
Bond county, his early education being secured in the Pleasant Grove
district school, from which he was graduated at the age of twenty years.
The next term he began teaching school at West Chappell, Fayette
county, and after continuing there for two terms he took two summer
courses at Valparaiso University, to fit himself for advanced work.
After four years spent in teaching the public schools of Keyesport he
clerked for one summer in the store of Frank Laws, and on the follow-
ing November 13th, with his brother-in-law, Mr. Barcroft, he purchased
the old Laws stock, and the firm of Gum & Barcroft was formed, an
association which continued until May, 1908, when Mr. Gum purchased
his partner's interest and has since conducted the business alone. Mr.
Gum has a fine stock of first-class goods, and his progressive spirit has
led him to adopt many of the ideas of the big city department stores.
He keeps fully abreast of the times, constantly replenishing his stock
with modern articles and endeavoring to give his customers the best
value obtainable for the money. This policy has caused his business to
1490 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
grow steadily, as he has won the confidence and esteem of his fellow
townsmen in the only way that such confidence and esteem can be
acquired — a fair price and honest goods to all. His politics are those of
the Republican party, but so far his business has claimed all of his at-
tention, and outside of taking a good citizen's interest in public mat-
ters he has had little to do with public affairs. He is a popular member
of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Odd Fellows, and his re-
ligious views are those of the Christian church.
On December 24, 1903, while teaching his first term in the Keyes-
port public schools, Mr. Gum was married in this city to Sadie A. Dill,
daughter of Ambrose and Rebecca Dill, of Keyesport, an old and well-
known family. Mr. and Mrs. Gum have had no children. She is a
member of the Methodist church, and well and popularly known in
church circles.
CHARLES HENRY FILE. One of the successful business men of Bond
county, who at the same time belongs to that typically American prod-
uct, the self-made man, is Charles Henry File, a native son of the
county. He is a man of varied interests, owning a large farm in Old
Ripley township ; conducting a, livery barn in Pocahontas ; and being
prominently identified with the development of the oil fields. Mr. File
was born in Old Ripley township, January 24, 1872, the son of James F.
File. The father was born near the same place in the year 1.848. He
was reared amid rural surroundings and spent his life on a farm. Al-
though only seventeen years of age at the outbreak of the Civil war, he
ran away from home to join the army, but owing to his youth was
brought back and his plans of leading a military life frustrated. Sev-
eral of his brothers were in the Union army. James F. File was mar-
ried at the age of nineteen years to an adopted daughter of Charles
Pickern, Ella Pickern. Mrs. File was reared in Pocahontas and became
the mother of six children, five of whom are living at the present time
and C. H. being the eldest of the number. The father was a loyal Demo-
crat in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He
was identified in various ways with the many-sided life of the com-
munity. He died in 1901, in Serento, Illinois, where he was leading a
retired life, the demise of his cherished and devoted wife occurring some
years earlier.
At a very early age the problem of making his own livelihood pre-
sented itself to Charles Henry File. At the age of nine years he began
working at various occupations, and in the meantime attended the pub-
lic schools, during the most of his educational period working for his
board. He was the eldest in a family of very modest resources and as
there is no arguing with necessity he was soon forced to that self-sup-
port which gave him the self-reliance which has been one of the greatest
factors in his success. He has divided his time in late years between
Pocahontas and Old Ripley township, in the latter neighborhood own-
ing an excellent farm, which he has brought to a high state of cultiva-
tion. In Pocahontas he conducts a well-patronized livery barn and this
as well as his agricultural work is successful. He was also interested in
a creamery in Old Ripley. He is a director in the Pocahontas Oil Com-
pany and is deeply interested in the development of the oil resources of
this section. He is, indeed, a substantial and progressive citizen.
Mr. File was married November 4, 1907, the young woman to become
his wife being Rosana Boyer, of Old Ripley township, daughter of John
Boyer, a prominent farmer. Mr. File's father-in-law was a lieuten-
ant in the Union army at the time of the Civil war, and was one of five
brothers who served during the great conflict between the states, all
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1491
being aligned with the cause of the preservation of the integrity of the
Union. Mr. and Mrs. File maintain a hospitable home and possess a
wide circle of friends. Mr. File belongs to the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, of which order he has been a member since his twenty-first
year and in whose affairs he takes an enthusiastic and whole-hearted
interest.
SENATOR ALBERT E. ISLEY. In 1908 there took his place in the state
senate a young man of the type upon which the state founds its hope of
cleaner and better politics, Albert E. Isley, of Newton, who still repre-
sents this district in the upper house of the state assembly. He is par-
ticularly well fitted by nature and training for the duties of his office
and manifests in himself that combination of the theoretical and prac-
tical which produces the man who begets fine ideas and knows how to
make them realities. He has carried with him to the senate well defined
and unfaltering ideas of duty toward his constituents and is in refresh-
ing contrast to the self-seeking politician who has proved the menace of
modern society. As a lawyer he has taken rank among the best in the
section and has been in active practice since 1897.
Jasper county is particularly to be congratulated upon the number
of native born sons it has been able to retain within its boundaries and
Senator Isley is one of these. The date of his birth was January 18,
1871. His father, Emanuel F. Isley, was born in Iowa, in 1840. The
elder gentleman was born and reared upon a farm and he is still a suc-
cessful representative of the great basic industry. In his younger years
he was a school teacher. He came to Illinois about forty-five years ago
and located in Jasper county, upon the very homestead farm which is
now his place of residence. He was married about the year 1867 to
Vanda Apple, of Indiana, and into their household were born eight chil-
dren, Senator Isley being the second in order of birth. The father is
one of the most loyal of Democrats and he is not unknown to public
office, having for instance been county supervisor. Originally he was
a member of the Lutheran church, but is now of the Christian congre-
gation. The family is of Pennsylvania Dutch descent and share the
staunch and rugged characteristics of that people. The family circle
has never been entered by death, father and mother and all the sons and
daughters being alive.
The early life of Senator Isley was spent on the parental farm in
Jasper county and he enjoys the wholesome experiences and rugged dis-
cipline, of rural existence, from actual participation becoming familiar
with the many secrets of seed-time and harvest. He received his pre-
liminary education in the common schools of the neighborhood and
having finished their curriculum he himself assumed the preceptor's
chair and for about seven years taught school in Jasper county. His
school teaching was interspersed by attending college at Valparaiso, In-
diana (now Valparaiso University), and he was graduated from that
noted institution in 1896, with the degree of LL. B., his desire to become
identified with the legal profession having come to fruition in his early
school-teaching days. In 1897 he was admitted to the bar of Illinois and
he has been actively engaged in practice since 1898. He was very soon
found to be of the right material to which to entrust public responsibil-
ities and in his brief career he has held a number of public offices. The
first of these was Democratic member of the board of managers of the
state reformatory at Pontiac, the appointment coming under Governor
Yates and being of four years' duration. He ultimately resigned and
was shortly afterward elected state's attorney of Jasper county, which
office he held for four years with general satisfaction to all concerned.
1492 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
His election to the state senate came about in 1908 and he is still serving
in that office. He has by no means been a mere figure-head in the state
assembly, his influence, in truth, having been of the best and strongest
sort. He was the leader in the anti-Lorime.r movement, an agitation
which was to stir state and nation, and he made the first speech against
that senator. He was a member of the committee to revise county and
township organization and the road and bridge laws of the state. He
was one of the leaders in general legislation before the senate and was
recognized as one of the ablest debaters and parlimentarians of the
upper house. His readiness in debate, his mastery of every subject he
handles are everywhere remarked, as well as the unfailing courtesy with
which he treats friend and foe alike. He has an extraordinary power of
marshalling and presenting significant facts so as to bring conviction
and is a true lover of his country and its institutions. He has been, in-
deed, the direct source of a great deal of legislation favorable to the in-
terest of his constituents. He is a Democrat by inheritance and the
strongest personal conviction and his word has great weight in party
councils.
Senator Isley was married in 1903, to Miss Grace M. Sullender, a
native of Newton. One child has been born to them, a son, Leslie L.
Both the senator and his wife are interested in the truest manner in the
many-sided life of town and county and maintain a hospitable abode.
Senator Isley finds pleasure in his fraternal affiliation with the time-
honored Masonic order and the Modern Woodmen of America.
GUY CARLETON BARCLAY. Noteworthy among the active and valued
citizens of Carlyle is Guy Carleton Barclay, who was widely known to
the traveling public as agent for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, a po-
sition for which he was eminently fitted, and in which he gave the ut-
most satisfaction to all concerned during the years of his service, which
he terminated in March, 1912. A son of James Barclay, Jr., he was
born May 28, 1859, in Weston, Platte county, Missouri, of Southern
ancestry.
His grandfather, James Barclay, was for many years a prominent
resident of Paris, Kentucky, where he carried on a thriving business as
a dealer in live stock, making frequent trips with boat loads of horses
from Louisville to New Orleans. On one of his business journeys he
was stricken with yellow fever, which caused his death in 1830. His
widow died three years later, in 1833, during a siege of cholera which
in that year devastated the country.
Born in Paris, Kentucky, October 10. 1821, James Barclay, Jr., was
left an orphan in boyhood. He was educated principally in George-
town, Kentucky, and after his graduation from Georgetown Academy,
at the age of sixteen years, he began teaching school, and followed that
profession for several years. He was afterwards manager and propri-
etor of the Georgetown Hotel for some time. Migrating to Missouri in
1859 with his family, he spent a brief time in St. Louis, and then went
to Weston, Missouri, where he represented a large mercantile house,
having charge of its branch store at that place. Coming from there to
Carlyle, Illinois, in 1860, he was the first publisher of the Carlyle Con-
stitution, and for a number of years was superintendent of the Carlyle
schools, a position that he also filled in Cape Girardeau. Missouri, in
1873 and 1874. He was a noted educator, especially brilliant in mathe-
matics, a branch that he often taught in county institutes. He died in
1900. just one week after the death of his loved wife. He was a Demo-
crat in politics and a member of the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons.
He married in 1842 Miss Elizabeth Jones, of Georgetown, Kentucky,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1493
and to them five children were born, as follows: Sarah, the wife of Ed-
win Fink; May, now a physician in Carlyle; Guy, of this sketch; Lina,
living in St. Louis; and Lalee, deceased.
Spending his earlier days in Carlyle, Guy Carleton Barclay acquired
his preliminary education in the public schools of this city, completing
his studies in the normal school at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. On re-
turning with the family to Carlyle, he was for a time in the employ of
Lafey Brothers as bookkeeper, but he afterwards engaged in the rail-
road business, in February, 1880, being appointed agent for the Ohio &
Mississippi Railroad, now known as the Southwestern branch of the
Baltimore & Ohio. As stated in a previous paragraph, Mr. Barclay sev-
ered his connection with the Baltimore & Ohio in March, 1912. ,
Politically Mr. Barclay is a Democrat. He is especially interested
in advancing the educational interests of city and county, and for the
past eighteen years he has been a member of the Carlyle board of edu-
cation. He has labored wisely in the interests of the public schools, and
was largely instrumental in securing the site for the present beautiful
school building of the city, and in causing its subsequent erection.
Mr. Barclay married in 1886 Miss Annie Lietez, a daughter of Hon.
Frederick A. Lietez, of Carlyle, and to them five children have been
born, namely: Guy C., Jr., Anna Lietez, Emma E., Robert H. and
Paul C. Fraternally Mr. Barclay is a member of the Masonic order.
HENRY Cox. No list of professional men of Jackson county would
be complete without extended mention being made of its educators whose
untiring labors during the past decade have brought the standard of
education in this section to a point where it is unexcelled by any com-
munity in Southern Illinois, and who, not content with present condi-
tions, are laboring faithfully to still further advance their chosen work
and by their example set a pace that will be worthy of emulation by
teachers all over the state. Professor Henry Cox, principal of the pub-
lic schools of Oraville, is one of those whose work as an educator has had
much to do with the present desirable condition of affairs, and his entire
professional career has been spent in the schools of Jackson county. He
was born on his father's farm in Levan township, June 16, 1870, and is
a son of Benjamin F. and Mary B. (Crossin) Cox.
Benjamin F. Cox was born at Beaver Dam, Kentucky, in 1842, and
as a youth accompanied his parents to Indiana and from that state to
Illinois. When Benjamin was a lad of ten years his family located on a
farm situated on the road leading from Murphysboro to Carbondale,
and as a youth he hunted squirrels on the present site of the former
city with his chums, John and Thomas Logan. Reared to agricultural
pursuits, he followed the vocation of farmer throughout his life, and at
the time of his death, which occurred October 3, 1895, he was the owner
of an excellent property situated two miles southwest of Oraville. In
political matters he was a Democrat, but took only a good citizen's inter-
est in public matters, and the only office he held was that of deputy
sheriff under his brother. Sheriff "William Cox, familiarly known as
"Biddle. " who held that office in Jackson county for many years. His
wife, who was a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal church,
South, was a native of Jackson county, and died on the home farm Jan-
uary 2. 1911. Of their six children Henry was the fifth in order of
birth and he and his brother. Samuel Cox, who is engaged in the laundry
business at Colorado Springs. Colorado, are the only survivors.
As a youth -Henry Cox attended the public schools in the vicinity of
his father's farm, and this training was supplemented by attendance at
the Southern Illinois Normal School at Carbondale and the normal
1494 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
school at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, graduating from the latter in 1891.
Since that time he has been engaged in teaching at various places in
Jackson county, at the same time conducting the farm with his father,
since whose death Mr. Cox has owned the homestead and superintended
its operation. The Oraville school has an enrollment of sixty pupils, in-
cludes eighth grade work, and some high school training has also been
done. A close student of educational methods and conditions, Mr. Cox
has proved an able and efficient tutor, and he has given of the best of
himself in training the youthful minds placed under his care. He has,
however, found time to serve his township in public office, has served as
assessor aud collector, and was elected on the Democratic ticket to the
position of deputy sheriff of Ora township, in which capacity he is at
present acting. Fraternally he is connected with the Odd Fellows and
the Modern Woodmen of America, and he is popular with his fellow
lodge members, as he is also in his profession and with his pupils.
On June 19, 1892, Professor Cox was married to Miss Maggie Under-
hill, daughter of William Underbill, a farmer of Jackson county, and
five children have been born to them, namely: Arthur, Arden, Floyd,
Mabel and Jessie.
CICERO L. WASHBURN, M. D. After a number of years devoted to the
professions of teaching and medicine Dr. Cicero L. Washburn, of
Marion, is now devoting himself to the affairs of his farm, and is living
a quiet, unpretentious life. He gained a widespread reputation both as
a physician and educator, and is now proving himself just as efficient
in the agricultural field, his farm being one of the most productive of his
section. Dr. Washburn was born near Carthage, Smith county, Tennes-
see, August 10, 1852, and he is a son of the late Hon. James M. Wash-
burn.
Dr. Washburn was five years of age when his father came to Illinois,
and was reared in Marion and near Carterville, where his parents spent
many years of their vigorous lives. After the common schools he at-
tended Ewing College, where he graduated in 1874, and entered the
profession of teaching, following it a few years at DeSoto, Illinois, and
in Fredonia, Kentucky. Finding the indoor work telling upon his
health, he decided to study medicine, and read under the direction of
Dr. S. H. Bundy, who had been once a member of the faculty of Van-
derbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and widely known as a scholar
and Baptist minister. When ready for college he enrolled in the old
Missouri Medical College at St. Louis, now a part of Washington Uni-
versity of that city, and graduated therefrom in 1882. In choosing a
location the Doctor selected Hampton, Kentucky, where he spent twelve
years, and the two years that followed he was located at Rich Hill, Mis-
souri. At this time he gave up the profession and came to Marion, de-
siring to be near his father, who was then approaching the evening of
life, and since then his activities have been directed to the affairs of the
farm.
Dr. Washburn was first married at Metropolis. Illinois, in October,
1896, his wife being Miss Katie Markey, who died in 1898, without liv-
ing issue. On June 1, 1899, the Doctor married Mrs. Laura Champion,
the daughter of Rev. M. H. Utley, a Baptist minister. The children of
Mrs. Washburn by her first marriage are three, as follows : Pauline, who
is the wife of George H. Dietrich, of Marion, a traveling salesman;
Claude Champion, who is the proprietor of a butcher establishment in
Marion ; and Robert G. Champion, of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a sales-
man for the Banke-Wennecke Candy Company.
Dr. Washburn is fraternally connected with the Elks and his re-
HISTOEY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1495
ligious belief is that of the Baptist church. He is not concerned with
politics, other than taking a citizen's interest in good government, but
casts his vote with the Democratic party. Dr. Washburn has always
been identified with movements of a religious, educational or charitable
nature, is considered one of the good, reliable citizens of his community,
and has a host of warm, personal friends in this locality.
HUGH PENVLEE, M. D. Eeputed one of the most skilful physicians of
Jefferson county, Hugh Penvler, M. D., of Ina, pays close attention to
his professional duties, and by means of his acknowledged skill and high
personal character has built up a fine practice. A son of the late Dr. H.
J. Penvler, he was born July 10, 1864, in Mount Vernon, Illinois.
Dr. H. J. Penvler was born in East Tennessee, in 1837, and died at
Mount Vernon, Illinois, April 23, 1899, aged sixty-two years. An am-
bitious student and a lover of books he was given excellent educational
advantages when young, and after his graduation from the old Emory &
Henry College, where he completed the classical course, he entered the
Missouri Medical College, in Saint Louis, from which he was graduated
with the degree of M. D. He subsequently held the chair of physiology
in the Missouri Medical College for a number of years, during which
time he was honored with a degree from the University of Nashville, in
Nashville, Tennessee. At the outbreak of the Civil war, he offered his
services to his country, enlisting in the Federal army, and for a time
was army surgeon at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1862, he located at
Mount Vernon, Illinois, and was there actively engaged in the practice
of medicine until his death. He married Ellen Hawkins, a daughter of
Samuel Hawkins, who migrated from Indiana to Jefferson county, Illi-
nois, in pioneer days, and they reared two children, namely : Hugh, the
subject of this sketch ; and Mrs. Nora Hartzell, of Mount Vernon. The
mother still occupies the old homestead in Mount Vernon.
Receiving his preliminary training in the public schools of Mount
Vernon, Hugh Penvler subsequently attended the Southern Illinois Nor-
mal University in Carbondale, and in 1883 began the study of medicine
in Saint Louis, at the Missouri Medical College. Going to Nashville, Ten-
nessee, in 1884, he was graduated from the medical department of the
University of Nashville in the spring of 1885, and during the following
nine years he was associated with his father in the practice of medicine at
Mount Vernon. Removing to Spring Garden in 1894, Dr. Penvler was
there prosperously engaged in the practice of his profession for ten years.
Coming to Ina in 1904, he has here built up a lucrative patronage, being
numbered among the leading physicians of the county. He is well known
in professional circles, and is a member of the Southern Illinois Medical
Society.
Dr. Penvler married, in July, 1894, Maggie McCullough, a daughter
of James and Susan A. McCullough, and their attractive home is always
open to their many friends and acquaintances.
Fraternally the Doctor has been a member of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows since attaining his majority, and he is also a member of
the Modern Woodmen of America and of the Court of Honor. He for-
merly had title to ninety-two acres of good farming land, but he sold it
recently and is not now a landholder to any extent, his town property
being his only real estate holdings.
HARRY STOTLAR. Even in an age when much is demanded of the men
of the younger generation few have attained to such prominence in the
business world as has been the portion of Harry Stotlar, whose activities
in the commercial and financial world have made his name well known all
1496 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
over Franklin and Williamson counties. As the leading spirit in a num-
ber of large enterprises he has served to advance the interests of his
native locality" and the success that has come to him has been the result
of his own unaided efforts. Mr. Stotlar was born October 15, 1881, in
Williamson county, Illinois, and is a son of James L. and Alice (Cox)
Stotlar.
Samuel Stotlar, the grandfather of Harry Stotlar, was born- in Penn-
sylvania, and came to Illinois with his family in 1855, settling on a farm
in Williamson county, where he spent the remainder of his life. His son,
James L., accompanied the family to this county, stopping for a short
time in Ohio, and was reared on the homestead in Williamson county,
the town of Herrin later being built on that property. James L. Stotlar
was largely interested in selling land for building lots, became financially
successful, and now lives on land situated south of Herrin, where he is en-
gaged in farming and stock-raising. He is a Republican in politics, but
he has always been an onlooker rather than an office seeker. He and his
wife are members of the Christian church. Mrs. Stotlar 's father, George
Cox, was a native of Virginia, from which state he brought his family to
Williamson county about the same time as the advent of the Stotlars, and
the remainder of his life was spent in farming here, his farm being situ-
ated about three miles east of Herrin. Two of his sons enlisted for
service in the Union army during the Civil war, and both lost their lives
in battle.
Harry Stotlar secured his educational training in the Herrin public
schools, and his first serious employment was with his uncle, W. N.
Stotlar, with whom he engaged in the lumber business with a capital of
$3,000, borrowed money. After remaining with him three years Mr.
Stotlar was encouraged by his success to assist in organizing and incor-
porating the Stotlar-Herrin Lumber Company, which was first capital-
ized at $20,000. This business, modest in its inception, soon grew to
such an extent that to carry on its dealings it was necessary for a recapi-
talization, and there is now paid-up stock of $100,000, with a surplus of a
like amount. This firm maintains yards at Herrin, Marion, Johnson
City, Benton, West Frankfort, Christopher, Pittsburg and Franklin,
and does a business amounting to $300,000 per annum. The officers are
Fred Stotlar, a brother of Harry, president ; Harry Stotlar, vice-presi-
dent and manager of the business for Franklin county ; E. M. Stotlar, a
cousin, secretary. In addition to this, Harry Stotlar is a stockholder in
the City Bank of Herrin, a director in the First National Bank of Chris-
topher, president of the Benton Building and Loan Association and of
the Christopher Building and Loan Association and a director in the
West Frankfort Coal Company. He owns the bottling works at Benton
and the Benton Steam Laundry, is heavily interested in building lots
wherever he has lumber interests, and owns a half section of land near
Benton, where he intends establishing a large stock farm.
Rated as one of the wealthiest men in Franklin county Mr. Stotlar 's
fortune has been gained in a strictly legitimate manner, and his reputa-
tion is that of a man of integrity and high business principles. He has
so directed his affairs that they have advanced his locality, and he has
always taken a keen interests in movements that have been for the good
of this section, although his business has been so heavy as to deprive him
of the honor that public office would bring. A prominent Mason, Elk
and Pythian, Mr. Stotlar has served as chancellor commander of the
latter society, is popular in all three connections, and has a host of admir-
ing friends in every locality to which his interests have called him.
*""' ---.^«~T-
lur LIDnAnf
;!)• m
53^'ERSITr OF
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1497
EMANUEL BELLMANN. A well-known and respected citizen of Jacob,
Emanuel Bellmann is one of the leading general merchants of the place,
and is serving acceptably as postmaster. A native of Missouri, he was
born June 18, 1880, in Perry county, coming from German stock. His
father, Henry Bellmann, was born in Germany, February 27, 1839, and
there learned the trade of cabinet maker. Coining to America when about
twenty-five years old, he located in Perry county, Missouri, and for sev-
eral years followed his trade at Altenburg, that state. Subsequently
buying a tract of land near by, he improved a good farm, on which he
has since resided. He is a man of worth and integrity, a sound Demo-
crat in politics, and a devout member of the German Lutheran church.
He married, in Germany, Engle Wichen, and of their eight children
Emanuel, of this sketch, is the sixth child in order of birth.
Growing to manhood in Perry county, Missouri, Emanuel Bellmann
was educated in private and public schools, completing the course of
study in the grammar grades. Acquiring a thorough knowledge of agri-
culture while young, he spent several years of his earlier life on the home
farm. Coming to Jackson county, Illinois, in 1901, he was for four
years employed as a clerk in a store at Neunert, where he became familiar
with the details of the business. In 1904 Mr. Bellmann, in company with
Mr. Schweizer and his elder brother, opened a general store in Jacob,
and within the next few years built up a substantial trade. Buying out
the interests of his partners in 1910, Mr. Bellmann has since conducted
the business alone, and in addition to dealing in general merchandise
carries a special line of undertaker's goods and is engaged in the under-
taking business. In 1904 he was appointed postmaster at Jacob, receiv-
ing his commission on September 22, and has since served in this capac-
ity.
Mr. Bellmann married, in 1904, Martha Bochme, a daughter of Lewis
Bochme, a Perry county Missouri, farmer, who served as a soldier in
the Federal army during the Civil war, and to them three children have
been born, namely : Stella, Cordelia and Elmer. A Republican in poli-
tics, Mr. Bellman is now serving as treasurer of his home district school.
He is a regular attendant of the German Evangelical church, of which
he and his wife are valued members.
REV. GEORGE ALEXANDER GORDON. The Free Baptist church has
gained some of its most distinguished clergymen and most earnest
workers from the Gordon family of Jackson county, members of which
have won country-wide reputations in their chosen vocation, and prom-
inent among these may be mentioned the late Rev. Henry Smith Gor-
don and his son, Rev. George Alexander Gordon, the latter of whom
has also won recognition as a business man, agriculturist and journalist.
Probably there is no better known family in Jackson county than that
of Gordon, and it is but fitting in respect for those who have passed
away and in appreciation of those who are still carrying on their labors
that a history of its members be presented in biographical form.
In looking for the founder of this branch of the family the first of
whom there is distinct trace is Richard of Gordon, who was Lord of the
Barony of Gordon in the Merse between 1150 and 1160. Alicia IV of
the Gordon family married her cousin, Adam Gordon. Their grand-
son. Sir Adam, was the ancestor of all the Gordons of Scotland, accord-
ing to Douglas. Robert 1st gave to him a charter to the lands of Strath-
bogie (or Huntley). Sir Adam Gordon, in descent tenth of Gordon and
Huntley. was killed at the battle of Homildon in 1402. leaving only a
daughter, who married a Seton. Their eldest son, Alexander, assumed
the name of Gordon, and in 1449 was created Earl of Huntley. The
line of Huntleys and Gordon was noted for its warlike spirit. The fight-
1498 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS •
ing force of the clan was estimated at one thousand claymores in 1715.
The Earls of Aberdeen, so created in 1682, are descended from Patrick
Gordon of Methlic, cousin of the Earl of Huntley. Prom Scotland the
first Gordon, the great-great-grandfather of Rev. George Alexander
Gordon, came to American in 1697, he being connected with what is
known as the Cumberland Valley Gordons, very numerous and exceed-
ingly well known in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Rev. Henry Smith
Gordon was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1816, the
oldest child of George and Nancy Gordon, who brought him west when
he was but a child. The family crossed the Mississippi river at St.
Louis before the advent of ferry boats, but took the wheels off their
wagon, and thus safely carried their horses and wagon across the river
in a flat-boat, it taking a number of trips to get the whole outfit across
with a skiff and the flat-boat. The grandfather of Rev. Henry Smith
Gordon, also named George, had gone to Missouri about 1800, long be-
fore it was admitted to the Union as a state, and because of some com-
plicity in the rightful ownership of a number of negroes in which his
wife held first claim he was foully murdered one morning on his own
door-steps by some one in ambush across the road from the house. The
accused was the first person ever hanged in Missouri and in St. Louis,
under law, and that was territorial law, in which the oldest son had
the reprieving power. His son, however, George, a lad of fourteen years
of age, refused to commute the sentence, and the village of St. Louis
witnessed the first legal hanging. George then went back to Pennsyl-
vania, grew to manhood, married and had three children, the oldest of
whom was Henry Smith, and with his family wended his way back
to his early home in Missouri.
Locating back of St. Louis about sixteen miles, on the Meramec
river, the little family started its life in the new territory, and there
the father built and operated for many years a grist mill and carding
factory, the son growing to manhood and having instilled in him les-
sons of integrity, industry and frugality which proved of inestimable
value to him in the years that followed. He became in time a practical
miller and engineer, and acquired some educational training. At
the age of nineteen years he was married to Miss Rebecca Young, and
at that time, in 1835, his father gave him one hundred acres of land.
He began to improve his property, but finding this a slow and uphill busi-
ness, he sold it for twelve hundred dollars, and removed to Southern
Illinois, locating on wild prairie land in Short's Prairie, one and one-
half miles east of Georgetown (now Steeleville), Randolph county. At
this early day there were a great many difficulties to encounter and dis-
couragements to face, and among other things he lost his first born, a
little two-year-old girl. A son, however, took her place, and following
this three boys gladdened the home, the oldest of whom, George Alex-
ander, was born while the father was attending Shurtleff Theological
College, at Upper Alton, Illinois. In 1848 Mr. Gordon's home was vis-
ited by the Death Angel, the faithful wife passing into the Beyond, and
for a time it was necessary that his little ones be cared for by others.
The youngest was taken by a brother-in-law, Captain Senica Parker, and
the latter and his wife became so attached to him that they kept and
reared him. On November 6, 1849, Rev. Gordon was again married, this
time to Mrs. Nancy Hill, of Centerville, Illinois, who had a son, Wil-
liam S. Hill. Five sons were born to Rev. and Mrs. Gordon : Abram G.,
Noel R., Charles S., Edward B. and Ora C. The entire family of ten
children were raised to man and womanhood, all were married and had
homes, and for fifty years there was not a death in the family (except
the second son, Henry, who died in 1893), from the death of his wife in
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1499
1848 until his own death in 1898. He continued to live on and improve
his farm, but failing health compelled him, in 1852, to make the long
and tedious trip across the plains to California. That year was one
when so many people were afflicted with the gold fever, and crossed the
plains in all kinds of trains in search of wealth. Rev. Gordon chose
the somewhat unique method of a team of milk cows, which furnished
him with both transportation and sustenance, and thus safely made the
long trip of six months. After a few months, finding his health re-
stored, Rev. Gordon returned home, but was in almost as bad health as
when he had started, having suffered a relapse on reaching New Or-
leans on the return trip, via the isthmus, and in 1855 gave up farming
and moved to O'Fallon, St. Clair county, to establish himself in a mer-
cantile trade, the first business of any kind at that point, now quite a
city. After about one year he again returned to the farm, but as he
had rented it for a longer period the tenant would not give it up, and
he was compelled to build another house on another piece of land, which
he increased in the years that followed to almost four hundred acres.
There he continued to live, rearing his family, until all had married and
left the home fireside, when he and his wife moved to Campbell Hill,
and after about seven years to Percy, where the remainder of his life
was spent, his death occurring at the advanced age of almost eighty-two
years.
A modest and unassuming man, Rev. Gordon never kept a diary and
was always averse to self-praise, and in this way it is hard for the
biographer to accurately trace his record of work accomplished. It was
about the year 1837, however, when he united with the Baptist church
at Georgetown, Illinois, sometimes called Steele's Mills, or Steeleville, in
honor of old Uncle George Steele, founder of the town. Shortly there-
after Rev. Gordon was asked by resolution to exercise his gift in the
way of public speaking, and after he had complied with the request was
ordained to the Gospel ministry by the usual forms of the Missionary
Baptist church. Soon realizing, however, that his education was not
adequate to this very important undertaking, and there being no facil-
ities or advantages convenient at hand, he arranged to take his fam-
ily, consisting of a wife and one child at that time, with him to Upper
Alton, Illinois, and in 1841 he entered the theological department of
Shurtleff College, in the meanwhile earning his board and that of his
wife in various ways, principally chopping cord wood and splitting rails.
When he had finished his schooling he went back to take up his work
where he had left off, and during the next eight years preached all over
Southern Illinois and became very popular. The only college man in the
association, and an able and efficient minister, he made himself generally
useful, established numerous churches, and was eventually appointed by
the association to preach throughout its limits as a missionary and to
organize various churches, the parent body at New York to pay one-half
of his salary, which was to be four hundred dollars per year. He had
entered upon this work, meeting with fair success, and was one of the
best-known members of the Nine Mile Association of the Missionary
Baptist church, when an event occurred that changed the whole re-
ligious complexion of Southern Illinois.
On April 28, 1850, in the prosecution of his work as missionary, he
organized a church at Looney Springs (now Campbell Hill), in Jack-
son county, with nine members, all of whom so far as they understood
endorsed the doctrines of the Missionary Baptist church. It was an-
nounced at the next meeting the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper would
be administered, which in the meantime was discussed in the neighbor-
hood by the members of the new church as well as others, and there was
1500 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
quite a general feeling among the members that their Methodist and
Presbyterian neighbors, of whom there were two or three in the vicinity,
might commune with them. This was said by some to be contrary to
the usages of the Baptist church, and it was agreed among themselves
that they leave the whole matter to their new pastor when he came, for
their meetings were held monthly. When the question was asked,
Rev. Gordon gave his consent, although he, to use his own words, "had
never publicly advocated free communion," but their claim was just
and their cause scriptural, "so I yielded my acquired denominational
prejudices. ' ' He had hardly got back home from his appointment when
charges were preferred against him and he was called upon to appear
before his church and give an account for this departure from Baptist
usages, for which offense he was excluded from his church. The trial
and exclusion of the Rev. H. S. Gordon from the Baptist church at
Georgetown, Randolph county, has been set forth in various places, in-
cluding the report of the committee, which is included in the "Life and
Labors of the Rev. Henry S. Gordon," from which book several quota-
tions have been made.
The work of Rev. Gordon after his expulsion from the church in
which he had labored so long and faithfully continued as follows:
"February 1, 1851, at one o'clock, the congregation assembled at the
house of Deacon John T. Short," officers were chosen, prayer said by
H. S. Gordon, and, the meeting being properly organized, proceeded
to discuss the propriety of a new church organization, the result being
the organization of the Baptist Church of Christ, under a firm consti-
tution. Shortly thereafter, Rev. Gordon organized a church at Pipe-
stone, at what is now called Denmark ; also another near Rockwood, still
called Pleasant Ridge. These four he organized into an association in
1851 and named it the Southern Illinois Association of Free Communion
Baptists, and under his ministry they grew very rapidly. To quote again
from the work above mentioned: "Brother Gordon's ability as a
preacher, his remarkable vocabulary, fine use of language, native . ora-
tory, great earnestness and natural adaptability to the work to which
he had been so unexpectedly called admirably fitted him to become the
leader of a more advanced and liberal view of Christianity" at that
time. "But it was not popularity that he was seeking. Although the
people came by thousands to hear him preach, and every service wit-
nessed conversions, frequently by the score, and every monthly meeting
baptisms," it was but the fulfilling of what he felt his bounden duty,
and a labor of love and self-sacrifice. The work broadened and enlarged
until it reached over several counties, and eventually, at a meeting in
March, 1877, a convention was called to be held at Looney Springs
church, where the new church was fused with that of the Free Will
Baptists. During all this time Brother Gordon continued to lead and
direct the work, and it would be difficult to say how really great his in-
fluence was or how far-reaching. Those who had come under his in-
fluence here transferred it to other communities, and many branches of
the church today can trace their inception to him. He seldom missed
a Sabbath, received next to no salary (he was content to receive a
pair of woolen mittens or socks, a wagon-load of pumpkins, or, as on
one occasion, a bushel of cotton seed for his labors), and "was thor-
oughly disgusted with a minister who worked so hard that his church
would have to give him a vacation every summer. The fact is that he
had but little patience with such weaklings," although for sixty years
he himself would continue to go constantly, persistently, with no let-up
or rest. He was a strict vegetarian. Always accustomed to hard work
on his farm, he was often heard to tell of a certain crop which he once
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1501
raised. It came to one hundred bushels of corn, which was hauled seven-
teen miles by wagon to sell, and for which he received a ten-dollar bill.
The latter proved counterfeit and the donor would not take it back.
"It was hard to ever forgive that fellow," was Brother Gordon's in-
variable remark when finishing this story. In finishing the sketch of
the work done by Brother Gordon, it may be well to quote from the
writing of one who knew and loved him -.
"He was systematic and orderly in his personal habits, was rather
averse to fashionable dressing and finery ; while very unaffected and un-
assuming he always graced the pulpit with dignity, and while extremely
social with all with whom he came in contact, he was always dignified
and genteel. He held moral character in very high esteem; was often
heard to say that morality was a large half of Christianity. He es-
pecially dislike untruth and deceit. He respected the opinions of those
who differed with him socially, politically or religiously, but tied him-
self down to no man's theories, notions or opinions, carefully investi-
gated for himself all subjects and doctrines that presented themselves or
came up for solution or consideration, and in all those sixty years of
public life was not sidetracked but kept steadily on, right on. * * *
He was quick to discover truth, and equally quick to detect error. In
argument he was scholarly and logical, and above all intensely scriptural.
He was a master of his text book, the Bible, quoting whole chapters
from memory. He moved around among its promises, its parables and
its miracles as familiarly as friend with friend. Nor its history, law,
poetry or prophecy were perplexing. Truly a man of God, and learned
in the deep things of His Word." His death occurred January 10,
1898, and he was laid to rest in the Jones graveyard, one mile west of
Percy. His widow survived him four years and passed away at Ava.
Originally a Whig, Rev. Gordon became a Republican on the organiza-
tion of that party, later was a Democrat, and in 1880 began to advocate
the principles of the Prohibition party.
The early life of the Rev. George Alexander Gordon was spent amid
religious surroundings, and his education was secured in the subscrip-
tion schools and the public schools of Percy and Georgetown. At the
age of eighteen years he began to attend Rev. 0. L. Barlor's Mathemati-
cal and Classical Institute, where he completed his education, and after
finishing his schooling followed farming until 1872. In that year he
embarked in the mercantile business at Percy, and in 1875 came to
Campbell Hill, continuing in the same line about eighteen years. For
some time he was editor of the Illinois Free Baptist, a religious publica-
tion, later, for five years, published the Campbell Hill Eclipse, and is
still the owner of a small printing establishment. Various enterprises
have attracted his attention, and he is the owner of a large farm, al-
though for some years he has been living in practical retirement. He is
a notary, a justice of the peace, and handles real estate and insurance,
and is a general advisor to all his fellow townsmen on matters of busi-
ness. Rev. Gordon made profession of religion in 1860, and in 1868
was ordained by the Free Baptist church. He has preached almost
continuously ever since, and for several years was an evangelist and
preached every day. He has been state agent for the Free Baptist church
for twenty-one years, seventy -five ministers and as many churches being
under his care, and is the only member of the general conference board
of twenty-one members that has been elected continuously to office since
1890. He was a delegate to the general conference at Wiers, New Hamp-
shire, in 1880; at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, in 1889; at Lowell,
Massachusetts, in 1892 ; at Winnebago, Minnesota, in 1895 ; in 1898 at
Ocean Park. Maine; and all others to date. Once a year he has gone
ToL
1502 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
East to Maine in the interests of his church. Politically he was for-
merly a Democrat, but with his father in 1880 transferred his allegiance
to the Prohibition party. He has been identified with Free Masonry
since 1868.
Rev. Gordon was born at Alton, Illinois, April 14, 1842, and on De-
cember 25, 1866, was married to Harriet Glore, who was born January
26, 1846, at Shiloh Hill, Illinois, daughter of Jeptha and Margaret
(Crisler) Glore. She was converted and joined the Free Baptist church
at Steeleville, Illinois, January 1, 1867. She has been an active worker
in the church, Sunday-school and Children's Band ever since, and has
rendered her husband invaluable assistance in his ministry. While
busied with the cares of a large household, she has always found time
to attend to her church work, and has proved herself a faithful and true
pastor's wife. Although they have had no children of their own, and
have legally adopted none, Rev. and Mrs. Gordon have reared eight chil-
dren to man and womanhood and given them the true love and affection
of parents. Like his reverend father, Rev. Gordon has great organiz-
ing ability, and has founded more than thirty churches. During his
long and faithful labor here he has baptized more than fifteen hundred
persons, and has married more couples than any one in this part of the
state. The mantle of his father's greatness has fallen upon his shoul-
ders,— shoulders that are worthy and able to carry their burden.
RUPUS E. COOK. As a man whose entire business career of nearly a
quarter of a century has been spent in Mnlkeytown, and whose activities
have served as a stimulus to the city's commercial growth and develop-
ment, Rufus E. Cook commands the respect and esteem of his associates,
and as a public official has demonstrated his efficiency in promoting
movements for the good of the community. He was born near Mulkey-
town, Franklin county, June 1, 1857, and is a son of "William H. and
Margaret (Davis) Cook.
William H. Cook was born in Kentucky, and there received a good
education, fitting himself to practice medicine. In 1848, at the start of
his medical career, he migrated to Illinois, and during the years that
followed he became widely and favorably known, traveling on horseback
all over Franklin and the adjoining counties. As a pioneer of his pro-
fession in this section, and a man of worth in every way, Dr. Cook won
and held the friendship of a wide circle of friends, and at his death, in
1872, he was sincerely mourned. Politically he was an ardent Republi-
can, but he was active rather as a director of his party 's activities than
as an office holder. Dr. Cook was married to Miss Margaret Davis, who
was born in Tennessee, daughter of Chissim Davis, who brought his
family to Illinois in 1850 and became a leading agriculturist in Franklin
county, where his death occurred in 1860. Mrs. Cook was a consistent
member of the Christian church, and she and her husband had a family
of three children, Rufus E., W. D. and R. T. Cook.
Rufus E. Cook was educated in the common schools, and when his
father died, in 1872, he was compelled to start to make his own way in
the world. Securing employment as a clerk in a general store, he worked
at various places and with a number of different employers, in the mean-
time gaining a thorough knowledge of the business which he had decided
upon as his life work. Carefully hoarding his wages, in 1888 he with his
brother, R. T. Cook, was able by borrowing $300, to engage in business on
their own account, and started with a stock worth $1,200. He met with
the usual difficulties and discouragements that beset the young mer-
chant trying to establish himself in business, and at times it seemed that
his venture would prove a disastrous one, but his persistent and untiring
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1503
efforts, his strong determination to succeed, and the experience gained
through long years of clerking, finally enabled him to pass the stage of
uncertainty and, gaining confidence, he began to branch out and enlarge
his enterprise as rapidly as he possibly could. The progressive ideas
which he introduced into the business, the strict integrity which charac-
terized every transaction, and the confidence felt by the buying public
that every article handled by him was exactly what it was represented
to be, soon gave Mr. Cook a prestige among the merchants here, and the
business flourished to such an extent that he now does the largest busi-
ness in Mulkeytown, has trade extending all over the county, and carries
a stock valued at $26,000. He was also interested in a general store busi-
ness at Christopher, in partnership with D. W. Davis, until October 1,
1911, at which time he disposed of his interests there. He is now a stock-
holder in the First National Bank of Benton and a large land owner,
conducting a productive farm in Franklin county.
In 1893 Mr. Cook was married to Miss Orben Means, daughter of
Thomas K. Means, now a farmer near Mulkeytown, who is past eighty
years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Cook have a family of six children : Frank,
who is working for his father in the store ; Ray, Neal, Ruby and Charley,
who are attending school in Mulkeytown ; and Kenneth, the baby. The
family belong to the Christian church. Mr. Cook's business enterprises
have kept him extremely busy, but he has found time to serve his com-
munity in public office. In 1894 he was the Republican candidate for
sheriff of Franklin county, was elected by a comfortable majority and
served until 1898, and he has also acted as postmaster of Mulkeytown for
two terms. It would be hard indeed to find a citizen whose activities have
been of more benefit to his community, or one who could name a greater
number of warm, personal friends.
KNOX GEE. A young man of good business judgment and ability,
Knox Gee, of Waltonville, occupies a responsible position as cashier of the
• Waltonville Bank, a private institution which was organized and is man-
aged by I. G. Gee & Company, bankers. He was born August 18, 1882,
at Fitzgerrell, Jefferson county, Illinois, a son of Dr. I. G. and Elzina J.
(Fitzgerrell) Gee. The father was at that time one of the leading physi-
cians and stock growers of Southern Illinois, but has since retired from
the practice of medicine, devoting his entire time to his large farming
interests near Mount Vernon.
Growing to manhood in Illinois, Knox Gee gleaned his early education
in the common schools, and in 1902 was graduated from the Mount Ver-
non High School. Subsequently entering the Gem City Business College
at Quincy, Illinois, he completed a course in stenography and bookkeep-
ing in 1904, and for a few months thereafter was bookkeeper for the Ful-
lerton-Powell Hardwood Lumber Company in Mount Vernon. In July,
1905, Mr. Gee accepted his present position as cashier of the Waltonville
Bank, and has since performed the duties devolving upon him in this
capacity with characteristic ability and fidelity.
The Waltonville Bank was organized in July, 1905, by Dr. I. G. Gee,
L. L. Emerson and other business men of Mount Vernon, and the leading
agriculturists and business men of Waltonville, it being a private institu-
tion with an individual responsibility of more than $500,000. It has a
capital of $15,000, with deposits of more than $80,000, and has the fol-
lowing named men as officers : President, Dr. I. G. Gee ; vice-president,
Dr. 0. P. Norris ; cashier, Knox Gee ; and assistant cashier, J. B. Martin.
Mr. Gee married, January 1, 1911, Sona Mannen, a daughter of S. S.
and Eliza S. (Stewart) Mannen, her father being one of the extensive
farmers and stock growers of Jefferson county, his valuable farming
1504 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
estate lying near Waltonville. Fraternally Mr. Gee is a member of
Mount Vernon Lodge, No. 31, Ancient Free and Accepted Order of
Masons, of Mount Vernon, Illinois, and religiously he belongs to the Bap-
tist church.
CHARLES EDWARD MAYNARD. A man of broad, ideas and wide vision,
Charles Edward Maynard, former editor, part owner and business man-
ager of the Greenville Sun, is one of the most intelligent newspaper men
of Southern Illinois. He was born in Greenville, Illinois, May 10, 1884,
a son of Alfred Maynard, and is of good old New England stock.
Born in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, Franklin county, Alfred
Maynard was there brought up and educated. At the age of twenty
years he made his way westward to Greenville, and soon found employ-
ment in the general store of W. S. Dann. A few years later, on the death
of Mr. Dann, the business was reorganized as the F. P. Joy Company,
and he has since been an active member of the firm, at the present time
having charge of the shoe department. Mr. Maynard is a man of much
force of character and is prominent in church and Sunday-school work.
He was formerly a member of the Congregational church, and when that
church united with the Presbyterian church under the name of the latter,
he became a leading member of the Presbyterian church. In 1882 he
married Mary Elizabeth Butler, a daughter of Elijah and Nancy Butler,
the latter of whom died in March, 1911. Mr. Butler was a photographer
in Effingham, Illinois, until 1904, when he retired from active business
pursuits. Five children .blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred May-
nard, as follows : Hattie N., who owned a half interest in the Greenville
Sun; Charles Edward, of whom this brief sketch is chiefly written ; J.
Louise ; Grace E. ; and Ina A. In his political affiliations the father is a
strong Prohibitionist, and fraternally he belongs to the Modern Wood-
men of America.
Educated in Greenville, Charles E. Maynard was graduated from the
high school with the class of 1902, and subsequently continued his studies
for a year at Greenville College. In February, 1905, having a genuine
taste for journalism, he became connected with the Sun as a reporter, and
he found newspaper work so congenial that in November, 1905, with Mr.
F. H. Floyd, he purchased the paper from its owner, Mr. W. C. Wright.
In the fall of 1909 Mr. Floyd sold his interest in the paper to Miss Hattie
N. Maynard, a sister of Mr. Maynard, and the two have been conducting
it most successfully. The Sun, a Democratic organ, with a decided in-
clination towards independence in thought and expressed opinions, has
been a semi-weekly since 1905, and under the vigorous direction of Mr.
Maynard came rapidly to the front, becoming one of the leading and pro-
gressive journals of Southern Illinois, noted for its fearlessness in at-
tacking machine politics, and in its agitation of pure and clean municipal
elections, as well as its progressive attitude in regard to city affairs. The
plant was thoroughly equipped for job and advertising work, being
modern in its improvements. Six men were employed in the printing de-
partment, four in the office, and in addition a large corps of county cor-
respondents and city carriers were found on its pay roll. The paper had
a wide circulation in the county, and was in every way in a flourishing
and thriving condition when Mr. Maynard disposed of the plant early in
1912. Mr. Maynard is a Democrat and a member of the Maccabees.
On August 30, 1911, Mr. Maynard was united in marriage with Miss
Mabel Pearl Jones, of Robinson, Illinois, a young lady of talent and cul-
ture, who for a year prior to her marriage was a student in the music
department of Greenville College.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1505
HUGH VINCENT MURRAY. A well known lawyer of Clinton county,
now serving as state's attorney, Hugh Vincent Murray, of Carlyle, is
the possessor of good mental abilities, well trained, and through close
application and persistent attention to his business has gained a high
standing in his profession. He was born September 2, 1870, in Carlyle,
Illinois, which was likewise the birthplace of his father, Matthew P.
Murray.
The paternal grandfather of Hugh Vincent Murray, Peter Murray,
was born June 27, 1812, and bred in Ireland. In early manhood he came
to America, the promised land for many immigrants, and for a while
after arriving here lived in the east. Subsequently, following the path-
way of civilization westward, he located in Illinois, and for a time was the
owner of a tract of land that is now included within the very heart of
the city of Chicago. The land being seemingly of little value, he traded
it for a steamboat and a poor farm a short distance north of Carlyle. He
finally settled permanently in Clinton county, Illinois, and was here a
resident until his death, which occurred November 3, 1873, when he was
sixty-one years of age. He was twice married and his second wife is still
living. Of the seven children of his first marriage, Matthew P. Murray
was the fifth child in order of birth. By his second marriage Peter Mur-
ray was the father of nine children.
Matthew P. Murray's birth occurred January 31, 1847, in Carlyle, Illi-
nois, and his early days were spent on the farm. Receiving a limited edu-
cation in the rural schools, he subsequently continued his studies as
opportunity occurred,' thus through his own efforts acquiring a substan-
tial foundation for his future professional knowledge. When he was a
youth of eighteen years he left home, and during the summer seasons
worked as a farm laborer, while in the winters he taught school. In
the meantime he read law under G. Van Hoorebecke, and in 1871 was
admitted to the bar. Immediately beginning the practice of his profes-
sion in Carlyle, he tutored Robert Andrews, a Carlyle school teacher,
who had been admitted to the Indiana bar and desired to prepare him-
self for admission to the Illinois bar. When Mr. Andrews was finally ad-
mitted to the Illinois bar, Mr. Matthew P. Murray formed a partnership
with him which lasted until 1880. when Mr. Murray was elected state's
attorney for Clinton county, the partnership, however, continuing until
1885, when Mr. Andrews was appointed land attorney in the WTashing-
ton land office. For sixteen years Mr. Murray served as state 's attorney,
and in 1896 was appointed master in chancery, a position which he filled
several years. In 1902 he went to St. Louis, where he became general
counsel of the Missouri Trust Company, later the Missouri-Lincoln Trust
Company, and in that city he has since been successfully engaged in the
practice of law. While living in Carlyle he had the reputation of being
one of the best lawyers in Southern Illinois, and he now ranks high in his
profession in St. Louis. He is a sound Democrat in politics, and a mem-
ber of the Catholic church.
In 1869 Matthew P. Murray married Mary Ann McGaffigan, who was
born in Brooklyn, New York, and died in Carlyle, Illinois, in 1901.
Their union was blessed by a large family of children, as follows : Hugh
Vincent; Julia Mary; Nano Agnes; Cecelia, the wife of R. E. Christian;
Matthew P., Jr., who is connected with the East St. Louis Union Trust
& Savings Bank; Mark D., deceased; Andrew P., also deceased; Richard
L., cashier of the State Savings Bank of Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois ;
Irene, the wife of Dr. W. J. Schneider, of Chicago ; George E. and P. E.
Dolor, both of whom are studying law.
Receiving his elementary education in the parochial schools. Hugh
Vincent Murray was graduated with the degree of A. B. from St. Jo-
1506 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
seph's College in Teutopolis, Illinois, in 1889. He afterwards taught
school two years, in the meantime studying law with his father, and in
1894 was admitted to the Illinois bar. From 1894 to 1895 he was a mem-
ber of the legal firm of Murray, McHale & Murray in East St. Louis. The
partnership being then dissolved, Mr. Murray came back to Carlyle and
in 1896 was elected a representative to the state legislature, in which
he served one term. Going to Chicago in 1897, he was employed as a
clerk in law offices for two years, when in 1899 he was appointed assistant
city prosecutor and formed a partnership with J. J. Feely, who was
elected to Congress in 1900 over William Lorimer, and served in that
capacity until 1902. Mr. Murray then returned to Carlyle to close up his
father's business, but instead of going back to the busy city on the lake,
he concluded to remain in Carlyle. He succeeded his father as master
in chancery and held that office until 1908, when he was elected state's
attorney, a position for which he is eminently fitted, and which he is
filling with honor to himself and to the fullest satisfaction of all con-
cerned.
Mr. Murray married on February 16, 1904, Mary Ellen Hogan, a
daughter of Michael E. Hogan, of Altamont, Illinois, and into the home
thus established three children made their advent, namely : Mary Ellen,
Hugh Vincent, Jr., and Matthew Edward.
Mr. Murray is a Democrat in his political allegiance and has done
good work for the party in various ways. He is a member of the
Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Knights of Illinois, the Catholic Or-
der of Foresters, and the Modern Woodmen of 'America, and both he
and his wife are members of the Catholic church.
CHARLES W. GRIM. From the farm to the vice presidency of a modern
bank may seem a far cry to the uninitiated, but that is the record of
Charles W. Grim. A farmer in Franklin county between the years of
1890 and 1906, he made a reputation for himself among the progressive
agriculturists of Southern Illinois that was most enviable, and he not only
made a record, but he made a comfortable fortune as well. In 1906 he
assumed the vice presidency of the West Frankfort State Bank, likewise
the positions of manager and cashier, and he has occupied those positions
with all credit and efficiency since that time. He is generally regarded
in West Frankfort as one of the representative and most valuable mem-
bers of society in that place, and is particularly active in every move-
ment calculated to be an uplift to the welfare of the community of which
he is a part.
Charles W. Grim was born in Franklin county, Illinois, three miles
southwest of Frankfort, on March 28, 1867. He is the son of William L.
and Mary M. (Ratts) Grim, both of whom were born in Washington
county, Indiana. The grandfather of Charles W. Grim was Jesse Grim,
born in Kentucky and there reared. In 1858 he moved to Illinois with
his family and settled on a farm in Franklin county. There he was
farmer, while in Indiana he was a merchant and hotel keeper, and during
his life in that district was connected with many other occupations of a
similar nature. The maternal grandfather of Charles W. Grim was Rein-
ard Ratts, born in North Carolina, and moved to Washington county, In-
diana, early in life. He lived and died on his farm in Indiana, after hav-
ing reared a family of ten children.
William L. Crim came to Illinois in 1858 with his father, as mentioned
above, and there he bought forty acres of farm land. He returned to In-
diana about the time the Civil war broke out and enlisted in Company E,
Fifth Indiana Cavalry, serving three years in the defense of the Union.
He was captured in Stoneman's raid and thrown into Libby prison,
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1507
where he remained for some months. Upon his release he was discharged
and sent home to Indiana. Arriving home, he prepared to move his little
family to his Illinois farm, and in 1866 he settled on the place, clearing
it up as rapidly as possible, and he soon began to farm and trade. He
also gave a portion of his time to preaching, and for forty years preached
in the Christian church. He was railroad and warehouse commissioner
during the tenure of office of Governor Joseph Pifer, and he was a mem-
ber of the state legislature. He was defeated for Congress on the Repub-
lican nomination, the country being solidly Democratic at that time, but
he was able to cut the Democratic vote by two thousand votes over pre-
vious elections. He was always a Republican, and cast his first vote for
John C. Fremont. A successful business man, as well as being prominent
in political circles, William Grim accumulated a valuable estate, and
when he died in 1909 he was regarded as one of the wealthy men of his
section and one of the best known men in Southern Illinois.
Charles W. Grim passed through the schools of Franklin, following
which he spent a year in study in the Old College Building at Carbon-
dale. Later he went to a select school at Benton, but his declining health
made it necessary for him to give up his studies and take advantage of a
change of climate. He went to Colorado, and for a year he roughed it on
a sheep and cattle ranch. The experience was sufficient to restore him to
full health and vigor, and when he returned to Illinois in 1890 he bought
a farm and became actively engaged in the farming industry. He pros-
pered in that business from the time he entered it until in 1906, when he
gave up rural life in all its attractions and moved with his family to "West
Frankfort, where he became connected with the West Frankfort State
Bank, a thriving institution with a capital of $25,000 and average de-
posits of $125,000. He is vice president of the bank, as well as cashier
and manager. In addition to those offices he is treasurer of the West
Frankfort Building and Loan Association, and conducts a private loan
business, as well as being actively interested in numerous outside enter-
prises. Mr. Grim is the owner of three hundred and thirty acres of the
finest farm land in Southern Illinois, and with his various other holdings
is with good reason regarded as one of the wealthiest men of West Frank-
fort. He is a public spirited, progressive citizen, and his affiliation with
local affairs has always been for the betterment of the welfare of the com-
munity.
On December 13, 1893, Mr. Grim married Miss Lillie B. Cox. She is a
daughter of Lewis W. Cox, of La Fayette county, Missouri, a one time
farmer, banker and always a well-to-do man of affairs. He left an estate
of $100,000 at his death. Mr. and Mrs. Grim are the parents of one child,
Jessie, now in school. They are members of the Christian church.
DOUGLASS Moss, cashier of the Bank of Tola, and junior member of
the mercantile firm of Jackson, Moss & Company, has had a wide range
of vision during an active career, and has acquired from it a spirit of
progress which makes him one of the most enterprising and useful citi-
zens of his adopted community. For some years he has been busily en-
gaged in breeding high-grade stock at his various farms situated near
lola, but withal he has found time to interest himself actively in public
matters, and is known as one of the leading Democrats of his part of the
county. Mr. Moss was born January 31, 1874, in Bond county, Illinois,
and is a son of A. W. and Elizabeth (Thompson) Moss, natives of Bond
county.
John Moss, the paternal great-grandfather of Douglass, was a native
of North Carolina, from whence he enlisted in the Colonial army during
the Revolutionary war, and served as a color-bearer under General
1508 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
George Washington. His son, William Moss, also a native of the Tar Heel
state, moved to Illinois during the early 'thirties, settling in Bond county,
where he became a well-known and substantial agriculturist. Among his
children was James Moss, a wealthy citizen of Bond county, Illinois, who
died in 1907. A. W. Moss, father of Douglass, served as a soldier during
the Civil war, was for a number of years engaged in the milling business,
and subsequently turned his attention to farming. He is now living at
Lovington, Moultrie county, Illinois, where he is known as a stanch Demo-
crat and a faithful member of the Baptist church. His wife, who was
connected with the Christian denomination, died in 1881. She was a
daughter of James Thompson, who was born in Virginia, where his father
was a wealthy planter and slave owner. James Thompson came to Illi-
nois at an early day and settled in Bond county. He married a Miss Jett,
and Thomas N., ex-congressman, present circuit judge of this district, and
prominent Democratic politician is a nephew of Mr. Thompson's wife.
One of the children of A. W. and Elizabeth Moss, W. C. Moss, now living
at Owaneco, Christian county, Illinois, was for many years a railroad
man, but is now successfully following farming.
Douglass Moss was educated in the Orchard City College, at Flora,
after leaving which he adopted the profession of an educator and for the
following six years taught school. After acting as principal at lola for
three years and acting in the same capacity at Bible Grove for two years
he engaged in the mercantile business in lola, in 1900, with C. A. Jack-
son. Mr. Moss has left and reentered the business four times since that
date, and is now a member of the firm of Jackson, Moss & Company,
which is doing a thriving business in and around lola. In 1908 he was
made cashier of the Bank of lola, a private institution capitalized at
$10,000. In addition he owns several farms in the vicinity of lola, and
there he is extensively engaged in the breeding of jennets. Mr. Moss has
always manifested an active interest in Democratic politics, and in 1904
he was candidate for county surveyor. The Republican party in this
county was too strong, and he met with defeat. At present he is county
Democratic committeeman from his township, and is a hard and faithful
worker. Mr. Moss is connected with Masonic Lodge, No. 691, lola, and
also belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America, in both of which he is
deservedly popular. From his childhood he has made his way in the
world, even educating himself, and the success that is his today has come
entirely through the medium of his own efforts. Mr. Moss has numerous
friends in the vicinity of his home, and he and his family are held in the
highest respect and esteem by all who have made their acquaintance.
In 1900 Mr. Moss was married to Miss Mary E. Vincent, daughter of
Alexander Vincent, an early settler, prosperous farmer and Civil war
veteran of Clay county, where he died. Three children have been born to
Mr. and Mrs. Moss : Frank and Lee, who are attending school ; and Vir-
ginia, the baby. Mrs. Moss is a consistent member of the Methodist Epis-
copal church, and is well known in social circles of lola.
WILLIAM A. RODENBEEG. When it is stated that Mr. Rodenberg is serv-
ing his fifth term as a representative from Illinois in the United States
Congress, adequate evidence is given of his strong hold upon the confi-
dence and esteem of the people of his native state as well as of his ability
and sterling integrity of purpose. He has honored the state of his na-
tivity through his worthy services in public office of high order; he has
been in the most significant sense the artificer of his own fortunes ; and,
maintaining his home in the city of East St. Louis, St. Clair county, he
is known as one of the representative members of the bar of Southern
Illinois. Prior to entering the legal profession Mr. Rodenberg had gained
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1509
definite success and prestige as a teacher in the public schools of Illinois,
and his career has been marked by consecutive and well ordered endeavor,
the while his influence has at all times been given to the furtherance of
those things which represent the best in the scheme of human existence.
Animated by high ideals, sincere and firm in his convictions and prin-
ciples, broad-minded and progressive as a citizen, he has achieved suc-
cess worthy of the name, and as one of the representative citizens of
Southern Illinois, a section to which this publication is dedicated, he well
merits specific recognition in these pages.
Hon. William A. Rodenberg was born at Chester, the judicial center
of Randolph county, Illinois, and the date of his nativity was October
30, 1865. He is a son of Rev. Charles and Anna (Walters) Rodenberg,
both of whom are deceased, and his father was in active service as a
clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal church for forty-two years, — a
man of exalted character and high intellectual attainments and one whose
life was one of zealous consecration to his calling. To the public
schools of his native state William A. Rodenberg is indebted for his early
educational discipline, which was supplemented by an effective course in
Central Wesleyan College, at Warrenton, Missouri, in which he was grad-
uated as a member of the class of 1884 and from which he received the
degree of Bachelor of Arts. He gave his attention to the work of the
pedagogic profession for seven years, and his success in this field of en-
deavor was of unequivocal order. For five years of the period noted he
was principal of the public schools at Mount Olive, Macoupin county.
In the meanwhile he had taken up the study of law, and he continued to
prosecute his technical studies, under excellent preceptorship, until h&
proved himself eligible for admission to the bar, in 1901. Aside from his
service in public office he has since been engaged in the active practice
of his profession, in which he has gained prestige as an able and ver-
satile trial lawyer and well fortified counselor. He has maintained his
home in East St. Louis, and here his law practice has been of broad scope
and importance involving his interposition in many important litigations.
In 1898 Mr. Rodenberg was elected to represent his district of Illinois
in Congress, as candidate on the ticket of the Republican party, of whose
principles and policies he is a stalwart and effective exponent. He made
an excellent record during his first term, but, owing to normal political
exigencies, was. defeated for re-election in 1900. In the following year he
was appointed a member of the United States civil service commission,
but he resigned this office in 1902, to become again a candidate for Con-
gress, to which he was elected by a gratifying majority. Through suc-
cessive reelections he has since remained the incumbent of this distin-
guished office and he has proved one of the active and valued working
members of the lower house of the national legislature, in which he has
served on various important house committees and taken a prominent
part in the deliberations of the floor and the committee room.
Mr. Rodenberg is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Bene-
volent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and other
representative civic organizations, and both he and his wife hold member-
ship in the Methodist Episcopal church.
On the 30th of April, 1904, Mr. Rodenberg was united in marriage to
Miss Mary Grant Ridgway of Asbury Park, New Jersey, and they have
one child, William Ridgway.
REV. JAMES T. ALSUP. The city of Vienna, Illinois, is fortunate in
the character of its representatives of the ministerial profession, and one
of the most highly respected and gifted men now engaged in that line of
work here is the Rev. James T. Alsup, pastor of the Church of Christ.
1510 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Rev. Alsup springs from a strain of sturdy pioneer stock, it having been
his grandfather, James Alsup, who settled in Massac county in 1841, his
death occurring shortly after that date. He had lived in the Choctaw
nation for a time before coming to Illinois.
James T. Alsup was born July 13, 1864, in Unionville, Massac
county, Illinois, a son of William Alsup, who was a native of Tennessee.
His wife was Hannah C. Neal, also a native of Tennessee, who came to
Massac county from near Nashville. They had a family of four children,
all of whom are living as follows: Mrs. Dora Pierce, Mrs. Annie
Hight, Robert and James T. The elder Alsup was a blacksmith by
trade, and he died when James T. was but a small boy and the son was
accordingly obliged to make his own way from a very early age. After
the father's death the mother moved with her family to Johnson county,
Illinois, and when ten years old James in order to lift a portion of the
burden of the support of the family from her shoulders hired out to a
farmer. He continued to thus work until his eighteenth year, when he
decided to supplement his meager schooling with further study and
entered the public school. Later he became a pupil at a select school,
where he studied under the tutorage of Professor W. Y. Smith for
two years.
The summer of 1888 marked the beginning of Rev. Alsup 's career as
a minister of the Christian church, his ordination taking place soon after
he had started to preach. In January, 1889, he accepted a call to the
Metropolis, Illinois, Christian church, and retained that charge for two
years. He then resigned in order to pursue higher studies and entered
Eureka College, remaining there five years, receiving his degree of
Bachelor of Arts in 1896. While attending college Rev. Alsup devoted
a portion of his time to preaching, filling at various times the pulpits of
Pontiac, Flanagan, Saunemin and Cerro Gordo, all of which were located
near Eureka College.
He responded to a call from the Washington, Illinois, church in
1896, and remained with that charge for two years, at the expiration of
which period he accepted the appointment of state evangelist at the
hands of the State Board of Christian Missions. This evangelical work
he continued for a year and then, having received an urgent call from the
Pekin, Illinois, Church of Christ, he took up work there and served for
three years, severing his connection with the charge in April of 1902.
It was while a resident of Pekin that Rev. Alsup suffered bereavement in
the loss of his first wife, her demise occurring in October, 1901. She was
Mollie Davison. daughter of Amazinah and Jane Davison, and her mar-
riage to Mr. Alsup took place in 1892. They became the parents of four
children, Janet, Winifred, Errett and Vivian.
In 1902 Rev. Alsup decided to seek a change of location and selected
as his choice Harrison county, Missouri. Purchasing a farm at that
point, he continued to live thereon with his family, cultivating the land,
teaching and preaching and doing a great amount of good. For seven
years he continued to pursue this mode of life and character of activity
in Missouri, when a desire to return to his old home state seized him and
he went back to Metropolis. Illinois, remaining there until the spring of
1911, when he returned to his first charge in Vienna.
While in Missouri, in January, 1904, Rev. Alsup married his second
wife, who was Miss Josie L. North, of Washington, Illinois, daughter of
Luther S. and Ellen North. To this union three children were born, two
of whom are living. James and William.
Rev. Alsup is a man of good business ability and he has accumulated
some valuable property, among his holdings being a two hundred acre
farm near Vienna, which he purchased in 1908. He is active in social
life and is a member of the Modern Woodmen and Court of Honor lodges
OF (HE
UttEBSITY OFHUK3
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1511
and is also a Mason. As a minister he is a man of power, a forceful
speaker and endowed with marked oratorical ability. He possesses great
energy and has many pleasing personal qualities and a sterling character
that have won for him the highest respect and esteem of all with whom
he comes in contact.
GEORGE YOUNG HORD. Prominent among the professional men of
Clinton county, Illinois, is George Young Hord, M. D., a pioneer resident
of the city of Keyesport and a physician who during the thirty years
that he has been engaged in practice here has won the respect and esteem
of the people of the community and an enviable reputation in the ranks
of his profession. Dr. Hord was born January 17, 1849, in Metcalfe
county, Kentucky, and is a son of Thomas H. and Elizabeth (Young)
Hord.
Dr. Thomas H. Hord was born March 27, 1819, in the State of Vir-
ginia, and as a young man moved to Kentucky, where he received his
medical training in the College of Medicine, Louisville. In 1845 he began
to practice medicine, and some time later removed to Texas, but eventu-
ally returned to Kentucky after a few years spent in the mercantile
and land business, and in 1867 came to Illinois and located near Keyes-
port, where he followed his profession up to the time of his death in
1883. He was married in Kentucky in 1846 to Miss Elizabeth Young,
daughter of George Young, a farmer, and she bore him four children, of
whom three are now living: Catherine, George Young and James K.
Mrs. Hord died, and about the time of the outbreak of the Civil war, Dr.
Hord was married (second) to Elizabeth Sandifer, also a native of Ken-
tucky, and three children were born to this union. His widow survived
him several years. Prior to the war Dr. Hord was a Whig in politics and
was well known in the political field and a prominent man in his pro-
fession.
George Young Hord spent his early life in Metcalfe county, Ken-
tucky, receiving his early education in the public schools and later attend-
ing Transylvania University, at Lexington, the Belleville Medical Col-
lege, New York, and the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, from which
latter institution he received the degree of M. D. in 1877. After prac-
ticing his profession in his native state for five years Dr. Hord came to
Keyesport, where he has since carried on a large and lucrative practice.
A great reader, deep thinker and earnest student, Dr. Hord is one of
the best-informed men of his locality today, not only in matters pertain-
ing to his profession, but on various topics of the times. He has also of
later years given a great deal of attention to farming, and owns a well-
cultivated farm near Keyesport, on which he spends a great deal of his
time. Politically he is a Democrat, but he has never cared to engage in
public life, as his profession has demanded the greater part of his activi-
ties. He holds membership in the Modern Woodmen of America, in
which he is very popular, and is also connected with the state, county
and national medical associations.
While in Kentucky Dr. Hord was united in marriage with Miss Betty
Stephenson, and seven children have been born to this union : Harley
Thomas, a well-known educator, who is now serving as principal of the
Keyesport schools ; Eunice Prances, who became the wife of Charles Aus-
tin, of Salem. Illinois ; Mary, who is clerk in the Bank of Keyesport ; and
Lena Grace, George Stephenson, Flora and Helen, all of whom live with
their parents and are attending school.
JOSEPH BURNS CROWLEY. According to Emerson "a strenuous soul
hates cheap successes." and we wonder if this is not the attitude of
Joseph B. Crowley, of Robinson, Illinois. He is now one of the best
1512 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
lawyers in his section of the country, and is well known as one of the
members of the Democratic party, upon whom they may always depend.
He has won the confidence of the people by his attempts, which were
usually successful, to carry out their desires, and they have given evi-
dence of their trust in him many times by electing him to various re-
sponsible positions. He is thoroughly alive to the political and industrial
crisis that this country is now facing, and his influence is being strongly
felt on the side of good government and a general political house clean-
ing from cellar to garret. He has been entirely unselfish, if such a
thing is possible to human nature', in his whole public life, having the
good of his constituents and the advancement of his country much more
at heart than his own aggrandizement.
Joseph Burns Crowley was born at Coshocton, Ohio, on the 19th of
July, 1858. He was the son of Samuel Burns Crowley, who was also
a native of Coshocton. The latter was a carpenter and a builder by
trade, but most of his life was devoted to other pursuits. He was a man
in whom patriotism was no surface enthusiasm, instigated by waving
flags and bands of music, but a deeply planted, instinctive feeling that
made him ever responsive to the call of his country. He first saw mil-
itary service in the Mexican war, and after it was over returned to
Coshocton county, expecting to spend the rest of his life in peace. The
residents of his county, however thought they could do no better than
to elect a man who was famous for his personal strength and bravery
sheriff of the county. He served one term as deputy sheriff and one
term as sheriff, and then left Ohio for Illinois. He located, in 1859,
upon a farm in Jasper county, and no sooner had he gotten his farm
into operation than he dropped the hoe to again shoulder the musket.
This time he was to take a hand in saving his beloved country from be-
ing shattered into fragments. He was made captain of his company, the
Seventy-second Volunteer Infantry of Illinois, and was sent directly
to the front. He served through all four years of the war, acquitting
himself with honor, and at the close, with a contented feeling of duty
well performed, again settled down in Jasper county. Here he served
two terms as sheriff, and in 1872 came to Robinson, Illinois. The buying
and selling of horses now became his business and he followed this oc-
cupation until his death, in December, 1895.
Captain Crowley married Elizabeth Williams, of Coshocton, Ohio.
Eight children were born to this couple, of whom five are living. The
politics of Captain Crowley were Democratic, and he and his family were
faithful attendants of the Presbyterian church. In the social organiza-
tions he was a member of the Masonic order and of the Royal Arcanum.
Joseph B. Crowley was the sixth child of his parents, and spent his
childhood days on the farm in Jasper county and in the town of New-
ton. His youth was lived amid times of great distress and trouble. His
father was away at the front for a number of years, and when he did
come back times were hard and it was a continual struggle to feed and
clothe the family. In spite of this little Joseph did not lack educational
advantages. He was sent first through the grammar school of Newton,
and later attended the high school at the same place.
It was, however, when boys of today would be thinking solely of bats
and baseball that the young Crowley was set astride a horse and given
a sack of mail to carry over a star route, a distance of some forty miles.
After this experience he felt equal to handling anything, so set up in
business for himself, the field of his venture being the retail drug and
grocery business. He had no wish to become a merchant. This was
merely a means to an end, which was the Law. Economy was a close
friend of his during the days following, but after a time he was able to
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1513
make a beginning leading to the attainment of his ambition. He began
to read law in the offices of Parker and Olwin, under the direction of
George N. Parker, who is his present partner. In 1883 he was ad-
mitted to the bar and his partnership with Mr. Parker was formed at
that time. It has existed without a break up to the present time, and a
large amount of the legal business of the county passes through the
hands of the firm.
Political interests have taken up a large part of Mr. Crowley's time
since his first entrance into the most exciting field of endeavor offered
by modern civilization. His first office was that of county judge, in
which capacity he served for seven years. In 1893 he was appointed by
President Cleveland as chief of the special treasury agents in charge of
the seal fisheries of Alaska. He was re-appointed to this office by Presi-
dent McKinley in 1897, but resigned in 1898 to give his time to the
campaign in which he was forced, through his nomination for congress,
to take a leading part. He was elected to the United States congress
and served in that body for three terms, retiring in 1904. At this time
he returned to Robinson and again took up the practice of law which
had held first place in his heart through all the years that he had given
to other duties.
Mr. Crowley was married on December 1, 1888, to Alice A. Newlin,
a daughter of Alexander Newlin, a prominent farmer of Crawford
county. Judge and Mrs. Crowley have two children, a son and a daugh-
ter: Emily J., who has completed the course given in the Robinson high
school, and Joseph B., who is yet a student.
Judge Crowley is a Presbyterian in his religious affiliations. He is
very much interested in the brotherly spirit manifested in the fraternal
organizations and gives his hearty support to the various ones of which
he is a member. He is a Mason and has taken all the degrees in this
order up to the Knights Templar. He is a member of the Knights of
Pythias, of the Elks and of the Modern Woodmen of America, being ac-
tive in the work of all these organizations. His progressive spirit makes
him a valued member of the Commercial Club, of which he has been a
member for a number of years.
GEORGE E. DODD. The first of the Dodd family to settle in America
was John Dodd, the great-grandfather of George E. Dodd of this review.
He was a native of Scotland, and he immigrated to America in about
1760, settling in Virginia in that year. He was a farmer by occupation,
and of good old sturdy Scottish blood. He was of the Protestant religion,
and in the early life of the colonies he took a prominent part. He fought
in the War of the Revolution for four and a half years, and was present
at Yorktown at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Of the next of the
Dodd family the record is not clear, but it is known that he settled in
Illinois and there reared a family. His son, William J. Dodd, the father
of George E., was born in Saline county, Illinois, on July 3, 1844. (Sa-
line county was then a part of Gallatin county.) He also was a farmer,
and as the son of a farmer his early education was somewhat limited.
There were no free or common schools as exists today, but the youth of his
period were dependent upon the subscription school for such learning as
they acquired. He was of the same religion as his progenitors, that of
the Primitive Baptist church, and was a Democrat in his political faith
and allegiance. His wife was Hannah Stocks, a woman of English par-
entage, born in Williamson county, Illinois, on September 12, 1848.
George E. Dodd was born at Eldorado, Illinois, on the 12th of No-
vember, 1883. He attended the schools of Eldorado, and after his grad-
uation from the Eldorado high school he attended the Northern Illinois
1514 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Normal College of Law, and was graduated from that institution with
the class of 1906. In the same year he was admitted to the bar of the
state of Illinois, and appearing before the board of examiners at Spring-
field, Illinois, and he initiated the practice of his profession in Eldorado
as a partner of W. S. Summers, this association continuing until May,
1908. Between the years of 1908 and 1911 he was engaged in practice
with K. C. Ronalds, and is now conducting an independent practice in
Eldorado.
Mr. Dodd has been city attorney of Eldorado for one year and since
his association with that place as a man of business he has been active in
his labors for the betterment of the general good. He has done much to
better the conditions of the public schools as a member of the board of
education for three years, and of which important body he is still a mem-
ber. He has been foremost in the work of Eldorado in the matter of local
option and has done much for the cause thus far. He is not connected
with any church. Mr. Dodd is a man of considerable civic pride, and in
whatever city he finds himself it is safe to assume that he will bear the
full share of a good citizen with relation to the uplift and betterment of
that city.
On January 17, 1908, Mr. Dodd was married at Charles City, Iowa,
to Gertrude Rowley, a daughter of Bertrand and Mary (Usher) Rowley.
Bertrand Rowley is a prominent farmer and dairyman of Charles City,
Iowa, well and favorably known there for many years. He claims among
his remote ancestry relationship with Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuart
family of England. Mrs. Dodd was educated in the Charles City schools,
later, graduating from the Charles City College, the Dixon College of Pen-
manship and Drawing and the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illi-
nois. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dodd : Halbert W.,
born April 26, 1909, and Everett B., born November 20, 1910.
OLIVER JACOB PAGE is the editor and proprietor of the Marion Daily
Leader, the first Republican paper in Williamson county to survive the
animosities and antagonisms of the strenuous days after the Civil war and
one of the leading county journals of Southern Illinois. Mr. Page has
been identified with this paper for a decade, and came into possession of
it from its founder, J. P. Copeland. who conducted it as a weekly paper,
and converted it into a daily in 1908. It was established as a Republican
organ and it has continued as such through all the crises of newspaper
annals and the flag of party has never been lowered or dipped in financial
defeat.
Mr. Page came to Marion from Metropolis, Illinois, where he was for
three and a half years editor of the Journal-Republican, following his
retirement from a long service as a public-school man. He served Me-
tropolis as superintendent of schools for three years, served its high
school as principal previously and came to that position from the faculty
of Exireka College where he was a professor for one year. He began his
graded school work with the principalship of the Hndsonville high school
and did his very first work as a teacher in the country schools.
Recurring to his birth, Mr. Page was born in Richland county, Illi-
nois, August 2. 1867, and grew up in Crawford county, on the banks of
the Wabash. His father was Jacob Page, born in Quebec, Canada, in
1823, and died at Danville, Illinois, in 1868. He was a millwright by
occupation, was of French lineage, and married, in Lawrence county,
Illinois, Miss Caroline Long, a daughter of William Long, of Pennsyl-
vania German stock. She still resides in Crawford county, Illinois, and
is now Mrs. Wright, aged seventy-eight years.
Oliver J. Page was his father's only child and he grew up under the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1515
benign influence of his mother. He became"" acquainted with rural en-
vironment during the period of youth and it impressed him indelibly and
has served him well through the serious years of his life. Teaching of-
fered him the best opportunity, considering his situation and his inclina-
tions, and he made it the stepping-stone to another and broader educa-
tional field — journalism. He was drawn into politics when he entered
the newspaper profession and was elected to the Forty -first general as-
sembly from Massac county in 1898. He entered the lower house of the
state's legislative body as a Republican and his committee assignments
were congenial. He was chairman of the committee on federal relations
and was the author of the resolution to condemn the old Lincoln monu-
ment, which passed both houses and was signed by the governor. He was
made chairman of the special committee to investigate the monument
and report its findings. The committee report recommended an appro-
priation for a new monument and he introduced a bill appropriating one
hundred thousand dollars to that end. Immediately upon the passage of
the bill work was begun and the new structure marking the resting-place
of the martyred president was dedicated.
During the session Mr. Page introduced a resolution instructing Sen-
ator W. E. Mason, then strongly antagonistic to the administration of
President McKinley upon the questions involved in settling the status of
the Philippines, to vote for the ratification of the peace treaty with Spain,
which ratification the senator had publicly declared he would oppose.
The resolution passed both houses within an hour, was officially signed
and was forwarded to the obstreperous senator within forty-eight hours
and its contents gave him a change of heart.
Of the thirteen joint resolutions passed by the general assembly, Mr.
Page wrote and introduced three and of the one hundred and five bills
that became laws he wrote and introduced the same number. He mani-
fested an active interest in legislation pertaining to public education and
in a bill relating to contracts for public printing, which was passed as a
result of his labor, several thousand dollars were saved for the common-
wealth. The latter was prepared by the secretary of state and was man-
aged in the house by Mr. Page. His apparent interest in all legislation
pertaining to the welfare of the state and his ability to present his side
of any controversy before the assembly gained to him high rank among
the members of that body.
In 1900 Mr. Page was the Republican candidate for the office of clerk
of the southern district of the supreme court of the state, a district com-
prising thirty-four counties, and he was the first and only Republican
ever elected to that office. He succeeded Jacob Chance and was the effi-
cient incumbent of the office two years. He competed for the Republican
nomination to Congress in 1906, but lost, and was nominated for presi-
dential elector in 1908. when he met with the other electors at Spring-
field and cast a silk ballot for William H. Taft for president and another
for James S. Sherman for vice-president.
Mr. Page was married at Hudsonville, Illinois, May 8. 1891, to Miss
Linnie B. Seeders, a daughter of William Seeders, of the Seeders family
of Crawford county, Indiana. The children of this union are: L. Paul,
who finished the Marion high school course at sixteen, was a proof-reader
in the state printing office at eighteen and is now secretary to the state
printer of Illinois : 0. Heber is a senior in the Marion high school, being
president of his class and he is active on the Daily Leader; and Charles
Bourke is a pupil in the public schools of Marion.
In a fraternal way Mr. Page is affiliated with the time-honored Ma-
sonic order, beina1 a Master Mason, and he is likewise connected with the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the
1516 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Tribe of Ben Hur, and the Modern Woodmen of America, being state
lecturer of the latter organization. His religious faith is in harmony with
the tenets of the Christian church, of which he and his family are devout
members. Mr. Page has contributed a great deal to the general' welfare of
Marion and of Southern Illinois through the medium of his paper and as
a public man the good accomplished by him is of no mean order. He is
everywhere honored and esteemed for his sterling integrity of character
and for his fair and straightforward dealings.
EMMETT 0. BRYANT. After a man has spent more than twenty years
in one line of endeavor in any one eommunity his fellow citizens are apt
to have formed a fairly correct opinion as to his character, and the high
esteem in which Emmet O. Bryant is held by the people of Keyesport, Illi-
nois, is sufficient proof of his worth as a business man and a citizen. Mr.
Bryant, who is carrying on extensive operations in the mercantile line,
was born in Clinton county, near Keyesport, November 4, 1866, and is a
son of George Washington and Sarah G. (Seymour) Bryant.
George W. Bryant was born near Highland, Madison county, Illinois,
in 1837, and came to Clinton county with his parents when he was a boy.
He grew to manhood on a farm, and he has made agricultural pursuits his
life work, being well and favorably known to the people of his com-
munity. In 1861 he was married to Miss Sarah G. Seymour, of Clinton
county, and they had a family of six children, of whom Emmet 0. was
the third in order of birth. George W. Bryant is a Republican in politics,
and he and his wife are consistent members of the Methodist church.
Emmet 0. Bryant was reared to the life of an agriculturist, and when
he could be spared from his duties on the home farm he attended the dis-
trict schools in the neighborhood of the homestead. He completed his
educational training at the age of twenty years, and from that time until
he was twenty-five he followed farming as a means of livelihood. At that
time he came to Keyesport, where he bought a stock of merchandise and
established himself in business, and he has since been engaged in this line.
Mr. Bryant's many years of experience have taught him just what his
customers need in the mercantile line, and the fact that he can always
supply this need has resulted in his having a large trade in Keyesport
and vicinity. He bears the reputation of a business man of the strictest
integrity and one whose word is as good as his bond. Naturally such a
man is a very desirable citizen, and his genial, kindly manner has made
him many friends in the city in which he has lived so long. Politically a
stanch Republican, Mr. Bryant has been an active worker in the ranks of
his party, and although never an office-seeker, he has served five years as
supervisor, and is now discharging the duties of his third term of office.
Fraternally he belongs to the Odd Fellows, and is very popular in the
local lodge. His religious connection is with the Methodist church, and
he has been known as a liberal contributor to movements of a religious
nature, as well as those which have for the object the betterment of Keyes-
port along educational or commercial lines.
In September, 1892, Mr. Bryant was united in marriage with Miss
Hannah M. Langham, the estimable daughter of Henry Langham, a
prominent Clinton county agriculturist. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant have no
children.
THOMAS J. NEWLJN. The story of the life of Thomas J. Newlin is like
unto that of his brother's, Enoch E. Newlin, judge of the circuit court, in
that during his early years life was a struggle, and that only by his own
efforts was he able to succeed. The only aid he found outside of himself
was the inspiration of his mother and the encouraging words of his elder
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1517
brother. Men like Mr. Newlin, who have paid a price for their success in
life, know how to value it when it at last comes to them. We hear much
about the inferiority of those who possess ancient lineages, and it is often
true that through intermarriage or a generation or two of self indulgent
men and women the family does .become degenerate, but often if the
young scion of an ancient house were cast upon his own resources
he would show considerably more strength of character than peo-
ple had given him credit for. The test of character that Mr. Newlin
underwent would be too strenuous for many men, perhaps, but observe
the result. He not only obtained a fair classical education, but studied
law, was admitted to the bar and became a successful lawyer. He then
turned from the law to business, and is now one of the most prominent
business men in Robinson, Illinois. His early lessons in self dependence,
and the splendid mental training that the study and practice of the law
gave him, he turned to great profit in his career as a business man, and
his ability in his newer vocation is undisputed in the town where he
makes his home.
Thomas Jefferson Newlin was born on a farm two miles south from
Bellair, Crawford county, Illinois. The date of his birth was the 2nd of
April, 1863. His father was Thomas Newlin, and his mother was Mary
E. (Ruckle) Newlin, who was a native of Hebron; Ohio. Thomas J. was
the youngest of four sons, George A., Enoch E., LeRoy and Thomas J.
His father enlisted in the Seventy-ninth Illinois Regiment, and suc-
cumbed to the deadly climate of the southern swamps, dying at Murphys-
boro, Tennessee, on the 7th of April, 1863. At the time of his father's
death, young Thomas was only five days old and the soldier father never
saw his youngest son.
Of the first years of hardship when the widow and her older sons
toiled desperately to keep a roof over the heads of the younger and to
provide clothing and food, just the bare necessities of life, Thomas J.
knew little. In 1872 his oldest brother died, at the age of fifteen. Al-
though Thomas was only nine at the time, yet he rendered his small ser-
vices as willingly as the older boys. During the winter he was sent to the
district school, for his mother was determined that all of her boys should
have an education. In the summer he worked on the farm with his
brothers, and in time he saved enough money to take an eighteen weeks'
college course at Merom, Indiana. His quick mind and clear compre-
hension won him the approbation of his teachers and inspired him to
further effort. He therefore turned to school teaching as a way to earn
enough money to continue his studies. For forty -nine months he labored
conscientiously with the problems of the district school, from how to
handle the young ruffians that sometimes came under his charge to the
greater problem of how to make the fire go in the old stove. At last he
had saved up enough money to take a ten weeks' course in the Danville,
Indiana, school, and after1 having completed this course he came to Robin-
son and began to read law with his brother, Judge E. E. Newlin. He
took the examinations for the bar at Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 1891, and
was admitted on the 28th of August, 1891. He had no way of living while
awaiting for clients, so that winter he returned to Robinson, and taught
school.
In 1892 a solution to his difficulties came in his election to the office
of circuit clerk, and for four years he held this position. His courage
and determination to succeed is well illustrated by the step that he took
during this year. With scarcely anything but prospects he was married
in 1892 to Sarah F. Kirts, a daughter of Isaac and Mary Kirts. of Ob-
long. Illinois. Mrs. Newlin possessed as much courage as her husband,
1518 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and the success that came to them proved them right in their belief that
they could advance more rapidly together than alone.
On the 1st of January, 1897, Mr. Newlin began the practice of law.
He formed a partnership with Judge W. C. Jones and Judge J. C. Eagle-
ton, taking the place made vacant by the resignation of his brother, who
had just been elected to the bench. This partnership continued until
1900, when he retired from the firm and entered into partnership with
Valmore Parker. Then followed nine years of very successful practice,
marked by honesty and sincerity on the part of Mr. Newlin. On the 1st
of October, 1909, he retired from the firm and from active practice in
order to devote more of his time to his business affairs. In the meantime
he had been appointed master in chancery, and filled this position with
honor for twelve years.
In 1909 he became deeply interested in the oil business. Mr. Newlin
has quite an income from royalties on oil lands that he owns, and he is
also a member of the firm of Moren, Newlin and Adsit Oil Company,
which is operating on an eighty acre tract of leased land. Shortly after
he retired from the law business he purchased the stock of a hardware
store that had gone into bankruptcy and has succeeded in establishing
a prosperous hardware business. He is also a stock-holder in one of the
banks of Robinson, and occasionally accepts a case, which he handles
with all of his old skill. With all of these concerns it may be seen that
Mr. Newlin is an extremely busy man, yet he has time to interest himself
in the affairs of his town and county, as well as in those of larger import.
In politics Mr. Newlin is a Democrat, and in his religious affiliations
he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He is active in the
fraternal world, being a member of the Modern Woodmen of America,
of the Knights of Pythias and of the Elks. He and his wife are the par-
ents of two children, Floy, who is a graduate of the Robinson high school,
of the class of 1911, and Ralph, who is yet a student in the same school,
being a member of the class of 1913.
DOCTOR LsRoY NEWLIN, the prominent physician of Robinson, is a
brother of Judge E. E. Newlin and Thomas J. Newlin. He is therefore
the third to gain renown in a professional way, and well might the
mother's heart rejoice when she saw that the sacrifice she had made to
bring these boys to manhood and to give them all an education were not
in vain. While his brothers chose the law as their profession, Doctor
Newlin chose medicine, and throughout his life he has shown that he
judged wisely in selecting this as the field of his labors, for he is pecul-
iarly fitted by nature for the practice of medicine. Through the hard
work and privations of his own childhood he learned the gift of sympathy.
He is strong and self reliant, and inspires his patients with courage
through his own forceful personality. With these characteristics he
has been able to become a valued friend to his patients as well as a
physician.
LeRoy Newlin was born in Crawford county, on a farm, on the 8th
of March, 1860. His boyhood was spent on the farm, where he spent
part of the time in work and part in study, with few hours to spare for
playtime. He nevertheless grew up as sturdy and healthy a boy as one
could wish. He was educated in the common schools and in 1880 entered
the state normal school at Terre Haute, Indiana. He studied in this
institution for two years and then found that he had reached the end
of his resources. He therefore turned from the life of a student to that
of a teacher, and for the next ten years this was his vocation. Whenever
he could spare the time and had a little money saved up, back he went
to the normal school for another course or so. Then he made the de-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1519
cision that was to change his life, and this was to take up the study of
medicine.
In 1889 he therefore matriculated in the Kentucky School of Medi-
cine. In two years he had completed the medical course and was grad-
uated from this institution with the degree of M. D. in 1891. He then
went to Crawford county and located in the town of Hardinsville, where
he proceeded to practice his profession. He was eminently successful,
and it was with regret that the citizens of this town saw him leave their
midst to come to Robinson in 1908. He made the change for several
reasons, chief among them being that he wished to be near his brothers,
for the bond of affection between the three has always been very close.
Since 1908 he has been in active practice in Robinson, and the people
of this city have come to place as much dependence upon him as did those
of his former home.
Doctor Newlin is a member of the Crawford County Medical Society,
of the Esculapian Society and of the Illinois State Medical Association.
He is much interested in these organizations and believes that they are
of much benefit to the profession, not only for the intellectual stimulus
of the meetings, but for their tendency to draw the members of the pro-
fession into closer harmony with each other. In his religious affilia-
tions the Doctor is a member of the Christian church, and is a very promi-
nent member of the church, being one of the elders. In the fraternal
world he is a member of the Masonic order and of the Modern "Woodmen
of America.
Doctor Newlin was married on the 26th of March, 1903, to Louise O.
Vance, a native of Crawford county, Illinois. Before her marriage
Mrs. Newlin was a school teacher, and by nature and by education she
was in every way fitted to become the companion of the Doctor. She
was educated at the Danville Central Normal and is a graduate of that
institution. Her parents were Mehlin and Margaret M. Vance, both of
whom were natives of Crawford county. Her father is now dead, but
her mother is living. Doctor and Mrs. Newlin are the parents of three
children, all of whom are students in the township high school and bid
fair to emulate the examples of their father and mother. These children
are Mary, Harold V. and John A.
EDWAKD JERRY CASPAR. A number of the leading farmers of the
younger generation are carrying on operations on property that has been
brought to a state of cultivation from wild swamp, prairie and timber
land by members of their own family, and take a justifiable pride in the
fact, and among these may be mentioned Edward Jerry Caspar, of
Cache township, whose fine farm of one hundred and thirty-four and one-
half acres, located one and one-half miles west of Belknap, is one of the
productive tracts of this section. Mr. Caspar was born on a farm one
mile west of Belknap, March 24, 1883, a son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth
Jane (Sowers) Caspar.
Samuel Caspar, the grandfather of Edward Jerry, was born in North
Carolina, and came from that state to Johnson county, where he spent
the remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits and died at a ripe old
age. His son, also a native of the Tar Heel state, accompanied him to this
locality, became an extensive farmer of Johnson county, and died in
1895, at the age of sixty-three years, owning several hundred acres of
some of the best land in Cache township. He and his wife were the
parents of eleven children, of whom five are now living, namely : Jesse
Adam, David Calvin, Edward J., Mrs. Minnie Pearl Kean and Mrs. Lulu
Allen Lowry.
Edward J. Caspar was reared on the home farm and attended the
1520 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
district schools of the neighborhood. Reared to the life of an agriculturist,
at the age of eighteen years he inherited a tract of seventy -one acres of
land, which he at once began cultivating, and subsequently added there-
to tracts of forty-seven and sixteen and one-half acres. Mr. Caspar be-
longs to that school of agriculturists who believe in scientific conditions
of the land, and he has made a study of crop rotation and soil conditions,
as well as being an adherent of draining and tiling and the use of modern
power farming machinery. His buildings are large and substantially
built, his fencing neat and entirely competent to his needs, and the whole
appearance of the property denotes the presence of good management
and enthusiastic industry. Mr. Caspar's progressive ideas have made
him in favor of any movement that will tend to advance the interests of
his community, and he may always be found supporting the enterprises
that have for their object the development of the best resources of Cache
township or Johnson county. His genial personality has made him
numerous friends in the vicinity of his home, and he is very popular
with the members of the Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of
America, belonging to the lodges of both orders at Belknap.
On January 19, 1907, Mr. Caspar was united in marriage with Miss
Milly May Morgan, the daughter of William Morgan, a well-known ag-
riculturist of Johnson county, and one child has been born to this union :
Wanda Jane, who is two and one-half years old.
LENGFELDER BROTHERS. The three Lengfelder brothers, Charles R.,
Louis and Gustavus Adolphus, come of pure German stock, their father
and mother both having the blood in their veins of that strain that has
given to our country some of its finest men. They have brought to our
nervous, excitable, enthusiastic race the deeper intellect and calmer tem-
perament of an older nation, and to the thrift and stability and strength
of character of the parents is owing in large measure the success of the
children. They are the owners of one of the largest farms in the county,
and make a specialty of breeding stock of the purest strains. One of the
brothers is the leading poultry raiser west of the Alleghany mountains
and is the largest known importer of Imperial Pekin ducks in the coun-
try. They have gone into the business of caring for and breeding animals
in a scientific manner, and are constantly trying new methods and in-
vesting money in improvements that might benefit their business. It
would appear that the busiest men are the very -ones who have the most
time for outside affairs, and these brothers are no exception. They are
all prominent in the county affairs, political, educational or economic,
and they have all held various offices, which they filled to the entire
satisfaction of their fellow citizens.
Karl Daniel Lengfelder was the founder of this family in America.
He was born in Germany on the 17th of June, 1836, He was well edu-
cated in his native land, and came of one of the finest families in the
country, and since he had perfected himself in bookkeeping and held a
fine position in the treasury of his native city, everything pointed to-
wards a peaceful life in the land of his nativity. But it was not to be.
Young Karl heard of that wonderful country where one could walk along
the shore and pick up chunks of gold as large as one's fist, so nothing
would do but that he should set out for that marvelous coast. His en-
thusiasm fired others and he had soon recruited quite a company, and
in June, 1854, they landed in New Orleans with their faces turned toward
the gold fields of California. At New Orleans they boarded a steamer
and made their slow way up the Mississippi until they reached St. Louis.
Here they were told of the long overland trip that took months, of the
Indians, the sand storms, the scarcity of water, and then at the goal of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1521
the likelihood of their finding no gold. As it was life in the new country
was difficult enough to the young foreigners, and the thought of attempt-
ing such a perilous trip, with their utter lack of experience in the coun-
try, induced them to abandon their scheme. Karl Lengfelder remained
in St. Louis for one month, and then he located in St. Clair county,
where he followed the trade of wagon making for some months. He soon
gave this up and went to farming, working at various places until by
dint of close economy he had saved enough to buy a farm of his own.
He had his eye on a fine farm in St. Clair county, and had made all the
preliminary arrangements when, fortunately for Jefferson county, the
owner decided not to sell. Looking about for another location, Mr.
Lengfelder was struck with the desirability of a farm of. one hundred
and thirty acres in Dodd's township and he bought this property in
August, 1880. The following winter, in February, he moved his family
hither, and from that time he was uniformly successful, adding to his
holdings until at the time of his death, in 1900, on the 4th of January,
he owned four hundred acres.
Mr. Lengfelder married Katherine Zinlich in May, 1867. She was
the daughter of Conrad Zinlich and was born in Germany on the 2nd
of November, 1844. She was brought to America by her parents when
quite a small child, and lived until 1860 in Baltimore. At this time her
family moved to Belleville, Illinois. It was while Mrs. Lengfelder was
making a visit to an aunt in 1866 that she met Mr. Lengfelder, and they
were married within a year. Eight children were born of this marriage,
five of whom are living. These are Charles R., Louis F. and Gustavus
Adolphus, who live on the old home place ; Annie P., who is Mrs. Grant
and lives in Jefferson county ; and Henry W. The mother of this family
is yet living, at the age of sixty-seven years.
The eldest of the brothers is Charles R., who was born on the 28th
of November, 1868, on a farm in St. Clair county, Englemen township.
He was educated in the schools of St. Clair and Jefferson counties. All
of his life has been given to farming, he and his brothers operating the
original farm of four hundred acres, to which they have added until now
the acreage is a thousand acres. Since 1896 they have devoted much of
their time to the breeding of horses and cattle, and they are the pioneer
importers of registered horses and cattle in Jefferson county. They
breed not only registered horses and cattle, but also pedigreed hogs, sheep,
and poultry. Charles R. is a loyal devotee of the fraternal orders of
which he is a member. He is affiliated with the Masons of Mount Ver-
non and with the Knights of Pythias of the same place. His mother and
father were both members of the German Evangelical church, but he is
a member and sincere supporter of the First Presbyterian church of his
home town. He has always been actively interested in politics and has
done much to advance the cause of Republicanism in Jefferson county.
He served as tax collector of Dodd's township for two terms, from 1894
to 1898, and is now serving his second term as county supervisor. Edu-
cational progress has ever been of great interest to him, and he is now
serving his fourth term as township school treasurer. He was a candi-
date for county treasurer and led his ticket in the field, the result of the
election giving him two hundred votes ahead of his ticket. This is an
example of the popularity of Charles Lengfelder. It is no wonder, how-
ever, that the people like him, for he throws his whole soul into whatever
he may be doing and since he only stands for the cleanest sort of politics,
his neighbors are always anxious to secure him for their representative.
Gustavus Adolphus makes a specialty of poultry and is an expert in
all that pertains to the raising and breeding of fowls of every descriD-
tion. His particular variety of chicken is the Barred Plymouth Rock,
1522 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
which as a general all-round fowl is the most popular chicken among all
breeders, therefore it is much more to his credit to have carried off so
many prizes than if he were raising some less widely known breed, such
as Lackenvelders. His Barred Rocks took practically every prize at the
St. Louis Poultry Show in December, 1911, and repeated the same per-
formance at the Illinois State Show. He also breeds Bronze Turkeys,
English Toulouse Geese and White Imperial Pekin Ducks. His authora-
tive knowledge on this subject has been recognized in his election to the
presidency of the Illinois State Poultry Association. Gustavus A. was
born on the 2nd of March, 1882, in Jefferson county, and he acquired
his education in the same county, attending the common schools. He
married Mary Lurene Williams of Piatt county and they have orre child,
Elsa Lurene, aged three years. He is a Republican in his political af-
filiations, and has been an energetic party worker. For four terms he
has served as tax collector of Dodd's township. He is now serving as
school director. He is a life member of the American Poultry Associa-
tion, and is much interested in the work which the association as doing
for raising the standard of poultry throughout the country. Both he
and his wife are members of the First Presbyterian church.
Louis F. was born on the 5th of March, 1871, and lives with his
brother Charles R. In addition to the education that he received in the
common schools he attended the Normal College at Normal, Illinois. In
his later life, after finishing his school work, he gave a great deal of his
time to reading, so that now he is well educated and broadly read, there-
fore is a valuable force in the educational advancement of the community.
He has clung to the faith of his fathers and is a member of the German
Evangelical church.
The Lengfelders breed Percheron horses, which they ship to all parts
of the United States, handling from forty to fifty horses annually. Their
cattle are of the Shorthorn breed, and during the season of 1911 they
handled about a hundred head. In one year they ship about two hundred
and fifty head of hogs, the Poland China being their favorite breed. They
also devote considerable attention to the raising of Shropshire sheep,
shipping about a hundred head annually. Live, stirring business men
are these three brothers, who have brought to their business the valuable
assets of well-developed minds and bodies, and who are showing day by
day that the modern economic thinkers are right in their cry of ' ' Back
to the farm, ' ' for they are proving that the life is not only independent
and profitable, but requires the keenest brains and a large amount of or-
iginality. The monotony of the farm of fifty years ago, that is the
cause of so much of the congestion in our cities today, is a thing of the
past. Science and pioneers like these three brothers, who were willing to
go ahead and venture experiments without any certainty of the outcome,
have together succeeded in giving to farm life the charm of new ideas
and broader interests.
GEORGE B. WELBORN. One of the most prominent men in Woodlawn,
and one who has been most actively connected with all affairs terfding to
promote the best interests of that city, is George B. Welborn, a resident
of Woodlawn since 1882, and a representative man of business, post-
master of the city for many years, as well as Republican representative
from the forty-sixth district in 1910.
Born September 3, 1854, at Mount Vernon, Indiana, George B. Wel-
born is the son of Dr. E. E. Welborn, a native of that state. The Wel-
born family originally came from the Carolinas, but migrated into In-
diana. Dr. Welborn practiced medicine in Indiana for years. In 1854
he located in Centralia, Illinois, where he remained for three years, and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1523
in 1857 he removed to Mount Vernon, Illinois, where he practiced medi-
cine until 1889. His health declined to such an extent about then that
he abandoned his practice and went to Colorado in the hope of restoring
his depleted strength, but he died in Denver in 1892. He married
Frances Boswell, of Princeton, Indiana, and they were the parents of
six children who reached years of maturity. They are Anna, Arthur,
Mary, Gussie, Henry and George B.
George B. was educated in the public schools and in Irvington Aca-
demy. In 1875, when he was twenty-one years of age, he engaged in the
drug business in Oiltown. In January, 1882, he removed to Woodlawn
and again engaged in that business, and he is still actively identified with
that industry. Mr. Welborn has achieved no little prominence in Wood-
lawn in the years of his residence there. He has become identified with
many and various commercial and financial organizations, and he is a
heavy stockholder as well as president of the Woodlawn Bank. He was
first appointed to the position of postmaster of Woodlawn during Gar-
field's administration, and has been the incumbent of that office during
every Republican regime since then. In 1910 he was elected repr'esenta-
tive of the forty-sixth district, and during his term of service acted upon
many important committees, among them being the committees on ap-
propriation and corporations, fish and game, banks and banking, con-
gressional apportionment, and others. His career as a legislator has been
marked by unusual honesty and integrity of purpose, and he fulfilled
in every detail the expectations of his constituents as their representa-
tive. Mr. Welborn was a supporter of Senator Hopkins for the United
States Senate, and opposed the election of Senator Lorimer. He has
given some attention to various fraternal organizations, prominent among
them being the A. F. & A. M. of Mount Vernon, he being a member of
the Knights Templar, as is he also of the Modern Woodmen and the Odd
Fellows. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In 1882, on New Year's day, Mr. Welborn married Miss Nellie I.
Pratt, daughter of Frank Pratt, of Centralia, Illinois. He is an engineer
in the employ of the Illinois Central, and began his service with them in
1853, when the road was first put through that district. Six children
have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Welborn. They are Hattie, Arthur,
Frank, Laura, Nellie and George, the latter two being twins and named
for their parents. Hattie, Frank and Laura are married, the three re-
maining being members of the houshold of Welborn.
SAMUEL BARTHOLOMEW BROWN, justice of the peace in Newton, Illi-
nois, has been prominent in the affairs of this section of the country for
many years. He has been always among the first to speak in favor of
any measure conducive to the growth of the town, and in his various
services in public positions has won a reputation for scrupulous honesty
that could not be excelled. For over thirty years he has been treasurer
of schools, and under his careful management the school funds, at times
rather meager, have been stretched to meet all emergencies.
Samuel B. Brown was born in Scottsville, Kentucky, on the 1st of
March, 1829. His father Allsey Brown, a native of North Carolina, born
March 10, 1791. Allsey Brown came to Kentucky when a young man,
and here he met his future wife, Nancy Childers. She was a relative of
the Bartholomew family. Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs.
Brown, Judge Brown being the seventh of the number. Mr. Brown spent
his life in the farming industry, and won for his family a comfortable
competence from the rich Kentucky soil. He died in 1864, and his wife
passed away in 1878.
The early years of Samuel Brown were spent in Kentucky, where
1524 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
he was sent to school in the winter and worked in his father's fields in
the summer. His education was received partly at a subscription school
and partly at the public school. He finally completed his school days
with a high school course. His young manhood was spent in Kentucky,
where he was in the mercantile business. He had a good sized store, well
equipped for the general country trade, and was doing a thriving busi-
ness when the war times came along and threw everything into a state
of unrest. He along with others lost greatly through this state of affairs.
At one time his store was raided and stripped absolutely bare, but the
despoilers had no intention of leaving him unrecompensed, and to that
end left a great heap of bills on the counter. The only difficulty was
that these bills were with one exception Confederate money, and there-
fore wholly worthless. The only United States greenback among them
was one fifty dollar bill, so Mr. Brown was the loser by several hundreds
of dollars.
In 1868 Mr. Brown came to Illinois and located in Newton, where
for two years he taught school. He immediately showed an interest in
public affairs and was soon made county assessor, which office he held
for some time. A little later he was elected county surveyor and
continued in this position for eight years. Both of these offices carried
much responsibility, and little honor, but the people of his neighbor-
hood were not insensible to his worth, and in 1881 honored him by elect-
ing him justice of the peace, a position that he has filled without a break
until the present day. It was at about the same time that he was made
treasurer of schools, and the way in which he has carried out the duties
of this office have won him the gratitude of the populace. The time that
is not given to public affairs he has devoted to the mercantile business,
having been connected with various houses both here and in Kentucky.
Mr. Brown has been twice married, his first wife, whom he married
in 1859, being Anna Staley, a native of Tennessee. She became the
mother of eight children, four of whom are living : Lina is Mrs. Sang-
ster; Samuel C. is in the hardware business in Terre Haute, Indiana;
Alsey Oscar is a Presbyterian minister of New Orleans ; and Mittie Vir-
ginia is now Mrs. J. E. O. Clark, of Newton. The mother of this family
died in 1873, and in 1875 Mr. Brown was married to Sally Word, of Ten-'
nessee, and they became the parents of one daughter, Bessie, who is Mrs.
W. G. Austin, of Effingham, Illinois. Mr. Brown lost his second wife on
the 5th of May, 1911.
Mr. Brown is a Democrat in politics and is one of the enthusiastic
believers in the victory of his party in the elections of 1912. He is a
loyal supporter of the Methodist Episcopal church, and acted as trustee
for this body for some years. His fraternal affiliations are with the
Masons.
GEORGE F. M. WARD, DR. TODD P. WARD AND HENRY B. P. WARD.
Three of Mount Vernon's most valuable citizens are George F. M. Ward
and his sons. Dr. Todd P. Ward and Henry B. P. Ward. The father
has been an important factor in the growth and commercial upbuilding
of the city of Mount Vernon, while his sons are among the most prom-
ising citizens who have ever located in this county. Mr. Ward, Sr.,
began his career as a merchant in a very modest manner, and has reached
his present prosperous condition by degrees. Endowed with a natural
instinct for business affairs, and as a young man receiving excellent
training through his clerkships in various stores, he has through indus-
try and a close attention to all the details of his business attained a high
pinnacle of siiccess. In addition to his business interests he has devoted
considerable time to doing what he could toward the betterment of the
QMHE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1525
civic life of Mount Vernon, having served the city in many and varied
capacities. The force and strength of character which Mr. Ward has
shown in all of his dealings is also in evidence in the character of his
sons, who have the spirit that will not accept defeat and the courage
necessary in their fight against the gods of sickness and death.
George F. M. Ward was born on the llth of October, 1854, at Har-
winton in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was the son of Henry Ward,
who was born in Connecticut, his father being Henry Ward and his
mother Phoebe (Woodin) Ward. Henry Ward married Lucy Adeline
Todd and they came west when George was four years old. They
settled in Illinois in 1858, their first farm being located in Williamson
county. Later they moved to a farm near Carbondale, and here the
children grew up. The farm, which was at that time some distance
from the center of the city, is now within the city limits. Mr. Ward
died in 1900, on the 13th of March, and his wife passed away in
1889. They were the parents of six children, five of whom were
born in Connecticut, and of this number only two are living: Elmina,
died in Williamson county, Julius Henry is living in DuQuoin; Wil-
liam Dwight died in 1910 ; G. F. M. ; John Nelson died at the age of
twelve in Williamson county ; and Samuel Whittomore, who was born in
Illinois and died in 1904.
The first education that Mr. Ward received waa in the public schools
of Williamson county, later receiving that splendid course of training
that is given by the grammar and high schools of Carbondale. When
he was eighteen he was so anxious to stop school and go to work that
he was given permission to do so. He therefore entered the clothing
store of M. Goldman at Carbondale, where he remained for two years.
In 1875 he went to DuQuoin and entered the employ of J. Solomon,
where he stayed three years. During all this time he was reaping a rich
harvest of experience, and at the same time was saving his pennies.
The result was that in 1879 he was able to come to Mount Vernon
and open a clothing and furnishing store of his own, under the
firm name of Ward and Solomon. Under the management of Mr.
Ward this business grew and thrived, and in 1881 the partnership
was dissolved and Mr. Ward became the sole owner. He conducted
the business alone until the 16th of January, 1909, when he organized
a corporation company, under the name of the Mammoth Shoe, Clothing
and Dry Goods Company. The main object of this organization was
to interest his employes in the concern by giving them a share in the
business. The plan has certainly been successful, for no where will one
find a more loyal set of employes, nor receive better service. Mr. Ward
is the president and general manager, W. T. Forsyth is the first vice
president, Isaac Vermillian, the second vice president, H. B. P. Ward
is secretary and treasurer, and the company, which is virtually a close
corporation, is capitalized at $30.000. Mr. Ward uses the most modern
methods and has the most up-to date facilities for doing business. His
store is run on the departmental plan, and he employes regularly from
twenty to thirty men and women. He carries a well selected stock,
valued at $75,000, and the building itself is a large three-story structure,
the dimensions of each floor being one hundred by fifty-six feet.
In addition to this first child of his brain, Mr. Ward has other in-
terests in the commercial world. He is a director of the Mount Vernon
Car Manufacturing Company and is president of the Mammoth Shoe
and Clothing Company of Sullivan, Illinois. The latter organization
was established by Mr. Ward in 1907 and is under the able manage-
ment of J. H. Smith, who has been in the employ of Mr. Ward as a
clerk for twenty years. The stock of goods which is carried is valued
1526 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
at $15,000, and the company is capitalized at $10,000. Mr. Ward is
also a heavy stockholder and was one of the first founders of The Mt.
Vernon Building and Loan Association, for many years being its pres-
ident and now a director. This is one of the largest institutions of
its kind in Southern Illinois.
Mr. Ward is a strong believer in the effectiveness of the various
fraternal organizations, believing that they are of great benefit not only
to those who are directly associated with them but that through their
indirect influence they are of benefit to mankind in general. He is a
member of the Marion Lodge No. 13, of the Odd Fellows, having
originally joined Hope Lodge in DuQuoin. He is a charter member
of the Jefferson Lodge, No. 21, of the Knights of Pythias and is a
Modern Woodman, belonging to camp No. 1919. He is a charter mem-
ber of both the luka Tribe of Red Men, No. 151, and of the Mount
Vernon Chapter of Elks, being in addition a life member of the latter
society.
On the 2nd of June, 1880, Mr. Ward was married to Elizabeth
Pope, the daughter of Dr. B. F. and Emmeline Pope, of DuQuoin,
Illinois, who are representative members of an old Southern Illinois
family. Mr. and Mrs. Ward have reared three children. Dr. Todd
Pope Ward, who is the father of two children : Elizabeth Letitia,
and G. F. M. Jr., Leota, who married Grant T. Harm, and has one
little girl, Helene Elizabeth ; and Henry Ben Pope, who is secretary
and treasurer of the Mammoth Company, and has charge of the dry
goods department.
Politically Mr. Ward has always been a staunch Democrat, and his
influence in political affairs has always been on the side of good govern-
ment. In 1885 he served as city alderman, and in every crisis stood for
what would be most advantageous to the people. Remembering this and
other numerous services that Mr. Ward had meanwhile performed in
their behalf, his fellow citizens elected him mayor for two terms, ex-
tending from April, 1899, to April, 1903. He has added two addi-
tions and two sub-divisions to the city, and has acted as president of
the board of education. He is responsible for the beautiful and quiet
peace in which the dead of Mount Vernon repose, for he was instru-
mental in laying out Oakwood cemetery and has long served as presi-
dent of the Cemetery Association.
Dr. Todd P. Ward was born in Mount Vernon, on the 16th of Feb-
ruary, 1881, the son of G. F. M. Ward, of whom a short account has
been given in the preceding paragraphs. Dr. Ward was educated in
Mount Vernon, attending both the grammar and high schools. He
then went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he pursued a classical and
medical course for three years. He entered the above mentioned uni-
versity in 1898, and in the fall of 1901 he went to Philadelphia, where
he entered the Jefferson Medical College. In the spring of 1903 he
received his degree from this institution, and immediately began to
practice in Mount Vernon. In 1906 his practice had become large
enough to warrant his going into partnership, so he and Dr. Earl Green
became associates. This partnership has been a very successful one,
and Dr. Ward is widely recognized as a skillful practitioner. He is
deeply interested in the scientific side of his profession, and is a close
observer of all that is taking place in the laboratories of the men who
are working in bacteriology and the related sciences in every part of
this vast country, for Dr. Ward believes that the doctor of the future
will have less and less use for drugs and more and more for preventive
measures.
Dr. Ward, like his father, is prominent in the fraternal world. He
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1527
is a Mason, being a member of the blue lodge, the chapter and the
commandery of Mount Vernon. He is also an Elk, affiliating with the
Mount Vernon lodge No. 819, and is at present district deputy grand
exalted ruler of the order, having seventeen lodges in Southern Illi-
nois under his jurisdiction, his territory extending from Jerseyville
southward. He is a member of the County Medical Association, of
the Southern Illinois Medical Association, of the Illinois State Medical
Association and of the American Medical Association. In 1909 he be-
came connected with the National Association for the Study and Pre-
vention of Tuberculosis and is an active member of this society, which
is doing so much towards stamping out the great "White Plague."
In September, 1906, Dr. Ward was married to Virginia Griffin
Watkins, of Owensboro, Kentucky, a daughter of H. C. Watkins. Dr.
and Mrs. Ward have two children, Elizabeth Letitia, who is three and a
half years old, and G. F. M. Ward, Jr., who was born on the 29th of
June, 1911.
H. B. P. Ward, the second son of G. P. M. Ward, was born in Mount
Vernon, Illinois, June 21, 1885. He received his preparatory education
in the Mount Vernon schools, later attending the University of Illinois at
Champaign during the years 1903 to 1907 from which institution he
graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. On leaving college he
went to work in his father's business and in 1909 was taken into the
firm as secretary and treasurer, also having charge of the dry goods and
ladies' ready-to-wear department. Mr. Ward is also a member of the
incorporated firm, The Mammoth Shoe and Clothing Co. of Sullivan, Illi-
nois, being vice president of the company. Mr. Ward is a member of the
blue lodge and chapter in the Masonic order and is also a member of the
Elks.
The benefit that accrues to a community in having among its mem-
bers a wide-awake progressive citizen is never quite realized until after
it is too late, and then on taking a retrospective view of his life, they
discover how great has been his influence, without considering what
he has actually accomplished. Let the people of Mount Vernon be alive
to the fact that they have men who would be a great loss to the town
were their places to become vacant, for both Mr. Ward and his sons
take the optimistic view that times are constantly changing for the
better, and consequently that it is wise to keep abreast of them, and
to disseminate the modern spirit, which is progress.
BENJAMIN B. FERRELL. It is a safe presumption that Benjamin ^
Perrell, a well-known agriculturist of Union county, who is also identi-
fied with some of Anna's leading business interests, is an example of
self-made manhood that is worthy of the most persistent and conscientious
emulation. A native of this county, Mr. Perrell from the time of his
arrival at maturity has marked his career with unceasing toil and honor-
able occupation and transactions. Prom a lad with but few advantages
and only humble prospects his rise has incessantly been in the ascend-
ancy. Benjamin B. Perrell was born in Union county, Illinois, in 1872,
and is a son of William and Mary C. (Tinsley) Ferrell, the former a
native of Tennessee who came to Union county in 1864, and the latter
born here.
Mr. Perrell attended the district schools of Union county as a youth,
but most of his education was secured in the school of hard work, as he
was expected to do a full share of work on his father's farm. Reared to
agricultural pursuits, at the age of fifteen years he began farming on
his own account, sharing crops until he was able to purchase twenty-two
acres of land in 1905, on which he is carrying on gardening and truck
1528 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
farming, and he is now the owner of the old homestead farm of three
hundred and sixty acres, a wheat and grain farm which is in a fine state
of cultivation and yields banner crops. Recently Mr. Perrell has paid
much attention to the cultivation of strawberry plants, and he is gradu-
ally building up an excellent business in this line, his product having
been brought to a high state of excellence through much study and con-
stant experiment. Although he had but a meager education when he
started out in life, close observation and self teaching have made him
a well-informed man, and he is fully abreast of the times in all the live
topics of the day. He is a stockholder in the Anna Creamery. Politic-
ally a Democrat, Mr. Ferrell has been active in the ranks of his party,
and has served as street commissioner for two years, a position which he
ably fills at the present time. His fraternal cennections are with the
Modern Woodmen of America and the Odd Fellows.
On November 24, 1895, Mr. Ferrell was united in marriage with
Miss Gusta Jane Turner, who was born in Union county, daughter of
Perry P. Turner, one of the old settlers of this section. Mr. and Mrs.
Ferrell have become the parents of three children: Dorsie L., Bessie B.
and Benjamin H., all residing at home.
ROBERT LEROY ADAMS is a man of unusual enterprise and initiative
and has met with such marvelous good fortune in his various business
projects that it would verily seem as though he possessed an "open
sesame" to unlock the doors to success. Self-made and self-educated
in the most significant sense of the words, he has progressed steadily
toward the goal of success until he is now recognized as one of the fore-
most business men and citizens of Herrin, Illinois, where he has long
been the efficient incumbent of the office of city engineer.
At Crab Orchard, Illinois, May 2, 1882, occurred the birth of Robert
L. Adams, whose forefathers have been residents of Williamson county
since the ante-bellum days. His father, Robert Adams, was born in
Kentucky, and was brought to Illinois as a child by his parents. He
grew up in the vicinity of Herrin 's Prairie, where the modern metropolis
of Herrin has sprung up. William Adams, grandfather of Robert L.
of this review, was a farmer in the locality of Crab Orchard during the
greater part of his active career and he died in 1895, at the age of sixty-
eight years. William's children were: Robert; Mrs. Lizzie Toler, of Car-
bondale, Illinois; Mrs. Delia Chapman, of Herrin, Illinois; Mrs. Dora
Reed, of Herrin ; Mrs. Dell Cox. of Carterville, Illinois ; Curt, who died
unmarried ; and Mrs. Beulah Brown, whose death occurred in 1895.
Robert Adams passed an uneventful boyhood and his early educa-
tional training consisted of such advantages as were afforded in the
schools of the locality and period. He is yet an active farmer and con-
servative citizen of the vicinity of Crab Orchard, where he is a man of
prominence and influence. He married Sarah A. Scobey, a daughter
of John and Amanda (Pulley) Scobey, both pioneers in this section of
Illinois from Tennessee. The Scobey children were : Mrs. Hannah Mos-
ley, of Williamson county ; Mrs. Robert Adams ; Freeman and Edward
H., farmers in Williamson county ; and Mrs. Eva Fuller and Bert Scobey,
of this county. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Adams are
here mentioned in respective order of birth : J. Prentiss, deputy clerk
of Williamson county ; William W., a traveling salesman for a Little
Rock, Arkansas, concern ; Frank, an employe of the state in the hospital
at Jacksonville ; Robert LeRoy, the immediate subject of this review ; and
Harry, who remains at home with his parents.
To the public schools of Williamson county Robert Leroy Adams is
indebted for his preliminary educational training. At the age of eighteen
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1529
years he began teaching school and he followed that occupation for a
period of five years, during which time he was also a student in the
Southern Illinois Normal University, at Ava, and in the historic academy
at Crab Orchard. His attention was finally directed to civil engineer-
ing as a profession and in order to familiarize himself with the details of
that line of work he entered the service, as a helper, of the firm of
Hutchinson & Jacob, the scene of his early activities being in the Crab
Orchard section. Eight months were spent in the employ of the above
concern and at the expiration of that period Mr. Adams began to work for
his old employer, T. W. Jacob. During the following two years he ap-
plied himself to the work at hand and during that period mastered mining
engineering. He became associated, in the engineering field, with W. T.
Pierce, a noted engineer at Herrin. When Mr. Pierce lost his life in a
mine accident, in December, 1909, Mr. Adams succeeded to his business,
to which he has devoted his time and attention during the intervening
years to the present, in 1912.
In his profession Mr. Adams occupies a broader field than that per-
taining to mining alone. Demands are constantly being made upon him
in connection with surveying, running land lines, establishing corners,
platting township additions and establishing grades for city improve-
ment. He is engineer for a number of corporations engaged in mining
coal in Southern Illinois and has held the office of city engineer of Her-
rin for some years. As city engineer he prepared the plans for
the city water plant and supervised its installation in 1911. He came to
Herrin in 1906 and has thoroughly entered into the spirit of town-build-
ing both as a private citizen and as an official of the corporation. In
politics Mr. Adams is aligned as a stalwart in the ranks of the Repub-
lican party and while he is not an active politician he is always ready to
respond to the call of his home town for the furtherance of progress and
improvement. He resides in the Fourth ward and represents it as a
member of the board of education.
On May 29, 1903, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Adams to Miss
Maude Simmons, a daughter of the later William and Mary (Cruse) Sim-
mons. Mr. and Mrs. Adams are the fond parents of two children,
Beatrice and Justin. Mr. and Mrs. Adams are honored and respected
citizens of Herrin, where their exemplary lives have gained to them the
love and admiration of all with whom they have come in contact.
JOHN SNODSMITH. Industrious, enterprising and progressive, and
possessing the energy and ability that ever commands success in life,
John Snodsmith is prominently associated with the advancement of the
financial interests of Jefferson county, being cashier of the Belle Rive
Banking Company, of Belle Rive, which was organized in June, 1910,
by local and Mount Vernon capitalists, in connection with the Third Na-
tional Bank of Mount Vernon. This company is capitalized at twelve
thousand dollars, of which five thousand eight hundred dollars is paid in,
and gives four per cent interests on time deposits, while its individual
liabilities amount to a million dollars. Its officers are all men of ability
and integrity, being as follows : President, F. E. Patton, of Mount Ver-
non ; vice-president, A. Knowles, of Belle Rive ; cashier, John Snod-
smith, of Belle Rive; while its directors are F. E. Patton, George A.
Cross, L. L. Emmerson, R. B. Kern, Kirby Smith. A. Knowles. W. F. .
Carpenter, E. B. 0. Dayton, T. J. DeWill, George H. Batka and Henry
Puckett.
John Snodsmith was born on a farm in Morris Prairie township.
Jefferson county, Illinois, September 28, 1866, of German ancestry. His
father, John Snodsmith, Sr., a native of Germany, immigrated to this
1530 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
country when very young, and after living in Saint Louis, Missouri, lo-
cated on a farm in Jefferson county, Illinois. Energetic and thrifty, he
succeeded in his agricultural labors, and at the time of his death, in
1885, owned a whole section of land, six hundred and forty acres. Dur-
ing the Civil war he served his adopted country as a soldier, enlisting in
Company E, Thirty-first Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, in which he
served nine months and six days. He married, in Saint Louis, Missouri,
Eliza Thoensing, a native of Germany, and of their seven children two
died in infancy, and the five that grew to years of maturity are as fol-
lows : Mrs. Carrie Maxey, a widow, living in Mount Vernon ; Henry H.,
a farmer ; Adolphus, also a farmer ; Charles Augustus, deceased ; and
John, of this sketch.
Brought up on the home farm John Snodsmith attended the rural
schools of his district, after which he completed a course in bookkeeping
in Lexington, Kentucky, later continuing his studies at both the Ewing
College and the Valparaiso College. Pitted for a professional career,
Mr. Snodsmith taught school five terms in Jefferson county, commenc-
ing when he was twenty years old. He has since followed farming most
successfully, and in addition to owning one hundred and thirty acres
of the parental homestead, having purchased in the summer of 1911 a
farm of seventy-six acres in Morris Prairie township. He is now devot-
ing his energies to his duties as cashier of the Belle Rive Banking Com-
pany, a position for which he is eminently qualified, and which he is filling
most acceptably to all concerned.
Taking an active interest in political affairs, Mr. Snodsmith is an
ardent supporter of the principles of the Democratic party. He served
as assessor of Morris Prairie township three terms, and for one term
was school trustee. Fraternally he is a member of Belle Rive Lodge, No.
992, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and religiously he is a member of
the Missionary Baptist church.
Mr. Snodsmith married, in 1891, Ollie Jane Smith, daughter of Ben-
jamin Smith, of Spring Garden township, Jefferson county, and they
have one child, Juanita Jean, born October 7, 1897.
ANDREW DILLON. One of the oldest and most highly esteemed families
of Franklin county, Illinois, is that of Dillon, which has been identified
with the agricultural interests of this section for more than a century.
Its members have been chiefly interested in farming and have been
known as honest, upright people, the name being a synonym for honest
dealing and integrity of character. A worthy representative of this
family is found in Andrew Dillon, who has spent his life within the
confines of Franklin county, and who is now engaged in successfully
operating the old homestead on which his grandfather settled so many
years ago. Mr. Dillon was born in this county, June 9, 1849, and is a
son of William M. and Isabella (Moore) Dillon.
John Dillon, the grandfather of Andrew, moved from the state of
Tennessee to Illinois over one hundred years ago, and became one of the
first settlers of Franklin county, where he followed farming until his
death, in 1854. He was also one of the early medical practitioners of this
county, and at the time of his death, in 1854, was a successful and highly-
respected citizen. William M. Dillon was born in Franklin county in
. 1827, and spent his entire life on the property his father had taken up,
dying in 1889, at which time he was considered one of the wealthiest and
most influential farmers of this part of the county. He was an active
and interested Democrat, but never cared to run for public office. Wil-
liam M. Dillon married Isabella Moore, daughter of Joseph Moore, and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1531
she died in 1880, having been the mother of two children, Andrew and
a sister.
Andrew Dillon was educated in the country schools in the vicinity
of his father's farm, his uncle, Captain C. Moore, being his first teacher.
As soon as he was old enough he began to do his share of work on the
home place, and his father taught him lessons in tilling the soil that have
since proved invaluable to him. Progressive and enterprising in all
things, Mr. Dillon was one of the first to take up fruit culture, and he
now has an apple orchard of sixty acres, and claims that he has not had a
complete failure in all the twenty years that he has followed this branch
of agriculture. He believes in the use of modern methods, and pays at-
tention to the leading agricultural journals, keeping fully abreast of all
the innovations and discoveries of his vocation, and he is known through-
out Franklin county as an able and experienced farmer. In 1894 Mr.
Dillon erected a handsome residence at Parrish, and there he and his
wife make their home. Politically, like his father, he has always been a
Democrat, and also like him has never cared to hold public office.
In 1871 Mr. Dillon was united in marriage with Miss Laura Finney,
daughter of William B. Finney, an early settler of Williamson county,
who later became a resident of Franklin county, and two children
were born to this union, namely : Carroll M., who is superintending the
operations on his father's farm; and Byron E., who is employed in the
Ziegler mines. Mrs. Dillon is a faithful member of the Saints church,
and is well known in religious and charitable work. Both she and her
husband have numerous warm, personal friends in this vicinity, where
both families have been known for so many years.
CORNELIUS W. MUNNDELL. The life of Cornelius W. Munndell is
both interesting and unusual, for his rise in life has been due entirely to
his own undaunted efforts and an innate ability to accomplish whatever
he has set out to do. The man who is now the respected and popular
superintendent of the schools of Franklin county could not at the age
of eighteen write his own name.
Mr. Munndell was born in Franklin county, Illinois, on the 24th of
August, 1866, the son of J. H. and Malinda (Launace) Munndell, his
birth occurring sometime after his father's death. His father was a
native of the state of South Carolina, and his mother of Franklin county.
His father moved to Southern Illinois in 1854, and here bought a small
farm, which he lived upon until his removal to Missouri, in which state
he died. J. H. Munndell was a thoroughgoing Democrat, but he never
cared for the honors and emoluments of public office and was content to
show his interest merely at the polls. Both he and his wife were active
members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
John Launace, the maternal grandfather of Cornelius W. Munndell,
the immediate subject of this brief personal review, was one of the earl-
iest and most prominent settlers in Franklin county, for he came to the
United States from Germany about the year 1820, and located in Frank-
lin county in the days when the whole region was a vast wilderness, and
Indians were the most frequent visitors. Fortitude and persistence were
indeed necessary to make life possible in those days and it may be that
from that hardy settler Cornelius Munndell inherited some of the vigor
and perseverance that have won him so high a place in the general esteem.
The grandfather took up his life as a. farmer and was one of the well-
known circuit-riders in the Methodist Episcopal church. His death oc-
curred in the pulpit during a revival sermon. He was a much revered
figure of those early days. In politics he had always identified himself
with the party of Jefferson and Jackson.
1532 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Cornelius Munndell, bereft of his parents at an early age, was left
with the care of his sisters and his own fortune to carve for himself. He
set himself gladly at the task and began life as a farm hand, not attend-
ing school until after his eighteenth year. He then attended the common
schools of the county and later took a term in the Benton high school,
but the main part of his education can honestly be said to have been
obtained from books which he has read by himself or through that other
school, experience. He began teaching at the age of twenty-one and
since the year of his majority he has taught for twenty-three years,
finally, in 1910 being elected to the superintendence of the Franklin
county schools by a majority of two hundred and fifty, an almost unheard
of majority for a Democrat to have rolled up in a district consistently
Republican, and one which shows well the high regard in which Mr.
Munndell is held by those who have known him throughout his entire
life.
In 1891 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Munndell to Miss Lizzie
Quillman, the daughter of David Quillman, a pioneer farmer of Frank-
lin county, and to this union have been born eleven children. Eight of
the family are sons and the remaining three are daughters. The family
are members of the Missionary Baptist church and active participants
in the many good movements fostered by the denomination. Fraternally
Mr. Munndell is a member of the Modern Woodmen and of the Independ-
ent Order of Odd Fellows.
JOHN COLP. Conservative business tactics generally result in con-
servation of resources, as every practical man knows, but all do not
possess the courage to practice accordingly. John Colp has proven dur-
ing a long and active career his ability to grapple with every condition
that has presented itself and wrest success from discouraging situations.
As the senior member of the millage firm of Colp, Arnold & Company, of
Carterville, he has become a very active factor in the industrial life of
this community and built up a business of considerable magnitude. Mr.
Colp was born near Osage, Franklin county, Illinois, December 30, 1849,
and is a son of Milton and Louisa (Dillard) Colp.
Milton S. Colp was one of the two children of John and Sarah (Gray)
Colp, his brother, also named John, serving with distinction during the
Civil war and later entering the medical profession. Milton Colp came
to Illinois from Tennessee with his stepfather and mother, as a mere
child, having been born in 1820, and received a meager education. When
the Civil war broke out he entered the Union service and served valiantly
as a defender of his flag, participating in a number of fierce engage-
ments but escaping capture or wounds. He owned for a time the old
Laban Carter farm, on which, many years after he sold it, coal was dis-
covered and in honor of which recent owner the city of Carterville took
its name. He met his death by assassination, September 17, 1874, enroute
home from DeSoto with a load of wheat, his widow surviving until 1899.
They had the following children: Mary Ann, deceased, who was the
wife of Thomas Lowry ; William, whose home is in Oklahoma ; Josiah,
who died at Delhart, Texas, leaving a family; Sarah, the widow of Ed
Elliott, of Murphysboro ; Emily, widow of Thomas Bush ; Miles, who
was accidentally killed while engaged in logging near Ava, Illinois ;
John ; Melissa, who married Henry Ritcock and died in Texas ; Nancy,
who died in young womanhood ; Sidney, who is married and resides at
Effingham ; Louisa, who married Lon Sweet, both of whom are deceased ;
and Charles, who lives at Bush, Illinois.
John Colp was given only the advantages to be secured from a coun-
try school education, and when he had attained his majority left the old
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1533
homestead to establish a home of his own. He continued to engage in
farming, however, and when he married located on a property at Dog-
wood Ridge, Williamson county, where he spent two years. During the
two years that followed he managed the old Colp farm, and in 1876 he
came to the Carterville community and purchased a farm one and one-
half miles from the city, where he has since maintained his home and
reared his family. In this locality Mr. Colp was fortunate, because it
threw him into association with his friend, Mr. Hezekiah F. Arnold, in
the machinery business. Mr. Colp was thoroughly familiar with the
threshing business, as just after the close of the Civil war he had assisted
in threshing wheat on the present site of Murphysboro, with a horse-
power machine, and with the vast and successful experience of Mr. Ar-
nold to aid, the firm started into the work of selling all kinds of heavy
machinery with much promise of a profitable career. Entering the field
of grain-threshing, they extended their force of machines until ten
outfits, owned exclusively by them, were hulling the golden kernel for
market in Southern Illinois, and a number of outfits were managed by
others but owned partly by Colp & Arnold. Their machinery sales
extended over into Missouri, as did their threshing interests, and for
some years they did considerable business in Scott and Stoddard counties,
that state. They also entered the saw-mill business and cut much lumber
out of the vast forests which abounded there a score of years back. In
the early nineties they decided to curtail their business, and gradually
withdrew from the field as threshers and salesmen and by 1894 they had
largely closed up their former affairs and that year erected the Carterville
flouring mill, a hundred-barrel mill, which is now their chief interest,
together with handling and dealing in grain.
For a time Mr. Colp was one of the active dealers in and developers of
coal lands in Williamson county. Associated with S. T. Bush, he put
down the first shaft of the Colp Coal Company, four miles north of
Carterville. Selling this proposition, they leased some twelve thousand
acres of coal lands in the county and opened a mine at Lake Creek,
under the name of the Lake Creek Coal Company, and when they had
sold this took up leases under the original charter, ' ' The Colp Coal Com-
pany, ' ' and purchased lands as well near Marion, developing still another
property and selling it. At this time Mr. Colp became interested in the
building of a railroad into the new coal field, and helped to organize and
partly construct the Eldorado, Marion & Southwestern Railroad, and
was for a time the president of the company. When it became evident
that the golden days of mining coal in this section were rapidly passing,
Mr. Colp slackened his pace as a speculator and as rapidly as possible
entered upon an era of entrenchment, until now his mill and his farm
constitute his live, active holdings. Progressive in all things, Mr. Colp
was the first to introduce the self-guide traction engine in Williamson
county, the first to use the automatic straw-stacker and the first to take up
with and introduce the modern wind-stacker, indicating his attitude
toward the implements which saved labor and helped popularize new in-
ventions.
On December 19, 1873, Mr. Colp was married to Miss Dora North,
daughter of George and Fredonia North, early residents of Williamson
county, where Mrs. Colp was born. 'The children born to this union
are as follows: Mary, the wife .of John A. Milford, of Olive Branch,
Illinois : Monroe D., a merchant at Pittsburg, Illinois ; Paul, who is as-
sociated with his brother at that place ; Leonard, a well-known attorney
of Marion : Loran R., who is in the service of the Western Electric Com-
pany, at Chicago ; Stella, who died in infancy ; Miss Effie, of Carterville ;
and Harrison and Logan, who are connected with the Swift Packing
Vol. m— 29
1534 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Company, at Chicago, and the latter of whom finished his education at
Delatield, Wisconsin.
FRANK BOUR, for many years the owner and proprietor of a thriving
farm in the vicinity of Mounds, is numbered among the settlers of the
Civil war period, having come to Pulaski county with his parents in 1864.
Since the death of his father in September, 1875, he has been the head
of the house, eventually succeeding to the ownership of the farm, and
there he has lived, quietly and industriously, and has prospered in a
measure coincident with his industry. There he has reared a family of
six children, and through his sterling qualities as a dependable, straight-
forward man, has come to be recognized in his community as one of the
really substantial men of the district.
Born December 14, 1858, in Ohio, Frank Bour is the son of John
Bour, born in Wurtemberg-Schwabenland, Germany, in 1833. In Cin-
cinnati he married Carolina Moser, a girl of German extraction, and
after some little time in that city he concluded to seek a new home in the
farming district of Illinois. Coming down the Ohio river with his family,
he disembarked at Mound City, then a point of importance as the base
of the naval operations of the interior naval forces of the United States.
John Bour had just been discharged from Company B of the Eighty-
eighth Ohio Infantry, in which he had enlisted in Cincinnati some time
previous. He, with his company, did guard duty at Camp Chase for
some time and later the regiment was ordered to the front, Tennessee
being the field of their activities. He participated in the duties of his
command until he was discharged in 1864, and he left the army in a
permanently disabled condition. He suffered constantly for the re-
mainder of his life as a result of rheumatic afflictions contracted while
in service, and the last years of his life he was practically a helpless in-
valid. He settled on what is now termed the Bour Farm, and there he
1875, he had so far improved the property, which he found in a state of
extreme wildness, that his family were able to continue with the cultiva-
spent the remainder of his life. When he passed away in September,
tion of the farm, and a maintenance as a result of their labors was prac-
tically assured. He left besides his widow five sons and a daughter.
They were Frank, Joseph, Charles, Bremen and Edward W., the latter
of whom died in the same year as his father, as a result of a scourge of
typhoid fever which attacked the family. The daughter, Adina, is the
wife of W. Oliver Wallace, of Pulaski, Illinois. The eldest son, Frank,
was but seventeen years of age when he virtually became the head of
the house on the death of his father, and since that time his hand has
been on the throttle. The substantial and attractive improvements which
have materialized since he took charge of the homestead are all indicative
of the solid character of the man and of his thrifty, progressive nature.
His farm of two hundred acres of fertile and productive land marks one
of the garden spots of his locality.
In 1884, the exact date being April 23 of that year, Frank Bour mar-
ried Miss Sallie Palmer, daughter of Pleasant Palmer, a well known
farmer of Villa Ridge community. He was a native of Hardin county,
Tennessee, and settled in Pulaski county in middle life. Mr. Palmer's
first wife was Mahala Biggerstaff,* who bore him three children. They
are Mary J., the wife of William Lacky, of Pulaski county; Frances,
who married John Burkstaller and resides at Roswell, New Mexico ; and
Harriet, the wife of David Dugan, of Charleston, Mississippi. For his
second wife, Mr. Palmer chose Harriet E. Lacky, a daughter of Cyrus
Lacky, and a granddaughter of Thomas Lacky, the founder of this
numerous family in Pulaski county, and a settler of 1814 from North
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1535
Carolina. Mrs. Palmer still lives, and makes her home with her only
child, Mrs. Prank Bour, Mr. Palmer having passed away November 18,
1893, at the age of seventy-one years. Mr. and Mrs. Bour are the par-
ents of Minnie, Frank, Robert, Henry, Clyde and Claud, the latter two
being twins.
ALBERT M. ROSE, judge of the Fourth judicial district of Illinois,
was born in Edwards county, Illinois, on September 22, 1862. He is the
son of Dreaury and Caroline (Ackison) Rose, the former a native of
Grayson county, Kentucky, where he was born in 1828. He died in 1895,
November 7th, at his home in Edwards county, Illinois, having settled
there in 1854. He was a carpenter by trade and followed that business
all his life. A Democrat in his political affiliations, he was always en-
thusiastic in his support of the party, and he has in his time held many
of the public offices of his township and county. The mother survived
him until 1905, when she passed away at the family home in Edwards
county. Both were members of the Methodist Episcopal church during
their lifetime and were honest and diligent workers in the church. The
father of Dreaury Rose was a native of the state of Kentucky, but who
settled in Clay county in later life and became well known and pros-
perous in that county. F. Ackison, the maternal grandfather of Albert
Rose, was a native of the Keystone state. He came to Illinois early in
life, and was one of the pioneer farmers of Southern Illinois, where he
attained a fair degree of success in his business. He died in Clay
county at an advanced age.
Mr. Rose was educated in the common and high schools of his home
town and later attended Vineennes University, at Vincennes, Indiana,
graduating in 1888 from that institution of learning.
Immediately upon his graduation he began to teach school, in the
summer seasons spending his vacations in the study of law, in which he
was ambitious to rise, and which efforts his later career have fully and
amply justified. He studied under the tutelage of Barnes & Ramsey, of
Louisville, Illinois, and his labors were so well expended and his instruc-
tion of so high an order that in 1890 he was admitted to the bar. He
began the practice of his profession in 1891, his only resources being
his health, brains, education and his dominant will to succeed, while
his liabilities were fairly represented by a debt of one hundred dollars
incurred in opening an office. He first entered a partnership with John
A. Barnes, this alliance continuing until 1896 ; his next partner was
John R. Bonnie and this arrangement endured for two years, when he
entered a partnership with W. H. Dillman. Some time later he severed
his connection with Mr. Dillman and entered a partnership with Mr.
H. D. McCullum, which continued until the election of Mr. Rose to the
office of circuit judge of the Fourth judicial district, in November, 1906,
of which important office he is still the incumbent. Judge Rose has
always been an enthusiastic Democrat and a supporter of any ticket
that party puts in the field. He is a Mason and a Red Man, and with his
family is a member of the Christian church. In addition to his legal
duties, Judge Rose is the owner of a fine farm in Clay county, which is
in every way a credit to the progressiveness and good judgment of the
man from the point of view of its prosperity and its well kept ap-
pearance.
On December 28, 1892, Judge Rose was united in marriage with Miss
Lulua Branson, daughter of James M. Branson, M. D., who was promi-
nent for years in medical circles in Wayne county, Illinois, where he
enjoyed a. goodly measure of prosperity and popularity. He died in
1898, at his home in "Wayne city. One son has been born to the union of
1536 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Judge and Mrs. Rose, — Robley, born July 13, 1894, now a student in the
Louisville high school.
JOHN B. McGuYER, one of the most successful and highly esteemed
citizens of Akin, prominent in banking and business circles and a self-
made man, has proven by a long and honorable career that it is not neces-
sary for a youth to have financial advantages or the help of influential
friends to give him his start in the commercial or financial world, but
that industry, integrity and perseverance, when directed along the right
channels, will invariably bring success. He was born in Kentucky, De-
cember 3, 1863, and is a son of William D. and Kelita (Sharp) McGuyer.
William McGuyer, grandfather of John B., was a farmer in Bedford
county, Tennessee, where he spent his life, and from whence William D.
McGuyer came to Illinois in 1868 and settled on a farm in Hamilton
county. He followed farming throughout his life, won success in his
undertakings, and at the time of his death, in 1907, left a good property,
on which his widow, also a native of Bedford county, Tennessee, and a
faithful member of the Baptist church, now resides.
John B. McGuyer received his education in the common schools of
Hamilton county, and it was the intention of his father to rear him to
agricultural pursuits. The son, however, had ambitions to enter the
mercantile field, and in 1890 secured a position in the store of H. C. Vise,
with whom he remained fourteen years. At the end of this time, through
careful economy and industry, he had accumulated enough means to
enter the business field on his own account, and subsequently bought the
stock and fixtures of W. S. Mouse, successfully conducting that estab-
lishment until 1908, at which time he sold out to the Akin Mercantile
Company. During the next year he went to West Franklin and engaged
in a clothing business, but in 1910 moved to Macedonia, where he is
interested in the same line with Mr. Vise. In June, 1910, Mr. McGuyer
assisted in establishing the Farmers Exchange Bank of Akin, of which
he was elected cashier and in which he is a heavy stockholder. This insti-
tution, one of the substantial and reliable banks of this section of the
state, was capitalized at ten thousand dollars, and has average annual
deposits of thirty -five thousand dollars. He also holds stock in the Bank
of Macedonia, and is the proprietor of a flourishing hardware business at
Akin. In his fraternal affiliations he is a prominent Mason, having
served as master of Royal Lodge, No. 807, A. F. & A. M., at Macedonia,
and also belongs to H. W. Hubbard Chapter, No. 160, R. A. M., at Mount
Vernon. Mr. McGuyer 's belief in the future of this section of the state
has been shown by his investment in various pieces of valuable real
estate, and he is the owner of an excellent farming property in
Hamilton county. In his fraternal and social connections, as well as in
business, he has surrounded himself with numerous acquaintances
throughout the city and the county, and in honest opinion of so honorable
a man to the community it can be stated, without the slightest fear of
contradiction, that his loss would be a severe blow to the business in-
terests of the city and to his scores of friends.
PRESLEY G. BRADBURY. Many people who believe that a thorough
reform in our governmental and public affairs is necessary agree with
Shakespeare, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." They
may not be quite so blood-thirsty as this, but they have an idea that the
world might be better off without them. If such people could know the
real true lawyers among whom is found Presley G. Bradbury, they might
at least censure such opinions, for he believes and impresses all who know
him as a lawyer that justice is something more than a name. Mr. Brad-
rt UBRMJ
OF THE
HSVEHSITY OF \I
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1537
bury shows by his work and deeds that no real lawyer has to descend to
the trickery and wiliness that is sometimes associated with the men of his
profession, especially if they deal with criminal case's. That a success-
ful practice can be built up by honest means he has proved overwhelm-
ingly, for he is one of the best known lawyers in the state. But he
possesses a brilliant mind, the ability to draw deductions and to reason
things out logically, the power of presenting a case simply and force-
fully, and a personality that dominates any court room. Mr. Brad-
bury, therefore, is a man who has the high regard of all who have come
in contact with him, and in his own county is loved and venerated not
only in his public capacity but as a man among men.
Presley G. Bradbury was born in Crawford county, Illinois, on
the 6th of October, 1847. He was the son of John S. Bradbury, who
was born in North Carolina on the 17th of August, 1822. His parents
were farmers and their little place was near Rolla, North Carolina.
Here John Bradbury spent the first six years of his life, and then his
parents, John and Mary Bradbury, decided to go west. They had a
small cart with one horse, and piling this with the pots and pans and
feather beds, the family set out, ignorant of what dangers they would
encounter on the way, indeed not even knowing their destination, only
knowing that somewhere in the great prairie country to the westward
they were going to find a place where the land cost nothing and where
with industry they could bring up their family of six children. The
mother had the seat of honor on the cart but the rest of the family
walked. The short fat legs of little John, who was the youngest, found
the way a weary one, but the old horse did not travel very rapidly,
and occasionally John would have a short ride alongside his mother. The
little fellow preferred to trudge along with his hand in his father's,
for was he not almost a man. This was in 1828, and they finally came
to the end of their journey and found a resting place near West York,
in the northwestern part of Crawford county. Here the father spent
the rest of his days, following the busy life of a pioneer farmer. He
did not live very long after coming to Illinois, however.
John Bradbury followed his father's example and became a farmer.
He became a man of great prominence in the community, and at the
time of his death was about the oldest resident in the township of
Hutsonville. He was affectionately known all over the county as
"Uncle" John Bradbury, and to quote another's words, "Of him it
can be truly said that never during his long and active life did he
cause a widow to mourn or an orphan 's tear to fall. ' ' At the time of
his death he was worth about $25,000. He died in 1910, on the 1st
of April. John Bradbury was twice married, his first wife being Jemima
Buckner, who died after seven years of married life, leaving three chil-
dren: Catherine, who is now the wife of Harper Reynolds; Presley
G. ; and James L., a merchant at Graysville, Illinois. His second mar-
riage was to Nancy Huckaby, who died in 1906. By this second mar-
riage Mr. and Mrs. Bradbury became the parents of ten children,
Andrew ; John ; George ; Aurora ; Willis ; Albert, who is deceased ;
Alice ; Nannie ; and Laura and Milam. both of whom are dead.
The early life of Presley G. Bradbury was spent on the farm near
West York where he was born. His introduction to the school room
came to him in the school at York, and he completed the course offered
in the common schools of his day. He then began teaching, and for
seven years followed this profession. We now think of a boy with
his education as a mere infant, but he proved perfectly well able to
handle his pupils. He was not content with the amount of knowledge
he had, and so while he was teaching he attended several terms at the
1538 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
state normal schools at Bloomington and Carbondale. In this way he
acquired a good education, and was made county superintendent of
schools in 1873. Meanwhile, after his day's work in the school room
was over, he had been spending the rest of the time poring over law
books. He had the great advantage of having as a preceptor Judge
Robb, who was considered one of the ablest lawyers in the state. He
was admitted to the bar in 1876, and resigned his position as superin-
tendent of schools to take that of state's attorney. He began to prac-
tice as a partner of Judge Robb's, and this partnership lasted until the
death of Judge Robb in 1890, on the 10th of February. This partner-
ship was of great benefit to Mr. Bradbury, for the older practioner
not only had had a wide experience, but he had a splendid character,
and had much to do with forming those high ideals for which Mr.
Bradbury is well known. Mr. Bradbury held the office of state's at-
torney for two consecutive terms. After the death of Judge Robb he
took F. W. Lewis, who had been a student in his office, into partner-
ship. This association lasted for two years, until Mr. Lewis was elected
state 's attorney. In the spring of 1893 Mr. Bradbury formed a part-
nership with Joseph A. MeHatton, and this connection continued until
1908, when it was dissolved by mutual consent. Until 1909 Mr. Brad-
bury practiced alone, and then he formed a partnership with Duane
Gaines that has lasted up to the present time. For four years Mr.
Bradbury served as master in chancery under Judge W. C. Jones.
Mr. Bradbury is an enthusiastic politician and a strong supporter
of the Democratic party. He has frequently made political speeches,
but he does not care for the prizes to be found in the political ring,
preferring to do the work and let others have the plums. In his re-
ligious affiliations he is a Presbyterian and has been an elder in the
church for a number of years. He is an active member of the Ancient
Free and Accepted Masons, of which order he has been a member since
1871, and he is a charter member of the Knights of Pythias in the
Robinson lodge.
Mr. Bradbury was married on the 31st of December, 1879, to Jennie
Kelly, of Sullivan, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Bradbury have five chil-
dren, the eldest of whom, John Landis, is dead. The others are :
Frances C., who was married in September, 1910, to A. J. Goff of
Robinson, Illinois; Palmer G., who is living at home; William E., who
has recently graduated from the high school at Robinson; and James
Stanley, as yet in the public school.
JOEL DUNN. Undoubtedly there has been no more important agency
in the development of any country than the great work done through
civil engineering, and the men who have possessed the judgment and
foresight, combined with the necessary technical knowledge, have accomp-
lished results that have changed the life and commerce of not only lo-
calities but of nations. No reference need be made in this connection
to the lately completed Roosevelt Dam, nor of the present stupendous
operations at Panama, for much nearer home changes have been wrought
that have proved of the utmost importance to present and future resi-
dents of Illinois, and those who have brought them about still live and
plan worthily for further endeavor. Joel Dunn, who is acknowledged to
have done very much efficient work, in the way of drainage engineering,
is one of the competent, experienced and trusted men of his profession.
He was born January 20, 1846, near Lovington, in Moultrie county, Illi-
nois, and is a son of Thomas and Catherine (Freeman) Dunn.
Thomas Dunn was born in 1813 at Clarksville, Indiana, of Kentucky
people, although on the maternal side the ancestry was directly of Hoi-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1539
land. On account of the early death of his father, Thomas Dunn was
reared by his grandfather and in 1833 he came to Moultrie county, Illi-
nois, where he embarked in the stock business and engaged in farming.
In 1859 he moved to Bement, Piatt county, entering then into the general
mercantile business, which he continued to follow until he retired, his
death occurring ten years af terward, in 1878. He was a Democrat in poli-
tics and as an intelligent man was always more or less interested in public
matters. He was an elder in the Campbellite (Christian) church. In
1843 he married Catherine Freeman, of Moultrie county, who died in
May, 1907, at the age of eighty-three years. Of their family of ten
children there are three survivors: Joel; Mrs. Betty Kelly, residing at
Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Mrs. James Hicks, residing at Monticello,
Illinois.
Joel Dunn was thirteen years of age when the family located at Be-
ment, Illinois, where he continued to attend the public schools until
properly prepared for more advanced studies, when he entered Eureka
College, at Eureka, Illinois, where he was graduated in 1871, with the
degree of B. S. For two years afterward he engaged in the study of law
and practiced considerably in the justice courts, for eight years was a
school teacher and for two years was a farmer, and just here it may be
mentioned that he owns a large farm in Jackson county to which he
proposes to retire when he feels satisfied with the work he has completed
as an engineer. About 1885 he began working as a drainage engineer in
central Illinois and it was Mr. Dunn who made the surveys for the
greater amount of ditching in the northern part of the Kaskakia valley.
During the past dozen years he has been continuously busy in Scott and
New Madrid counties, Missouri, his present labors being in Jackson
county as the engineer of the Degoria & Fountain Bluff Levee and Drain-
age district.
In 1876 Mr. Dunn was married to Miss Josephine Smith, and they
had three children, as follows: Joel Ernest, who was born in 1879,
graduated from the University of Illinois, with his degree of C. E., and
resides at Dexter, Missouri ; Thomas, who was born in 1886, is also a
civil engineer and is his father's assistant, living at Fordyce; and Eu-
genia, who is Mrs. B. D. Berkhart, residing at Gideon, Missouri. Mr.
Dunn's second marriage was to Mrs. Mary E. Lyon. They attend the
Christian church. In politics Mr. Dunn is a Democrat.
JOHN B. HARPER. The owner of one of the best farms of its size in
Johnson county is John B. Harper, of section 15, Bloomfield township,
who for forty years has been carrying on operations on the same tract
and who is widely and favorably known among the agriculturists of this
section. He has been a witness of the marvelous development of John-
son county, and has participated in the changes that have brought this
locality from a practical wilderness into one of the garden spots of the
state. Mr. Harper was born October 27, 1848, on a farm in the state of
Alabama, and is a son of Jesse and Leannah (Busby) Harper, natives
of that state.
Mr. Harper's mother died during the same year that he was born,
and his father migrated to Johnson county, Illinois in 1852, settling near
old Reynoldsburg. Shortly thereafter, however he went to Arkansas, and
it is probable that he died there, as all trace of him was lost. Mr.
Harper's only sister. Mrs. Leannah Elizabeth Birdwell, died in 1899, in
Johnson county. His uncle. "W. E. Harper, fought during the Civil
war. enlisting at Eldorado, Saline county, as a member of the Third
Illinois Cavalry. After the death of his mother Mr. Harper was reared
by his grandparents, John and Betsy (Gocher) Harper, who migrated
1540 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to Johnson county in 1852 and settled on a farm of forty acres, pur-
chased under the ' ' bit " act, at twelve and one-half cents an acre. Later
they sold this property and settled in Saline county, near Eldorado,
where they continue to reside until their deaths, in 1862. Mr. Harper
continued to reside with his grandparents as long as they lived, and then
hired out as a farm hand in White county for two years. Locating
then in Williamson county, he secured employment in a livery stable,
but in 1865 came to Johnson county and again took up farm work,
continuing to be thus employed until 1870, at which time he was mar-
ried. He then began operations on his own account on his present farm,
a tract of eighty acres located about three and one-half miles north of
Vienna. This farm, which is second bottom land, with five springs, is
highly productive, and Mr. Harper has raised eight hundred bushels of
corn on thirty acres, with wheat and other farm products in comparison.
A skilled agriculturist who believes in using modern methods, he has
been very successful in his work, and the prosperous appearance of his
farm testifies to the presence of able management. Each year has found
him adding to the buildings and improvements on his land, his stock is
of the best grade, and his farming machinery is of the latest and most
highly-improved manufacture. Although he has reached the time of life
when most men are willing to retire and shift their burdens to the shoul-
ders of younger men, Mr. Harper is still hale and hearty, and fully able
to do as large a part of the farm work as he was years ago. Having
led a clean, temperate life, he has never known a day's sickness, and has
reared. a healthy, intelligent family of children. Mr. Harper has never
cared for public office, but has discharged his duties as a good citizen by
serving his township as school director and trustee.
In 1870 Mr. Harper was married to Miss Sarah A. Cooper, daugh-
ter of John and Betsy (Harrold) Cooper, who came to Johnson county
at an early day from North Carolina and took up government land. Six
children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Harper, as follows : Mrs. Lean-
nah Elizabeth Taylor, who has five children, — Lloyd, Blanche, Lee and
Lawrence, twins, and Sarah ; Martha Adeline Clayton, who has three chil-
dren,— Elvira, Hazel and Pleasant; Mrs. Nora Taylor, who has three
children, — Vivy, Louisa and Charles ; Cora Pennina ; Mrs. Delia Lean-
nah Taylor; and Fred, who married Miss Jobe and has three children, —
Philip, John and Gerrel. The family is connected with the Cumber-
land Presbyterian church, and Mr. Harper has been a liberal supporter
of religious and charitable movements.
HENRY BAILEY is the president of the Little Muddy Fuel Company,
a corporation operating mines at Sunfield and Tamaroa, Illinois, and has
all his life been connected with the mining industry in one capacity or
another. He was born in Perry county, on March 23, 1879. Coal mining
no doubt came to him quite naturally, as in addition to being reared in a
community where that was the principal industry, he is the son of
Joseph Bailey, himself a practical coal miner of Monmouthshire, Eng-
land, who was born there in 1834 and came to the United States as a
young man. On arriving in America he first stopped in the fuel region
of Youngstown, Ohio, where he remained for a time and then continued
on until he came to Illinois. He settled in the vicinity of DuQuoin and
died at Sunfield, in 1883. He was married in 1863, in Youngstown, Ohio
to Rachel Owens, and in 1911 Mrs. Bailey passed away at Marissa,
Illinois. The issue of their union were : John, who lost his life in the
mines at Sunfield in 1889 ; Joe, an officer of the Little Muddy Fuel
Company, and who married Lizzie O'Keefe; Robert, a Sunfield miner
and is married to Delia Cytrall; William married Belle Payne and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1541
is identified with the Sunfield mine of the company ; George, one of the
brothers who comprise the firm, resides at Sunfield, and is married to
Mary Terry ; Henry ; Charles, who grew up in and about the mines
owned and operated by members of his family and who is now identified
with the company, is the husband of Minnie Bishop ; Mary, the widow of
James Lockhart, is a resident of Sunfield.
Henry Bailey and his brothers were educated in the common schools
and he began his career as a miner at Sunfield with one of the local
companies. He began with the simplest manual labor and steadily ad-
vanced until he held the position of chief to the commissary of the com-
pany. In 1900 he and his brothers came into the possession of the prop-
erty by lease, and operated the mines at Sunfield as the Bailey Brothers
Coal Company, he being chosen as chief officer of the company. The lease
covers three mines in this section, and they have a heavy interest in the
Pond Creek Coal Company at Herrin, Illinois, of which company he
and his brother Joe are directors, the latter being secretary of the com-
pany as well. The Sunfield and Tamaroa properties have united capacity
of something like fifteen hundred tons output daily, and employ a
working force of three hundred men.
The marriage of Henry Bailey took place at DuQuoin on December
23, 1900, his wife being Lizzie, the daughter of B. A. Terry, a miner of
English birth. Mrs. Bailey was born in Perry county on May 1, 1882,
and she and her husband are the parents of three children, — Harley R.,
Hazel and Ray.
Mr. Bailey is a Republican, as are the other members of his family
who are voters, and he is a Master Mason and a Pythian Knight.
HON. ROBERT S. JONES. The true American spirit of progress and
enterprise, as exemplified in the career of Hon. Robert S. Jones, of
Flora, gives him prestige among the representative citizens of Southern
Illinois, and his career is a case in point that proves one of the reasons
for the country's greatness — the fact that all men are equal before the
law and that all have an even opportunity in the struggle for advance-
ment. He is essentially a self-made man, and his energetic nature and
laudable ambition have enabled him to conquer many adverse circum-
stances, while he has so ordered his life as to gain and hold the esteem and
confidence of his fellow men. Mr. Jones was born at Xenia, Clay county,
Illinois, June 20, 1871, and is a son of Robert H. and Emily E. (Ham-
mer) Jones.
Robert Jones, the paternal grandfather of Robert S., was a native of
Virginia, from which state he moved to Kentucky, thence to Illinois in
1839. He was a blacksmith by occupation, participated in both the
Black Hawk and Civil wars, attained advanced years, and died in Clay
county, respected and esteemed by all who knew him. On the maternal
side Mr. Jones' grandfather was Frederick Hammer, a native of Ger-
many, who came to the United States in young manhood and spent the
remainder of his life in Jasper county, Illinois, where he was the builder
of the first mill in the county. Dr. Robert H. Jones, father of Robert S.,
was born in Warren county, Kentucky, in 1829, and when ten years of
age was brought to Illinois. Reared in Randolph county and educated
to the profession of physician, he was engaged in practice for thirty
years and attained eminence in his calling. During the entire Civil war
he served with distinction on Grant's staff in the Twenty-first Illinois
Volunteers, holding the rank of quartermaster-sergeant. On his return
from the war he again engaged in practice, and from 1897 to 1900 was
surgeon of the Soldiers and Sailors Home at Quincy. Being stricken with
paralysis, he was for the last eleven years of his life an invalid, and his
1542 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
death occurred in 1909. Dr. Jones was a well known figure in Republi-
can politics and in 1872 was chairman of the county committee. His wife
was born in Marion county, Indiana, and came to Illinois with her par-
ents, and she survives her husband and resides at Lebanon, Illinois.
Robert S. Jones obtained his education in the common schools of
Flora, supplemented by attendance, at Fairfield, Illinois, in Hayward
College, and he subsequently studied both law and medicine, but never
took up either profession. During the early years of his business career
he followed commercial traveling, but after spending about fifteen years
on the road established himself in the real estate business in Flora, with
Colonel Randolph Smith. Although he had started life with little beside
ambition and a determination to win success, he had the native ability and
enterprising spirit that goes to make the leaders in any field, and his
operations have been of such an extensive nature to entitle him to a place
among the prominent business men of his section. Mr. Jones is an expert
on realty values, and although the firm does a small commission busi-
ness the greater part of their operations are carried on with their own
property, and at times they own vast tracts of valuable lands. Mr. Jones
is a man of the highest honor and integrity in all the relations of life, and
commands the confidence and esteem of the entire community, where the
family enjoy a distinctive popularity. He is progressive in his methods,
is public-spirited in his attitude, and is known as a man of wide informa-
tion and sound judgment. He and his family are connected with the
Christian church, and fraternally he is connected with the Masons, the
Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. A stanch and stal-
wart Republican in a district strongly Democratic, Mr. Jones in 1908 was
a candidate for a state senatorship, but owing to political conditions
met with defeat, although he ran ahead of his ticket about 2,000 votes.
In 1910, however, he was nominated and elected to the legislature of the
state, and he is chairman of the committee on horticulture and a member
of the following committees: Appropriation, corporation, fraternal and
mutual insurance, judicial apportionment, mines and mining, penal and
reform institutions, retrenchment, temperance and to visit state institu-
tions. A strong and able speaker, Mr. Jones has been fearless in his sup-
port of those measures which he has deemed important to the welfare of
his constituents, and he is esteemed by his fellow-legislators as an active
and energetic member. All progressive movements in his home city have
his earnest and hearty support, and he has just been elected secretary of
the newly organized Fair Association. He is a stock-holder and director
in the First National Bank of Flora, and contributes in various ways to
the development of his community 's industrial, commercial and civic re-
sources.
In 1907 Representative Jones was united in marriage with Miss Delia
Naney, daughter of Newton Naney. for more than thirty years a passen-
ger conductor on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and two children have
been born to this union : Leslie and Pauline, both attending school.
*
EDGAR E. FYKE. One of the most prominent men in Centralia, Illi-
nois, both in the business and in the professional fields, is Doctor Edgar
E. Fyke. He started in life a poor boy, but he had his father's fondness
for books, and he was full of ambition, so making up his mind that if
energy and perseverance could win for him his goal he would make a suc-
cess in the same profession that his father had chosen. Success has come
to him not only as a physician but as a business man. He has now re-
tired from active medical practice, but he is still a prominent figure in
the business world. He is a large stock-holder and is general manager of
one of the most important commercial enterprises in and around Cen-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1543
tralia. The tact and patience which he learned as a physician have
served him well in this position, where one of his biggest problems is the
management of men. He has built up a good sized private fortune, but
he has been too close to the suffering of the world to profit at the expense
of others, consequently his money does not bear the taint of having been
wrung from weak and toil worn fingers, but has been made by honest and
upright business methods. Dr. Fyke, having spent so many years in the
service of others, has never lost the habit of thinking much of and for
others, and this generosity and big heartedness has won him the regard
and affection of the people of Centralia.
Edgar E. Fyke was born in Odin, Illinois, on the 23rd of December,
1868. He was the son of John J. Fyke and Minerva T. (Phillips) Fyke.
His father, John J. Fyke, was born in 1842, at Tennessee Prairie, Marion
county, Illinois. He is the son of Josiah A. and Margaret (Wilson) Fyke.
The former was born in Tennessee and came to Marion county about
1840. He took up government land and settled down to the life of a
farmer. His wife was the first white child born in Marion county, the
date of her birth being 1822. Her family, the Wilsons came to Marion
county about 1818, being pioneers from North Carolina. They took up
government land and, being industrious and able people, developed the
land into great and prosperous farms. Josiah Fyke and his wife raised a
large family of children. He spent all of his life as a farmer, and died
in 1878.
John J. Fyke is a self made man. His father was too busy to sympa-
thize with his ambitions, and although he gave him what aid he could in
obtaining his education, yet he had a large family and a small income,
and there was little to spare for the education of his young son. Conse-
quently John Fyke learned the true value of an education in working for
it. He attended McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois, for a time, and
then he began the study of medicine with Doctor Davenport, of Salem,
Illinois. After accomplishing considerable work under the tutelage of
the older man, he entered a medical college in Chicago, and after spend-
ing some time there he went to St. Louis, where he matriculated at a
similar institution. He won fame as a scholar, ranking among the first
in his class in both the St. Louis and the Chicago schools. He began to
practice in 1866, and since that time he has been in almost constant ser-
vice. He is still practicing in Odin, Illinois, and what the people of this
town would do without this old friend and adviser would be hard to say.
He is a Mason and has served in all the chairs of his chapter. In his
religious affiliations he is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal
church. Doctor Fyk'e married Miss Minerva Phillips, a daughter of
Thomas and Eliza (Chadwell) Phillips. Thomas Phillips and his wife
were both natives of Tennessee, and had come to Illinois in about 1855.
Here they settled down as farmers and save for the years during which
Thomas Phillips served in, the army during the Black Hawk war he
spent his life as a farmer.
Edgar E. Fyke received his elementary education in Odin, Illinois,
and when he was ready to take up his professional studies his father sent
him to the city where he had spent a large part of his school days, St.
Louis. Missouri. Here he entered the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, from which he was graduated in 1889. He then returned to
Odin, where he went into practice with his father. This was a wise move
on his part, for in addition to the advice that the older man could give
him from his wider professional experience, the influence of the strong
and upright character of his father was a steadying influence on the
young man just starting out, eager with enthusiasm. He spent five years
in association with his father and then came to Centralia, where he spent
1544 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
fifteen years in practice. During this time he has not allowed the ad-
vance made in his profession to slip by him, but has endeavored to keep
abreast of the times, not only by reading and studying the modern medi-
cal literature, but by taking post-graduate courses. During the year of
1900 and 1901 he was in New York City doing post graduate work, and
his patients have greatly benefited by this work of his.
He is no longer an active practitioner, but he still evinces great in-
terest in medicine and in the related sciences. At present most of his
time is given to his duties as manager of the Marion County Coal Com-
pany, which owns one of the most valuable mines in the state of Illinois.
He himself owns a large block of this stock, and is also the owner of other
large properties. He has a half interest in the Red Cross Drug Store,
which is a very profitable business. In his political views Doctor Fyke
is a Democrat, and while he has never held office he is always an enthusi-
astic worker in behalf of the party. Like his father, he is a prominent
Mason, and has passed through all the chairs of the Chapter, being in
addition a Knight Templar. He is, in short, one of the best known and
most popular men in Centralia. A man whose opinions are listened to,
and whose views are respected.
In 1896, Doctor Fyke was married to Helen Morrison, the daughter of
N. B. Morrison, of Odin. He was an early settler of Odin, and had man-
aged to amass considerable property by the time he was ready to retire
from the business world. He died quite recently, at the age of eighty-
seven. Three children have been born to Doctor and Mrs. Fyke, Jean,
who is in the high school, and Helen and Lavinia, who are also both in
school.
JUDGE JOHN S. STONECIPHER. Starting on practically nothing, with
the determination to secure in some way first an education and then suc-
cess in his profession. Judge John S. Stonecipher, by means of hard work
and the firm resolution to let nothing hinder his progress forward, is now
one of the most successful lawyers in Marion county and his reputation
for honesty and the ability to win his cases has given him the largest
practice of any lawyer in Salem. The fine judicial qualities of his mind,
his keen sense of justice and his vast store of legal lore so won the confi-
dence of his fellow citizens that he was elected county judge. His suc-
cess as a lawyer has its parallel in his career as a banker and financier.
John S. Stonecipher was born m July, 1868, the son of Samuel and
Mary (Ross) Stonecipher. His father was a well known and popular
farmer of Marion county, but was not a native of this county, having
been born in Knox county, Tennessee, in 1814. In 1834 he and his wife
came to Illinois and settled in Marion county, on land which is still the
property of Judge Stonecipher. Here he spent the remainder of his life,
living past the century mark. He was an ardent Democrat, and a
staunch member of the Missionary Baptist^ church. His parents were
both natives of Tennessee, where they lived and died. Mr. Stonecipher
was a remarkable man, with a fine mind and great nobility of charac-
ter. His loss was keenly felt throughout the whole county, and the inter-
est and pride which the section takes in the achievements of his son is
in some measure due to their regard for his father.
The county schools gave Judge Stonecipher his first taste of the fruits
of learning, then he entered Ewing College, where he spent two years.
The next two years he studied at Carbondale and then went to Valpa-
raiso, where he took his degree in law in 1890. Back to his home town
he went, equipped for the practice of law, but without a cent in his poc-
kets to buy the fittings necessary for an office. How this was to be earned
was the next question. It was a stiff problem, and it had a rather unusual
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1545
solution. The post of deputy sheriff becoming vacant he stepped into it,
and served in this capacity for two years. In this way he got consid-
erable inside knowledge of the practical workings of the courts of justice,
at the same time being able to earn a little money. At the end of the two
years L. M. Kazy took him into his office, and here it was that he began to
build up the practice that eclipsed that of any man in Salem. Some
time after this he hung out his shingle and went into active practice
for himself. His success was phenomenal, his clear and forceful man-
ner of speaking, the ease with which he was able to see the flaws and
weak spots in his opponent's arguments, the lightning speed with which
he attacked these, all made him a lawyer to be depended upon. In
1906 his ability was recognized in his election to the office of county
judge, in which position he served for one term.
Much of his time during his latter years has been occupied in his
business as a banker. In 1911, on the 24th of July, he started the Citi-
zens Bank, a private institution owned and controlled by himself. The
experience that made him attempt such an enterprise he had obtained
some years previously in the very active part which he took in the
organization of the Salem State Bank, of which he was vice-president
until he established the Citizens Bank, when he resigned. He yet holds
the largest block of stock in the Salem State Bank and his word has
great weight in the policy which they adopt. At one time he was
trustee of the Sandoval Coal Company and is at present owner of a one-
fourth interest in the mines.
Politically he has always been an active worker in the Democratic
ranks, and has helped to win many battles for them. Both he and his
wife are members and attendants of the Methodist Episcopal church
in Salem, and fraternally he is a member of the Odd Fellows, the
Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the "World.
In 1904 Judge Stonecipher married Amy Bachmann, a daughter
of Adam Bachmann, who was born in Germany. He came to the
United States quite early in life, and started out to earn a living with
absolutely no money. He is now the wealthiest man in Marion county,
and is president of the Salem National Bank. Judge and Mrs. Stone-
cipher have two children, Frank G., who is in school, and a little girl,
Maude L.
The career of Judge Stonecipher speaks for itself. Such success as
his could not come from anything save a power within himself, the in-
stinct to fight against all odds and to meet defeat with the steady de-
termination to conquer next time. Although his legal practice brought
him in money, yet he threw himself with as much enthusiasm into a case
which meant little or nothing in a pecuniary way as into one that in-
volved large sums. His clients were always inspired with hope, by his
calm belief in the fortunate outcome of their cases, a faith that was
rarely disappointed. Faith in him and in his integrity having taken
so firm a hold on the minds of the people it is no wonder that the bank
which he started is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful institu-
tions of its kind in the county, or that he occupies one of the highest
places in the respect of the community.
WILLIAM H. THRASH, sheriff of Clay county since 1910 and one of
the prominent farmers of his section of the state, is a native of Clay
county. He was born on the farm of his father on June 10, 1861, and he
is now the owner and operator of that farm, which came to him upon
the demise of his honored parent. The farm is one of the most up-to-
date and well kept in the county, and is a matter of much pride to its
owner, as well it may be.
1546 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mr. Thrash is the son of Larkin and Sarah (Humes) Thrash. Lar-
kin Thrash was born in White county, Illinois, in 1818, and passed his
life in pursuit of the farming industry. He settled in Clay county in
early life and on the government land which he filed on when he came
here he worked and prospered and finally died, his death occurring in
November, 1911. He was always a hard-working man and his success
was in proportion to the efforts he expended on his place, in later years
being prominently known as a farmer and stock-raiser of much ability
and prosperity. He was a Democrat all his life, and all his political
labors were in behalf of that party. He was the son of Thomas Thrash,
a native of Virginia, who settled in White county, Illinois, where Lar-
kin Thrash was born, and there spent the remainder of his life. The
maternal grandfather of William H. Thrash was John Humes, born
in Ohio, but later moving into Indiana, where he eventually passed
away. He also was a farmer.
Mr. Thrash, of this review, was educated in the common schools of
Clay county, being permitted advantages such as were common to the
country youth of his period. He remained on his father's farm and as-
sisted with the conduct of the flourishing business of which his father
was the head. He has made his residence at the farm, which eventually
came into his ownership on the death of his father ;n November, 1911,
until a short time ago when he moved into Louisville, that he might
more conveniently discharge the duties of his office as sheriff of Clay
county, to which office he was elected in 1910, on the Democratic ticket
in a Republican county, a fact which is most eloquent of the high stand-
ing and general popularity of the man in his county.
In 1883 Mr. Thrash married Miss Belle Rusher, a daughter of Moss
Rusher, a settler in Illinois in the early days of her statehood. He was
a veteran of the Civil war and was a useful citizen of Louisville for
many years, where he plied his trade as a harness maker with a high
degree of success up to the time of his death, in 1904. Mr. and Mrs.
Thrash are the parents of seven children: Flossie, Charles W., Nellie.,
Clarence, Arta, Ruth and Esti.
Mr. Thrash is a member of the Odd Fellows and the Red Men, and
in his political affiliations has always been a sturdy Democrat, and has
been a leader in Democratic politics in Clay county for years.
JUDGE CICERO J. LINDLY, who is now engaged in the general practice
of law at Greenville, the judicial center of Bond county, has been a resi-
dent of Southern Illinois from the time of his nativity and is a scion of
one of the prominent and honored pioneer families of this section of the
state, with the development of whose resources the name has been closely
identified. Judge Lindly has been a power in connection with political
affairs in Southern Illinois, has served as a member of the state legisla-
ture and as county judge, as well as railway and warehouse commis-
sioner, and was at one time a prominent candidate for Congress. He
has gained secure prestige in his chosen profession and is one of the
representative members of the bar of Bond county, where he controls a
large and substantial practice and where he commands unequivocal
popular esteem.
Cicero J. Lindly was born on a farm near St. Jacob, Madison county,
Illinois, on the llth of December, 1857, and is a son of John J. and
Mary A. (Palmer) Lindly. That the Lindly family was founded in
Southern Illinois in the early pioneer epoch of the state's history is
evident when it is stated that John J. Lindly likewise was born in Madi-
son county and that the date of his nativity was 1831. There he was
reared and educated and virtually his entire active career was devoted
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1547
to the great basic industry of agriculture, in connection with which he
gained distinctive success and prosperity. He lived retired for many
years prior to his death, though he continued to give a personal super-
vision to his various farms and other important real-estate interests.
In 1867 he established his home in the village of Lebanon, St. Clair
county, where he passed the residue of his long and useful life, a citi-
zen honored for his sterling character and marked ability, and he was
summoned to eternal rest in 1909. He was a man of broad views and
strong mentality, was a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Re-
publican party and his religious faith was that of the Baptist church,
of which he was a zealous member, as was also his first wife and is like-
wise his widow, who still resides at Lebanon. As a young man John J.
Lindly was united in marriage to Miss Mary A. Palmer, who likewise
was representative of a sterling pioneer family of Madison county, and
they became the parents of four children, — Joseph, Madison, Cicero J.,
and Mary A., the only daughter being now the wife of a Mr. Taylor.
A number of years after the death of his first wife Mr. Lindly wedded
Miss Ella P. Pierson, a native of New York, and she survives him, as
has been previously noted in this paragraph. The two children of the
second marriage are Cleda, who is the wife of William Wade, of Paris,
Illinois ; and Albert, w,ho is a resident of this state.
Judge Cicero J. Lindly passed his childhood days on the old home-
stead farm and was about ten years of age at the time of the family re-
moval to the village of Lebanon, where he fully availed himself of the
advantages of the excellent public schools, after which he pursued a
course of study in the law department of McKendree College. That
he made rapid and substantial advancement in his absorption and as-
similation of the science of jurisprudence is shown by a document in
his possession. This is a letter issued by the court at Mount Vernon,
Jefferson county, stating that he had passed the required examination
before the same but that his license to practice law was withheld by
reason of the fact that he had not yet attained to his legal majority and
thus become eligible for admission to the bar. After leaving college
Judge Lindly was for a time engaged in the work of his profession in
the office of Ex-Governor Fletcher, in the city of St. Louis. In 1880 he
assumed connubial responsibilities, and soon after his marriage he re-
moved to a farm south of St. Jacob, Madison county, where he remained
until the 2d of July, 1882, when he purchased a farm south of Green-
ville, Bond county, where he continued to devote his attention to diver-
sified agriculture and stock-growing until 1900, when he established his
home in Greenville. His activities and influence had in the meanwhile
transcended the limitation of his farm, which fine property he still
owns, and he had become an influential factor in. public affairs.
Unswerving and ardent allegiance to the Republican party has ever
characterized Judge Lindly and, with admirably fortified convictions
concerning matters of economic and political import, he has proved an
effective advocate of the principles and policies for which the "Grand
Old Party ' ' stands sponsor. In 1884 he represented his native state as
presidential elector on the Republican ticket, and in 1888 he was a dele-
gate to the national convention of his party when General Harrison
was nominated for the presidency. In 1886 he was elected county judge
of Bond county, and he continued to preside on this bench, with marked
ability and favor, for a term of years. In 1890 he was nominated for
the office of state treasurer and in the ensuing election was defeated by
only forty votes. In the same year he was the candidate of his party for
representative in the United States congress, but was defeated by nor-
mal political exigencies, as the district was strongly Democratic. In
1548 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
1891 he received in the state legislature all of the Republican votes for
representative in the United States senate, the contest being recorded as
one of the prolonged and spirited order and his opponent having been
Hon. Palmer, who received one hundred and two votes to one hundred
given in support of Judge Lindly. In 1896 Judge Lindly was appointed
a member of the state railway and warehouse commission, and he re-
tained this office for five years, as did he also that of chairman of the
lower house of the state legislature, in which body his service was
marked by earnest and loyal efforts to conserve wise legislation, the esti-
mate placed upon his work being shown most conclusively by his reten-
tion of the office for three consecutive- terms, during the last of which he
was chairman of the Republican committee of the house. In 1908 Judge
Lindly assumed charge of organizing forces and perfecting the plans
for the issuing of bonds by the state in the amount of twenty million
dollars, and in behalf of this important measure he made an earnest and
effective canvass of the entire state. Since the completion of this work
he has been engaged in the general practice of his profession at Green-
ville and his large and important business is based on his well proved
ability as a trial lawyer and conservative counsellor of broad informa-
tion and mature judgment. He has been a delegate to every Republican
state convention in Illinois since 1884 and has been an effective and
valued campaign worker, with high reputation as a public speaker on
political issues.
Judge and Mrs. Lindly are members of the Christian church in
their home city and are prominently identified with the leading social
activities of the community. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he
has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scot-
tish Rite and he has held various official chairs in the different Masonic
bodies with which he is affiliated, including the Illinois Grand Lodge of
Free & Accepted Masons. He has also served as grand master of the
Illinois Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and as
grand representative of the same for two terms. He is identified with
the Masonic adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the
Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and also with the Greenville lodge of the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
On the 20th of December, 1880, was solemnized the marriage of
Judge Lindly to Miss Alice J. McNeal, of Greenville, and they became
the parents of three children, all of whom died before attaining to
adult age.
WHEELER BROTHERS. Situated in the heart of the Mississippi valley
is Dixon Springs, one of the most delightful summer resorts of our coun-
try. Owned and operated by the Wheeler Brothers, Charles Bourquin
Wheeler and Fred Leon Wheeler, it is located in Pope county, Illinois,
on the Golconda branch of the Illinois Central Railroad, six miles north-
east of Reesville, and a little less than two miles from Dixon Springs
Station. The Wheeler Brothers, who are gentlemen of great enterprise
and keen foresight, are putting forth every effort to render this pic-
turesque spot, of the Ozark Mountain Range especially attractive, not
only to those desiring benefit from the sparkling waters of the various
mineral springs that here abound, but to the youthful or aged that feel
need of the tonic given by the invigorating atmosphere of the place,
and for all who are seeking the best possible locality in which to enjoy
a summer outing.
The medicinal value of the waters of these springs have been known
for many decades, the Algonquin Indians, who made occasional trips
to the territory south of the Tennessee river to wage war upon the Iro-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1549
quois tribe of savages, using this spot as a camping ground and naming it
"Kitche Mus ke Nee be," a term signifying "Great Medicine Water."
In 1848 William Dixon, an early pioneer of Pope county, obtained a
grant to this tract of school-land from Governor French, and here
erected his old cabin home, which was built of logs of his own hewing.
The cabin still stands, apparently as strong as when it was erected, the
two large fireplaces telling of the primitive life of the first settlers.
An old log church standing near by was the first place of worship in the
vicinity and the scene of many an historical event. The natural scenery
hereabout is unsurpassed for romantic beauty and picturesque effects in
any part of the world, scenes of enchanting loveliness, and matchless
grandeur abounding, bold cliffs and beetling crags overhanging Tenny-
sonian babbling brooks, while huge fern and ivy fringed boulders orna-
ment the mountain sides. The silvery beech trees, fragrant, health-
giving cedars, and massive oaks are frequented by frolicking squirrels
and warbling birds that here put forth their most joyous songs, mak-
ing the groves and forests resound with music. Here Nature speaks in
no unmistaken tones to the botanist and geologist, telling tales of inter-
est to the former and of weird volcanic eruptions to the latter, rehearsing
the grand story of creation which is constantly going on.
Among the places of interest visited by the many guests especial
mention may be made of Album Rock, Red Men's Retreat, the Wolf Pen,
Lover's Leap, the Ghost Dance, Pluto's Cave, Spring Lake, Rainbow
Lake, the Devil's Workshop, Honey Comb Rock, and The Canyon, all of
which have been so significantly named that little description is needed.
The waters of the springs are rich in mineral properties, as certified
by Mr. W. F. Langelier, chemist, State Water Survey, University of
Illinois, who has made a complete analysis of each spring, finding com-
binations of sulphates, chlorides, carbonates, while potassium, sodium,
magnesium, calcium, iron, alumina, silica, chloride, sulphate and nitrate
are of especial curative value, iron being a powerful blood restorer.
People suffering with rheumatism, dyspepsia or kidney disease in any
form, malaria or stomach troubles, find not only speedy relief, but per-
manent cure from the use of the waters of these springs, many a guest
going home after here receiving treatment a rejuvenated being, physi-
cally and mentally.
The Dixon Springs Hotel, owned by Messrs. Charles B. and Fred L.
Wheeler is leased and managed by Martin Louis Wheeler, and Doctors
Walker and Fisher, the attending physicians, are men who stand high in
their profession. The hotel is in thorough repair, and the furnishing
and equipments are modern and up-to-date in every respect. Clean and
roomy tents have been installed for the use of those preferring to sleep
out of doors, and in the bath house mineral or soft water baths, either
hot or cold, can be had at any time of the day.
Charles Bourquin Wheeler, the eldest of the Wheeler Brothers, whose
firm name appears at the head of this sketch, was born, in 1867, in
McLean county, Illinois, about fifteen miles from Bloomington, being
one of a family of twelve children. His father, David Wheeler, the third
in direct line to bear that name, was of New England birth and ancestry,
having been born and reared in Maine. He married and, after living for
a few years in Illinois, migrated still farther west, settling in Kansas in
1877.
Brought up on a farm, Charles B. Wheeler attended school until six-
teen years old, when he entered a mercantile establishment in Kansas as
a clerk. After nine years in that capacity he became traveling salesman
for a Chicago firm, the R. P. Smith & Sons Shoe Company, with which he
was associated seven years. Since that time he has been similarly em-
voi. in— :tn
1550 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ployed with the firm of Robertson, Johnson & Rand, the largest shoe
house in the country, and one of the most prominent business firms of
Saint Louis, its annual business amounting to nearly fourteen million
dollars.
Fred Leon Wheeler, of the firm of Wheeler Brothers, was born in
Marion, Kansas, in 1879, and was there educated. He, too, is traveling
in the interests of the Saint Louis firm, Robertson, Johnson & Rand,
being a most active and successful salesman on the road.
These brothers have wisely invested their money in land, being
owners, as before mentioned, of Dixon Springs, on which they have
made improvements of great value, each year adding to its attractions
as a health and pleasure resort. In connection with this beautiful place
they own a farm of one hundred acres, on which, in addition to its many
scenic points of interest, many of the vegetables and dairy productions
found upon the table of the well-kept hotel are raised. These brothers
have spared neither pains nor expense in the improving of their valuable
property, and in adding to the attractions of their summer resort have
recently had constructed a rustic bridge, which is quite unique. Eighty
feet in length, it is built in three sections, and is supported by huge
cypress logs, fifty-five feet in length, resting on stone piers, being amply
strong to sustain the weight of a moving train of cars. Dixon Springs
has its own water works, the water being furnished by the famous spring
number seven, "Ma Mi No Mo", meaning in English "The Great Spirit
Water", it being conveyed to the hotel through two thousand,
four hundred feet of two-inch pipe. This spring is lined with white
vitrolite, a substance said to be many times harder than marble, and its
waters are declared by chemists to be absolutely pure.
Messrs. Charles B. and Fred L. Wheeler are both prominent members
of the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, having taken the
Scottish Rite and York degrees, and both belonging to the Consistory.
Mr. Charles Wheeler is likewise a member of the Knights of Pythias.
Although these brothers agree one with another in most things, they
differ in their political beliefs, Charles being affiliated with the Republi-
cans, while Fred is an ardent supporter of the principles of the Demo-
cratic party.
CHARLES D. FITHIAN. Among the rising young lawyers of Southern
Illinois none are more able and promising than Charles D. Fithian,
state's attorney. In choosing the profession of which he has already
proved an ornament Mr. Fithian is following in his father's footsteps,
for the elder gentleman was favorably known lawyer of Jasper county.
The son, although of the younger generation, has achieved distinction
as a learned and erudite lawyer, and doubtless many honors lie before
him.
Mr. Fithian was born at Marshall, Clark county, Illinois, on the
21st day of August, 1882. His father, T. J. Fithian, was born in Jas-
per county, February 9, 1858. Here the early life of the elder gentle-
man was passed and in the common schools of the locality he obtained
his education. Like the usual incipient lawyer of his day he received
his preparation in a law office, and he was admitted to the bar in 1887.
Previous to that he had engaged in farming and also was employed
for some time in a printing office. When he began his practice it was
at Newton, and here he remained active in his profession until his de-
mise, in 1904. While in the printing business he was foreman of the
Eastern Illinois at Marshall, Illinois, the birthplace of the subject. In
politics he was a staunch adherent of the Democratic party and for
some time held the office of city attorney. He was married in 1879 to
t LIBRARY
OF IK
OF
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1551
Jennie Leffler, of Jasper county, and three children were born to them,
Charles D. being the eldest in order of birth. The others are Cecil and
Mrs. Don Haven. T. J. Fithian was a member of the Presbyterian church
and he took no small amount of pleasure in his fraternal association
with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was the advocate
and supporter of all important and proper improvements and stood
high in the estimation of all who knew him. His widow is still living
and resides at Newton, where she is generally admired for her rn^ny
fine qualities of mind and heart.
When very young Mr. Fithian 's parents removed with him to New-
ton and here the greater part of his life has been passed. He received
his education in the local schools, taking advantage of their higher
department, and having come to a decision as to his life work he ma-
triculated in the law department of Valparaiso University, at Val-
paraiso, Indiana, ' and was graduated from that institution in June,
1902, receiving the well-earned degree of LL. B. In that same year he
was admitted to the bar in both Indiana and Illinois. Upon finishing
his professional preparation Mr. Fithian returned to the community
dearest to him and entered into a partnership with Judge H. M. Koser-
man, who now holds the office of county judge. This association con-
tinued from 1904 to 1906, and subsequently he engaged for a period
in independent practice. In 1905 he was elected city attorney, but in
1908 resigned to accept the office of state's attorney, which office he
has ever since held with general satisfaction. He has recently entered
into a new law partnership with C. A. Davidson, former state senator,
their association dating from January, 1911. The subject is a Dem-
ocrat of the staunchest and most loyal type, and he has ever manifested
perfect willingness to do anything legitimate for the success of the
party's causes. He is a nephew of George W. Fithian, ex-congressman
from the Nineteenth Illinois district.
On October 12, 1904, Mr. Fithian abandoned the ranks of the
bachelors, in which he had been a popular member, and was united
in marriage to Jennie Mae Shouse, of Newton, Illinois, and they now
share their pleasant abode with a little daughter, Angela Regina. They
are active members of the Methodist Episcopal church and Mr. Fithian
belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern
Woodmen of America.
CAPTAIN NAPOLEON B. THISTLEWOOD. For upwards of forty years
a power in the business and political life of Southern Illinois, Hon.
Napoleon Bonaparte Thistlewood, of Cairo, is now representing the
Twenty-fifth Illinois district in Congress, and in the councils of the
nation is pursuing such an active and honorable course as to win the
hearty approval of his constituents, his ability and courtesy being un-
doubted. A son of Benjamin Thistlewood, he was born March 20, 1837,
near Milford, Delaware, where the immigrant ancestor of the American
family of Thistlewood settled on coming to this country from Scotland
in early colonial days.
Benjamin Thistlewood, whose father. James Thistlewood, was a life-
long resident of Delaware, was born in 1807, and died in his native state
September 25, 1881. He led a busy, uneventful life, carrying on farming
on a modest scale, in the meantime grinding the grain raised by his
neighbors upon the burrs of his water mill. He cast his first presidential
vote in favor of General Jackson, and after the formation of the Repub-
lican party was one of its most ardent adherents. His first wife, whose
name was Eliza Marvel, died at the age of forty-two years, having borne
him five children, as follows: Mrs. Annie E. Vinyard, who spent her
1552 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
entire life in Delaware; Napoleon Bonaparte, the subject of this brief
biographical record ; Philip J., of Cairo, Illinois, who at his death, which
was caused by a railway accident, left a family ; Benjamin F., who died
in Delaware, also leaving a family ; and Mrs. Mary Vinyard, of Milford,
Delaware. A few years after the death of his first wife Benjamin
Thistlewood married a Miss Hammon, and among the children they
reared were the following named: Mrs. Sarah Nelson, Mrs. Wilhelmina
Jacobs, Theodore, and Albert, all of whom are residents of Delaware.
Growing to manhood on the old home farm, Napoleon B. Thistlewood
laid a substantial foundation for his future education in the rural schools
of his native town, in the meantime assisting his father on the farm and
in the mill, and developing his natural mechanical talent by keeping in
repair the old dam used to conserve the water power that moved the
mill's machinery. As a young man he began his career as a school
teacher in the country schools of Delaware, and, foreseeing the develop-
ment of the Mississippi valley, came, as soon as he had saved enough
money to pay his way, to Illinois, locating at Collinsville in 1858. After
teaching school in that vicinity for three years, Mr. Thistlewood accepted
a position as teacher in Mason, Effingham county, Illinois.
Abandoning the desk in 1862, Mr. Thistlewood enlisted in Company
C, Ninety-eighth Illinois Mounted Infantry. His regiment, which be-
came a part of General Reynolds' Division of the Army of the Cumber-
land, went into active service, as cavalrymen, near Murfreesboro, Ten-
nessee, and on June 24, 1862, fought at the battle of Hoover's Gap or
Tullahoma. The next engagement of importance in which the regiment
participated was at Chickamauga, Georgia, and the following was in
Farmington, the same state. Subsequently, after one hundred days of
fighting, Atlanta, the- Confederate stronghold, surrendered, and the gal-
lant Ninety-eighth Illinois Regiment turned back with General Thomas,
and after spending a short time at Gravel Springs started on the Wilson
raid. In the battle at Selma, Alabama, in the spring of 1865,
Captain Thistlewood, who had been promoted from the ranks to the head
of his company, was wounded, but was able to command his company at
the assault upon Columbus, Georgia, the last engagement fought east of
the Mississippi during the Civil war. Being honorably discharged from
the service July 7, 1865, at Springfield, Illinois, the Captain, who with
the exception of a brief period had been a member of General Wilder 's
famous brigade, returned to his former home in Effingham county.
Captain Thistlewood subsequently made a visit to his boyhood home
in Delaware, and on returning to Illinois again assumed the teacher's
profession, and taught for a year, after which he embarked in the grain
business at Mason. Coming from there to Cairo in 1872, he continued
in the same business, being in partnership with his brother, Philip J.
Thistlewood, until the brother's death, as previously mentioned. The
Captain dealt in grain, and handled farm products, including tobacco,
for many years, his son being associated with him the latter part of the
time. On retiring from commercial pursuits Captain Thistlewood en-
tered the political arena, and has since given his time and talents in
generous measure to public affairs.
A strong advocate of Republican doctrines, the Captain has ever
manifested a warm interest in public affairs, whether relating to city,
county, state or the nation. He served acceptably for five years in the
city council, and in 1879 was elected mayor and re-elected to the same
position in 1881. When he first assumed the mayor's chair, Cairo was
found to be deeply involved in debt, a situation that could be remedied
by direct taxation only, for the immediate payment of outstanding
obligations, but the plan of issuing twenty year bonds was adopted, and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1553
the credit of the city maintained. It was during his mayoralty, in 1882,
that occurred the memorable flood that threatened the very existence of
the town, arousing the fear of the business and professional men, who
joined the laborers in carrying sacks of dirt upon their backs to raise the
levee above the surface of the waters of the Ohio river. The subsequent
work of Mayor Thistlewood in the improvement of the levee was one of
the important achievements of his administration, and proved so effec-
tive that the safety of the city from an overflow has never since been
endangered. The municipality spent a hundred thousand dollars upon
this work, and the railroads added fifty thousand dollars in the accom-
plishment of a situation that should render the southern end of Alex-
ander county immune from further encroachments of the watery ele-
ments. In 1897 Captain Thistlewood was again chosen mayor of the
city, and two years later received an endorsement at the polls for a
second term, his service as business head of the corporation aggregating
in all eight years.
Captain Thistlewood was elected a congressman to fill out the unex-
pired term of Hon. George P. Smith, and served with such a good record
that he was elected to the house of representatives in both the Sixty-
first Congress of the United States, and the Sixty-second Congress. His
interest in the work of securing pensions for his war comrades prompted
his appointment on the committee on invalid pensions, and he has de-
voted all of his time and energies to the encouragement of legislation
that will place the ex-soldier of the Civil war beyond the possibility of
want during the few brief years still left him on earth. He supported
the well-known "Sulloway bill" most vigorously, and hoped for its
passage in the Senate, after the house had given it a good majority, but
it fell a victim of interests antagonistic to the brave old soldier.
For many years Captain Thistlewood was a prominent and influential
worker in the affairs of the Grand Army of the Republic, becoming a
state factor in its membership, and being elected, in 1901, department
commander of Illinois. He is a frequent attendant at the national en-
campments of the order, and its society is the only one on which his name
is enrolled.
On September 6, 1866, Captain Thistlewood was united in marriage
with Sarah A. Taylor, of Mason, Illinois, a daughter of Seth B. Taylor,
a wagon maker by trade and a native of Ohio. Two children have been
born to Captain and Mrs. Thistlewood, namely : Benjamin R., who mar-
ried Hattie Gibson, died in February, 1910 ; and Blanche. The Captain
and his family are communicants of the Methodist church.
DANIEL W. STRINGER. • Today scientific farming is not looked upon
as it was in the days of Horace Greely, as a sure means of depleting a
bank account, but is looked upon as the only way for a cultivator
of the land to attain financial success. At any rate, Daniel W. Stringer,
of Pulaski, Illinois, has assumed that attitude in directing the affairs
of his farm. How well he has succeeded is attested by his standing as
one of the progressive and substantial farmers of Pulaski county and by
the appearance of the farm itself. He has followed this one vocation
throughout the whole of his independent career. At the outset forty
acres, two ponies, and the personal qualities of industry, thrift and
self-reliance constituted his chief assets, and that forty now comprises
a portion of his tract of one hundred and twenty-five acres forming his
splendidly improved homestead. His is one of the attractive farms of
this section, and its substantial improvement is the embodiment of the
progressive ideas of its owner. He has given his attention chiefly to
1554 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
grain raising and fruit growing and has been very successful along
both lines.
Mr. Stringer is a native of Kentucky, born in Livingston county,
that state, August 4, 1855. He is a brother of William M. Stringer and
a son of William and Mary (Elmer) Stringer. The parents were mar-
ried in Kentucky and had resided in that state a number of years before
their removal to Ripley county, Missouri, from whence they returned
eastward to Pulaski county, Illinois, in September, 1862. This vicinity
remained their home until their deaths, both having passed away in the
nineties in advanced years, the father having reached the age of seventy-
seven.
Daniel W. Stringer was one of the younger of their eight children,
the other members of the family being: Jane, who married William
Tomerlin and died in Missouri ; Lucilla, who became the wife of Noah
Tomerlin and died in Pulaski county, Illinois ; Wesley, deceased ; Sarah,
now Mrs. William Atherton and a resident of Pulaski; William M., a
successful farmer in this vicinity; Malinda, who died as Mrs. James
Axley ; and Mary M., the deceased wife of Cyrus Lacky, of Pulaski.
In June, 1874, Mr. Stringer was united in marriage to Miss Mary
Atherton, a daughter of John and Margaret (Soney) Atherton. Mrs.
Stringer was the second in order of birth and is the only one living of
four daughters born to her parents, the date of her birth having been
February 5, 1857. Her sisters were: Catherine, who died at Seymour,
Missouri, as the wife of A. M. Fruster; Lucy, who became the wife of
Webster Dille and died in Pulaski county, Illinois; and Emma, who
married John McCormick and is buried at Pulaski. The children of
Mr. and Mrs. Stringer are : Ira, who married Myrtle Thornton and re-
sides at Pulaski ; Charles, who is still in the parental home ; Oscar, who
married Miss Rena Rife and is a farmer near Pulaski; and William,
Lucy, Ella and Ernest comprise the remaining children. The family
are members of the Christian church.
Politics has not interested Mr. Stringer further than the exercise
of his right of franchise as a Republican. He sustains fraternal mem-
bership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a past noble
grand of his lodge and has been a representative to the state Grand
Lodge.
HON. WILLIAM A. SPANN. A resident of Vienna whose reputation
is more than local and whose high standing in the professional world is
assured is the Hon. William A. Spann, a well known legal light and
senior member of the firm of Spann & Spann, attorneys-at-law. The
Spann family is of North Carolina origin, that having been the native
state of William Spann, grandfather of the Hon. William A. Spann,
who so worthily represents the present generation of the house, and
whose father, Silas H. Spann, emigrated to Southern Illinois, settling
with his family at Jonesboro in 1853. Silas Spann was engaged in the
mercantile business for a long period, but retired from that line of
commercial activity ten years before his death, which occurred in Jan-
uary, 1895. The older Spann was married four times, his first wife
having been Miss Martha Scott, a daughter of Jesse and Nancy (Martin)
Scott. Mr. Scott was of English descent, while his wife was born in
Ireland. Mr. and Mrs. Spann became the parents of four children,
two of whom died in infancy. Mary, who married Mr. Martin and
William A., of this brief review, are the surviving members of their
family, and the mother's death occurred in 1843. The second matri-
monial alliance of Silas Spann united him with Elizabeth Fullard of
Alabama, who become the mother of five children, two of whom survive
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1555
at this writing. They are Charles P. Spann and Mrs. Delia Pool. The
death of Mrs. Spann occurred in March, 1857. Charlotte Alexander, of
Jonesboro, became the third wife of Mr. Spann, and of that union five
children were born. Of this number three are living, namely: Silas,
Ernest and Mrs. Minnie Rendle. The date of the mother's demise was
1877. Mr. Spann subsequently married Mrs. Cox, and one child, now
deceased was the result of their union.
Judge William A. Spann was born October 6, 1840, in Cherokee
county, Alabama, on a farm, but while he was still small his father re-
moved with his family to Jonesboro, Illinois, and the son was the recip-
ient of such education as was afforded in the public schools of that place.
Upon the completion of his education Mr. Spann took up agriculture as
an occupation and for ten years operated farms near Jonesboro and in
Johnson county, becoming a resident of the latter named section in
1861. He was not entirely satisfied with the conditions in Johnson
county at that time, however, and in a short time returned to Union
county, remaining there until 1873, when he again took up his residence
in Johnson county.
Mr. Spann was a man of ambitious character and had always cher-
ished a desire to become a member of the legal fraternity, and in further-
ance of this commendable ambition he began the study of law in
November, 1870. He possessed a fine intellect, which soon grasped the
intricacies and logic of his studies, and a few years later he opened an
office at Vienna, and in March, 1877, began the practice of his profession
there.
It was but a short time until he had attained distinction in his prac-
tice and had acquired an extensive clientele, his services being in wide
demand, not only in the various counties of Southern Illinois, but cli-
ents also came from Missouri and Kentucky to avail themselves of his
talents in cases requiring legal adjudication. Judge Spann 's reputa-
tion as a lawyer and an eloquent pleader is second to none in this section
of the state, and he has achieved conspicuous success in handling difficult
criminal cases.
He has always evinced an active interest in politics, and he has been
repeatedly honored with high official position. In 1880 the people
elected him as a representative to the state legislature, his run being
made on a Democratic ticket, and so faithfully and effectively did he
discharge his duties as a legislator that he was returned to the office in
1882. His election to the county judgeship occurred in 1906 and he
served most ably in that 'important capacity for one term.'
Judge Spann has valuable property interests, among his holdings be-
ing a fine farm in the northern part of Johnson county and a beautiful
residence in Vienna. In December, 1861, Judge Spann was united
in marriage with Miss Narcissa Simpson, of Johnson county, daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. William Simpson. Of this union were born six chil-
dren: Mrs. Flora Hess: Mrs. Martha Cantwell; Lulu, the wife of Levi
J. Smith; Ida, wife of Robert E. Gillespie, who is cashier of the Union
Trust Company of East St. Louis; Hal, who followed in his father's
footsteps by entering the legal profession and is now a partner with
him in the law firm of Spann & Spann; and William. The death of
Mrs. Spann occurred in 1885. Judge Spann married a second time,
in May, 1893, leading to the altar Mrs. Etta M. Blanchfill, of Vienna, a
daughter of Frank McCarmell, of Oxford, Indiana. Mr. Spann was be-
reaved of this wife in October, 1909. His third wife, to whom he was
married on October 12, 1911, was Mrs. Mary E. Goodall, of Marion, a
daughter of Mrs. Aikeman. She presides with graciousness over the
Spann home, which is one of the most hospitable in Vienna. Judge
1556 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Spann is a man of strong social tendencies, and is an honored member
of the Knights of Pythias. He is the possessor of broad sympathies, is
liberal in his benefactions and enjoys the confidence of a large circle of
friends and acquaintances.
JOHN CLAY WILLIAMS. Prominent among the foremost citizens of
Pocahontas is John Clay Williams, who is actively identified with the
financial prosperity of Bond county as a banker, and as a man of enter-
prise, ability and integrity is closely associated with the advancement
of the material interests of town and county. A son of William Davis
Williams, he was born August 8, 1859, in Saint Jacob, Madison county,
Illinois, of brave pioneer stock.
His grandfather, Aaron Williams, a native of Maryland, was a youth
of a daring and venturous spirit, who in his search for fortune made
two trips on horseback to Illinois while it was yet wearing territorial
garb, one in 1815 and one in 1816. In 1818, just as Illinois was admitted
to statehood, he came from Baltimore to Fayette county, Illinois, locat-
ing in Vera, where he took up a tract of wild land, from which he im-
proved a farm. He married Sarah Barton, of Saint Clair county, Illi-
nois, and was thereafter engaged in tilling the soil until his death.
Born on the parental homestead in Fayette county, William Davis
Williams received a practical training in agriculture while young, re-
maining beneath the parental roof -tree until after attaining his majority.
In 1849 he joined a band of gold seekers and made an overland journey
to California, where he followed mining for six years. Returning to
Illinois in 1855, he settled in Saint Jacob, Madison county, where he
was engaged in general farming until 1891. Coming then to Pocahon-
tas, Illinois, he lived retired until his death, in 1899, making his home
with his son. Soon after his return from the Golden state he married
Ellen Virginia Hayes, of Saint Jacob, who died nearly a quarter of a
century before he did, passing away in 1875. He belonged to the Bap-
tist church, and was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted
Order of Masons, with which he united in 1855, at the time of his death
being one of the oldest and most highly esteemed members of the lodge.
He took great interest in local affairs, and held various offices of trust,
having served as school director, while for many years he was township
supervisor.
The oldest son and second child of his parents, John Clay Williams
lived on the home farm in Madison county until twenty years of age,
when he went to New Mexico on an exploring expedition. Finding
nothing to specially interest him in that unsettled country, he returned
to Saint Jacob, where he was engaged in general mercantile pursuits
until 1883, being junior member of the firm of Karges & Williams. Sell:
ing out his interest in the firm in that year, Mr. Williams became travel-
ing salesman for a wholesale house, with which he was connected in that
capacity for five years. In the meantime, however, in 1884, he had
bought back his interest in the firm of which he had formerly been a
member, and, in company with Mr. Louis Ryan, continued the business
under the firm name of Ryan & Williams. Giving up traveling in 1889,
Mr. Williams was actively engaged in business as a merchant at Poca-
hontas, Bond county, until 1905, being quite successful in his operations.
In that year, in company with Mr. P. M. Johnson, of Saint Elmo, Illinois,
he established the Bond County Bank, a private institution, and has
since carried on a substantial business. In 1899 Mr. Williams was ap-
pointed postmaster at Pocahontas, and has held the position since.
Mr. Williams married, in 1893, Naomi Olive Lindley, of Pocahontas,
a woman of culture and refinement, eminently fitted for the duties of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1557
wife and mother. She passed to the life beyond in November, 1908,
leaving five children, namely: John L., Benjamin Oliver, Marie, Ellen
Virginia and Joseph Aaron. Politically Mr. Williams ever supports
the principles of the Republican party, and religiously, there being no
church of his own faith, the Baptist, in Pocahontas he attends the Metho-
dist Church, and is serving as one of its trustees. Fraternally he is a
member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons; and the
Order of the Eastern Star; of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows;
of the Modern Woodmen of America ; and of the Knights of the Macca-
bees.
GEORGE L. GAHM. The Johnston City State Bank, one of the most solid
and substantial financial institutions in Southern Illinois, has been for-
tunate in .securing for its officers men of wide and varied experience in
the banking business, whose integrity and probity have never oeeu
questioned, and in whom the people of the community repose the utmost
confidence. In this connection may be mentioned George L. Gahm,
cashier of this bank, who has spent practically all of his business career
in the same line in this section. Mr. Gahm is a product of Jackson
county, Ohio, and was born November 25, 1877, a son of Henry J. and
Anna Mary (Motz) Gahm.
The grandfather of George L. Gahm, Jacob Gahm, was born on the
river Rhine, at Keisterlauten, Germany, in 1810, and was there married
to a Miss Geip, who died during the forties, having been the mother of
these children : Jacob, who is a farmer in Jackson county, Ohio ; John,
who died in that county as a farmer and left a family; Phoebe, who
married Henry Baker and resides in Saline county, Illinois ; and Henry
J., the father of George L. Gahm. Jacob Gahm came to the United
States and settled in Jackson county, Ohio, was married three times here
and died in 1883, having been engaged in agricultural pursuits. Henry
J. Gahm was born in Jackson county, Ohio, in 1848, and grew up abso-
lutely without mental training in school, being able neither to read nor
write when he reached manhood. It is a strange commentary upon fair
Ohio, for universal education is one thing for which that state stands.
However, conditions sometimes control in opposition to constant tempta-
tions to the god of learning, and Henry J. Gahm 's school was the school
of hard work. His task lay frequently in the wood, where, with axe
or grubbing hoe, he dealt the forest its death blows and helped to bring
under cultivation the soil which was the support of the old folks at
home. When he went out into the world, observation taught him many
things of value, and it is not surprising to know that he was able suc-
cessfully to cope with his fellows and literally to carve a place for himself
among the modest tradesmen of his community. Coming to Saline county
in 1882, he settled on a farm near Galatia, being engaged in agriculture
until 1890, when he moved to Ridgeway, there entering the merchandise
business and later purchasing a livery and engaging in dealing in horses.
He has continued to reside there to the present time and is respected and
esteemed by all who know him as a man who has been the architect of
his own fortunes. Mr. Gahm married Anna Mary Motz, daughter of
John Motz, from Katzweiler, Germany, another Rhine city, and these
children have been born to this union: John Jacob, assistant cashier of
the Johnson City State Bank and married to Millie Stricklin ; Frank K.,
who is traveling for I. Gains & Company, of Evansville, Indiana ; George
L. ; and Gallic, who married C. C. Shewmaker, of Ridgway, Illinois.
George L. Gahm was educated in the district schools in Ridgway
and in Fairfield, Illinois. He finished no prescribed course and can be
said to have had only a good common-school education. He began his
1558 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
business career as a humble employe of the Gallatin County Bank at
Ridgway, and was both a clerk and bookkeeper under the direction of
D. K. Widemann, and acquired a splendid foundation for a commercial
life during the four years he was in the bank. Leaving that institution,
Mr. Gahm spent a year as merchant's clerk in Eldorado, Illinois, with
C. P. Burentt & Sons, but then returned to banking and took charge
of the bank at Thompsonville, Illinois, the affairs of which he continued
to conduct for three years. On February 2, 1905, Mr. Gahm came to
Johnson City and accepted the cashiership of the reorganized bank of
which the Johnson City State Bank is the successor, and has contri-
buted very materially to the development of a strong financial institution
here. The president of this bank, Peter Wastier, is one of the most cap-
able business men of this section, and there are other stock-holders who
have amply demonstrated their financial ability.
The Gahms have ever comported themselves as unassuming citizens,
have allied themselves with Democracy for governmental reasons, have
not desired political preferment, and by training are connected with the
Lutheran church. George L. Gahm is an Elk of Marion Lodge, No. 800,
and he and his father are Chapter Masons, while Jacob and Frank have
only the master degrees. All of the members of this old family are well
and favorably known here, and in whatever walk of life they have been
placed have distinguished themselves by their strict integrity and in-
dustry.
On June 22, 1898, George L. Gahm was married to Miss Anna D.
Combs, daughter of Dr. G. W. and Hannah (Hemphill) Combs, whose
other children were: Professor Fuller Combs, a teacher in the city
schools of Spokane, Washington; Samuel, who is engaged in farming
near Ridgway, Illinois; George E., of the same address; Agnes, who
married J. H. Campbell and resides at Greenup, Illinois; and Miss
Ella. Mr. and Mrs. Gahm have an interesting daughter, Mary Eliza-
beth, who was born in 1904.
MAX PRILL. How proud a man must be when he can point to his
own hands and say, "You, together with that curious mechanism men
call my brain, made me what I am!" Is there any one so justified in
displaying vanity as a man who has been the arbiter of his destiny, who
has had no one to interpose themselves between himself and Fate, who
has made his own decisions, fought his own fights, and reached the top,
unassisted by any human agency? Such a man is Max Prill, of Cen-
tralia, Illinois. Coming of German stock, it is not surprising that he
should possess the industry and dogged perseverance of that race. He
also inherited the philosophical turn of mind which gave him the power
of clear thinking and logical reasoning. These traits, together with the
knowledge that he gained of men as he grew in years, have helped to make
him one of the most successful business men in Centralia and one of
the leaders of the Democratic party in the state of Illinois. He came
to Centralia fresh from Germany, and the first business enterprise that
he put his hand to was a success. From that time on he has steadily
advanced until now he is not only a wealthy man, but, better than that,
the homesick young German has become one of the men upon whom Cen-
tralia depends, one of those whom she trusts to rule, knowing that he
will do so honestly and wisely.
Max Prill was born in Germany, on the 25th of December, 1860. He
was the son of Andrew and Matilda (Mueller) Prill, who were both
natives of Germany. Andrew Prill was a successful mill-owner, and a
man of sterling character, but he is only a vague memory to his son
Max, for he died in 1869, when the boy was only nine years old. He
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1559
served in the army three years, and both he and his wife were members
of the Evangelical church. They spent all of their lives in Germany,
and reared a family of eleven children, of whom all but three are dead.
Mrs. Prill outlived her husband, dying in 1882. Of his ancestry Max
Prill knows very little, for he lost both of his parents before he had
reached the age where he thought of such things.
Max Prill received what knowledge he obtained at the hands of
school masters before his fourteenth year, for at that time he began to
support himself. For six years he worked at various occupations in
Germany, and later served three years in the Emperor's Guards in the
City of Berlin. Then, his mother having died the year before, he con-
cluded to come to America. He came to Illinois in 1883, and settled in
Centralia, where he opened a hotel. The honest business methods of the
young German, and his warm and genial disposition, brought him many
patrons, and business soon began to prosper. He managed this hotel
until 1897, and then he was made agent for the Sehlitz Brewing Com-
pany, and he wholesaled beer for the above concern. He is now presi-
dent of the Centralia Ice and Cold Storage Company, one of the most
prosperous corporations in the city, and was also for several years a
director of the Centralia Building & Loan Association. His business
ability is unquestioned, and no matter what venture he undertakes it
seems to come out successfully.
It is in the political field that Mr. Prill has gained the widest repu-
tation. He is a Democrat and has been one ever since he arrived in Cen-
tralia. He began to take an active part in politics as soon as he became
a citizen of the United States, and has never ceased since that time to
fight for the success of the Democratic party. He is now an alderman,
for fourteen years having held this office, and he was reelected for two
more years. From this it is evident that his principles admit of no
frauds being played on the people, for, though the people may be fooled
for a few years, they can not be fooled forever, and had he not played
fair with his constituents they would have discovered it long ere this. In
1911 he ran for state senator but was defeated by one hundred and forty
votes. In his own township he was victorious by over three hundred
votes, whereas before the township had always polled a Republican ma-
jority of five hundred. Another evidence of his popularity. He is the
present Democratic candidate for state senator from the Forty-second
district of Illinois, and since receiving the nomination for this high posi-
tion he has been the recipient of numerous letters of congratulation and
endorsement from prominent men. For two years he has served as a
member of the state central committee, for many years has been a mem-
ber of the county Democratic committee, and is now the chairman of the
Marion county Democratic central committee.
Mr. Prill clings to the memories of his Fatherland, and believes that
one can be a better citizen of the United States if he does not forget the
country of his birth. He, therefore, is a prominent member of the Ger-
man order known as the Independent Order of Treubund. He is also
grand secretary for the Illinois branch of this order, and also president
of the Centralia Turn Verein, the leading German organization of the
city. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Eagles and also the
Owls, and is interested in the work of the fraternal circles. He and all
the members of his family are members of the Evangelical church. He
was married in 1885 to Johanna Kiester, a daughter of August Kiester,
of Shattuc. Illinois. He came to Marion county in 1858, and is now liv-
ing on a farm near Centralia. Mr. and Mrs. Prill have two children;
Frances, who is in school at Lindenwood College. St. Charles. Missouri,
will graduate in 1912, and M. H., a student in the University of
1560 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
St. Louis, in the law department, from which he will graduate this year.
It is Air. Prill's intention that these children shall have every advantage
in an educational way, for he knows from experience that a person
without an education has a much more difficult time than has the one
with an education. In addition to his business and political interests
Mr. Prill has considerable property in the city, and this has to be cared
for and managed. He is perhaps one of the busiest men in the' city, but
his popularity attests the fact that he is never too busy to stop his work
to do a kindness for a friend or even a stranger.
EGBERT A. SMITH was born in Dundas, Dominion of Canada, June
18, 1856. His father, George Smith, who died in Cairo, Illinois, October
30, 1864, was born in Ely, England, about 1806, where he married Annie
Groves, who died in Canada, leaving a family of six children. George
Smith with his family immigrated to Canada about the year 1839 or
1840. Four sons, Thomas, George, William H. and Fuller, and two
daughters, Emma and Annie M., belonged to this family. All are now
dead with the exception of William H. Smith, of Denver, Colorado, and
Annie M. Guion, of Cairo, Illinois. The father, George Smith, with his
six children lived in Dundas, Canada, and on December 31, 1849, mar-
ried Catherine Turner, of Brantford, Canada. To these parents were
born seven children: Cyrus E., Arthur W., James R., Egbert A., Clara,
Mary E. and Caroline F. The four sons were born in Canada and the
three daughters in Cairo, Illinois. All of his family are now dead with
the exception of Egbert A. Smith.
George Smith, the father, by trade was a machinist and carpenter,
and while in Dundas, Canada, was engaged in the business of manufac-
turing straw cutters, cultivators, etc. In the year 1856 he sold out the
business and in 1858 moved his family to Cairo, Illinois, where he died
in 1864. In 1859 he had established a store at the corner of Thirteenth
and Poplar streets, Cairo. This business was continued by him until his
death and afterward carried on by his sons until the year 1867, when it
was closed out, the family moving to different places. The mother again
returned to Cairo in the year 1872. She was a daughter of Robert and
Sarah Turner, being one of twins and was born June 22, 1834, in the
town of By Town (now the city of Ottawa), Ontario, Dominion of Can-
ada. Her father, Robert Turner, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, about
the year 1795 and died in Brantford, Ontario, about the year 1851.
Sarah Jennings, her mother, was born in Northumberland, England,
about the year 1800, and died in Brantford, Ontario, about 1845. Her
mother was the daughter of Nicholas Jennings and was married to
Robert Turner in Edinburgh, May 10, 1818. After the death of George
Smith his widow married Louis Lincoln, of Carbondale, Illinois, at
Cairo, this state, in 1867. Of this marriage three sons were born : Louis
Logan Lincoln and Bishop Grant Lincoln, twins, and Staata S. Lincoln,
but all are now deceased. Catherine Lincoln died in Cairo, Illinois, in
the year 1911, at the age of seventy-seven years. All were members of
the Episcopal church.
Egbert A. Smith at the age of eighteen years and with his brother
James R. again started the business at the old stand, with a capital of
one hundred dollars and under the style of Smith Brothers. James R.
Smith died in the year 1886, leaving a widow and one son, James Arthur
Smith. Another brother, Cyrus E. Smith, became associated with Eg-
bert A. Smith in the business, but. later disposed of his interests therein
to Egbert A. Smith, who continued the business under the firm name of
Smith Brothers, but Egbert A. being the sole owner. He also gave some
attention to saw milling in Alexander county and owns large tracts of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1561
farming land there, besides smaller tracts in Pulaski county and a farm
inside the city limits of Cairo containing about nine hundred acres.
This land a few years ago was considered of small value, but the im-
provements made upon it with a large expenditure of money have made
this trace a very valuable addition to Cairo. About seven miles of drive-
way have been constructed over the land and following the Mississippi
river, known as Smith Drive, which is enjoyed by the citizens of Cairo.
As Cairo grows this land will be required as a part of the city.
In 1903 Egbert A. Smith organized the Cairo National Bank, with
a capital of $100,000, was elected its president and still holds that posi-
tion. This bank is a prosperous institution with over a half million
deposits. During the year 1903 the Cairo & Thebes Railroad was pro-
jected by him, and in the year 1905, through the Cairo Commercial
Club, of which he was president, the project took life and he with his
associates organized the company with a capital of ten thousand dollars.
He was elected its president, and through his efforts it was financed and
constructed. About a million dollars has already been expended on
terminals in the city of Cairo and about one million dollars in con-
structing the main line through Alexander county to Thebes, Illinois.
Mr. Smith served about ten years in the city council of Cairo, was
president of the Cairo Board of Trade about six years and was president
of the Cairo Commercial Club for five years. He has been identified
with river improvement associations for thirty years, and is vice presi-
dent of the Ohio Valley Improvement Association for Illinois and is a
member of the Lakes to the Gulf Improvement Association, the National
Rivers and Harbors Congress and the Good Roads Organization.
Mr. Smith was married in 1886 to Miss Phyllis Howard, a daughter
of Phillip and Lucy A. Howard, early settlers of Cairo. The children
of this union are : Berta Tyler, now Mrs. Wilfred W. Beach, of Sioux
City, Iowa; Phyllis H., Egbert A. Jr., Catherine and Caroline, and
they have also taken two boys to raise, Arthur and Robert Lincoln, sons
of the deceased brother. The children received their education in the
Cairo schools, and Berta and Phyllis completed their education in Chi-
cago and New York. The family are members of the Episcopal church.
HARRY P. MORGAN, M. D. One of the younger generation of pro-
fessional men of Southern Illinois, Dr. Harry P. Morgan, of Sesser, has
through his activities in the field of medicine and surgery won the right
to be named among his section's representative men. Although he has
been engaged in practice at Sesser for only five years, he has a clientele
that extends throughout the community, and the reputation he has won
in his chosen vocation is an enviable one. Dr. Morgan was born October
28, 1880, in Washington county, Illinois, and is a son of the late Hon.
Matthew A. and Ida J. (Staude) Morgan.
H. P. H. Morgan, the grandfather of Harry P., was a native of Mis-
souri, came to Illinois in young manhood, and became one of the best-
known traders in the southern part of the state. He accumulated a large
fortune, and died in 1881, advanced in years and with the regard and
esteem of his fellow citizens. His son, Matthew A. Morgan, inherited
many of his sterling characteristics, and like his father became widely
and favorably known. He, however, devoted himself to the law, and
after attending school at Lebanon, Illinois, and the Chicago Law School,
entered Republican politics, and rose to positions of honor and trust
within the gift of the people. He served with distinction in the Illinois
State Legislature for three years, but a most promising career was cut
short when he met an accidental death. October 10, 1898. He had been
exceedingly successful in his law practice at Okawville, Washington
1562 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
county, and at his death left a large estate. His widow, who survives
him and makes her home at that place, was a daughter of Frank Staude,
who was born in Saxony, Germany, and came to the United States as a
young man, settling in Washington county, where he spent the rest of his
life in agricultural pursuits, passing away in 1898, at the age of eighty-
five years.
Harry P. Morgan was educated in the public schools of Okawville
and in the university at Valparaiso, Indiana, from which he was gradu-
ated in pharmacy in 1902. Being desirous of becoming a physician, he
entered the Chicago Medical College, and later the Bennett College of
Medicine, also at Chicago, and graduated from the latter in 1906, with
the degree of M. D. In the following year he established himself in
practice at Sesser, and the success which has attended his efforts speaks
eloquently for his ability. Dr. Morgan belongs to the Illinois State and
Franklin County Medical Societies and is a prominent Mason and Odd
Fellow. Although an ardent Republican, he has had no disposition or
time to engage in active contest in the political arena. Aside from his
profession, he gives the greater part of his attention to looking after
his realty holdings in Washington county. One of Sesser 's best citizens,
he enjoys the regard and respect of all who have ever had occasion to
call him in a professional capacity, as well as many others of his friends
and acquaintances who knew him to be a generous, kindly man.
Dr. Morgan was married March 21, 1912, to Miss Daisy A. Lionberger,
a daughter of A. J. Lionberger, a prominent Republican of Mt. Vernon.
Mr. Lionberger is a native of Jefferson county and a very successful
farmer. Mrs. Morgan is a member of the Baptist church.
MATTHEW R. HOLCOMB. One of the best examples of self-made men
to be found in Franklin county is Matthew R. Holcomb, who, starting
life as a poor boy with no advantages of any kind, has not only accumu-
lated an excellent farm of two hundred acres, but is also proprietor of
the leading store at Hanaford. Not satisfied with having made a suc-
cess of his agricultural operations, he branched out into the mercantile
line, and the success which attended his efforts in the new field proved
that he was possessed of the rare ability to follow more than one line of
endeavor and to be able to place himself in the front rank of each. He
is a product of St. Clair county, Illinois, and was born August 16, 1852,
a son of John T. and Lovina (Potter) Holcomb.
William Holcomb, the grandfather of Matthew R., was a native of
North Carolina, who served as a soldier from that state during the war
of 1812, and came to Illinois among the pioneers, settling in St. Clair
county, where the remaining years of his life were spent in agricultural
pursuits, his death occuring at the advanced age of ninety-eight years.
His son, John T. Holcomb, was born in St. Clair county, as was his
wife, and both spent their lives within its confines, Mr. Holcomb passing
away in 1857 and his wife in 1891, both in the faith of the Missionary
Baptist church. On the maternal side Mr. Holcomb 's grandfather was
Matthew Potter, an old sea captain of Maine, who came to Illinois at an
early day and built the mill at Freeburg, the first mill in St. Clair county.
Matthew R. Holcomb received his education in the schools of Free-
burg, but the greater part of his education was secured in the school
of hard work, as his father died when he was only five years of age and
he was compelled to early start to work to help support the family. Un-
til 1872 he was engaged in farming in St. Clair county, but in that year
moved to Franklin county, where he was soon able to purchase a farm,
due to his industry and hard and faithful labor. He has added to his
original purchase from time to time, and now has a tract of two hundred
LIBRARY
OF THE
OF ILUIOS
iff Hit
HBVER&N OF ILUK013
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1563
acres of some of the best farming land in the county. As his finances
have permitted, he has erected new and modern buildings, and he is now
the owner of a beautiful country home. In 1891, recognizing the need
for and realizing the opportunities of a modern business establishment
at Hanaford, Mr. Holcomb erected a large, two-story brick structure
here and stocked it with a full and up-to-date line of goods of every kind
to be found in a general store, and his business has rapidly increased,
until he now has by far the largest trade in Hanaford. The same char-
acteristic traits of industry, fidelity to duty and honorable methods that
made him a successful agriculturist have been displayed in his operations
as a merchant, and his reputation is that of a man of the highest integ-
rity. In political matters he is a Democrat, although he has not been
an office seeker. He has served, however, for eighteen years as a member
of the school board and has acted as justice of the peace for three terms.
Mr. Holcomb was married to Miss Mary Chesney, who died without
issue. His second marriage was to Miss Margaret Sweet, the daughter
of T. W. Sweet, who was a native of Tennessee, came to Franklin county,
Illinois, in 1850, and was a successful farmer for many years, serving
also as county treasurer. One child was born to this union : Timothy 0.,
who now lives at Colorado Springs, for his health. Mrs. Holcomb died,
and Mr. Holcomb was married a third time- to Charlotte Thompson, by
whom he had four children : Clara, Bertha, James and Matthew A. The
latter, a very bright young man, lost his life in the mine disaster at
Harrisburg, Illinois, February 13, 1911. Mrs. Holcomb passed away in
1899.
JUDGE WILLIAM C. JONES is a citizen of whom any city might well
be proud. In his long career as an attorney in Crawford county, Illi-
nois, he has never brought anything but honor to the profession, and
during his service as a dispenser of justice he was always able to de-
liver an unbiased opinion, a rare quality that is lacking in so many of
our judges of today. He is not only a prominent member of the bar,
but is a successful business man and a popular author. It is not often
that one finds a man of so striking a versatility, and especially one who
reaches a height far above mediocrity in all of these lines. The public
has shown that they may be relied upon to appreciate true worth, for
they elected Judge Jones to the bench of the circuit court of Illinois
when he was the youngest judge of this court, and he was also the
youngest member of the Twenty-seventh general assembly of Illinois.
His ability therefore showed itself early in life and he has never
ceased to sustain the reputation that he made for himself in those
young days.
William C. Jones was born on the 15th of July, 1848, at Hutson-
ville, Crawford county, Illinois. He is the son of Caswell Jones, a
well known merchant of that place, who died in 1853, when William
was still a young boy. His mother, whose maiden name was Mary
Barlow, after a time was married to the Honorable Ethelbert Callahan,
and the family removed to Robinson, Illinois, in 1861. His education
was obtained in the common schools of Crawford county, Illinois, the
Ohio Wesleyan University, and the Law Department of the University
of Michigan. He was admitted to the bar on the 9th of May, 1868, and in
June of the same year he went into partnership with his step-father,
the Honorable E. Callahan. This association continued for ten years,
or until 1877, when he was elected county judge. During these first
years of his active work as a lawyer he gained an invaluable experience
in various branches of the law and had the inestimable benefit of the
1564 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
wider experience and older head of his step-father. He had always
taken a keen interest in politics and so in 1871, when he was elected a
member of the •general assembly, he was well qualified to fill the office.
After his two years as county judge in 1879 he was elected to the bench
of the Second judicial circuit of Illinois, for a term of six years. In
1885, when his first term expired, he was re-elected for another term of
six years.
After the expiration of his term of service as judge he formed a
law partnership with the Honorable E. E. Newlin, Judge J. C. Eagle-
ton being admitted to the firm two years later. The fine training and
practical experience that had been Judge Jones' had by this time been
broadened and developed by his political work and by his judicial po-
sition, so that it is no wonder that the firm soon had all the cases they
could handle. The Judge himself was extremely painstaking in the prep-
aration of his cases, and it was next to impossible to detect him in an
error or to catch him unprepared on an obscure point. This firm con-
tinued to do business until 1897, when Mr. Newlin was elected to a
judgeship of the second judicial circuit, and the firm was reorganized
under the name of Jones, Eagleton and Newlin. In 1900, Mr. T. J.
Newlin retiring from the business, Mr. Edward S. Baker was admit-
ted as a partner. This firm continued for a year, when it was again
reorganized, as Jones, McCarty and Arnold. The new members of the
firm were George D. McCarty and William W. Arnold. On the 15th
of June, 1903, the senior member of the firm announced his withdrawal
from active business, on account of failing eyesight, and since that time he
has occupied himself solely with his private business affairs.
Judge Jones might have made a financier had he not turned lawyer,
and he has always been interested in various financial institutions,
notably in the First National Bank of Robinson, of which he was at
one time vice-president. In 1897 he was appointed by Governor John
R. Tanner judge of the court of claims, in which position he served
for four years, his knowledge of business and of finance coming in
very conveniently.
As a lawyer Judge Jones has a local or rather a statewide reputa-
tion, but as a writer of both prose and poetry his name has gone out
through the whole country. Perhaps to no one as much as to the
author is fame so gracious. We all know and revere the name of
Washington Irving, but how many of us know even the names of the
great lawyers who made up the supreme court of the United States of
that. time. On the other hand no one has less excuse for being than a
poor author, but Judge Jones' books are full of meat and contain
food for thought. His first publication was while he was county judge
and was done in collaboration with Judge Cunningham. This book
was "Practice in County Courts." Flood and Company of Chicago be-
ing the publishers. This work has passed through three editions and
is still regarded as a standard reference work on the subject. In 1893
his second volume appeared, and one more different from his first could
not be imagined. Its title was "Elements and Science of English
Versification," and it immediately caught the public attention, and is
still a popular book. This same year he published a small volume of
poetry that appealed to many people .in all parts of the country, for in
"Birch Rod Days and Other Poems" there was a spirit of freshness
and a sympathetic insight into the feelings possessed by humanity as
a whole that could not fail to win the interest of the reader.
Judge Jones was married on the 25th of November, 1869, to Mary
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1565
H. Steel, a daughter of James H. and Emily J. Steel, and they have
three children. The eldest of these, Caswell S. Jones, is vice-president
and director of the First National Bank of Robinson, Illinois. The
daughter, Dorothy J., is the wife of Stewart L. Crebs, who is the
cashier and one of the directors of the National Bank of Carmi, Illi-
nois. Both of these children would seem to have inherited their father's
taste for finance and financiers, while the third, William C. Jones, in-
herited his business ability, and was the organizer of the Jones Cloth-
ing and Shoe Company, of Robinson, in 1903.
Judge Jones is a member of the Masonic order, Gorin Commandery,
No. 14, Knights Templars of Olney, Illinois. He is also a member of
the Robinson Lodge of Elks, No. 1188. In his religious affiliations he
is a member of the Presbyterian church. Politically he upholds the
standards of the Democratic party, and has always been much in-
terested in local politics and in the civic life of his home town.
In addition to the literary work which has been mentioned above,
Judge Jones was an associate editor of the "History of Crawford
County, ' ' which was published in 1909 by the Munsell Publishing Com-
pany. It will be seen that Judge Jones is not only a many sided man
but a many sided writer. What a combination, lawyer, business man
and author, poet, scientist and historian !
O. F. REINHARDT, M. D. Every profession has its prominent men,
some made such by long membership, others by their proficiency in their
calling. Dr. 0. F. Reinhardt, of Aviston, Illinois, is made conspicuous
among the citizens of Clinton county not so much by the length of time
he has devoted to the calling for he is as yet a young man as by the
eminent success he has already made of it.
O. F. Reinhardt was reared to manhood in the city of New Baden,
Illinois, whence his family had come from St. Louis, Missouri, when he
was about five years of age. and his early education was secured in the
public schools of New Baden and the high school at Trenton, from which
latter institution he was graduated with the class of 1902. From Tren-
ton he went to the Normal College at Valparaiso, Indiana, where he took
a special course in the classics, after which he entered the medical de-
partment of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, completing his
medical course in 1908 in the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery,
from which he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Immediately
after graduation Dr. Reinhardt came to Aviston, where he has been in
a continual and successful practice. He is one of those men who may be
said to have chosen well. He is possessed of a kindly, sympathetic nature,
a keen sense of discrimination and fine qualities of mind and heart, and,
having a natural taste for the branches of the medical profession, he
has made a signal success. As befits the young medical practitioner of
today, Dr. Reinhart is a close student, and the success he has attained
has been due to close application, ready acceptance of the new methods
and discoveries of his profession as set forth in the leading medical
periodicals of the day, of which he is a subscriber, and membership in
the leading medical associations, including the American and Clinton
County Medical Societies. In political matters the Doctor has given his
allegiance to the Republican party, but outside of taking a good citizen 's
interest in public matters he has not found time to engage in political
affairs, although he has always had the welfare of his adopted city at
heart. His standing in his profession is high, and he has attained great
popularity among the people of Aviston.
1566 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
In 1908 Dr. Reinhardt was united in marriage with Miss Gertrude
Gaffner, the estimable daughter of Dr. 'Gaffner, a well-known physician
and surgeon of Clinton county, who practices in Trenton, and two chil-
dren have been born to this union, Charles and Ralph.
MARCUS N. MCCARTNEY. Vast as is the field of educational uplift
and achievement, its discussion as pertains to Southern Illinois rarely
fails to call to mind among the well-informed the name of McCartney.
For years it has been a synonym for earnest effort and noteworthy
achievement in this greatest of American institutions. For not alone has
one individual achieved distinction in this respect, but son has followed
father in perpetuating the distinctive honor that attaches to the name.
Marcus N. McCartney, who is superintendent of the city schools of
Metropolis, comes from one of the illustrious families of Massac county,
his distinguished father being one of the pioneer settlers of Southern
Illinois. Born in Metropolis, December 2, 1863, Professor McCartney
is a son of the late Captain John F. McCartney, who won prominence
as an early educator, as a lawyer, in business, in politics and by the
sterling worth of his individuality.
Captain McCartney was of sturdy Scotch descent, born in Scotland
in 1834. He died in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on November 12, 1908. He
was brought to America in 1836, and grew to manhood in the Western
Reserve of Ohio. Graduating from the Kingsville Academy where he
was offered the chair of mathematics, and later he was also tendered the
chair of mathematics in Vermilion College, Ohio.
The newer country called to him in 1856, shortly after attaining his
majority, he and a schoolmate named Morford fared forth to seek their
fortunes. They descended the river to Caledonia, a community in Pu-
laski county, Illinois, where they were forced to stop and replenish their
finances, as Mr. McCartney had but thirty-two cents remaining when
they reached that point. They went to work in a sawmill, but the resi-
dents soon discerned that they were men of refinement and education,
and a man named Bell induced them to become permanent residents of
the locality, secure license and take up teaching. They did so and Mr.
McCartney for two years taught the Grand Chain school, the place at
that time being known as ' ' The Nation, ' ' from the presence and influence
of the Indians about there.
After he had been settled for several months in the school work at
Grand Chain Mr. McCartney returned to Ohio, completed his college
course, and then returned to his new home, married and resumed his
school work. He went to Metropolis in 1860, his friend Morford having
preceded him and taken a school, being its first principal. The school
was in a two-story house occupying the corner of the lot upon which the
Central School now stands.
Mr. McCartney had been occupying his spare time in the study of
law under the direction of Judge H. M. Smith, of Caledonia, then the
county seat of Pulaski county, and had been admitted to the bar and
engaged in practice for several months when Judge Green, of Metropolis,
induced him to locate there and take charge of the schools, which he did,
as the successor of his friend Morford. During the second session the
war spirit became so intense that it was useless to continue the school.
It was accordingly dismissed and Captain McCartney raised a company
early in 1862 for service in the Union army. As recruiting officer he
raised Company D of the Fifty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, and
was commissioned its captain.
The regiment saw service with both Grant and Sherman. First at-
tached to Grant's forces, it took part in the capture of Fts. Henry and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1567
Donelson, was in the siege and capture of Vicksburg, and then marched
across and united with the troops operating against the Confederates in
Tennessee. They formed a part of General Sherman's army for the
Atlanta campaign, where a battle was fought every day during the one
hundred days that were required to reach and take Atlanta. Captain
McCartney continued with the victorious army on its famous march
to the sea, and then when by the countermarch through the Carolinas the
Southern forces were cut in twain. At Goldsboro, North Carolina, the
victors received the surrender of General Johnston's army and continued
to Washington, where they participated in the Grand Review at the
close of the war.
When he doffed his shoulderstraps for the habiliments of the private
citizen Captain McCartney decided to resume his law work. He took
up the practice of this profession at his old home in Southern Illinois
and speedily won a place of prominence. Soon he was elected state's
attorney of the southern circuit, and for many years was looked upon
as a leader in Republican politics. The breadth of his capacity and his
extensive enterprises aside from his law practice would have taxed the
energies of most men, but Captain McCartney is remembered as having
made his mark in a number of varied lines. His business acumen, as
evidenced by his investments, showed that he could have been a leader in
any line. He bought heavily of city property, and improved it with some
of the best business houses of the city. Among these instances are the
State Hotel block, the Herald building, the National State Bank build-
ing and the Opera House building, in which is located the library, and
which property he left by testament to the Christian church, that they
might use it as the nucleus for the erection of a permanent home.
Captain McCartney was a firm believer in ground as an investment,
and his operations were not confined to city property. Farming land
was equally attractive to him. He believed that all wealth originated
from the soil, and that it was the firmest foundation of a fortune as well
as the most constant and assured contributor to man 's efforts. This be-
lief he showed by acquiring a large amount of land in Massac county.
His country home was known as one of the beautiful and perfectly ap-
pointed residences of the region. It was located on a tract of several
hundred acres,- and was built to his idea, possessed of all the necessaries
and conveniences to make the estate ideal for the last years of a strenuous
life. Here his widow and daughter, Miss Hope McCartney, reside at the
present time. The Captain was as thoroughly interested in the welfare
of the dweller in the country as he was in the prosperity of the city
man, and his contributions for the improvement of the public highways
were frequent and generous.
The field of journalism attracted him, and soon after leaving the
army and returning to Metropolis he founded the Promulgator, a Repub-
lican weekly which was eventually absorbed by the Journal-Republican.
Some years later the Captain's political sentiment changed, he revised
his views and founded The Metropolis Times, through the columns
of which he strongly advocated the principles of prohibition. So inter-
ested did he become in the question that he was urged with unanimity to
take the nomination of the Prohibition party for Congress, and polled
the largest vote accorded to any Prohibition candidate before or since
that time.
It was natural that one with such extensive property interests should
be a close observer and active participant in financial matters. Captain
McCartney was one of the prime movers in the organization of the First
National Bank of Metropolis, and became its president. Later he as-
sisted in directing the organization of the National State Bank, and
1568 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
was its president when he died. He was an organizer and became a
director of the National Bank of Golconda, and was at the time of his
death the president of the National Bank of Brookport. These were
not honorary capacities by any means, but the Captain gave to the direc-
tion of the affairs of these flourishing institutions the benefit of his
skilled mind and vast experience. His knowledge of all kinds of in-
vestments was unequaled, and he knew the rating of those with whom he
had business dealings far more intimately than any information that
could be furnished by the cold figures of a financial agency.
His splendid mind and tireless energy sought varied avenues of em-
ployment. He became a state director for the Farmers' Institute, rep-
resenting his district as such at the time of his death. He spent years
in lecturing on agricultural subjects and visited European countries for
the purpose of acquiring at first hand knowledge that would be useful to
his farmer-friends in his commonwealth of the New World. In the pre-
liminaries which resulted later in the locating of the C., B. & Q. Railway
bridge and incline at Metropolis, he was one of the first consulted and
it was through his grasp of the possibilities and presentment of the situ-
ation very largely that the negotiations with the company were success-
fully terminated. He was president of the Metropolis Commercial
Club when he passed away, and the widespread enterprises with which
he had been associated mourned the loss of a real chief and paid proper
tribute to his memory when he was laid away. He was an active man in
the Christian church and kept its material welfare constantly before
him. When General Logan and other national leaders organized the
Grand Army of the Republic, Captain McCartney, himself the veteran
of more than a hundred engagements, applauded the idea and gave it his
earnest co-operation. He was identified with the Masonic and Odd Fel-
lows fraternities in an active way until increasing business cares cur-
tailed these social connections to some extent.
While located at Caledonia Captain McCartney married Elizabeth
McKee, a sister of Judge Hugh McKee and of F. M. McKee, two men
of prominence in Pulaski county. She died in Grand Chain during the
latter part of the war, while he was away in the army, and is buried in
the little cemetery at that place. There were two children by this mar-
riage. A daughter, Lizzie, married Frank Stroud, and is a resident of
Seattle, Washington. Marcus N. McCartney is the other child. Captain
McCartney 's second wife, who survives him and resides at the old home
place in Metropolis, is a native of Hanover, Germany, her maiden name
being Minnie Luekens. Her family has one of the best known relation-
ships of Massac county, her father, William Luekens, did not* migrate
from his native land, but his family came to the United States when
Mrs. McCartney was a young girl. The children of this union are:
Grace, wife of F. A. Trousdale, one of the prominent citizens of Me-
tropolis, and who was formerly a member of the Illinois General Assem-
bly; Mrs. Anna Slimpert, of Metropolis; Mrs. Hattie Fouts, of Seattle,
Washington ; Carrie, wife of John Weaver, an educator of Metropolis ;
Mrs. Kate Holifield, cashier of the National Bank, of Brockport, Illinois ;
Thomas Franklin, cashier of the National State Bank of Metropolis and
an ex-superintendent of the city schools ; and Miss Hope McCartney, who
is assistant cashier of the same bank.
Marcus N. McCartney, the senior son, was educated in the public
schools of his home city and later in the old Metropolis Seminary, from
which he graduated. While completing his education he took up teach-
ing in the country schools, and attended the Normal School at Normal,
Illinois, and the Holbrook Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, where
he received the degree of B. S. in 1885. Six years later the University
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1569
conferred upon him the degree of A. B. He has been carrying on the
work for his Master's degree in Columbia University while doing the
work incumbent upon him as superintendent of schools.
The history of Professor McCartney's progress in his chosen vocation
is one of steady advancement. In the beginning he taught two years in
the district schools of Massac county. His first directive capacity was
as principal of the schools at Grand Chain, where his father had first
taught, years before. Then he was superintendent for six years at
Mound City, and successively superintendent at Vienna, Illinois, for ten
years, acting superintendent at Carmi, Illinois, for part of a session, city
superintendent of schools for Bloomfield, Missouri, for four years, and
then city superintendent for two years in Metropolis, where, like in
Grand Chain, he followed in the footsteps of his honored father, just
fifty years intervening between their work in that capacity in Metropolis.
The measure of years, however, does not express the fullness of Pro-
fessor McCartney's work in so telling a fashion as the concrete expres-
sions of accomplishment. He instituted the high-school in Mound City
and graded the schools there. He performed a similar service for Vienna,
creating the high school course ; reconstructed the high school at Bloom-
field, Missouri, and put both Vienna and Bloomfield schools on the ac-
credited lists of their State Universities. In Metropolis he raised the
credits of the high school from fifteen to seventeen, and saw it attain
to the high water mark of an enrollment of twelve hundred, a teaching
force of twenty-four and the accumulation of sixty thousand dollars
worth of school property. For twenty-two years Professor McCartney
has been engaged in county institute work through Missouri and Illinois.
He was president of the Southern Illinois Teachers' Association in 1892
at East St. Louis, and is financial secretary of the Association at the
present time. In addition he holds membership in the Illinois State
Association, and has served most acceptably on the High School Course
of Study Committee of the state organization. He is a member of the
National Educational Association and attends its annual sessions. In
company with his family he has traveled extensively through the United
States, north, east, south and west, and keeps in close touch with all the
approved movements that aid in the education of the young. He is a
close observer, a deep student, and a logical thinker. Ready of speech
he makes a forceful, interesting talk, brimful of ideas and valuable
theories.
Professor McCartney was married to Miss Ida Huckelberry at Mound
City, Illinois, on August 29, 1895. His wife graduated from Holbrook
Normal University with the degree of B. S. in 1891, and follows teaching,
being one of the representative educators and woman's club devotees of
Southern Illinois. She was born in Metropolis, a daughter of David B.
and Mary Herrington Huckelberry. Her father was a soldier in the
Carmichael Cavalry from Illinois during the Civil war, dying soon after
the close of hostilities from the effects of the arduous campaign. His
widow married Captain Romeo Friganza, well known as superintendent
of the navy yard at Mound City during the Civil war. Professor and
Mrs. McCartney have had three children in their family, Mary Neele,
who died in infancy, Marcie May and Alice Elizabeth. In his religious
sentiments Professor McCartney is a member of the Christian denomi-
nation. Socially he fraternizes with the Masonic order, having member-
ship in the Blue Lodge and Chapter. His public and private life, his
personality and his attainments have stamped him as a man among men,
a shining monument of latter day nobility.
1570 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
JOHN FREDERICK REICHERT. Pulaski county is undeniably rich in
her prosperous farmers. Her fertile lands have ever been an attraction
to men of pluck and energy, and many a goodly fortune has been forth-
coming from the soil in the form of golden grain and other kindred pro-
ducts of Southern Illinois. No man who has achieved success in an
agricultural way in Pulaski county has done so at the cost of greater
effort than John Frederick Reichert, nor has any one realized a more
phenomenal degree of success in that work than has he. John Frederick
Reichert represents the acme of industrial effort ; he has brought forth
worthy accomplishments in the face of seemingly insurmountable ob-
stacles, and is an example of thrift and prosperity which might well be
studied and emulated. Aside from his extensive farming interests, he
has found opportunity to reach out into other fields, and his attention
has been turned to banking, mechandising and real estate. He is un-
doubtedly one of the foremost men of his town and county, and as such
is recognized by all.
Born near Freeburg, Illinois, June 16, 1853, Mr. Reichert is a son of
Jacob Reichert and a brother of August Reiehert. He had but slight
acquaintance with the schoolroom as boy and youth, his education being
chiefly of an industrial character as a helper on his father's farm. In
the winters it was his wont to secure employment in the coal mines,
which supplemented the family income from the farm, and he remained
with the old folks until he was twenty-six years old. At 9 P. M. July 29,
1883, he entered Pulaski county as the fore-runner of German settlement
in and about Grand Chain. He brought his personal property with him
in a wagon, and with $350 loaned him by a friend, Joe Erlinger, he
contracted for the purchase of a tract of one hundred acres of land.
This primal purchase represents the center of energy about which all
the activities of his now widespread domain revolves. Pulaski county,
in the part he chose for his home, was in an unsettled condition, and
from the first ill-health was the portion of the family. Unacclimated as
they were, their bodily strength and vigor was sapped by the unhealthful
conditions, and death came to the little home on several occasions. These
and other troubles followed Mr. Reichert and for a time ruin stared
him in the face. But with the restoration of health Fortune ceased to
frown upon his labors, and soon the results of his unrelenting toil were
everywhere apparent. A few short years found him firmly established
and making rapid progress towards financial independence. He con-
tinued to add to his holdings until he was the owner of more than eleven
hundred acres of farm land, but he has since reduced his ranch proper
to something like 570 acres, and it is unnecessary to say that the reducing
of this land to a producing condition has involved much labor of a most
strenuous sort, the results of which fully justify the cost. In 1892 Mr.
Reichert erected a handsome brick dwelling, which, with the other splen-
did buildings he has built from time to time, add much to the appearance
and value of his country home. At first grain and stock raising oc-
cupied his attention entirely, but for a number of years he has been a
buyer and shipper of both products. Mr. Reichert was the founder of
one of the principal business concerns in Grand Chain, known as the
Grand Chain Mercantile Company, and he is the owner of the fine
modern building in which the company carries on its business. He is a
director and one of the organizers of the First State Bank of Mound
City, and is a dealer in real estate in and about Grand Chain. A Repub-
lican in his political convictions, he is concerned in the welfare of the
party, but is inactive in a political way. He was nominated for the
office of county commissioner against his protest in recent years and was
elected, but he declined to qualify disclaiming any desire for public
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1571
office of any kind and not having sufficient time for such office aside from
his private interests. Mr. Reichert is a member of the B. P. 0. E. Lodge
No. 651, in Cairo, Illinois.
Mr. Reichert married in St. Clair county Louisa Erlinger, the
daughter of German parents of Freeburg. She was born May 1, 1854,
and died January 7, 1890. She is buried at her old home. Five children
were born to them, all of whom were yet at a tender age when death
robbed them of the care of a mother. Their father has proved himself
a parent indeed in his care of his family. He has looked after their
education, given them careful home training, taught them the value of
industry and integrity for its own sake, and has seen the majority of
them establish homes of their own and enter upon successful agricultural
or commercial careers. Their names are as follows: Theodore, born
November 28, 1880, is secretary and treasurer of the Grand Chain Mer-
cantile Company, and is married to Tillie Beyke ; Edmund August, born
November 21, 1882, is a farmer; Albert C., born March 25, 1885, is a
farmer; John Fritz Theodore, born August 29, 1887, is at home, not
married ; and Andreas Frank, born November 17, 1889, died in infancy.
GEORGE E. CARTER, president of the Randolph Milling Company, of
Baldwin, Illinois, has been a resident of that vicinity since his boyhood,
coming with his parents to Illinois from Sullivan county, New York, in
1864, when he was but six years of age. He lived on a farm until twenty-
one years old, and since he entered the business world he has been con-
nected with the milling industry in one capacity or another, save for but
one exception, and since the inception of the Randolph Milling Com-
pany in 1904 he has been active as president of that concern winning to
himself an enviable record in that section for progressiveness and general
business ability.
Born at De Bruce, Sullivan county, New York, June 7, 1858, George
E. Carter is the son of Thomas Carter, an Englishman, born in Lincoln-
shire, England, and coming to the United States in the fifties after his
marriage with Rebecca Dickinson. He spent practically ten years in and
near De Bruce as a farmer, and in 1864 brought his little family to Illi-
nois. Here, as in New York, he engaged quietly in agricultural pursuits,
and spent his life in the vicinity of Baldwin, dying there in 1894. His
widow still survives him. They were the parents of the following named
sons and daughters: John, who died near Baldwin, leaving a family:
Mary A., who is the wife of Adolphus Miles and resides at Rosmond, Illi-
nois ; Chris, who passed away at Russell, Kansas, also leaving a family ;
George E., of Baldwin; Joseph, who is connected with the Randolph
Milling Company in Baldwin; Hepsey, who married E. C. Douglass and
lives in St. Louis, and Sarah F., who is now Mrs. W. R. Preston, of Bald-
win, Illinois.
George E. Carter was educated in the public schools of Baldwin, and
following his graduation therefrom he completed a course of study in
the Southern Illinois Normal. He later was graduated from the Bryant
& Stratton Commercial College in St. Louis, and began his business life
as a clerk in the store of George Wehrheim with whom he was associated
for seven years and during which time he acquired valuable business
experience. Upon severing his connection with that line of business he
became associated with a Mr. Campbell, and they subsequently formed a
partnership in Baldwin to buy and ship grain, which business they con-
ducted for a period of seven years. Disposing of that business, Mr. Car-
ter established a small elevator in Baldwin, and bought wheat for the
Camp Spring Milling Company for a year and a half, and a similar
period of time he spent in buying wheat for the Conrad Becker Milling
1572 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Company, of Red Bud. Mr. Carter and Mr. Becker both saw favorable
possibilities in the consolidation of the mutual interests, and they conse-
quently bought a small grist mill in Baldwin from Heim and Peters, and
during the time that Mr. Becker was connected with the business the firm
went by the name of Becker and Carter. In 1904 Mr. Becker retired,
and the new proprietor continued the plant as the Randolph Milling Cpm-
pany, of which George E. Carter is the president, E. Linder is vice
president and Clyde A. Carter is secretary and treasurer.
The mill, as now operated, represents practically a new industry as
compared with the original plant, so wide has been the scope of the con-
stant improvements which have been effected. Its building has under-
gone many important changes; its power has been modernized and mul-
tiplied; its general equipment has been added to, and many other im-
portant changes inaugurated, until today the plant ranks among the
most up-to-date and efficient mills in the country, with a capacity of
two hundred barrels of flour daily. When Mr. Carter came into the
concern the plant was little more than a custom mill. His progressive
ideas were immediately made manifest in the business by the successive
changes that were wrought, and by the many additions for the enlarge-
ment and improvement of the mill equipment. Its final overhauling and
revolutionizing took place when the Becker interest came into the hands
of the present owners. The output of the mill is marketed in a few of
the Southern states, Mississippi taking the bulk of it, while Tennessee
and Alabama absorb a small portion of it. The plant furnishes a splen-
did market for home grown wheat and is an important factor in making
Baldwin a trading center for the country interests.
On August 23, 1883, Mr. Carter married Miss Belle Holden, daughter
of James and Sarah (Johnson) Holden, settlers from New Jersey. Mr.
Holden has been identified with saw mill interests the greater part of
his life. They have four daughters and three sons, Mrs. Carter being
their second daughter. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Carter are as fol-
lows : Clyde, a partner with his father in the Randolph Milling Com-
pany, born May 4, 1884. He is a graduate of Barnes Business College at
St. Louis, and was married November 29, 1907, having two children,
Melba and Arlin. Eula is the second child of George and Belle Carter,
and their third and youngest child, Fleda, is deceased.
Mr. Carter is not connected with any fraternal order excepting the
Modern Woodmen of America, in which order he has passed all the
chairs in the local camp. He is a Republican, and has served as cen-
tral committeeman for his precinct these many years.
SAMUEL LOVEJOY TAYLOR is editor of the Sparta Plaindealer and has
been identified with local journalism during practically his entire life
time. The dissemination of news, the discussion of the public questions
and the promotion of the general welfare of his community through the
columns of his paper have constituted life's object with him as a private
citizen. His public services, both to his city and his county, have been
no less important and earnest and the period of twelve years in which he
dispensed justice from the bench of the Randolph county court mark
him as one of the influential and prominent citizens of this section of
the state.
Judge Taylor was born at Sparta, Illinois, October 31, 1848. His
father, John Taylor, was born in Lincoln county, Tennessee, in 1816, and
left that state because of his dislike of the ulcer of slavery which then
afflicted the whole south. John Taylor was a son of Clark Taylor and a
grandson of Hugh Taylor, the latter of whom was a Scotchman, born near
Glasgow, Scotland. Hugh Taylor married Nancy Gault and came to
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1573
America during the colonial regime, locating in Lincoln county, Tennes-
see. He was a planter of that early time and his abode was situated
within the danger limits of hostile savages, at whose hands he lost his
life while on a horse-hunting expedition on Red river in the adjacent
territory of Kentucky. •
John Taylor was educated in Tennessee and at the age of twenty-
three came to Illinois, where was solemnized his marriage to Jane Haw-
thorne, a daughter of James Hawthorne, one of the pioneers of Randolph
county and one of its early county recorders or circuit court clerks, when
the county seat was still at Kaskaskia. John Taylor died in 1876 and his
wife passed away in 1879. John Taylor affiliated with the Whig party
until the formation of the Republican party, when he became one of the
first to align himself with that organization. In the political contests
between Lincoln and Douglas in Illinois he was a strong partisan of Mr.
Lincoln and during the war between the states he was government official
for assessing and collecting the various federal taxes for the prosecution
of the war. He was not a public speaker or debater, not endowed with
the art of fluent expression, but he was a conscientious doer of deeds
among the people and was an elder in the United Presbyterian church.
The children of John Taylor and wife were: William B., John G.,
Samuel L., Albert, Lydia B., and Alice. All have passed through life
thus far without marriage save Judge Samuel L., and all excepting him
are members of the old family home. The brothers have a common in-
terest in merchandising at Sparta and Samuel and Albert have passed
their lives actively in newspaper work, the latter being business manager
of the Sparta Plaindealer. Samuel L. was postmaster at Sparta for five
years and Albert was his deputy. All were trained in the schools of
Sparta common to their student days, and in addition to that discipline
Samuel L. attended the University of Michigan, where he studied law
up to his junior year.
Judge Taylor's first independent efforts were expended in the office
of the Randolph County Democrat, of Chester, published by H. B. Nes-
bit, who is still living. Following his work there he spent the last year
of the war in Ann Arbor, and when he returned home the opportunity
to become the owner of the Sparta Plaindealer existed and he seized it.
This paper was founded by Rotrock Brothers over fifty years ago as a
Republican paper and the principles and policies of that organization
have dominated its columns ever since. They sold it to General J.
Blackburn Jones, who disposed of it to Nichol & Watson, from whom
Fred Alles obtained it. At this point Judge Taylor became connected
with it, for he purchased it next. He conducted it for seven years,
when he sold it to Campbell & Deitrich, Charles M. Campbell bought
out Campbell & Deitrich and Campbell Brothers were proprietors of the
Journal for a time. Finally George H. Campbell became sole proprietor
and Judge Taylor resumed his connection with it as editor. When Mr.
Campbell sold the paper to E. I. Smith the Judge again took charge and
has been editor ever since, for Taylor Brothers purchased the plant in
1899. When founded the Plaindealer was a four page folio, while now
it is a seven column quarto.
Judge Taylor was admitted to the Illinois bar by the circuit court of
Randolph county, but he never entered into the active practice of law.
He served as city attorney of Sparta for a time ; was also city treasurer
and mayor. He was a delegate from his congressional district to the
Republican national convention at Minneapolis in 1892. As already in-
timated, he was a stalwart Republican in his political convictions and in
1894 was elected county judge. He retired from that office after a faith-
ful service of four years, but in 1902 was again elected and four years
1574 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
later was chosen his own successor. Having at the expiration of his
second term served the county twelve years, he declined to stand again
as a candidate, although urged by petition and otherwise to do so. He
resumed his old place at the editorial desk of the Plaindealer and now his
paper and other business affairs occupy all his time. Personally and
through the medium of his paper the Judge exerts a splendid influence
on community affairs and he is recognized as one of the most prominent
and public-spirited citizens of Sparta.
On January 28, 1879, Judge Taylor married Miss Mary J. Caudle,
and the issue of their union are two daughters, Gail and Vera. The
family are devout members of the Presbyterian church and Judge Tay-
lor has served on the board of trustees of that body.
PRANK M. DAVIS. An able, intelligent and enterprising journalist,
Prank M. Davis, of Breese, Illinois, editor, manager and proprietor of
the People's Interest, has been actively identified with the advancement
of the newspaper interests of Clinton county since attaining his majority.
He is a self-made man in the best sense of that term, whatever success
has come to him having been honestly earned by hard work and unflag-
ging devotion to his profession. A native of Illinois, he was born in
Louisville, Clay county.
His father, William M. Davis, who was born in Waterford, Ohio,
April 14, 1852, came with his parents to Illinois when a small child, and
was brought up on his father's farm in Kinmundy. He subsequently
worked at various occupations in and around that town, finally locating
at Sailor Springs, Clay county, where he spent the closing years of his
life retired from active pursuits, passing away March 23, 1900. He was
an uncompromising Republican in politics, and a member of the Old
School Presbyterian church. He married Maria T. Critchlow, of Louis-
ville, Illinois, and to them five children were born, as follows : Florence,
the wife of George Bateman ; Prank M. ; Pearl C., the second son ; Claude
P. and Lucy May. The wife survived him many years, dying in March,
1910.
Frank M. Davis spent his childhood days in Illinois, in Wakefield and
Farina, subsequently acquiring his preliminary education in the public
schools of Sailor Springs, and later being graduated from the Clay City
high school. For five years, from the age of fourteen until nineteen, he
was employed in a drug store. Embarking then upon his journalistic
career, Mr. Davis became affiliated with the World, one of the leading
papers of Sailor Springs, having a half interest in the sheet. At the
age of twenty-one years he bought out his partner's interest and con-
tinued to publish the paper until 1906. In January of that year Mr.
Davis moved his plant to Breese, and the following month, in February,
1906, established the journal with which he has since been associated as
proprietor and editor, the People 's Interest, a paper that is in every way
true to its name, being a non-partisan sheet, devoted to the best and high-
est interests of the people and the community, and gladly championing
all enterprises conducive to the public good. Mr. Davis started busi-
ness, with a partner, at Sailor Springs with no other assets than a
courageous heart, an active brain and plenty of ambition and energy,
and has since built up a substantial business, having a large, well
equipped newspaper plant, which he is managing successfully.
Mr. Davis married, June 17, 1911, Allie Patton, of Beckemeyer, Illi-
nois. Politically Mr. Davis is a staunch advocate oT the principles of
the Republican party; fraternally he is a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows ; and religiously he belongs to the Methodist Epis-
copal church.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1575
REV. G. H. HAERTLING. The Lutheran church of Neunert, Illinois,
the strongest Lutheran congregation in Jackson county, is fortunate in
having for its pastor the Rev. G. H. Haertling, a man whose qualities of
mind and heart have made him beloved by all who know him, and one
who has proved himself not only an able pastor and efficient business
man, but also a friend and advisor to all who will place confidence in
him. Born at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, May 8, 1876, Rev. Haertling is
a son of Herman and Sophia (Koenig) Haertling.
Herman Haertling was born in Saxony, Germany, February 16,
1841, and came to the United States when about twenty-two years, lo-
cating in Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, among the heavy timber.
Clearing his original land, he added to it from time to time, becoming
eventually one of his section's most prosperous men. In political mat-
ters he was a Republican, but he never cared for public preferment, and
the time he could spare from his private affairs was all devoted to the
work of the Lutheran church, of which he was an active and useful
member, holding several official offices and being a deacon for a number
of years. A good man and true Christian, the world was better for Mr.
Haertling having lived in it, and at the time of his death, which occurred
July 13, 1904, his community lost not only an able agriculturist, but a
man whose life was so spent that those who came after him could look
back upon his career with a sense of pride. His widow still survives and
makes her home with a younger brother of Rev. Haertling on the old
homestead.
Rev. G. H. Haertling was the fifth of nine children born to his" par-
ents, and his early education was secured in the parochial schools. When
he was fourteen years of age his father sent him to college at Concordia,
Missouri, and in 1894 he was graduated at which time he went to Mil-
waukee and was graduated from college there in 1897. Returning to
Missouri, he was a student at Concordia College, St. Louis, until his
graduation in 1900, and at that time was ordained. His first charge was
at Menno, Hutchinson county, South Dakota, where he remained for
two years, and then received a call to Hanson, Brown county, in that
state, remaining there until 1904, then going to the Fountain Bluff con-
gregation. The Rev. P. S. Estel, whom Rev. Haertling succeeded as pas-
tor of the present congregation had been in charge here for twenty-two
years. During Rev. Haertling 's administration, the congregation, com-
prising seventy-eight active members, has erected a new church edifice
at Neunert, made necessary by the extensive growth of its attendance.
Rev. Haertling is sincerely loved in his parish, enjoys the fullest con-
fidence of the members of his church, and is accorded the highest respect
of all who know him. He has a deep sense of the high duties of his
position and the responsibility he has assumed in caring for the spiritual
needs of those who have been entrusted to his charge. His eloquence in
the pulpit and his sincere interest in the welfare of his people have en-
abled him to accomplish much good, and he has administered the finan-
cial affairs of the church to the advantage of that organization.
In 1901, Rev. Haertling was united in marriage with Miss Louisa
Koenig, of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, daughter of Julius Koenig,
and to this union there have been born four children : Concordia, Lorna,
Paula and Milta.
DRAKE H. RENDLEMAN. In the early days of the "West the more fav-
ored districts naturally drew-to themselves the men of greatest ambition,
foresight and business sagacity. These sought the fields that held out
the most to them in the way of promise for the future, and settling there
they bent their energies to laying the foundation of prosperity for them-
1576 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
selves and their posterity. Thus it is that Union county has been for-
tunate in the character of its pioneers. They were not only of sturdy
stock, fit to endow their descendants with the physical strength to build
up a great community, but they were also above the average in mental
grasp and moral fibre. They were able to discern the opportunities
which the region held forth for agriculture, manufacture and commerce,
and possessed the sound judgment, courage and perseverance to organize
these and direct them to their full fruition. Of this sort were the
ancestors of Drake H. Rendleman, seven generations of whose family
have lived on his present farm, an excellent tract of two hundred and
thirty acres located near Jonesboro.
Mr. Rendleman 's great-grandfather on his mother's side secured
the present farm from the government during the earliest settlement
of Union county, and died here at the remarkable age of one hundred
and two years, about 1814 or 1816. His son, who grew up here, went to
Missouri in 1841, considering that this section was becoming too thickly
settled, and died in that state at the age of ninety-six years. He was
possessed of a fine head of red hair, and for this was greatly respected
by the Indians. Drake Harris Rendleman, the father of Drake H., was
born in North Carolina, November 16, 1801, and in 1815 came to
Union county with four brothers. He was a tanner by trade and had a
tan yard on the present property, but subsequently became engaged in
farming, in which he continued for the remainder of his life, his death
occurring in October, 1886. Mr. Rendleman married Catherine Hun-
saker, who was born on this property in 1813, among the Indians, and
here she spent all of her life, her death occurring in 1905, when she
was ninety-two years old. Both branches of the family have been widely
and favorably known, and it has been their boast that no member has
ever been brought before a court.
Drake H. Rendleman was reared among pioneer surroundings, hav-
ing been born January 10, 1841, on his present land, where in his boy-
hood he remembers often seeing wild turkeys and deer in the farmyard.
His preliminary education was secured in the district schools, and
later he attended a seminary here and Lebanon College, from which he
was graduated in 1864. Securing a teacher's license, Mr. Rendleman
followed the profession of an educator for sixteen years, but since that
time has devoted all of his attention to agricultural pursuits. His fine
farm is in an excellent state of cultivation, and he has given a great
deal of attention to the raising of berries. He is vice president and a
stockholder in the Anna Creamery and the Union Fruit Package Com-
pany, and a director in the Fruit Growers' Association of Anna, and is
recognized as a business man of more than ordinary ability. Politically,
he is a Democrat, but he has never cared for public office. He has
been prominent in Masonry since 1862.
In 1864 Mr. Rendleman was married (first) to Miss Goodman of
Union county, who died in 1886 leaving the following children : Cora,
Daisy. Clara, Arthur, Zoe and Charles. In 1887 Mr. Rendleman was
married a second time, when occurred his union with Miss Nettie Eddie-
man, who was born in this county in 1863, and they have had two chil-
dren : Edith and Mary, both of whom reside with their parents. Mr.
and Mrs. Rendleman are consistent members of the Lutheran church,
and have been prominent in religious and charitable work for a number
of years.
FOUNTAIN E. JAMES. Born on a farm near Cobden, Union county,
Illinois, on September 28. 1874. Fountain E. James is the son of George
W. James and Mamie (Condon) James, and the grandson of Wilson
OF THE
OF !L
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1577
James, who first settled in Union county in the early pioneer days. For
fifteen years Fountain James has been an esteemed and honored citizen
of Alto Pass, where he is known as one of the most progressive and rep-
resentative fruit growers in Union county, with a reputation for skill
and adeptness in the business that is second to none in that district.
The early schooling of Fountain E. James was secured through the
avenues of the common schools of his home town. When he attained
his majority he started life for himself by acquiring a farm of one hun-
dred and forty-six acres in Alto Pass, and there he has lived since that
time, cultivating his land and building up a business that has placed
him among the first rank in the producers of Union county. On one hun-
dred acres planted to apples and peaches, mostly young trees just com-
ing into bearing, in 1911 he harvested a yield of four thousand bushels
each of apples and peaches; an average crop, all things considered.
On his place he has erected a fine modern dwelling on a high ridge
overlooking the town. It is a thoroughly up-to-date and modern resi-
dence in every respect, costing him something over $4,000 when com-
pleted. His other buildings compare favorably with the best in his
locality.
In 1894 Mr. James married Miss Ava Asbury, the daughter of
Charles and Edna Asbury, and they have been the parents of four chil-
dren: Layman and Norma, deceased; Herbert, . aged seventeen, and
Louise, now ten years of age.
LEVI BROWNING. Three generations of Brownings have left their
indelible stamp upon the history of Illinois, the first representative set-
tling in what is now Franklin county, but which then (1796) was un-
explored, unsurveyed and unsettled country. They were pioneers in the
purest sense of that most expressive word, and have been identified since
the coming of the first Browning to Illinois with the civilizing, settling
and general growth of the state. Levi Browning, a son of the first of
his name to locate in Illinois, lived a life replete with good works in be-
half of his fellow men. His benefactions in money alone would ag-
gregate an enormous sum, while his material gifts were freely supple-
mented by the greater charity of time, love and labor on his part towards
those who needed his ministrations. Although he lived to the venerable
age of eighty-four years, his passing on July 22, 1905, marked the close of
an unfinished work, for he was active and ambitious to the last, continuing
his good work with an energy seldom seen in a man of his years. The
educational interests of Southern Illinois ever found in Mr. Browning a
staunch supporter, not alone in a material way, but by his personal aid
and influence, and it has been estimated that he gave more in time, labor
and money to the various educational institutions of his section of the
state than any other man in Franklin county.
Levi Browning was born in 1820, at Browning Hill, which point was
first settled by his father, John Browning, in 1804, the latter being the
first man to locate in what is now Franklin county, then an unpierced
wilderness. John Browning was a Missionary Baptist minister, born in
North Carolina in 1781. He moved first to Tennessee, thence to Illinois
in 1796, moving into the Jordan Fort in order to be safe from Indians.
This fort was three miles south of Fitts Hill. Here John Browning was
engaged as guard for the mail carrier who made the trip between Kas-
kaskia and Shawneetown semi-weekly, and continued in that employment
for some little time. He eventually married Nancy Kitchen, and they
reared to maturity a family of twelve children. Today John Browning
has fully one hundred and fifty descendants living. As mentioned
above, he built a home on an elevated site which he named Browning
1578 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Hill, and this was his home throughout his life. He came of a family
of Baptists and he himself entered the ministry and gave a lifetime of
service to his church and his people in Franklin county. He was known
and loved throughout his county and Southern Illinois by a wide circle
of admiring friends, who keenly felt his loss when he passed away at
an advanced age at the family home on Browning Hill.
Levi Browning, his son, received his early education in the home of
his boyhood. In his youth opportunities for the education of the young
were not as numerous as today, and in Southern Illinois that this is
longer the fact is due largely to the efforts and generosity of himself in
later years. Always deeply interested in the cause of education, he
exerted every influence he possessed to secure for this section of the
state schools and colleges of the best class, so that the children of this
day may secure advantages of an educational character unsurpassed by
those of any part of the country. He helped to found Ewing College
at Ewing, Franklin county, and was one of the first trustees of Shurtleff
College at Alton, Illinois. In 1840 Mr. Browning first came to Benton,
where he lived until the day of his death. He saw the town grow from
its first day of life, being there when the town was laid out and the
first lots sold. In 1841 he opened up a general store in Benton, and he
continued in that business until he retired from commercial life in 1888.
His early experience in business life was attended by many trying con-
ditions. For years he was compelled to "tote" his goods from Chicago,
then a small town, by ox-team. He remembers the great business
thoroughfare, State street, when it was not more than an ill kept road,
and on one occasion when driving out of Chicago with a load of mer-
chandise for his Benton store, Mr. Browning 's team became mired in the
most prominent part of State street, so bad was the condition of the
road. Thus from a small beginning, Mr. Browning continued his mer-
chandising for nearly a half a century, having built up a splendid busi-
ness before his retirement. The first flour mill in Franklin county
was built by Mr. Browning, and it was in operation until a few years
previous to his death. He also built the first sawmill to be operated in
the county, and with the aid of John G. Buchanan, built the first ice
house known in Franklin county. Furthermore, he was instrumental
in causing to be erected the first church in Benton, now the house of
worship of the First Baptist church of the city. He assisted in making
the original plat of the city, and was the owner of much Benton real
estate. It is estimated that his name appears on the transfer deeds to
more Benton real estate than does the name of any other man in the
county. In 1854 Mr. Browning was appointed a member of the Illinois
drainage commission, which position he retained up to the time of his
demise, and during his tenure of office he disposed of more than forty
thousand acres of swamp land. Among his official acts was the con-
struction of what is known as pond ditch, made to drain Buckner pond,
a work of vast importance to the surrounding country and at that time
regarded as a most difficult undertaking. Through his efforts a large
acreage of swamp lands were thus reclaimed, and is now held as valu-
able farming land.
Not alone in business and educational affairs was Mr. Browning an
active promoter, but in religious circles also his influence was most
pronounced. For fifty years he was a deacon in the Baptist church, of
which denomination the Browning family has long been the adherent,
and he was familiarly known as Deacon Browning. He was the last of
the original organizers of the Franklin Baptist Association, of which
he was clerk until a few years prior to his death. The records of this
Association bear witness to the fact that Mr. Browning's father, John
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1579
Browning, was the first white man to be baptized in the waters of Big
Muddy, and that the officiating clergyman was Rev. Isaac Herrin, whose
descendants are now so prominent in the affairs of Williamson county,
and who was the grandfather of Ephraim Herrin, the founder of the
city named Herrin. The interest of Mr. Browning in Shurtleff Col-
lege, which he helped to found, was most beautiful to behold, and he
was the last member of the original board of trustees of that College.
That institution and Ewing College were always the recipient of every
benefit he was able to bestow, and in his death both lost a friend and
supporter of the highest order. A man of deepest sympathies, inex-
haustible energy, unfailing personal integrity and exceptional business
talents, his whole life was a boon to his county and state, and his death,
which occurred on July 22, 1905, was felt as an irremediable loss in
the community in which he was so universally loved and respected.
In 1853 Mr. Browning was married to Miss Fannie Howell, of St.
Clair county. She died the following year, leaving no issue, her only
child, Quincy Browning, having died in infancy, two weeks previous to
her demise. His second marriage occurred in 1855, when Miss Tabitha
Layman, of Benton, became his wife. Eight children were born of
this union. The eldest, Florence May, died at the age of four years.
The others, are: Mrs. Lula B. Ward, Quincy E., Thomas S., John L.,
Mrs. F. J. Hickman, Mrs. L. E. Chenault and Miss Nancy Eugenia, all
of whom are residents of Benton excepting Mrs. L. E. Chenault.
DR. ELMER LAWRENCE APPLE, for tne past ten years engaged in medi-
cal practice at Golden Gate, Wayne county, Illinois, has in that time be-
come genuinely established in the community. Well and favorably
known to the medical profession of Wayne county, and secure in the re-
gard of the highly representative clientele which he has won to himself,
Dr. Apple is recognized as one of the foremost men of his town and
county.
Born in Paoli, Orange county, Indiana, on November 6, 1874, Dr.
Apple is the son of William C. and Elizabeth (Lowe) Apple. William
Apple, a native of North Carolina, was born there in 1836, and is the son
of Ridley C. Apple, a native born German who settled in Indiana in 1846.
William Apple and his wife still reside on the Orange county farm which
was the home of the family for so many years. Seven children were born
to them. Five of that number are now living. They are : William Wal-
ter, of California; H. L., living in Youngs Creek, Indiana; Z. M., of
French Lick Springs, Indiana; Alonzo, of Young's Creek, Indiana, and
Elmer L. of this review. Two daughters, — Mary Rosa and Sarah Ellen
are deceased. Alonzo and Z. M. are twins, and are both large men, weigh-
ing two hundred and forty pounds each.
Dr. Apple was given good educational advantages, attending the pub-
lic schools of Paoli and graduating from the high school of that place in
due season, after which he attended the State Normal at Paoli. Follow-
ing that he entered the teaching profession and taught school for four
years. The work was not suited to him, however, and he felt that he
would accomplish more in the medical profession, to which he had ever
felt a strong inclination, and in 1895 the young man began the study of
medicine in the Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville, Kentucky.
In 1898 he was graduated from that institution, receiving his degree of
M. D., after which the ambitious and studious young doctor took a post
graduate course in the Chicago Clinical School, completing his work
there in 1902. Immediately thereafter Dr. Apple began the active prac-
tice of his profession, locating in Golden Gate, where he has ever found
ample scope for the exercise of his talent and ability, and he has been
1580 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
successful in the highest sense of the word. Dr. Apple confines his min-
istrations to a territory covering about six square miles, and is one of the
busiest men in the profession to be found in Wayne county.
Dr. Apple is a member of the Wayne county, Illinois State and
American Medical Associations. Fraternally he is connected with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen and the Or-
der of Ben Hur. He is a Methodist in his religious belief, and is an ad-
herent to Democratic principles in a political way.
In 1900 Dr. Apple was united in marriage with Miss Mamie Hadley,
of Wayne county, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Hadley. They
have one child, — Carmen Irene, born in July, 1905.
FRANK COLES, SR., a retired farmer of Albion, is one of the more
prominent and influential men of his community and of Edwards county.
Since giving up his agricultural operations he has devoted some of his
attention to real estate matters, and has acquired a considerable property
of a valuable nature in and about Albion, as well as holding an interest
in a tract of Mexico land, of more than two thousand acres. He has been
connected with the Albion Journal for several years and is president of
the Journal Publishing Company. On the whole, his interests are varied
and of a large and expansive nature, so that he is one of the busiest men
in Albion. An admirable citizen, possessing all the requisite qualities to
fit him for that part, he is regarded as one of the valuable and substantial
men of his community, and his best efforts may always be depended up-
on in any matters portending to increase or enhance the public welfare.
A native of Edwards county, Mr. Coles was born on a farm near
Grayville on February 3, 1845. He is a son of William H. Coles and
Rachael (Garrison) Coles. The father was born in Liverpool, England,
in 1799, and emigrated to America in 1818, and was a member of the
first colony to settle near Grayville. There he passed his life as a farmer,
living quietly on his farm near Grayville until the time of his death,
which event occurred in 1852. He was the son of Samuel and Sarah
(Standustreet) Coles of Liverpool, England, the parents of both of
whom were merchants and property holders in Liverpool. The Coles
heirs claim title to three important business blocks in that city. Rachael
Garrison, the wife of William Coles, was born in the year 1806, in South
Carolina and came to White county, Illinois, in 1809, with her parents.
Her father, James Garrison, was one of the pioneers of Illinois and here
Mrs. Coles spent the remainder of her life. She lived to be ninety-four
years old, dying in 1899, and could well remember when this part of the
state was a wilderness and inhabited by Indians and wild beasts. Mr.
and Mrs. Coles reared nine children of the ten born to them and of that
number four are yet living: William S., a resident of White county;
Joseph G., on a farm near Grayville ; Frank and Mrs. Mary J. Scott.
Those deceased are James F., Henry S., Albert G., Ann and John W.
The son, Frank, attended the district schools and worked on his
father's farm, and between the ages of twenty- three and twenty-seven he
employed his winters by teaching in the country schools. When he was
twenty-seven years old he settled down to farm life in earnest and tilled
his farm of 160 acres with all energy and persistence until 1883, when he
removed to Albion. He still owns a fine farm of 240 acres of river bot-
tom land, a particularly fertile and valuable tract, and he has a small
farm of twelve acres near to the city. He recently disposed of a
farm of sixty-four acres. Farm lands have been particularly attractive
to him and he has carried on a steady trade in that line for years, buying
and selling and gradually adding to his private holdings when he found
something unusually attractive to him. He owns a fine orchard ten miles
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1581
south of Houston, Texas, which he visits every winter. He also holds a
considerable quantity of residence and business property in Albion.
From 1885 to 1902 Mr. Coles was engaged in the furniture business
in Albion, in company with N. E. Smith ; he still retains a half interest
in the business block in which the store is located. His realty business,
together with the interest he has in the Albion Journal and in the pub-
lishing business of which he is president, gives him ample duties to oc-
cupy all his time, and despite his advancing years, he is one of the most
active men in his community. Mr. Coles is a Republican in his political
views, and has ever been prominent and active in politics in his county
and in Southern Illinois. He is regarded in his section of the state as
the ' ' Old Wheelhorse ' ' of the party, and has for years been chairman of
the Republican County Committee. He has done his share in the service
of his county, and was in the office of assessor for four years, from 1890
to 1894. He was appointed public administrator by Governor Dineen in
1911. Mr. Coles is a member of the Christian church.
Mr. Coles has been twice married. In 1871 he married Sarah E. Em-
erson, daughter of Sanford Emerson. She died in 1897, leaving four
children. Eva, the eldest, is married to George W. Smith of Virginia,
Illinois, and has three children : Venita, Marlin and Elston ; Frederick is
now deceased ; Mrs. Kate Sax lives in Arkansas, and the fourth born is
Constance Quindry. In 1899 Mr. Coles married Sarah M. Hodgson,
daughter of John Hodgson of Albion.
EDWARD A. SCHROEDER. It is a fact patent to all that the United
States can boast of no better or more law-abiding class of citizens than
the great number of Germans who have found homes within her borders,
and the immediate descendants of these staunch, liberty-loving citizens.
Of the latter designation is that excellent young citizen, Edward A.
Schroeder, attorney-at-law. He has entered upon a career as a legist
which bids fair to be successful and it is his aim carefully and consist-
ently to observe and enforce its ethics and best traditions. Mr. Schroe-
der is one of Edwards county's native sons, his birth having occurred on
a farm in French Creek precinct on January 27, 1883, he being a son of
Frederick A. Schroeder. The father was a native of Germany and emi-
grated from that country in boyhood with his parents, John G. Schroeder
and his wife. Frederick A. Schroeder was for many years a useful and
public spirited citizen of this section. His birth occurred November 13,
1835, in the Fatherland, and his death in this locality on December 4,
1910, but his memory as one who was aligned with all good causes and
held the public welfare above personal interest, will long remain green.
He was one of the most successful farmers of the county and at his demise
owned some four hundred acres of valuable land. His wife, previous to
her marriage, Louisa Negley, was likewise of German parentage and their
union was blessed by the birth of the following ten children : Mary R. ;
J. George, residing in Wabash county; Frank W.,; David F., deceased;
Frederick A. ; Charles G. ; one who died in infancy ; Edward A. ; Laura
F. ; and Alma L.
Young Edward received his early educational discipline in the public
schools and desiring to obtain a more thorough academic training he be-
came a student in the Southern Collegiate Institute, from which he was
graduated in June, 1907. He then matriculated in the Illinois Wesleyan
University at Bloomington where he took a course preparatory to law
and received a well earned degree in June, 1910, being admitted to the
bar in that same month. Thus thoroughly reinforced in a theoretical
way, he proceeded to Albion, where he proudly displayed his professional
shingle and entered upon an active practice of the law. In politics he is
Vol. 3—32
1582 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
a stanch Republican and is one of the most prominent of the younger
men in political affairs. In evidence of his prominence in the community
is the fact that he was a candidate for states attorney of Edwards county
in the spring of 1912, and in many ways he has gained the confidence of
the people. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and Phi Alpha Delta, a law fraternity. One item in an interesting an-
cestral history is the fact that his grandfather was a soldier in the
Prussian army in the wars against Napoleon and participated in many
notable engagements. Mr. Schroeder has not yet joined the ranks of the
Benedicts.
PETER C. WALTERS. A young lawyer who is making his mark in this
section of the state is Peter C. Walters, county judge and one of the
standard-bearers of the Republican party. He was formerly engaged in
educational work and can look back over a number of years in that field.
Since his admission to the bar in 1908, he has given ample proof of the
fact that he possesses all the requisite qualities of the able lawyer, among
these a careful preparation, a thorough appreciation of the absolute
ethics of life and of the underlying principles which form the basis of all
human rights and privileges.
Judge Walters is one of the good citizens the Hoosier state has given
to Southern Illinois, his birth having occurred in Dearborn county, In-
diana, January 29, 1881. His young eyes first opened to the rural sur-
roundings of his father's farm, and the biographer is sometimes tempted
to believe that the most powerful ' ' Open Sesame ' ' to success is to be born
a farmer's son. At any rate, Judge Walters is on the safe side in the
matter. His father, John Walters, born in 1842, is now residing in Pos-
eyville, Indiana. He is a native of Germany, having at the age of nine
years severed old associations in the Fatherland to cross the ocean with
his father, Andrew Walters. They located first at Harrisburg, Pennsyl-
vania, where they became familiar with the English language and
American ways and subsequently emigrated to the vicinity of Cincinnati,
Ohio, later going on to Harrison, Indiana. The grandfather died at San
Antonio, Texas, in 1896, having made his home at that point during his
later years. The father, a farmer by occupation, resided in Dearborn
county until 1882, when his son was about a year old and then removed
to a farm west of Grayville where he remained until March, 1909. He
then sold his fine farm and settled in Poseyville, Indiana. He took as his
wife Catherine Altherr, a native of Ohio, and of German- American par-
entage, but the good wife and mother died when her son Peter C. was a
lad eight years of age. This union was blessed with ten children, three
of whom died in infancy. The ones living to maturity are as follows :
John T., of Ferguson, Missouri ; George W., of Chicago ; A. H., of Posey-
ville, Indiana; Francis J., of Hamilton, Ohio; Mary E.; Rose (Weath-
erly) of Poseyville, Indiana; and Peter C.
Judge Walters received his preliminary education in the common
schools and in 1897 was graduated from the Grayville high school. He
then took a year's course in the Southern Illinois Normal University at
Carbondale, attending four terms and after a period of years as an
educator he entered the law department of the University of Illinois and
received his degree in 1908. In 1899, at the age of eighteen years, he be-
gan teaching school and taught at first for four terms in the country
schools. Following that he taught one year in the grammar department
of the Grayville schools and then was for four years principal of the
Browns schools. From 1906 to 1907 he was principal of the Carmi High
school and in every community he was known as an able and enlightened
educator. However, he was ambitious to become identified with the legal
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1583
fraternity and during the later part of his pedagogical work, he devoted
all his spare time to the study of law, thus forming a substantial prepa-
ration for his collegiate work. He was admitted to the bar in June, 1908,
and success has attended him from the first. It was in Gray township
that he held his first political office, being twice elected town clerk of that
township on the Republican ticket, the first time in 1907 and again 1908
and by his faithfulness and efficiency laying the foundation for future
political preferment. In 1909 he removed to Edwards county and in that
same year was first appointed and then elected justice of the peace of
French Creek precinct and in 1910 was nominated without opposition
to the office of county judge. In November of that year he was elected
for a term of four years. He has proved the man for the place, meeting
grave questions with valor and ability and he is known to be devoted to
the principles of his party and ready to do all in his power to proclaim
its ideas and support its candidates. Fraternally he is a member of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Judge Walters was married April 8, 1909, Ethel Farnsworth, of Mt.
Carmel, daughter of Joseph and Sarah Farnsworth, becoming his wife.
A son, Richard Farnsworth, died sixteen days after birth. Judge Wal-
ters and his wife are popular and estimable young people and hold an
assured place in the hearts of the people of Edwards county.
WALTER S. ROTHROCK. It is safe to say that no citizen is better
known in Edwards county than Walter S. Rothrock, who is serving as
sheriff of this county. He is one of the good citizens of Edwards county
who have paid it the highest compliment within their power by electing
to remain permanently within its borders and is now efficiently serving
its interests in one of the most important public capacities. He has
proved an able man in the office and is as popular with the law-abiding
as he is feared by those whose business takes them out of the straight
and narrow path. He answers to a dual calling, being also collector.
Mr. Rothrock was born in West Salem, Edwards county, the date of
his nativity being October 22, 1861. He is a son of Samuel A. Rothrock,
who located in Edwards county in 1840, being brought here as a small
lad, his birth having occurred in Winston, North Carolina, in 1834. His
father, Joel Rothrock, located on a farm near West Salem. In this
county the father of Walter S. Rothrock passed the remainder of his
life and followed the trade of a blacksmith until 1876, from that time in
the livery and hotel business until his death in June, 1909. He was a
good citizen and a veteran of the Civil war, having for about ten months
of the great conflict between the states served as a sergeant of Company
F, One Hundred and Fifty-second Illinois Regiment. Previous to en-
listing he was enrolling and drafting officer. He married Margaret Wal-
ser, a native of North Carolina who came to Edwards county in 1834 with
her parents when she was only three years of age. She died in Edwards
county in 1905. To Mr. and Mrs. Rothrock were born seven sons and
daughters, four of whom are living at the present time. They are as
follows : Walter S., of this review ; Addie M. Steele, of Chicago ; Harry
Joel, of West Salem ; and Maurice B., of Springfield, Illinois.
Walter S. Rothrock was educated in the West Salem schools and after
bidding adieu to his desk in the village school room he entered his
father's blacksmith shop and under the tutelage of that gentleman
gained a thorough training in his trade. However, he did not make it his
own trade, and in 1882 he embarked in the hotel and livery business in
West Salem and was thus engaged until the fall of 1910, the date of his
election. His hostelry was ever popular and well-managed and the
memory of Mr. Rothrock in the role of "mine host" is a pleasant one,
1584 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
for he possesses not only business ability, but a desire to give the guest
beneath his roof the best of accommodation. In 1910, as mentioned, he
was elected to the offices of sheriff and collector and in these capacities
has served well the interests of his constituents, to his own credit and the
honor and profit of the people. He previously served as constable of
West Salem. His election lost him as a citizen of West Salem, for it was
necessary for him to remove to Albion. He is a tried and true Republi-
can and his loyalty to what its admirers term "the Grand Old Party"
has never been found wanting. ' Sheriff Rothrock is a popular lodge man,
holding membership in the ancient and august Masonic order, the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America.
Mr. Rothrock was married October 14, 1894, Miss Julia Clodfelder,
of West Salem, daughter of B. F. Clodfelder, a well-known citizen of
that place, becoming his wife. They have a trio of children, as follows :
Margaret Elizabeth, Lucille, and Walter S., Jr. All are held in confi-
dence and high regard and are among the popular and helpful members
of the community.
DR. WALTER A. WHEELER. No science presents a wider field for
never-ceasing study, marvelous skill and delicate artistry than that of
dentistry and Dr. Walter A. Wheeler is one who fulfills not only its re-
quirements, but its splendid possibilities successfully. Born and reared
here, his loyalty is of particularly high order and he has achieved the
highest success of good citizenship, possessing the spirit of civic altruism
and the keen recognition of individual obligation to the public weal. Dr.
Wheeler was born in the vicinity of Albion, August 10, 1872, the son of
John Wheeler, who was born in 1830 and passed away in 1875. He was
a native of Wabash county and of English descent, his father having
been born in the Mother Country. Dr. Wheeler's father was reared amid
the rural surroundings of his father's homestead farm and was a wheel-
wright by trade. He took as his wife Isabella Schofield, who is living at
the age of seventy-seven years and who is likewise of English parentage.
This admirable lady makes her home with Dr. Wheeler, who is the
youngest of a family of four children. Carrie resides at Chicago ; Samuel
is a citizen of Mt. Carmel ; and Alfred is located at Trinidad, Colorado.
Dr. Wheeler was educated in the common schools and subsequently
entered the Southern Collegiate Institute, at that time known as the Al-
bion Normal University. In the meantime he determined upon his ca-
reer and began his preparation for dentistry in the Indiana Dental Uni-
versity from which he received his degree in 1903, standing at the head
of a class of over sixty members. In Albion he hung up his professional
shingle and in the ensuing years has built up a lucrative and constantly
growing practice.
On June 16, 1910, Dr. Wheeler entered the ranks of the Benedicts,
the young woman to become his wife and the mistress of his household
being Sarah E. Hodgson, daughter of Charles Hodgson, who was en-
gaged in the milling business in this place up to the time of his death,
which occurred on March 30, 1912. Their union has been blessed by the
birth of a son, Julian Carl. Both Dr. and Mrs. Wheeler are aligned with
the best interests of Albion and popular members of society. They are
valued members of the Methodist Episcopal church and the doctor is
affiliated with the1 Knights of Pythias of Albion.
The doctor's honored father, the late John Wheeler, was a veteran
of the Civil war, his enlistment taking place in April, 1861, when our
gallant ship of state was first threatened with destruction on the rugged
rooks of disunion. He was a member of Company B. of the Sixty-third
Illinois Infantry and he served until the last of the conflict, being mus-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1585
tered out at Washington after the Grand Review in June, 1865. He
was in many battles, marched with Sherman to the sea and participated
in the Atlanta campaign.
ALLEN E. WALKER. Albion and Edwards county possess no more
popular young citizen than Allen E. Walker, circuit clerk and recorder.
By profession an educator, he has a record in that field which greatly
commends him and his services in a public capacity have redounded to
his own credit and to the honor and profit of the people. He is one of
the leading Republicans of this part of the state and his support of the
men and measures put forth by the Grand Old Party is regarded as a val-
uable asset. Mr. Walker is interested in the success of good government
and is an exponent of the progressive spirit and strong initiative ability
which have caused Albion to forge so rapidly forward of late. He is
native to this county, his eyes having first opened to the light of day on a
farm in the southern part, on December 15, 1881. His father, Thomas J.
Walker, was born in England in 1836 and came to America with his
father, also named Thomas Walker, in 1841. Both the father and the
grandfather of Allen E. Walker were farmers. Thomas J. Walker served
almost throughout the entire course of the great conflict between the states,
enlisting in Company B, of the Eighteenth Illinois Regiment on May 28,
1861, and being discharged February 28, 1864. He held the rank of ser-
geant and participated in a number of the most important battles,
among them Shiloh, Port Henry, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Brit-
tain's Lane. He married Elizabeth Kendall, like himself a native of
England, her birth having occurred across the sea in 1843. She was
brought to America when a child by her parents. Allen E. Walker is
one of seven children born to these estimable citizens, as follows: Wil-
liam, an agriculturist ; Edward, engaged in agriculture in the vicinity of
Browns; Mary (Spencer) residing on a farm near Grayville; George,
whose homestead farm is situated not far from Albion; Fred, in busi-
ness at Grayville; Clyde, located at Whittier, California; and Allen E.
Mr. Walker gained his first draughts at the fountain of knowledge in
the public schools of Edwards county and desiring to obtain a higher
education, matriculated in the Southern Collegiate Institute, and followed
his studies there with a course in the Normal College at Charleston.
Meantime he devoted vacation time to farming and is very familiar with
the many secrets of seed-time and harvest. In 1903 he began teaching,
being employed as instructor in the common schools for some two years,
and following that with two years as instructor in the grammar depart-
ment of the Grayville school. He was then elected principal of the public
schools of Browns. In the summer of 1908 he became a candidate for
circuit clerk on the Republican ticket and was elected in the fall of that
year for a term of four years and has given a favorable "taste of his
quality. ' ' As mentioned, he is a leader in Republican party counsels and
for the past two and one-half years has been chairman of the Republican
county committee.
Mr. Walker is a very prominent lodge man, being by nature of suf-
ficient social proclivity to take much pleasure in affiliation with his fel-
low men. He is a Mason, belonging to Hermitage Lodge, No. 356, and
exemplifies in his own living the ideals of moral and social justice and
brotherly love for which the order stands. He is also connected with the
Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the
latter of Mt. Carmel. He attends the Presbyterian church.
LLOYD F. VOYLES. One of the representative men of this section is
Lloyd F. Voyles, who is engaged in the real estate, insurance and loan
1586 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
business, his operations in this field being extensive and successful. He
has made his own way unaided and is one of those valiant people who
have triumphed over adverse conditions and pressed forward to the goal
of a large and worthy success. He is in a most significant sense a self-
made man and integrity and honor have characterized him in all the
relations of life. He is now a considerable property owner and is prepar-
ing to practice law.
Mr. Voyles was born on a farm in Edwards county, March 28, 1871,
the son of John Voyles. The father, a farmer by occupation, was born
in Kentucky, in 1845, but located in Edwards county in 1865, and now
is living practically retired in Bone Gap. He married Mary Elizabeth
McDowell, a native of Virginia, and a daughter of Samuel McDowell.
These worthy people became the parents of five children. The eldest,
Edwin, died in infancy previous to the coming of the family to Indiana ;
Ellen is deceased ; William is located at Shawneetown ; Lloyd F., is next
in order of birth ; and the youngest member of the family, Cordelia, is
the wife of J. W. Elliot and resides in Danville.
Mr. Voyles passed the roseate days of youth upon his father's farm
and assisted the older man in the farm work of which there is ever a
super abundance. He remained beneath the paternal roof-tree until he
attained the age of twenty years, but his ambitions did not lie in the
line of agriculture and at the age mentioned he secured a position in a
local store and earned money to support him while he attended the Bone
Gap school. Subsequently he passed the teachers' examination and was
granted a teacher's certificate. His early advantages had been meagre
indeed and the circumstances of the family had made it impossible for
him to obtain even the ordinary common schooling. So greatly did he de-
sire an education, however, that he attended school at the age of twenty-
three years. He is a constant student and has acquired outside the school
room a splendid fund of knowledge and is to ail intents and purposes a
well-educated man. For the past eight years he has been devoting his
spare time to reading law and practicing in the justice 's court. Previous
to opening his real estate business in January, 1900, he clerked in local
stores. He has been wonderfully successful in the real estate business
and represents five of the most important insurance companies, doing a
large and constantly widening business, and handling loans in addition
to the rest. He has a fine farm of eighty acres very near Bone Gap and
also has some valuable town property, consisting of an advantageously
situated business building and a most desirable residence property.
Mr. Voyles has for a number of years been prominent in public af-
fairs. In politics he subscribes to the articles of faith of the Democratic
party and his word is of weight in party councils. He is both precinct
and senatorial committeeman. He has served three terms as justice of
the peace of Bone Gap township, having been first elected in 1900, and
twice reelected. He has ever proved remarkably faithful to public re-
sponsibility and is public-spirited and helpful in all measures directed
towards the public welfare. He is a member of the Christian church.
Mr. Voyles was married January 3, 1899, the lady to become his wife
being Lura B. Melrose, of Bone Gap, daughter of Gibson Melrose. They
share their pleasant home with one son, Jennings.
WALTER COLTER. A typical American citizen who has made the
most of his opportunities is Walter Colyer, of Albion, secretary of that
large and important industrial concern, the Albion Shale Brick com-
pany, as well as a former journalist and a man of influence. In addition
to his other distinctions he comes of pioneer stock in Southern Illinois,
and is one of Edwards county's leading Republicans.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1587
Mr. Colyer is a native son of this county, his eyes having first opened
to the light of day on July 19, 1856, four and a half miles north of Albion
on the farm of his father, William Colyer. The father was born in 1822
and his elder sister, Eliza, wife of George Bunting, was the second white
child and the first girl born in the Edwards county settlement. William
Colyer was the son of Edward Colyer, a native of County Surrey, Eng-
land, and he was one of the original settlers of this section, being a mem-
ber of the British colony headed by Flower and Birkbeck, who located
on English Prairie in the year 1817, founding Albion the following year.
This stanch pioneer was a farmer by occupation and his brother, John,
built the first brick house in New Albany, Indiana. There were a number
of brothers and sisters, — one, William, going south and taking up his
residence in Indiana. Edward's sister, Sarah Colyer, became the mother
of F. W. Farrar, the famous English author and clergyman.
William Colyer married Sarah Hardy, the daughter of Jonas Hardy
of English birth, who came from Leeds, England, and on arriving in
this country, located first in Pennsylvania and came to Albion in 1836.
William reared two children, Morris and Walter of this review. William
journeyed to the Undiscovered Country on February 16, 1909, and his
good wife preceded him on October 31, 1907, her years exceeding the
psalmist's alotment by eleven years and five months. The Colyers have
ever been known for a high type of citizenship and it was such as they
who laid the paths straight and clean for the progress of civilization in
Edwards county.
Walter Colyer received the education provided by the public schools.
At an early period in his youth he exhibited an aptitude as a writer, and
in 1880, in association with Fred Applegath, he purchased the American
Sentinel, this being his first adventure in the realm of the Fourth Estate
with which he was to be identified for some quarter century. Other
papers with which he was identified were the Albion News, the Edwards
County News and the Albion Journal with which he retired from the
field. The last named he first published in association with M. B. Harris,
beginning March 14, 1884, two years later buying out Mr. Harris and
for sixteen years publishing the paper himself. In 1900 he sold the
paper to A. H. Bowman and on February 25, 1903, he organized and
became president of the Albion Journal Company and continued in such
capacity for several years. He exerted a very definite influence in this
important field of newspaper work and through his ably conducted col-
umns assisted in bringing about much of benefit to the community. Mr.
Colyer has ever been a stanch adherent of the men and measures of the
Grand Old Party and has a record behind him of fourteen years as
postmaster, under the administration of Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley
and Roosevelt, these terms, however, not being continuous, and five and
one-half months being under President Cleveland. During his editorial
career he was a member of the Republican Editorial Association and he
served as a delegate to the convention in 1896 which nominated Presi-
dent McKinley. He has at times been identified with agriculture and
for several years was engaged in fruit-growing. He is a man of ver-
satility and success has usually crowned any undertaking in which he has
been a leader.
In 1902, Mr. Colyer assisted in organizing the Albion Brick Company
and for five years served as secretary and salesman of this thriving con-
cern. He has also been engaged in the land business in Mexico and has
ten times toured Mexico and in that interesting country sold over five
thousand acres of land and at present is interested in large holdings
there. He is president of the Tamesi Plantation Company. However,
one of his leading interests is a local one, namely : the Shale Brick Com-
1583 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
pany, which was organized February 21, 1910, with a capital of two
hundred thousand dollars, and a capacity of one hundred thousand ten
pound blocks per each ten hour day. This bids fair to become the most
complete and modern brick plant in the United States and well known
capitalists from several states are interested financially in its fortunes.
L. L. Emerson, of Mt. Vernon, is president of the company.
Mr. Colyer holds membership in the Knights of Pythias, of Albion,
and the B. P. O. E. of Mt. Carmel. He is director of the State Historical
Society and for several years has been a member of the publication com-
mittee of the same. He has contributed historical articles of great value
to various magazines and to the state publications. He has, in fact, a
reputation as an author and historian and he is well-informed as to arch-
eological research in Mexico and has written on that subject with author-
ity. He is a man of financial standing and one of Albion 's most repre-
sentative and influential citizens.
S. EUGENE QUINDRY. Among the younger set of steadily advancing
business men of Edwards county, S. Eugene Quindry, states attorney for
his county and one time editor of one of the popular publications in Al-
bion, takes a prominent place, and is eminently deserving of mention in
a history dedicated to Southern Illinois and its leading citizens. From
the beginning of his career Mr. Quindry has displayed qualities of tact,
integrity and business sagacity which have been guarantees of a success-
ful future to all who have noted his daily life, and since he turned his
attention to the law, his progress has been most pleasing.
Born on January 12, 1880, on a farm in White county, Illinois, S.
Eugene Quindry is the son of Alphonse Quindry and his wife, Augusta
(Hunsinger) Quindry. The father was a native of France, born in
Paris in 1849, and was the son of Joseph and Josephine Quindry. Jos-
eph Quindry was a brickmaker and manufacturer and was the owner of
a factory in Paris. He had two sons, Alphonse and John, who emigrated
to America in about 1870 when they were still in their early manhood.
The brothers settled first in Indiana, and there John Quindry remained,
but Alphonse, after a brief stay there, moved into White county, Illi-
nois. When at home in Paris the young man had been employed in a
telescope factory in that city, but on settling in Illinois he secured a
piece of land and gave himself up to the business of farming, to which
he devoted the remainder of his life, and in which business he was ex-
traordinarily successful. Although he possessed practically nothing
when he began life on his farm, he prospered with the advancing years,
and when he died in 1889 he was the owner of two hundred and ninety
acres of valuable Illinois farm land, with all the appurtenances thereto.
His wife, who was a native of White county, was a member of one of
the largest and best known families in that section of the country. She
was the daughter of Jacob and Mary Hunsinger, and she was born in
1848. She is still living on the old homestead in White county, where
their seven children were reared, and where some of them still live.
The daughter, Josephine, died at the age of eighteen years; John, mar-
ried and is living in Arkansas; S. Eugene, is the third born; Flora is
the wife of George Simpson, of Wayne, a supervisor of Wayne county ;
Charles remains on the old home place, and looks after the farm and home
and cares for the mother ; Ella died in childhood. Thus five of the seven
born to her still remain to brighten the closing years of the life of this
worthy mother, and all are leading lives of usefulness and reflect naught
but honor upon the good old name they bear.
All received good school advantages, and S. Eugene, after finishing
his work in the common schools of his home town, entered the Southern
t LIBRIRT
3FTHE
OF ILUUX
_J
W
PL,
O
u
CO
PL,
O
u
PL,'
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1589
Collegiate Institute of Albion, and later attended the University of Mis-
souri at Columbia, Missouri. For some little time thereafter he was
engaged in bookkeeping and mercantile pursuits in various places, and
it- was not until 1904 that he decided on a different field of activity and
purchased the Carmi Times, which he owned and edited for two years.
At the end of that time he sold out the paper and bought an interest in
the Albion Journal, of which he was the editor for one year. During the
three years of his newspaper work, Mr. Quindry had been making good
use of his time by studying law under able preceptorship, and in 1907,
when he severed his connection with the Journal, he was admitted to
the bar and immediately took up the practice of his profession in Al-
bion. He began practice in October of 1907, and in November, 1908,
had so far advanced professionally and with the public that he was
elected to the office of states attorney. Mr. Quindry is a member of a
number of fraternal organizations, chief among them being the Masons,
the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen.
He is a member of the Christian church.
In 1905 Mr. Quindry was married to Miss Constance Coles, a daugh-
ter of Frank Coles, Sr. Two children have been born to them, — Frank
and Leland.
DR. ERNEST E. BOKWE, since 1905 a practicing dentist in West Salem,
is a native product of Edwards county, born in West Salem, July 1,
1885. He is the son of Christian and Mary Louise (Knust) Boewe,
Christian Boewe was born in Germany on the sixteenth of July, 1836,
and emigrated to America in 1866, when he settled in Edwards county
on a farm of 256 acres, near West Salem. It was after locating here
that he married Miss Knust, who like himself, was a native of Germany.
The father died on April 17, 1911, although the mother still lives. Thir-
teen children were born to them, of which number six are yet living.
Six died in infancy and Amos, a son, died after reaching the age of
nineteen years. The others are : Rudolph, a resident of Waukesha, Wis-
consin ; Helena, living at Crandon, Wisconsin ; Mrs. Carrie Rothrock,
of Alturas, Florida; Ernest F., of West Salem; Herbert J. and Albert
M. of Bone Gap, Illinois.
.Ernest F. Boewe attended the West Salem schools in his boyhood
and youth, at the age of eighteen entering the St. Louis Dental College,
now the Dental Department of the St. Louis University. He was gradu-
ated from that institution on May 6, 1905, after which he initiated active
practice in Albion, remaining there but four months. He then located in
West Salem, which appeared a desirable location to him, and the suc-
cess he has attained there in the ensuing years has amply verified his
judgment in that respect. Dr. Boewe is a thorough master of his pro-
fession and has acquired a reputation for skill and ability which is fast
placing him in the front ranks of the dentists of the day. Fortune has
smiled upon him in a financial way and he has come to be the owner of
a tract of land in Florida and a half interest in the neighborhood of
eleven hundred acres, in the same state.
Fraternally the doctor is a member of the Odd Fellows and the
Masons, as well as the supreme chapter of the Delta Sigma Delta, his
college fraternity. He is a Republican, and a member of the Moravian
church. On March 28, 1908, Dr. Boewe was united in marriage with
Bernice Helen Luther, the daughter of John M. Luther. One son has
been born to them, — Howard Luther Boewe.
JAMES P. COPELAND. It has been said in criticism of the modern
newspaper that its editorial beliefs are frequently controlled from the
1590 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
business office, or at least dictated by the exigencies of the business sit-
uation. In this connection also the identity of the editor himself is
becoming more and more obscure as the number of the pages and the
size of the news headlines grow larger together. An exponent of the
older school of journalism, and what many of us prefer to regard as
the truer school, may be found at Marion, Illinois, in the person of
James P. Copeland, who for many years was actively identified with
the journalistic profession of Williamson county. He entered the pro-
fession when the "art preservative" and the "Fourth Estate" went
hand in hand, — when, in fact, the editor had to know all about the
printer's craft as well as to be able to wield a facile pen. The pioneer
in the publication of a permanent Republican newspaper, he applied
his energies, and his courage, too, at times, to the crystallization of
Republican sentiment into a party organization which won victories
and became a stable factor in support of both state and national organi-
zations of the party. Having served his party well and grown old in a
calling which demands the best and most constant efforts of the human
brain, he seized upon an opportunity to retire, and is spending his time
now in the quieter, if less remunerative occupation of floriculture and
gardening.
Mr. Copeland was born in Vienna, Illinois, September 24, 1845, the
son of Judge Samuel Copeland, whose father, John Copeland, came to
Illinois during the territorial days and settled in Johnson county, soon
thereafter moving into Massac county, where he died on the Copeland
farm there. He was born in Virginia on September 30, 1775, and when
he came to Illinois from Tennessee, where he had spent some years, he
brought his slaves with him. He was married in Sumner county, Tenn-
essee, to Sarah Short, of Kentucky, and migrated to Illinois in 1816,
settling near Vienna. Mr. Copeland taught in the first schoolhouse
ever erected in Vienna, — it was a crude log affair, and in various ways
his life in that community was an active one up to his last days. He was
the nominee of the slave-holding party as delegate to the constitutional
convention for his district at one time, and he was always prominent in
local politics. He passed away on January 2, 1853, his wife having
preceded him on June 24, 1849. They were the parents of nine chil-
dren : James, who was once a member of the Illinois General Assembly ;
Sarah, who died as the wife of John Cooper; John, who was a farmer
in Pulaski county ; Joshua, who also engaged in farming and left a
family in Massac county when he died ; Isaac ; Jane, who married J. B.
Maybury; Alfred; Louisa, who married W. J. Simpson; and Samuel.
Judge Samuel Copeland was a mere child when he accompanied his
father from Tennessee to Southern Illinois. He received such educa-
tion as the neighborhood in which he was reared afforded, and he spent
the earlier years of his young manhood on the farm, entering from
that work into active political pursuits. He was chosen frequently by
the Democratic party as an officer of Johnson county, holding variously
the offices of sheriff, clerk and county judge, passing away while hold-
ing the latter named office. He was a Union man, and abandoned his
old party in 1861 to embrace the principles of Republicanism, and died
in that faith. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Allen, died at
the age of forty-three years. Their children were: Allen, who left
a son, now in business in Cedar Vale, Kansas, at his death ; Perry, who
died in Massac county, Illinois, leaving a family there; Mary, who be-
came the wife of Alex McLain and died at Vienna, Illinois; Prances,
who died unmarried; Samuel, who died in Massac county; Richard, a
resident of Johnson county; James P., of Marion Illinois; DeWitt C.,
of Barlow, Kentucky; and two others who died in infancy, — Harriet
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1591
and J. M. In later years Judge Copeland contracted a second marriage,
taking for his wife Mrs. Lucinda Fisher, the two children of their union
being Alonzo, of Missouri, and Louisa, the wife of one Mr. Pierce, of
Baxter Springs, Kansas.
In 1859 James P. Copeland began work in the office of the Johnson
County Enquirer, the first paper printed in the county, with J. D.
Moody as editor. He held this position until the following year, when
he left Vienna to accept a place on the Union Democrat at Anna, Illi-
nois, and he remained there until the beginning of the Civil war. When
troops were called for he enlisted in Company E, Sixtieth Illinois Regi-
ment of Infantry, mustered into the United States service at Anna,
Illinois. The regiment reported for duty at Cairo and was soon ordered
to Island No. 10, where it was attached to General Pope 's command.
After Island No. 10 and New Madrid were taken, General Pope with
his division was ordered to report to General Grant at Shiloh for duty.
In the siege of Corinth, Pope commanded the left wing of the army,
defeating the Rebels at Farmington, Mississippi, before Corinth. When
Corinth was taken a division of the army was made and the Sixtieth
Illinois was assigned to the Army of the Ohio, in General Palmer's com-
mand, and this division went to Tuscumbia, Alabama, thence to Nash-
ville, Tennessee. There it participated in the rout of the enemy in an
effort made to capture the capital city, which at that time was held
by General Negley's command.
In November, 1862, after the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, General
Rosencrans succeeded General Buel in command of the Ohio and another
organization was made and known as the Army of the Cumberland. In
this command the regiment was attached to the Fourth Corps and after
the battle of Stone River was sent to the right wing and held that posi-
tion during the Tullahoma, Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaign.
At Chattanooga the army was again reorganized and the regiment and
brigade with which it served were First Brigade, Second Division, Four-
teenth Army Corps, and in that command served until the close of the
war.
After the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge and
the march to relieve Burnside at Knoxville, Tennessee, the regiment
went into camp January 2, 1864, at Rossville, Georgia. In February, it
re-enlisted and was sent home for thirty days' rest and for recruiting
purposes. Before starting home it was engaged in the first battle of
Buzzard Roost, Georgia, February 26, 1864. In May, 1864, the second
day, the command moved out on the Atlanta campaign. On the Dalton
road the Sixtieth Illinois was in advance and met the outpost of the
enemy at Ringgold, Georgia, pressing them back over Taylor's Ridge
toward Tunnel Hill. Here the real service of the campaign began and
the Sixtieth Illinois in that campaign saw service at Buzzard Roost,
Resaca, Ezra Church or Burnt Hickory, Kenesaw Mountain, Marietta,
Peachtree Creek, Jonesboro, and many other less important actions.
In all these engagements Mr. Copeland did his full part. Enlist-
ing as a private, he was promoted to non-commissioned offices until June,
1863, when he was commissioned lieutenant, and held that rank when
discharged at Atlanta, Georgia, September 23, 1864. He was captured
once, but was soon back in line, and was wounded at the battle of Dallas,
Georgia, May 30, 1864.
With his return to civilian life, his thoughts recurred to the profes-
sion whose progress had been interrupted by the outbreak of the war,
and Mr. Copeland resumed journalistic efforts in his home town, and
eventually became the editor and publisher of the Johnson County
Journal, which stands out as his first independent venture. Then, cast-
1592 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ing about for a location in which to establish a Republican paper, he
chose Marion, in Williamson county. Previous efforts had been made to
lodge a Republican paper there, but all had failed, excepting as cam-
paign papers, so the outlook was not encouraging when Mr. Copeland
launched the Marian Monitor. It thrived, however, in spite of these
adverse conditions, and became the first journal of its political faith
to successfully assault this citadel of Democracy. Editor Copeland took
no middle ground. He nailed the flag to the mast, assumed an attitude
of defiance to the opponents of Republican doctrines, and his first edi-
torial announcement carved out a course in keeping with the policies and
intentions of the editor that left nothing to be inferred.
The Monitor was established in 1874 and in 1887 it was merged in
another publication, and The Leader was given birth. E. E. Mitchell,
John H. Duncan, W. H. Boles and W. C. G. Rhea were prominent
factors on the paper for one year, after which Mr. Copeland became
editor and owner. He conducted the paper until 1901. with the excep-
tion of a period of four years when he was postmaster of Marion, be-
tween 1881 and 1885. In 1901 Mr. Copeland sold the plant to 0. J.
Page, the present owner and publisher. He was loath, however, to
abandon the quill, and presently the Record, another Republican weekly,
appeared. One year later it too was taken over by Mr. Page, since
which time Mr. Copeland has been engaged in the cultivation of plants
and flowers within the city on a plot of ground which he acquired when
it was a part of the country outside the present city of Marion, but
which he has platted and improved in keeping with the existing phase
of suburban development. There he conducts what is known as the
Marion Greenhouses, and does a thriving business as a dealer in plants,
bulbs, seeds, cut flowers, and as a producer of much of his marketable
stock.
Mr. Copeland has been twice married. His first marriage occurred
on January 15, 1865, at Vienna, Illinois, when Miss Louisa Washburn
became his bride. She was a daughter of one of the Washburn families
of Kentucky of historic name, but the exact branch is not known. Mrs.
Copeland died on February 22, 1896. She was the mother of three chil-
dren : Benjamin P., connected with the Standard Oil and Ink Com-
pany at Memphis, Tennessee, and his present home is New Orleans.
Louisiana; Addie, the wife of J. M. Strike, chief operating engineer of
the Kansas Gas and Electric Company, of Wichita, Kansas; and Ida,
born in March, 1867, and died in August. 1872. Mrs. Copeland was a
woman of many virtues, and was from her childhood an active and
earnest worker in the Methodist Episcopal church. Her mother was a
Dean, numbered among the pioneer settlers of Illinois, and she was
thrice married, her last husband being Colonel John G. Hardy, lieutenant
colonel of the One Hundred and Twentieth Illinois Volunteers. He died
at Memphis, Tennessee, February 28, 1864. The heroic mother was a
splendid representative of the most perfect type of womanhood, and she
passed away one month after the death of her husband.
Mrs. Copeland was born in Metropolis, Illinois, September 4, 1847.
There she remained until after the death of her father. Her mother
married her last husband and located in Vienna, Illinois, when the
Civil war began. Five of the family enlisted in the Federal army. The
mother, three daughters and a baby boy remained at home, where they
too had the battles of life to contend with. Fortunate for Mrs. Cope-
land she was blessed with a kind spirit and a responsive heart to the
calls of the needy. She never turned the hungry from her door with-
out bread nor failed to administer to the distressed when she could
be charitable and energetic. She overcame many difficulties. With an
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1593
abiding faith in the Christian religion she was ever hopeful. When death
entered the home and called for the little daughter, she mourned not
as those who have no hope. At last, when the shadows of the evening
of life were gathering around her, she calmly looked her husband in
the face and said in the light of the other shore "I am better now,"
and the spirit returned to the God who gave it.
In October, 1896, Mr. Copeland married Mrs. Minnie Lilley Brooks.
She is the daughter of Boston Lilley, of Union county, Illinois, a success-
ful farmer of that district and for twelve years a teacher in the public
schools. He was born in Union county, Illinois, September 24, 1854.
The Lilley family have been residents of Kentucky for many genera-
tions back. The mother of Boston Lilley was Nancy Worley Reed. The
Worleys were prominent southerners. Her brother, Willis Worley, was
a member of the state legislature of Tennessee. Mrs. Copeland 's an-
cestry is of the French Huguenot, Scotch-Irish and Dutch nationalities.
Boston Lilley was educated in the public schools of Union county, and
he was one of the first to attend the Southern Illinois Normal University
at Carbondale. He was particularly successful as an exponent of the
pedagogic art during his twelve years' experience in that branch of work.
He died December 6, 1886, while a teacher, as well as being an active
farmer, and was still a young man when he passed away. He was a kind
and genial gentleman, beloved by all who knew him, and his loss was
poignantly felt by a large circle of friends and acquaintances. The
mother of Mrs. Minnie Lilley Copeland was Hannah North, of Jackson
county, Illinois, whose parents were natives of Pennsylvania and Tenn-
essee. The Norths were a prominent English family, and in this country
many of the family were teachers of note. The mother of Hannah North
was Sarah Hutchinson, of Tennessee. Mrs. Copeland was born April
22, 1873, in Union county. She was married May 4, 1900, to Mr. Wil-
liam L. Brooks, of Union county, Illinois, and has one son by her first
marriage: Raymond Harrison Brooks, born February 4, 1891. He is
a member of the Copeland household. He is a student and teacher, as
was his mother, she having taught seven years before she assumed the
duties of home and family. Mrs. Copeland was candidate for county
superintendent of schools of Williamson county in 1898, and made a
splendid run for the office, failing to win at the primaries by a very
small majority. Mrs. Copeland is a member of the firm conducting the
Marion Greenhouses, having been actively engaged in the work for the
past eleven years. The greenhouses were established in 1901. She is a
faithful member of the Methodist church, and has taught a class of young
women in Sunday school for the past seventeen years. She is also
active in temperance work, and is a hearty supporter of votes for women.
Mr. Copeland is an Odd Fellow, a Pythian Knight, and, like his wife,
is a member of the First Methodist Episcopal church of Marion, and is
a member of the board of trustees of that organization.
Mr. and Mrs. Copeland have one living son. — John Wallace, born
December 16. 1902; their first child, Emory Allen Whittier, born Sep-
tember 17, 1897, having died on January 29, 1899.
FRANK COLES JR. But one year previous to the establishment of the
Albion Journal, there was born in Edwards county the present editor of
that remarkably interesting and well-conducted sheet, Frank Coles Jr.
He has been identified with the paper since 1903 and its career in his
hands has been a most successful one. Mr. Coles is a leading Republi-
can and for some twenty years has been actively concerned in the affairs
of the party, while previous to that he pored over the pages of its his-
tory and drank inspiration from its high traditions. Mr. Coles is bound
1594 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to Edwards county by the primary -tie of birth within its fair borders,
the date of his nativity being December 22, 1868, and its scene the
homestead-farm of his parents. His father, Joseph G. Coles, a widely
known and honored citizen of this section, was born April 8, 1843, also
on this farm and his father, William Coles, a native of England, settled
in Edwards county in the early '20s, when its history was young and
the pioneer was hewing down the forest primeval and bringing the vir-
gin soil to subjection. He entered government land and such was the
origin of the Coles farm. The young Englishman, soon after his arrival
in America, married Rachel Garrison, who was born in South Carolina
in 1804, and in 1814, migrated to White county, Illinois, and later came
on to Edwards county and located near Grayville. Their son, Henry
S. Coles, was the first white child born on the present site of Grayville.
The father of Frank Coles answered to the dual calling of Baptist min-
ister and farmer and the maiden name of the mother was Julia Compton
of Wabash county. These worthy people reared four sons and four
daughters, as follows : Frank Jr. ; Rachel, now Mrs. Thomas J. Jacobs,
of Albion; Florence, wife of Clarence G. Johnson, of Albion; Harry P.
Coles, residing in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Charles S. and Joseph Ross,
of Glendive, Montana ; Nannie, who lives in Albion, Edwards county ; and
Ollie, wife of Homer May, of Whittier, California. The father is a
veteran of the war between the states, having served for over three years
of that dread period in the cause of the Union as a member of Company
B, of the Eighty-seventh Illinois Infantry. He was often in the thickest
of the fray, participating in the battle of Vicksburg, the Red River Ex-
pedition and the Mississippi River Campaign. The mother passed away
on October 7, 1887, when but forty-two years, her birth having occurred
in 1845.
Frank Coles Jr. has passed the greater part of his life in this locality
and like the usual boy received the foundation of his education in the
common schools. Following that he became a student in the University
of Indiana at Bloomington, in which institution he completed his work
in 1894. He then entered the field of pedagogical endeavor and taught
school until 1898, becoming principal of the Grayville schools and later
of the Bone Gap schools. In 1898, he was elected county superintendent
of schools of Edwards county and in 1902 was reelected, serving two
terms of four years each. He filled the office with much ability and in
the years in which he stood at the helm in county educational matters a
number of good things were inaugurated.
As mentioned in a preceding paragraph Mr. Coles is an active Repub-
lican. He has several times served as delegate to the state conventions
and his influence in party ranks is by no means inconsiderable. Mr.
Coles became editor of the Albion Journal in May, 1906, but since 1903
he had been a director of the paper. He is an able representative of the
Fourth Estate and is a forceful and edifying writer. In addition to the
activities mentioned, he has several other interests of wide scope and
importance. In 1902 he assisted Walter Colyer in organizing the Al-
bion Vitrified Brick Company and for three years served as a director.
Also for the past ten years he has been secretary of the Edwards County
Independent Telephone Company, operating the lines throughout Ed-
wards county.
Mr. Coles is one of the most popular of lodge men and has a number
of fraternal connections. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, of
Albion ; of Delta Tau Delta fraternity at the University of Indiana ; of
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows ; the Modern Woodmen of Amer-
ica ; Ben Hur and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of Mt.
Carmel. His church is the Presbyterian.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1595
On July 14, 1898, Mr. Coles established a home of his own by his
marriage to Lucretia Blair, daughter of Hugh A. Blair, former post-
master of Grayville. Under their roof-tree are sheltered four promising
children, as follows : Ivon, Ruth May, Joseph Blair, and Lucille.
Mr. Coles has one of the best equipped newspaper and printing plants
in all Southern Illinois. His paper is one of the most widely read and
most efficiently edited in the section and its popularity is amply attested
by the fact that it has a weekly circulation of 2,300. He is a most ac-
curate and methodical business man and prides himself on conducting
the business with wonderful exactness, and by means of card systems
he keeps in touch with every inhabitant in Edwards county. Edwards
count}' is indeed fortunate in the possession of so enlightened and able
a moulder of public opinion.
PROF. TICE D. MASON, principal of the schools at Browns, Illinois,
was born August 21, 1881, on a farm near Bone Gap. He is a son of
Jacob and Mary (Smith) Mason. Jacob Mason was born in 1845, and
was a native of Richland county ; he was the son of George Mason, also
a resident of Richland county. Jacob Mason was a farmer, prosperous
and well known, and he settled in Edwards county in 1866. He owned
six hundred acres of valuable Illinois farm land, which he operated in
a highly successful manner until his death in 1905. His wife, Mary
Smith, was a daughter of Isaac Smith, a pioneer settler of Edwards
county. She is still living in West Salem. Five children were born to
them, named below in the order of their birth : Anna, died at the early
age of three years ; Delia, who became the wife of Dr. Weber ; Charles,
on the home farm; Tice D., of this review; Lloyd, a dentist located in
Chicago.
Professor Mason was educated in the public schools of Albion and
later attended the Southern Collegiate Institute and the Southern Illi-
nois Normal at Carbondale, Illinois. In 1903 he began his teaching
career. For three years he taught in country schools and for the three
years following was assistant principal of the Bone Gap Schools. For
the past four years he has been superintendent of the Browns public
schools, and he has been reengaged for a fifth year with an increase of
salary. Under his direction the character of the high school of Browns
has taken on additional qualities of thoroughness and completeness, and
the curriculum of the school is one well suited to the demands of the
student body. The course is one of three years duration. The high
school enrollment is in the neighborhood of twenty-five, and four as-
sistants are employed in the school. In addition to his interests in the
educational field, Mr. Mason has been able to give some attention to out-
side matters, and he is now the owner of a farm of one hundred acres of
land.
In 1900 Prof. Mason was united in marriage with Miss Flossie Rude,
of Bone Gap, a daughter of Albert and Christine Rude. They have an
adopted daughter, named Mary. The family are members of the Meth-
odist church.
DR. WILLIAM HENRY BROSMAN. This is an age of progress and
America is the exponent of the spirit of the age. In the beginning of
the nineteenth century our country was in its infancy and history shows
no parallel for its growth and achievements. No other country has made
as great advancement in the lines of science and mechanical invention
and the superiority of her inventions has been widely recognized through-
out the civilized world. In this steady growth and development which
has characterized the age, the science of dentistry has kept pace with
1596 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the general progress and in that profession Dr. William Henry Brosraan
stands as a man of eminent qualification.
Dr. Brosman is of Hoosier birth, his life record having had its in-
ception on April 12, 1867, in Greene county, Indiana, the scene of his
nativity being a log house on his father's farm. The parents of Dr.
Brosman were Ezra and Margaret (Myers) Brosman. Ezra Brosman
was born in the year 1835, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, of Penn-
sylvania-German stock, the son of Adam Brosman. The period of his
life extended to 1897, and his summons to the Great Beyond occurred at
his home in Greene county, Indiana, at the age of sixty-two. He had mi-
grated to Ohio as a young man, but remained in the Buckeye state only
a few months before going to Indiana which was to prove his perma-
nent home. A considerable company of relatives and friends made the
home-seeking journey westward, but when they came to the middle
west they took different directions, some remaining in Greene county,
Indiana, others locating in Clark county, Illinois, and others seeking
Missouri. Among those who chose Clark county, Illinois, were Peter
Isaac and Henry Brosman, uncles of Dr. Brosman. Ezra Brosman
reared five children, the doctor being the only son and the third in order
of birth. Alice (Killinger) lives in Greene county, Indiana; Inez (Cal-
vert) is a resident of Champaign, Illinois; Zelma Jane (Huffman) makes
her home on a farm in the vicinity of Bloomfield ; and Eva (Skomp), who
died in 1911, lived near Worthington, Indiana. The mother of these
children died in 1872, at about thirty-two years of age, and the father
married again in 1873, Sarah Cuthrell, a native of North Carolina, be-
coming his wife.
Dr. Brosman received his preliminary education in the common
schools of Greene county, and also in those of Mitchell county, Kansas.
When eighteen years of age he bade adieu to the parental roof -tree
and started out in the world in quest of whatever fortunes might await
him. For some ten years he worked on farms in Kansas and Nebraska
and in addition to making his living secured a great deal of valuable
experience. It was at this time that he attended school in Mitchell
county. In the fall of 1888 he left Kansas and located in Nebraska
where for a short time he made his livelihood working 011 a farm, and,
what is more important, began the study of dentistry in which he was
to prove so gifted. These early studies were inaugurated in the office
of a dentist in Auburn, Nebraska, where he entered upon the practice
of his profession. He also studied in the Kansas City Dental College,
from which institution he received his degree in the spring of 1895. It
was in December, 1896, that Dr. Brosman first became identified with
Albion and his career here has been of the most satisfactory character,
his practice being large and his services generally recognized as of the
highest character. He is also very skilled in taxidermy and has a re-
markable collection in this line.
Dr. Brosman has from the first taken a great interest in public af-
fairs and a helpful one. This fact made very appropriate his selection
to the mayoralty of the place, and he gave an excellent administration of
the duties of this office. He also served two years as a member of the
board of education and in 1907 was president of the Home Coming
celebration at the fair ground. He served two years as president of the
Fair Association and assisted in the organization of the Albion National
Bank, of which he is vice-president. He is indentified with other in-
terests of broad scope and importance and assisted in the organization of
the Vitrified Brick company, of which he is president. At the time of
the erection of the plant in 1902, he was vice-president and he served in
such capacity until 1907, when he was elected to the presidency. His
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1597
influence has been of success-bringing order, for he is a wise and dis-
criminating business man.
Mr. Brosman is a popular lodge man, being identified with the
Masons, the Knights of Pythias, and the Modern Woodmen of America.
His faith is that of the Presbyterian church, of which his wife is also
a valued member.
Dr. Brosman was happily married in 1901, Rachael Eliza Leavitt,
of Greene county, Indiana, becoming his wife. Mrs. Brosman is the
daughter of George B. Leavitt. They share their charming household
with five children, as follows: Paul, Monica, Harriet, Julia, and Robley
May. Dr. Brosman may well be designated as a man who does things
and he exerts much influence in the county, both as a man of value to
his profession and a capitalist who has achieved much in the industrial
and municipal upbuilding of Albion. In addition to the fraternal af-
filiations noted, he is prominently identified with the several dental
associations.
The Albion Vitrified Brick Company, organized in 1902 with a
capital of forty thousand dollars, has experienced steady growth, the
capital being subsequently increased to sixty thousand dollars. The
plant covers thirty-five acres, all owned by local capitalists, some eight
citizens sharing the ownership. The plant manufactures twenty -five
thousand paving blocks per day, each block weighing ten and two-fifths
pounds, and is manufactured from shale. The product is sent to St.
Louis, East St. Louis, Louisville, Memphis, Terre Haute and points in
Arkansas. The company employs on an average sixty men. For the
past five years the success of the company has been phenomenal, and
its influence on the prosperity of Albion is marked. It is equipped with
the most modern machinery procurable. The officers are as follows:
President, Dr. William H. Brosman ; vice-president, W. A. Schock ; sec-
retary, S. A. Ziegler ; treasurer, L. W. Wilson ; directors, Ben L. Mayne,
Albert Epler, R. T.' Barber, and the four officers.
LYMAN W. WILSON. The gentleman to a brief review of whose life
and characteristics the reader's attention is herewith directed is among
the foremost business men of Albion and has by his enterprise and pro-
gressive methods contributed in a material way to the industrial and com-
mercial advancement of the city and county. He has in the course
of an honorable career been most successful in the business enterprises
of which he is the head, and is well deserving of mention in the bio-
graphical memoirs of this section of the state. He is an extensive dealer
in live stock and grain and holds the office of treasurer of the Albion
Vitrified Brick Company in whose organization he played a leading
part. Mr. Wilson was born in Albion, April 16, 1872, and is the son of
John Wilson, who likewise was born in this place, the date of his nativity
being 1846. Lyman W. Wilson is therefore bound to this section by
unusually strong ties and he has manifested his loyalty in various pub-
lic spirited ways. His grandfather, William Wilson, was a native of
Scotland, who emigrated to this country from Caledonia and shortly
after found his way to Edwards county, his arrival here ante-dating
that of the English colony which played so important a part in the de-
velopment of the section by only a few years. John Wilson was for many
years a successful agriculturist, engaging in operations in the great
basic industry until about twenty years ago and for several years past
he has been engaged as a live stock and grain dealer in Albion, where
he is a citizen of very considerable prominence. He took as his wife
Alice Henderson, who was born in Ireland and at an early age left ah
orphan, accompanying an elder brother and sister to the "Land of Pro-
Vcl. 3—33
1598 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
mise" across the seas. The elder Mr. and Mrs. Wilson reared two chil-
dren, Lyman W. and a younger son, Edwin J., who was born in 1868
and died in October, 1908.
Lyman W. Wilson was educated in the public schools of Albion and
in the Southern Collegiate Institute and at the age of twenty-one years
he gained his first experience in the live stock business in association with
his father. This field proved one in which he encountered remarkable
success and he still continues his connection with the business, while
at the same time concerned with other interests of wide scope and im-
portance. In 1908 he formed a partnership with Elbert Epler in the
grain and live stock business, and in September, 1911, he and Mr. Epler
purchased the Leader Department store in Albion. This stock, which
approximated fourteen thousand dollars in value they sold to other
parties on January 1, 1912. In 1902, Mr. Wilson assisted in organizing
the Albion Vitrified Brick Company, a concern which is of great import-
ance and which has done much for the material welfare of the com-
munity. He was elected a director in 1904 and also in that year received
the office of treasurer of the company. The Messrs. Wilson and Epler
also own in partnership a valuable stock farm of ninety acres situated
in the vicinity of Albion and they devote one hundred and twenty acres
in Wabash county also to stock raising.
This progressive business man is affiliated with two lodges, his name
being enrolled with the Knights of Pythias of Albion and the Benevo-
lent and Protective Order of Elks of Mt. Carmel. He gives heart and
hand to the policies and principles of the Republican party to which he
has given his loyal support since the attainment of his majority. He has
from time to time assisted in the direction of public affairs, having
served on the city board of aldermen, when he exerted a potent influ-
ence toward the paving of the streets of Albion. He is a member of the
Presbyterian church.
Mr. Wilson became a recruit to the ranks of the Benedicts on Novem-
ber 22, 1911, his chosen lady being Agnes Petty, daughter of A. J. Petty,
of Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. Wilson had been a resident of Albion
for several years previous to her marriage. They maintain a hospitable
home and are popular members of society.
It was of such personalities as the late Edwin J. Wilson, brother of
the foregoing, that it has been said,
"To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die. ' '
This respected citizen served for two terms as circuit clerk and recorder
of Edwards county, being elected for the first time in the fall of 1890
and being the youngest official ever elected in this county. At the time
of his lamentable demise he was assistant cashier of the First National
Bank of Albion. He was a member of the Knights of Pythias and Odd
Fellows and attended the Presbyterian church. He was everywhere
highly regarded and his memory will long remain green in the hearts
of his many friends. The father of these gentlemen was twice mayor
of Albion and now resides in this place, a wealthy and respected citizen.
PROF. LEWIS OGILVIE. A fortunate example of the right man in the
right place is Prof. Lewis Ogilvie, who is making an excellent record
as superintendent of the Albion schools. No one is better entitled to
the thoughtful consideration of a free and enlightened people than he
who shapes and directs the minds of the young, and adds to the value
of their intellectual treasures and moulds their characters. This is pre-
eminently the mission of the faithful and conscientious teacher and to
such noble work is the life of Professor Ogilvie devoted.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1599
Professor Ogilvie was born April 10, 1874, in Plymouth, Illinois, the
son of William F. Ogilvie, a native of Ohio, and the grandson of William
Ogilvie, a native of Scotland, who left his native heath in early life and
crossed the Atlantic in quest of the much vaunted American opportunity.
He soon came westward to Illinois, locating first in Schuyler county and
in 1833 taking up his residence near Carthage in Hancock county. His
son, William F. Ogilvie, was born on his Hancock county homestead in
1842 and when it came to choosing a life-work he followed in the pater-
nal footsteps and became an exponent of the great basic industry of ag-
riculture. He now resides in Plymouth and is a prominent and highly
respected citizen. He chose as his companion in life's journey Mary A.
Bell, daughter of Jesse Bell of Hancock and four children were born to
them, Lewis being the eldest in nativity ; Lida, the only daughter, is de-
ceased ; Guy resides in Bushnell, Illinois ; and William T. is deceased.
Professor Ogilvie received his preliminary education in the schools
of Plymouth and was in due time graduated from the high school of that
place. Desiring a deeper draught at the "Pierian Spring" he studied
at a number of colleges, first at Eureka College, from which he entered
the Western Illinois College, then becoming a student at the State Nor-
mal University at McComb, and finishing in the State University of
Illinois. It is thus to be seen that his educational equipment is of the
highest order and he possesses very enlightened ideals on the question
of the proper development of the youthful mind. He inaugurated his
pedagogical career in 1894, at the age of twenty years, teaching for
. four years in the rural schools, and following that he spent six years as
ward principal of the schools of Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1909, he became
superintendent of the schools of Mendon, Illinois, and remained as such
until 1911, when he was appointed to the superintendency of the Albion
schools and here, as elsewhere, has given the greatest satisfaction in his
important office. He is not of the type which is content with "letting
well enough alone ' ' and has inaugurated several excellent measures. He
is at the head of a corps of twelve teachers and 360 pupils are enrolled.
The high school is accredited and in the work of instruction Professor
Ogilvie has two assistants in this higher department. The course is
four years in length and a diploma admits the graduate to college or
university.
Professor Ogilvie was married in 1897, Anna Hubbard of Bowen.
Illinois, daughter of John G. Hubbard, becoming his wife. They have
two children, Helen and Leslie. Their home is a hospitable one and
they occupy an enviable position in social circles where true worth and
intelligence are received as the passports into good society. They are
members of the Congregational church and the Professor enjoys fra-
ternal relations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the
Modern Woodmen, both of Nauvoo.
LEWIS OWEN SNODDY. As one of the more prominent men to be iden-
tified with financial matters of his community, Lewis Owen Snoddy,
cashier of the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Golden Gate, is em-
inently deserving of some mention in a historical and biographical work
treating of Wayne county.
Mr. Snoddy was born on April 6, 1888, in Covington, Indiana, and
is the son of E. 0. Snoddy, also a native of Indiana, born there in 1865,
and the son of Samuel Snoddy. The latter was born in England and
emigrated to America in his early manhood. E. 0. Snoddy removed to
Illinois in 1904, and is now conducting a banking business in Redmon,
Illinois. The mother of Lewis Snoddy was Mary Trueman in her maiden
days. She became the mother of four children, namely : Eva, married to
1600 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Sam Horton, and living at Shumway, Illinois; Lewis Owen, of this re-
view ; Dean A., of Indianapolis, and Sherman, of Redmon, Illinois.
The public schools of Covington, Indiana, afforded to Dr. Snoddy
his elementary education, after which he attended Westfield (111.) Col-
lege. For one year after finishing his studies he was assistant cashier
of the Shumway Bank, following which he accepted an offer from the
Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Golden Gate, and he has been cashier
of that important institution since its organization to the present time.
The bank was organized October 9, 1909, as a private bank by H. J.
Metcalfe, who has since acted as president of the institution ; and C. A.
French, who is vice president. Other members of the concern are H. T.
Goddard, president of the First National Bank of Mt. Carmel; A. M.
Stern, president of the First National Bank of Crossville ; T. W. Hull,
president of the First National Bank of Carmi, and B. French, Sr., of
Belmont, Illinois. With such a coterie of well established and thor-
oughly responsible men in control of the bank, it is unnecessary to lay
further stress upon the solidity and reliability of the institution. It has
an individual responsibility of one million dollars, with deposits of
thirty-five thousand dollars, and stock subscribed to the amount of
twenty-five thousand dollars. It enjoys the favorable regard of the
people of Golden Gate, and is known to be one of the solid and substan-
tial financial houses of the county. Since its organization Mr. Snoddy
has been cashier of the bank, and has fulfilled his duties in a manner
highly creditable to one of his years, and which has indicated his entire
fitness for a career in the financial world.
Mr. Snoddy was united in marriage on October 10, 1909, to Bernice
Ferguson, of Redmon, daughter of Hugh Ferguson of that place. Two
children have been born to them, — Christine Ferguson and Max Eldem,
the latter born March 16, 1912. The family are members of the United
Brethern church. Mr. Snoddy is a Republican, politically speaking, and
is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America.
HARRY CORWIN Moss, M. D. The physician is a necessary element
in our civilization, because human life is our most precious possession.
A man will sacrifice all his property to save his own life. ' ' Self preserva-
tion is the first law of nature " is so trite a' maxim as to be known to all
and will be disputed by none. The fact that a man will give up his
own life to save one whom he loves does not disprove the maxim ; it only
emphasizes the power of his affection. But there are good physicians
and otherwise. At the best there are many things dark to the wisest
and most experienced physicians; and again the best physicians make
mistakes. So it is incumbent upon all persons to secure the services of
the ablest physician ; every head of a family should have his family phy-
sician, if for no other reason than to give perfect confidence in his
judgment to the members of the family. In these days of hypnotic sug-
gestions when sometimes a single word will turn the tide of disease and
death, a physician cannot be given too much latitude — that is a highly
reputable physician, such as Dr. Moss of this sketch.
Dr. Harry Corwin Moss is a native of this section of the state, his
eyes having first opened to the light of day near Mt. Vernon amid the
rural surroundings of his father's farm. His father, Captain John R.
Moss, was born in 1830, and died October 2, 1909, in Albion. The elder
gentleman was a native of Jefferson county, this state, and the son of
Ransom and Anna (Johnson) Moss, who were among the pioneers of
Jefferson county, and who were born and reared in the Old Dominion.
They migrated first to North Carolina, then to Tennessee, and then, as
was often the custom in those days to the westward, coming to Southern
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1601
Illinois and establishing a home for themselves in Jefferson county as
early as 1818, meeting, it is unnecessary to state, their share of the many
hardships encountered by the pioneer and enjoying the wholesome
pleasures peculiar to their lot. Ransom Moss was twice married, his
first wife passing away in Kentucky. He died at the early age of thirty-
nine years, but his wife, Anna Johnson Moss, survived him for many,
many years — more than half a century, in fact, for she was ninety-three
when she was summoned to the life eternal in 1895, leaving over two
hundred descendants. She was a remarkable woman, of strong character,
as well as physical frame.
Capt. John R. Moss was a farmer by occupation and a soldier in the
great conflict between the states. He enrolled and organized Company
C of the Sixtieth Illinois Regiment, a company made up of the flower
of Jefferson county manhood, and he served as captain of this company
for a considerable period. He was taken ill with measles and returned
home on furlough and in 1863 was appointed provo-marshal, with head-
quarters in Olney and in one official capacity or another he served until
the affair at Appomattox brought peace to the stricken land. He was
one of his county's ablest and most highly respected citizens and served
as representative in the Illinois legislature and upon one occasion was
candidate for state senator. He married Pamelia C. Allen, a native of
this state and a daughter of Rev. George Allen, a Methodist minister
and a native of Georgia, and her demise occurred on March 16, 1909,
only a few months before her husband, these cherished and devoted life
companions being united in death as in life. They reared a family of
six children, namely : Angus Ivan, a resident of Mt. Vernon ; Norman H.,
an attorney, also of that place; Addie May (Me Anally), deceased, of
Carbondale, Illinois; Anna E. Neal, of Knoxville, Tennessee, whose hus-
band is a wholesale merchant of that southern city ; Harry Corwin ;
and Grace, wife of Rufus Grant, cashier of the Third National Bank
of Mt. Vernon, Illinois.
Dr. Moss received his education in the public schools of Mt. Vernon
and had the advantgaes of both the common and higher departments.
He subsequently entered the Southern Illinois Normal University and
following that taught school in Jefferson and St. Clair counties, acting
as principal of the schools of Marissa, this state in the years 1891, 1892
and 1893. In 1894, having come to the conclusion to change his pro-
fession from the pedagogical to the medical, he entered the Missouri
Medical College, and was graduated with the necessary degree, and in
his case a well-earned one, in the spring of 1898. Since that time, not
content with "letting well enough alone" he has taken a post-graduate
course. In the year of his graduation he located in Albion and here
has ever since practiced successfully, being practically the leading prac-
titioner of the city. He is a constant student and makes every effort to
keep abreast of the onward march of progress in his field. He is a
prominent member of the Tri-State Medical Association, and was mark-
edly influential in organizing the County Medical Society. He is a
Republican in politics and his word is of weight in local party councils,
and his influence and support a desirable asset. He was elected coroner
of Edwards county in 1902 and served in that office for an entire decade,
and he has also served as chairman of the board of health from 1901
to 1911. He is exceedingly popular and enjoys the highest order of
esteem for his ability, sound principles of life and conduct and unfail-
ing altruism and public spirit. He takes pleasure in lodge affairs and
his affiliations extend to the Masons, the Modern Woodmen of America,
Ben Hur and the Mystic Workmen. His church is the Methodist
Episcopal.
1602 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Dr. Moss was happily married in 1895, his chosen lady being Eliza-
beth C. Wilson, of Marissa, daughter of Rev. J. C. Wilson, a Baptist
minister. They maintain a hospitable household and are in all respects
among Albion's fine citizenship.
CITIZENS' STATE & SAVINGS BANK. Occupying a position of no little
priority as one of the substantial and ably conducted banking institu-
tions of Southern Illinois, the Citizens' State & Savings Bank of Mur-
physboro, Jackson county, bases its operations upon ample capitalistic
resources and upon an executive corps of able and representative order.
The institution is the successor of the Commercial Bank, which had been
conducted under private auspices, and it has a paid-in capital stock of
fifty thousand dollars, with a surplus fund of about eight thousand dol-
lars. A general commercial banking business is conducted and special
attention is given to the savings department, in which four per cent in-
terest is paid on deposits.
The Citizens' State & Savings Bank was organized and incorporated
in July, 1904, and the personnel of its executive corps at the present
time is as here noted : John M. Herbert, president ; John Q. Adams, vice
president; Harry 0. Ozburn, cashier; and Robert J. Hodge, assistant
cashier. The business of the bank has shown a steady and substantial
growth and a careful and conservative management has given the institu-
tion an impregnable place in popular confidence, so that it constitutes a
valuable contribution to the financial concerns of the city and county in
which it is established.
DANIEL BALDWIN PARKINSON, A. M., Ph. D., President of the South-
ern Illinois State Normal University, is a native of Southern Illinois, but
traces his ancestry to the Cavaliers of the Carolinas.
Peter Parkinson, the paternal great-grandfather, came to North
Carolina prior to the Revolution. He married Miss Mary Marr from
which union there were born ten children namely : Daniel, John, Eman-
uel, Joanna, Washington, William, Peter, Marjorie and Lavine. It has
always been a tradition in the Parkinson family that Peter Parkinson
was a Revolutionary soldier.
Washington Parkinson, the grandfather of the subject of our sketch
was born September 3, 1787. His parents came to Tennessee some time
in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Here Washington Park-
inson married Miss Mary Moore about the year 1807. The father of
Miss Moore came to Highland, Illinois, about the middle of the nine-
teenth century where he died at the ripe old age of 95 years.
Washington Parkinson and his wife, Mary, had five children — Wil-
liam, George, Alfred Jackson, Catherine and Valinda. The third son,
Alfred Jackson, was the father of the subject of our sketch, Dr. D. B.
Parkinson.
Alfred Jackson Parkinson was born in White county, Tennessee, Jan-
uary 16, 1816. He was a farmer as was his father and his grandfather.
About the year 1830 he came with his father, Washington Parkinson, to
the vicinity of Highland, Madison county, Illinois. Here the Parkinsons
entered land of the government and built a home.
At an early day there came from Connecticut to the region of Le-
banon, St. Clair county, Illinois, about twelve miles from the Parkinson
home, one Zera Baldwin, and his brother, Daniel Baldwin. Daniel settled
upon a choice piece of land iipon which stands the famous "Emerald
Mound, " about two miles northeast of Lebanon. It was not far from this
beautiful mound that Charles Dickens, the famous English author, stood
when he beheld for the first time the noted "Looking Glass Prairie," a
real American prairie. Zera Baldwin was a hatter before coming to the
rrit
OF IHt
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1003
new west, but it does not appear that he followed the trade in Illinois. He
settled a mile or so east of the mound.
Daniel built a substantial brick residence at the foot of the Emerald
Mound. From the yard of this home a flight of steps led to the top of
the mound from which a charming view could be had over all the sur-
rounding country. This home of Daniel Baldwin was the center of the
social life in that community, and to it often came the young people to
while away the time on top of Emerald Mound. Among those who
came often to this home was a daughter of Zera Baldwin, Miss Mary
Eugenia Baldwin, whom her uncle Daniel greatly loved. Another guest
often found in the same home was the young Tennesseean, Andrew Jack-
son Parkinson, from near Highland. The passing acquaintance of An-
drew Jackson and Mary Eugenia ripened into love and matrimony.
They were married at the home of Daniel Baldwin in the fall of 1842.
They went to live upon the lands of the elder Parkinson near Highland
where they lived many, many years happily together till the death of
Mrs. Parkinson which occurred in January, 1890.
There came into this new home in due course of time nine children
as follows : George Washington, Daniel Baldwin, Augustus Alfred, Julia
Emily, Edward Henry, Charles William, Oscar Louis, Arthur Eugene,
and Mary Emma. Daniel, the second son, was born September 6, 1845.
Alfred J. Parkinson, the father of these nine children, was a plain
matter-of-fact sort of man, quiet, unostentatious, frugal and industrious.
He was as his name might suggest a Jackson Democrat. But in 1856 he
voted for Freemont and in 1860 for Abraham Lincoln. He remained a
Republican till late in life when he allied himself with the Prohibitionists.
He was a man of strong convictions and gave his whole heart to any
cause which he espoused. His people had been converts of the new
Cumberland Presbyterian movement in the early part of the last cen-
tury, but he was never allied with that church. He was the latter half
of his life a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In 1878 he was elected state senator on the Republican ticket in the
forty-first senatorial district. He was a great admirer of General John A.
Logan and took part in the election of that great leader to the United
States senate in 1879. Mr. Parkinson died November 14, 1904.
Daniel Baldwin Parkinson grew to young manhood upon his father's
farm. He knew what hard work was in those early days. He had the
advantage of the country schools and remembers very gratefully his
teachers at "Oak Grove." He had also the help which comes from a
well regulated home and from sympathetic parents. When he had fin-
ished the rural school he attended the schools of Highland where he
pursued some advanced studies. In 1864 with his brother George he
entered McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois. Here he came under the
influence of Dr. Robert Allyn, the president of the college. He was grad-
uated in 1868.
While he was attending school in McKendree, he roomed for several
terms in the home of Prof. Samuel H. Deneen, the father of Illinois'
present popular governor. Prof. Deneen was the teacher of the ancient
languages. The governor was a small lad at that time, some younger
than our student friend, but the friendship formed at that time has
never waned, and the two men are today warmly attached to each other.
The year following his graduation, Dr. Parkinson remained on the
farm to recuperate his health. In the fall of 1869 he took up his chosen
profession at Carmi following his college mate and personal friend,
Prof. J. M. Dixon. In the fall of 1870 he entered the faculty of Jen-
nings Seminary, Aurora, Illinois, where he remained three years as
1604 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
instructor in the natural sciences and mathematics. "While teaching in
Aurora, Dr. Parkinson formed the acquaintance of Dr. Prank Hall lately
deceased and of Dr. W. B. Powell, for many years superintendent of the
schools of the District of Columbia. In 1873 he entered Northwestern
University for advanced work in science, and while here he was elected
to a professorship in the Southern Illinois State Normal University which
was to open at Carbondale on the summer of 1874.
In this new position Dr. Parkinson was to be associated with his old
teacher, Dr. Robert Allyn, who had been made president of the new
normal school. His work was the physical sciences. He remained in
charge of this department of work from 1874 to 1897. A vacancy oc-
curred at this time in the presidency of the school and Dr. Parkinson
was elected ' ' acting president. ' ' He served in this position for one year
and was then made permanent president, -which position he has held for
fifteen years. He has therefore been a member of the faculty of the
Southern Illinois State Normal University for thirty-eight years — fifteen
of which he has served as its president.
On December 18, 1876, Dr. Parkinson was married to Miss Julia P.
Mason, whose father, Allen C. Mason, lived in Normal, Illinois. One
son, Daniel Mason Parkinson was born to this marriage, October 12, 1877.
He graduated from the normal, and married Miss Margaret Hill, daugh-
ter of Senator George W. Hill, of Murphysboro. They have two fine boys,
William and Robert. Daniel, Jr., is a prosperous business man of San
Antonio, Texas — district superintendent of the Southwestern Telegraph
and Telephone Company. On August 6, 1879, Mrs. Parkinson died.
On July 30, 1884, Dr. Parkinson was united in marriage with Miss
Mary Alice Raymond, who was also a teacher in the normal school. To
this union two children were born, Raymond Fielding Parkinson, born
June 7, 1886, and Mary Alice Parkinson, born May 9, 1891. Both of
these children have been graduated from the normal school. Raymond
has pursued advanced work in Northwestern University, and Alice is
now a student in the Woman's College in Rockford this state.
Mrs. Parkinson is descended from a number of New England fami-
lies of some note. She traces her ancestry to Roger Conant, the governor
for more than a year of a commercial colony on the Massachusetts shore
at the present Cape Ann. He filled this position from 1624 to 1626, and
removed from there to 'Salem, where Governor Endicott found him in
1628. John Conant a direct descendant of Roger Conant was born in
1743 and died 1809. He was a Revolutionary soldier, married Miss
Emma Thorndike. He had a son, Major John Conant, born 1771, and
died 1859. He married Sarah Fiske and their daughter, Sarah Conant,
married James Giles Raymond, the son of David Raymond and his
wife, Hannah Giles Raymond. James Giles Raymond and hie wife,
Sarah Conant Raymond, had a son Charles Fiske Raymond, the father
of Mrs. Mary Alice (Raymond) Parkinson. Chas. F. Raymond was a
business man, a contractor, in St. Louis where he was accidentally killed
in 1860. Mrs. Parkinson also traces her ancestry through her mother,
Jennie Fielding Raymond, to Ebenezer Raymond, who was in the British
army at the outbreak of the Revolutionary war. He left the English
army and joined the cause of the patriot army. It is said the Ray-
monds have occupied the same homestead in Beverly, Massachusetts, for
two hundred years.
Dr. D. B. Parkinson and family are communicants in the Methodist
Episcopal church. They are very faithful to their vows and seldom miss
a service.
An estimate of the real worth of a man can not be justly made by
those who are close to him in time and place. However, we may know
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1605
something of the real worth of a man by the every day duties he per-
forms and the character of the contribution he makes to the lives of those
about him. And if greatness is to be denned in terms of simplicity, and
goodness in terms of "malice toward none with charity for all," then
truly Dr. Parkinson may be said to be a great and good man.
No man has come so vitally in touch with the life that now is in
southern Illinois as has our good friend, Dr. Parkinson. More than
twelve thousand young people have enrolled as students in the Southern
Illinois State Normal University, and while he has not known all of them
personally, they have known him. They all knew his interest in young
people and they knew him to be a friend of them in every laudable un-
dertaking in which they might embark. Dr. Parkinson has never sought
notoriety, but has had for his guidance through all the years — "not for
myself, but for others."
On June 5, 1912, the Alumni Association of the Southern Illinois
State Normal University, in the presence of the largest class that was
ever graduated from the institution, and before an appreciative audience,
presented to the trustees of the university a life size portrait of their
beloved president. The portrait will hang beside one of Dr. Robert Allyn,
presented by the Alumni Association to the school a score of years ago.
JUDGE JOHN L. COOPER, one of the leading members of the bar of
Southern Illinois, was born on the fourth day of September, 1863, in
Fairfield, which has always been his home. His father, John H. Cooper,
who began his life as a citizen of Ohio in 1831, was one of the three
sons of Whitson Cooper. He, together with his two brothers, Whitson
N. and Calvin, came to Wayne county, Illinois, from Ohio, in 1854.
The senior John Cooper, reared in Columbiana county, Ohio, and gradu-
ated from the Cincinnati Law School at the age of twenty-one, was a
man of learning and intellect. Settling in Illinois the year after his
graduation, he began the practice of his profession with a bright out-
look for the future, both he and his brothers being soon recognized as
young men of "parts." The brother Calvin became one of the first
county superintendents of schools in the new home.
Such was the situation at the outbreak of the Civil war. Before go-
ing to the front Mr. Cooper persuaded the woman of his choice to be-
come his wife, that she might in reality be his "for better or for worse."
Leaving his bride of but a few short months and his growing legal prac-
tice, he bid final farewell to his glowing prospects and on the first day of
October, 1862, was commissioned as regimental quartermaster of the
Eighty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry. During the siege of Vicks-
burg he contracted a fatal disease and died en route home on a furlough.
His death took place on the fourth day of October, 1863, just one month
after the birth of his only child, whom he was never permitted to hold
in his arms.
The young wife, now almost simultaneously a mother and a widow,
was a native daughter of Tennessee, whose natural sympathies might
have been with those who had caused the death of her youthful husband.
She had been brought to Illinois while still a child by her father, C. L.
Organ, who was prominent among the early settlers of Wayne county,
having arrived in the late 'forties. His brother, H. A. Organ, served
the county as sheriff from 1858 until 1860.
Mrs. John H. Cooper, left alone with her- infant son, whom she had
named for his father, was herself little more than a child. About five
years after her husband's death she became for the second time a wife.
The man whom she honored with her hand was Joseph P. Ryder, a mem-
ber of the well established and highly respected Ryder family who had
1606 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
early come to Illinois from Hardin county, Ohio. Mr. Ryder served in
the late rebellion as first lieutenant of Company D, the Fortieth Illinois
Regiment. This detachment, known locally as the "Bill Newby Com-
pany," saw much distinguished service and its first lieutenant never
ceased to be a hero in his own land. For many years after the close of
the war he was assistant postmaster of Fairfield, where his death oc-
curred when about seventy-two years of age. By this second marriage
Mrs. Cooper, now Mrs. Ryder, became the mother of four children, one
son and three daughters, all but one of whom are living. Mary, the first
born, is the wife of Reverend M. C. Jonson, pastor of the First Presby-
terian church of Nacogdoches, Texas. Sylvester Paul, the only son, lives
on a farm a mile and a half from Fairfield. Katie, the second daughter,
passed away at the age of twelve, while Daisy Beall is still at home
with her parents.
Judge John L. Cooper, whose soldier father was to him only a heroic
name, was treated as an own son in the home of his stepfather. Like
his younger brothers and sisters, he attended the elementary schools of
Fairfield. His secondary education he received by tutoring with an
aged minister who was a friend of the family. During this period much
time was devoted to the mastery of the classics, his knowledge of which
the Judge has never forgotten. After deciding upon the legal profes-
sion as his choice of a life vocation he entered the office of Judge Jacob
R. Creighton, now a member of the circuit bench but at that time states
attorney. From that office he was admitted to the bar in 1889 after
which he became a member of the firm as junior partner to Judge
Creighton. In the autumn of 1892 he was elected county judge on the
Democratic ticket, serving in this capacity for one term. From 1897
until 1906 he acted as private secretary to Justice Carroll C. Boggs of
the supreme court. The following year he again resumed his private
practice, this time as senior member of the law firm of Cooper and Bur-
gess. The general practice now claims most of his time, although his
interest in public affairs has not waned. He has served his city and
county in many minor capacities, even acting upon the board of educa-
tion when it seemed to him a duty. For many years he has been a mem-
ber of the State Historical Association, serving for some time past on
the publication committee of that society. In fraternal organizations
he remains active, being present chancellor commander of the Have-
lock Lodge, No. 206, of the Knights of Pythias. In the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 32, he is past noble grand of Fair-
field. In addition to these orders he belongs to several minor bene^
ficiary societies.
In 1880 Judge Cooper was married to Minnie Harvey, the daughter
of 0. "W. and Inez Acker Harvey, formerly from Indiana. They have
one daughter, whom they have called Inez for Mrs. Cooper's mother.
Miss Inez will finish the course in the Fairfield high school in the class
of 1913.
Mrs. Cooper is a devout member and active worker in the Christian
church while the Judge hesitates to sever his connection with the denomi-
nation of his Presbyterian fathers. Judge Cooper stands well in the
financial as well as in the professional and religious world. He is the
owner of the attractive farm, a mile and a half from Fairfield on the
east, which his half brother manages and cultivates.
ANDREW J. POORMAN. JR. With industry, thrift and efficiency his
keynotes in whatever work he has undertaken. Andrew J. Poorman has
steadily progressed toward the top rung of the ladder of attainments,
and now occupies a position of prominence among the leading men of
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1607
Wayne county, being president of the First National Bank of Fairfield ;
president of the Mill Shoals Cooperage Company ; and an extensive
owner of Illinois lands. A son of Andrew J. Poorman, Sr., he was
born April 28, 1871, in Pleasant Point, Paulding county, Ohio.
Andrew J. Poorman, Sr., was born in Ohio, and has spent his entire
life of eighty-three years in his native state, his home now being in
Paulding county, where he is living retired from agricultural pursuits.
To him and his wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Daly, ten children
were born, as follows: Mary E.; Thomas W. ; Loretta; Emerson L. ;
Francis, deceased; Henry J. ; Lucy D, ; Maggie; Perry; and Andrew
J., Jr. The mother passed to the life beyond at a comparatively early
age, her death occurring in 1887.
After the death of his mother, when he was but sixteen years of
age, Andrew J. Poorman, Jr., left school and began to hustle for him-
self, being first engaged in farming and afterwards in lumbering.
Changing his occupation in 1892, he was bookkeeper and manager of a
cooperage company for five years, during which time he gained a prac-
tical knowledge of the business. In 1897 Mr. Poorman migrated to Illi-
nois, locating at Mill Shoals, where, in company with W. C. Johantgen,
he organized the Mill Shoals Cooperage Company, with which he has
since been actively connected. Enlarging its business in 1906, this en-
terprising company commenced operations in the south, and in addition
to its original plant is now operating mills in Boynton and Hermann,
Arkansas, and in Bucoda, Missouri, the annual output of the combined
plants approximating fifty million staves, in the manufactiire of which
over seven hundred men are employed. This company, of which Mr.
Poorman is president, has a capital of $100,000 invested, and has head-
quarters in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Since 1902 Mr. Poorman has been officially connected with the First
National Bank of Fairfield, serving as vice-president until 1909, when,
at the death of General T. W. Scott, he succeeded to the presidency,
and took up his residence in Fairfield. The Bank of Fairfield was es-
tablished in 1892 by local citizens, including F. M. Brock and J. A. Cox.
In 1895 it was organized into the First National Bank of Fairfield, with
a capital of $50,000. In 1912 its deposits amounted to $250,000, while
its total resources were $370,000. It is housed in the fine brick building
which it owns on Main street, and pays interest on its deposits. This
institution has a fine corps of officers, as follow : President, Andrew J.
Poorman, Jr. ; first vice-president, J. A. Cox ; second vice-president, T.
J. Hilliard; cashier, Walter Sons; and assistant cashier, William Atter-
bury. The directors are J. A. Cox, T. J. Hilliard, Walter Sons, S. T.
Pendleton, F. M. Brock, C. E. Keith, C. H. Keith, H. H. Moore, A. J.
Poorman, Jr., and B. F. Thomas.
Mr. Poorman also has other interests of vital importance, being a
director of the Farmers' State Bank of Enfield; vice-president of the
Richland Construction Company ; a stockholder in the Fairfield Ice and
Storage Company ; and the owner of about fifteen hundred acres of
valuable land, five hundred lying near Mill Shoals, four hundred and
seventy acres in Wabash county, Illinois, and a tract equally as
large situated in Wayne county. Politically Mr. Poorman is a Repub-
lican, and fraternally he belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted
Order of Masons, being a member not only of the local lodge, but of
Fairfield Chapter, No. 179, Royal Arch Masons, of Fairfield; and is a
member, also, of Olney Lodge, No. 926, Benevolent and Protective Order
of Elks, of Olney, Illinois.
Mr. Poorman has been twice married. He married first, in 1897,
Minnie McKinney, who died in 1899 ; the two children born of that
1608 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
union died in infancy. Mr. Poorman married again, in 1901, Nellie
Behymer, of Mill Shoals, a daughter of Nathaniel Behymer. Three chil-
dren have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Poorman, namely: Lucille,
born in 1902; Irene, born in 1905; and Paul, deceased. Born in a log
cabin and brought up in the swamp lands of Ohio, Mr. Poorman has made
his own way through life since a youth of sixteen years, and having met
with noteworthy success in his undertakings is entitled to a place of emi-
nence among the self-made men of our generation.
Andrew J. Poorman, Mr. Poorman 's father, settled in Paulding
county, Ohio, in 1854, taking up his residence in what is known as the
Black Land District. He enlisted in August, 1862, in Company I, One
Hundredth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and participated in the engage-
ments of Knoxville, Tennessee ; Buzzards Roost, Resaca, Kenesaw
Mountain, Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta, Georgia. He received a
wound in the left hand at Kenesaw Mountain.
HON. JAMES CAMERON ALLEN, one of the best known men in South-
ern Illinois, and the most distinguished citizen of Olney, died on Janu-
ary 30, 1912, at his home in this city. He was born on January 29, 1822,
and had celebrated his ninetieth birthday anniversary on the day pre-
ceding his death. Mr. Allen was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, and
was the seventh of ten children born to Benjamin and Margaret (Youel)
Allen, both natives of Virginia. Benjamin Allen was educated and
married in his native state, where in early life he was engaged in the
manufacture of sickles. Afterward he engaged in blacksmithing and
general farming. In 1802 he removed to Shelby county, Kentucky, and
from there, in 1830, he moved to Parke county, Indiana, where he re-
sided until his death, which occurred in 1847. From early life he was a
consistent member of the Presbyterian church, in which he was for over
thirty years an elder.
James Cameron Allen, his son, and the subject of this memoir, re-
ceived his early education in the log school house common to the period
in which he was reared, and later he attended a high school at Rockville,
Indiana. Until he was nineteen years of age the greater part of his
time was spent on his father's farm. He then commenced reading law
in the office of Messrs. Howard & Wright of Rockville, Indiana, and in
August, 1843, he was admitted to the bar. In the following December
he removed to Sullivan, Indiana, where he was engaged in the practice
of law until the autumn of 1845, and in that fall he was elected prose-
cuting attorney for the seventh judicial district of Indiana, holding the
. office for two years. In 1847 Mr. Allen removed to Palestine, Crawford
county, Illinois, where he remained for twenty-nine years consecutively.
In 1850-51 he represented Crawford and Jasper counties in the lower
house of the state legislature. In 1852 he was elected to congress from
the seventh congressional district of Illinois, and was re-elected in 1854.
At that time the election was contested by Colonel W. B. Archer, of
Marshall, Illinois. The evidence showed the election of Colonel Archer,
but he offended the South American Faction by being made a vice-presi-
dent of the convention that nominated Fremont, and the seat was de-
clared vacant. Another election followed, at which Mr. Allen was
elected. In 1857 he was elected clerk of the house of representatives,
serving during the Thirty-fifth Congress. In 1860 he was the Democratic
candidate for governor of Illinois, but was defeated by Richard Yates.
In 1861 he was elected judge of the seventh judicial district, which posi-
tion he held until the fall of 1862, when he was elected congressman-at-
large for Illinois. In 1861 Governor Yates tendered him the command of
the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment of Infantry, which he declined on the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1609
ground that he had no military training or inclination, but requested
that U. S. Grant be placed in command, which was done. In 1862 Presi-
dent Lincoln offered him the command of a brigade, which he declined for
the same reasons given Governor Yates. In 1870 he was a delegate to the
constitutional convention of Illinois, and in June, 1873, was elected judge
of the second judicial circuit. In 1876 he removed to Olney, Richland
county, where he remained as a resident until the time of his death,
and in the year following, 1877, he was appointed one of the appellate
judges for the fourth district of Illinois. He held this office until 1879,
when he resumed the practice of his profession.
Judge Allen was first married on January 22, 1845, to Ellen Kitchell,
youngest daughter of Hon. Joseph Kitchell. Three children were born
to them, all deceased. Mrs. Allen died in May, 1852. In June, 1857,
Judge Allen was again married. His second wife was Julia Kitchell, a
daughter of Harvey Kitchell. Seven children were born of this latter
union. Judge Allen and his wife were members of the Presbyterian
church.
The Judge was a staunch Democrat politically. In a speech at the
memorial meeting of the bar, Judge E. Callahan thus speaks of the atti-
tude of Judge Allen at the time of the war : "In congress he voted for
every appropriation of men and money which was asked for by the ad-
ministration for the prosecution of the war, though he did not fully ap-
prove of them. There was a line that he would never pass, and from
which he later retreated. If he had crossed that line and given his full
support to the administration of President Lincoln he might have won a
senatorial toga, or seated himself in the gubernatorial chair. This was
the hour of his opportunity — but it was allowed to pass by.
"June 17, 1863, he was a speaker at the conclave of politicians at
Springfield that resolved 'That the further offensive prosecution of
the war tends to subvert the constitution and the government and en-
tails upon the nation all the disastrous consequences of misrule and
anarchy' and 'earnestly requested the president to withdraw the procla-
mation of emancipation.'
"In 1869 he was elected without opposition a member of the con-
stitutional convention that formed the present constitution of the state
of Illinois. He was chairman of the committee on the Legislative De-
partment and was entitled to great credit for service wisely rendered in
that capacity. He was one of the most prominent and useful members
of the convention."
.In connection also with the political career of Judge Allen, the Olney
Times, following his death, printed the following interesting sketch con-
cerning his political activities: "The younger generation of Olney does
not know of an incident in the life of the late Judge Allen which came
near changing the current of his existence and landing him in the presi-
dential chair. Judge Allen was always fond of relating stories that re-
ferred principally to his colleagues of former times, while the incidents
that affected him personally he seldom referred to. For this reason, it
is only the older people who knew of the situation at the Charleston con-
vention when the withdrawal of Douglas was the only thing essential to
the nomination of Judge Allen for the presidency.
"At that time, 'Jim' Allen of Illinois was a national figure. His sev-
eral terms in Congress and his four years as clerk of the national house,
coupled with his great power as a public speaker, had brought him the
notice of the entire country. He occupied a steadfast position, and his
character was such that he drew the confidence of the people.
"As 1860 approached with its slavery agitation and its 'national con-
ventions, there was a conflict growing between the northern and southern
1610 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Democrats. The south became more distrustful of Senator Douglas of
Illinois, who for three years had been conceded the Democratic nomina-
tion, and the Charleston convention showed that this hostility was so
great that if Douglas were named the party would split. It was at this
juncture that the southern Democrats urged Douglas to withdraw in
the hope of keeping the party united. They made this proposition to the
Illinois delegation: 'Induce Douglas to withdraw and we will join you
in nominating Jim Allen.' Although facing division and defeat if nom-
inated, the autocratic Douglas refused to listen to withdrawal talk and
kept his delegates in line. Judge Allen was then nominated for governor
of Illinois and made the historic race against Richard Yates, Sr.
"Judge Allen possessed all the elements of a great public man. Had
he been nominated at Charleston or had he defeated Yates in 1860, his
subsequent career would have been interwoven with national affairs for
many years."
HAMPTON S. BURGESS. Standing prominent among the leading mem-
bers of the legal fraternity of Wayne county is Hampton S. Burgess, of
Fairfield, now serving as state's attorney. A native of Wayne county,
his birth occurred on a farm in Big Mound township, December 5, 1866.
His father, the late John H. Burgess, was born, in 1826, in Tennes-
see, where he was reared. He migrated to Illinois in 1848, and when the
Civil war broke out he offered his services to his country and served for
two years in Company D, Fifth Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. Returning
home he resumed his agricultural labors, and was thenceforth engaged
in farming until his death, which occurred in 1897. To him and his wife,
whose maiden name was Elizabeth Williams, eight children were born,
as follows : William, living in Republic, Missouri ; Eliza, deceased ; Mary,
deceased ; Lucy, deceased ; Kanzadia, living near Fairfield, Illinois ;
Hampton S. of this brief personal review ; Anna, deceased ; and Oscar,
also deceased.
Brought up on a farm, Hampton S. Burgess acquired his first knowl-
edge of books in the rural schools of Wayne county, Illinois, later at-
tending the old Hayward College in Fairfield. On attaining his ma-
jority he secured a position as a teacher in a country school, and subse-
quently taught school for nine consecutive years in Wayne county.
While thus engaged Mr. Burgess spent his leisure moments in studying
law, and in 1895 he was admitted to the bar. Beginning the practice of
his profession in the fall of 1897, he continued alone until July 1, 1906,
when he entered into partnership with Judge Cooper.
Evincing a genuine interest in local affairs, Mr. Burgess has filled
many public offices of importance and responsibility, in each serving with
credit to himself and to the honor of his constituents. For one year he
was chairman of the county board of supervisors ; from 1892 until 1894
he was township assessor ; was supervisor from 1896 until 1900 ; elected
city attorney in 1900, he served in that capacity one term; and in the
fall of 1908 he was elected state's attorney on the Democratic ticket for
a term of four years, and is now serving the people most acceptably.
On December 27, 1893, Mr. Burgess was united in marriage with
Lillie Harlan, a daughter of William D. Harlan, and to them seven chil-
dren have been born, namely: Oscar, Jessie, Vivian, Anna, Hampton,
John and James.
Fraternally Mr. Burgess belongs to the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, to the Tribe of Ben Hur and to the Improved Order of Red
Men.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1611
ADAM WARD. Eighteen months ago Adam Ward established a stave
manufacturing plant in Sims, and in the time that has elapsed since then
he has demonstrated to all that the new plant is a fixed industry in this
community. A man of wide experience in the business before he made
a venture on his own responsibility, he is amply prepared for any and
all emergencies which might arise in the conduct of such a business, and
the continued success of the new plant is assured. With an annual ca-
pacity of 5,000,000 staves, the plant employs twenty men at the mill and
a force of thirty-five in the woods the year around, thereby adding some-
thing in a material way to the industrial life of the town.
Adam Ward was born May 19, 1862, in Grayville, White county, Illi-
nois. He is the son of Adam Ward, a native of Posey county, Indiana,
born there in 1828, and who died in 1862. His wife, Mary Jane Martin,
born and reared in Edwards, Illinois, died in 1892. Pour children were
born to them : William, a resident of Indianapolis ; Hugh and John, both
deceased ; and Adam, of this review. The schooling of Adam Ward was
of a very meagre order. When he was nine years of age he began to work
in a stave mill in Graysville and he passed twenty years in various em-
ployment in the plant. In 1891 he located in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and
engaged in stave manufacturing. In 1892 he settled in the same business
in New Harmony, Indiana, remaining until 1896, after which lie took
employment in a similar line of work in Vincennes, Indiana, remaining
there until 1902. The next two years he passed in Shawneetown, Illinois,
after which he was employed six years at Mill Shoals, Illinois. In 1910
he was able to purchase a stave mill, and he located in Sims, where he has
since conducted a flourishing business with a high degree of success. He
employs more than fifty men regularly in the operating of the mill, the
annual capacity of which is five millions of staves. The capital stock of
the concern is $10,000.
Mr. Ward is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at
Mill Shoals, where he at one time resided, and is a member of the Mis-
sionary Baptist church. He has been twice married. His first wife was
Frances Hill, of Grayville, whom he married in 1881 ; she died in 1885,
leaving one son, Hugh, who is now employed in his father's mill. In
1889 Mr. Ward married Alice Green, the daughter of Louis Green, of
Hamilton county, Illinois.
WILLIE ELMER WARREN, former cashier of the Bank of Sims and now
cashier of a bank at West York, occupies a place of considerable im-
portance in the business life of the localities in which he has resided.
When the Bank of Sims was organized, October 19, 1909, Mr. Warren
was made cashier and manager of the bank, and he continued in that po-
sition until recently and in which he acquitted himself with credit to
himself and to the shrewdness of the men who installed him in that place
in their interests. With his brother Mr. Warren organized a bank at
West York, and was made its cashier, he having sold his interest in the
Bank of Sims.
Willie Elmer Warren was born October 6, 1868, in Marion county,
Illinois, and is the son of Henry and Mary (Nichols) Warren. The
father was born in Marion county, in 1846, and was the son of Aca War-
ren, a native of Kentucky. Mary Warren, the mother of Willie Elmer
Warren, died January 6. 1903. Five children were born to this couple.
They were : Willie Elmer ; Harry L., cashier of the Bank of Kinmundy ;
Charles, cashier of a bank in Willow Hill ; Emma, who died in infancy ;
and Nettie, the wife of Laurence Stevens, of Kinmundy.
The son Willie Elmer was educated in the public schools of his com-
munity, the while he was reared on his father's farm. He remained in
1612 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
the family home until he was twenty-four years of age, at which time he
began farming for himself in Marion county. He became the owner of
his first farm in 1904, when he bought a small place of forty acres, which
he recently sold and is now the owner of a home in Sims. His natural
ability is better employed in his present responsible position than when
engaged in farming, as the high degree of success which has attended his
efforts since he became connected with banking interests amply attest.
Mr. Warren is a member of the Court of Honor, and of the Free Will
Baptist church, in which faith he is an ordained minister, his ordination
taking place in 1909. His high character and unqualified sterling worth
are in every way consistent with his religious profession, and he is re-
garded as one of the most valuable men of his community.
Mr. Warren has been twice married. In 1892 he was married to Miss
Lillian May Dilman, who died in 1894, leaving one child, Iva May, who
is now eighteen years of age. In 1897 he was married to Miss Birdie
Harber, the daughter of Charles Harber, of Farina, Illinois. Of this
latter union one child has been born, — Comaleta, aged eleven years.
WILLIAM ALBION DULANY, M. D. Among the professional men of
Wayne county probably none are more worthy the success which has
attended their efforts than Dr. William Albion Dulany, of Keenes, a
practitioner of more than local reputation and a man who has made a
place for himself in the ranks of his chosen profession entirely through
his own efforts. Handicapped by the lack of early advantages, he per-
sistently labored to better his condition, and after eleven years of inces-
sant endeavor succeeded in reaching his goal. Dr. Dulany was born June
8, 1873, near Bluford, Jefferson county, Illinois, and is a son of I. H. and
Sarah (Green) Dulany.
Preston Dulany, the grandfather of Dr. Dulany, was a native of Vir-
ginia, from which state he migrated with his adopted parents to Tennes-
see. There he was married and engaged in agricultural pursuits, but in
his later years became blind, and until his death was dependent upon his
son. I. H. Dulany was born in Tennessee, and in 1860, when twenty-
three years of age, migrated to Southern Illinois, settling near Bluford,
in Jefferson county. Later he moved to Middletown, Wayne county,
where he practiced medicine for thirty years, building up the largest pro-
fessional business in the county, but he is now retired and lives with a
daughter. His wife, the daughter of a Tennessean, died in 1887, having
been the mother of seven children, namely : Professor Thomas S., princi-
pal of the high school at Adamson, Oklahoma ; A. G., an attorney of Mc-
Alister. Oklahoma; Mrs. Eliza Dorsey; Mrs. Mary Anderson; Mrs. Mi-
nerva Hunter; John, who is deceased; and Dr. William A.
Dr. William A. Dulany secured his early educational training in the
common schools, and as a youth turned his attention to clearing land.
He had, however, decided upon a professional career, and with this end
in view went to work to secure a better education. He worked his way
through Hayward and Ewing Colleges, and for ten years was engaged
in teaching school in Jefferson and Wayne counties, the greater part of
this time being spent at Spring Garden, Illinois. In the fall of 1901 he
was able to enter St. Louis University, and graduated from the medical
department thereof in the spring of 1905, since which time he has been
successfully engaged in practice at Keenes. Dr. Dulany now travels over
an extensive territory in Wayne and Jefferson counties, having a large
clientele and a wide professional acquaintance. A close student, careful
practitioner and skillful surgeon, he keeps fully abreast of the various
advances in his profession, and takes an active interest in the work of
the county, state and national medical associations. In fraternal mat-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1613
ters he is well and popularly known as a member of the Odd Fellows and
the Modern Woodmen.
In 1894 Dr. Dulany was married to Nana B. Bruce, daughter of
Lenard Bruce, of Marlow, Illinois. To this union two children were
born : Jewel F. and Halsie, but Jewel died in her fifth year, and Mrs.
Nana B. Dulany died in 1903. In 1906 Dr. Dulany was married to Miss
Catherine Keen, daughter of James Keen, an old resident of Wayne
county who now lives near Keenes, and two children have been born to
them : Herman and Rabb. Dr. and Mrs. Dulany are widely known in
religious circles, and are consistent members and liberal supporters of
the local Methodist Episcopal church.
THOMAS B. ECHOLS is a native of Pulaski county and has been a resi-
dent of Southern Illinois all his life. Since 1881 he has been a resident
of New Grand Chain, where he has carried on a general real estate busi-
ness with undeniable success, and where he has come to be recognized as
one of the foremost citizens of the community. He has been justice of the
peace since 1869 with a break of ten years and he is now serving as presi-
dent of the village of Grand Chain with all satisfaction to the residents
of the place. Mr. Echols was first commissioned a notary public by Gov-
ernor Altgeld and he has been similarly commissioned by each succeeding
governor since that time. His war record is one of which he may be
justly proud. He was in the military service from the first call of the
government for troops in April, 1861, until the 28th day of January,
1863, and even after discharge from the army he was in the revenue ser-
vice of the government for a considerable period.
Born at Lovers Leap, in old Caledonia, on April 29, 1842, Thomas
Benton Echols is the son of Benjamin F. Echols, who was born near Sa-
vannah, Georgia, October 12, 1812, who came to Illinois in 1834 in com-
pany with his father, Jesse Echols. They settled near Caledonia where
the elder Echols died. The widow of Jesse Echols was Sarah Elliott,
before her marriage, and they were the parents of five children, namely :
Joseph W. ; Benjamin F. ; Betsey, who was twice married, — first to a Mr.
Fallette, and then to Thomas DePoyster; Nancy became the wife of
James M. Timmons and Mary A. first married Gilbert Leroy and later
Thomas Frazier, now deceased.
Benjamin F. Echols was a young man of twenty years when he came
to Illinois with his parents. He was untutored, save for the primitive
work done at intervals in the country schools of the town where he was
reared, and his life thus far had been in the main given over to manual
labor, rather than to educational pursuits. When the Blawk Hawk war
broke out Benjamin F. Echols was among the first to respond to the call
for troops and he took an active part in the work of quelling the upris-
ing. In civil life he was known principally as a merchant in and about
old Caledonia, at which business he was as successful as were the average
country merchants of his day. He was a Democrat of ardent faith and
enthusiasm, and early in the history of Pulaski county he was elected
circuit clerk and recorder of the county, being chosen in 1846 and serv-
ing until 1849 with an efficiency and capability which won from his
fellow citizens praise of a high order. Mr. Echols was a warm personal
admirer of Thomas H. Benton, the great Missouri statesman, and was for
many years his staunch supporter. In later years, however, he experi-
enced some differences of opinion with the gentleman from Missouri, and
so great was the feeling between them that Mr. Echols threatened to
change the name of his son. Thomas Benton Echol, who had been named
in honor of the friend of former days. Benjamin F. Echols married
Sarah R. Arter, a daughter of Daniel Arter, M. D., who came to this
1614 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
section of Illinois from Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1832. Mr. Echols died in
1850 leaving a family of six children. Ann, the eldest daughter, had
been twice married, — first to Thomas J. Green and second to Benjamin
Pearson ; Victoria married Josephus Moss and is now deceased ; Thomas
Benton ; Daniel A., who served in the Seventy-seventh Illinois Infantry
and is now an inmate of the Soldiers' Home in Danville, Illinois; Sarah
E. married Legrand Wood, and after his death she became the wife of H.
A. Hannon and now resides at Cairo, Illinois, and Benjamin P. is a
resident of DuQuoin, Illinois. Mrs. Echols contracted a second marriage
in later years, her second husband being Louis Jaccard, and the children
of her second marriage are Adelle J., the wife of Lewis Miller, and Louis
E. Mrs. Jaccard passed away in 1885.
When Thomas B. Echols was a boy of school age, educational methods
had advanced but slightly from their primitive conditions in his father's
youth, but he was permitted to partake of such opportunities as the oc-
casion afforded and he attended the proverbial cabin-school with the oft-
described slab benches, and in common with the youth of his day and age,
smarted under the rigorous discipline of the hickory rod of the pioneer
school-master who concurred in the wisdom of Solomon and proceeded
not to "spare the rod and spoil the child." Those years passed by all
too quickly, however, and he was still but a lad when he vohmteered at
the first call for troops to put down the rebellion. He enlisted from Pu-
laski county in April, 1861, in Company G, Eleventh Illinois Infantry,
with Captain Rose and Colonel W. H. L. Wallace in command of the
regiment, who later fell at Shiloh as a general in command of a division.
It is not out of place to mention here that Pulaski county furnished more
men for the Union army during the war period than it numbered in
voters in 1860. For three months the regiment did little besides train for
active service, and at the end of that time, when the time for which it
had been assembled was expired, Mr. Echols reenlisted in the same com-
mand and the regiment rendezvoused at Bird's Point until ordered to
Port Henry early in February, 1862. He took part in the capture of
that place and then accompanied his command to Fort Donelson and saw
that fort capitulate after a ten days' assault. Here he fell ill and was re-
turned home, but upon his recovery immediately rejoined his regiment
at Pittsburg Landing and was wounded in the first day of battle, when he
was shot through the foot and had his belt cut asunder by a flying missile
from Confederate guns at the same instant. His wound necessitated an-
other furlough home. He rejoined his regiment at Cairo, Illinois, in
July, 1862, there securing his discharge, and was discharged on July
23rd, 1862, by reason of surgeon's certificate of disability, produced by
gunshot wound in right foot at Battle of Shiloh. August 15, 1862. he en-
listed for the third time, joining the One Hundred and Ninth Regiment,
Illinois Infantry as sergeant major of the regiment. The command ad-
vanced to the front and took part in the defense of Holly Springs ; from
there the regiment went back to Memphis, at which place Mr. Echols was
discharged. He came back to Cairo and entered the government service
as an aid in the revenue department on board river boats. His route
took him up and down the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans,
from Cairo to various points along that stream and from Cairo to points
along the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.
After the close of the war Mr. Echols engaged in merchandise at the
corner of Twenty-eighth and Commercial streets, Cairo, Illinois, but he
left Cairo after a few months and located at. Caledonia where he con-
ducted a like business for two years. He was elected constable of his
precinct and was appointed postmaster of the place, but in 1867 he moved
to Grand Chain, where he has since resided, and where he is conducting a
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1615
healthy real estate business, and is regarded with a high degree of fav-
oritism by all who know him. Judge Echols is a Republican and has ever
supported that party principles and given his aid in every way to the
cause. In earlier days he has attended numerous state conventions of the
party in its interests. He is an Odd Fellow and has served the lodge as
a delegate to its Grand Lodge. He has performed a like service for the
Knights of Honor and is a member of the Knights and Ladies of Honor,
and of the Grand Army of the Republic.
On December 1, 1863, Judge Echols married at Caledonia, Miss
Amine B. Brown, a daughter of B. and Elizabeth (Cooper) Brown. The
children of Judge and Mrs. Echols are : Mabel A , the wife of Samuel
Price of Grand Chain ; Sallie A. is Mrs. James S. Adams ; Jessie A. mar-
ried Andrew Moore of Grand Chain ; Thomas E. was drowned in the
Ohio river, November 27, 1897, and Hortense H. is the wife of Dr. J. E.
Woelfle of Cairo, Illinois.
JOHN JOSEPH BROWN. From an orphan lad to a prosperous lawyer is
a long leap yet this is just the gap that John Joseph Brown has bridged.
He received his start through the kindness of others; his native ability
and ambitious determination did the rest. The law firm of which he is
the senior member, controls one of the largest practices in the state. As
a man, his work has been epoch making, in particular his work on the
board of commissioners of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary. He has
occupied many public positions of trust and has filled them all to the
great satisfaction of those who elected him. This has been largely due to
his finely trained mind and unquestionable intellectual attainments, as
well as his sincere desire to do the thing which would benefit the greatest
number. When a man is as much in earnest as he has always been, suc-
cess is bound to come.
John Joseph Brown was born in New York City on the 15th of No-
vember, 1852. He was the son of James and Mary Brown, who were born
in Dublin, Ireland. The quick witted repartee, with which he so often
disconcerts his opponents, is one of the traits which he must thank his
Irish blood for. His, parents met and married in New York, where the
father was engaged in the boot and shoe business. When John was
three years old, he lost both of his parents, and at the age of six found
himself placed in the New York Juvenile Asylum. In company with
twenty-seven other boys he was sent to Illinois to find homes among the
farmers. It was a pathetic little company going forth so bravely to
seek its fate, but the little fellows did not think so themselves. Any
release from the asylum meant happiness for them, and it was with ex-
cited laughs and wondering eyes that the city waifs greeted the vast
green prairies. It is to be hoped that all these unfortunates were as
lucky in their foster parents as was John Joseph. He was indentured to
William Henninger, of Hagarstown, a farmer.
A new life now unfolds for the boy. The family in which he was
placed were progressive, sympathetic with his young ideas, and were
kindness itself. From his own nature the life on the farm, no matter
how hard the work, could never be dull, for he had a soul, he was of that
rare order of being who really finds "books in the running brooks."
To him, therefore, the changing seasons were ever a delight, he hungered
for the world of books, he longed to know many things that the birds and
beasts could not teach him ; therefore, after he had obtained all the
knowledge possible from the country schools, through the kindness of
Mr. Henninger, he was permitted to enter the Wesleyan University of
Bloomiiigton, Illinois. Here he spent five years, and was graduated in
1881. During this time he had taught school to pay his expenses, and
1616 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
having had this experience, he now turned to this profession to earn his
living, though he even then was determined to study law as soon as he
was able. He taught school in Fayette county for six years, with such
success that he was made principal of the Vandalia schools. He held
this position for three years, instituting many much needed reforms and
instilling into the schools new life and the enthusiastic regard for edu-
cational work which he himself possessed to a large degree. Mr. Brown
had no intention of remaining a school teacher long, so he took up the
study of law in the offices of Henry and Farmer, and under their very
-able tutelage was admitted to the bar after two years of study.
He had the great good fortune to be taken into partnership by his
brilliant preceptor, Judge William M. Farmer, and this association, in-
valuable to him, lasted until the latter was elected circuit judge and was
forced to give up his practice. He then formed a partnership with J. M.
Albert and later went into the firm of Brown, Burnside and Bullington.
He is at present a member of the firm of Brown & Burnside, which is one
of the best known and most reliable throughout the state, and whose
practice involves much valuable property and many very important
cases. With his fine training under a lawyer of much experience and
ability, his diligent study, and a mind peculiarly adapted to the intrica-
cies of the legal profession, he has been very active in the political world,
being one of the strong men of the Republican party in the state of
Illinois. In local affairs he has taken much interest in educational mat-
ters, being for fifteen years a member of the school board where he was
able to accomplish many things because his own experience as a teacher
had taught him what was most necessary and practical. His resignation
from the board was forced upon him through the pressure of business.
In 1886 he was elected to the legislature and served one term, making
his presence strongly felt. He became especially prominent as chairman
of the educational committee, and also did important work as a member
of the committee on judiciary and practice. His efficiency was widely
recognized and in 1888 he was appointed one of the commissioners of the
Illinois Southern Penitentiary. Here his work is of especial note, and
his big heart and sympathy for the prisoners and the laboring classes
were shown in the many reforms which he brought about. One in par-
ticular, the abolishment of criminal contract labor, has been of inestim-
able value, and the work of this board will long be remembered. Dur-
ing the World's Fair he served as secretary of the World's Fair Commis-
sion under Richard Yates. In business affairs he takes considerable in-
terest, being one of the directors of the First National Bank of Vandalia.
In the fraternal world he is very conspicuous, giving considerable
time to furthering the interests of some one of the various orders to which
he belongs. He is a member of Temperance Lodge No. 16, of the An-
cient Free and Accepted Masons, and in the same order is a member of
the Vandalia Chapter, a Royal Arch Mason, a member of the Gyrene
Commandery of Knights Templar at Centralia and of the Medinah
Temple of Chicago. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias and
was its Grand Chancellor in 1896, and has been its Supreme Representa-
tive for the past sixteen years; he is a member of the Elks of Centralia.
and was grand master of the Odd Fellows of Illinois in 1904. One of the
causes that lie closest to his heart is that of the Odd Fellows' Orphans'
Home at Lincoln, Illinois, of which he is trustee. There are one hundred
and sixty children there, who greet him on his frequent visits with en-
thusiasm, for here is one who understands. He is also a member of the
Court of Honor, the Modern Woodmen of America and the National Pro-
tective League.
He is deeply interested in religious matters, doing everything in his
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1617
power to aid the cause of Christianity. His allegiance is with the Meth-
odist Episcopal church, of which he is one of the hoard of trustees and
of whose Sunday-school he has been superintendent for sixteen years.
On the 29th of May, 1883, Mr. Brown married Nellie G. Blackwell,
who was born and educated in Vandalia. She was the daughter of Col-
onel Robert Blackwell and of Mary Jane (Slusser) Blackwell, both of
whom were natives of Ohio. Colonel Blackwell was a member of the
upper house of the state legislature while the capitol was at Vandalia.
He was the editor of the first paper published at Vandalia, and was one
of its most prominent citizens. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are the parents of
one child, their accomplished daughter, Lucile. She is a graduate of the
Vandalia high school, the Woman's College at Jacksonville, Illinois, and
of Professor Kroeger 's Academy of Music at St. Louis. She married Don
Vest Buchanan of Tuscola, Illinois, where she now resides.
JAMES D. HARLAN, M. D. The paternal grandfather of Doctor Har-
lan, J. D. Harlan, a Virginian gentleman of the old school, was born in
1800, but left his fair state for the blue grass regions of Kentucky while
yet merely a lad. In 1827 he came to Southern Illinois by wagon and set-
tled on a farm in Wayne county, becoming one of the pioneers of that
community. His diligence was rewarded with large crops. In the sum-
mer of 1852 he as usual took a flat boat load of his produce down the
river to New Orleans, the largest market within reach. While in New
Orleans he became the victim of the awful white scourge and died with
cholera after arriving near his home. His wife was left alone on the
farm with a family of twelve children to care for. Through her great
efforts most of these were reared and educated, although but one, Cyn-
thia Harlan Friend, is now living.
W. E. Harlan, the son of James D. Harlan, Sr., and the father of the
present incumbent of the name, was born in Kentucky in 1823, being
four years of age when his parents moved to the Illinois farm. At the
time of his father's sudden death he devoted his energy to making the
farm put forth a livelihood for his mother and small brothers and sisters.
In connection with his agricultural labors he opened a small general store
at Pine Oak. In about 1855 he married Miriam Holmes, an Ohio girl,
the daughter of William Holmes, who was born in Pennsylvania, of Ger-
man parents. They were the parents of six children, of whom Emma, the
eldest, is now Mrs. Ochiltree, of Haddan, Kansas. Jennie is the wife of
Mr. Leihman, of Indianapolis, Indiana. Lillie Harlan Davis resides in
Fairfield, and the brother, W. H. Harlan, lives on and cultivates the old
homestead. Mr. W. E. Harlan was a Mexican war veteran, having served
under General Scott in 1846 and 1847. Only his advanced age prevented
his offering his services to his country for a second time in 1861. His use-
ful life came to an end on the Wayne county farm in 1876. His wife,
who is some ten years his junior, resides with her son on the old home
place.
At the time of his death Mr. Harlan had accumulated an estate of sev-
eral hundred acres, more than enough to keep his wife in comfort and
educate the family of little ones. When the great sorrow came to the
family the Doctor was but sixteen years of age, having been born on May
1-1, 1861. He had for ten years past attended the district schools of
Wayne county, assisting, meantime, with the many chores of the farm.
He was now almost ready for more advanced work and soon entered the
Valparaiso Normal school. Following the normal training he attended
the Southern Illinois College at Danville. In 1887. having determined
to devote his life to the medical profession, he entered the Missouri Medi-
cal College, situated at St. Louis, receiving his degree of M. D. in the
1618 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
spring of 1890. Doctor Harlan began his active practice at Mill Schools,
but three years later settled in Fairfield, where he has become a most
popular and successful physician. While he is conscientious and atten-
tive in his life's vocation, he believes that even a busy physician should
have some outside interests, thus better serving himself and his com-
munity. Fairfield has benefited by his services as mayor of the little
city. For the past sixteen years he has been chairman of the Democratic
central committee of the county, holding ever an enthusiastic interest in
the political situation of the state and nation. He is a member of the
County, State and American Medical Associations and belongs to a num-
ber of fraternal organizations, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
the Daughters of Rebekah, the Modern Woodmen of America and the
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, including the Blue Lodge and Royal
Arch of Fairfield.
In 1892 he won for his wife Alice L. Keller, the daughter of J. M.
Keller, of Effingham county. The Doctor and Mrs. Harlan have no
family.
Doctor Harlan has been successful not alone in his profession but in
his financial ventures as well. He now owns two hundred and forty acres
of land in one piece, not to mention his real estate in and about Fair-
field. No physician of these parts is more widely known and trusted.
CAPTAIN JOSEPH B. SCUDAMORE. Eighty years a resident of the state
of Illinois, and since his boyhood a useful and valuable member of society
is the remarkable record of Joseph B. Scudamore of Wayne City. As a
veteran of the Civil war he rendered invaluable service to the Union,
serving in the war with honor and distinction. As the original owner of
the land upon which Wayne City now stands, and as one of the prime
movers in the establishment and upbuilding of the city, he is rightly
called the ' ' Father of Wayne City, ' ' and all his life he has been foremost
in good works in whatever community he found himself situated. Since
1868, when he bought land in Wayne county on which Wayne City was
laid out in 1882 by him, he has been prominent in business circles of the
community, and has given of his time and energies without stint or sel-
fish consideration to the manipulation of city and county affairs of a
civic and political nature. On the whole, his life is a veritable record
book of worthy service to the commonwealth and nation, and the many
fine and excellent attributes of his wholesome nature have been used in
a highly creditable manner for the furtherance of the common good.
Born on August 23, 1832, in Gallatin county, Illinois, Joseph B.
Scudamore is the son of George and Rebecca (Buck) Scudamore, na-
tives of England and Southern Illinois, respectively. George Scuda-
more settled in Gallatin county when a young man and there passed his
life in industrious attention to his business. He died before the breaking
out of the war, having reared a family of seven children. They were
named: George, now deceased; Thomas, also dead; Joseph B., of this re-
view ; James A. ; Elizabeth, deceased ; Sarah, deceased ; and Rebecca,
married and living in Middleton, Illinois.
When the elder Scudamore died Joseph B. was left an orphan at
the tender age of twelve years, and the struggle for existence devolved
upon him straightway. He worked here and there on neighboring farms
for some years, and when the Civil war broke out he was among the first
to respond to the call to arms. He enlisted in Company G of the One
Hundred and Tenth Illinois, and was named second lieutenant, soon
afterward being promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and later to a
captaincy. With his company and a regiment he participated in a num-
ber of the hottest engagements of the war, and saw service in Kentucky,
Hit LIBRARY
OF THE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1619
Tennessee, Mississippi and other states. His first term of enlistment ex-
pired in May, 1863, and he re-enlisted in March of 1865 in Company L
of the Sixth Cavalry, as a private. He was made commissionary ser-
geant, and remained with this regiment until the close of the war. Dur-
ing the interval between his first mustering out and his second enlistment
he served as recruiting officer, so that he was practically in the service
from the beginning to the close of the war.
In 1865 he settled on the Hamilton and Wayne county line, where he
remained until the spring of 1869, when he came to what is now Wayne
City, but which was then a tract of farm land. He bought a quarter sec-
tion with the idea of going into farming, but after a short time the pros-
pects for a city in the vicinity became so favorable that Mr. Scudamore
with characteristic wisdom and foresight, anticipated the possible locat-
ing of a young city in other quarters by platting his farm in city lots.
This was done in 1882, and since that time the growth of Wayne City has
been a thing of continuous progress. He operated a general store in the
new town and was its first postmaster, and in numerous ways became
eligible to the title which has been accorded him, — "The Father of
Wayne City. ' ' He served a second term as postmaster, between 1902 and
1906, and has filled many another public office in a highly creditable
manner. A Republican in his political faith, he has ever been active in
the interests of that party and has given good service to the cause. Be-
fore the war Mr. Scudamore was constable in Hamilton county for some
years, and since the war he has been a notary public for thirty -two years
and a justice of the peace for four years. He was township supervisor
for five terms, and was elected a member of the state legislature in the
Thirty-sixth general assembly between 1888 and 1890, in all of these of-
fices performing valuable service in the interests of his city, county and
state. He has served as president of the town board for five terms, and
was the first mayor of Wayne City, an honor singularly appropriate to
the founder of the city. Mr. Scudamore owns a farm of ninety acres,
which he personally manages, and is the owner of a considerable quan-
tity of town lots and residence property in Wayne City. He is generally
conceded to be one of the most prominent figures in the history of the
city and an important factor in the communal life of the city and county.
Despite his advanced years and lifetime of arduous labors, he is still
hale and hearty and takes fully as active an interest in the affairs of the
community as he did twenty years ago. He still carries on a lively trade
in the buying and selling of live stock although he has for the most
part discontinued his breeding interests, being at one time one of the
most extensive live stock breeders and dealers in the county. He is
prominent in fraternal circles, owning membership in the Masonic order,
the Odd Fellows, the Rebekahs, and in the Grand Army of the Republic.
On January 1, 1856, Mr. Scudamore was married to Miss Elizabeth J.
Lewis, the daughter of Wilson and Mary (Romine) Lewis. She was born
March 28, 1838, and died April 27, 1900. They reared a family of eight
children: Frances A., who died in 1902; Ada C., married B. C. Tolbert,
living in Wayne county; Alvin G. ; Mollie R., the wife of F. Q. Jacobson,
living in Wayne City ; Eva, married to V. C. Pitman ; John W. ; Bertha,
the wife of T. W. Ashbrooke ; and Edna 0. Mr. Scudamore is the grand-
father of twenty-three children and the great-grandfather of three.
GAITHER C. WALSER, Civil war veteran, one-timed carpenter, and for
many years a prominent business man and financier of West Salem,
ranks high among the leading men of Edwards county. A native of
the county, he has since his boyhood been up and doing in the interests
of humanity and of the commonwealth and nation. Ever a citizen of the
1620 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
most impregnable integrity, his life has added much to the well being of
the community in which he has made his home for so many years, and
many of the leading industries and financial concerns of the county
have felt his influence and his help, and are in a great measure guided
by his acknowledged wisdom and business sagacity.
Mr. Walser was born on a farm near West Salem on January 22,
1843, and is the son of Brittain and Jane N. (Hutchins) Walser. Brit-
tain Walser was born May 3, 1799. He was a native of North Carolina
of German descent, who migrated to Illinois in 1830. His father, Jacob
Walser, was at one time made a prisoner by the British and pressed into
the training service, but he made his escape. Brittain Walser was one
of the early pioneers of Edwards county, and he saw frontier life in
Illinois when it was indeed worthy of the name. He passed the re-
mainder of his days on his farm near West Salem, and died there on
December 26, 1876, in his seventy-seventh year. His wife, Jane N.
Hutchins, was born April 3, 1805, at Salisbury, North Carolina, and
she passed away at the family home in West Salem on March 28, 1875.
Nine children were born to these parents, namely: James, deceased;
Margaret, deceased; Sarah, now seventy-nine years of age; Hiram H.,
a Civil war veteran, was captain of Company E, Sixty-third Illinois,
and died in June, 1885, at the age of forty-nine ; Laura E. ; Susan, de-
ceased ; Gaither C. ; Frank B., a Cival war veteran of Company 1, Sixty-
sixth Illinois, also deceased ; and Mary Jane, married to S. A. Harris.
Gaither C. Walser received a somewhat limited education, such as
the schools of a half a century ago were apt to afford, and was reared
on his father's farm to the age of nineteen, at which time he took em-
ployment in a general merchandise establishment. He remained there
until the war broke out, or until January 31, 1863, when he enlisted in
Company I, Sixty-sixth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He served un-
til the close of the war, and during the term of his enlistment saw a deal
of active service. He went to the front and participated in the Atlanta
campaign of one hundred and twenty days; he marched to Savannah
with General Sherman, and through the Carolinas. He fought at Ben-
tonville and Goldsboro and was in the Raleigh campaign. With the
news of Lee 's surrender, they continued their march to Washington, and
in May, 1865, took part in the Grand Review. From Washington the
regiment was sent to Parkersburg, thence down the Ohio river to Louis-
ville, then to Springfield, where he was finally mustered out on July
18, 1865.
Peace restored and civilian life being again resumed, Mr. Walser
took up carpentering, and followed that trade for several years. In
1882 Mr. Walser entered the grain trade, and continued in it for many
years, with great success. In 1899 he was appointed postmaster of
West Salem and has served continuously in that office up to the present
time. In 1909, he, with other West Salemites, established the First
National Bank, in which he is a stockholder, a director and the vice-
president. He is also vice president of the Bone Gap Banking Company
at Bone Gap, this county.
Mr. Walser is Republican in his political allegiance, and is staunch
and firm in his beliefs and opinions. He is a member of West Salem
Post No. 222 Grand Army of the Republic, and holds membership in the
Moravian church, of which his first wife's father was the founder.
Mr. Walser has been twice married. His first wife was Miss Sarah
A. Houser, daughter of Rev. Martin Houser. who was the founder of
the Moravian church in West Salem, and who also is distinguished by
being the founder of the village of West Salem. She was born at Hope,
Indiana, October 26, 1842, and died on March 7, 1875, on the eleventh
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1621
anniversary of her wedding. She left four children, viz. : Gertrude
L., married to John C. Stone, is the mother of two children, Lucille and
Sydney; her husband is professor of mathematics in the State Normal
at Mount Clair, New Jersey, where they reside. Conrad is an attorney
at Little Rock, Arkansas ; he is married and has three children, — Maurice,
Quincy and Mildred Agnes. Eva is married to Rev. Samuel Allen and
lives in Jamaica, West Indies ; she has five children, — Walser Allen, a
student in Nazareth, Pennsylvania; Dorothy; Constance; Russell and
Miriam. Emma, now Mrs. Allbright, lives in Bloomington, Illinois, and
has four children — Bernice May, Norma Aline, Helen and Robert
William.
On November 21, 1875, Mr. Walser married Mary J. Lopp, born July
24, 1843, in this county, a daughter of George Lopp, a native of North
Carolina, of which state he was an early pioneer. Three children were
born of this union, two of whom are now living. They are : Ethel, wife
of Prof. Howard Kingsbury of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and they have
two children, Charles Howard, and an infant son : Stewart L. is as-
sistant postmaster in West Salem, and Charles is deceased. Mr. and
Mrs. Walser are members of the English Moravian church.
FRANK JOHN RADDLE. The name of Raddle is a well known one
throughout Jackson county. It is the name of one of the county 'a most
prosperous villages, named in honor of Frank John Raddle, a man who in
his long and useful career here has seen it grow into a busy commercial
center and whose activities have been the medium through which it has
attained its present prosperity. One of the leading business citizens of
this section, he served for many years as postmaster at this point, and
now, as a member of the grain and contracting firm of Raddle & McCann,
he is carrying on an industry that is doing much to promote the best
interests of his native community. Mr. Raddle was born at Raddle, No-
vember 29, 1862, and is a son of Thomas and Annie (Korando) Raddle,
natives of Austria.
Thomas Raddle was born in Austria, December 29, 1819, and in 1854
brought his family to the United States, settling in Cape Girardeau
county, Missouri, where for some years he was occupied at his trade of
shoemaking. Subsequently he purchased a large tract of land in Jackson
county, on the present site of the village of Raddle, and here the remain-
der of his life was spent in agricultural pursuits. He and his wife were
the parents of six children, of whom three are now living : William, who
makes his home in the state of Arkansas; and Mrs. Mary Lester and
Frank John Raddle, who are twins. The mother of these children died
in 1870, at the age of forty-four years, and her husband survived her
until December 2, 1908.
Frank John Raddle was reared to agricultural pursuits, and followed
farming as a vocation until he was twenty-two years of age, at which
time he decided to enter the mercantile field. Establishing himself in
business with a little stock of groceries and ammunition valued at $150,
he so conducted his affairs that it rapidly grew to be a business worth
$5,000, and supplied a large trade all over this section of the county. In
1885 he was appointed postmaster at Raddle, which had been named in
his honor, and he continued to hold that office for twenty consecutive
years, or until he sold the store, since which time he has been engaged in
the grain and tie contracting business with his brother-in-law, Charles
McCann, and is at present handling large contracts for the Illinois di-
vision of the Iron Mountain Railroad. He is the owner of most of the
land, comprising several thousand acres, surrounding Raddle, and in ad-
dition owns considerable property at Herrin, including a number of
1622 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
store buildings. He has been road commissioner and is at present levee
commissioner, offices to which he was elected on the Republican ticket,
the party of his choice and that of his father, and to which he has always
given his allegiance. He has proven as competent an official as he has
been an able business man.
On January 4, 1897, Mr. Raddle was married to Miss Mollie McCann,
the daughter of James McCann, of Grand Tower, Illinois, and three
children were born to this union, all of whom are deceased. Mr. and
Mrs. Raddle are members of the Catholic church, and he holds member-
ship in the Knights of Columbus, and is also identified with the local
lodge of Elks. As a citizen Mr. Raddle has ever taken a lively interest in
every enterprise calculated to build up his native city and county, and
few men have a wider circle of friends and acquaintances throughout
this part of the state.
HARRY H. CLARK has been cashier of the Bank of Wayne City since
its organization in 1902, and is recognized in this city as one of the able
and progressive young business men of the place. The bank, which was
organized in July, 1902, as before stated, is operated by Goddard & Hall
as a private financial institution, with a capital of $10,000. Present
deposits amount to about $52,000. The proprietors are H. T. Goddard,
of Mt. Carmel, and T. W. Hall, of Carmi, Illinois. Mr. Clark has been
in charge of the bank since its opening.
Born November 28, 1872, near Crossville, Illinois, in White county,
Harry H. Clark is the son of H. H. Clark, also a native of White county,
born there in 1843, who is a retired farmer now living his declining years
in Carmi. He is the son of George Clark, a native of Vermont and an
early pioneer of White county. H. H. Clark, Sr., was a soldier in the
Union army during the war of the rebellion, serving in the Eighty-
seventh Illinois for three years. He married Sidney A. Britton, the
daughter of W. B. Britton, a native of Kentucky, who migrated to Illi-
nois in early life, and they reared a family of nine children, including :
Lela, now deceased ; Lulu R., a teacher in the Jacksonville schools ; Harry
H., of Wayne City ; George W. ; Sylvia, a teacher near Jacksonville ;
Jessie, a clerk in Jacksonville National Bank; Cecil, a student in Jack-
sonville College, as is also Genevieve, the youngest of the family.
The boyhood and youth of Harry H. Clark was passed in attendance
upon the common schools of his home community. He later entered the
old Enfield College, after which he was graduated from the Normal at
Valparaiso. Thereafter he taught school for eight years in White, and
was principal of the Carmi high school for two years, spending in all
four years in various capacities in the Carmi schools.
In 1902 he came to Wayne City to take charge of the new Wayne City
Bank then organized, and he has remained a citizen of this place con-
tinuously since that time, and has fulfilled his full share of the duties of a
citizen during his residence here. In addition to his banking duties he,
together with Goddard & Hall, is interested in a fine farm near Wayne
City, of one hundred and sixty acres in a most fertile spot, and they
make a specialty of the breeding of Shetland ponies. Mr. Clark now has
a handsome herd of fourteen ponies on the place, and under his man-
agement the farm is kept well up to the standard of productiveness in all
lines. In a fraternal way Mr. Clark is a member of Orel Lodge, No. 759,
A. F. & A. M., and is worshipful master of that lodge. He is also a mem-
ber of the Odd Fellows, lodge No. 558.
In 1903 Mr. Clark was united in marriage with Miss Zura Hollon, a
daughter of A. W. and Nancy (Fleming) Hollon, of Wayne City. Of
their union two children have been born. They are Leland, aged five,
and Howard Kenneth, two years old.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1623
THOMAS M. DICKEY, manager of the Southern Illinois Lumber Com-
pany, has been identified with the lumber industry in one capacity or
another since 1904, and his connection with Wayne City began in 1907,
and has continued since then to the present time. In that time he has
won to himself a reputation that places him in the foremost ranks of the
citizenship of the city and gives him a social and business prestige that is
especially valuable.
Born on July 24, 1873, Thomas M. Dickey is the son of J. L. and
Elizabeth A. (Reed) Dickey, who reside on their farm six miles from
Wayne City. The father was born in 1851, in Georgia, and is the son
of Thomas W. Dickey, born in 1832, in North Carolina, and who still
resides on his farm in Wayne county. He migrated from Georgia to
Wayne county, Illinois, in 1863, and served as a scout for the Union
army during the war. He took an active part in the battle of Chicka-
mauga, and an interesting fact in connection with that event is that the
Dickey farm was a part of the battlefield, and the home of the Dickey
family was literally riddled with bullets, being the center of the activities
of the day. The mother of Thomas M. Dickey was Elizabeth A. Reed.
She was a daughter of John and Rebecca Reed and was born October 12.
1852. The Reed family were among the earliest pioneer settlers of
Wayne county and took up government land when they settled there, and
where they are still prominent.
J. L. and Elizabeth Dickey were the parents of twelve children, of
whom eight are yet living. They are : Rebecca, married to W. T. Bremer,
and living in Wabash county ; Thomas M., of Wayne City ; Fannie, the
wife of H. G. Harris, lives near Fairfield ; George lives in Wayne City ;
Nellie M. ; Mary, the wife of Ebe Withrow, living near the old homestead ;
Melissa, still in the family home, and Ralph.
Thomas M. Dickey was educated in the public schools of his com-
munity and in Old Hayward College. After his graduation from the
latter named institution he taught school for five years, and in 1898 be-
came deputy sheriff of Wayne county, serving until 1900, when he be-
came deputy circuit clerk, which office he filled with a high degree of
satisfaction until 1904. He then became employed by the Fairfield Lum-
ber Company and continued in their service until 1906. In January,
1907, he came to Wayne city and operated the DeWitt & Dickey Lumber
Company, this concern being merged into the Southern Illinois Lumber
Company on January 1, 1909. Since that time Mr. Dickey has been man-
ager of the company in Wayne City and the firm is making rapid prog-
ress under his able management. In addition to his lumber interests, Mr.
Dickey has been more or less concerned in the breeding of live stock, spe-
cializing in the standard breeds, and he owned a farm of eighty acres,
which he sold in 1911. He is a member of the Soutern Illinois Lumber-
men 's Association, and in a fraternal way is a member of the Independ-
ent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Modern Woodmen of America. His
political affiliation is with the Republican party, and he has always taken
a live interest in the political matters of his city and county, and has been
active in the interests of the party to which he gives allegiance. He is
a member of the Christian church.
In 1899 Mr. Dickey was united in marriage with Miss Emma F. Fuh-
rer, of Wayne county, a daughter of Frederick and Eliza Fuhrer. Two
children have been born of their union : Daisy M., now eleven years of
age, and Fuhrer Dickey, eight years old.
WILLIAM M. DEWITT is .one of the more prominent and prosperous
merchants of Wayne City, where he has conducted business since 1896,
first in a lumbering way and later branching out into other lines of
1624 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
business. He is now the proprietor of two stores, one the purveyor of
dry goods, clothing, etc., while the other deals in hardware, farming
implements and like materials. The combined stock of the stores ag-
gregates probably $40,000. Altogether he ranks prominently among
the successful business men of the city, and is in every way deserving
of the high reputation he bears.
Mr. DeWitt was born on September 3, 1858, in Hamilton county,
Illinois, and is the son of Clinton and Penelope (Allen) DeWitt. Clin-
,ton DeWitt was a native of Ohio and the son of Jefferson DeWitt, also
of that state, who migrated to Hamilton county, Illinois, in 1854. He
was born in 1837 and died in 1875, and his wife was born in 1838, her
death occurring in March, 1911. Clinton and Penelope DeWitt reared
a goodly family of ten children, — six sons and four daughters. They
were named : Rufus ; Wm. M. ; Rado ; Alice ; Mary ; Thomas ; Amazon ;
Jasper; Joseph; and Nellie.
William M. DeWitt was reared on the farm of his parents and at-
tended the common schools of his district. When he was twenty years
of age he began farming and continued that until 1896 in Hamilton,
with a fair degree of success. He then came to Wayne county and
engaged in the lumber business, later turning his attention to the mer-
cantile field. He is now the proprietor of two fine stores in Wayne
City, one devoted to dry goods and clothing lines, while the other is a
hardware store, as mentioned in a previous paragraph. Mr. DeWitt
regularly employs twelve persons in the care of his two stores, and they
are doing a thriving business in and about the city. The business tact
and ability of Mr. DeWitt was never better employed than in the con-
duct of a business on his own responsibility, and he is making a large
and worthy success of the small business which he established here some
years ago. He is a director of the Southern Illinois Lumber Company,
and is a member of the Modern Woodmen. His church affiliation is
with the Missionary Baptists, as was that of his parents.
In 1880 Mr. DeWitt married Miss Nellie Irvin, a daughter of Abram
Irvin of Hamilton county. They have reared a fine family of eight
children, four of whom are regularly employed in the business estab-
lishments of their father. They are : Ethel, Charles J., Ernest Judson,
Amy, Alma, Lois, Morris and Herman.
I. L. GARRISON, M. D., is an example of the type of man who is not
afraid to launch out into a new field of labor after having given a mat-
ter of twenty years' service in another line of work, and in his case
what might be regarded by many as something of an experiment is
proving to be a decided success. Giving up his work as an educator,
in which he had already found distinctive success, Dr. Garrison turned
his attention to the study of medicine, which had long held manifold
attractions for him. and in 1910 he entered upon the active practice of
his profession in Wayne City, where he is making rapid progress in
his bid for recognition among the people of his community. A native
of Wayne county and favorably known in this city all his life, his
future is an assured one, and will be in every way worthy of one of his
character and high standing. He has ever been a man of importance
in Wayne county, in a political and social way, and as an educator of
no small ability it has been given to him to do much for the advance-
ment of the county in an educational way.
The scion of an old and honored family, I. L. Garrison was born
January 31, 1868, in Wayne county on a farm near Keenville. He is
the son of George and Sarah (Wells) Garrison, natives of Wayne
county. George Garrison was born in 1839, and was the son of Samuel
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1625
Garrison, born in 1788, a native of North Carolina and a pioneer set-
tler of Wayne county, coming here in the 'twenties from Kentucky. He
was a soldier in the War of 1812 and served in Captain Doherty's com-
pany in the Seventh North Carolina Regiment. He was discharged
from the service October 13, 1814. He was the son of James Garrison,
born in 1747, and a soldier in the Continental army during the war of
the Revolution. He served in a North Carolina Regiment under Cap-
tain Alexander Gordon, with Colonel Joseph McDowell in charge. His
enlistment took place at Wilkes county, North Carolina, and he was
afterwards a pioneer settler in Greene county, Illinois.
George Garrison, the father of Dr. Garrison of this review, was a
sergeant in Company K, Forty-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry of the
Union army during the Civil war. He served three years and three
months and was honorably discharged at the close of hostilities. He
was one of the eight children of his parents, Samuel and Martha Garri-
son, and their names were Isaac, Samuel, William, Preston, Gregg,
George, Elizabeth and Mary Eliza. Of that number two sons, Samuel and
George, are yet living. George Garrison settled down in Wayne county
to the quiet life of a farmer, and reared ten children. They were
named Martha, who is now deceased; Dr. Barney E., a resident of
Wayne City; Mrs. Melissa Morrison, of Jefferson county; Charles,
deceased; Leota, married to William Tyler and lives in Saskat-
chewan, Canada ; Lillie Powers, who lives in Albion, Illinois ; Mrs.
Minnie Talbot, of Jefferson county; Dr. I. L., of Wayne City; Gregg,
in Wayne county ; and George Everett. The wife and mother, Sarah
(Wells) Garrison, was born in 1837. She was the daughter of Barney
E. Wells, a native of Jefferson county, and Elizabeth Alvis, born in
Virginia. The Wells family were at one time large slave holders in the
Virginias, and were the proprietors of extensive plantations. They
settled in Southern Illinois in the 'twenties, and there Barney and
Elizabeth Wells reared a family of fourteen children. They were :
Edmund, Leffington, John, Matthew, James H., Mary, Martha, Eliza-
beth, Sarah, Melissa, Virginia, Carolina and Hulda. One son, James
H., still lives and is a resident of Jefferson county, at the age of sixty-
five years. Three daughters of the seven yet survive, — Sarah Garrison,
Carolina Bradford and Melissa Byers.
I. L. Garrison received his elementary schooling in the common
schools of his district, and was later an attendant at Old Hayward
College at Fairfield, graduating from that institution in 1899 with the
degree of Bachelor of Science. He began teaching soon thereafter and
continued in that wholly commendatory line of work for sixteen years.
During the summer vacations he taught at Hayward Normal. For
three years he was principal of Fairfield high school and from 1903 to
1906 he was superintendent of the Fredonia (Kas.) city schools, in-
structing in the branches of science, Latin and French. In the fall of
1906 he entered the medical department of Washington University at
St. Louis, and in June, 1910, was graduated from that worthy insti-
tution with the degree of M.D. He has since been engaged in active
practice in Wayne City, and has already established a valuable prac-
tice in this city. He is a member of the Wayne County Medical Asso-
ciation. He is a Republican in his political convictions and has taken
an active part in affairs of a political nature in his city and county.
Fraternally Dr. Garrison is a member of the Odd Fellows and of the
Masons. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In 1889 Dr. Garrison was married to Miss Charity Ardilla Feather
of Wayne City, a daughter of Richard and Anna (Williams) Feather.
Dr. and Mrs. Garrison have three children : The eldest, Lena Novella,
1626 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
is married to Byron J. Bixley, of Bridgeport, Illinois, and Marie is a
student in the Bridgeport high school. Berlin Clyde is in the common
schools of Wayne City.
GEORGE HOFFMAN personifies one of the earnest and strenuous mem-
bers of the medical profession of Randolph county. He is an Illinois
man, having been born at Maeystown, Monroe county, March 8, 1871.
His father, Jacob Hoffman, settled in that locality as a young man and
passed his life as a merchant, having been engaged in the field of domes-
tie commerce some fifty years. His interest in agriculture was also con-
siderable and his business and social achievements made him one of the
widely known citizens of his county. Jacob Hoffman was born on the
river Rhine in Germany, in 1828, and he accompanied a brother to the
United States several years prior to the inception of the Civil war. He
married Sabilla Jobb, a daughter of Jacob Jobb, a countryman from
Mr. Hoffman's old home in Europe, and five children came to bless this
union. In 1882 Mr. Hoffman was called to eternal rest and his cher-
ished and devoted wife, who long survived him, passed away in 1907.
He was a stanch Democrat in politics but his interest in civil matters
was extended only to the exercise of his right of franchise. Jacob and
Sabilla (Jobb) Hoffman became the parents of the following children:
• Jacob, a farmer in Monroe county, Illinois ; Louis, a furniture dealer
at Murphysboro, this state; Charles, a furniture dealer at Pinkney-
ville, Illinois; Dr. George, the immediate subject of this review; and
Catherine, the wife of August Querhein prior to her death in 1895.
Dr. George Hoffman spent his minority in Maeystown and was
educated liberally in the public schools there and at Waterloo. His
parents being natives of Germany, he rapidly acquired a fluent speak-
ing and reading knowledge of the German tongue and one of his first
acts upon approaching manhood was to become assistant teacher of Ger-
man in the Maeystown schools. As a youth he thoroughly familiarized
himself with the principles of merchandising in his father's store and
early developed a taste for business there. About the time he attained his
legal majority he became interested in the subject of pharmacy and for
a short period was a student in the College of Pharmacy at St. Louis.
He completed this profession in a practical way, as required by Missouri
law, in a drug store in the city and subsequently he took up the prepa-
ration for medicine in the St. Louis College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, being graduated in that excellent institution as a member of the
class of 1896. He initiated the active practice of his profession at
Campbell Hill, Illinois, and after residing in that place for a period of
eleven years, removed to Chester, establishing himself in the latter city
in 1907. He is renowned as one of the finest physicians and surgeons
in Randolph county and he also holds prestige as a particularly capable
business man at Chester. He is interested in various financial ventures
of broad scope and importance, thus gratifying his penchant for com"
mercial pursuits acquired in childhood. He was the chief partner in
the Dyer furniture business in Willisville while a resident of Camp-
bell Hill, and he also opened and operated a mine at Willisville. Illi-
nois, the mine being now operated under lease. In Chester he is one
of the partners in the Chester Furniture Company, has considerable
stock in the Chester Water & Power Company and is a stockholder in
the First State Bank here. His professional connection are with the
Randolph County Medical Society, the Southern Illinois Medical So-
ciety, the Illinois State Medical Society and the American Medical
Association.
In his political allegiance Dr. Hoffman is a stalwart in the ranks
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1627
of the Republican party, and while a resident of Campbell Hill he
was there a participant in some of the local political battles. He de-
feated the Democratic incumbent of the office of supervisor in his pre-
cinct and won his election by a good lead against long political odds.
After serving for one year on the board, however, he found himself
chafing under the restraint put upon him by political friends and he
resigned the office with his ambition for public service gratified. He
belongs to the Blue Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of Masonry, is a
Modern Woodman of America, and in religious matters is a devout
member of the German Evangelical church, to whose good works he is
a liberal contributor.
In Chester, Illinois, on the 13th of November, 1902, Dr. Hoffman
was united in marriage to Miss Dora Ebers, a daughter of former Sheriff
William Ebers. Dr. and Mrs. Hoffman have three children, whose
names are here entered in respective order of birth : Ebers, Sabilla and
Ohmer.
EDWARD MAEYS. Although still a young man, being somewhat
under thirty years of age at this writing, Edward Maeys is forging
ahead in the business world, and has already amply demonstrated that
he possesses no slight ability in that sphere. As manager of the mer-
cantile business which his father has conducted at intermittent periods
since 1858, he has given evidence of a splendid capacity with reference
to managerial details and the manifold duties attendant upon a po-
sition such as he holds.
Edward Maeys was born in Maeystown, Illinois, on March 12, 1884.
He is the son of Jacob and Christine (Driemeyer) Maeys. The father
was born in Oggenheim, New Bavaria, Germany, on October 4, 1828,
and came to America with his parents when a mere babe. The Maeys
family located in Pennsylvania in 1832, where they remained for about
nine years, after which they removed to St. Louis. Their stay in that
city was but short, and they moved into Illinois, where the elder Maeys
became interested as a farmer. They secured a farm near the present
site of Maeystown, and in 1845 the father died, leaving his son Jacob
the head of the home. He continued with the farming for some years,
when he ventured into the saw-mill industry and built a saw mill. The
little mill which he erected and operated was the means of establishing
the town named Maeystown, out of deference to the man whose industry
and enterprise had brought about its existence.
In 1856 Jacob Maeys married Barbara Fisher. She died on January
9, 1880, leaving him three children, and on August 11, 1881, he con-
tracted a second marriage, when Christine Driemeyer became his wife.
Two children, Edward and Charles, were born of this latter union.
Shortly after his first marriage Mr. Maeys opened a general store in
the little town which represented the center of his industrial activities,
and soon thereafter he gave up the saw-mill business, devoting himself
to the store, which he continued to conduct until 1893, when he sold
out to his brother William. After ten years he bought back the busi-
ness, and he is still the virtual head of affairs, although much of the
cares of administration rest with his son Edward, who is the acting
manager of the business.
Mr. Maeys has been prominent in this section of the state for many
years. He is a Democrat in his political convictions, and has served
his town and county in various official capacities since his early life. At
one time he was county commissioner, and as a school director has done
especially good work for his town. Mr. and Mrs. Maeys are members of
the Evangelical church, and are active in its various departments. Mr.
1628 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Maeys is a director of the Waterloo State Bank, and was postmaster
of Maeystown from 1860 to 1893.
Edward Maeys, now the manager of his father's extensive business
interests, passed his early years as an attendant at the Maeystown pub-
lic schools. Following his graduation therefrom he entered the Bryant
& Stratton Commercial College of St. Louis, where he took a full and
complete course of instruction. Returning to his home on the comple-
tion of his college course, he became engaged as a grain buyer for the
Nanson Commission Company, and he served for four years in that
capacity. Following the termination of his connection with that com-
pany he was agent at Maeys Station for the St. Louis & I. M. Railroad
for some little time, but on October 1, 1907, he entered his father's store
as manager of the establishment, and in that position he has done most
efficient work, relieving his aged father of the cares of the business, with
which he was actively connected for so many years.
Like his father, Mr. Maeys is a loyal Democrat, and he shares in
the family faith as well, being a member of the Evangelical church. He
has been secretary of the Farmers' Telephone Company, of which or-
ganization the Maeys Company is a stockholder. Mr. Maeys is as yet
unmarried.
Charles Mayes, the brother of Edward, was born on January 12,
1886, at Maeystown, Illinois, and, like his brother, attended the Maeys-
town public schools in his boyhood. He later entered Walters Commer-
cial College of St. Louis Missouri, from which he was graduated in
1903, thereafter entering his father's store as a clerk at Maeystown.
He is now the manager of his father's store at Maeys station, and is
giving evidence of possession of the family traits of good business
ability which have characterized the activities of his father and his
brother Edward. He is a Democrat and a member of the Evangelical
church, in common with other members of the family.
On December 23, 1908, Mr. Maeys was married to Miss Leona
Struebig, of Waterloo, Illinois.
AUGUST REICHERT. Among the numerous Pulaski county farm-
ing men who have achieved a high degree of success in their chosen
industry and who have contributed no little share to the progress of
the county in a substantial way, August Reichert takes foremost rank.
His operations in an agricultural way have been as important to the
community as to himself, and his constant application of the zeal and
industry which is the birthright of the true German have been valu-
able factors in the sum of his accomplishments.
August Reichert is a native of Illinois. He is the son of German
parents who settled in St. Clair county when they immigrated from
the Fatherland. The father, Jacob Reichert, was born near Heidel-
berg in the German state of Baden in 1828, and when he grew to young
manhood and immigrated to America he was followed hither by his
aged parents, in the hope of bettering their condition in another land.
Jacob Reichert, Sr., the grandfather of August Reichert, died in St.
Clair county in 1863 at the age of eighty years. Jacob, Jr., was one of
six children, the others being Joseph, John, Catherine, who married
J. F. Weist, Agnes, who became Mrs. Philip Koestore and is now de-
ceased, and Therese. who married John Ditzel. The wife of Jacob Rei-
chert, Jr., and the mother of August was Frieda Hammann, and he was
one of eight children born to them. They were : Theresa, who married
Charles Arnold and passed away as a resident of St. Clair county ; John
Frederick, who is another of the more successful farmers of the Grand
Chain district ; August, previously mentioned ; Jacob, a resident of
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1629
Freeberg, Illinois ; John, of Seattle, Washington ; Rosa, of St. Clair
county; Mary, who died as the wife of Edward Cole, of St. Louis; and
Frieda, who married Fred Henslet, of San Diego, California. The mother
of this sturdy family lived to see fifty years of wedded joys and sor-
rows, and she passed quietly away at the home of the family in St.
Clair county in February, 1902, on her golden wedding anniversary.
The father, Jacob Reichert, Jr., saw his first glimpse of the United
States at New Orleans in 1848, and he worked his passage up the Missis-
sippi river to St. Louis as a fireman. He located near Freeburg, Illinois,
and passed many years as a farmer, moving by stages from the small
tiller of the soil to the position of a more prosperous agriculturist, and
becoming known as one of the solid men of his community. In later
years he entered into the brewing business and conducted a brewery
at Freeport with much success for a number of years. He passed away
in 1901, at the age of seventy-three years, his well beloved wife follow-
ing him in the next year.
When August Reichert began to cast about for a means of liveli-
hood for the future he was fairly well equipped in an educational way.
He had attended the common schools and the Catholic school at Free-
burg as a boy and youth, and the business of farming which he decided
to make his interests might well be conducted with such knowledge as
he possessed. His later life, however, bears evidence that he has per-
mitted no opportunity to escape which might add to his knowledge of
business, and he has been a close student of the science of modern agri-
culture, so that the passing of years has produced a man of excellent
ability, who has accomplished a success worthy of any man's effort.
When Mr. Reichert came down to Pulaski county as a young man he
brought all his worldly possessions of stock and farming implements
in one car, and he had in addition fifteen dollars in coin of the realm.
In St. Louis he sold one of his mules for one hundred and sixty dollars
and with this he made the first payment on his farm of one hundred
and sixty acres, which tract formed the nucleus of his now extensive
estate. The land was partly timbered, and there were stumps in plenty
and some little frontier improvements. That portion of Pulaski county,
while in an old and settled section of Illinois, was yet in a most primi-
tive state. Few settlers had pitched their tents there permanently until
after the close of the rebellion, and the farming done by them even then
was carried on in a most shiftless and half-hearted manner. It re-
quired the vim and vigor of such men as August Reichert and his
brother, John Frederick, to bring that neglected section up to the high
standard made possible by its natural excellence and the splendid facili-
ties for agricultural prosperity which the whole district affords. These
truly admirable traits of vim and vigor, industry and courage, were
thoroughly implanted in the character of August Reichert, and he ap-
plied them in lavish measure to the work of reducing his new farm to
that state at which it might justly be regarded as a home. He multi-
plied his little handful of stock until his herds assumed a nice propor-
tion ; he fed his corn to his hogs and raised more hogs ; he grazed his
cattle and winter and summer disposed of his marketable stuff. He
was able to meet his payments on his land promptly, and bought more
land adjacent to his original quarter section, tenant labor making them
productive for him. He built barns and sheds for the comfort of his
stock and completed a long line of valuable improvements in his prop-
erty when he built his present handsome residence, which is a model
of excellence and is typical of the best in country homes. His farm
has increased to an average of seven hundred and sixty acres and it
provides a home for a goodly number of tenant families and gives labor
1630 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
to many people. In brief, the horoscope of August Reichert read from
the stars at the time he began his career in Pulaski county could hardly
have been so glitterig an account as his actual achievements show it.
Grand Chain has always been his principal trading point, owing to its
nearness and its numerous other conveniences. He encouraged the es-
tablishment of a bank at the little town by taking generously of its
stock, and he is also a member of the Grand Chain Mercantile Company,
one of the leading concerns of the place, and has in many ways exerted
a beneficial influence upon the town and surrounding country. Mr.
Reichert has always been an adherent of the Democratic party and has
given his hearty support to the cause. He will always be found to
have an opinion and -voice in matters concerning the welfare of his com-
munity, and his influence may be depended upon to further the cause
of justice and honor at all times.
Mr. Reichert was married on September 6, 1880, to Miss Louisa
Rauth, the daughter of Fred Rauth, a German immigrant and a farmer.
A fine family of eleven sturdy sons and daughters have been reared in
the Reichert home. They are: Lena, the wife of Ed. Merchant, of
Kansas City, Missouri ; John A., who married Clara Roach and is one
of the successful Grand Chain farmers; Frederick married Lucy
Stevers, and they are located in the near vicinity of the old home ; Adam,
August, Robert, Ida, Katie, Clara, Parmelia and Alene are yet in the
shelter of the parental home.
HOSEA H. MOORE, M. D. Numbered among the foremost citizens of
Fairfield is Dr. Hosea H. Moore, a retired physician, who is now de-
voting his entire time and attention to his extensive agricultural in-
terests. A native of Illinois, he was born November 18, 1842, in Wash-
ington county, being the next to the youngest child in a family of
sixteen.
His father, Hartwell Moore, was born in Virginia in about 1797. As
a young man he moved to Kentucky, from there coming, in the 'twenties,
to Illinois. Locating in Washington county, he took up land and was
there engaged in tilling the soil until his death, in 1863. He married
Cynthia Wright, a native of Kentucky, and of the sixteen children
born of their union ten grew to years of maturity, as follows: Mrs.
Nancy (Roundtree) Hawkins, Mrs. Jane Christian, Mrs. Lucinda
Wheeler, Mrs. Elizabeth Sawyer, Mrs. Mary Roundtree, John, Nathan-
iel, Thomas W., Sidney and Hosea H. Mrs Hawkins, Thomas W. and
Hosea are the only members of the family now living.
Brought up in Washington county, Hosea H. Moore received good
educational advantages, in the spring of 1865 being graduated from the
medical department of the University of Michigan, with the degree of
M. D. Immediately beginning the practice of medicine in Washington
county, Illinois, he remained there until 1878, when he entered Mc-
Kendree College, where in addition to taking the regular course in
surgery he studied elocution, in 1882 being there graduated with the
degree of B. S. Settling in Wayne county, Illinois, in that year, Dr.
Moore purchased land in Massillon township, and in addition to look-
ing after his farming interests was there engaged in the practice of his
profession for a score of years, being quite successful as a physician.
In 1897 the Doctor removed to Fairfield, and having retired from the
active practice of his profession is busily employed in supervising his
two farms, one of which, containing four hundred and eighty-five acres,
is located in Massillon township, while the other farm of seventy acres
lies near Fairfield.
The Doctor is one of the directors of the First National Bank of
at IHE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1631
Fairfield. He belongs to Fairfield Lodge, No. 206, Ancient Free and
Accepted Order of Masons, of Fairfield, and is the present master, and
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Politically he is iden-
tified with the Democratic party, and has filled various township offices,
for a number of terms representing Massillon township on the county
board of supervisors.
Dr. Moore married, in 1865, Ellen W. Walker, a daughter of Presley
Walker, of Washington county. Five children have been born to Dr.
and Mrs. Moore, namely : Dalton P., publisher of the Olney Times, is
married, and has one child, Eugene W. Moore ; William Edgar, a farmer,
is married and has three children, Nellie, and William and Sarah, twins ;
Effie deceased ; and Mrs. Mary E. Monts, who has one child, George
Albert Moats, and Nellie, who died at the age of nine years. Mrs. Moore
was born in St. Clair county, Illinois, September 7, 1844, and was
reared and educated in St. Clair and Washington counties. She is a
member of the Methodist church.
CAPTAIN ALFRED S. LIGHTNER, retired river man since 1910, and a
resident of Randolph, Illinois, at intermittent periods since 1885, but
continuously since his retirement, is a man of wide experiences and one
of the most interesting men to be found in his section of the country.
For fifty-six years he was in the river service, a part of that time ex-
tending back to the ante-bellum days, and covering several years of the
old regime in the days of Sam Clemens, Horace Bixby and the high-tide
of navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. From "cub" pilot
to captain is the experience of Captain Lightner, and he has seen diver-
sity of service from first to last that is replete with thrilling and often
amusing incidents.
Alfred S. Lightner was born at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on March
23, 1835. His father, Levi L. Lightner, settled in Cape Girardeau
when there were only five white families in the place, and he built the
first brick house there. He was born in Lancaster county, Pennsyl-
vania, in 1806, and he came down the Ohio river on a keel boat as an
emigrant to a new country. He engaged in traffic with the Indians in
and about the Cape for some time, and then crossed over to Illinois and
engaged in milling, cutting lumber out of the dense and virgin forests
of Alexander county, in which place he took a prominent part in the
affairs of the county during its formative period. With the high water
of 1844 he returned to the Missouri side of the river. Coming again to
Illinois, he joined Jonathan Freeman and platted the town of Thebes.
He was mainly instrumental in removing the county seat from Old Unity
to Thebes, and in causing the erection of the old court house which still
looks out upon the ' ' Father of Waters ' ' from its lofty site and calls at-
tention to its one time importance when, as a public forum, it gave echo
to the voices of some of the most brilliant of Illinois men. Levi Light-
ner was essentially a leader in political thought and action. In those
early days he held many important public offices, and in them all served
capably and significantly. He was circuit clerk, county judge and
school commissioner. He was first a Whig in his political convictions,
but later embraced Democracy, and he was an acquaintance of General
Logan, John Simons, John Daugherty, Watt Webb and a Mr. Baker,
all attorneys and all leading citizens of the state just previous to and
during the rebellion. He was a man of ripe judgment, an able adviser,
and a thorough master of legal forms, and his office was a popular ren-
dezvous for persons seeking services along legal and official lines. He
was a singularly attractive man. being well informed on the topics of
the day and was a brilliant conversationalist. Mr. Lightner was first
1632 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
married to a lady of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and five children were
born of their union. They were Matilda, Louisa, Julia, Elizabeth and
John, all deceased. The second wife of Mr. Lightner was Eleanor Shel-
by a daughter of Dr. Shelby, of Nashville, Tennessee, and a niece of Ex-
Governor Shelby of that state. The issue of their union were Alfred S.,
of this review, and Levi L., the latter of whom served in the United
States navy during the Civil war and was a pilot and master on the
Mississippi river for many years after the close of the war. He passed
away at Thebes.
Alfred S. Lightner spent his boyhood chiefly in Thebes, the family
home, and there he received an ordinary common school education. In
1854 he went on the river as a "cub" pilot with Pilot John L. Harbin-
son on the steamer "Bunker Hill" from St. Louis to Cairo and Paducah.
He subsequently became captain of the steamer "George Albree" in
1856. Later he was pilot of the "Tom Jones," of the "Atlanta," the
"Philadelphia," the "James H. Lucas," the "Platte Valle," the "G.
W. Graham," the "John H. Dickey," the "First City of Alton," the
"City of Cairo" the "Marble City," and the "John D. Perry." He
was captain of the "Adam Jacobs," the "Emma C. Elliott," the
"Buckeye State," the steamer "Oakland," the "Hill City," the
"Georgie Lee," and the "Stacker Lee," which ended his river service
in 1910.
During the rebellion Captain Lightner was captain of the fleet
steamer "Illinois," which transported some of General Grant's men
from Bird Point to Fort Henry, his vessel having on board the Twen-
tieth Illinois and the Eighth Missouri Infantry, in the command of Col-
onels Marsh and Marion L. Smith. After the fall of Fort Henry he took
his vessel around to Fort Donelson and later up the river to Pittsburgh
Landing. Some months later he was an officer of the steamer Bonicord,
carrying troops to Island No. 10 and Fort Pillow, and at other time he
was in the transport service of the government. During all these years
he never met with an accident or saw a boat in distress, although he
passed over the spot within a few hours where the steamer "Sultan,"
commanded by Captain Cass. L. Mason, went down with its hundreds of
Union soldiers.
During these years Captain Lightner had maintained a home for his
his family in St. Louis, but he became anxious to remove his growing
family away from the city into the country, and he accordingly ex-
changed his city property for the General Miller farm near Percy, Illi-
nois, which has represented the family home since 1885. There he makes
his home now, after his family have reached years of manhood and wom-
anhood and have passed out into the world to be makers of history on
their own accounts in the various walks of life. The Captain is a man
of homelike instincts and enjoys to the utmost the pleasure of a happy
home after his half century of fresh-water sailing. He has no interest
in politics save as a voter of the Democratic ticket on occasions, and
he cast his first presidential vote for Millard Fillmore and his last one
for W. J. Bryan.
Captain Lightner has been twice married. His first wife was Miss
Amanda M. Grouse, whom he married in St. Louis on April 12, 1859.
She was a daughter of Samuel Grouse, of Zanesville, Ohio, and she
died in St. Louis. She was the mother of A. Shelby, who died unmar-
ried ; Lena Leota, the wife of August Heman, a prominent contractor of
St. Louis; Mollie B., who married J. C. Heman, also a member of the
firm of the Heman Construction Company, of that city ; Lillian A., the
wife of Charles B. Griffin, who is with the Great Northern Railway
Company at Havre, Montana ; "William L., a railroad employe at Salt
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1633
Lake, Utah; and Minnie, of New York. The second wife of Captain
Lightner was Mrs. Elizabeth Pollock, the widow of Dr. Pollock, of Ches-
ter, Illinois. Her father was an old settler of Kaskaskia. Her chil-
dren are John Pollock and Ada, the latter of whom is the wife of
David B. Cooper. No children have been born of the Captain's second
marriage.
HERMAN H. BECKEMEYER, now serving his fourth year as post-
master at Beckemeyer, has spent the greater part of. his life in Clinton
county, and has contributed his full share towards promoting its edu-
cational and industrial interests, in the meantime gaining for himself
the reputation of one who deserves the confidence and trust of his
fellow-men. Coming from substantial German ancestry, he was born
April 27, 1859, in Saint Louis county, Missouri.
His father, the late Christian Beckemeyer, was born in Westphalia,
Germany, May 9, 1822, and was there bred and educated. Immigrat-
ing with his family to the United States in 1857, he located in Saint
Louis county, Missouri, where he was for five years employed in till-
ing the soil. Coming to Clinton county, Illinois, in 1862, he settled
near the present town of Beckemeyer, which, upon its organization,
was named in his honor. Purchasing a tract of land, he carried on
general farming with good results until his death, December 20, 1880.
He became well known throughout the community as a man of sterling
integrity, and was held in high esteem by his neighbors and associates.
He never assumed citizenship, but his political sympathies were with
the Republican party. Religiously he was a member of the German
Evangelical church. He married, in Westphalia, Germany, in 1846,
Christina Poss, a native of that city, and to them eight sons and one
daughter were born, Herman H., the youngest child, being the only
one born on American soil. The mother, who attained the venerable
age of eighty-six years, passed away in 1902.
But four years of age when his parents moved to Illinois, Herman
H. Beckemeyer received his preliminary education in the public schools
of this county, and having completed his early studies at the Illinois
Normal School, in Normal, Illinois, he taught school for a number of
years in Clinton county, being successful and popular in his pedagogi-
cal work. For a short time Mr. Beckemeyer conducted a small general
store, and is now engaged in the insurance business to some extent. In
1908 he was appointed postmaster at Beckemeyer, and has since filled
the office most efficiently and satisfactorily.
A stanch Republican in politics, Mr. Beckemeyer has held various
town offices, and from 1901 until 1908 was one of the trustees of the
Carbondale Normal School, having been appointed to the position by
Governor Yates. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows and of the Rebekah Lodge ; of the Modern Woodmen of
America ; of the Royal Neighbors of America, and of the Loyal Ameri-
cans. True to the religious faith of his parents, he is a member of the
German Evangelical church, and for many years was superintendent
of the Methodist Sunday-school.
Mr. Beckemeyer married, November 26, 1881, Miss Annie M. Ack-
mann, of Breese, Illinois, and of their union two children have been
born, namely : Professor Harry J., of Hillsboro, Illinois, and Dr. Al-
bert W., of Sedalia, Missouri.
WALTER SONS. As cashier of the First National Bank of Fairfield, .
Walter Sons is actively identified with one of the solid institutions of
Wayne county, the sound financial basis upon which it rests being
1634 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
partly due to his tact and ability. He was born January 17, 1882,
near Jefferson, Wayne county, Illinois, on the farm of his father, Oliver
P. Sons. He is of pioneer stock, his grandfather, James Sons, who was
accompanied by his brother William, having in the 'forties migrated
from Tennessee to Southern Illinois, settling on land near Enterprise.
Oliver P. Sons was born in Wayne county, Illinois, in 1849, and has
here spent his life, during his active career having been successfully
engaged in agricultural pursuits, and is one of the leading citizens of
the neighborhood. . He married Mary Ellen Harmon, a daughter of
Daniel and Mahala (Alford) Harmon, who migrated from Ohio to
Wayne county in 1844. Eight children blessed their union, as follows:
Walter, the subject of this brief biographical review ; Jesse L., engaged
in farming two miles north of Pairfield; Mrs. Laura Cravens, living
near Logan, Kansas; Charles and Clayton, living with their parents;
Mrs. Carrie Gaston, of Sims, Illinois; and Vena and Lorene, living at
home. Mr. and Mrs. Sons are members of the Baptist church.
Completing his early studies in the public schools of Jeffersonville,
Walter Sons taught school for a year, after which he took a course of
study at the Southern Illinois Normal University in Carbondale. On
September 12, 1903, Mr. Sons entered the First National Bank of
Fairfield as bookkeeper, and proved himself so capable and faithful
that on March 1, 1911, he was made cashier of the bank, of which he
is also a director. He is a landholder, owning some good farming lands
in Wayne county.
Mr. Sons married, December 7, 1910, Mary S. Dickey, a daughter
of T. L. Dickey, a well-known merchant of Fairfield. Fraternally Mr.
Sons is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons,
and religiously he and his wife attend the Methodist Episcopal church.
JAMES HENRY KRAMER. A man of distinctive force and energy,
James Henry Kramer is a prominent factor in the promotion of the
industrial and mercantile interests of Wayne county, having for the
past five years been secretary, treasurer and general manager of the
Southern Illinois Lumber Company, which has its main yard and office
in Fairfield, and in January, 1912, he was elected president of the
Southern Illinois Lumber Association. A son of Henry Kramer, he was
born October 24, 1855, on a Wabash county, Illinois, farm. His pa-
ternal grandfather, Henry Kramer, Sr., emigrated from Prussia to
America with his family, settling in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he
spent a few years, and then removed to Wabash county, Illinois. He
was a shoemaker and farm owner. His death occurred when he was
about eighty years of age.
Born in May, 1830, in Saarbruck, Prussia, Henry Kramer came with
his parents to the United States when a boy, and in Allentown, Penn-
sylvania, and Wabash county, Illinois, was reared and educated. In
1873 he came to Wayne county, where he is now living, his home being
near Fairfield. He married Martha Colverley who was born in
Beverly, England, and came with her parents to this country in 1842.
Twelve children were born of their union, three of whom died in
infancy and two in later life, Samuel passing away at the age of forty
years, and William when eighteen years of age. The seven now, in
1912, living are as follows: Hon. E. C. Kramer, of East Saint Louis;
T. A., an attorney in El Dorado, Kansas : R. J., engaged in the practice
of law at East Saint Louis; H. S., a real estate dealer in East Saint
Louis: James Henry, the special subject of this brief personal record;
Mrs. Sophia Bell, of El Dorado, Kansas ; and Clara, living with her
parents.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS; 1635
Receiving his rudimentary education in the district schools, James
Henry Kramer afterwards attended the high school and a normal school
in Indiana. He assisted in the care of the home farm until attaining
his majority, and the ensuing nine years taught school, principally in
the vicinity of Fairfield, his parents having settled in this part of
Wayne county in 1873. Proving himself a most capable and efficient
instructor and manager, Mr. Kramer in 1886 was elected superintend-
ent of the Wayne county schools, and served in that capacity for eight
years. Embarking in the real estate business in 1894, he dealt in realty
and farmed for six years. In 1900 he purchased a third interest in a
lumber yard, and for a number of years carried on a substantial busi-
ness as junior member of the firm of Dickey, Summers & Kramer, each
year extending his operations. In 1907 this firm was incorporated
under the name of the Southern Illinois Lumber Company, which owns
in addition to its original yard in Fairfield, yards in Wayne City, Mill
Shoals, Cisne, Enfield, Albion, Dahlgren, West Salem and Ashley. In-
dividually Mr. Kramer owns a yard in Ridgway.
This enterprising firm has a capital of $63,500, while the amount of
stock in its numerous yards is about $50,000, and its annual business
aggregates $150,000 or more. Its original officers were men of ac-
knowledged ability, F. M. Brock being president ; T. L. Dickey, vice-
president ; James H. Kramer, secretary, treasurer and general manager.
The staunch adherent of the Republican party, Mr. Kramer has
faithfully fulfilled his obligations as a loyal citizen, and for one term
served as mayor of Fairfield. Fraternally he is a member of the
Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons ; of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows; and of the Modern Woodmen of America. Re-
ligiously he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He is a
stockholder and director of the Fairfield National Bank, of which he
was one of the twelve men that organized the institution.
Mr. Kramer married, in 1883, Ellen Wilson, a daughter of John
Wilson, and they have three children, namely : Mrs. Hayward Yohe,
who has three children, Richard, Ellen Wilson and Theodore Graydon ;
Mrs. Camille Topper, who has two children, Frances Margaret and
James Henry ; and Theodore James, having charge of the lumber yard
at Ridgway, is married and has one child, Henry Randolph Kramer.
ULLA S. STALEY. A man of sound judgment and excellent business
ability, Ulla S. Staley has for many years been an active force in ad-
vancing the financial prosperity of Wayne county, as cashier of the
Fairfield National Bank of Fairfield being intimately acquainted with
the material resources of this section of Southern Illinois, which are
being rapidly and wisely developed. A son of Samuel Martin Staley,
he was born July 30, 1854, in Grayville, White county, Illinois, where
he grew to man's estate.
Samuel Martin Staley was born in Tennessee, in 1823, and as a boy
came to Southern Illinois. Beginning life for himself in White county,
Illinois, he carried on general farming on rented land for a time, and
then went to Grayville, where he was engaged in mercantile and mill-
ing business until 1875, meeting with fair success. Coming then with
his family to Wayne county, Illinois, he first embarked in the hardware
business, and later, as an orchardist. cultivated fruit on an extensive
scale, having under his care one hundred acres of apple and pear trees,
mostly apples. For a few years after retiring from horticultural pur-
suits he carried on a grocery business in Fairfield, remaining a resident
of this part of the state until his death, February 13, 1908, when past
eighty-five years of age. He was a man of deep religious convictions.
1636 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and a valued member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He married,
first, Harriet Melrose, who died in 1859. Of the five children born of
their marriage three died in infancy and two are living, as follows:
UlhvS., the special subject of this brief sketch, and George A., a real
estate dealer in Fairfield. Samuel Martin Staley married for his second
wife Rebecca Melrose, who died in 1869, leaving three children, namely :
Charles M., in the patent office at Washington, D. C., has been in the
government employ since 1881; Mrs. Harriet S. Craig, of Dallas, Texas;
and John E., of Portland, Oregon. Mr. Staley married for his third
wife Mrs. Sarah J. Allen, who survives him. They had one child, Ella,
who died in 1899.
Obtaining his preliminary knowledge in the public schools of Gray-
ville, Ulla S. Staley attended the Illinois Wesleyan University, in
Bloomington, for two years. At the age of twenty-one years he began
his career as a teacher, and taught successfully one year in McLean
county and one year in White county. Coming to Fairfield in 1877, he
immediately accepted a position in the bank of E. Bonham & Company,
and remained with them as assistant and cashier until their failure in
1893. The bank with which he is now connected was first organized as a
private institution, on March 1, 1894, by twelve prominent citizens of
Fairfield, and conducted as such until February 4, 1903, when it became
the Fairfield National Bank of Fairfield. The bank is in a flourishing
condition, and has for its officers men of ability and good standing,
Adam Rinard being president ; George W. Johns, first vice-president ;
E. W. Pendleton, second vice-president; Ulla S. Staley, cashier; and
Asa F. Keene, assistant cashier. Its directors at this time are as fol-
lows: Adam Rinard, George W. Johns, E. W. Pendleton, Harry K.
Johnson, E. Steiner, C. W. Summers, John M. Rapp, Jacob R. Creigh-
ton, C. C. Boggs; and James H. Kramer, all of whom, with the excep-
tion of Mr. Boggs, were members of the original company. The bank
is capitalized at $70,000, and has deposits of $280,000, with surplus re-
sources of $425,000, and pays two and three per cent interest on time
deposits. Mr. Staley is likewise one of the directors of the Farmers
Bank at Mount Erie, Illinois. He is also interested in farm land, own-
ing, with three other men, six hundred and forty acres near Sims, and
having title to one hundred acres in Arkansas.
Mr. Staley has been three times married. He married first, in April,
1879, Elizabeth Johnson, a daughter of Mrs. Barbara Ann Johnson,
who was born in Ohio eighty-seven years ago, and is now living in Illi-
nois, having come to this state with her parents when a child. Mrs.
Elizabeth Johnson Staley passed to the higher life in 1881, leaving one
child, Mrs. Libble Byer. Mr. Staley married, in May, 1886, Ida M.
Morey, a daughter of John Morey, who was born in December, 1828,
and is now living in Watertown, South Dakota. She died in 1894, leav-
ing two children, Mary Morey Staley and Harriet Florence Staley. In
1898 Mr. Staley married for his third wife Anna M. Melrose. a daugh-
ter of Frank Melrose, and of their union three children have been born,
namely : Janet M. Staley ; George Frederick Staley, who lived but six
short years ; and Samuel M. Staley. Mr. and Mrs. Staley are members
of the Methodist Episcopal church.
JAMES LARKIN BORAH, D. D. S. A well-known and popular resident
of Fairfield, James Larkin Borah, D. D. S.. is one of the leading repre-
sentatives of that city, keeping pace with the times in regard to the
valuable discoveries and improvements that have been made in dentis-
try in recent years. A son of Elhanan M. Borah, he was born June 17,
1880, in Wayne county, Illinois, and reared on the home farm.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1637
James L. Borah enlisted for service in the Spanish-American war,
becoming a member of Company A, Vance's Illinois Volunteers, and
with his regiment did duty in Cuba. Returning home at the expira-
tion of his term of enlistment, he entered the Saint Louis University,
and in 1905 was graduated from its dental department. Immediately
locating in Fairfield, Dr. Borah has here met with veritable success as
a dentist, his professional knowledge and skill having gained for him
a substantial patronage. Fraternally the Doctor is a member of Fair-
field Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; of Fairfield Chapter
Royal Arch Masons, of Fairfield ; of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows ; and of the Modern Woodmen of America.
In February, 1905, Dr. Borah married Elsie Herrmann, of Saint
Louis, Missouri, a daughter of Augustus and Rosa (Leuch) Herrmann,
natives of Germany, and they have one child, Charles Edward Borah,
born in 1906.
Dr. Borah's paternal grandfather, George Borah, was born in Ken-
tucky, in 1795. Sometime in the 'twenties he migrated to Illinois, with
his brothers, Samuel and William, settling in Wayne county at a time
when the Indians were numerous and troublesome. He took up land,
improved a good homestead, and was engaged in farming until his death,
in 1860, being killed by a horse. He was three times married and the
father of several children, but owing to his untimely death the family
records were lost, and but little ancestral history is now available. He
married for his second wife a Miss Bendsham. After her death he
visited Macon county, and while there met Lorena Montgomery, who
subsequently became his third wife. She was born in Nashville, Ten-
nessee, in 1804, a daughter of Robert Montgomery, a pioneer of Macon
county, whose son, Robert Montgomery, Jr., was one of the first settlers
of Decatur, Macon county, and helped build the third house erected in
that place, and was thereafter a resident until his death, in 1867, at the
age of ninety-eight years. Of the third marriage of George Borah three
sons were born, namely : Robert, who died while yet a youth ; Lyman,
who served as a soldier in the Civil war, died in 1874 ; and Elhanan
M., whose birth occurred April 16, 1849, while his mother was visiting
at her old home in Decatur, Illinois.
Brought up on the home farm in Massillon township, Elhanan Borah
had but limited educational advantages. After the death of his father
he had a hard time for several years, in addition to earning his own
living helping to support his widowed mother. Buying land in Massil-
lon township in 1875, he improved the forty acres, and having been
eminently successful as an agriculturist has since purchased other tracts,
at one time owning over five hundred acres. Since 1911 he has sold
three hundred and sixty acres of land, but still retains the ownership
of his valuable farm of one hundred and twenty acres. Retiring from
active labor in the fall of 1909, Mr. Borah moved to Fairfield, where
he owns a fine residence and several city lots. He has also money in
both of the city banks. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal
church and a Republican in politics. While living in Massillon town-
ship he served as school director.
Mr. Borah married, in 1875, Ada Wilson, who was born in Spring-
field, Illinois, in April, 1855. Her father, Benjamin Wilson, was born
in Pennsylvania, of German ancestry, and died in Illinois in 1856. His
wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Higbie, was three times mar-
ried, Mr. Wilson being her third husband. She had one son by a former
marriage, Edward Bitteman, now living in Lexington, Kentucky, and
by her union with Mr. Wilson had six daughters. Ten children have
been born to Mr. and Mrs. Elhanan Borah, namely : Peter C., a farmer
1638 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and merchant in Massillon township, is married and has three children,
Vernie May, Perry Clayton and Gladys; William, deceased; James L.,
the subject of this brief sketch ; Oliver C., a dentist in Olney, Illinois ;
Clem R. a real estate dealer in Fairfield, is married and has three chil-
dren, Leonard, Oran and Donald; Blanche died at the age of four
years; Mary Elizabeth, at home with her parents; Mamie, who died
when twelve years old ; Loco Wilson, attending the Fairfield high
school: and Otto Edward. Peter C. Borah, the oldest son, also served
in the Spanish- American war, enlisting in Company A, Vance's Illinois
Volunteers, and with his brother James accompanied the regiment to
Cuba. At Jacksonville, Florida, he was stricken with typhoid fever,
and from its effects has never recovered, being still a cripple.
CHARLES C. JOHNSON. Courteous, efficient and painstaking, Charles
C. Johnson, county clerk of Wayne county, is administering the affairs
of his office wisely, conscientiously and with a thoroughness that
has proved entirely satisfactory to all with whom he has business
dealings. A son of A. R. Johnson, he was born in Wayne county, Illi-
nois, on an Elm River township farm. He is of Irish ancestry, his great-
grandfather, John Johnson, a native of Ireland, having immigrated to
America when young, settling in Pennsylvania, where he married a
a native daughter of Pennsylvania of German descent. His grand-
father, George Johnson, was born in Ohio, August 24, 1826. Migrating
to Southern Illinois in 1843, he settled in Wayne county, and is still
living in Cisne, a venerable and highly respected man of eighty-six years.
He married Nancy Trotter, who was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. She died
in 1892.
Born in Wayne county, Illinois, January 10, 1860, A. R. Johnson
has devoted his energies to the development of the soil, and as a farmer
and live stock raiser has met with unquestioned success, his farm of
two hundred and eighty acres, located in Elm River township, being one
of the best improved and most desirable in that locality. Prominent
in public affairs, he has held various official positions, including those
of township supervisor and collector.
A. R. Johnson married Olive Brown, who was born in Flora, Clay
county, Illinois, July 28, 1862, a daughter of William Brown, and
granddaughter of Isaac Brown, who was of Irish descent, and for many
years a resident of Ohio. William Brown, a native of Ohio, migrated to
Illinois in 1854, locating in Clay county, where he lived until his death, in
December, 1864. His wife, whose maiden name was Lucy J. Murphy, was
of Scotch-Irish lineage, and the descendant of a family that moved from
Tennessee to Illinois in pioneer days. Mrs. Lucy J. (Murphy) Brown
survived her husband but a few weeks, passing away in January, 1865.
Six children were born of the union of Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Johnson, as
follows : Charles C., the special subject of this brief sketch ; James
Alvis, living in Wayne county, near Cisne; Mrs. Lucy J. Hubble, of
Clay county; Mrs. Maud Hill, of Chicago, where her husband is em-
ployed as a bookkeeper; Ross Leroy, engaged in farming near Jeffer-
sonville ; and Mrs. Olive Mabel Hubble, of Wayne county.
Growing to manhood on the home farm, Charles C. Johnson ac-
quired his education in the common schools and at Orchard City Col-
lege, in Flora, Illinois. Engaging in educational work at the age of
nineteen years, he taught school in Wayne county six terms, when, in
March, 1902, he was made deputy county clerk. Resigning the position
at the end of sixteen months, Mr. Johnson farmed and taught school for
three years. In the summer of 1906 he was the Republican nominee
for county clerk, and made a strong canvass against heavy odds for the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1639
nomination, which he secured. At the election he received a majority
of three hundred and eighty-four votes, heading his entire ticket, a
victory, indeed, for a young man of twenty-five years, with no special
pull. In 1910 Mr. Johnson was re-elected to the same position, and led
his ticket by two hundred and sixty votes over all other candidates,
being elected by eight hundred and eighteen majority, and is now
serving his second term as county clerk. He has accumulated considera-
ble property, having two hundred and forty-eight acres of land, lying
in Elm River township, northeast of Fairfield, two hundred acres being
bottom land, from which he is developing a rich and fertile farm.
Fraternally Mr. Johnson is a member of Fairfield Lodge, Ancient
Free and Accepted Order of Masons ; and of Olney Lodge, Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks. He is an active member of the Method-
ist Episcopal church, with which he united at the age of seventeen years.
Mr. Johnson married, in 1906, Jennie W. Todd, who was born in
Montgomery county, Illinois, a daughter of David J. and Sarah (Both-
well) Todd. Her father was born and reared in Ohio, and on coming
from there to Southern Illinois located first in Clay county, later re-
moving to Montgomery county. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson have two chil-
dren, namely: Lowell C. and Vernette.
GEORGE A. STALEY. A well-known and prosperous business man of
Fairfield, George A Staley is not only an insurance agent and real estate
dealer, but negotiates loans, his operations in each line being quite ex-
tensive. A native of Illinois, he was born April 10, 1849, on a farm in
White county, near Epworth, being a son of Samuel M. and Harriet
(Melrose) Staley, and a brother of U. S. Staley.
After leaving the public schools of his native county, George A.
Staley spent a year at the State Normal School in Normal, Illinois, and
three years at McKendree College, being a member of that institution
from 1870 until 1873. The ensuing two years Mr. Staley taught in
Grayville, under Professor J. H. Bromley. Settling in Fairfield, Wayne
county, in 1875, he engaged in the hardware business with his father,
and under the administration of President Arthur served as deputy
postmaster under General T. W. Scott. Going to the far west in 1888,
Mr. Staley located in Oregon, and for six years was bookkeeper in a
wholesale hardware concern. Returning to Fairfield in 1894, he has
since been actively engaged in the loan, insurance and real estate busi-
ness, in his undertakings being fairly successful. He has acquired title
to large tracts of land, being owner of eight hundred acres in Missouri ;
eighty acres near Fair Grounds, at Fairfield, Missouri ; one hundred
and sixty acres near Sims, Illinois ; and has an interest in twelve hun-
dred acres of the finest land in Arkansas, it being located in Marion
county. He has established a profitable loan business, and as an in-
surance agent represents the Boston Insurance Company and the Citi-
zens' Insurance Company of Chicago.
Mr. Staley married, December 30, 1874, S. Amelia Merritt. of Bloom-
ington. Illinois, a daughter of John and Caroline (Bishop) Merritt, na-
tives of Tarrytown, New York, and they have one child, John M. Staley,
of Los Angeles, California, who is associated with the Bell Telephone
Company as a railway contractor. Fraternally Mr. Staley is a mem-
ber of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and religiously he is
affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal church. Politically he is a firm
supporter of the principles of the Republican party.
EDWARD A. MARTIN. Occupying an assured position among the sub-
stantial business men of Fairfield, Edward A. Martin has for many
1640 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
years been intimately associated with the development and advance-
ment of its agricultural, industrial and mercantile prosperity, as a mdn
and a citizen being held in high repute. A son of Thomas A. Martin,
he was born February 23, 1868, in Clay county, Illinois, on a farm, com-
ing from pioneer stock. His great-grandfather on the paternal side
migrated from Virginia to Kentucky at an early day, and in 1816 be-
came a pioneer settler of Wayne county, Illinois. One of his uncles, a
Joseph Martin, established, as early as 1800, a mill near Martins creek
in Wayne county, it being the first mill operated by horse power in the
county. Mr. Martin's grandfather, James D. Martin, was born in Vir-
ginia in 1818, and died in Clay county, Illinois, in 1872. He married
Jane White, and they reared several children.
Thomas A. Martin was born in Wayne county, Illinois, February
19, 1841, and grew to man's estate on the parental homestead. In 1861
he moved to Clay county, and having established a store at Clay City
conducted it successfully for a few years. Settling in Fairfield, Wayne
county, in 1873, he embarked in mercantile pursuits, opening a large
mercantile establishment, which, as head of the firm of Martin & Sum-
mers, he operated until his death, in 1892, being one of the foremost
merchants of the city.
Thomas A. Martin was twice married. He married first, in 1864,
Ann Golliher, a daughter of Henry Golliher, who came from Ohio to
Illinois in pioneer days. She died in 1870, having borne him three
children, as follows: Mrs. Lillie M. Wood, who has resided in York
county, Nebraska, since 1888 ; Edward A., the subject of this brief bio-
graphical sketch ; and a child that died in infancy. He married for his
second wife Nancy McCollum, and they became the parents of four
children, namely : Mary E., who died in 1874 ; Henry T., an attorney
in Chicago, is in partnership with Edward D. Pomeroy, and has offices
at 277 Dearborn street ; Mrs. Grace E. Link, of Springfield, Missouri ;
and Frank C., a lieutenant in the United States navv, now serving on
board the "Ohio".
Educated in the Fairfield schools and at the old Hayward College,
Edward A. Martin spent his vacations in Martin & Summers' store,
and after leaving school was for two years employed in the Fairfield
Woolen Mills. Going to Nebraska in 1884, he was employed on a farm
for four years, and in a planing mill in Missouri for two years. Return-
ing to Fairfield in 1890, Mr. Martin worked in a lumber yard for two
years, when, in October, 1892, he embarked in the hardware business
with Mr. Foster. In February, 1895, he bought out his partner's in-
terest in the business, which he managed satisfactorily until January
20, 1911, when he sold out.
Mr. Martin was actively engaged in farming during the year 1911,
and on January 1, 1912, opened a real estate office in Fairfield, where
he is meeting with most encouraging results considering the brief time
that he has been dealing in realty. Mr. Martin owns a valuable estate,
"The Banner Land Farm", which is advantageously located about six
miles from Fairfield, it being one of the choice farms of this part of the
county.
Politically Mr. Martin is identified with the Democratic forces, and
has served as supervisor of Grover township. Fraternally he is a mem-
ber of the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, belonging to
lodge and chapter ; of the Knights of Pythias ; and of the Modern Wood-
men of America. Religiously he is a member of the Methodist Episco-
pal church.
Mr. Martin married, September 26, 1892, Lydia A. Smith, a daugh-
ter of William and Amanda C. Smith, her father having been a veteran
TTTfc 'LIBRARY
OF THE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1641
of the Civil war. Four children have brightened the union of Mr. and
Mrs. Martin, namely: Thomas W., Clarence S., Mildred A. and
Leona A.
VIRGIL WILSON MILLS. Eminently worthy of representation in a
work of this character is Virgil Wilson Mills, of Fairfield, a native-born
son of Wayne county, who is now rendering excellent service as county
judge of the county. A son of John Mills, his birth occurred at Mount
Erie, Illinois, March 16, 1879.
John Mills was born in 1838, in Tuscarawas county, Illinois, a son
of John Mills, Sr. He was of Scotch-Irish stock, although his immediate
ancestors immigrated from England to the United States, settling first
in New England. A short time prior to the outbreak of the Civil war
he moved to Illinois, settling on a farm in Wayne county. Subse-
quently enlisting in Company E, Fortieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry,
he went to the front with his command, and in April, 1862, at the Battle
of Shiloh, was so severely wounded that he was confined in the hospital
for a year. Being discharged in 1863, he returned to his home, and was
there engaged in general farming until his death, March 11, 1910. He
married Katherine Young, and into their household three children were
born, as follows : Virgil Wilson, with whom this brief sketch is princi-
pally concerned; John E., living on the old farm in Mount Erie, Wayne
county ; and Frank, a farmer, living neart Mount Erie.
Acquiring his rudimentary education in the public schools, Virgil W.
Mills continued his studies at the Southern Collegiate Institute, in Albion,
Illinois. Beginning his active career in 1900, he taught in the rural
schools of Wayne county for two years, afterwards being similarly em-
ployed in Fairfield one year, and one year each in Mount Erie and
Cisne. His tastes, inclinations and ambitions being turned towards the
legal profession, Mr. Mills entered the office of Creighton & Thomas in
1907, and under their tuition became familiar with the technicalities of
law. In the fall of 1910 he was a candidate for the office of county
judge, being the nominee of the Republican party, and was elected by
a good majority. In this capacity Judge Mills displays excellent judg-
ment and discrimination, and is performing the duties devolving upon
him in a most creditable and satisfactory manner. He is successful in
his profession, and has an interest in two hundred and ninety acres of
fine farming land.
Judge Mills married, in October, 1907, Grace Vandaveer, a daugh-
ter of George W. Vandaveer, of Mount Erie, and into their pleasant
home two children have been born, namely : Carroll Vandaveer and
John.
GIDEON SCHWAKZLOSE. In a historical work dedicated to Southern
Illinois, Edwards county holds a number of important men who could
not well be omitted from mention in its pages. Among them, West
Salem citizens must be represented, and Gideon Schwarzlose takes promi-
nent place among the leading men of his town. He has been cashier of
the West Salem Bank since its organization in 1888, and in addition is
prominently connected with -various other idustrial and financial con-
cerns in West Salem which have done much in the passing years for
the development and upbuilding of the town.
Gideon Schwarzlose was born on January 28, 1864, on a farm one
mile south of West Salem, and is the son of William and Mary Eliza-
beth (Hesse) Schwarzlose, both natives of Germany. The father was
born in his native land in 1826 and emigrated to America in 1853. He
settled on a farm in Edwards county near West Salem, and became one
1642 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
of the well-to-do farmers of his section. He had a fine farm of three
hundred acres, which he divided among his children, retaining one hun-
dred acres for himself, which portion he sold a few years before his
death. They were the parents of six children, namely : William, living
in Edwards county ; Henry, a resident of Los Angeles, California ; Mrs.
Mary Koehler, of Evansville, Indiana ; Elizabeth, married L. B. Henry,
and lives in West Salem ; Gideon ; Mrs. Annie Markham of West Salem.
Gideon Schwarzlose received his early education in the country
schools of his community and later attended the Northwestern College at
Naperville. He began teaching school when he had finished his studies
and spent four years among the district schools of Edwards county. In
1888, when the West Salem Bank was organized, Mr. Schwarzlose was
appointed to the position of cashier, which he has filled creditably from
then to the present time. The bank is a sturdy and altogether reliable
institution with a financial responsibility of $160,000, and is the oldest
institution of its kind in Edwards county. It has deposits of $115,000,
and is regarded with favor by all who have had occasion to do business
with it since its organization.
Mr. Schwarzlose is further identified with various prominent indus-
tries of West Salem, and is proprietor of the Clover Valley Creamery,
which he purchased in 1902 at a valuation of $2,000 ; the creamery burned
in 1908, but he rebuilt at once a more modern plant, making an invest-
ment of about $4,000. The creamery does an annual business of $25,000.
Mr. Schwarzlose is a stockholder and vice president of the West Salem
Hollow Brick and Tile Company, with a capital of $50,000. He has a
farm of 144 acres near West Salem, which he operates to good advan-
tage, and is on the whole one of the busiest men to be found in the
county. He is a member of the Evangelical Association, and is a
staunch Republican. He has been a trustee for five years, and in 1893
served as president of the village board.
In 1893 Mr. Schwarzlose married Miss Calla Cook of Jackson, Ohio,
the daughter of John F. Cook of that place. Five children have been
born to Mr. and Mrs. Schwarzlose, — Frederick W., Esther M., Ruth E.,
Paul F., and Mary I., who died at the age of one year and nine months.
GEORGE H. ANDERSON. Active and prominent in public life, George
H. Anderson has ably filled many county and township offices of trust
and responsibility, in each devoting his time and energies to the duties
devolving upon him, and is now rendering efficient service as sheriff
of Wayne county, his home being in Fairfield. A son of Rice Ander-
son, he was born on a farm in Wayne county, Illinois, August 7, 1867,
of Virginian ancestry.
Born in Virginia in 1810, Rice Anderson was a hardy youth of
seventeen summers when, in 1827, he followed the march of civilization
westward to Illinois. A pioneer settler of Orchard township, Wayne
county, he lived there for a time, later moving to Garden Hill town-
ship, where in connection with general farming he followed his trade of
a brick mason for many years, building all of the chimneys for miles
around. He outlived the allotted three score and ten years of man's
life, dying on the home farm December 15, 1882.
Rice Anderson was twice married. He married first Patsie Scott,
who died in early womanhood, leaving five children, namely : Jefferson,
Robert, James, Rice and Sarah Jane. At the outbreak of the Civil war
the three older boys, Jefferson, Robert and James, enlisted in the Illi-
nois volunteer infantry, and with their regiment took part in many
important engagements. Jefferson was killed in battle, and Robert
and James died of disease contracted in the army. Rice, the youngest
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1643
son, at the age of seventeen years, enlisted for service in the army, but
it being near the close of tlie conflict was soon honorably discharged.
He is now living in Washington. Sarah Jane, the only daughter, is
dead. Rice Anderson married for his second wife a widow, Mrs. Judy
(Brown) Burkett, and they reared two children, namely: George
Henry, the special subject of this sketch, and William Levi, a farmer
of La Mar township, who at the present writing, in 1912, is serving as
superintendent of the Wayne County Poor Farm.
Spending his childhood days on the home farm in Orchard town-
ship, George H. Anderson acquired his early knowledge of books in the
district schools. Left fatherless at the age of thirteen years, he was
forced to look out for himself thereafter, until his marriage gaining a
livelihood as a farm laborer. He subsequently farmed on rented land
for four years, when, in 1892, he purchased forty acres of land on Gar-
den Hill township, and in its management was quite successful. As
his means increased, Mr. Anderson invested in more land, and has now
three valuable farms in this county. His brother, William Levi Ander-
son, is also engaged in agricultural pursuits, his farm of one hundred
and forty acres lying in Elm River township.
An uncompromising Republican in politics, Mr. Anderson has very
frequently been chosen by the people to fill public positions. He has
served as school director two terms ; as township collector one term ;
as postmaster at Zenith five years ; was superintendent of the County
Poor Farm in 1902 ; was re-elected to the same position in 1905 ; and
again re-elected in 1907, and served until 1909. Elected sheriff of
Wayne county in November, 1910, for a term of four years, Mr. Ander-
son has since filled the office to the satisfaction of every one interested
in the institution. Fraternally he is a member of Johnsonville Lodge,
No. 863, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Johnsonville, Illinois,
and of Lodge No. 6932, Modern Woodmen of America, at Orchardville.
Religiously he belongs to the Church of the Latter-Day Saints.
Mr. Anderson married, in March, 1888, Frances Arminta Morris, a
daughter of I. A. Morris, and of their union six children have been
born, namely : Jesse Leroy, aged twenty-two years, is married ; Freddie
Ray died at the age of seven years ; Christine lived but two years ; Cecil
Owen, thirteen years old; Birdie Claude, ten years of age; and Lelah
Arminta, a little girl of seven years.
HOMER W. PITNER, D. D. S. Holding an admitted precedence in
the dental profession and having a highly creditable record as a public
official, and one who has wielded wide influence as a man of affairs, the
service of Dr. W. Pitner, of Fairfield, has been of much more than ordi-
nary character to Wayne county, extending as it has over more than
a quarter of a century. He was born November 22, 1860, at Clay City,
Illinois, and is a son of Dr. F. R. and Sarah (Ridgeway) Pitner.
Michael Pitner, the grandfather of Dr. Homer W. Pitner, was born
in Tennessee, from whence he enlisted as a soldier under General
Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 and participated in the battle
of New Orleans. He came to Southern Illinois in 1822. and was here
engaged in farming during the rest of his life, his death occurring at
Jacksonville. Michael Pitner married Catherine Rube, also a native of
Tennessee, and among their children was F. R. Pitner. The latter was
born October 12, 1812, in Tennessee, and was ten years of age when he
accompanied his parents to Southern Illinois. As a youth he secured
employment as a clerk in a store at Salem, and after attending Lebanon
College he took up the study of medicine at Salem with Dr. Hull. He
was graduated from the medical department of Transylvania Univer-
1644 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
sity, Kentucky, in 1833, and subsequently practiced medicine at Mays-
ville, Jerseyville, Jacksonville and Clay City. Dr. Pitner, who is a
veteran of the "Days of '49" and the oldest physician in Illinois, is
now in his 100th year, but since his ninetieth year has given up his
practice to become proprietor of a drag business. A faithful member
of the Methodist church, he is deeply religious, and attributes his great
age to a life of strict temperance. He was a personal friend of Abra-
ham Lincoln, was for many years an active and influential Republican,
and prior to and during the Civil war represented his district in the
state legislature. Dr. Pitner was married to Miss Sarah Ridgeway, of
Philadelphia, who died in 1888, and they had a family of six children,
as follows: Rev. J. L., a Methodist Episcopal minister of Fresno, Cali-
fornia ; Charles, a well-known merchant of Clay City, Illinois ; Rev. W.
F., pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church of Trinidad, Colorado ;
Mrs. Lenora Huntley, whose husband is in the wholesale hardware busi-
ness in Waterloo, Iowa ; Dr. Homer W. ; and James, who is deceased.
After completing the prescribed course in the public schools of his
native place Homer W. Pitner entered Cincinnati University, and was
graduated from the literary department in 1882. He then took up the
study of dentistry in the dental department of Ohio University, gradu-
ating in 1884, and subsequently spent a short time in practice in Clay
City. On March 9, 1884, he came to Fairfield, believing that this com-
munity offered superior advantages to a progressive young professional
man, and he has had no reason to regret his choice, for he has estab-
lished a most satisfactory professional business, his careful and skillful
work having given him a high reputation. From 1897 to 1902 he seryed
as a member of the Illinois State Board of Dental Examiners, and dur-
ing this time served as president of the body, being fearless and honest
in the discharge of his duties. He is a member of the Southern Illinois
State and Tri-State Dental Associations, and takes a decided interest
in fraternal work as a member of the Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Red
Men, the Elks, the Modern Woodmen and the Tribe of Ben Hur. The
doctor enjoys marked popularity and esteem in professional, frater-
nal and social circles and is recognized as an able and progressive busi-
ness man, energetic and public spirited. In political matters he is a
Republican, and after serving as alderman was elected mayor of Fair-
field in 1909 by the largest majority ever given a candidate for that
office. He served until April, 1911, giving the city an efficient and
business-like administration, during which many needed reforms were
brought about. It is recognized by his confreres in the profession that
he possesses the essential attributes of thorough mastery of the princi-
ples of the dental science and a delicacy and accuracy of mechanical
skill, and also that he has a high regard for the ethics of the profession.
In 1887 Dr. Pitner was married to Miss Ida E. Davis, daughter of
William Davis, of Clay City, and they have three children : Mrs. Wil-
lena Swan, who has one son, Maxwell ; Harry L., a graduate of Fairfield
high school ; and Helen who is a student in that institution. The family
is identified with the Methodist Episcopal church.
HON. JOHN M. RAPP, a popular member of the lower house of the
Illinois state legislature is, perhaps, even more than his fellow
men, indebted to his ancestors for his iron will and general strength
of character. His grandfather, John Rapp, was a native of
Stuttgart. Germany. He was by profession a cavalry man in the Ger-
man army. During the wars of Napoleon it fell to his unhappy lot to
be one of the "Levy" made by that great general after the conquest of
Germany. Under the Little Corporal he took part in the famous Rus-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1645
sian campaign, fought in the attack upon Moscow and was one of the
few who lived to tell the harrowing tale of the retreat that followed.
He with a few pitiable companions suffered through that awful winter
without entirely succumbing to the cold, the hunger nor the terrible
sights that continually confronted them. There is in the family a rumor
to the effect that at one time he was obliged to fight to the death with
a starving comrade for the possession of a single loaf of bread — bread
that meant life to the survivor. When at last he crossed the Russian
frontier with a spark of life still left in his shattered body he lost no
time in preparing to set out for America— "the land of the free" —
the land where, at least history could not repeat the horrible events
through which he had just passed. His sword is still a cherished pos-
session in the family.
Mr. Rapp first settled in Pennsylvania but soon moved to Ohio where
he married and reared a family. His son, John Rapp, the father of the
Illinois representative of the same name, came to Illinois from Law-
rence county, Ohio, in 1857. In connection with his brother-in-law Mr.
Rapp conducted a general store at Jeffersonville. At one time during
his young manhood he made the trip overland from Illinois to Pikes
Peak, Colorado. Finding the mountains not altogether to his liking
he disposed of his prairie schooner outfit and returned gladly to resume
the routine of life in Wayne county. After his return he was fortunate
in winning for his wife Jacquelina Willett, a young woman of strong
character and unusual ability. She was the daughter of George Willett.
from near Leesburg, Virginia. In the year 1843 Mr. Willett settled on
a farm in Bedford township, Wayne county. This land is now the
property of Mrs. Rapp's youngest sister. Her brother, Eustridge Wil-
litt, was killed at the great battle of Shiloh, during the first day 's strife.
He was at that time merely a lad of eighteen, but loyal to his land
and anxious to fight for her rights.
Two months before the birth of his son, John Rapp the third, the
father suddenly passed away. It has been said that in the heart of
every true daughter of the South there may be found an impregnable
fortress. This proved to be most true in the case of Jacquelina Willett
Rapp. Left in her loneliness to bear and rear her son and to care for
the little business on which they were dependent for a livelihood, she
never wavered. Immediately upon the birth of her boy she assumed
the management of the store, and so well did she handle the trade that
eventually she purchased the brother's interest. If it be true that a
man's success is commensurate with his mother's ascendency of spirit,
then the star of the republic has not reached its zenith, for his was a
mother of whom a Lincoln might be justly proud. She is now, at the
age of seventy-two, a strong and capable woman. Her brave and un-
tiring labor of the past is the crown of her declining years. She is an
ornament to the home of her son in Fairfield.
As soon as the son and favorite companion had attained sufficient
years he assisted his mother in the management of the store at the same
time attending school in the winter and sometimes finding remunera-
tive employment on some neighboring farm for a portion of the sum-
mer. Being as ambitious for his own future as was his mother for him
they, by their combined efforts, made it possible for him to attend the
Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, from 1881 until 1884. On leaving"
the university he taught the school of his home district for one year,
thus again sharing the home of his mother. The next two years he de-
voted to the study of law, being admitted to the bar in 1887. The fol-
lowing year, finding that journalistic work appealed more to his taste
than did the practice of his profession, he bought a half interest in the
Vol. Ill— 36
1646 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Wayne County Record, published at Fairfield, purchasing the remain-
der in 1891. The sheet has now become a leader among the local Demo-
cratic journals.
In 1902 he was sent to Springfield as representative from the Forty-
sixth district of Illinois and was reelected in 1904. In 1910 he was again
chosen as state representative in which capacity he is still serving his
district.
In 1889, after having permanently settled in Fairfield, Mr. Rapp was
joined in marriage to Miss Wilhelmina E. Holly, the attractive daughter
of Louis Holly, of Butler county, Ohio. Two sons have been born of the
union. John Holly, whose name combines those of his two grandfathers,
came to gladden the Fairfield home on the 13th day of July, 1903, and his
brother, Peter George, is fifteen months his junior.
Although actively engaged in politics, Mr. Rapp's only fraternal
affiliation is with the Masons. He is a member of the Blue Lodge and
Royal Arch Chapter at Fairfield, and of the Commandery at Centralia.
JUDGE JOHN KEEN, JR., attorney-at-law, has been a resident of Fair-
field since 1872, and in the years of his residence here has proved him-
self a most exemplary citizen and a valuable addition to the communal
life of the city. He has been prominent in every good work promulgated
for the betterment and general advancement of the civic life of the com-
munity, and has taken an active part in the political affairs of the city
and county, filling with credit and distinction many responsible and im-
portant offices, and in every way giving of his influence and ability for
the general good of the city. An honest gentleman and ever and always
striving for that which will bring the greatest good to the greatest num-
ber of people, his life has been of a high and noble character that is
recognized and appreciated by his fellow townspeople.
Born in Wayne county on a farm, on October 29, 1837, John Keen,
Jr., is the son of James Keen, a native of Tennessee, and the grandson
of Ashford Keen, also a native of that state. The birth of James Keen
occurred September 10, 1812, and he died September 24, 1886. He mi-
grated to Illinois in 1830, with his father, Ashford Keen, settling in Hic-
kory Hill township, where he passed the remainder of his life. Ashford
Keen, his father, was in the marine service during the war of 1812 and
fought at the battle of Lake Erie under Commodore Perry. The life of
James Keen was passed as a farmer. He married Harriet Book, a native
of Kentucky and the daughter of Harry Book. They reared a family of
eight, five sons and three daughters, namely : John, Jr. ; Samuel, de-
ceased ; William, who died in service in the Union army in 1864, at Mem-
phis ; Elvis, resident of Hickory Hill township ; Ashford, deceased ; Cath-
erine and Mary, both deceased ; Elizabeth, who married one George Ped-
dicord, now residing in Hickory Hill township.
In common with the early life of his brothers and sisters John Keen,
Jr., attended the common schools of the home community and worked on
his father's farm during school intervals. Following his attendance upon
the common schools of Hickory Hill he entered the college at Salem.
Marion county, after which he taught school and farmed for three years.
He filled various township offices in those days, and was justice of the
peace for nine years, supervisor one term, collector one year and assessor
"for a like period, and was town clerk for a year, all while he was tilling
his farm in Hickory Hill township. In January, 1872, Mr. Keen re-
moved to Fairfield, and it was then that he began the study of law, to
which he had a strong inclination, and in 1878 he was admitted to the bar
of the state of Illinois. Previous to this time he had served as county
treasurer, having been elected in 1864 and serving until 1866. In 1882
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1647
Mr. Keen was elected to the office of county judge on the Republican tic-
ket, filling that office until 1886. In that year the county records were
mysteriously burned, and the services of Mr. Keen were in demand in the
court house owing to his full knowledge of probate business and other
matters of a similar nature. He served seven and a half years as deputy-
county clerk under F. M. Brock. In 1888 Mr. Keen was elected secretary
of the Fairfield Building and Loan Association and he is filling that po-
sition at the present time. For several years he has been secretary of the
board of education and he has made his influence felt on that board for
the betterment of educational conditions in Fairfield. His career in a
public way in Fairfield has been of a frank and worthy nature, and he
has been privileged to aid in the accomplishment of much that has been
for the advancement of the city and county. He has been a member of
the Masonic fraternity since 1865, and is also a member of the Odd Fel-
lows. He is of the Presbyterian faith.
On April 7, 1859, Mr. Keen was united in marriage with Miss Martha
J. Attebury. the daughter of Stout and Fannie Attebury. They have
reared a family of three children, two sons and one daughter. Isaac N.,
the eldest, is married and resides in Fairfield, and is a father and a
grandfather, his son, Estil, living in Vincennes, Indiana, and being the
father of a daughter, Jessie Katharyn. Asa is also married and living
in Fairfield; he has one daughter, Elsie. Harriet Lavinia is married to
Rollo S. Clark and lives in Maunie, "White county, Illinois. She has two
children, Dorothy and Lucy.
JAMES M. TANNER, for many years identified with the mill and lum-
ber business of Louisville, is adjudged to be one of the wealthiest men in
Clay county, if not, indeed, the wealthiest. Certain it is that he has pros-
pered beyond his fairest dreams of early days, when his possessions were
trifling but his ambitions of that high order which make success the na-
tural outcome of one's efforts. First as a farmer in a small way on a
rented farm, then as the proprietor of a farm of which he was the actual
owner, later branching out into the saw-mill business on a somewhat
limited scale which has resulted in the extensive mill and lumber busi-
ness of later years, he has advanced steadily from one phase of prosper-
ity to another until he has reached his present high place in the finan-
cial affairs of his city and county. He is variously connected with a
number of the leading enterprises of his community, and his influence
has been felt in practically every avenue of industry peculiar to his dis-
trict. He has been identified also with public affairs of the state, and at
one time was warden of the penitentiary at Chester, Illinois. His life has
been one of wide and varied interests and he is still occupying a foremost
place in the affairs of his city.
Born in Indiana, June 8, 1839, James M. Tanner is a son of John and
Eliza (Downs) Tanner, both natives of Kentucky and born in that state
in 1814 and 1813, respectively. In 1833 John Tanner moved to Indiana
and settled in "Warrick county, where he engaged in farming pursuits.
In 1858 he removed to Missouri, where he became interested in the lum-
ber and mercantile business, locating in that line at Popular Bluff, and
there erecting the first steam saw mill that town ever possessed. Early
in the Civil war Mr. Tanner enlisted in the Union army, but after a
few months he was furloughed home on account of illness. While at
home he was made prisoner and taken to Columbus, Mississippi, and died
there in the southern prison. The years of later life had prospered John
Tanner, and he left a comfortable estate for the mainteance of his family.
He left nine children and his widow at his death. The family were mem-
bers of the Missionary Baptist church from childhood, the father having
1648 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
been reared in that faith. He was a son of John Tanner, a native'of Vir-
ginia, who removed to Kentucky, where he remained until the War of
1812, in which he served, passing away a short time after his return from
the war. The maternal grandfather of James M. Tanner, of this review,
was Thomas Downs, a native of Kentucky. He was a farmer and a Mis-
sionary Baptist preacher for sixty-five years, dying in the pulpit.
Educated in the common schools of Indiana, James M. Tanner passed
his boyhood years in like manner with the youth of his time and class.
In 1862 he enlisted in the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry, having served as
a scout previous to his enlistement in that regiment. He was captured
while on a scouting expedition and sent to Columbia, Mississippi, where
his father expired as a prisoner. The young man made his escape, how-
ever, and after enlisting in the Thirteenth Illinois served through to the
close of the war, when he came to Carbondale, Illinois. In 1865 he moved
to Clay county, with the intention of entering on the life of a farmer.
He was practically penniless, and it was necessary for him to rent a
farm to begin operations. After a few seasons of strenuous work and
planning Mr. Tanner found himself in a position where he was able to
buy a farm for himself, which he did. He prospered, and in a short
while saw an opportunity to engage in the saw mill business, and he has
since that time been occupied in that industry, with ever increasing
operations, and has amassed a considerable wealth as the result of his
efforts along that line. He was for some time associated in the business
with his brother, ex-Governor John R. Tanner, as a partner, but for the
most part has been alone in his operations. He has never entirely given
over his early farming interests, and is the owner of a magnificent farm
of three hundred and forty-seven acres of valuable farm land, and de-
votes much of his attention to stock-breeding, — mules being the princi-
pal produce of his farm.
Mr. Tanner is interested in a number of financial organizations of the
county, and is president of the Farmers and Merchants National Bank.
He was at one time warden of the State Penitentiary at Chester, Illinois,
and while there devoted his spare moments to writing a book entitled
' ' Genealogy of the Tanner Family. ' ' The work is a most interesting col-
lection of material and facts relating to the Tanners, and throws much
light upon the lives and characters of representatives of this fine old
name. Mr. Tanner has always been a Republican and has-been active in
his efforts for the party welfare. He is a member ,of the Grand Army of
the Republic, and is past commander of Louisville Chapter, No. 556.
He is also a member of the Odd Fellows and the Rebekahs. Mr. Tanner
bears the distinction of being the oldest resident of Louisville, all who
were there when he came having died or moved away to other parts.
Mr. Tanner has been thrice married. His first marriage occurred on
Christmas day of 1860, when Mary J. Tanner became his bride. One
child was born to them, Viola, who married George Vandever, and she
died in September, 1871. Mr. Tanner subsequently married Matilda
Missenheimer. They became the parents of two children, Myrtle, who
married John Blacklage, and Lillian, who became the wife of Seymour
Hoyt. On February 15, 1890, Mrs. Tanner died and in 1892 Mr. Tanner
married Mittis J. Clifton, a school-teacher. They have two children :
Ruby, who is still in the parental home, was graduated from a college in
Lexington, Kentucky; and James C., now in high school at Louisville.
The family are members of the Christian church.
J. C. WILSON. The substantial and well-to-do citizens of Harrisburg
have no better representative than J. C. Wilson, who stands high among
the keen, progressive business men who are rendering such efficient aid
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1649
in advancing the industrial prosperity of this part of Saline county. He
was born September 29, 1852, in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania,
which was likewise the birthplace of his father, John H. Wilson.
Brought up in the Keystone state, John H. Wilson learned the trade
of a butcher, which he followed in connection with general farming for
a number of seasons, owning a large tract of land. Induced by his
brother-in-law, the late W. M. Christy, who was for twenty or more years
a practicing lawyer of Harrisburg, to come to Saline county, Illinois, he
located in Harrisburg, November 15, 1868, and soon after purchased the
old Dick Stiff farm, lying one mile southwest of the city, and there re-
sided until his death, at the age of four score years. In his earlier life
he was identified with the Whigs, but after the formation of the Republi-
can party became one of its most loyal adherents. He took great interest
in local affairs, and for two terms served as county commissioner of Sa-
line county. He was one of the organizers of the Presbyterian church
at Harrisburg, in which he served as ruling elder. While living in Penn-
sylvania he joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and there be-
ing no lodge of that order in Harrisburg when he came here to live he
soon took steps to secure a charter for one, and continued as one of its
most active members until his death. His old farm of two hundred
acres was in a rich coal section, and from it the land now included in the
city cemetery was taken. His wife, whose maiden name was Jennie
Christy, was born in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, and died about
three years before he did, in Harrisburg, Illinois, on the home farm.
Children blessed their union as follows : Ella J., wife of James Elder, a
merchant in Harrisburg; Lizzie M., who married B. F. Davidson, died in
early womanhood ; Annie ; Alice May, wife of W. H. Wiliford, living near
Harrisburg ; Kate, wife of a Mr. Robinson of Nashville, Tennessee ; and
R. N.. a traveling salesman for the International Harvester Company,
with headquarters at Longmont, Colorado.
Coming with the family to Harrisburg while yet in his 'teens, J. C.
Wilson remained at home until twenty-six years of age, after attaining
his majority, having entire charge of the home farm. He afterwards
bought the adjoining farm, and has since met with eminent success in
his agricultural operations, his well-improved estate containing three
hundred and sixty-five acres of choice land, all in one body, and in its
supervision Mr. Wilson has taken both pride and pleasure.
In 1897 Mr. Wilson, who still retained possession of his farm, moved
to Harrisburg, and took a half interest in the Wolcott Milling Company,,
with which he has since been actively interested, having the entire charge
of the grain interests and outside work, Mr. Wolcott attending to the
supervision of the plant. This plant is one of the largest manufacturing
enterprises of Saline county, having a capacity of six hundred barrels
per day, with an elevator with a capacity for sixty-five thousand bushels
of grain, and steel tanks in Harrisburg. The Company also has three
steel tanks, forty thousand bushels capacity each, at Eldorado, and a mill
at Stonefort used for the manufacturing of meal. The company likewise
has an elevator and steel tanks at Equality; a warehouse at Carriers
Mills; and also at Stonefort, in each of those places doing an exchange
business. This enterprising firm ships its mill products to all parts of the
Union, and receives its large supplies of hard wheat and spring wheat
from Chicago, Minneapolis and Saint Louis, and with its most highly
approved machinery and equipments manufactures some of the highest
grade flour to be found in any market in the world.
Mr. Wilson married, December 12, 1879, Carrie Mugge, a sister of
George G. Mugge, who was for seventeen years a member of the Wilson
household, and of their union five children have been born, namely :
1650 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Jennie Pearl, wife of Arthur Dean, of East Saint Louis ; Walter, engaged
in the grocery business ; Blanche, who married Eugene Schneirle, died in
1911, leaving one child, Eugene, who lives with his Grandfather Wilson ;
Stanley J., engaged in the mercantile business with G. G. Mugge ; and
Madge, wife of Everett Hess, of East Saint Louis. Mr. and Mrs. Wil-
son are members of the Presbyterian church, in which Mr. Wilson has
succeeded his father as an elder. Fraternally Mr. Wilson belongs to the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in addition to having passed all
the chairs of his lodge has represented it in the Grand Lodge.
R. N. RAWSTRON, manager of the American Asphalt Company at
Lawrenceville, Illinois, is a son of Great Britain by birth, casting his lot
with America and Americans as lately as in 1909. Since his arrival in
America he has been manager of the Asphalt Company mentioned above,
and has, through his excellent business ability and his proven fitness for
the position he holds, established himself most firmly in Lawrenceville
and the surrounding country.
Born in Levenshulme, England, April 16, 1860, Mr. Rawstron is the
son of William Rawstron, also born in England, and a cotton manufac-
turer near Rochdale, England. His mother's maiden name was Elizabeth
Nicholson. He was the second child in a family of six, and received good
educational advantages, attending Rossall College, near Fleetwood, Lan-
cashire, and later completing his education at a private school in Weis-
baden, Germany, conducted by Herr Kiindermann. His education com-
pleted, he entered the British army and served thus for a period of
twenty-eight years, from 1881 to 1909. In July, 1898, he was ordered out
to Egypt to take part in the Soudan expedition, then about to start, with
the purpose of smashing the Khalifa at Khartoum. When the campaign
was over he remained in the country for the following six years, during
the tedious period of pacification, finally returning home in 1904, where,
after completing a tour of duty at the War Office, he retired from mili-
tary life.
Throughout his military career Mr. Rawstron was an enthusiastic
cricketer, and so little was his health affected by the hardships of service
in Egypt that on returning home he was elected captain of the regi-
mental cricket team, a position that he subsequently proved himself to be
eminently fitted for and thoroughly deserving of holding by making the
largest number of runs and the biggest individual score of any member
of the team, and leading to victory his men in twelve out of sixteen
matches during the first year of his captaincy. He continued playing
with success this typically British game until he was forty-nine years of
age.
In 1909 Mr. Rawstron came to the United States, coming directly to
Lawrenceville, where he assumed charge of the new factory of the Ameri-
can Asphalt Company, a large and fast growing concern with head of-
fices in Chicago. This company manufactures various kinds of asphalt,
their specialty being the product known as Pioneer Road Asphalt, a grade
of asphalt entirely different from the product of any other manufac-
turing plant, and generally conceded to be the superior in elasticity and
general endurance to any other asphalt known to the trade. Its basic
element is gilsonite, and its component parts are gilsonite and oil. A
very speaking tribute to the superior qualities of the product of this
company was given by Hon. James C. Wonders, state highway commis-
sioner of Ohio in September, 1910, when he reported officially on a
stretch of road constructed as an experiment in Columbus for the sole
purpose of ascertaining the various values of the different preparations
for preventing dust and for binding the surface of macadam roads. Sev-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1651
enteen different materials were used in making seventeen separate
stretches of road, each four hundred feet in length, the sections forming
a continuous road. The report of the state highway commissioner reads
as follows : " In this section all of the pieces of stone are perfectly bound.
No excess of binder is in evidence, the surface is smooth, and its whole
condition is excellent." This report referred to the section of road pre-
pared by the American Asphalt Company with Pioneer Road Asphalt.
It follows but naturally that Mr. Rawstron should take special pride in
his management of a factory that produces something so manifestly su-
perior, and it is safe to assume that his own peculiar ability, with that of
his able band of assistants, has something to do with the excellency of the
output at this plant. The Lawrenceville factory, erected there in 1910,
is built on the most improved lines, and the process used differs much
from the old methods prevailing in the manufacture of asphalt. In 1911
the almost new factory at Lawrenceville was destroyed by fire, wrought
through carelessness on the part of a new workman at the plant. It was
rebuilt in less than six weeks' time, and is now as nearly fireproof as such
a plant could be. It has most complete fire equipment and all conven-
iences for dealing with fire, and is altogether a splendid specimen of the
most approved and modern plant. -The company, which operates another
plant at Grand Crossing, Illinois, also manufactures roofing, paint, etc.
The average number of men employed at the Lawrenceville factory is
twenty-five, and the average output of asphalt is fifty tons daily. This
factory was established here in order that it might be easily accessible to
the oil fields, oil being one of the principal parts of the product.
In 1885 Mr. Rawstron married Miss Josephine Hennessy, of England,
and they have one daughter, Mary. Mrs. Rawstron and their daughter
are at present sojourning in London.. Mr. Rawstron is a communicant
of the Church of England and is a member of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows.
THOMAS ALLEN CLARK, M. D., is the type of physician that is, un-
fortunately for the country at large,, rapidly becoming more and more
rare in the active life of this twentieth century. He has been willing to
devote the years since his graduation to the relief of the suffering close
about him without marring his usefulness by dreams of the city operating
room or of the specialist's fee. Of him Goldsmith might have said: "A
man he was to all the country dear — " and even further, —
' ' Remote from towns, he ran his godly race
Nor e'er had changed nor wished to change his place."
This doctor, who willingly gives of his skill and energy to soothe his
fellow men in their illness and affliction travels through the Southern Illi-
nois country by horse, visiting patients often fifteen or twenty miles dis-
tant from his home, such is the confidence of the people in his ability.
Thomas Allen Clark was born on the 21st day of April, 1874, on a
farm in Farmington township, Jefferson county, Illinois. He is the son
of Joseph Clark, who began his life in Nashville, Tennessee, in October of
1831. The senior Mr. Clark had grown to young manhood in Tennes-
see when the war cloud grew black and his father, Jesse, always a loyal
Unionist, brought his little family from the south to Jefferson county,
Illinois. On the Illinois farm purchased by his father Joseph Clark spent
the remainder of his life and here he passed away on the 28th day of Oc-
tober, 1904. having just celebrated his seventy-third birthday. He left
to mourn his death his wife, Sarah Smith Clark, the daughter of Mr. Cole-
man Smith, a Virginia gentleman, and seven grown children, of whom
five are daughters. The first born. Florence, who finished her life work
1652 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
some years since, was the widow of Doctor S. H. Hilliard, who has been
deceased for eighteen years. The next sister, Cassie, married Horace
Maxey, of Eldorado, Kansas. Edith is now Mrs. Doctor A. G. Brown,
of St. Louis. Love of the medical profession seems to be a family trait.
Cora, next to the youngest of the girls, also married a physician, in this
case Doctor J. T. Whillock, of Mount Vernon, Illinois. Lillie, who mar-
ried J. Will Howell, still lives in the home city, while Walter Clark, the
older of the boys, occupies the home farm.
Dr. Thomas A. Clark attended, in his childhood, the district schools
of Jefferson county, graduating later from the Mount Vernon high school.
For the ensuing year he studied at Fairfield College, then for one year
at Ewing College. Feeling the necessity of becoming at once self sup-
porting, he left his college work unfinished that he might enter the nor-
mal school at Oakland, Indiana, and in his twentieth year began teaching
in the schools of his native county. During five years of life as a teacher
he was able to save from his earnings enough to help him to realize his
boyhood ambition — a medical education. At the age of twenty-six he
entered the medical department of the University of St. Louis, receiving
his degree of Doctor of Medicine in the spring of 1904.
Upon graduation he settled in Di-x, Illinois, where his large general
practice covers a territory from fifteen to twenty miles in radius. His
nights as well as his days are given over to his profession, so popular has
he become with the people of his vicinity. In the autumn of 1907 he was
elected county coroner on the Democratic ticket. This office he has
filled with such ability that his friends of both political parties are anx-
ious that he continue to accept the responsibilities. He is a member of
the Jefferson County Medical Society and the Illinois State Medical As:
sociation. In lodge circles he belongs to the Knights of Pythias and to
the Woodmen of the World.
One year previous to his entering medical school the doctor was
united in marriage to Miss Dora May Smith, the daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Nelson Smith, of Jefferson county. They were married on the 30th
of November, 1889, his bride going with him to St. Louis — there to make a
home for him while his hopes were becoming realities. Dr. and Mrs.
Clark are now the parents of two attractive little daughters : Doris Alene
is seven years of age, while the baby sister celebrated her third birth-
day on the 30th of October, 1911.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM KINNEY MURPHY. The roll of those men who have
been the builders of Southern Illinois would not be complete without the
name of Captain William Kinney Murphy, lately deceased. The men
who seize an opportunity when it comes to them are rare and when found
are quite certain to be successful, but the men who make opportunities
for themselves are still more uncommon and are certain to be discovered
only among the ranks of the great captains of industry. It was to this
latter class that Captain Murphy belonged. Although he confined his
operations to a comparatively small portion of the country, his genius as
a financier and a promoter of successful enterprises, make him compare
favorably with some men whose names are blazoned forth upon the front
sheets of our daily newspapers. He was chief among the business men,
financiers and agriculturists of Perry county throughout the years of his
life, and the record which he left behind as a politician was an enviable
one. With his remarkable power of foreseeing future events he knew
just when a new project should be launched. At various points through
Southern Illinois he has left monuments to his memory in the shape of
financial institutions, and all of these have met with only the most unvary-
ing success, thanks to his steady hand upon their rudders. While it is
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1653
quite natural for a man to desire success and material prosperity for
himself and family, yet there was more than this behind the work of Cap-
tain Murphy. He had a deep love for the land of his birth, and desired
nothing so much as the prosperity of the country and her people. For
this, therefore, the people of Perry county and of Southern Illinois owe
him a debt of gratitude which they can not repay, except by their en-
deavors to be as public spirited and to give as freely of themselves as did
their benefactor.
William Kinney Murphy was born on the 12th of July, 1835, on
"Four Mile Prairie," on a farm now owned by Porter Baird. His father
was the Honorable Richard G. Murphy, who came from White county,
Tennessee, in 1821, and settled in Perry county. William K. Murphy was
brought up on the farm, but his father was determined that he should
have an education, so his school days were spent in the private school
conducted by the famous Benjamin G. Roots, who later became renowned
through his work as a civil engineer and as chief engineer of the con-
struction work of both the Illinois Central and of the Wabash, Chester
and Western railroads. When his father considered him old enough to
leave school he decided to give him a chance to try his wings in the busi-
ness world, and to that end sent him to the cattle markets of Minnesota
with a drove of fine cattle. Other drivers were along, but the lad had a
good opportunity to learn how to take care of himself, and see how busi-
ness of this type was carried on. He later took up the study of law with
William McKee, but the swift pace of events brought about the bom-
bardment of Fort Sumter before he was admitted to the bar, and he for-
got that such a man as Blackstone ever existed. He was soon engaged in
the attempt to raise a regiment, and after he had succeeded a weary wait,
followed, while he tried to get it accepted by the war department. At
last this end was accomplished and his enlistment took place on the
15th of August, 1862. He was commissioned captain of Company H, of
the One Hundred and Tenth Illinois Infantry.
Captain Murphy was forced to resign from the army in April of
1863, on account of ill health. He went reluctantly back to his deserted
law books and was admitted to the bar. He formed a partnership with
the Honorables John and Thomas Boyd, the firm being known as Mur-
phy and Boyd Brothers. This association was continued for many years,
and Captain Murphy became a noted lawyer and one of the most success-
ful in Southern Illinois. He was particularly well known as a criminal
lawyer. As a public speaker and effective advocate his fame was wide-
spread. This success at the bar laid the foundations of his later success
as a financier and business man. The qualities that brought him the
confidence of his clients and the esteem of the brother lawyers, brought
him later the trust of those who had money to invest, and the regard of
his confreres.
It was an easy step from the law to politics, and he entered this field
to become the recognized leader of Democracy in Perry county. The first
political office that he held was master-in-chancery in his county. He
was presently elected to the lower house of the general assembly and
after the expiration of his term in that body was sent to the state senate.
He was almost universally a delegate to all of the conventions in which
his county participated, showing how unbounded was the confidence in
which he was held by the people. In 1882 he was nominated for Con-
gress and was defeated by only two hundred and sixty-one votes in a dis-
trict that normally polls three thousand Republicans. He was a regular
delegate at the national Democratic conventions, and was one of the num-
ber who brought about the third nomination of Grover Cleveland. The
president partially rewarded him by appointing him collector of internal
1654 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
revenue for his district. This post he accepted in 1893 and made his
headquarters at Cairo. One year of his service was held under the Mc-
Kinley administration, five years in all being spent in this capacity. In
1896, when the money question was the leading issue, Captain Murphy
became a "sound money" man, and was a delegate to the convention
that nominated Palmer for president and Buckner for vice-president
upon that platform. He was a warm friend of General Palmer 's and the
general was only one of the many prominent politicians and business
men of the state of Illinois who were proud to claim Captain Murphy as
a friend.
Deciding that the world of business was more interesting than that
of the law courts, Captain Murphy resolved to abandon the practice of
law. He had previous to this time been a factor in the development of
the coal mining interests in this section, along the route of the Illinois
Central Railroad. He had organized the Beaucoup Coal Mining Com-
pany, and opened up a mine on the old Cairo Short Line Railroad, two
miles north of Pinckneyville. He was the president and maager of this
plant until the resources of the mine were exhausted, and then, although
he continued to acquire and maintain other mining interests, he never
went into the industry again as an operator. Instead he decided to take
up banking, and he immediately took the initial steps towards the organi-
zation of a string of banks across Southern Illinois. His maiden venture
in this direction was the organization of the private bank of the Murphy-
Wall Company, which in recent years has been converted into the Mur-
phy-Wall Bank and Trust Company. Until the end of his life he was
always president and leading stockholder in this reliable old institution.
He next organized the First National Bank of Murphysboro, Illinois,
and after several years' service as president of this bank resigned to take
charge of newer ventures. The First State Bank of Thebes, Illinois, owes
its existence to this man, and he became its first president. He was also
the organizer and first president of the First State Bank of Illmo, Illi-
nois. For a time he was president of the City National Bank of Mur-
physboro, and he was one of the leaders in the establishment of the Citi-
zens State and Savings Bank of Murphysboro, as well as of the Savings
Bank of the same city. In all of these institutions he was a director and
the leading spirit up to the time of his death.
Banking alone did not engage his attention through these years. He
was active in numerous business enterprises. He organized the Murphys-
boro Electric Light and the Gas Light Companies, and was chosen first
president of both concerns. In these enterprises he showed the true pio-
neer spirit, and how urgently he felt the need of progress. He was one
of the organizers of the Southern Illinois Milling Company, of Mur-
physboro, and was a heavy stockholder in the company. He aided in
the organization of the Pinckneyville Milling Company and was a chief
stockholder. In both of these firms he was a prominent member of the
board of directors. In the launching of the Hinke, Ismery Milling Com-
pany of Kansas City, Kansas, he was one of the most conspicuous, and
later as treasurer and one of the directors of the company had a large
share in its success. In all of these industries Captain Murphy held large
interests until he passed away. His wide experience and sterling com-
mon sense made him a man to whom to defer in any gathering. He pos-
sessed the necessary initiative ability and the power to influence others
through the force of his own enthusiasm. A remarkable man, in his
death the county suffered a loss which can scarcely be estimated.
Captain Murphy was married to a girl with whom he had grown up
on ' ' Four Mile Prairie. ' ' This was Penina Ozburn, a daughter of Haw-
kins Ozburn. Mrs. Murphy was born on the 16th of December, 1836, and
TC [LIBRARY
OF THE
. HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1655
she became the mother of two children : Hawkins 0. and Sarah V., the
latter of whom married Joseph Crawford, of Pinckiieyville, and died at
the age of thirty-six years. Captain Murphy died in December, 1911.
He was a member of Mitchell Lodge, No. 85, of the Masonic order.
Hawkins 0. Murphy, the only son of Captain Murphy, was born in
Pinckneyville, Illinois, on the 6th of December, 1862. He first attended
the public schools, and after the completion of his preparatory work he
was sent to Washington University, St. Louis, and later to Georgetown
College at Washington, D. C. After the completion of his education
came his introduction to the business through the mediiim of the firm of
C. H. Glister & Company. He was a member of this firm of merchants
for eight years and then he embarked in business for himself as a men's
furnisher arid clothier. He ran this business for five years and then
leaving Pinckneyville went to Murphysboro, where he opened the Mur-
phy Shoe Store. After conducting this business for three years he turned
to banking. He became assistant cashier of the First State Bank of
Thebes, and two years later took the position of cashier of the First State
Bank of Illino, Illinois. He remained here for three years, and then his
father and business associates having acquired large timber interests in
Louisiana Mr. Murphy was sent to that state to take them in charge.
He made his headquarters at Maryville, Louisiana, and stayed there for
several years, overseeing the sawmill and the cutting and hauling of the
timber. When the industry was abandoned he returned to Pinckney-
ville and took up the management of Captain Murphy's farming inter-
ests, which were extensive. Captain Murphy had purchased large quan-
tities of farming land throughout Southern Illinois, and had been oper-
ating it on the tenant system. He had taken especial pride in the fine
horses and mules with which he had stocked some of his places, and his
importations of stock from time to time had done much to raise the stand-
ard of horses and mules in the county. Mr. Murphy is now continuing
his father's policy and since his death, being one of the three beneficiaries
under the will, has had a great deal to do in the settling and managing
of the estate.
Unlike his father, Mr. Murphy is a Republican in politics. He was
a member of the city council of Thebes and during his short residence at
Illino, Illinois, was elected mayor of the town.
On the 12th of September, 1900, Mr. Murphy was married to May
Roberts, a daughter of A. H. Roberts, one of the oldest and most promi-
nent merchants of Murphysboro, where the ceremony took place. Mr.
Murphy is prominent in the fraternal world. He is a Mason, being a
member of the Blue Lodge. He organized the Knights of Pythias lodge
at Pinckneyville and was its first chancellor commander. He also organ-
ized the Elks lodge in Murphysboro, was its first exalted ruler and repre-
sented the order in the national convention. The universal opinion is
that Mr. Murphy is a worthy son of his father, and when one stops to con-
sider what this means one is certain that no higher compliment could
be paid him.
F. M. BROCK, the present postmaster of Fairfield, Illinois, was born
on a thriving farm in Wayne county of that state, on the 15th day of
January, 1852. His early education was in the common schools of his
native county. At the age of twenty young Brock went to Missouri to
pay a visit to his sister, and he passed the next two years in traveling
about that state. From Missouri, in 1874, he went to Texas, where he
became traveling salesman for a hardware house in the southern part
of the state, and he continued to be thus employed for four years. Rail-
road development in Southern Texas in that day had not reached its
1656 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
present state of completion, and the duties of Mr. Brock made it neces-
sary for him to make his trips between towns by means of the horse.
For four years he lived this wholesome life in the open, sometimes riding
or driving more than fifty miles in one day, so great was the distance
between towns. Fortunately, however, Texas roads, unlike those of
Southern Illinois, are quite passable at all seasons. His headquarters
during his sojourn in the Lone Star state were at Austin, the capital
city, and at the charming old town of San Antonio, where the Alamo
still rears its walls and the ruins of missions of the past vie with a
modern army post in points of interest. It was near this interesting
city that Colonel Roosevelt chose, in later years, to equip his famous
company of Rough Riders.
The attractions of Texas might have claimed Mr. Brock for an in-
definite period but that old Wayne county held for him a still greater
charm in the person of Miss Ella Collins, the daughter of Major Collins,
an old settler of that district. Thus in 1878 he returned to the home of
his birth, where he was united in marriage with Miss Collins. Two
years after their marriage they located at Cisne, where Mr. Brock en-
gaged in the seed and grain business, a line for which his experience had
peculiarly fitted him. Later he extended his stock to include general
merchandise, and he continued in business at Cisne until in 1886 when
he was elected to the office of county clerk on the Republican ticket. In
that year he moved to Fairfield, which has since represented his home
and the center of his business activities. He served the county in the
office of clerk for eight years, two terms of four years each, and at the
expiration of the second term he engaged in the lumber business. Ten
years later, in 1904, he became cashier of the First National Bank of
Fairfield, and he was still acting in that capacity in December of 1910
when he was appointed by President Taft to the office of postmaster of
Fairfield. He thereupon resigned the cashiership of the bank to assume
the duties of postmaster at Fairfield, of which office he is still in charge.
The office is of the second class variety and employs four clerks, sup-
porting ten mail routes. Mr. Brock has not entirely severed his connec-
tion with the First National Bank, still being a member of the directo-
rate of that organization, and he is also president of the Southern Illinois
Lumber Company. In addition to his other business enterprises, Mr.
Brock has been engaged in the mercantile business with J. A. Cox of
Fairfield" for the past twenty-three years, and he owns and personally
supervises the management of a fine farm of one hundred and eighty
acres in Wayne county. He is active in the political life of the com-
munity, being a Taft Republican, and for fourteen years he served as
chairman of the county central committee. He is a Mason and an Odd
Fellow, and is a member of the Christian church, as is also his wife.
Their three children, all of whom were born in Illinois, have now
grown to maturity. The eldest daughter, Mabel Glen, now the wife of
S. T. Pendelton, is the mother of two children, — Marion and Alice.
Edna married R. A. Cox and they have two daughters. — Elinor and
Roberta. The son, Frank Leslie Brock, is in the forestry service of the
government, and is most enthusiastic in the work. He is at this writ-
ing located at Fraser, Colorado, in the Araphoe reservation.
Five generations of the Brock family have thus far been reared in
America. The first American progenitor of the family was Andrew
Brock, who came from England while the colonies were yet under British
rule, and settled in Pennsylvania. His son, Isaac, was born in the old
Indian Fort of the block house at Cincinnati, Ohio, just following the
Revolution, where he was reared and where he remained until about
1851, when he moved to Illinois where he lived until his death which
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1657
occurred in 1867. In 1827 Isaac's son, Jacob, was born, and in 1851, he
with his family, of which Jacob was the second oldest son, migrated
from Monroe county, Ohio, to Wayne county in Illinois, settling on a
farm near Jeffersonville. Before leaving Ohio, however, Jacob Brock,
who became the father of F. M. Brock of this review, was united in
marriage with Rebecca Flick, a native of that state. They reared a
goodly family of seven children, all of whom are living but two, Al-
mira and Minerva being deceased. F. M. Brock is the eldest of the boys.
Charles, the next oldest son, is manager of the Colonial Mercantile Com-
pany of St. Louis. Mrs Jennie Brock Nickell, the widowed daughter,
assists her brother in the postoffice, holding the position of money order
clerk, while Irvin E., the youngest son is engaged in railroad con-
struction work in Jacksonville, Florida. Viola, the wife of W. H. Cisne,
lives at Cisne, Illinois. The father passed away in 1901 at his home in
Fairfield, Illinois, his widow thereafter making her home with her son,
F. M., of this review, for ten years. She died at his home, surrounded
by her devoted family, on October 19, 1911, at the venerable age of
eighty-four, and her memory is tenderly cherished by those to whom
she was nearest, as well as by a large circle of friends, many of whom
she had retained throughout her lifetime.
EDWARD SCHURMANN. A man of marked financial and executive
ability and judgment, Edward Schurmann, secretary, assistant manager
and part owner of one of the largest flour mills of Southern Illinois, is a
splendid representative of the prominent and thriving business men of
Germantown, where he is held in the highest regard and esteem. A son
of Henry Sehurmann, he was born May 19, 1874, in Carlyle, Illinois, of
German ancestry. His paternal grandfather, Peter Schurmann, a na-
tive of Westphalia, Germany, immigrated to the United States in early
manhood, and settled in Clinton county, Illinois, in pioneer days, remain-
ing there until his death, while yet a comparatively young man. His
wife, who survived him many years, married a second time, and died in
the fall of 1872.
Born in Germantown, Illinois, in Looking Glass township, October 12,
1847, Henry Schurmann there acquired his elementary education in the
parochial schools which he attended until twelve years old. Then, soon
after the death of his father, he spent a year in college in Indiana. Re-
turning then to Germantown, he lived with his mother and stepfather
three years, when he secured a position in a flour mill at Hanover, where
he was employed in nailing up boxes and barrels for a year. He after-
wards served an apprenticeship of three years at the miller's trade, and
then took a full course of study at the Jones Commercial School, in Saint
Louis.
Returning then to the mill, Mr. Henry Schurmann accepted a position
as second miller in the plant with which he had previously been con-
nected, and early in 1869 was promoted to general manager of the mill.
On November 10 of that year the plant was sold, Mr. Schurmann buying
a third interest, his partners being Messrs. Usselmann and Sprehe. In
1878 Mr. Usselmann died, and his interest in the mill was bought by the
remaining partners on January 19, 1879. The business was then con-
tinued by the new firm of Sprehe & Schurmann until December, 1880,
when the senior member passed to the life beyond, since which time the
mill has been owned by the Schurmann family, and has carried on a sub-
stantial business under the name of the "Hanover Star Mills."
These mills were first started in 1859 by Messrs. Lampen, Kleinkorte
& Neumeyer as a saw mill, and was afterwards changed to a flour mill,
having a capacity of one hundred barrels every twenty-four hours, it
1658 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
being operated by a burr-millstone. In 1881 Mr. Henry Schurmann
changed it to a roller mill, increasing its capacity to three hundred bar-
rels daily. The present mill building is five stories in height, and is
equipped with the most modern approved machinery, being up-to-date in
every respect, its running capacity now being four hundred and fifty
barrels each day. The productions of this plant, the Schurmann Pat-
ent Flour, the Hanover Star Flour and other brands, were formerly
shipped not only to Boston and other important New England points,
but to foreign markets, but are now sold almost entirely in the Southern
states. In 1885 the plant was operated by a stock company, of which
Henry Schurmann was the president, but at the present time is a private
concern, controlled by the Schurmann family. In addition to the
twelve men employed in the coopering department of the plant, twenty
men are employed in the mill, and a large force of men are kept busy
in the office.
Mr. Henry Schurmann at one time owned the Bartelso Creamery, and
had an interest in the Germantown Creamery, but is not now identified
with either industry. In his earlier life he was a strong supporter of
the principles of the Democratic party, but since the introduction of the
free silver plank into its platform has severed his connection with that
party. He has been active in public affairs, and has filled various town
and county offices. In 1873 he was elected county clerk of Clinton
county, and served acceptably nine years ; from 1886 to 1890 he occupied
the same position ; in 1893 he was president of the village ; and for two
years he served as president of the Carlyle city council; and at the same
time was a member of the Carlyle school board.
On February 8, 1870, Henry Schurmann was married and nine chil-
dren blessed the union, of whom eight are living, as follows : Annie, now
known as Sister Thomasine ; J. Henry ; Edward ; August ; Carrie, wife
of Matt Boevingloh ; Payla ; Celia ; and Leona.
Spending his childhood days in Carlyle, Edward Schurmann there
attended the parochial school until nine years old, the ensuing five years
continuing his studies in the Germantown schools. Going then to Saint
Louis, he spent two years at the Jones Commercial College, and on re-
turning to Germantown became a bookkeeper in the office of his father 's
mill. His ability soon brought him deserved promotion, and he is now
part owner of the immense milling business, in addition being secre-
tory and assistant manager of the mill. Mr. Schurmann is a member of
the Southern Illinois Millers' Association; of the Operative Millers'
Association; of the Saint Louis Millers' Club; and of the Merchants
Exchange. He is an active member of the Republican party, belonging
to the central committee of Germantown township, and is judge of elec-
tions. Religiously he belongs to the Catholic church, and is a member
of Saint Henry's Sodality, a benevolent and charitable organization.
Mr. Schurmann married, in 1904, Annie Rolfes, of Germantown,
and they have one child, Henry Lewis Schurmann.
CHARLES W. SHAW. The history of a nation is nothing more than a
history of the individuals comprising it, and as they are characterized
by loftier or lower ideals, actuated by the spirit of ambition or indif-
ference, so it is with a state, county or town. Success along any line of
endeavor would never be properly appreciated if it came with a single
effort and unaccompanied by some hardships, for it is the knocks and
bruises in life that make success taste so sweet. The failures accen-
tuate the successes, thus making recollections of the former as dear
as those of the latter for having been the stepping-stones to achievement.
The career of Charles W. Shaw, at the present time trainmaster of the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1659
Illinois Southern Railway at Sparta, Illinois, is a combination of ambi-
tion, brains and a willingness to work.
Charles W. Shaw came to Illinois in 1885 from Evansville, Indiana,
where he was born on the 12th of April, 1867. His father, Rev. Jos-
eph "W. Shaw, was a Methodist minister and he passed the major portion
of his life time at Evansville, Indiana, where he was summoned to the
life eternal in the year 1873. Rev. Shaw was strictly a self-made man.
his early educational advantages having been of the most meager order.
He made the most of his opportunities for study, however, and after
being ordained as a minister in the Methodist church, filled a number
of charges and did much effective religious work in southern Indiana.
He was a son of John Shaw, who brought his family to America from
England in an early day, settling at old Mechanicsburg, now String-
town, Indiana. The senior Shaw was a blacksmith by trade and he
passed the declining years of his life in the old Hoosier state, where he
lies buried. The Rev. Shaw married Cornelia Clark, who passed to the
great beyond in 1871. There were seven children born to this union
and concerning them the following brief data are here incorporated :
Mrs. R. 0. Wood is a resident of Oakland, California; John W. main-
tains his home at Humboldt, Iowa ; Elizabeth is the wife of W. F. Under-
bill, of Oakland, California ; George H. resides at Cairo, Illinois ; Hettie
is Mrs. M. H. Bilyer, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ruel A. resides at
Fort Dodge, Iowa; and Charles W. is the immediate subject of this
review.
Having been early orphaned, Charles W. Shaw was reared to the
age of twelve years in the home of an uncle at Evansville, Indiana,
where he attended the public schools. His first employment was with a
local ice company, and when sixteen years of age he came to Illinois,
settling at Cairo, where he secured his first job in the railroad service
and where he was a diligent student in a commercial night school.
Through successive promotions he was engine foreman, yardmaster, con-
ductor, bridge and building foreman, trainmaster and eventually super-
intendent of the terminals in East St. Louis, to which place he was
transferred from Carbondale, Illinois. On the 1st of May, 1911, he
became the efficient and popular incumbent of his present position — that
of trainmaster of the Illinois Southern Railway at Sparta. His railroad
service has extended over a period of twenty-six years, and as he ap-
proaches middle life, rewards for the strenuous service of former years
are seeking him in a substantial way. Mr. Shaw is deeply and sin-
cerely interested in community affairs. In the time-honored Masonic
order he is a valued and appreciative member of the Chicago Consistory
and of Mohammed Temple at Peoria. He became a Mason on the even-
ing of his twenty-first birthday at Carbondale, Illinois, where he holds
his junior membership.
At Marion, Illinois, on the 7th of February, 1897, was solemnized
the marriage of Mr. Shaw to Miss Clara "White, a native of Carbondale,
Illinois, and a daughter of Daniel White, who was long a prominent
blacksmith in the latter place. Mrs. Shaw was one in a family of
seven children. Mr. and Mrs. Shaw have two children, Harry and
Edgar, both of whom are now attending school at Sparta.
ELBERT EPLER. One of the most conspicuous of the younger gen-
eration in Edwards county, is the popular gentleman whose name intro-
duces this article. For several years past Elbert Epler has been actively
identified with the business and industrial interests of Albion and vi-
cinity, as a capitalist and grain and live stock dealer. His useful career
1660 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
has conferred credit upon the community and his marked abilities and
stirring qualities have won for him more than local repute, and today he
holds distinctive precedence as a progressive and successful man who
has inaugurated and carried to successful termination large and im-
portant undertakings.
Mr. Epler was born November 3, 1878, on a farm in the vicinity of
Mt. Carmel, in Wabash county, the son of S. F. Epler, who was born
in 1849, in the state of Pennsylvania. The subject's grandfather, Daniel
Epler, was born in Germany and immigrated to Illinois about the year
1861, settling on a farm in Wabash county. S. F. Epler resided in
Wabash county until 1882, when he went to Colorado and for three
years lived upon a ranch. In 1885 he returned to Belmont, Wabash
county and there lived for fifteen years, and in 1900 he came to Albion,
where he embarked in the grain and seed business. He is now retired
and spends his winters in California, thus enjoying in both sections of
the United States their most attractive offerings in the way of climate.
He married Acnith Mundy, daughter of William Mundy, of Wabash
county, and her demise occurred in 1908. The elder Mr. Epler and his
admirable wife reared the following five children : Elbert, eldest in
point of nativity; Effie and Goley, who are still at home; Jessie, wife
of Mr. Moffit, of Cloverdale, Indiana; and.Melvin, at home.
To the public schools of Albion is Elbert Epler indebted for his
preliminary education and after finishing their curriculum he became
a student in the Southern Collegiate Institute, where he took a deeper
draught at the Pierian Spring. At the age of twenty years he tried
his wings as a business man and engaged in the grocery business, with
which he continued to be connected until January 1, 1912, when he dis-
posed of his interests in this line. He did not confine his operations to
the one field, but for the most of this period was also identified with the
grain and seed business, in which his father had found success.
In March, 1909, Mr. Epler formed a partnership with L. W. Wil-
son in the live stock and grain business, in which they are associated at
the present time. They own two excellent farms in partnership, on
which they raise stock, one of these consisting of one hundred and
twenty acres, being located in Wabash county and the other of ninety
acres, being in Edwards county. The firm of Epler & Wilson purchased
the Leader Department store in 1911, but disposed of it at the beginning
of 1912.
Mr. Epler is director in the Albion Vitrified Brick Company and is
the largest stockholder in the same. He is also director and the treas-
urer of the Albion Shale Brick Company, a $200,000 corporation. Nor
does that complete the list of important enterprises with which he is
identified, for he is a director and the president of the Albion Electric
Light & Gas Company, which was organized in 1911, with a capital of
$20,000, and is now in successful operation, supplying light service
to the city's business houses and residences. He has several times been
asked to accept local office and is at present city alderman. He is a
Republican, having loyally endorsed the policies and principles for which
the "Grand Old Party" stands sponsor for as many years as he has
been of age sufficient to exercise the right of voting. His lodge affilia-
tions are with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks of Mt. Carmel
and the Modern Woodmen of Albion. He and his wife are members of
the Presbyterian church.
In 1903 Mr. Epler was happily married, the lady of his choice be-
ing Ada Painter, of Albion, daughter of Washington Painter, one of
Albion's old resident and a merchant in calling. Mr. Epler and his
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1661
wife have three children, namely : Elbert, Jr., aged eight years ; and
twin daughters, named Mary Adeline and Margaret Ruth, born in
September, 1908.
Mr. Epler is active in Republican politics and is of that excellent
type of citizenship known as the "boosters," and as a progressive citi-
zen, he is doing much to push Albion to the front.
ORIA M. McCANN, who is assistant principal of the high school at
Browns, Illinois, which position he has held for the past year, is still a
very young man, being not yet twenty-three years of age. Neverthe-
less, he has held positions of trust in an educational way for the past
four years, and it is a foregone conclusion that he will make most un-
questionable progress in his chosen profession if he continues as he has
done for the past few years.
Professor McCann was born October 31, 1889, on a farm one mile
south of Albion, and is a well known figure in Edwards county. He is
the son of Rev. W. H. and Ellen (Bass) McCann. The father was born
in St. Clair county, and is a son of John McCann. a native of Louis
county, Kentucky, who was one of the early settlers of St. Clair county.
Rev. McCann is a minister of the Baptist faith and has preached the
gospel since 1876. He was first located near Thompsonsville and in 1881
removed to Edwards county, where he has since given his services in
various parts of the county. He is now supplying four churches —
Keenes, Barnhill, Pleasant Grove and Unity, and for several years he
supplied Wayne City and Mill Shoals. Rev. McCann owns a fine farm
of two hundred acres, which he conducts personally, and is as successful
in his farming operations as with his ministerial duties. He is a man of
excellent character, as is implied by his high calling, and possesses many
traits of natural worth, which, combined with the high order of Chris-
tian charity that is his, have made him a valuable factor in the life of
the communities with whicht he is associated in his work.
Five children were born to Rev. and Mrs. McCann. They are : John,
a farmer of Edwards county; Henry R., connected with the insurance
business in Benton, Illinois ; Jennie B. ; Oria M., of this review, and
Daisy C.
Professor MeCann was reared on the farm home of his father, and
as boy and youth attended the public and high schools of Albion. Later
he attended Ewing College for two years and pursued a course of study
at the Southern Illinois Normal at Carbondale, Illinois. In 1907 he began
teaching. For three years he was employed in a school near Albion,
and for the last year has been assistant principal of the high school at
Browns, Illinois, a position which he has filled in a manner highly credit-
able to the pedagogic profession.
WILLIAM H. CISNE. Among the prominent families of Wayne county
none are better or more favorably known than that of Cisne, members
of which have been identified with the growth and development of
Southern Illinois for more than sixty years, and in whose honor the
flourishing city of Cisne was named. One of the leading representatives
of this family is William H. Cisne, who for a number of years has been
engaged in the real estate and insurance business at Cisne, and who
was formerly extensively connected with agricultural affairs. Mr. Cisne
was born on his father's farm in Wayne county, Illinois, May 13, 1856,
and is a son of Levi M. and Jane (Ray) Cisne, a grandson of Emanuel
Cisne, and a great-grandson of Girard Cisne of Ohio.
Levi M. Cisne was born in Monroe county, Ohio, December 28, 1830,
Vol. HI— 37
1662 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and migrated to Southern Illinois about 1852. He was a prominent
farmer and a man of wide influence, being active in securing the promo-
tion of the Springfield & Illinois Southeastern Railroad, and inducing
the people of this section to vote subsidies to the railroad which was
completed in 1879. In the front rank of progressive farmers, himself
the owner of four hundred acres of valuable land, and a man greatly
interested in church work, he was justly considered one of his locality's
foremost citizens, and when the town of Cisne was laid out on what is
now the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad it was named in his honor. His
death occurred January 27, 1892. Mr. Cisne 's wife was a daughter
of Major Ray, who came to Southern Illinois in 1851.
William H. Cisne received a common school education and was
reared on his father's farm, on which he remained until he was twenty-
four years of age. In 1880 he engaged in the seed and implement busi-
ness in Cisne, with which he was connected until 1895, and in that year
became a commercial traveler, his work during the next four years
taking him through the states of Michigan, Texas, Missouri, Kansas,
Colorado and Arizona. On returning to Cisne, he again identified
himself with the seed and implement business, but in 1900 accepted
the cashiership of the Customs House in Chicago, a position which he
held for three and one-half years, without the shortage of a cent, an
irregularity — or any complaint from his superior officers. Since 1904
he has been engaged in the real estate and insurance business in
Cisne, doing a large volume of business and being the representative
of some of the leading old line companies. For a number of years he
was the owner of a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Wayne
county, but in 1911 disposed of it, although he still owns twenty-six
head of cattle, two spans of mules and two teams of horses, and re-
cently purchased eighty acres of the finest land in the locality of
Cisne, the price being $70.00 per acre. His handsome modern residence is
located in Cisne. Mr. Cisne has been identified with Republican politics
since he was nineteen years of age, and has had many personal friends
among the leaders of the party, including the late Mark Hanna, Ex-
Senator Mason, and others. For twelve years he has served as central
committeeman and is regarded as one of the influential Republicans
of his county. Fraternally he is connected with the Masons and the
Modern Woodmen.
In 1876 Mr. Cisne was united in marriage with Miss Viola Brock,
daughter of J. C. and Rebecca Brock, of Wayne county, and one son,
Fred Leo, has been born to this union. He is an employe of the Navy
Department at Washington, D. C.
Mr. Cisne is now one of five directors promoting a railroad propo-
sition known and chartered as the Terre Haute & Southwestern Rail-
way Company, and one of the finest propositions in the country.
JAMES CHARLES CARLYLE. Ohio has sometimes been suspected of
priding herself upon the production of a particularly fine type of
citizen and while it is not the province of this article to prove the truth
or falsity of the matter, nevertheless Albion is in possession of a native
son of the Buckeye state who has done much to substantiate this good
opinion in local circles, namely James Charles Carlyle, superintendent
of the Albion Vitrified Brick Company. Mr. Carlyle has resided here
since 1907 and no small part of the success and progress of the con-
cern with which he is identified is traceable to his ability. As his
name indicates, he is of Scotch origin, his father having been born
in the historic old city of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1818. Believing that
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1663
the newer land across the Atlantic presented greater opportunity for
an industrious young man, he severed the ties that bound him to the
"land o-' cakes" and in 1841 came to these shores in quest of his
share of opportunity. He located in East Liverpool, Ohio, where he
worked at the potter's trade, becoming an expert clay worker. In
1847 he went to Toronto, Ohio, and engaged in sewer pipe manufac-
turing, having the distinction of making in the year mentioned the
first sewer pipe ever manufactured in the United States. He con-
tinued in this line of endeavor for an extended period and built up
a large plant in his forty years activity in this line. He saw it grow
from small beginning to an immense concern which sold for nearly
$300,000. After retiring from business the elder gentleman removed
to Winchester, Kentucky, where he passed the declining years of life
and passed to the Great Beyond. He married Anna Hamilton, of
Knoxville, Jefferson county, Ohio, who survives him, this venerable
lady residing at the present time in Winchester, Kentucky, her years
numbering eighty-two. The subject is one of a family of three chil-
dren. Anna is the wife of Dr. J. W. Cochran, of Erie, Pennsylvania,
and George Edward is in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he is president of
the Carlyle Paving Brick Company, one of the large and important
Ohio river industries.
James Charles Carlyle received his education in the public schools
of Steubenville, Ohio, and graduated from the high school at the age
of eighteen years. Shortly thereafter he went to Cleveland, Tennessee,
and engaged in fire brick manufacturing, at that early age acting in
the capacity of superintendent of a factory. He remained in the south
until 1891 and then went to Cincinnati, where for a year and a half
he was commissary agent for the Pullman Car Company of the Queen
City. In 1892 he went to Winchester, Kentucky, where he accepted
a position as president of a brick manufacturing plant and remained
there until 1897, in which year he located in Brazil, Indiana. His
residence at that point in the Hoosier state was of nine years' dura-
tion, or until 1906, when he located at Brooklyn, Indiana, where he
became superintendent of the Indiana Drain Tile Company, a position
he held for one year. In 1907 he located in Portsmouth, where he was
in business with the Carlyle Paving Brick Company for one year. In
August, 1908, he came to Albion, where he accepted his present posi-
tion and in the fortunes of the enterprise which is justly valued by
Albion as a potent factor in its advancement he has played an im-
portant role. Fraternally this gentleman is identified with the Modern
Woodmen and his faith is that of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In October, 1896, Mr. Carlyle laid the foundation of a happy house-
hold and congenial life companionship by his union with Ella Hall,
daughter of James E. and Ann Rebecca Hall, their marriage being
celebrated at Winchester, Kentucky, the home of Mrs. Carlyle. Both
of her parents were natives of Virginia and both are deceased, the
father having passed away on July 4, 1902, and the mother on January
31, 1912. These worthy people were the parents of seven children, the
following six surviving: Luella (Hillis), of Greencastle, Indiana;
James Edwin, of Sheffield, Alabama; Anna, living in Albion; Alice J.
(Johnson) of Winchester, Kentucky; Nancy F. (Wilson) of Columbia,
Missouri ; and Ella. The eldest daughter. Mary Elizabeth, is de-
ceased. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle share their delightful home with two
children. — Glenn Wilson and Edwin Paul. Mrs. Carlyle is very promi-
nent in church and Sunday school work, and both are popular mem-
bers of society and aligned With the best interests of the community.
1661 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
RAAB DYSAET KEEN. Wayne county is justly noted for its old
families, and among these none are more highly honored than that
of Keen. Its members have always been found in the front -rank of
the county's successful men in the various walks of life, and have con-
tributed to the growth and development of its interests in no incon-
siderable manner. John Keen, Sr., a son of Ford Keen, of Virginia,
was the founder of the family in Southern Illinois. He was born in
Sumner county, Tennessee, and migrated to Wayne county in 1831,
becoming one of the pioneers of this section, where he took up gov-
ernment land and at one time was the owner of 3,000 acres. His
death occurred September 5, 1895, when he was eighty-eight years of
age. Mr. Keen was married (first) to Catherine Book, a native of
Kentucky, and a daughter of Harry Book, an early pioneer of Wayne
county, and she died December 19, 1867, having been the mother of
ten children, as follows : William, who is deceased ; James ; Samuel ;
John, deceased ; A. P., a farmer, operating north of Keenes ; a child
who died in infancy; Edmund, a farmer near Keenes; B. F., who is
deceased; G. W., a farmer near Keenville; and Mrs. Jane (Webber)
Fisher, of Keenes. John Keen, Sr., married for his second wife Alma
E. Atterbury, and four children were born to this union : Leathie Clark,
of Keenville ; Mrs. Alice Webber, also of that place ; Mrs. Laura Crask,
of Bluford; and Sallie, who is deceased.
Samuel Keen, son of John Keen, Sr., was born November 25, 1840,
in Hickory Hill township, Wayne county, and was reared on his father's
farm. When he was twenty years of age he took charge of l,pOO acres
of his father's land, but is now engaged in carrying on operations on
a .property of 1,250 acres, owned by himself and wife, and one of the
best farms in the township. He is prominent fraternally as a member
of the Odd Fellows, and has also taken a leading part in Democratic
politics, holding various minor local offices and acting in the capacity
of supervisor for six years. In 1865 he was married (first) to Amanda
J. Scribener, daughter of Joel and Lucy Scribener, and of the seven
children born to them three are still living: Edmund F., Nora B. and
Samuel R. Mr. Keen's first wife died in 1904, and in 1906 he was
married to Miss Alice M. Clark, of Boyleston, Illinois.
James Keen, one of the leading agriculturists of his part of Wayne
county, was born February 15, 1839, at old Keenville, and is a son of
John Keen, Sr. Reared to agricultural pursuits, he has followed the
vocation of farmer throughout his life, and is now the owner of a finely-
cultivated property embracing 900 acres. He has been a stanch and
active Democrat since attaining his majority, and has served in a num-
ber of local offices, such as township assessor and collector, has also
acted in the capacity of township and county supervisor,, and in 1881-2
was a member of the state legislature. On October, 18, 1871, he was
married to Miss Sarah Jane Ellis, daughter of Alfred Ellis, and she
died July 16, 1875, having been the mother of two children : Horatio,
deceased, and a child who died in infancy. On October 29, 1881, Mr.
Keen was married to Miss Rispah J. Whitney, daughter of Nathan and
Mary Jane (Moore) Whitney, and there were two children born to this
union: Raab Dysart and Rispah Catherine, the latter the wife of Dr.
William A. Dulany, a well-known physician of Keenes. The family
is well known in Methodist Episcopal church circles.
Raab Dysart Keen, son of James and Rispah J. (Whitney) Keen,
was born September 15, 1882, on his father's farm, and secured his
education in the common schools and the Southern Illinois Normal
University. In 1906, when the Bank of Keenes was organized by James
and Samuel Keen, James Strouse, Jacob Gregory and E. F. Keon, with
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1665
a capital of $200,000, Raab D. Keen was placed in charge of its affairs,
which he ably managed until January 1, 1912. Since that time he has
been conducting his father's farm of 900 acres, and has demonstrated
his ability as a farmer as well as a financier. He is one of the pro-
gressive young agriculturists of Wayne county, and is carrying on his
operations along modern methods. Following the example of his
father, he has identified himself prominently with Democratic politics,
and is at present central committeeman of Four Mile township and an
influential worker in the ranks of the organization. Fraternally he is
connected with the Modern Woodmen of America. He has numerous
friends throughout the township, and is known as a worthy representa-
tive of the old and honored family to which he belongs.
In 1906 Mr. Keen was united in marriage with Miss Otie L. Damon,
daughter of J. C. Damon, who is engaged in the milling business at
Keenes. Mr. and Mrs. Keen have two children: Helen, born in 1907;
and Rispah Susan, born in 1911.
CHARLES L. SCOTT. For the past ten years Charles L. Scott has
been identified with the communal life of Grayville, and has served
the city and county in many ways. In his first years of association
with this place he was engaged as principal of the North Side School
of Grayville, but in 1901 he engaged in the hardware business, in which
he has since continued with a most pleasing degree of success. He has
taken an important part in the political life of the county, having rep-
resented his district in the legislature on more than one occasion, and
ordinarily holding positions of importance in the administration of
affairs of the city.
Mr. Scott was born on January 26, 1876, on a farm in Edwards
county. He is the son of Joseph K. Scott, born in Kentucky, in 1837.
The father of Joseph K. Scott was James, a native of Virginia, and a
pioneer settler of eastern Kentucky, who migrated to Edwards county
in about 1862 and lived on a farm there with his son, Joseph K. The
farm of which Joseph Scott became the owner was a tract of about two
hundred acres, situated midway between Grayville and Albion. He
married Mary J. Coles, the daughter of William Coles and his wife,
Rachael, Mrs. Scott still lives in Albion, although her husband died in
1885. They reared seven children, five sons and two daughters, here
named in the order of their birth : Laura, who married a Mr. Brews-
ter, is now deceased ; John K. lives on the old homestead ; Charles L.,
of Grayville, Illinois; Katie, married Mr. Harris, and lives in Ellery,
Edwards county ; Ella is in Albion with the mother ; Josephine married
Mr. Schroeder and lives on a farm near Grayville; Rachael died in
infancy.
Charles L. Scott was educated in the public schools of Edwards
county. After his graduation from the high school he spent two years
in study at the Danville (Ind.) Normal, and in 1899 was graduated
from the Southern Collegiate Institute of Albion. When he was eigh-
teen years of age he began teaching between his college courses, and he
continued in that profession until 1904. He was principal of the North
Side school of Grayville for three years, as stated in a previous para-
graph, which was the last position he held in that line of work. In 1901
Mr. Scott became associated in the hardware business with Joseph
Robinson, under the firm name of Robinson & Scott. They began with
a small capital, but the business has grown since then until today the
total investment is in excess of $25.000. Aside from his business, to
which Mr. Scott gives close and careful attention, he has been promi-
nent in a political way for a number of years. He is a Democrat in
1666 HISTOKY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
his party belief, but served as a non-partisan member of the Grayville
city council for four years, and in that .position did excellent work for
the city. He served as president of the school board for two terms,
and has ever been an important factor in the growth and upbuilding
of the school system of the community. In 1908 Mr. Scott was elected
a member of the forty-sixth general assembly, and was re-elected to
the forty-seventh assembly in 1910. He is at the present writing a can-
didate for re-election. Mr. Scott is possessed of all the qualities which
might be calculated to fit him for the position of a legislator, and his
services to his district have been of a most unquestionable order since
he has represented them in the legislature. Fraternally he is affiliated
with a number of societies, among which are the Modern Woodmen, the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Mystic Workers of the World
and the Knights and Ladies of Security.
In 1899 Mr. Scott was united in marriage with Miss Flora Johnson,
daughter of Thomas Johnson. Two sons have been born to them,
Marion Joseph and Joseph Thomas.
Louis H. WEAVER. A splendid representative of the self-made and
self-educated men of Wayne county, Louis H. Weaver has won note-
worthy success in life through his own efforts, meeting every obstacle
intelligently and courageously, and as chief clerk of the Southern Illi-
nois Penitentiary is rendering efficient service, spending a large part
of his time in Menard, although he claims Fairfield as his home. A
son of the late David Weaver, he was born February 11, 1862, on a
farm in old Arrington township. His paternal grandfather, George
Weaver, was born in Pennsylvania, of German ancestry. Left an or-
phan when young, he settled in Ohio, from there coming, in 1852 to
Illinois, locating in Indian Prairie township, near Johnsonville, where
he spent his remaining years.
David Weaver was born in Orange county, Ohio, December 3, 1830.
In 1850 he migrated to Southern Illinois, locating near Johnsonville,
Wayne county. Energetic and persevering, he became one of the lead-
ing farmers and stock raisers of his community, at one time owning
fifteen hundred acres of land. During his earlier life he followed his
trade of a cabinet maker in addition to farming, making furniture for
the new-comers, and making all of the coffins required by the people
for miles around, taking the lumber employed in their manufacture in
the rough and hand dressing it. Prior to his death, which occurred in
April, 1910, he gave to each of his children a farm of one hundred and
sixty acres, retaining three hundred and forty acres in his own name.
David Weaver was twice married. He married first Naomi Sicer,
who passed to the life beyond in 1886. She bore him nine children, as
follows: Mrs. Matilda Whitson, of Johnsonville; Louis H., the special
subject of this brief biographical sketch ; George H., engaged in farm-
ing and stock raising in Hickory Hill township ; Cynthia J., wife of
John Tibbs, of Johnsonville ; Franklin, a farmer and stock-grower in
Berry township ; Theodore, also engaged in agricultural pursuits in
Berry township; Nettie, wife of Owen Galbraith, of Saint Louis, Mis-
souri ; and Arthur and Everett, twins, who died in infancy. He mar-
ried for his second wife Mary J. Taylor, who survived him.
Louis H. Weaver was brought up on the home farm, receiving very
limited educational advantages, his father putting his boys to work at
an early agev so that his education was largely acquired after his mar-
riage, under the instruction of his wife, or by reading. He did his full
share of work as a youth, remaining at home until his marriage, when
he settled on a farm of eighty acres, to which he subsequently added
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1667
another eighty acres of land. This farm Mr. Weaver sold, but he has
other landed interests, owning, with his brother, eighty acres in Wayne
county, and being owner of three hundred and twenty acres in Kansas,
and one hundred and twenty acres in Missouri.
In his political affiliations Mr. Weaver is a Republican, and has
faithfully performed his duties as a citizen in various capacities. For
twelve years he was school director; for three years he served as high-
way commissioner; was township tax collector one term; and for one
year was a member of the county board of supervisors. In 1902 he was
elected county sheriff, and served four years. Embarking in the livery
business in Fairfield in 1906, he carried it on successfully until selling
out in August, 1911. In 1910 he was elected a member of the county
board of supervisors from Grover township. On June 30, 1911, he was
appointed chief clerk of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary, at Menard,
and is filling the position with marked ability and fidelity.
On March 20, 1884, Mr. Weaver was united in marriage with Nancy
A. Dickey, a daughter of William R. Dickey, and into their home eight
children have been born, namely : David Arthur, born in 1885, married
and has one child, Dorothy ; Mrs. Edna Gates, of Fairfield ; Mrs. May
Goodall, of Saint Elmo, Illinois, has one child, Madeline; Etta, attend-
ing the Fairfield high school; Chloe; Edith; and Ida; and a child un-
named, which died in infancy.
PROFESSOR ANDREW EMANUEL LIBKE, since 1909 superintendent of
schools in West Salem, and identified with the profession since 1900,
was born on a farm immediately south of West Salem, on April 9, 1877.
He is the son of Charles A. Libke and Catherine (Breining) Libke.
Charles A. Libke was born in Edwards county, February 23, 1854,
and was the youngest son of Frederick Libke, a native of Germany,
and the only one of the family to be born in America. Frederick Libke
immigrated from Germany in 1852 and settled in Edwards county on
a farm near West Salem. He had a family of eight children, all of
whom were born in Germany with the exception of the youngest son,
Charles, who is the father of Andrew Emanuel Libke of this review.
One of the children- died and was buried at sea while the family was
making the passage from the Fatherland, and three of the number are
now living, — Charles A., Frederick and Mrs. Lucy Felderman. Charles
Libke owns a fine farm of one hundred and ten acres near West Salem,
where he has lived the greater part of his life. He was twice married.
His first wife was Catherine Breining, born November 12, 1852, in Ly-
coming county, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Jacob Brein-
ing, a native of Germany, who first settled in Pennsylvania, later moved
to Missouri and finally established a home in Wayne county, Illinois.
She died on November 13, 1894, having reared a family of nine children.
They are: Andrew E. ; Mrs. E. A. Moody, living at Port Stanley, On-
tario, Canada; Mrs. Daisy Elliot, living on a farm near West Salem;
Samuel, a resident of the state of Washington ; Harry, living in West
Salem ; Nora, married to Harry Voigt, living in West Salem ; Lloyd,
who lives at home ; and Lora and Roy, who died in infancy.
Andrew Emanuel Libke was a student in the Little Brick district
school just south of West Salem as a boy and was graduated from the
West Salem high school with the class of 1898, after which he studied
in the Southern Collegiate Institute at Albion. In 1900 he began teach-
ing, for six years confining his labors to the country districts, four of
which were in his home district. In 1906 he became assistant principal
of the West Salem high school, and in 1909, so well had he fulfilled his
duties, he was appointed to the position of superintendent of the
1668 HISTORY OF SOUTHERX ILLINOIS
schools of the town and principal of the high school. The high school
has an average attendance of twenty-six students, while the schools of
the town have an enrollment of two hundred and seventy-five, and he
has a corps of six teachers as assistants. His success in his chosen line
of work is in every way worthy of the approbation of his fellow men,
who have expressed their pleasure and appreciation by giving him po-
sitions of higher importance with each succeeding year.
Professor Libke is connected with a number of fraternal orders,
among them the Ben Hurs, the Odd Fellows and the Rebekahs. He
has been financial secretary of the Odd Fellows for the past eight years.
He is a Republican in his political faith, and firm in his convictions,
although not in any sense a politician.
In 1905 Professor Libke was united in marriage with Miss Carrie
J. Lopp, the daughter of Jacob and Eliza Lopp, of West Salem. Mrs.
Libke also taught a number of terms in the village and country schools
before her marriage, and has filled a number of vacancies, assisting her
husband since her marriage.
BENJAMIN F. THOMAS. A man of broad mentality and high schol-
arly attainments, Benjamin F. Thomas, of Fairfield, occupies a place
of prominence among the leading attorneys of Wayne county, his habits
of industry, well trained mind and professional skill and knowledge
having gained for him noteworthy success at the bar of Southern Illi-
nois. A native of Wayne county, he was born August 18, 1873, in Jas-
per township, where his early life was spent.
The father of Mr. Thomas, Jason H. Thomas, was born near Salem,
Ohio, July 9, 1827, and now, in 1912, is living on his farm of one hun-
dred and five acres, which he improved from its original wildness.
Coming to Wayne county in 1854, he followed the trades of a tanner
and cabinet maker for many years, also being successfully engaged in
agricultural pursuits. During the Civil war he enlisted in Company
D, Eighty -seventh Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served
until the close of hostilities.
Acquiring his preliminary education in the common schools, and
afterwards graduating from Harvard College, Benjamin F. Thomas
subsequently studied law, and in February, 1898, was admitted to the
bar. On March 21, 1898, he formed a professional partnership with
Thomas H. Creighton, of Fairfield, with whom he is at the present time
associated, being junior member of the firm of Creighton & Thomas.
In November, 1900, Mr. Thomas was elected state's attorney by a ma-
jority of seventy-three votes, and at the same time gained the distinc-
tion of being the first state's attorney ever elected on the Republican
ticket in Wayne county. The administration that followed was an ex-
cellent one, and in November, 1904, Mr. Thomas was re-elected state's
attorney by a majority of four hundred votes, the increase in the num-
ber of ballots cast in his favor bespeaking his popularity with all classes
of people. During his eight years as state's attorney Mr. Thomas made
a notable record, achieving over fourteen hundred convictions in the
time ; ridding the county of boot-leggers ; thoroughly cowing the tough
element by his strenuous work as prosecutor; at the expiration of his
term turning over to the school funds more money than ever has been
by a state 's attorney before or since ; and through his wise and efficient
labors converting Wayne county into a law-abiding community. The
abilities of Mr. Thomas receive hearty recognition not only in his home
city, but throughout the county. He is highly esteemed and profes-
sionally and financially has attained marked success, being a large land
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1669
owner and having a financial interest in a number of prominent busi-
ness ventures.
Mr. Thomas married Miss Minnie Farmer, of Noble, Illinois, and
they have one daughter, Marjorie.
CHESTER ARTHUR McCujRE. A well-managed and up-to-date mer-
cantile establishment is one of the most valuable institutions a com-
munity can possess and contributes in marked degree to its prosperity
and standing and also to the pleasure and convenience of living. One
of the most successful and enterprising of the mercantile businesses of
Edwards county is that of which Chester Arthur McClure is proprietor
and manager. He is following in the footsteps of his honored father,
who from 1883 until his death in 1905 operated a ' general mercantile
store in this place. The subject is of pioneer stock in this section and
may point to an ancestral record distinguished for its patriotism and
good citizenship, and in these qualities he shares, being a veteran of
the Spanish-American Avar and a young man whose hand is extended
toward all public-spirited measures.
Mr. McClure was born at Dexter, in Effingham county, September
19, 1885, the son of G. W. McClure. The grandfather was a native of
Maryland and of Scotch-English descent. However, he early left his
native heath and came to the west, and his son, the subject's father,
was born within the boundaries of Edwards county. The first of the
McClures in Illinois was among the forty-niners, making the trip over-
land to California in that year, but soon returning and devoting his
energies to Illinois agriculture, finding far greater peace and happiness
in the tilling of the soil than in the quest of gold. When the Civil war
cloud broke, plunging the nation into sorrow and devastation, he en-
listed and served under the flag of the cause he believed to be just as
a member of an Illinois regiment.
The subject's father, after his marriage, removed to Dexter, Ef-
fingham county, and there started a general mercantile business, which
was destined to meet with the best of fortunes and which he operated
in Dexter for three and a half years, until 1883. He then removed his
business to Bone Gap, in whose future he had all of confidence, and
this business he operated until his demise, its growth being continual
and substantial. This fine citizen was Republican in politics. Fra-
ternally he was an Odd Fellow and a Mason. He was active in church
work and served in the affairs of the Methodist Episcopal church, of
which he was a member as steward, trustee and class leader. In 1880
he married Susan J. Walser, daughter of James Walser, a pioneer of
Edwards county, she having been reared on a country estate about a
mile and a half east of West Salem. Three children were born to their
union, — Chester A., a child who died in infancy and Flossie A., wife
of George W. Porter, of Bone Gap.
Mr. McClure of this review received his first introduction to Min-
erva in the public schools of Bone Gap and Effingham and had his
higher training in the Southern Collegiate Institute. Subsequently he
completed a business course in the Austin Business College at Effing-
ham in 1900. Previous to that he served in the Spanish-American war,
being mustered into the service on June 28, 1898, as a member of Com-
pany G, Ninth Illinois Volunteer Regiment. He was on detached duty
at brigade headquarters under Brigadier General Douglas and Briga-
dier General Kribben, being stationed at Jacksonville, Savannah and
Havana, Cuba. He was mustered out May 20. 1899, with the rank of
mounted orderly.
Upon the return of peace Mr. McClure came back to his home town,
1670 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
and after the business course at Effingham, mentioned previously, he
went to Detroit and engaged in the machinist's trade, working at the
Bayer plant of the Chicago Pneumatic Tube Company. He was sub-
sequently employed by various automobile companies, the Packard
Company, etc., and was also in the employ of the Burroughs Adding
Machine Company. He resided for a considerable period in Detroit,
from August, 1901, to September 14, 1905. Upon the demise of his
father Mr. McClure took charge of the business of that gentleman and
he has shown the same good judgment and honorable and effective busi-
ness methods displayed by the elder gentleman. The stock carried at
the present time is an excellent one and exceeds $6,000.
Mr. McClure is a prominent lodge man and finds pleasure and profit
in fraternal association with his fellows. He belongs to the Masonic
lodge, No. 866, at West Salem; Monitor Lodge, No. 235, Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, at Bone Gap ; the Modern Woodmen of America,
No. 648, of whose counsel he is a member ; Ben Hur and the Rebekahs.
In religious faith he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
On June 13, 1909, Mr. McClure was happily married at Mt. Carmel,
the lady of his choice being Claribel J. Inskeep, daughter of Dr. J. E.
Inskeep. They have one daughter, Catherine Wilbur, born May 26,
1910. They are among the most popular and highly regarded of the
young people of the community and maintain a pleasant and hos-
pitable home.
HON. DOUGLAS W. HELM. Metropolis possesses a citizen of more
than state-wide fame, in whose achievements the city, Massac county
and the fifty-first senatorial district feel a possessive pleasure, for Hon.
Douglas W. Helm, to whom reference is made, has represented all these
civic divisions and is as proud of them as they are of him. Senator
Helm is a member of the law firm of Courtney and Helm at Metropolis,
and is for the third term representing the fifty-first senatorial district
in the general assembly of Illinois as its member of the upper house.
Senator Helm represents the counties of Massac, Pope, Johnson, Saline
and Hamilton, succeeding ex-Congressman Chapman in the state sen-
ate. He entered upon his legislative duties as a member of the forty-
third general assembly and was appointed on the judiciary committee,
being also made chairman of the committee on judicial department and
practice! He was also made a member of the appropriations committee
and at the historic "Lorimer" session of the legislature he was made
chairman of the committee authorized to investigate the election of
William Lorimer, of Chicago, to the United States senate. This bore
his name, being called the "Helm Committee." Senator Helm was
a participant in the initial fight for a primary election law for the
state. He stood out for a law that would not fall before the scrutiny of
the supreme court, and supported the best measure that could be had
at the various sessions at which the subject was considered.
The Senator's public life began almost as soon as he had finished
his classical and legal education. He entered politics as a Republican
in his home town and was elected city attorney of Metropolis. In 1888
he was elected state's attorney of Massac county and was twice re-
elected, filling the office for three full terms. He was appointed by
Governor John R. Tanner as trustee for the Southern Illinois Normal,
being the first graduate of that school to receive such distinction. Gov-
ernor Yates subsequently selected him as a member of the Illinois Com-
mission of Claims, and he resigned from the Normal board. He had not
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1671
completed his term on the Commission when elected to the State Senate,
and resigned for the purpose of accepting the latter honor. His trained
mind, keen sense of perception and indomitable will have served him
in the successive steps of his public positions, and he is known as a
champion of the right who never fears a foe or admits defeat, but
adroitly turns the latter into victory. No public servant of any com-
munity stands higher among his constituents than does Senator Helm
among the people of Southern Illinois. He has served them long and
well, honestly and faithfully, and they honor him accordingly.
The Senator is a native of Johnson county. He was born July 23,
1860, and went from the public schools to the Southern Illinois Nor-
mal University at Carbondale. He graduated from the Wesleyan Law
School at Bloomington in 1883. He took the bar examination the fol-
lowing year at Mt. Vernon and entered upon practice with his present
partner, under whom he had read law. Senator Helm is a son of
Robert A. Helm, who gave his life to the service of his country while
a member of Smith's battery of light artillery, attached to the Sixth
Illinois Cavalry. The father was born in Tennessee, a son of Thomas
Helm, who came to Illinois when his son was a youth, and who died
on a farm in Johnson county. His father, the great-grandfather of
Senator Helm, was Thomas Helm, a soldier of the Revolution, who was
killed in the battle of Guilford Court House. He was a Virginia
soldier and his family eventually followed the trend of immigration
to Tennessee, whence his son later brought his own family to Illinois.
Thomas Helm, Jr., was married to a Miss Cowden, whose father was
killed in a cavalry charge during the War of the Revolution, so the
traditions of the relationship through many branches are coupled with
the memories of the heroic dead whose love of country was greater
than their love of life. The issue of the Helm-Cowden union consisted
of four children, who are now all dead. They were : Robert A., Thomas,
Leroy and Elizabeth, the latter of whom became the wife of Lee
Walker. Robert A. Helm married Mary J. Rice, a daughter of Thomas
Rice, who came originally from North Carolina, where his father was
proprietor of an old time inn. Senator Helm is the only surviving
issue of his parents. His mother died in 1908, at the age of seventy.
On April 13, 1884, Senator Helm married in Johnson county, Illi-
nois, Miss Mary Howell, a daughter of Henry C. Howell, who was a
volunteer soldier in the Union army during the Civil war. Mr. Howell
was himself married in Johnson county, his wife being Margaret John-
son, a grand-daughter of one of the very earliest settlers of that county.
Mrs. Helm was born in Johnson county in 1863, and the children from
her marriage with the Senator are Roy R., Lloyd L., Herbert and
Verna May. The children have made splendid records as students.
Roy Helm graduated from the University of Illinois with the degree
of LL. D. and from the law department of the University of Chicago,
where he made a record as a brilliant and deep student. He is en-
gaged in the practice of law in Metropolis, his wife having formerly
been Miss Mabel Moore, and a member of his graduating class at the
State University. Lloyd Helm will finish his course in the University
of Illinois in 1912, with the degree ol A. B. Herbert will graduate
from the Metropolis high school in 1912, and his sister is still pursuing
her studies.
DR. HERMAN L. SCHAEFER succeeded his father in the practice of
medicine in West Salem in 1891, and in the years that have elapsed
1672 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
has most creditably carried on the reputation of that worthy gentle-
man. Born in West Salem, Edwards county, on January 20, 1869,
Dr. Schaefer is the son of Dr. Herman M. and Albertine (Hedrick)
Schaefer. The father was a native of Germany, born in that country
in 1820. He immigrated to America in 1848, previous to which he had
served in the Franco-Prussian war in the capacity of army surgeon.
When he located in West Salem, then a mere village with the sur-
rounding country but thinly settled, he began the practice of his pro-
fession, which he continued throughout the remainder of his life, his
death occurring in 1892, at West Salem. His wife was a daughter of
George Hedrick, a native of North Carolina, who was an early pioneer
of Edwards county. She was born near West Salem in 1833, and she
passed away in 1898. Thirteen children were born to Dr. and Mrs.
Herman Scnaefer, of whom seven are still living. The names of the
children are: George, Paul, Louisa, all three deceased; Mrs. Anna
Brown; Mrs. Lucy Dollahon; Mrs. Clara Rominger; Mrs. Lora Clod-
f etted ; Henry, deceased ; Mrs. Emily Lilkis ; Alice ; Herman ; Ellen,
deceased ; and Charles, also deceased.
Dr. Schaefer was educated in the common schools of West Salem,
and then entered the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois,
in 1888, and was graduated from its medical department in 1891. He
commenced the practice of his profession in the same year, and upon
his father's demise in 1892 continued in the practice already estab-
lished by him. In addition thereto he has drawn to himself a clientele
that is representative of the best in West Salem, and he has in every
way demonstrated his fitness to carry on the work of his father. He
is local surgeon for the Illinois Central Railroad.
Dr. Schaefer is a member of the County, State and American Medi-
cal Associations, and is a close and careful student of all that tends
to advance him in his profession. He is a Republican in his political
faith, and is a member of the Moravian church. In a fraternal way
he affiliates wilh the Masons, the Odd Fellows and the Modern Wood-
men.
Dr. Schaefer has been twice married. In 1894 he was married to
Miss Hattie Hallbeck, a daughter of P. J. Hallbeck. She died in 1897.
His second marriage took place in 1907, when he married Inez Seibert,
a daughter of Daniel Seibert, of West Salem.
JOHN M. LANSDEN, of Cairo, Illinois, was born in Sangamon county,
February 12, 1836. His parents, Scotch-Irish people, were Rev. Abner
Wayne Lansden and Mary Miller Lansden, the former born in Iredell
county, North Carolina, October 1, 1794, and the latter in Roane coun-
ty, Tennessee, February 12, 1809. Her name was Mary M. Gallaher.
They were married at her father's home in Roane county, January
29, 1829, but resided in Wilson county, Tennessee, until 1835, when
they came to Sangamon county. She died there September 3, 1842,
in the thirty-fourth year of her age. Twelve years after her death
he married Sarah L. Lowrance, of Jerseyville. They removed to Sa-
line county, Missouri, in 1869, where his two daughters had recently
gone. He died there September 8, 1875, in the eighty-first year of his
age.
John M. Lansden worked on his father's farm fifteen miles south-
west of Springfield, and attended the village and district schools, and
afterward prepared for college at Virginia, Cass county, Illinois, and
in September, 1858, entered the freshman class of Cumberland Uni-
OF THE
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1673
versity, Lebanon, Tennessee. He carried along the first year the work
also of the sophomore year, and at the end of the second year entered
the junior class in the regular classical course. Prom thence he stood
third in mathematics and second in all other studies. Owing to the
disturbed condition of the country following the election of Mr. Lin-
coln to the presidency, he left Lebanon in January, 1861, five months
before the time for graduation, and entered the senior class of Illinois
College at Jacksonville, and there graduated in June of that year. He
taught school for two or three years, and then entered the law school
at Albany, New York, where he graduated in the latter part of May,
1865. He obtained his license in that state and upon it he obtained
license in Illinois and began the practice of the law in the same year.
He became a resident of Cairo in 1866, and from that time up to
the present he has continued in the practice of his profession without
interruption. He has taken almost no part in politics, although usually
acting with the Democratic party. Besides practicing in the state and
federal courts of his own state, he has for almost twenty-five years
practiced in the state and federal courts of Kentucky and, now and
then, elsewhere. He was admitted to the United States supreme court
at Washington in 1896. He was elected city attorney in 1870, and
mayor in 1871 and 1872. He has been a member of the following law
firms during the many years of his practice : Olney, McKeaig & Lans-
den, O'Melveny & Lansden, Linegar & Lansden, Mulkey, Linegar &
Lansden, Lansden & Leek, and now of the firm of Lansden & Lansden,
the junior member of which is his son, David S. Lansden. Recently .
he wrote a history of the City of Cairo, which was published by R. R.
Donnelley & Sons Company, of Chicago, in 1910.
In 1867 he married Effie Wyeth Smith, of Jacksonville, a daughter
of David A. Smith, a well known and distinguished lawyer of central
Illinois. She died January 31, 1907. He and his family have always
been identified with the Presbyterian church, as were their ancestors.
His father was a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian church for
fifty years. Two of his father's brothers were ministers of the same
church, and three of his mother's brothers wiere ministers of the Pres-
byterian church. One of them, the Rev. James Gallaher, was chaplain
to the house of representatives at Washington some sixty years ago,
and the author, also, of three or four interesting books.
JESSE E. MILLER. A public official of Southern Illinois who through
faithful and efficient discharge of his duties has won the confidence
and esteem of the people of his community is Jesse E. Miller, who is
now serving his fifth term as clerk of Alexander county. Mr. Miller,
who is a well-known farmer and lumberman of Cairo, is a native of
Alexander county, having been born near Elco, January 6, 1861, a son
of Milford Green and Mary A. (Walton) Miller. His grandfather,
who was of German parentage, had two other children to come to
Illinois and rear families, Daniel and Mrs. Barbara Mowery.
Milford Green Miller was born in 1820 in Rowan county, North
Carolina, and was there married (first) to a Miss Cauble, who died,
leaving him one son, George, now a resident of Diswood, Illinois. He
married (second) Mary A. Walton, who was of German and English
descent, and they began their married lives on a North Carolina plan-
tation, but in 1857 came to Illinois and settled in the rural community
1674 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
of Elco. There Mr. Miller spent the remainder of his life in agricul-
tural pursuits, and in bringing up his children to sturdy man and
womanhood, and fitting them, by education and otherwise to take hon-
orable positions in life. He died in 1892 at the age of seventy -two
years, his widow surviving until 1909 and being eighty-four years old
at the time of her death. Their children were as follows : Margaret,
who became the wife of Henry Whitaker and died in Alexander county ;
Sidney B., postmaster of Cairo; Clinton Eugene, residing in Miller
City, Illinois; Susie I., who married J. S. McRaven, of Marion, Illi-
nois; Jesse E. ; and Mary J., who married William Brown, of Cairo.
While coming through the years of his minority Jesse E. Miller
attended the country schools and the Southern Illinois Normal Uni-
versity at Carbondale. He followed his inclination to teach school and
engaged in the work in 1879, continuing therein for nine years. Hav-
ing thus added materially to his intellectual equipment and acquired
a little capital, he engaged in the merchandise business at Elco, and
was appointed postmaster of the town. In 1898, when a vacancy oc-
curred, he was appointed county clerk, and at the succeeding four elec-
tions he was returned to the office by comfortable majorities. In his
political affiliations, Mr. Miller is a Republican, as was his father, ex-
ercised his prerogative as a party man from early manhood, mixed with
adherents of the faith at political gatherings, and served as a dele-
gate to conventions and as a member of his county political com-
mittee. Although many years have been devoted to official life, he
has ever maintained a personal interest in the management of his farms,
and for some years has been a dealer in timber and railroad ties, also
handling the product of various local lumber mills.
Mr. Miller was married near Elco, Illinois, September 1, 1889, to
Miss Fluanna Short, daughter of Francis A. and Fluanna (Sowers)
Short, whose other children were: Henrietta, the wife of Clinton E.
Miller, of Miller City ; Ida, who is deceased ; Eli A., of Pulaski county,
Illinois; and George W., residing at Elmodena, California. Mr. and
Mrs. Miller have had the following children: Blanche F., a graduate
of the Cairo high school; Jesse S., who died June 10, 1908, at the age
of thirteen years; and Frank M., Edward E. and Dorothy R. With
his family Mr. Miller attends the Methodist church, of which he is
a member and trustee and in the support of which he has been liberal.
BENNETT JAMES. Since his removal to Waterloo in 1897 Bennett
James has deservedly been recognized as one of the most valued and
representative of its citizens. He is engaged in the real estate, fire in-
surance and grain business and has made a success of the combined
industries. Mr. James has had a varied experience in business, having
been a farmer, school-teacher, merchant, postmaster and levee com-
missioner, and even this list does not represent a complete enumera-
tion of his previous fields of activity.
Bennett James was born in Mitchie precinct, Monroe county, March
10, 1853, and is not only the son of one of the pioneers of this part of
the state but the descendant of a family whose founding in America
antedates the Revolutionary war. The family is of Welsh origin and
its first American settlers located in Maryland. The subject's great-
grandfather, Joseph Austin James, was born in Maryland and there
married, and subsequently immigrated to Kentucky. There he resided
with his family for a space and then came to Illinois, making his home
in the vicinity of Chalfin Bridge. After a year or two he removed to
Missouri, settling at Florissant, in St. Louis county, and he died some
years later in Perry county, Missouri. Of the eight children born to
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1675
him and his brave pioneer helpmeet, James A. James, the grandfather
of him whose name heads this review, was the youngest, his birth oc-
curring in Kentucky in 1794.
James A. James was educated in the college at Beardstown, Ken-
tucky. He chose as his vocation that of a farmer, and soon rose above
the status of the mediocre citizen, being active in public affairs for
many years. He was a colonel in the Black Hawk war, was a member
of the state constitutional convention of 1848 and served for four years
in the senate of his state. He married Susan O'Hara, and they be-
came the parents of ten children, Austin James, the father of Bennett,
being the second born.
Austin James was born in Monroe county, near the Randolph coun-
ty line, December 30, 1823. He received the earlier part of his edu-
cation at Harrisonville, whence his family had moved ; later he was
entered at St. Mary's College in Perry county, Missouri, and ulti-
mately became a student in the University of Missouri. After finish-
ing his education he assisted his father on his farm, and for a short
time, beginning with 1846, was identified with mining industries in
central Iowa. In 1847 he returned to Harrisonville and enlisted in a
company organized for service in the Mexican war and continued en-
gaged in warfare almost until the termination of that conflict. Upon
the return of peace he exchanged, like so many of the young citizens,
the musket for the ploughshare, the vicinity of Harrisonville being
the scene of his agricultural work. In 1849, at Mitchie (at that time
called "Hardscrabble") he bought a farm on the Mississippi river,
and the old homestead and three hundred and fifty acres of the orig-
inal tract of nine hundred acres remains in the family to the present
day. He was married on April 14, 1852, to Caroline E. Walker, for-
merly of Monroe county, but at that time residing at Dubuque, Iowa.
He died on November 18, 1892, and is survived by his wife, who is
still strong and active at the age of seventy-nine years, and resides in
Waterloo with her daughters, next door to the family of her son Ben-
nett, where both families have resided for the past fifteen years. Mrs.
James is one of the few representatives yet living of the old fashioned
active, industrious housewife of fifty years ago and is descended from
one of the oldest and best families connected with early settlement of
Southern Illinois. Her brother, Thomas Walker, was editor of one of
the early newspapers of Belleville, where Mrs. James lived for many
years, when it was a small village compared to what it now is. Six
children were born of this union, as follows: Bennett, William, Mary,
Frank, Thomas and Carrie. Frank and Thomas are deceased. Wil-
liam (whose wife is a niece of Colonel William R. Morrison, deceased)
is a physician of large practice at Chester and division surgeon of the
Iron Mountain and Cotton Belt Railways. Mary is the primary teacher
in the Waterloo high school and Carrie is a stenographer for the Estey
Piano Company of St. Louis. Austin James was a loyal Democrat in
politics and for several years served as justice of the peace. In 1864
he was elected to the state legislature and in 1872 his record in, the state
assembly was approved by re-election. He served as postmaster at
Mitchie from 1857 until 1891, when, advanced in years, he removed to
Harrisonville, and there he died a year later, lamented by hosts of
friends and former associates who knew him as a good and able man,
and one whose judgment was to be relied upon at any and all times.
The early life of Bennett James was passed on a farm and his edu-
cation was secured in the public schools and in the Christian Brothers
College at St. Louis. At about the age of twenty-one he left college
and himself became a pedagogue, teaching school in his old home town,
1676 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Mitchie. In 1876-7 he went to California, and there for some time
acted in the capacity of deputy sheriff to his uncle, Bennett James,
whose namesake he is, and who held the office of sheriff there. The
following year he came back to Mitchie and again became an instructor,
teaching school in that locality until 1882. From that year dates his
mercantile experiences on any extended scale, although he had already
become somewhat acquainted with mercantile life before going to Cali-
fornia, and conducted a store at Lilly's Landing, a mile south of
Mitchie, under the firm name of T. & B. James. He had charge of
the river boat landing known as James' Landing, and ran his store
very successfully from 1882 to 1887, handling grain at his landing,
and from 1891 to 1897 conducted the local post office in connection with
the store, succeeding his father as postmaster. In 1897 he left Mitchie
and went to Harrisonville, where he lived for a short time and then
took up his residence in Waterloo, which place has since represented
his home. Here he embarked in the real estate and grain business on
a larger scale, and his success has been above the ordinary. He is
agent for the Nanson Commission Company of St. Louis and helped
them to secure their right-of-way contracts for the fine line of grain
elevators this firm has along the line of the St. L., I. M. & S. Railway
in Monroe, Randolph, Jackson and Union counties. He is agent for
the large landed interests of William Winkelman, Baer Brothers and
others, and has charge of some three or four thousand acres of land
in the bottom part of the county, collecting rentals from thirty-five or
forty tenants, and it is safe to say that he is as well known in the
western part of the county as any man who might be mentioned. He
is also in the fire insurance business, and writes a nice line of fire
insurance in Waterloo and the western part of the county.
Emily E. Priesker, of Chaflin Bridge, and the two children born of
this union are Charles A., a resident of St. Louis and postal clerk on
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; and Alfred W., who is a printer, lo-
cated at Centralia, Illinois. The elder son married Nellie Klinkhardt,
of Hecker, Monroe county, Illinois, and the younger married Celia
Schmitz, of Waterloo. Mr. James' wife died in 1885, and in 1889 he
married Katie F. Clear, of Harrisonville, of which marriage there is
no issue. They maintain a pleasant and hospitable home and are held
in the highest esteem in this section, where their many fine qualities
are too well known to require comment.
Mr. James is a man of much influence among his fellow citizens,
who hold his opinion of weight and highly esteem his views on all
matters affecting the public welfare. Like many of the older settlers,
he takes much interest in the early history of his state and particularly
the part the James family took in the early settlement of Illinois,
and he prizes with more than ordinary interest a copy of General
James ' ' ' Three Years Among the Indians, ' ' the only copy perhaps of this
book in existence this day. For 19 years Mr. James has held the office
of levee commissioner in Harrisonville and Ivy Landing, levee district
Number 2. He has also been a notary public for the past fifteen years
and was a member of the city council for two terms. He is a faithful
member of the Catholic church, is one of the trustees of the Waterloo
church and is connected with those orders having the particular sanc-
tion of his church, namely: The Knights of Columbus and the Catholic
Knights of Illinois. He is of pleasing personality and very popular,
claiming a circle of friends of generous proportions.
RALEIGH MARTIN SHAW. In the march of the ages mankind is
learning that the greatest heroes of the centuries to come are not the
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1677
heroes of blood, but the heroes of utilitarian brawn, of indomitable
character and of keen, purposeful brain. In connection with the last
class, at least, one is prone to think of a young man whose comparatively
brief life has shown some hint of what he may accomplish in the pro-
fession which he has chosen and perhaps in the service of a common-
wealth not necessarily bounded by the limits of his county. For at
at the age of twenty-four Raleigh Martin Shaw gives promise of an
unusually brilliant career.
The best blood of our land is that which has grown rich in red
corpuscles and steady in its ebb and flow through the sane and whole-
some life of the farm. Successful and well-to-do agriculturists are the
parents of the young barrister who is the subject of this sketch. The
father, Hutchins Shaw, first saw day in Union county, Ohio, on Oc-
tober 27, 1844. The same county was the birthplace of Mary Alice
Amrine, whose natal day was September 4, 1852, and who was united
in marriage with Mr. Shaw on December 25, 1870. Their first home
was in Sumner, Illinois, from which place they later removed to their
residence in town which is still their home. They are people of general
education, supplemented by marked intelligence. They are members of
the Christian church, of which congregation Mr. Shaw is an elder. He
is a Democrat by political preference and a man interested in all pro-
gressive movements.
Raleigh Martin Shaw was born at Sumner, Illinois, on August 8,
1888. His education began in the rural schools of that community.
His boyish ambition then led him to complete the course of the high
school of Sumner. Desiring a practical training in the laws and cus-
toms of properly conducted business, he next sought the training to
be gained from the commercial courses of Valparaiso University, at
Valparaiso, Indiana. Five years of application of the technical knowl-
edge thus gained have given the young man most valuable experience.
But the deeper aspects of legal principles, the usefulness of a life
frankly devoted to the highest legal interests and the opportunities it
offers to one having both talent and preference for public life led
Raleigh Shaw to a study of the law. His researches in this subject
were pursued in the College of Law of the Illinois Wesleyan University
at Bloomington, Illinois. His scholarship was throughout his course
of a particularly high order and he was honored by his fraternity with
the title of Justice. In 1912 he was graduated from this institution,
receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Since his return to his
native community he has received the most signal honor of being made
nominee for the office of prosecuting attorney.
Mr. Shaw is affiliated fraternally with the Modern Woodmen of
America and is a member of the Phi Alpha Delta fraternity, the latter
being emphatically a mark of his popularity and high standing while
in college. The young lawyer's many friends are extremely desirous
of seeing him elected to the office for which he has been nominated, in
which case he would be the youngest prosecuting attorney of whom
Lawrence county has ever been able to boast. In any event it is easy
to prophesy that Raleigh Martin Shaw has an exceptionally brilliant
future before him.
HENRY THOMAS GODDARD. In visiting a town for the first time one
often has a man pointed out as "one of our big men," and upon ask-
ing what he has done, receives the reply, "He is president of such
and such a bank." Although such a position means that the man must
have ability, especially in a financial way, yet in the minds of thinking
men, the presidency of a bank does not entitle him to the title of "big
Vol. Ill— 38
1678 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
man." Today is the day of responsibility, when the world is gradually
being brought to the realization that men are members of society and
not individual and independent units, and that each man bears upon
his shoulders some part of the civic, political, and social problems of
the whole country. For this reason, Henry Thomas Goddard, of Mt.
Carmel, Illinois, is entitled to the title referred to above. For in spite
of the duties which entail upon him through his presidency of the
First National Bank, he has found the time to take a deep and active
interest in local affairs, in educational matters, and in all questions
pertaining to the public welfare. He is a man who thinks xipon the
problems which the country is facing, and does not rely on the news-
papers or the words of political agitators; therefore he is in a posi-
tion to keep a cool head in a time of need.
Henry Thomas Goddard was born on the 20th of June, J852, at
Marion, in Williamson county, Illinois, the son of James and Winnifred
(Spiller) Goddard. His father was born in Franklin county, Vir-
ginia, in 1818, and his mother was a native of Williamson county, Illi-
nois. Mrs. Goddard was a daughter of William and Winnifred (Ben-
son) Spiller, both of whom were natives of Tennessee, having been
born in Robinson county in that state. They came to Illinois and were
among the first settlers of Williamson county. James T. Goddard and
his wife lived for a time in Bainbridge, Williamson county, Illinois,
where he was engaged in the mercantile business, thence coming to
Marion, Illinois, and continued in the same business. The more re-
mote ancestors of Henry T. Goddard were Scotch-Irish, his forebears
having immigrated from Scotland, first to Cork in Ireland, and thence
to the United States. We do not wish to take away from the glory
of Mr. Goddard 's achievements, but still one always expects more of
a man with Scotch-Irish blood in his veins than of other men, and Mr.
Goddard 's characteristics mark him strongly as being of this combina-
tion. His grandfather, James Goddard, was a native of Virginia, and
served in a Virginian regiment during the War of 1812. He later
moved to Williamson county, Illinois, where he died. His wife, Mrs.
Maria (Davis-McHaney) Goddard, was a second cousin of Jefferson
Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and was an aunt of General
John T. Davis.
The preparatory educational training of Mr. Goddard was obtained
in the Marion schools, and then he was sent to the Normal University
at Normal, Illinois, and later to Notre Dame University, the well
known institution at Notre Dame, Indiana. Upon leaving school he
went to work in his brother-in-law's dry goods store at Marion, and
as soon as opportunity offered he entered the banking business, for he
always felt an inclination in this- direction. He was connected with
the Exchange Bank in Marion for ten years, learning the business
from the ground up. Therefore when he left Marion in 1890 to accept
the position of cashier of the First National Bank of Mt. Carmel, he
was thoroughly capable of filling this very responsible position. The
work was even harder than is that of the average cashier's, for the
bank had just been organized, and the responsibility for much of its
initial success rested upon Mr. Goddard. How well he filled his posi-
tion is shown by the fact that in February, 1904, he was elected presi-
dent, and has held this post since that time. His judgment on financial
matters is highly respected, and he has proved that he has powers of
organization and executive ability above the average. He is president
of the Bank of Wayne City, at Wayne City, Illinois, and is chairman
of Group 9, of the Illinois Bankers' Association.
As to his public offices Mr. Goddard has served as city treasurer, as
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1679
alderman, and as a member of the board of education, and in each of
these positions proved to be a sincere and efficient friend of the people.
He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Southern Normal
University, at Carbondale, Illinois. Fraternally Mr. Goddard is a
member of the Masonic order, of the Elks and of the Knights of
Pythias. For several years he served as district deputy grand master
of the Masons and is now a member of the committee on mileage and
per diem of the Grand Lodge.
The marriage of Mr. Goddard to Mary E. Houts, daughter of C. J.
and Mary J. Houts, took place at Marion, Illinois, on tb« 4th of Sep-
tember, 1873. The father of Mrs. Goddard was a pioneer Methodist
minister of Illinois and Missouri, and was a co-laborer with Peter Cart-
wright, his ministry extending over a period of forty-seven years. His
wife was Jane (Randle) Houts, and was a descendant of the famous
Randolph family of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Goddard have four chil-
dren, as follows : Lora Houts Goddard ; Lucile Houts, who is now Mrs.
Roberts ; Roy Houts Goddard ; and Henry Houts Goddard.
Mrs. Goddard, like her husband, takes a keen interest in public
affairs, and is a prominent figure in charity, club, social and fraternal
affairs. She is past grand matron of the Order of the Eastern Star of
Illinois, is a member of the State Board of Charities, was actively con-
nected with the Reviewers' Matinee, a local literary and civic improve-
ment club, and is now president of the Woman's Club of Mt. Carmel.
WHITTENBERGS. The Whittenberg family came to this country from
Wittenberg, Germany, in colonial times and settled in Pennsylvania
soon after the Revolutionary war. One branch of the family, Henry
Whittenberg, great-grandfather of the present generation of Johnson
county Whittenbergs, removed from Pennsylvania to Tennessee when
but a young man and settled in Blount county. This sturdy pioneer,
although thoroughly American by birth, was of the broad shouldered
and imperturbable German type. He inade his home for life amid the
wilds of that mountainous country and there he reared his family of
five sons. The eldest, Henry Whittenberg, remained in that country
and today a number of Whittenbergs, descendants of his, are living in
Blount county, Tennessee. The second, third and fourth sons, namely,
Mathew, Joseph and Daniel, removed to Washington county, Illinois,
in 1835, where they lived to ripe old age, and their numerous descendants
are yet living in Washington, Franklin and Williamson counties, Illinois.
The fifth and youngest son, William Whittenberg, was married to Nancy
Smith, daughter of John M. Smith, a Methodist clergyman of Blount
county, Tennessee, in 1822, removed to Henry county, Tennessee, in
1835, and three years later, in 1838, made a visit to his brothers in
Washington county, Illinois, with the purpose of locating near them.
He left Washington county, Illinois, for his home in Henry county,
Tennessee, intending to return with his family, but was never seen or
heard from by any of his family or relations. It was supposed that
he was murdered or that he met with some fatal accident. In 1840 his
family, consisting of the widow and eight children, came from Henry
county, Tennessee, to Johnson county, Illinois, and settled in Grants-
burg township, where the children grew to maturity, and where the
widowed mother continued to live until old age and the marriage of all
the children caused her to make her home with her oldest son, John S.,
in whose home she died in 1868.
To William Whittenberg and Nancy (Smith) Whittenberg, eight
children were born, John S., Sarah, William P., Polly Ann, Harrison,
1680 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Matthew and Daniel Webster, all born in Blount county, and Malinda,
the youngest, born in Henry county, Tennessee.
JOHN SMITH WHITTENBERG, the oldest son of William and Nancy
(Smith) Whittenberg, was born in Blount county, Tennessee, in 1823,
and with his widowed mother and his family came to Johnson county,
Illinois, in 1840. The first few years in Illinois were very trying times
to poor people in a strange land. There was hard work, small wages
and scarcely enough food to satisfy the growing family. The mother
was a woman of strong character, strong in physique, profoundly re-
ligious, well educated for those times and favored with a good measure
of common sense. She was a capable leader for her growing sons and
daughters. There were no free schools, but the family home was a school
and in this home were taught the most valuable lessons to be learned
in life. After the work of the day was done the children were given
instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. The Bible and a few
works of biography were the books most used. John S. was eager for
knowledge and read with delight all the books he could get. He was
peculiarly fond of the Scriptures and studied them diligently. At an
early age he was licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal church, to
which calling he gave a good share of his time throughout his long and
useful life, remaining only a "local preacher."
At the age of twenty-nine he was married to Isabelle Gregg, of
Metropolis, Illinois, and with his young wife removed to Tunnel Hill
township, Johnson county, Illinois. Here he entered land from the
government and erected his home — the home of his lifetime. On this
same farm this couple lived for forty-six years, until his death in 1898.
For forty years or more John S. Whittenberg was one of the foremost
public school teachers of his county. He was twice elected county super-
intendent of schools. He was a good thinker, a forceful speaker, a
popular leader and a preacher of unusual power.
"One who never turned his back,
But march abreast forward;
Never doubted clouds would rise ;
Never dreamed, though the right were worsted, wrong would triumph.
Held, we fall, to rise ;
Are baffled to fight better;
Sleep to wake."
In this home were born three sons and six daughters: Ellen, a widow,
living in Creal Springs, Illinois ; Adaline, the wife of G. B. Hood, Vienna,
Illinois; John W., who died in 1878, at the age of eighteen; Sarah J.,
a teacher in the Murphysboro township high school ; Necy, the wife of
W. H. Cover, of Tunnel Hill, Illinois ; Belle, who died in 1901 ; Alonzo
L., a farmer and teacher, Vienna, Illinois ; William C., a physician and
surgeon, of Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Flora, who died in 1898.
ALONZO LINDOLPH WHITTENBERG was born in the summer of 1869,
on the fourth day of August, on a farm in Tunnel Hill township, John-
son county, Illinois. His father, John S. Whittenberg, was a farmer,
teacher and Methodist preacher, a combination of activities well suited
to the development of the best there is in life. Alonzo L. was thus born
and bred a farmer and teacher, and follows the two professions, agri-
culture and teaching, with equal interest and pleasure. He began teach-
ing at seventeen years of age in the country schools of Johnson county,
Illinois, since which time he has been continuously in school, either as
student or teacher. When a mere youth he bought a farm in Grants-
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1681
burg township, which he still owns ; he has continued buying land
occasionally until he now owns and operates by the help of tenants
more than a thousand acres, much of which he has developed from wood-
land into fine farms with good improvements. Mr. Whittenberg thor-
oughly enjoys the care and labor of the farm, and has been very prompt
in applying to his agricultural interests all the time which his duties as
teacher do not demand. He has been rather extensively engaged in
breeding pure bred livestock; his specialties have been standard bred
horses and Hereford cattle.
But whatever measure of success Mr. Whittenberg may attain as a
farmer and stock breeder, his life work is clearly that of a teacher. In
this profession he enjoys the confidence and high esteem of his large
circle of acquaintances. His clear conception of the needs of his pupils,
and of youth generally, his pleasing personality, his simple yet elegant
and forceful manner of expression, are some of his well known charac-
teristics and render him deservedly popular as a school man.
In early life Professor Whittenberg became a member of the Meth-
odist church, and has been active in Sunday-school and church work since
boyhood. When twenty-one years of age he became a Mason, and has
been regularly advancing in the various degrees and orders of the fra-
ternity. He is a member of Metropolitan Chapter, No. 101, Royal Arch
Masons, and of Gethsemane Commandery, No. 41, Knights Templar,
of Metropolis, Illinois, York Rite Masonry, also of the various orders
of the Scottish Rite Masonry up to and including the thirty-second
degree, S. P. R. S., Valley of East St. Louis.
In 1892 Professor Whittenberg was married to Miss Eva Rice,
daughter of Georg'e M. Rice, of Massac county, Illinois. Six children
have been born into this home, all of whom are living with their parents :
Clarice, nineteen years, a graduate of the Murphysboro township high
school, class of 1911, and who taught in the Vienna public schools this
year ; Inez, seventeen years, graduate of the Vienna high school, class of
1912 ; Bess, fifteen, and Marjorie, thirteen, both of whom are second
year high school students; Tennie Isabel, seven years; and the baby,
Eva Katherine, two years old.
Professor Whittenberg has recently resigned the superintendency of
the Vienna city schools to accept a place in the department of education,
office of state superintendent of public instruction, at Springfield,
Illinois, in which city he now resides.
DANIEL WEBSTER WHITTENBERG. After twenty-three years of con-
tinuous service as bank cashier, probably the longest consecutive time
spent in that position by any person in Southern Illinois, Daniel Webster
Whittenberg, now connected with the First National Bank of Vienna,
Illinois, is widely known in financial circles of the state, and has also
been associated with some of the leading business industries of Southern
Illinois. He is richly endowed by nature with a splendid physique and
an alert and active mind, so necessary to the successful financier. His
highly honorable and engaging manner, the solid and substantial char-
acter of the enterprises with which his name has been associated, have
won for him the confidence of the people of the community in which
he has spent so many years, and have given him an enviable prestige
among the business men of Southern Illinois.
Daniel Webster Whittenberg was born July 2, 1867, on a farm in
Bloomfield township, Johnson county, Illinois. His father, William P.,
was the second son of William Whittenberg and Nancy (Smith) Whit-
tenberg, of Henry county, Tennessee, and came with his widowed mother
and family to Johnson county, Illinois, in 1840. They settled on a farm
1682 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
ip Grantsburg township. Those early times were trying times for the
pioneer settler of Southern Illinois. For the widow and fatherless to
bear the burdens of life alone meant a constant struggle. The mother
was a strong character, and under her inspiring leadership her sons were
able to secure title to land, erect a home, and carve out of the virgin
wilderness a farm of eighty acres, upon which the family grew to
manhood.
William P. was twelve years of age when the family began their
struggles in Johnson county. From this tender age he was compelled to
endure all the privations and hardships of pioneer life, which the present
generation know so little about. He remained with his mother until he
was twenty-three years of age, when he entered from the government
a tract of timbered land in Elvira township. He was married to a Miss
Evans, who lived but a short time, there being no children. To a second
marriage one child, a daughter, Mary Jane, was born, who became the
wife of Henry Burklow. The second wife lived but a few years, and in
the summer of 1861 William P., a widower, thirty years of age, heard
Lincoln's call for volunteer soldiers. He at once resolved to stand by
the flag of his country and enlisted for three years or until the close
of the war. Company K, First Illinois Light Artillery, was raised by
Captain Jason B. Smith, of Grantsburg township, Johnson county, and
in this company he went to the front. He served three years and three
months, participating in numerous engagements in Tennessee, Mississippi
and Alabama. At Wolf River Bridge, Moscow, Tennessee, in December,
1863, he received a severe wound. He was granted a forty-day furlough,
which was later extended to one hundred days, at the end of which time
he rejoined his regiment and served faithfully until his discharge, De-
cember 10, 1864. Brave in battle, faithful to duty at all times, Mr.
Whittenberg made an ideal soldier, and on his return home made just
as good a citizen. Years of industrious toil brought their reward, and
he is now living on his farm in comfortable circumstances, a successful
man and highly esteemed citizen. In 1866 he was married to Martha
Ann (Crenshaw) Benson, the widow of Charles Benson, who was a
soldier and died from the effect of a gun shot wound and imprisonment
at Andersonville. To this union there were born four sons and two
daughters, as follows: W. H., a farmer and stock raiser of Johnson
county ; D. W. ; I. M., the well known Mount Carmel dentist ; J. Frank,
who died in 1905, leaving a widow and one child (a daughter) ; Viola,
who died in 1905, the wife of J. B. Morray and mother of two children
(a son and daughter), of whom Daniel W. Whittenberg is guardian;
and Lulu May, who received her education in the Southern Illinois
Normal University at Carbondale, and is now the wife of Thomas J.
Layman, of Benton, Illinois.
Until he was twenty years of age Daniel W. Whittenberg remained
on the home farm, securing his primary education in the district schools
and later attending the Southern Illinois Normal University. He began
teaching school when he was eighteen years of age, and in January,
1888, entered the Bank of Vienna, as book-keeper. He was promoted
to the position of cashier in 1889, and the First National Bank was
organized in 1890, as successor to the Bank of Vienna. He has been
cashier of this bank ever since.
Mr. Whittenberg is an enthusiastic agriculturist. He owns sev-
eral farms, and is actively engaged in dairying, stock raising and
grain farming. He is indeed, closely applied to his various business in-
terests, but throughout his intercourse with the public generally, his
large experience enables him in a very marked way to luminate the
problems of life, and it is the opinion of the writer that, although his
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1683
business may produce ever so great dividend, no financial return is more
pleasing to him than the idea of being generally serviceable.
In Masonic bodies Mr. Whittenberg is widely known. He is a
member of Vienna Lodge, No. 150, A. F. & A. M. ; Vienna Chapter,
No. 67, R. A. M. ; Cairo Commandry, No. 13, K. T. ; Harrisburg Coun-
cil, R. & S. M.; also Valley of East St. Louis, No. 32, Scottish Right
Masonry. He was worthy grand patron of the Order of the Eastern
Star, state of Illinois, 1904. A faithful and active member of the
Methodist Episcopal church,, he has been prominent in all its move-
ments, and for the past twenty-two years has served as superintendent
of the Sunday-school. He is a great friend of education, and is now
secretary of the Vienna library board. Exercising due caution in his
business affairs, Mr. Whittenberg is, nevertheless, quick to see an op-
portunity and grasp its possibilities, but he has always respected the
rights of others, and the integrity with which his business affairs have
been prosecuted has only been equaled by the probity of his every-
day life.
On -October 7, 1891, Mr. Whittenberg was married to Miss Ida C.
Chapman, daughter of Daniel C. Chapman and a sister to Pleasant
T. Chapman. Three children have been born to this union : Daniel
Wayne, who is eighteen years of age and a graduate of the Vienna
high school ; Charles Franklin, who died in 1899, at the age of two
years; and Martha Elizabeth, the baby, who is two years old.
BENJAMIN RALLS FELTS was born in Robinson county, Tennessee,
July 28, 1842. His paternal grandfather, James Felts, was born in
Virginia, about 1783, moved to Robinson county, Tennessee, when a
young man and about 1812 married Margaret Dowling, of Robinson
county. His paternal ancestors had immigrated to Virginia from Ger-
many in the early part of the eighteenth century. In 1816 he moved
to the territory of Illinois and settled in Franklin (now Williamson)
county, near the present site of Herrin, where he died about 1820.
William Hargis Felts, the eldest son of James and Margaret
(Dowling) Felts, was born in Robinson county, Tennessee, in 1814.
He was a cooper by trade. In early life he became identified with the
Cumberland Presbyterian church, which at that time was very strong
in middle and eastern Tennessee, where it had but recently been founded.
In 1850 he moved to Williamson county, Illinois, and soon became iden-
tified with the Missionary Baptist church, there being no church of
his own faith in the community. He was soon made a deacon in the
Baptist church, which office he held till his death, in 1875. He was
of a deeply religious disposition, and often occupied the pulpit of the
local church in the absence of the regular minister. His reputation
for fair dealing and his keen sense of justice made him a common arbi-
ter in the disputes of his neighbors, who preferred to leave the matter
for "Uncle Buck Felts" to decide rather than go to law. While yet
a citizen of Tennessee, he was an ardent Whig and follower of Parson
Brownlow. Although a citizen of a slave state, he bitterly opposed
slavery as being morally wrong. When the Seminole Indians rebelled
against the government, he joined a Tennessee regiment and went to
Florida to help quell the disturbances. After the formation of the
Republican party he deserted the Whigs in favor of Republicanism.
About 1840 he married Martha McLary, who was born in Scotland,
in 1813, immigrated to North Carolina in 1815 and came to Robinson
county in 1815. She died in Williamson county, Illinois, on March
7, 1855.
Benjamin Rails Felts moved with his father to Williamson county,
1684 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Illinois, in 1850, where he attended such county schools as were avail-
able at the time, with what regularity as was permitted by the arduous
farm life. Here he received the rudiments of an education. When
the war of the rebellion broke out he volunteered, and on August 15,
1862, was assigned to Company H, Ninth Illinois Mounted Infantry,
Colonel Jesse J. Phillips commanding. In April, 1863, he was engaged
in the battle of Jackson (Tenn.) and on October 8, the samp year in
a skirmish at Salem, Mississippi, he was severely wounded in the right
arm and taken prisoner. He was confined in the rebel prison at
Cahaba, Alabama, until April, 1864, when he was moved to Anderson-
ville, Georgia, there remaining until September, when he was taken
to Florence,, Alabama. On December 10, 1864, he was paroled, after
an imprisonment of more than a year and two months. After remain-
ing a while in a military hospital at Annapolis, Maryland, and spend-
ing a thirty day furlough at his home, he was appointed hospital stew-
ard at the military hospital at Camp Chase, Ohio. There he met a
Dr. Drury, an army surgeon, who took a kindly interest in him and
advised him to study medicine. During his spare hours he read medical
books in Dr. Drury 's office and attended night school at the Rose Poly-
technic Institute at Columbus, Ohio. After his discharge, on June 16,
1864, he returned to Williamson county, where he taught school for
three years, reading medicine the while, and in 1872 he attended a
term at the Southern Illinois College at Carbondale, under the instruc-
tion of Professor Clark Brayden. In 1873 he entered the office of
Dr. Ed Dennison at Marion, Illinois, where for two years he continued
to study medicine. In 1876-77 he attended the Mission Medical Col-
lege at St. Louis, Missouri, since which time he has been engaged in
the practice of his chosen profession in Williamson county, in Johnson
City and vicinity, being at present (1912) the oldest practitioner in
the county.
In politics Dr. Felts has always been a Republican, casting his first
vote for Grant in 1868. From 1875 to 1878 he served as justice of the
Lake Creek circuit, and from 1886 to 1889 he filled the office of county
commissioner of Williamson county. In his religious belief he is a
Missionary Baptist, being a deacon in the church of that faith at John-
ston City, Illinois. He is a member of the A. F. & A. M., the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows and the Grand Army of the Republic.
On September 6, 1866, he married Nancy Everett, daughter of Hil-
liard and Barbary Everett. Her maternal great-grandfather, Jacob
Moake, was a soldier from North Carolina in Marion's army in the
Revolutionary war. She was born in Robinson county, Tennessee, in
1846 and with her parents removed to Williamson county, Illinois, in
1852. Nine children were born of their union: Martha Melissa, born
June 22, 1867, who died of accidental poisoning on April 24, 1885 ;
Rosa Ameryllis, April 2, 1869, the wife of T. E. Ben ton, Johnston City,
Illinois ; William Troy, September 5, 1871, a teacher in the depart-
ment of mathematics in the Southern Illinois State Normal at Carbon-
dale; Cora May, January 29, 1876, still living with her parents; Ben-
jamin Loren, September 8, 1878, assistant cashier First National Bank
of Harrisburg, Illinois ; Grace Alice, October 16, 1880, died November
2, 1881; George W., October 26, 1882, a lumber dealer in Johnston
City, Illinois; Harvey Austin, April 21, 1885, a senior in the medical
department of the Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois ; Bessie
Dell, February 12, 1887, the wife of William Spires, Johnston City,
Illinois.
Dr. Felts has lived a vigorous and useful life in his community, be-
ing recognized by all his acquaintances as a positive force for clean and
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1685
upright conditions. He is a physician of the "old school," whose guid-
ing principle is service, not bank accounts. And now, at the allotted
time of three score years and ten, surrounded by a large family of
children and grandchildren, and still encouraged and assisted by his
faithful wife, he is rounding out an active and useful life.
REV. FRANK BEISTOW HINES. Prominent among the distinguished
citizens of Edwards county is Rev. Frank Bristow Hines, president
of the Southern Collegiate Institute of Albion, Illinois, and a clergy-
man of the Congregational church. He stands high as an educator in
this section of the state. Since 1904 he has held his present office, his
endeavors having proved remarkably effective towards its intellectual
upbuilding and substantial growth. Under his administration a wise
and progressive leadership has carried the school towards the accom-
plishment of its purposes and the realization of its high mission. At the
same time, in all his career at Albion, he has never failed to yield hearty
support and co-operation to any measure that has appealed to him as
conducive to the public good. He has amply commended himself by
his fidelity and indefatigable devotion to public duty.
Mr. Hines is a Kentuckian by birth, being born in Warren county.
March 22, 1859. His father, Vincent K. Hines, also a native of the
Blue Grass state, was born in 1815. The subject's paternal grandfather
was one of Kentucky's pioneer settlers, and was of Scotch-Irish de-
scent, a staunch combination of ancestral forces which has been trans-
mitted to his descendants. The founder of the family in America lo-
cated in Virginia in colonial times. In 1866 Mr. Hines' father re-
moved with his family to Missouri and settled near Sedalia, where he
secured a farm and devoted the remainder of his life to the great basic
industry of agriculture. He removed to Windsor, Missouri, in 1876,
and there died February 3, 1901. He married Anna L. Stone, of Ken-
tucky, and ten children were born to them. The following brief data
concerning these ten children is herewith entered : James H. resides in
Sarcoxie, Missouri; Jane (Craig) is living in Johnson county, Missouri;
Mary F. (Cross) is in Windsor, Missouri; William died in 1872; Wood
M. is a citizen of Windsor, Missouri; Virgil M., of Houston, Missouri,
died in 1898; Julia G. (Hall) is located at Eldorado Springs, Missouri;
Ida M. (Dawson) is in St. Paul, Minnesota; Mr. Hines is next in order
of birth; and Volney G. is a resident of Kansas City, Missouri. The
eldest brother, James H., was seventy-one years of age January 20,
1912. The good mother was called to her eternal rest in June, 1901, at
the age of eighty-two years.
Mr. Hines, at the conclusion of his public school education, entered
Drury College at Springfield, Missouri, and from that institution of
learning was graduated in 1885. Following that he entered Andover
Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, and was there grad-
uated in 1888. From Drury he holds both the A. M. and A. B. degree
and from old Andover he has the degree of B. D. In 1888 this well
equipped young man took charge of the pulpit of the Congregational
church of Carthage, Missouri, and after a successful ministry at that
place he was called to the Congregational church of Metropolis, Illinois.
His identification with Albion dates from the year 1904, when he was
called to the pastorate of the Congregational church and president of
the Southern Collegiate Institute. His work as preacher and pastor
was recognized as of the highest character and he was four times elected
to the pastorate of this church. He was at the same time president
of the Southern Collegiate Institute. On account of the heavy and
constantly increasing duties of the growing institution, he found it
1686 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
necessary to resign his pastorate. His work here has been of truly
splendid proportions, for he has built a church and has paid off a debt
of $10,000 on the college and raised $50,000 as endowment and building
fund. A new, beautiful and appropriate building is now under con-
struction. In addition to his gifts as an educator he is a man of fine
executive ability and distinctly an organizer. He emphasizes the Chris-
tian character of college work and believes the proper direction of
principles and character to take rank with mental and physical train-
ing; his methods proceed on the thought that morality in the best sense
can be taught only through the inculcation of high ideals constantly
kept before the mind of the student. The college now affords two years
of the regular university work in addition to the four years' academic
curriculum.
Mr. Hines takes more than the interest of the amateur in agriculture
and is the possessor of a fine farm in the vicinity of Cobden, and near
Ozark, Illinois, he has a promising young orchard of one hundred and
thirty acres.
In June, 1888, Mr. Hines was united in marriage to Laura M.
Saunderson, of Boston, Massachusetts, a graduate of Smith College
and a woman of high intellectual attainments and personal culture.
Mrs. Hines died in 1894, leaving three children, — Marion, William
(who died in October, 1896) and Laura. Marion is now a junior of
high rank at Smith, her mother's alma mater. Before going to Smith
she was for two years an honor student at Drury College, Springfield,
Missouri. Her gifts and personality make her one of the most popular
and prominent of Smith's sixteen hundred students. Laura is now a
popular student of the junior class of the Southern Collegiate Institute
of Albion, Illinois. In 1897 Mr. Hines was married to Anginette Him-
mingway, of Oak Park, Illinois, a graduate of Oberlin (0.) College,
December 30, 1897. Their cultured and hospitable home is shared with
their five interesting children, — -Margarette, a student in the Southern
Collegiate Institute ; Frank B., Anginette, Adelaide and Hemingway.
Mr. Hines takes a deep interest in the great questions and issues
before the American people and as a close student keeps himself fully
informed upon current events. It is safe to say that among the schol-
arly and cultured educators of the state he has few peers.
MATHIAS WEBER. The late Mathias Weber was known throughout
Southern Illinois as one of the most famous fighters in the state. He
was trained in the German army and loved war for its own sake. His
was a bold and venturesome spirit, and his life was replete with ex-
periences from which the man of average courage would shrink. Not
so Mathias Weber. He was born December 4, 1828, in Baden, Ger-
many, and was the son of John Weber. When he was nineteen years old
Mathias Weber immigrated to the LTnited States, arriving in Boston
in 1847, going thence to New York. He volunteered as a soldier in the
Mexican war almost immediately, and fought through that war with
General Scott and General Taylor. He was one of the aides who gave
chase and captured Santa Ana's wooden leg, which is now to be seen
in Springfield, Illinois. After the war he served for a time at the Wool-
wich Arsenal in Boston, Massachusetts, thus finishing out his term of
enlistment. He then came west to Pittsburg, where he followed tne
trade he had 'learned in Germany, that of a machinist and blacksmith.
With regard to his training in Germany, let it be said that he attended
school until he reached the age of thirteen years, after which he took a
special course in scientific mechanics. In Pittsburg he found work in the
Hamilton Plow Shops, and was in the ordnance department for two
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1687
years. In 1849 Mr. Weber joined the throng of gold seekers and made
his way to California, locating in a spot in Sutter county, fifty miles
from San Jose, then the nearest postoffice. He remained there one
year and returned to Pittsburg, making the trip by way of South
America and crossing the Andes. He took ship at Rio Janeiro for
New York. When he returned to Pittsburg he married Mary Kayler,
and in the latter part of 1854 journeyed down the Ohio river to Evans-
ville, thence to West Salem, where he located. He was accompanied
by Mike and George Kayler, and when they first saw West Salem the
public square, which is now a beautiful park, was not more than a
brush filled clearing. The population of the village at that time num-
bered about twenty persons. He bought a farm and settled down, but
the death of his wife caused him to give up his interests there, and
he returned to Pittsburg. Soon thereafter his love of adventure and
the discontent brought about by the breaking up of his pleasant home
caused him to make another trip to the west, locating this time in Pike's
Peak, Colorado, and making the trip with an ox team. He remained
in the gold fields of that region for about two years, in which time he
panned out $5,000 in gold nuggets. Once more he made his way back
to Pittsburg, and after three months he found himself started for
Edwards county and his farm near West Salem. There he married
Mary Elizabeth Ely, the daughter of Samuel Ely, a pioneer settler of
this region. He settled on his farm again and there lived quietly and
industriously, improving his farm and becoming established in the com-
munity, until, with the breaking out of the Civil war in 1861, the old
fighting spirit was up in arms again, and when President Lincoln called
for volunteers, Mathias Weber was one of the first to respond. He
bought a horse from Mike Barnheart, paying for it $240 in gold, and
enlisted in the Seventh Illinois Cavalry. The company formed at the
old District Fair Grounds at Grayville and marched to Camp Butler
at Springfield, and on to Cairo. They fought at Chickamauga, Look-
out Mountain, Shiloh, Missionary Ridge and Vicksburg. He was with
Garrison on his raid and for sixteen days never rested, finishing with
Sherman's march to the sea. His regiment was sent from Savannah
westward on the chase after Johnston and his army and was present
at the surrender of General Pemberton on July 4. He was then made
commissary sergeant, in which capacity he served until the close of
the war. When his company was mustered out at Springfield Mr.
Weber was held there for two months and was given up as lost by his
friends, and was so reported by returning soldiers; but he arrived at
his cabin home in West Salem in the summer of 1865, and once more
assumed the duties of a civilian. He gave himself up strenuously to the
task of cleaning up his farm nad making it a creditable possession,
and prospered in a measure consistent with his efforts. His original
tract of two hundred and forty acres he cleared and improved, and in-
creased his holding until he became the owner of five hundred acres of
valuable farm lands. Here he lived and reared his family, passing
away on the farm home which had represented the scene of his activities
for so many years. His wife still survives him, and still makes her
home at the old place. Ten children were born to them, all of whom
are living but one, who died in infancy. They include: John, Jr., a
wealthy live stock grower, who lives on the old Ely farm ; Dr. T. C.
Weber, of West Salem ; Philip Mathias Weber, a prosperous farmer of
Edwards county; Hillard L., located in Seattle, Washington, where
he is engaged in the contracting and real estate business ; Dr. William C.
Weber, who is associated in practice with his brother. Dr. T. C., and
who graduated from Barnes University of St. Louis, Missouri, on June
1688 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
16, 1910, after which he engaged in practice with his brother; Rachel,
married to a Mr. Kortge, and lives near West Salem on a large farm;
Sarah lives at home with her mother on the old home farm ; Mrs. Rebecca
Schultz, who lives on a large stock farm near West Salem; and Stella
is the wife of Dr. Frank Leslie, of Carmi, Illinois.
DR. T. C. WEBER, who is a native of West Salem, born in this place
on April 14, 1870, on the farm of his father, is doubtless one of the best
known men in Edwards county. Certain it is that he occupies a place
of prominence among the foremost men of the county, and is regarded
as one of the leading men in his profession, in which he is making rapid
progress. He is the son of Mathias and Mary Elizabeth (Ely) Weber.
Mathias Weber was a native born German, his birth occurring in Baden,
Germany, on December 4, 1828, and he was the son of John Weber, of
Baden, Germany. He came to America when he was yet in his 'teens,
and to the day of his death was a true and loyal citizen of his adopted
country. He gave valued service through two wars — the Mexican war
and the Civil war, and was in every way a valuable citizen and a man
highly esteemed and respected among his fellows.
Dr. T. C. Weber was reared on the farm of his father, and his early
education was similar to that of his brothers and sisters. He worked
on the farm as a boy and attended the district schools, and while in
his teens he attended the Southern Collegiate Institute of Albion. When
he was twenty-four years old he entered Barnes University at St. Louis,
Missouri, and was graduated from that institution on April 7, 1897, at
that time receiving his degree of M. D. He began the practice of his
profession at Parkersburg, Illinois, and continued there until May 1,
1905, when he went to Chicago and took a post graduate course in the
Chicago Polytechnic. In October, 1905, he sold his practice in Parkers-
burg and moved to West Salem. He then entered Washington Uni-
versity at St. Louis, where he completed a course of study, and on April
17, 1907, he established a finely equipped surgical and medical office
in West Salem. Here he is making a specialty of the treatment of
tubercular diseases, and is especially attentive to surgery. His office
is fitted with the latest in X-Ray and electrical appliances, and he is in
every way prepared to cope with the most unusual conditions. He is
assisted in his work by his brother, Dr. William C. Weber, a recent
graduate of Barnes Medical University of St. Louis, Missouri. Dr.
Weber is a student of the best and most advanced methods in the medi-
cal and surgical world, and is making splendid progress in his chosen
profession. He is a member of the County, State and American Medi-
cal Associations, and his professional reputation is a matter of more
than local scope. He is a member of a number of fraternal orders,
among them being the Masonic order, the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, the Modern Woodmen, Ben Hur and the Loyal Americans.
He is a member of the Christian church.
On October 13, 1897, Dr. Weber was united in marriage with Miss
Delia B. Mason, the only daughter of Jacob T. Mason, one of the oldest
residents of Edwards county. Dr. and Mrs. Weber became the parents
of two children, Loy and Roy, both of whom died in infancy.
CHARLES SUMNER PIER. Among the large class of people who, even
in this practical and materially purposive age, care deeply about the
unseen things that are eternal, one hears frequent expressions of regret
that there is nowadays little "ministerial timber" of a sort that is virile
in intellect and personality, and at the same time forcible in the more
intangible affairs of the spirit. Such a complaint is refuted by one ex-
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1689
ample at least in the minds of those who know Charles S. Pier, who is
the energetic pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Charleston,
Illinois. Many of those to whom he is a personal friend, comforter or
guide will be interested in a perusal of his family history and the record
of his educational and professional career.
As both the Christian name and surname of Reverend Pier indicate,
his family, in its paternal line, was originally French. The founder of
the family in America, the great-great-grandfather of our subject, was
a resident of New Jersey before and during the war of the Revolution,
in which he probably participated. His son, Bernard Pier, of Pater-
son, New Jersey, was a sergeant of the United States army in the War
of 1812. He married Jane Rutan, the daughter of a Revolutionary
soldier, who during his seven years' service was wounded in the thigh,
but nevertheless continued his patriotic activity as soon as the wound
was healed. The marriage of his daughter with Bernard Pier brought
into the latter family a strain of Holland blood. Rynier Pier, a son
of Jane Rutan and Bernard Pier, married Eliza Bailey. In 1850 the
family left New York City, where Mr. Pier (grandfather of Charles S.
Pier) was a wheel-wright and came to live in Perry county, Illinois,
where at that time the country was wild and unbroken, covered with
wild prairie grass and alive with abundant game. He found it con-
venient to combine his former vocation with farming in this sparsely
settled region. His son, John Pier, had been born before the migra-
tion of the family from the eastern metropolis, being a small child at
the time the life of Illinois began. He attended the country school, later
pursuing a course in the high school of Sparta. For a time thereafter he
enjoyed the intellectual satisfaction of teaching, but later relinquished
that profession for the pursuit which seems ever most fascinating in
a new land. After his marriage, in 1870, to Miss Sarah Jane Braden, a
lady of Randolph county and a daughter of Irish parents — he settled
upon a farm in Six Mile Prairie in Perry county. Here it was that he
lived until the age when he retired to Sparta, where he died. He had
lived an active, useful life. He was a Republican in politics and for
twelve years had given public service as a highway commissioner with-
out intermission. He was a member of the United Presbyterian church
at Cutler, Illinois. His death occurred in 1910, although his father
is still living in Sparta, at the age of ninety-two years.
On his father 's farm in Six Mile Prairie Charles S. Pier was born in
1877. The only other member of the family in his generation was
William R. Pier, who is a farmer in Perry county, Illinois. Charles
Sumner Pier was fortunate in a childhood spent in the wholesome air
of ' ' God 's out-of-doors. ' ' after which he passed to the Sparta high school
and then to Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois. In 1901 he was grad-
uated from the latter institution with the degree of A. B. During his
course he was notably active in college literary work and oratory, serv-
ing as an editor and business manager of the college weekly periodical
published under student auspices and representing his alma mater in
the inter-collegiate oratorical contest. His moral and religious enthu-
siasm found outlet in various ways, particularly through the college
Y. M. C. A., of which he was elected president. His vigorous physical
manliness is attested by the fact that for two years he played on the
college football team.
After the completion of his literary education Mr. Pier entered
McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, where he studied
for three years, being graduated with the class of 1904. His first pas-
torate was that of the First Presbyterian church of Union City, Indiana.
Here he remained in ministerial service for five and a half years, when
1690 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
he accepted a call to the First Presbyterian church of Charleston, Illi-
nois, a congregation of 600 members and the leading church of its de-
nomination in this part of the state. While presiding over his former
charge Reverend Pier had so stimulated interest in churchly ideals that
a new edifice had been erected and left without a debt to mar its record.
A similar task has been accomplished in the larger city to which he
has come. The church in Charleston is a beautiful structure, erected
at a cost of $45,000.
It may be said without exaggeration that Rev. Pier is one of those
clergymen who do not measure religious values by such externalities
as mere material effect nor by impressive figures. To him the church
is a symbol with the inner truths of religion which are synonyms
with the great truths of ethics and morality. His dream is of a
church universal — hence his activity in home mission affairs, in which
he is particularly active in the presbytery of the Mattoon district.
His dream is also of a church triumphant in the altruism which is such
an inherently Christian characteristic — hence his influence in the church
benevolences over which he also presides in the Mattoon presbytery
A narrow cleaving of his existence from that of the men about him
has never been characteristic of Charles Sumner Pier. He--is of that
age and class of live clergymen who know that the greatest life of service
is not lived in the cloister and pulpit alone. While in college he was
a member of the college fraternity of Phi Delta Theta and is also a
member of the Masonic order. Although social prominence has ever
been readily offered him, he is essentially democratic in spirit, as be-
comes a brother of men.
Mrs. Pier was formerly Miss Florence Hook, the daughter of Wil-
liam and Mary (St. John) Hook, the former of English ancestry. She
is a graduate of the Union City high school and is an accomplished
musician. She and Reverend Pier were united in marriage on January
27, 1910. They have one child, a baby daughter named Ruth Constance.
Both Air. and Mrs. Pier have many friends in Charleston and its vicin-
ity, both in the Presbyterian church and without its membership or con-
gregation.
WILLIAM A. VICTOR is one of the phenomenal forces of energy in
Pulaski county today. Few young men have done battle with the world
with such sturdy determination to wrest from it substantial results as
has he, and out of the elements of his nature he has won to himself a
place among the successful men of his locality, in addition to the hearty
esteem of a large circle of acquaintances.
Born in Pulaski county, on a farm near to Grand Chain, Mr. Victor
was born on October 1, 1876. He is the son of George Victor, who
has been identified with the agricultural interests of Pulaski county
since the early seventies, and who was born at Newark, Ohio, August
12, 1849. His father, Dr. Ferdinand Victor, practiced medicine in
Cairo, Illinois, for a number of years, and was a resident of Illinois
during the best part of his life. George Victor was content to live
the life of a modest farmer, and he has lived thus in the contentment
and quiet of the farm. He was thrice married, and has reared a
goodly family of sons and daughters to brighten his declining years.
He first married Miss Mattie Hanks, a native of Pennsylvania, and she
died in 1894. Two children were born of this union. They are Wil-
liam A., the subject of this brief review, and Cora, the wife of Dr. 0. T.
Hudson, of Mounds, Illinois. Mr. Victor later married Miss Ellen
Stokes. They became the parents of three children : Oliver, Nora and
Etta. His present wife was formerly Malinda Revington, and her
. HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1691
children are Glenda, Nina and June. As intimated above, Mr. Victor
has never been a man of public activity, but has rather led a home life,
giving his. attention to his farm and his family. He has always shared
in the Republican faith, but holds himself the master of his own ballot,
regardless of party interests, and he has never evinced any ambition
to participate in the political skirmishes at primaries and elections in
any other capacity than that of a voter.
William Victor is the eldest son of his father, and until the approach
of his majority he was not more than a wide-awake, but carefree farm
lad. He was educated in the well-known schools of Dixon and Normal.
Illinois, and his first real work was as a teacher of rural schools.
He followed the pedagogic art for five 'years, and during the closing
years of that work he became interested in selling life insurance
during the summer vacation months. He succeeded so well at his vaca-
tion time labors that he decided it the part of wisdom to abandon his
teaching and to enter the life insurance business in deadly earnest.
He first became a solicitor for the Franklin Life of Springfield, Illinois,
one of the popular old-line life insurance companies, and he occupied
that position for some years, throwing his every energy into the work
and making so admirable a record that the company appointed him
general agent for the twenty-fifth congressional district of Illinois. His
promotion was well justified and his accomplishments as the head of the
force in his district soon proved the fact. He handled his body of
solicitors with such tact and shrewdness that the business of the com-
pany made rapid advances and in 1902 Mr. Victor stood first man of
the company in Illinois and seventh man of all the force, — a fact which
is eloquent of the splendid ability of the young man. In 1902 he won
the special prize of a gold watch for the salesman taking the most appli-
cations during a six weeks' contest, which was a fast and furious one that
tried the mettle of the finest and most capable solicitors in the Franklin
forces. In 1908 Mr. Victor tired of the strenuous activities of the past
ten years, and he cast about for a suitable business opening in which
he might settle down. He eventually engaged in the hay, grain and
commercial paper business in the community of his birth, and there he
has since been busy conducting the affairs of his ever growing business
and in sharing the public life of his town. His interest in that respect
had never taken a political turn until in the campaign of 1910, when
his activities in Republican contest over the nominee for the office of
county superintendent of schools resulted in the shelving of an old
office-seeker and saved the political life of a young and ambitious
teacher who had amply demonstrated her fitness to manage the work
of public education in her county.
On November 29, 1899, Mr. Victor was married to Miss Olive Doty,
daughter of Dr. Monroe Doty, who has been practicing medicine here for
many years. Dr. Doty comes of one of the earliest families of Jackson
county, and nothing could be more fitting than that a few words be
said here of him and his family. Dr. Monroe Doty is the great-grandson
of Ephraim Doty, a soldier of the American Revolution and a partici-
pant in the historic "Boston Tea Party." This old veteran came to
Illinois when the shades of evening were gathering about him and he
sleeps in a cemetery in the neighborhood of Murphysboro. William,
his son, came to Illinois from Tennessee when a young married man and
engaged in farming, and in Jackson county was born James T. Doty,
his son, and the man who became the father of Dr. Monroe Doty, father
of Mrs. Victor. The Dotys of this family seem to have started westward
from New Jersey. The sons of Ephraim Doty were Daniel and Wil-
liam. William married one Miss Tedford, who died and left children:
1692 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Robert, for many years a merchant of De Soto, Illinois, and who finally
died there ; James T., tue father of Dr. Monroe Doty ; Nancy, who be-
came the wife of Thomas Steele ; Ephraim ; John ; Daniel ; Elizabeth,
who married James Cox, and Jane, who married Sabram Pate. Wil-
liam Doty's history was made chiefly as a farmer near Vergennes.
He served as sheriff of Jackson county on the Democratic ticket, and
he died during the war, at the age of eighty-one years. His son James
was a cripple and was thus deprived of active connection with the stir-
ring events of that time. James Doty married Caltha Stone, a native
of Tennessee. The Stone family came out to Illinois in 1828, when
Caltha was a small child, and there 'passed the remainder of their lives.
Mrs. Doty died in 1905, surviving her husband by many years, his death
occurring in 1868. Ten children were born of their union. They
were named as follows : Susan, who died in Jackson county as the
wife of John Beasley; William, who also passed away there; John, who
never reached years of maturity ; Dr. Monroe, still surviving ; Levi, a
farmer of Vergennes, Illinois; Sarah, who married Thomas Blacklock
and lives in Muskogee, Oklahoma; Richard, of Jackson county; Dr.
James Perry, who died in Union county; Jane and Robert E., both of
Murphysboro, Illinois.
Monroe Doty began his active career by work as a country school
teacher, spending nine winters at that work during the late sixties and
early seventies. Following this he secured a clerkship in a drug store,
and it was there he came in touch with the influences which induced
him to embrace a professional career. His first knowledge of medical
principles he obtained from the pharmaceutical books which were an
accessory to the drug business, and when he was ready for a course of
lectures he entered the Memphis Hospital Medical College in 1884 and
was graduated therefrom in 1886. Taking up the practice of his profes-
sion, Dr. Doty first located at Herrin's Prairie, moving later to Mill
Creek, Union county, and in 1887 established himself in Grand Chain,
which town has known him and his good works since that time. He is a
member of the Pulaski County and the State Medical Societies, and
leads a quiet life, devoted to the care of his patients and the interests
of his .family. Dr. Doty was married in Jackson county, on March 3,
1872, to Miss Nancy Heape, a daughter of Lysias Heape, a former resi-
dent of Perry county, Illinois, where Mrs. Doty was born on December
12, 1853. Mr. Heape married Martha Griffith, and their children were
Zerilda, who married George Morgan, Mrs. Doty, Robert, John, George
and Lysias. The children of Dr. and Mrs. Doty are John M., a travel-
ing salesman, Mrs. Olive Victor, and Clara, the wife of Joe Gaunt,
residents of Grand Chain.
SAMUEL HALLIDAY. It is a pleasure for the writer to take up the
careers of men who through long years of residence in Southern Illinois
have by their upright lives and splendid deeds won for themselves the
enduring respect and regard of their fellow-citizens. Major Edwin W.
Halliday was so conspicuously identified with the affairs of Cairo for
nearly forty years that it is meet, now that his work here is finished and
he is now retired to his California home, to set forth some of the es-
sentials of his active and successful life, that the reader and student of
events and men of local renown may not be deprived of the knowledge
of one character who made his influence felt in building a commercial
mart at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Major Halli-
day was born in Meigs county, Ohio, June 11, 1836, a son of Samuel
Halliday, who served as auditor of Meigs county for thirty-five years.
Edwin W. Halliday left the parental roof as a youth, equipped with
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1693
a fair education and bent on hewing his path among the almost un-
blazed courses of the Ohio Valley. He chanced to enter upon a career
of steamboating on the Ohio river and made himself so useful that he
was soon given the position of clerk on a packet that ran those waters,
his river career only terminating when his zeal to get into the military
contest between the north and south urged him to enlist. Not-
withstanding the origin of his birth, he chose sides against his home
and entered the Confederate army, becoming a member of General N.
B. Forest's cavalry, and won a major's commission before the doom of
the Confederacy was sealed at Appomattox. When there was no longer
need of his services as a soldier, Major Halliday sought a business op-
portunity in Cairo, where some of his four brothers had already located,
and with one of them, W. P., he engaged in the merchandise business
here. While success came to him as a merchant, his old love for the
river seemed to force him again into some feature of its trade and he
engaged in business at the wharf, establishing a wharf-boat company,
putting a fleet of tugs and other boats in service to do the local ' ' switch-
ing," subsequently, in 1873, incorporating the wharf boat company and
remaining its president until he removed from the state. His foresight
enabled him to discover the future of rapid transit in Cairo, and at a
critical stage in the affairs of the company which promoted the street
railway he toof over its stock and for many years owned and operated
the system. He witnessed the growth of this and the Cairo City Elec-
tric Light and Gas Company, which he brought into existence, into a
valuable property, and in 1903 he sold these holding to the W. P.
Halliday Estate. He was a large owner of the stock of the Halliday
Hotel and new life sprang into it when the magic touch of the
Hallidays was applied. Prom early life the Major seemed to regard a
dollar as a measure of personal energy spent in its acquirement and he
felt it his bounden duty to apply his accumulations where they would
yield returns that would be productive of the best results to the com-
munity at large. His life was strikingly domestic, in that when he was
not at business he was with his family. He made his sons his com-
panions, and when they were ready he took them into business with
him and taught them the scheme of life as it had unfolded itself to
him. He declined proffers of public office, as did all of his brothers
except Thomas W., who was mayor of Cairo for ten or twelve years.
He was not a member of any fraternity and never joined the church,
although he was liberal in supporting movements of a religious nature.
Major Halliday was married during the war to Miss Emma Wither-
spoon, and both now reside in their home at San Diego, California.
Their children were : Miss Alice, who resides in San Diego ; Samuel,
a prominent business man of Cairo; Edwin L., president of the Cairo
Ice and Coal Company ; Mrs. Walter H. Wood, whose husband is the
senior member of the firm of Wood and Bennett Company, of Cairo;
]\Irs. J. J. Jennelle, Jr., of Seattle, Washington; Mrs. Edward L. Gilbert,
of Cairo; Miss Martha, living at San Diego, California; Mrs. E. L.
Kendall, of Chicago ; and Fred D., who is secretary and treasurer of
the Globe Milling Company, of San Diego, California.
Samuel Halliday, the major's first son, succeeded him as president
of the Cairo Wharfboat Company, and is the senior member of the firm
of Halliday & Phillips. He was born at Columbus, Kentucky, Septem-
ber 4, 1869, and has resided in Cairo since 1871. After being educated
in the high school he became associated with his father's interests as
a youth and in 1901 was made president of the wharfboat company.
On February 25, 1895. Mr. Halliday was married to Miss Nellie B.
Gilbert, daughter of Miles Frederick Gilbert, one of the leading mem-
Vol. 3—39
1694 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
bers of the Cairo bar, and one child, Louise, has been born to their
union, June 20th, 1899.
JEROME FOSTER BEAN. During the past decade many of the farmers
of Johnson county have turned their attention to specializing along
certain lines, and have met with unqualified success in fields that here-
tofore have been invaded only as side issues, principal among these
being the raising of hogs. This industry has been pushed forward
rapidly in late years, and among those who have found that this can
be made a remunerative occupation are Jerome Foster Bean and James
Monroe Bean, of Grantsburg township, owners of some fine farming
property, and enterprising agriculturists and stock-raisers who have
made a study of their chosen vocation and follow it along scientific
lines. They are sons of James and Mary (Glass) Bean, and grandsons
of Henry Bean, a native of Tennessee, who brought his family to Illinois
in 1833 and spent the rest of his life in Gallatin county.
James Bean was born in 1833 while the family was migrating from
Tennessee to Illinois, and he was reared on the pioneer farm in Galla-
tin county. At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted in Company
D, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with which he
served three years and three months, and on his return again took up
farming. Mr. Bean was the type of citizen who started1 in life without
a dollar and rose to a place of prominence among his fellows. Over-
coming all discouragements and hardships, hewing straight to the line
of honesty and integrity, believing in a fair and honorable method of
dealing in all things, he accumulated more than 600 acres of land, and
when he retired, in 1907, was one of the most highly esteemed men of
his community. At that time he removed from Gallatin to Johnson
county, but did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his years of toil, as
his death occurred April 20th of that same year. Mr. Bean was a
total abstainer as to liquor and tobacco, was never heard to utter an
oath, and was very religious and serious minded. His word was as
good as a bond, and on many occasions he was forced to deprive him-
self of all but the necessities of life on account of having to settle for
a friend 's notes, which his kindness of heart had caused him to endorse.
A stalwart, sturdy pioneer, in his death Southern Illinois lost a man
whose place will be hard to fill and one whose career is worthy of emu-
lation by the youth of any land. Nine children were born to Mr. Bean
and wife, namely : James Monroe ; Mrs. Alice Nazarene Nelson ; Jerome
Foster ; Mrs. Margaret Josephine Hemphill ; Mrs. Faustine Ellen Willis ;
Logan Grant, who died at the age of nineteen years; Sherman Henry;
Mary Rosabel, who died at the age of four years ; and Mrs. Susan Cath-
erine Hatfield. The mother of these children, who was a daughter of
James Glass, of Pope county, died in 1897, at the age of fifty-five years.
James Monroe Bean, more familiarly known as Monroe, was born
August 14, 1855, in Gallatin county, Illinois, and there was educated
in the public schools. Until the removal to Johnson county in 1907,
he and his brother Jerome F. were engaged in conducting their father's
property, Monroe having charge of 300 acres located in the "bottoms."
On October 14, 1906, Monroe Bean purchased eighty acres in Grants-
burg township, where he has since been engaged in agricultural pursuits,
and he now has two head of cattle, five horses and eighty Poland China
hogs. He has been very successful in his operations, and is looked upon
as one of his community's substantial men.
On November 4, 1878, Mr. Bean was married to Mrs. Leah Amanda
(Nelson) Siddels, daughter of Elijah and Elsie Nelson, and they have
had a family of eight children, namely: James Franklin, Jerome
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1695
Marshall, Minnie Belle, James Monroe, Jr., Ridgeway, Logan, Byron
Nelson and Clyde Lester. The family is connected with the Methodist
church and is \vell and favorably known in Grantsburg township.
Jerome Foster Bean was born on the old homestead farm in Galla-
tin county, April 10, 1860. He received a common-school education in
the schools located near the home place, which was situated about four-
teen miles from old Shawneetown, and as a youth was reared to agri-
cultural pursuits. On attaining manhood, Mr. Bean was given charge
of 300 acres of his father's land, known as the "ridge" farm, and this
he operated until his father sold out and came to Johnson county. Since
coming to Grantsburg Mr. Bean has accumulated 240 acres of excellent
highly productive land, and here he has carried on farming and stock-
raising. He is the owner of eight horses, two jacks and one jennet,
five head of cattle and ninety hogs. In the latter he specializes in the
Jersey-Duroc breed, and in November, 1911, had the finest bunch of
the season in Johnson county, his shipment bringing $560. Like his
brother, he has been successful in his chosen vocation, and he has always
been in favor of using progressive and up-to-date methods in his work.
In 1889 Mr. Bean was married to Miss Ethel Yost, of Gallatin county,
Illinois, daughter of Fletcher Yost, and she died in 1903, having been
the mother of seven children ; Mary Jewell, Susan Catherine, Ruth Yost,
James Lewis, Jerome David, and two who died in infancy. In 1905,
Mr. Bean was married to Mrs. Luella (Nash) Strode, a widow, of St.
Louis, Missouri, and daughter of Samuel Nash, and two children have
been born to this union, Samuel Burdette and one who died in infancy.
Mr. Bean is a member of Cumberland Presbyterian church, and his
fraternal connection is with the Masonic Lodge of Ridgeway.
WILLIAM WISEHART. The farmer, after years of strenuous en-
deavor, during which he rises early and toils through the long days until
after sunset, thoroughly earns the years of rest he takes when he feels
that he has accomplished enough to entitle him to such relaxation, and
some of the most representative men of Gallatin county belong to the
retired class. Having plenty of time on their hands, they are able to
probe deeply into civic matters and look into affairs generally, so that
during these years of seeming inactivity they are really most useful, for
they are rendering their community a service that cannot be overesti-
mated. One of the men whose agricultural operations once assumed
proportions of considerable acreage is "William Wisehart, a retired citizen
of Shawneetown, who is widely known and universally respected. Mr.
"Wisehart was born three miles north of Shawneetown, Gallatin county,
Illinois, January 7, 1832, and is a son of John and Elizabeth (Miller)
Wisehart, natives of Pennsylvania, and grandson of Michael Wisehart,
who came from Germany.
John Wisehart spent his youth in his native state, and then went to
Lexington, Kentucky, but after spending two years there came to Illinois
in 1828, crossing the Ohio river at Shawneetown. He took up land three
miles from that village, and there died in 1836, when but forty-four
years of age, leaving his widow with seven children, of whom William is
the only survivor. Mrs. Wisehart died on the old farm when eighty-two
years of age. The children were : Richmond, who was engaged in farm-
ing, began to preach at an early day as a minister of the Christian
church, and for fifty years was well known in this connection all over
Southern Illinois, his death occurring when seventy-nine years of age;
Mary, who married James Rice, passed away in Gallatin when forty-two
years of age. he also being deceased ; John, a farmer of Gallatin county,
died when sixty-five years of age; Samuel, a farmer and stockman of
1696 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
this section, died when fifty years of age ; William ; Ellen, who married
William Byrd, died when fifty years of age ; and Hannah, who married
Albert DeWitt, died at the age of thirty-five years.
William Wisehart grew up on the old homestead farm and was reared
to agricultural pursuits, having charge of the family tract until he was
twenty-five years of age, at which time he went to live on a tract of
one hundred and sixty acres adjoining the original purchase. He con-
tinued to cultivate this land until his retirement in 1905, at which time
he had accumulated 800 acres, in addition to the home place, his total
holdings being 960 acres in six farms, most of which land he rented.
For a number of years he was extensively engaged in stock feeding and
raising, having cattle, hogs, sheep, jacks and horses. A Democrat in
politics, his public life was confined to holding public school offices, but
he has always taken an interest in anything that pertained to the welfare
of his county, and was ready at all times to give his influence or finan-
cial aid to movements of a progressive or beneficial nature. Although
not a member of any special denomination, Mr. Wisehart is a believer
in Christianity and supports the churches of all creeds.
At the age of twenty-five years Mr. Wisehart was married to Miss
Sarah Gill, who was also bora in the vicinity of Shawneetown, daughter
of Henry and Caroline (Thomasson) Gill, who came to Illinois about
1830. Mrs. Wisehart is the only survivor of three children, and she and
Mr. Wisehart have had the following children : Laura, the widow of
William Mattingly ; Albert, a stockman and farmer near the old home ;
Anna, who married James Pursey, a well-known miller at Equality ;
Marshall, formerly a teacher and attorney and for two years cashier of
the City National Bank at Shawneetown ; and Lucy, who married Wil-
liam Powell, of McLeansboro, Illinois. Mrs. William Mattingly, together
with her daughter, Carrie Elizabeth (Mattingly) Woods, and grandson,
William Lawrence Woods, live with Mr. and Mrs. Wisehart, and one of
the valued possessions of the family is a photograph in which are shown
the four generations of the family. During his long and active career
Mr. Wisehart has seen many changes take place in this part of the state,
and he has done his full share in bringing these changes about and in
developing his section of the county. He can now look back over his
active years with a sense of duty well done, and may justly feel that
what success has come to him is well merited as the results of his own
industry and hard labor.
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS MILLING & ELEVATOR COMPANY. One of the many
thriving concerns in the milling and elevator business of Illinois is the
Southern Illinois Milling & Elevator Company. The firm was incorpor-
ated under the laws of the state on July 29, 1891, with a capital stock
of $50,000. Its president is Philip H. Eisenmayer, and Willard Wall is
its secretary and treasurer.
They have two elevators, erected at a cost of $125,000, one of which
has a capacity of 25,000 bushels and the other a capacity of 100,000
bushels. Their milling capacity is six hundred barrels per day, and their
product finds a ready market in the home and adjacent territories. About
twenty-five men are employed in the operations of the mill and eleva-
tors, in addition to a force of from six to eight men regularly eir ployed
in the cooperage department.
Since its organization, the firm has flourished steadily, and the South-
ern Illinois Milling & Elevator Company is recognized today as one of
the substantial industries of Murphysboro.
1
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1697
JOHN HARRIS BARTON. If it be true that death loves a shining mark,
the invincible archer found the target he delights in when, on March
15, 1911, his inevitable shaft pierced the armor of the late John Harris
Barton, long widely and favorably known as one of the most capable,
versatile, independent and resourceful newspaper men in Southern Illi-
nois. His life was an open book to the people of Carbondale, among
whom he lived and labored so long, and it may seem to some of them
an unnecessary task to chronicle it briefly here. But a work of the char-
acter of this, which is designed as a perpetual record of what the builders
and makers of the city and county have attempted and what they have
achieved, would be incomplete without some account of his contributions
to the efforts made and the results accomplished.
John II. Barton was born in West Carlisle, Coshocton county, Ohio,
on January 2, 1837, and began his education in the district schools. Their
course of training and instruction was supplemented in his case by an
attendance of three years at an excellent academy in West Bedford in
his native state. At the age of fifteen years he began to learn the print-
ing trade under Joseph Medill, late of the Chicago Tribune, who was at
that time editor and publisher of the Democratic-Whig of Coshocton,
Ohio. Afterward he passed two years in printing offices in Zanesville,
where he acquired a thorough mastery of the trade. During 1858, 1859
and 1860, like many other men of his craft, he wandered from place to
place, and worked in many of the large printing offices of the west and
south, in some of which he served as superintendent or foreman. The
war cloud of sectional strife was then darkening on the horizon, and
in October, 1860, Mr. Barton determined to halt on the northern side of
the sectional line until after the presidential election of that year.
He secured remunerative employment at Cairo, and a few months
later went from that city to Anna, where he took employment under
A. H. Marschalk in the publication of the Union Democrat. But his
stay in Anna was brief. Sterner duties than any pertaining to the font
and the case required his attention. The war cloud broke, and the gov-
ernor of the state issued a call for volunteers to aid in preserving the
completeness and integrity of the Union. Mr. Barton had considerable
knowledge of military affairs, and he at once responded to the call by
recruiting a company in Union and Jackson counties, which, on May 19,
1861, was mustered into the service of the United States as Company I,
Eighteenth Illinois Infantry, of which he was in partial command as
first lieutenant.
On November 17, 1861, he resigned this position to accept on the fol-
lowing day a lieutenancy in the secret service, offered him by General
Grant on the recommendation of General John A. McClernand. He was
assigned to duty in Cairo, and there he remained until July 1, 1865,
when he was mustered out of the army. His ruling passion for jour-
nalism was strong with him, however, even during his military life.
While living in Cairo he was associated for a time with M. B. Harrell
on the Cairo Gazette, and afterward founded the Cairo Daily News,
which he eventually sold to a stock company.
Mr. Barton was accustomed to date the beginning of his real news-
paper life with the day when he and his brother, David L. Barton, pur-
chased the New Era, and removed to Carbondale. This was on September
12, 1866, and inside of one year the paper had secured a wide circulation
and risen to great influence in the political affairs of the county. Gen-
eral John A. Logan was its friend, and his friendship was a great bul-
wark of strength and of pronounced advantage in many ways. Through
him Mr. Barton came into acquaintance and close touch with all the
leading Republicans of Illinois of that period.
1698 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
In 1872 the position of postmaster of Carbondale was offered to him,
and when he decided to accept it he sold the New Era to Rev. Andrew
Luce, who rebaptized it as the Carbondale Observer, and conducted it
to its ruin, running it hard up on the shoals of bankruptcy in less than
two years. The discredited sheet was then passed from hand to hand
until 1883, when it again became the property of the man who had made
it strong and influential, and he once more breathed into it the breath
of vigorous and productive life.
Mr. Barton 's term as postmaster expired in 1876, and as he had not
found the duties of the position congenial, he did not apply for re-ap-
pointment. On his recommendation Captain Simeon Walker became his
successor, and he experienced great relief in freedom from the cares
and responsibilities of official life. For two years thereafter he worked
as a journeyman printer in Sedalia, Missouri, and Indianapolis, Indiana,
while waiting for another newspaper opening in Carbondale. This came
on January 1, 1878, when the Carbondale Free Press was established.
"With his strong hand on the helm and his clear head directing the course
of its problematical voyage on the uncertain sea of journalism the paper
very soon regained the patronage and power that had been transferred
to Mr. Luce five years before and frittered away and lost by that gen-
tleman.
In April, 1892, Mr. Barton's health broke down, and he sold the
business of the Free Press to W. H. Hubbard, who had entered the
journalistic field a few months previous. Then, on January 1, 1893, the
Southern Illinois Herald, which had been living a precarious life for six
months, was purchased by new owners, and by them Mr. Barton was em-
ployed as editor and business manager. In November, 1894, he became
its editor and proprietor, and he remained in charge of it, wrote its
editorials and directed its policy until August, 1910, when he sold the
plant and retired altogether from the domain of journalism. In the
meantime, from 1896 to 1900, he was state expert printer, but during
this period continued to edit and publish his paper.
As an editor and writer Mr. Barton was forceful, plain and some-
times even blunt. But he was never evasive or equivocal, nor did he
ever try to hide or soften the truth with the flowers of rhetoric. He was
a man of strong convictions and outspoken in the expression of them —
trenchant to the utmost keenness when occasion required it, but over-
flowing with genuine human kindness at all other times. While a Re-
publican in political faith, he was not always in full accord with his
party, and he always fought corruption in high places fearlessly and
unmercifully, no matter what party was guilty of it, or who was its
beneficiary.
As a citizen he was progressive, and at all times an earnest and active
supporter of everything that would contribute to the welfare and pros-
perity of Carbondale and Jackson county. Not only did he use his in-
fluence as an editor and the power of his paper on the side of all worthy
projects for the improvement of this locality, but he contributed liberally
of his means to help them along. The fraternal life of the community
appealed strongly to him as replete with benefits in many ways, and he
gave it attention and service as a member of Shekinah Lodge, No. 241,
Carbondale, from October 11, 1866, when he was raised to the degree of
Master Mason before its altar, until his death, serving it as worshipful
master two terms. He also belonged to Reynolds Chapter of Royal Arch
Masons, and to John T. Lawrence Post, Grand Army of the Republic in
Carbondale.
In 1863 Mr. Barton was united in marriage with Miss Joanna Meagher.
They became the parents of six children, David, John Logan, Flora,
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1699
Eugene, Josie and Richard. David lives in Washington, D. C. John
Logan is a resident of Winona, Mississippi. Flora died about eighteen
years ago, in 1893. Josie, the wife of F. C. Goodnow, has her home
at Salem, Illinois, and Eugene and Richard are in the Philippines. The
father died, as has been stated, on March 15, 1911, after an acute illness
of only three days, although he had long been in failing health. His
remains were laid to rest in Oakland cemetery with every testimonial
of esteem the community could bestow upon him, and amid manifesta-
tions of universal grief.
WILLIAM N. ATHERTON is a representative of one of the pioneer fam-
ilies of Pulaski county, Illinois, which was first established in Illinois
about 1814, or nearly a century ago. He is the son of Charles M. Ath-
erton and the grandson of Samuel N. Atherton, the former of whom is
said to have been the first white child born in Southern Illinois, and
the latter of whom was the founder of the family in this state.
Samuel N. Atherton, who came of Vermont stock, migrated to Illinois
from Muhlenbergh county, Kentucky, and first located at America,
but made his first permanent settlement at Jonesboro, Union county.
There he took up land and engaged in farming, which was his life pur-
suit, but he subsequently removed to the locality three miles east of Vil-
laridge, Pulaski county, and died there about 1839. He was buried at
the old Shiloh church, while the remains of his wife, who was Mary. Big-
gerstaff, repose in the Redden cemetery east of Villaridge. Their chil-
dren were : Rhoda, who married William Lanham and died at Centralia,
Illinois ; Eunice, who became the wife of John Lanham and died near
Pulaski; William H., who was a farmer and was treasurer of Pulaski
county at the time of his death ; Charles M., the father of our subject ;
Rice O., who was a farmer and died east of Villaridge; Elizabeth, who
married Elijah Shepherd and passed away at Poplar Bluff, Missouri;
Samuel M., who died near the old Villaridge community; and Merady
T., the most of whose life was passed in Pulaski county but who died
at Vienna.
Charles M. Atherton, the father of our subject, received a very limited
education and lived a private life. He was married in the Villaridge
community to Eliza J. Rolen, an orphan girl whose father was James
Rolen, a Virginian. She had a half-brother, Thomas Rolen, and a half-
sister, Malinda Rolen. Charles M. and Eliza J. (Rolen) Atherton be-
came the parents of seven children, namely : William N. ; Sarah Ellen,
who died young; Martha J., who married John F. Snell and died near
Pulaski, Illinois; John H., a life-long resident of Pulaski county; Em-
marilla, who married J. Frank Parker and resides near Villaridge ; Jas-
per E., who died in Sewanee, Oklahoma ; and Elizabeth, now Mrs. John
Hurst, of Jacksonville, Illinois. The mother died in 1888 and the father's
demise occurred July 21, 1910.
William N. Atherton secured such educational advantages as were
offered in the public schools of his locality, and by personal experience
is familiar with the old order of school facilities such as the log house,
the slab benches and the glazed windows, yet many happy recollections
center around those old associations and in a measure compensate for
what was missed in the way of education. He took up the favorite pur-
suit of his forebears, that of farming, and has devoted his whole life to
it in a modest way.
He was married at Villaridge on August 7. 1864, to Sarah A. Stringer,
a daughter of William Stringer, who came to Illinois from Kentucky
and whose wife was Mary A. Elmore, of Alabama. Mr. and Mrs. Ather-
ton began their wedded life near Villaridge, where they resided until
1700 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
their removal, in 1898, to their present farm adjoining tjhe townsite of
Pulaski. Their eldest child to grow to maturity was William Webster
Atherton, who died in 1905, leaving a wife and child. They have one
daughter, Sarah Ellen, who is now Mrs. 0. 0. Lewis and resides at
Pulaski, Illinois.
Mr. Atherton comes from a family of Whigs and his father and his
descendants all became Republicans. Our subject cast his first vote for
Abraham Lincoln for president and for Richard Yates as governor of
Illinois, and has voted for every Republican candidate for president
since that time. His father cast his first vote for William Henry Harri-
son for president. Mr. Atherton was elected mayor of Pulaski in 1906,
but served a part of the term only, when he resigned. He was a stanch
Union man during the Civil war and had decided to enlist in the Eighty-
first Illinois Infantry, but an attack of measles prevented his doing so.
The church affiliations of Mr. Atherton are with the Baptist denom-
ination.
GEORGE W. YOUNG. It is always most gratifying to the biographer
and student of human nature to come in close touch with the history of
a man who, in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties, has plodded
persistently on and eventually, through his determination and energy,
made of success not an accident but a logical result. Judge George W.
Young, who maintains his home at Marion, Illinois, is strictly a self-made
man and as such a perusal of his career offers both lesson and incentive.
He has been eminently successful as an attorney of recognized ability,
has held a multitude of important public positions, and has ever mani-
fested a deep and sincere interest in the good of the Republican party,
of whose principles he has long been a zealous and active exponent.
Judge George W. Young was born in Williamson county, Illinois,
December 1, 1844, and both of his parents died when he was a mere in-
fant. After his parents' demise the subject of this review became a
member of the family of George W. Binkley, who was engaged in farm-
ing on an estate four miles north of Marion. Mr. Binkley died when
the Judge was fourteen years of age and he was then bound by indenture
to the widow, Mrs. Maria Binkley. When fifteen years of age Judge
Young left his home and went south, stopping for a time at Cairo, Illi-
nois, where he enlisted as deck sweeper on a steamboat plying between
St. Louis and New Orleans. Subsequently he became a cabin boy and
Texas tender, occupying the latter positions until the winter of 1861,
when he went ashore at Columbus, Kentucky, there hiring out to work
on a farm at five dollars a month.
Prior to the death of Mr. Binkley, the young George had learned to
read and write by attending the neighboring subscription schools. He
was a resident of Kentucky at the time of the inception of the Civil war,
and as the storm of secession and disunion swept over that state it be-
came necessary for everyone to take sides. Judge Young cast his lot
with the cause of the Union and was mustered into service in July, 1862,
as a private in Company L, Eighth Kentucky Cavalry, under the com-
mand of Colonel James M. Shackleford. Judge Young served in the
above regiment until September, 1863, when he was sent to western Ken-
tucky, where he recruited a company of men in Graves, Ballard and Car-
lisle counties, himself becoming lieutenant of Company E, Thirtieth
Kentucky Cavalry, Colonel P. N. Alexander commanding. At the battle
of Saltville, Virginia, October 6, 1864, the captain of Company E was
severely wounded and rendered unable for duty. This placed Lieuten-
ant Young in command of the company and, the second lieutenant being
absent on detached service, the Judge was the only commissioned officer
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1701
with the comptay, which he continued to command until the close of the
war, in June, 1865. Judge Young was mustered out of service as
captain of his company.
Judge Young returned to "Williamson county, Illinois, in July, 1865,
and immediately turned his attention to procuring a higher education.
For eight months he was a pupil in the district school at Spillerton, kept
by Matthew I. Wroton, and in 1866-7 he attended the City University
at St. Louis, Missouri. In the winter of 1868-9 he attended the law de-
partment of the University of Chicago, and subsequently he was a student
in the Benton Law Institute, conducted by the late Judge Andrew D.
Duff. He received his license to practice law in Illinois March 3, 1869,
but at that time was too poor to open a law office. He was deputy asses-
sor of the county in 1869, taught school during the winter of 1869-70,
and eventually opened a law office for general practice in the city of
Marion, in July, 1870; his law partner at that time was Judge L. D.
Hart well.
Soon after the close of the Civil war Judge Young became interested
in politics. Under the system of voting prior to 1865 it had been cus-
tomary to place the names of all the candidates for office on one ballot
and the voter was supposed to scratch off the names of the men he did
not wish to vote for. The returned Union soldiers, under the direction
of the late Jesse Bishop, stimulated by the influence of the late General
John A. Logan, determined to put before the people a straight Repub-
lican ticket. Accordingly, on the 30th of September, 1865, a caucus of
Republicans was called by Jesse Bishop to meet in the back room of the
drug store of Isaac M. Lewis, the purpose being to nominate candidates
for the various county offices, the same to be voted for at the coming
November election. There were thirteen Republicans present at that
caucus. Judge Young, although not twenty-one years old, was invited
to attend and he acted as secretary. The caucus nominated a full county
ticket and this was the first straight Republican ticket ever put before
the people of Williamson county ; at the November election every candi-
date was elected.
Judge Young has been active in Republican politics since the holding
of that first memorable caucus until the present time. He is the only
surviving member of that historical meeting. The Judge was candidate
for the office of state's attorney in 1872, but was defeated along with
the rest of the Republican ticket. He served as justice of the peace from
1873 until 1877 and in the latter year was elected county judge by a large
majority. In 1884 he became state's attorney for Williamson county
and in 1888 was elected circuit judge to fill a vacancy. For twelve years
he was a member of the board of education for Marion district. He was
a candidate for Congress before the Republican primary in 1898 but was
defeated by a small majority. In 1879 he was appointed aide-de-camp
on the military staff of Governor Cullom, with the rank of colonel, and
subsequently he was reappointed to that position by Governor Hamilton.
Ever since the close of the war Judge Young has been an active factor
in army circles. He organized three posts of the Grand Army of the
Republic in 1866 and has been a continuous member of that splendid
organization since that time. For the past twenty years he has been
post commander of Marion Post, No. 319, and he is division commander
of the Union Veterans' Union, Department of Illinois. In July, 1869,
Judge Young became a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows and he has been a member of the Grand Lodge of the state of that
organization since 1873; he has held several important offices in the
Grand Lodge, served on four of the important committees and is now, in
1912, a member of the committee on legislation. For the past ten years
1702 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Judge Young has devoted his attention to his extensive law practice
looking after collections, some politics, and other business in general.
Judge Young was married to Miss Martha Spiller, daughter of the
late Elijah N. Spiller, September 24, 1871. To this union three children
were born, all girls, one of whom is deceased. Miss Eva, the youngest
daughter, is official reporter for the Williamson county circuit court,
having held that position for the past eight years, during which time
she has gained the reputation of being the best stenographer in Southern
Illinois.
Judge Young is a man of broad human sympathy and great benev-
olence. Charity in its widest and best sense is practiced by him, and his
kindness has made smooth the rough way of many a weary traveler on
life's journey. In his private life he is distinguished by all that marks
the true gentleman. His is a noble character — one that subordinates
personal ambition to public good and seeks rather the benefit of others
than the aggrandizement of self.
GALLATIN COUNTY BANK. The standard of every community is meas-
ured by the character of its financial institutions, for unless they are
stable the credit of the municipality and its people is impeached. The
Gallatin County Bank, of Ridgway, Illinois, is an institution which has
grown out of the needs of its locality, and was organized by men of ex-
ceptional standing, whose interests have been centered in it, and whose
honor and personal fortunes are bound up in its life. Under such desir-
able conditions a bank is bound to maintain a high standard and to
make money for its stockholders, while at the same time safeguard the
interests of its depositors.
The Gallatin County Bank of Ridgway, Illinois, was organized as a
state bank in January, 1895, with a capital of $25,000, which was event-
ually increased to $35,000. It had been originally started in 1893 by
Robert Mick, president, and David Weidemann, cashier, with William
Gregg and T. W. Hall, as a private institution. Mr. Weidemann is now
cashier of the First National Bank of Henry, Illinois ; Mr. Gregg is
cashier of the City National Bank of Harrisburg, and T. W. Hall is
president of the First National Bank of Carmi. Shortly after the death
of President Mick, the bank became a state institution, with Judge
Phillips as president and Mr. Weidemann as cashier, and the former still
holds office, although the latter was succeeded in July, 1897, by George
L. Land, who has continued as cashier to the present time. The present
home of the bank was erected in 1910, and was fitted out with the latest
improvements, and now boasts of deposits of $140,000, and $125,000
loans, is continually paying dividends and has a surplus of $6,000. This
is considered one of the strongest banking institutions of Southern Illi-
nois and does business with some of the largest houses in its part of the
state. The assistant cashier is W. B. Phillips, son of the Judge.
George L. Land, the able cashier of this bank, was born at Carmi,
White county, Illinois, July 10, 1865, and is a son of John and Ann
Eliza (Crane) Land, and a grandson of Yearby Land and his wife, who
bore the maiden name of Rupert. Yearby Land was born in North Caro-
lina, and was brought to Illinois when two years old, in 1809. He spent
a number of years in Wayne county, but eventually moved to White
county, where he and his sons, John and David Land, were engaged in
a mercantile business under the firm name of Y. Land & Sons. His
death occurred at his home in Carmi at the age of ninety years, and for
some years the sons continued to carry on the business, which is still in
existence at Carmi, being conducted by a son of John, E. A. Land, and
is the oldest mercantile business in White county.
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1703
John Land, the father of George L., was for a number of years en-
gaged in farming in connection with the mercantile business, which in
1879 became known as D. R. & J. Land, and he finally retired in 1885
and still resides at Carmi, as does his wife. He was succeeded by his
son, George L., as D. R. Land & Company, which continued until the
death of D. R., and George L. was then joined by his two brothers, E. A.
& H. C. Land, but subsequently George L. Land left the firm to become
cashier of the Gallatin County Bank, and H. C. became cashier of the
Bank of Omaha, Gallatin county, which was organized as the Exchange
Bank of Omaha by David Weidemann, and of which George L. Land has
been president for some time. He has not been active in political mat-
ters, preferring to give his attention strictly to his banking business,
although he is also interested in a coal business at Eldorado, Illinois.
Mr. Land was married at the age of twenty-seven years, to Miss Mol-
lie B. Hick, of Carmi, daughter of John Hick, of New Haven, who died
when she was a child. Three children have been born to this union, all
residing at home: Walter H., Madeline E. and Louise. Mr. and Mrs.
Land are well-known members of the Missionary Baptist church, and
have been active in its work. They have numerous friends throughout
this community, where members of both families have been prominent in
various walks of life.
PAUL GUSTAVE SCHUH might appropriately be termed the father of
the wholesale drug business of Cairo and Southern Illinois, if his long
association with that industry can give any claim to the distinction. He
came to Cairo during the first year of the Civil war as a soldier of the
Union, and his residence began with his discharge from the army, con-
tinuing without interruption during the years which have followed. So
closely has his life been interwoven with that of Cairo that it would in-
deed be difficult to speak extendedly of the one without mention of the
other. A drug merchant from an early day and ever an active and help-
ful participant in commercial affairs, the Schuh Drug Company, to whose
nurturing and upbuilding he has given the best energies of his vigorous
mind and robust body, is a most fitting monument to the success of his
career.
Mr. Schuh came to the United States happily unembarrassed by any
lack of preparation for a career involving industry and intellectual
training. He had the advantages of higher education, had studied the
classics, and had in his youth been encouraged by the atmosphere of an
intellectual home. His father was a Lutheran minister in the Black For-
est of Wurtemberg, where Paul Schuh was born on January 8, 1830. The
father, Christian Michael Schuh, was born in 1790, and was properly
educated for his high calling. He passed away in 1858, after a long and
useful career as an expounder and exponent of the Lutheran faith. The
mother of Paul Gustave Schuh was Augusta Geysel, and he is the
youngest of their eleven children. Those of the family who came to
America were Carl Alexander, who spent his life at Easton and other
Pennsylvania points, settling in Cairo just prior to his death. He left
four sons: Harry W., Samuel H., Hermann C. and Franklin, who died
in Charleston, Missouri. Hermann died in Columbia, Illinois, leaving
two children. Charlotte, a sister, was twice married, and died at Runge,
Texas, the mother of three children. Paul Gustave was the fourth and
last of this German-American group.
The year 1853 is memorable with Paul Schuh as being the year of
his advent in the United States. He joined his brother Hermann in St.
Louis, and the two engaged in the drug business in that city, and later
in Alton, Illinois. It was there that Paul Schuh was enlisted in the
1704 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
"Yeager" Company in April, 1861, being among the first to answer the
call to arms. His company was ordered to Springfield and mustered
in with the Ninth Illinois Infantry, with Colonel Payne in command.
The regiment was sent to Cairo, where Mr. Schuh's enlistment period
expired, and he immediately re-enlisted on July 21st and served in the
medical purveyor's office until his detail to the post hospital. He was
discharged in January, 1863, on account of a myopic affection of the
eyes. Taking up civil pursuits once more, Mr. Schuh put in a small
stock of drugs three doors below Sixth street, where he was located for
eight years. He then moved one block north on Commercial street, at
which place he subsequently erected a business block, and there he has
since been located, associated now, however, with his sons, the firm name
having been changed to Paul G. Schuh & Sons. In 1880 Mr. Schuh be-
gan a small jobbing business in drugs and in 1893 he formed the Schuh
Drug Company, erecting a three-story brick building at Tenth and Com-
mercial streets. The new company was incorporated with a capital stock
of $50,000 and Paul Schuh was chosen president, Walter Denzel is its
secretary and treasurer, and Harry W. Schuh is vice president and gen-
eral manager. The institution has come to be one of the most important
wholesale houses of Cairoi and is the only wholesale drug house in
Southern Illinois ; a unique feature, as well as one that is highly con-
ducive to the future prosperity of the concern. The business has grown
apace since its inception, and it is recognized as one of the solid and rep-
resentative corporations of that section.
In addition to his connection with the drug business, Mr. Schuh has
found leisure to become identified with various other organizations,
among them being the Greater Cairo Building & Loan Association, of
which he is president, and the First State Bank & Trust Company, he
having been a member of the directorate of that institution since its or-
ganization. Mr. Schuh is also prominent as a fraternalist. He is a past
master in Masonry and has belonged to the craft of the "square and
compass" for more than forty years. He has taken the Royal Arch
degree in Masonry and holds membership in the Benevolent and Pro-
tective Order of Elks.
Mr. Schuh has been twice married. His first wife was Miss Julia
Horsmeyer, born at Lippe-Detmold, Germany. She died after three
years of wedded life, leaving one son, Julius P., now engaged in the man-
ufacture of lumber in Louisiana. In 1871, Mr. Schuh was again mar-
ried, and the children of Mr. and Mrs. Schuh are: Carl H., who is a
member of the firm of Paul G. Schuh and Sons, and Alma, the youngest
of the family, who is the wife of Frank Murray, of the' Schuh Drug
Company.
FREDERICK J. KUNY, for several years past a resident of Mound City,
Illinois, is secretary and treasurer of the Williamson-Kuny Mill & Lum-
ber Company of that city, and has been identified with that community
in various manners since his advent there in 1893.
He was born in Muehlheim, Baden, in the German Empire, Septem-
ber 18, 1864. His father was John J. Kuny, a mechanic and farmer,
and the son Frederick grew up in the atmosphere of thrift and industry,
so typical of German life. His education was acquired in the peda-
gogical institute of Loerrach, Baden, and at the age of seventeen years
he was apprenticed to a commercial institution in Frieburg, as salesman
and bookkeeper. His apprenticeship completed, he went to the French
district of Switzerland, where he might make a detailed and careful
study of their business methods and study the French language, during
which time he was located in La Chaux de Fonds. Having concluded
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1705
his service there he entered the German army, and when the term of
his enlistment had expired he immediately came to the United States.
On reaching Decatur, Illinois, he decided to remain there, and accord-
ingly secured a position with a plumbing and heating establishment in
the capacity of omceman and warehouseman. Leaving Decatur, he went
to St. Louis, where he secured employment in a similar establishment, and
which firm subsequently sent him to Mound City as manager of their
branch house there.
He remained with them until the year 1902, when he engaged in the
wholesale lumber business in Cairo, and later he joined forces with Al-
fred W. "Williamson, the result of their allied forces being the William-
son-Kuny Lumber & Mill Company.
Mr. Kuny is regarded as being a business man of exceptional ability.
He is president of the Mound City Commercial Club, as well as being a
member of the Modern Woodmen of America and a Hoo Hoo.
CHARLES LYNN. Randolph county, Illinois, figures as one of the most
attractive, progressive and prosperous divisions of the state, justly claim-
ing a high order of citizenship and a spirit of enterprise which is cer-
tain to conserve consecutive development and marked advancement in
the material upbuilding of this section. Among the essentially repre-
sentative citizens, whose loyalty and public spirit have contributed to
its growth, is Charles Lynn, who was formerly connected with the post-
office service of the state but who is now living retired on his fine estate,
widely known as the Menard Mansion. Together with his brothers and
some other gentlemen, he is owner of the old historic Menard property,
which comprises some six hundred acres of most arable farming land
located near Fort Gage.
A native of Greene county, Illinois, Charles Lynn was born on the
9th of April, 1847, and he is a son of Alexander W. Lynn, whose birth
occurred in the state of Tennessee. The paternal grandfather of Charles
Lynn, namely, John Lynn, was born and reared in county Antrim, Ire-
land, whence he came to the United States about the year 1800, settling
at Kingsport, Tennessee. John Lynn fled from Ireland because he had
been a participant in the Irish rebellion which resulted in the death of
the famous Robert Emmet. He was a Protestant in his religious faith
and after his arrival at Kingsport he married and there passed the re-
mainder of his life. His sons were William, John, Samuel, James, Jo-
seph, Alexander and Charles, of whom Alexander and Samuel came
north and identified themselves with various interests in Illinois. Alex-
ander Lynn married Mary Barr, a native of Sumner county, Tennessee,
and they removed to Illinois in the year 1835. After passing one year in
Morgan county, this state, they located in Greene county, where Mr.
Lynn turned his attention to mercantile pursuits. He left the south
on account of the slavery question, although he was not an Abolitionist.
He was called to eternal rest in 1872, at sixty-five years of age, and his
cherished and devoted wife died in 1893, in her eightieth year. Their
children were: Kate, who married Samuel Hopkins and died in the
"Menard Mansion" in 1904, leaving a son, Lynn C., John, who died at
Carrolton. Illinois, in 1871; Martha, who died, unmarried, in 1886;
William, who died in 1887; Alexander W., a resident of Fort Gage;
Charles, the immediate subject of this review; Mary, who is deceased;
and James, who is interested with his brothers in the historic property
at Fort Gage.
Charles Lynn was a business man as a merchant in Carrolton, Illi-
nois, in his early manhood and was then appointed postmaster of the
city, serving in that capacity for a period of six years. His education
1706 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
was acquired in the city schools and academy and his mercantile experi-
ence proved of value to him later in his career. Becoming interested in
politics, as a Republican, he found favor among the leaders of Illinois,
and in 1885 was appointed purchasing agent for the Southern Illinois
penitentiary. He served in that position for eight years, at the expira-
tion of which he retired to his farm. Subsequently the state auditor
selected him to become building and loan examiner of Illinois and he was
interested in that work for the ensuing three years. Finally resigning
that position, he was appointed special agent for the postoffice depart-
ment for the installation of rural delivery service and while covering
his territory south and west of Chicago he was detailed to service in
that city, Cincinnati and St. Louis. Later on he was appointed post-
office inspector, attached to the Chicago division, and he served as such
until 1908, when he retired to his Fort Gage home. Falling naturally
into politics, Mr. Lynn served his party in Greene county as its central
committee chairman, and by association made the acquaintance of state
leaders of the party. His knowledge of Illinois public men of both po-
litical faiths is broad and accurate and he has ever felt a friendly inter-
est in the work and life of Senator Cullom. He is a close observer and
an analytical measurer of public men, and his retentive memory makes
him an entertaining talker upon political events and politicians.
The Lynn property comprises some six hundred acres of fine land ad-
jacent to the "Menard Mansion," and the home of the Lynn brothers
is the most historic spot in Illinois. The "Mansion" was built in 1813,
by Colonel Pierre Menard, and is widely renowned as the ' ' Menard Man-
sion." Colonel Menard died in 1844 and the property then fell into the
keeping of his son, Edmund, a highly educated but easy-going young
man, who had no interest in the money side of life, and was not a finan-
cial success. At his death Mr. Lynn, in partnership with a few other
gentlemen, bought the property, which has, since then, come into the
Lynn family almost wholly.
On the 15th of March, 1888, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
Lynn to Miss Mary E. Cochran, of Freeport, Illinois. She was a daughter
of Senator James S. Cochran and died in 1892, without issue. Mr. Lynn
is popular with all classes of people and is everywhere accorded the un-
alloyed confidence and esteem of his fellow men.
JOHN CANTRIL. The farming interests of Bond county, Illinois, are in
the hands of skilled agriculturists, the majority of whom have made the
cultivation of the soil their life work. Born on farms and taught from
childhood the work of the farmer, they are ably fitted to carry on their
operations and to get the best possible results from their land. One
of the representative men of Greenville township, who has followed agri-
cultural pursuits all of his life, is John Cantril, who was born in Bond
county, Ilinois, September 29, 1860, a son of David and Rebecca
(Greene) Cantril.
David Cantril was born in Indiana, and came to Illinois about 1857,
settling near Stubblefield, Boone county, where he worked on various
farms, traveling all over the southwestern part of the county. In 1858
or 1859 he was married to Miss Rebecca Greene, daughter of Andreas
Greene, a Bond county agriculturist, and to this union there were born
three children, namely: John, Emma, who died in 1880, and George,
who died at the age of two years. After his marriage, David Cantril
purchased 100 acres of land and developed a fine farm, but August
16, 1866, he died of cholera, his mother and nephew also passing away
of that dread disease within three days. About two years later Mr.
Cantril's widow was married to Casper Ulmer, by whom she had three
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1707
children, and until 1875 lived on the farm by the brick church, but in
the year mentioned she and her husband moved to town, where Wallace
Ulmer was born, and there she died in 1897.
John Cantril received a district school education in the neighbor-
hood of his father's farm, and as a young man went to the West,
working in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Iowa and Nebraska, but in
1883 he returned to Bond county and went to farming the old family
homestead. On June 6, 1886, he was married to Miss Ella Harris,
daughter of James and Elizabeth Harris, farming people of Bond county,
and to this union there were born seven children : Lulu, Maude, Harry,
Tracy, Forest, Maurice and Arnold. Mr. Cantril remained on his
father's farm until 1909, in which year he purchased the tract he is now
operating, a farm of 130 acres, and in addition rents 110 acres, devoting
the entire amount to general farming and stock raising.
A Republican in politics, Mr. Cantril has contented himself with up-
holding the candidates and principles of his party, and has never
sought public preferment for hmself. His farm is one of the best to
be found in this section of Bond county, the land being well drained,
tiled and graded, and produces excellent crops. The fences and build-
ings are in a good state of repair, and he has a handsome residence sit-
uated on Greenville R. F. D. No. 8. He is public spirited and takes a
deep interest in anything that effects his community, while personally,
he is genial and courteous, and as a result is very popular with his fellow
citizens. A splendid business man, an excellent farmer and a sincere
friend, Mr. Cantril is a typical representative of the best class of agri-
culturists in this part of the state.
JAMES B. SMITH. General James B. Smith is Warden of the Southern
Illinois Penitentiary and has for several years been identified with pub-
lic affairs at Menard. All the years of his citizenship have been given
to his state and whether in private life, miltary service or as public
official, he has pursued the same earnest and straightforward course
which commends him so universally now.
General Smith might almost be termed a native of Oldham county,
Kentucky, but he was born in Johnson county, Indiana, his birth having
occurred November 25, 1839. He grew up on the paternal homestead in
the corncracker state to the age of sixteen years, at which time his
parents moved to Indiana, whence he came to Illinois in 1857 and settled
in Clay county, near Clay City, where the General has since made
his home.
General Smith's father was Frank P. Smith, who spent his life
largely as farmer and merchant. He died in 1867, at the age of 58
years. He was born in Kentucky but his people were from near Fair-
fax Courthouse, Virginia. He married Harriet Troutman, who died in
1906, at the age of eighty-eight years. Their children were: S. Webber,
who passed his life at Columbus, Indiana, and died there leaving a
family ; James B. of Illinois, the subject of this sketch ; Mrs. Emma
McCreary of Detroit, Mich. ; and Frank P., of near Franklin, Indiana.
The common schools have the credit of having equipped James B.
Smith for his duties as a citizen. For some months he was a student in
Moore's Hill College and he seems to have accepted the calling of his
father — that of farming — as his own, when he began the independent
years of his life. His plans were interrupted suddenly by the culmina-
tion of the political unrest of the nation by open rebellion of the South-
ern states and the call of the president for troops to restore order,
Before his twenty-second birthday, in October, 1861, he enlisted at
1708 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
Clay City as a private in Company K, Fortieth Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, under Colonel Stephen G. Hicks, and became a finite part
of the Army of the Tennessee. The command got into the enemy's
country at Paducah, Kentucky, and took part in the battle of Shiloh.
The engagements with Van Dorn at Holly Springs and the fight at
Corinth followed in quick succession and the campaign proper against
Vicksburg and the siege and capture of the city were all participated
in by Mr. Smith. Following the capitulations of Vicksburg, the For-
tieth Illinois took part in the chase of General Johnson's army east-
ward and fought that force at Jackson, Mississippi. From there the
Federals returned to Vicksburg and were sent by transport to Mem-
phis, from which place they marched across the state to Chattanooga
and attacked General Bragg 's army.
On the 25th of November, his birthday, General Smith was wounded
at Missionary Ridge. He recovered sufficiently to rejoin his regiment
at Big Shanty, Georgia, and took part in the remainder of the famous
Atlanta campaign. He fought on the 22nd of July there and partici-
pated in another memorable engagement on the 28th, under General
Logan, being again wounded. This injury prevented his going on to
the sea with General Sherman's army and he returned to Nashville,
whence he was sent back to Illinois and soon discharged. After eighteen
months of service, Mr. Smith was commissioned second lieutenant of his
company and was discharged with that rank.
After the close of the war General Smith resumed farming, fol-
lowing that occupation without interruption, together with the stock
business as a feeder, shipper and dealer, for many years. He was also
a merchant in Clay City a few years. He was induced to enter politics
by Major Hogan, who appointed him a deputy collector in the internal
revenue service, where he served for a period of four years.
In 1897 he was appointed Assistant Adjutant General of Illinois
by Governor Tanner and was reappointed by Governor Yates in 1901.
In 1902 he was commissioned by the Governor as Adjutant General of
the State. He was connected with the National Guard service until his
appointment as Warden of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary July 1st,
1903, by Governor Yates, and reappointed in 1907 by Governor Deneen.
His various appointments by Republican officials indicate plainly the
politics of the General, although his family before him were of the rabid
Democratic type.
At the August meeting of the penitentiary board of 1903, Warden
Smith made a request to be permitted to grade the convicts of the prison,
as follows : Blue clothes with brass buttons, first grade ; grey and black
buttons, second grade ; and stripes for the third grade. The request was
granted and the results in the morale of the men since have proved that
it was a wise move. The change took place September 4, 1904, when
the lockstep was also discontinued, and the beneficial effects are dis-
tinctly apparent in the conduct of the men. Under his management
the prison has reached as near the ideal as possible with the appropria-
tions available and is equal to any prison in the United States. The
Southern Illinois Penitentiary was the first penal institution in this
country to adopt the grade system and discontinue the lockstep. At
the time this was done, the same was very unpopular with all prison
officials, but, at this date, many prisons are adopting the grade system.
September 6, 1860, General Smith was married near Clay City,
Illinois, to Miss Anna Quertermous, who died in 1885, the mother of
Byron S., Elliott P., George P., Emma C., Charles F.. and Mina C. All
are deceased but Emma C., who is Mrs. S. L. Bowman.
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1709
General Smith married his second wife February, 1886. She was
Mrs. Sarah J. Dickson, a daughter of Jacob Myers and a native of
Michigan. There were no children born to this union.
General Smith's success with his prison charge makes him ever a
busy man. When he feels like taking a vacation he reaches over and
gets hold of a new "batch of stuff" and the change of subject seems
to reinvigorate him and carry him on from day to day and from month
to month. He is a Master Mason and has been an Odd Fellow since
1868. His physique is a strikingly large one — about six feet tall and
built broad proportionately. His weight is 299 pounds, his complexion
fresh and ruddy as that of a man in middle life and despite his ad-
vanced years, he still retains in much of their pristine vigor and splen-
did mental and physical qualities of his prime.
•
Miss EMMA REBMAN. In this day when the capacities of woman are
recognized in their infinite variety; when the industrial and the pro-
fessional spheres have been added to the domestic in the feminine uni-
verse; when the pedagogical world, particularly, is claiming the talents
of exceptionally able women not only for its obscure but its prominent
fields of activity — in such an era it is with great satisfaction that the
historian can point to such intellectual leaders as the superintendents of
the Chicago and Cincinnati schools and the present incumbent of John-
son county and to many others.
Public interest in the subject of this article makes desirable a genea-
logical as well as biographical review of Miss Rebman's history. In
her paternal line she is of German ancestry, two of her great-uncles
having won distinction as Prussian soldiers in the Napoleonic wars and
later having helped to guard the ill-starred Bonaparte until his death
on the Island of St. Helena. The founder of the Rebman family in
America was John Frederick Rebman, who came from Germany in
1817 and settled first near Mocksville, North Carolina. He was a man
of superior education and a member of the Lutheran church. His
vocational pursuits combined farming and cabinet-making, in the latter
of which he was particularly skilled. In 1836 John Frederick Rebman
removed with his family to Montgomery county in Illinois, later chang-
ing his location to Union county and finally to Johnson county, the sub-
sequent home of the family. His wife, who in her girlhood was Miss
Margaret Setzer of near Mocksville, North Carolina, was also a descend-
ant of a German line. Their children were John, Elizabeth, Frederick
Augustus, Jacob and Andrew Rebman. The last two were volianteers
of Company I of the 120th Illinois Infantry in the Civil war, Andrew
Rebman giving his life for his country at Memphis, Tennessee, May
14, 1863.
The birthplace of Frederick Augustus Rebman, the father of Miss
Rebman, was in the environs of Mocksville, North Carolina. He was
born December 27, 1833, and was educated in the public schools dur-
ing his early years and supplemented this education by a course in the
Hillsboro Academy. In 1858 he was married to Miss Louisa Slack,
whose birthplace was in the vicinity of Vienna, Illinois, her natal day
being March 10, 1840. Her death occurred at her home near Vienna
on April 7, 1877. Frederick A. Rebman died March 29, 1879. To this
union seven children were given, all of whom have grown to maturity
except Lily, the youngest, who was born November 25, 1876, and died
January 9, 1877. Flora Isabel, the eldest, who is Mrs. Thomas D.
Carlton, resides in Johnson county; Milford Young Rebman is a suc-
cessful agriculturist; Emma, the superintendent of the Johnson county
vol. m— 40
1710 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
schools, is the subject of this biography, the details of her career being
given fuller consideration below : William Augustus who served in the
Spanish-American war, is now a farmer, Louise is assistant cashier of
the First National Bank of Vienna, Illinois; Thomas Frederick Rebman
is a well-known teacher and is deputy county superintendent of schools.
In the rural schools of Johnson county, Emma Rebman — who was
born on the parental farm three and one-half miles from Vienna — began
those intellectual pursuits for which she has become notable. She
sought further educational development in the Illinois Normal Univer-
sity at Normal, Illinois. Later she was graduated from the Valparaiso
University.
From her earliest professional years Miss Rebman showed marked
ability as an instructor and as an administrator of public school affairs.
This was evident first in her rural school teaching, from which she was
called to the more prominent though not more arduous duties of the
village schools. Her executive ability presently brought her the appoint-
ment to the principalship of the Grammar Department of the city
schools of Poplar Bluff, Missouri. When it became necessary that she
accompany her younger brother on a western tour demanded by the
state of his health, her reputation in the pedagogical world was of such
a superior quality that her services were soon called into requisition in
the city schools of Phoenix, Arizona, where she taught for several years
and while there she took a very active part in the educational interests of
the southwest, delivering some of the principal addresses before the
Annual Arizona Teachers' Association.
While in the west, Miss Rebman took frequent opportunities for
traveling and made numerous extensive tours through the west and
southwest. Some of the interesting and valuable information thus
gained was incorporated in magazine articles written by Miss Rebman.
On her return to Illinois in the spring of 1910, Miss Rebman 's large
circle of acquaintances were glad to take advantage of the opportunity
of offering her an important office of public trust. She was elected
superintendent of Johnson County schools, by the largest majority any
nominee of the coiinty had ever received. The heavy duties of her office
have been discharged with exceptional efficiency and a rare quality of
discrimination which is the result of her wide experiences, keen peda-
gogical instinct and her logically practical mind.
Miss Rebman 's distinguished personality is one that is appreciated
not only in affairs pertaining particularly to the school but also in other
organizations. She is an intelligent student and critic of public affairs,
though by no means one of masculine affectations or one who is a militant
seeker of votes for women. Her economic theories are those of the Re-
publican party. In addition to her distinctly public relations and duties,
she finds time to lend attention to lend attention to both church and
club interests, being a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and
the Woman's Club of Vienna. She is also a prominent member of the
Rebekah lodge. In addition to these non-professional organizations, she
holds active membership in the National Educational Association.
PRIOR W. SUTHERLAND was born in Indiana ten miles from Rock-
ville on the twenty-second day of October, 1843. For sixteen years he
lived in this same county, with the brief interlude of two years spent
in the northern portion of the state of Illinois. In 1859 he came with
his parents to southern Illinois where they settled on a farm in Lukin
township. At this time the war cloud loomed dark on the horizon.
When it burst Mr. Prior was but seventeen years of age. Having lived
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1711
much in the open, and being sturdy of stature, he looked much older
so that he was admitted to the service of his country. He enlisted
in the Twenty-fourth Indiana regiment, company six, known as the
regiment of A. P. Hovey, a high private of the rear rank. During
three years the young soldier saw much active service. At the close
of hostilities, he returned to Lukin township and learned the father's
trade, that of the plasterer. On July the sixteenth, 1865, he was united
in marriage to Elizabeth Vandamant, a resident of Lawrence county.
Nine children were born to them, of whom two boys and three girls are
all that remain. The daughters are Amazetta, Ella and Delia. The
sons, H. C. Sutherland and Sherman Sutherland have been of much
assistance to their father in his agricultural interests. On the third
day of April, 1883, the wife and mother was called from her earthly
duties. Mrs. Sutherland was a woman devout in her religious beliefs,
a member of the Christian church as is her husband. Mr. Sutherland
is quite well known locally as a lecturer on religious subjects, sometimes
himself filling the pulpit. He frequently holds protracted meeting in
various parts of the country.
He is a man of strong convictions with decided views in politics as
well as in religion. He is a stalwart Republican of the old school,
a supporter of the administration, a "stand patter who stands pat."
On the thirtieth of January, 1887, Mr. Sutherland again assumed
the responsibilities of matrimony. The second Mrs. Sutherland was
Emma J Rigall of Lawrence county. She is now the mother of four
children: Rosamond, Bessie, Leona and Trissie. Mr. Sutherland has
been able to amply provide for his large family having besides a large
and growing business, a farm of proportions worthy to be called a ranch,
and this in the southwestern part of Lawrence county.
His father, Asa Sutherland was born near Frankfort, Kentucky, in
February of 1812. "When twelve years of age, with his brother's family
he located in Park county, Indiana. Here he grew to manhood and
learned the plasterers trade. On New Years day of 1835, he won in
marriage Mary E. Harlan, whose father came to Indiana from South
Carolina. The Harlan family had lived in the south for several gener-
ations, having come to America from Ireland before the Revolution. Mr.
and Mrs. Asa Sutherland were the parents of nine children of whom
Prior W., the subject of this sketch is the fourth in line. In 1859 they
left Indiana for southern Illinois where they spent the remainder of
their lives. At the beginning of the late war, Mr. Sutherland answered
the third call for volunteers, but was refused on account of his years,
being then something more than fifty years of age. Quite contentedly,
he plied his trade and tilled a bit of land until his death in February
of 1881. Mrs. Sutherland lived until her seventy-fifth year, passing
away in 1889. Both were followers of the Christian church in which
faith they reared their family.
The Sutherland family are direct descendants of the Scottish Duke
of Sutherland. Three sons of the Duke, so goes the tradition, came to
the Colonies in an early day and from them sprang the Sutherlands of
the new world, stronger and sturdier, in many respects than was the old
stock. P. W. Sutherland is therefore of Scotch-Irish parentage ; a
further fact of a rather unusual nature is that all the Sutherlands in
America trace back to that landing of the brothers at Charleston, S. C.,
before the Revolutionary war, and the same history applies to the Harlan
family landing pre-Revolutionary, and all of the name belong to the one
family of Harlans.
1712 HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
JOSEPH PICQUET. The spirit of daring and the love of adventure,
in combination with a remarkable zeal for the spread of their religion,
brought, during the period of exploration in America, a greater terri-
tory under the dominion of France than either England or Spain were
able to claim. From the days of Marquette and Joliet the great North-
west was the scene of remarkable activity on the part of the French,
and in particular were the Jesuit priests zealous in converting the In-
dians and establishing little centers of civilization throughout this great
stretch of country. It, therefore, seems especially fitting that when
Joseph Picquet decided to establish a Catholic settlement, he should
have chosen a site in this territory. It is a rare thing now when a town
can point to a man and say. ' ' He is our founder, ' ' but this is so in the
case of Saint Marie and Joseph Picquet. When he first rode through
this country on horseback there was not a house between Newton and
Olney. With the spirit of the old French explorers burning within him,
the young pioneer established the little Catholic colony, and then pro-
ceeded to build it up into a town. He built a sawmill, a flour mill,
founded a general merchandise business, secured a postoffice, and later
persuaded the railroad to run its line through the rapidly growing town.
Therefore he was not only the founder, but the builder of Saint Marie,
and the thriving city owes everything to the courage and energy, wisdom
and foresight of this wonderful man.
Joseph Picquet was born in Hagineau, Alsace-Lorraine, on the 17th
of March, 1816, the province being at that time a part of France. He
was the son of James Picquet, also a native of Hagineau, his birth hav-
ing occurred in 1791. He was a merchant in the little French city but
the wave of immigration that swept the province in the early thirties
caused him to turn his eyes toward America. He came to this country
and reached Saint Marie. The mother of Joseph Picquet was Cleophe
Schifferstine, and she was married to James Picquet in 1812. Twelve
children were born to this couple, of whom Joseph was the second child.
It might be of interest to quote from an old history a few words in
regard to the Picquet family :
"The American Revolution, followed by that in France, the Na-
poleonic regime, the Bourbon return and the establishment of the first
Republic served to direct the attention of the French people to Amer-
ica. The feeling was strong in Alsace and many from the province im-
migrated to America. Among others who shared this feeling was James
Picquet, Sr., and brothers Schifferstine and Huffman. The families
were well to do, but, desiring a freer air, determined to send some one
to spy out the land. Joseph Picquet, then a lad of nineteen, was chosen.
In September, 1835, he landed in New York. Ignorant of the language,
he worked nine months in a Philadelphia business house to gain this
preliminary education. In the early part of the following year he set
out on horseback in quest of the promised land. In 1836 he returned
to France and in July, 1837. came back with a colony of four families
and twelve young people, about twenty-five persons in all. Mr. Picquet
started the first store in 1838. In 1839 he erected a sawmill and later
a grist mill was added. This being the only one in the section it had
a patronage from a radius of forty miles. The settlement was known
as the 'Colonie des Freres, ' or the Colony of Brothers."
Joseph Picquet received a good education in his native land. He
first studied in the public schools of France and was then sent to the
Jesuit College, at Fribourg, Switzerland, where he remained from 1828
until 1833. As has been told above, he came to America in 1835, and
his trip out into the wilds of the west was taken the following year. On
this first trip he was in the little town on the shores of Lake Michigan
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1713
which has since grown into the great commercial center of the country,
Chicago. From there he rode 011 horseback all alone through the great
wilderness until he had located the spot that he thought most favorable
for his colony. The original land grant that he entered was in the
name of his brothers and called for eleven thousand acres of land. When
the little colony of French people first gazed upon the place that was
to be their future home, on that hot summer day, they were filled with
mingled joy and fear. The beauty and richness of the virgin country
won from them extravagant expressions of delight ; but, the strangeness,
the vastness, the loneliness of it smote them with an unreasonable ter-
ror. The young Picquet had a difficult task before him but his enthu-
siasm and courage in the face of all difficulties carried the day, and they
were soon as ardent in their devotion to the new country as he was.
The first thing was to build homes, so Joseph Picquet 's first building
was a lumber mill, then the flour mill was erected, and this mill was in
operation until 1860. Just as his grist mill was the social center for
miles around, so his store was the center of the life of the colony, and
when in 1838, he was successful in having a postoffice established
every weighty matter was first taken up in conclave held around the fire
in the combined postoffice and store. Here it was that it was decided
to change the name of the settlement from Colonie des Freres to
Picquetteville, and here also the plans were laid for an interesting event
that took place on the 28th of October, 1837, when Mr. Picquet and sev-
eral others took their "guns in hand" and going to a little knoll near
the home of Mr. Picquet dedicated the place to the Virgin Mary and
since that time the town has been known as Saint Marie.
Mr. Picquet is a devout Catholic and he was instrumental in estab-
lishing the Catholic faith in all this section. The first masses were said
in his house, and in 1841, the first church was built. This was a small
frame structure, known as the Church of the Assumption. Now the
parish consists of one hundred and thirty-five families, and in addition
to their beautiful church have a fine school, under the charge of the
Ursuline Sisters of Alton. The priest, Father Virnich, in the many
good works that he has been able to accomplish has always looked upon
Mr. Picquet as his main dependence, and even now goes to him for advice
and assistance in straightening out the affairs of his people.
Probably no man had a better knowledge of the Southern Illinois
country in its primitive days than had Mr. Picquet, for he was con-
tinually making trips through the wilds to interest the people in one
project or another. On one of his journeys he carried a money-belt
containing thirty thousand dollars, but with a good horse under him
and a gun over his shoulder he felt equal to defying any one. Many a
long ride did he take in his endeavor to interest the people of the sec-
tion in the proposed railway. The task required all of his native French
eloquence and enthusiasm and many a night did he spend with a stub-
born farmer, trying to show him the tremendous advantage that would
accrue to the country if a railroad should be put through. At last he saw
his desire fulfilled and the rails were laid for the Danville, Olney and
Ohio River Railway, which has since become the Cincinnati, Hamilton
and Dayton.
In 1860, after giving up the milling business, he still kept up a
flourishing business in real estate and mortgages, and the responsibilities
of the fortune that had come to him through the years took up much
of his time. It was natural that after the davs he had spent in behalf
of the railroad he should have become one of its first directors. He re-
tired from active business two years ago, but he is still, having reached
the remarkable age of ninety-seven many times stronger and more active
1714 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
than men twenty years his junior. He is a Democrat in his political affili-
ations, but has never held any political offices, except that of postmaster.
He was the first postmaster, when Saint Marie was a little village, his
first year of official service being 1838.
In April of 1844 Mr. Picquet was married to Rosine Mueller, of
Boersch, Alsace, but his young bride only lived five months after her
marriage. On the 20th of August, 1850, Mr. Picquet was married for
the second time, his wife being Caroline Mueller, a sister of his first
wife, who was likewise born in Boersch, Alsace, when it was a part of
France. Eight children, two of whom are living, were born to Mr, and
Mrs. Picquet. Louise is now Mrs. Reitz, of Evansville, Indiana, and
Marie, who is unmarried. The death of Mrs. Picquet occurred on the
22d of February, 1900.
This 'is the story of a most unusual life, even though its subject lived
in the times when men had to be heroes through force of circum-
stances. One must remember that Mr. Picquet was little more than a
lad when he first brought his friends to this new country, yet they all
looked up to him and leaned on his strong arm, both figuratively and
literally. As the village, grew he saw what should be the next step that
ought to be taken in the direction of progress. When hard times came,
he was ever ready with a smile and a cheery bit of optimism. Is it any
wonder that the people who gathered about him almost worshipped him.
What an opportunity he had to become rich at the expense of others,
but such a thought never crept into his mind. His great ambition was
to see the town he had founded become prosperous, and to see his beloved
Mother Church increase in strength and numbers. As it was in the days
when his home was a little log shanty, so now when he lives in the most
beautiful residence in the city, where every luxury of our highly de-
veloped modern civilization is at hand, he is still the center of the life
of the community. All of the citizens of Saint Marie know that here
they are welcome, and young and old, rich and poor, they come to
seek the sympathy and counsel of the "Father of Saint Marie," who is
now in his ninety-seventh year.
GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH, A. M., dean of men and head of the
Department of History and Civics in the Southern Illinois State Normal
University, and author of the History of Southern Illnois as published in
this work, is a native Illinoisan. He was born near Greenfield, Greene
county, November 13, 1855.
Daniel Smith, a Virginian, of Patrick county, was born about 1740.
He was the oldest of these brothers, namely: Daniel, John, Peter and
Flemon. These brothers were all engaged in the battle of Cowpens,
fought January 17, 1781.
During the earlier years of the Revolutionary war Daniel married
Miss Reeves and from this marriage there were six children, as follows :
Charles, Mollie, Peter, Elizabeth, James and John M. The last named
son, John, was the grandfather of Prof. Smith. John M. Smith was
born in Henry county, Virginia, April 23, 1781. He married Rachel
Packwood in Patrick county, Virginia, about the year 1800, or 1802.
The Packwoods were a numerous people in Virginia and helped to
subdue the savages and the wilderness. Rachel Packwood 's grandfather
was captured by the Indians on Greenbrier river, a branch of the Great
Kanawha, in 1710, taken to Chillicothe, Ohio, and there burned at the
stake by the Chillicothe Indians in the presence of relatives and
neighbors.
From the marriage of John M. Smith and Rachel Packwood there
HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1715
were born twelve children — Nancy, Samuel, Daniel, Stephen, Edith, Lar-
kin, Elizabeth, Rachel, Exoney, Polly, Lucy and John.
Stephen Smith, the fourth child of John M. Smith, was the father
of Prof. Smith. He was born in Patrick county, Virginia, May 23,
1809. When about two years old his parents moved to Cumberland
county, Kentucky, and settled on Mud Camp creek, a tributary of the
Cumberland river. Here Stephen grew to manhood. He worked much
in the timber and in the building of flat-boats. He was an expert axe-
man and skilled in boat bulding. He made several trips to New Orleans
with flat-boats between 1828 and 1838. The 13th of September, 1836, he
married Sallie Martin Pace, a yoiang lady who lived in the valley of
the Marrowbone creek, at the mouth of which lay the county seat town
of Burkesville.
Sallie M. Pace represented a family name which had been common
in Virginia since the days of the Indian massacre of 1622. She was
born February 22, 1816. Her grandfather, Captain John Pace, was
born in Henry county, Virginia, May 28, 1751, and died August 20,
1825. He was a captain in the Revolutionary war. His son, John Pace,
was born January 1, 1787, and died October 11, 1823. He was the father
of Sallie Martin Pace, the mother of Prof. Smith. John Pace married
Nancy Alexander who was born March 13, 1793, and died September
9, 1844, and from this marriage there were born eight children — Milly,
Lucy, Greenville, Sally, Frances, Robert, Julia and Elizabeth. Sally M.
Pace, the fourth child, married Stephen Smith, and they became the
parents of nine children : Thomas, Greenville, Nancy, Edward, James,
William, John, George and Martha.
The Alexanders were prominent people in Virginia. They were
of Scotch descent and belonged to the "Campbell Clan." John Alex-
ander married Maryart Gleason in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1735. They
came to Nottingham, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and from there to
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and hence to Berkley county, Virginia. Two
nephews of John Alexander moved to Mecklenberg county, N. C.,
and they and their descendants took part in the Mecklenberg Declaration
of Independence, in May, 1775, five Alexanders signing that document.
Captain John Alexander was born in Berkley county, Virginia, in
1741, and moved to Kentucky in 1805. His oldest child, Thomas, mar-
ried Mollie Ramey, and their daughter, Nancy, married John Pace, the
son of Captain John Pace.
Stephen Smith and his wife and two children moved from Cvtmber-
land county, Kentucky, and settled nine miles east of White Hall in
Greene county, Illinois, in the year 1840. The homestead was seven
miles north and some west of Greenfield. Here they lived a full half
century and reared a large and respectable family of nine children. The
oldest, Thomas Alexander, grew up to the occupation of farming. He
taught school and at the breaking out of the Civil war enlisted in Com-
pany D, 32d regiment, Illinois infantry, whose colonel was Dr. John
Logan of Carlinville, Illinois, a cousin of Gen. John A. Logan. He be-
came first lieutenant and acting captain. He resigned when Sherman
started to the sea. He is now living near Willows, Glenn county, Cali-
fornia. Greenville T., second son, was a sergeant in Company D, 32nd
regiment, Illinos infantry. He marched with Sherman to the sea and
in the Grand Review in Washington. He died in 1877 of disease con-
tracted in the army. Nancy Jane married James Sanders, a musician,
in the above company and regiment. She lives in Beatrice, Nebraska.
Edward Bonaparte served in Company C, 133d regiment, Illinois in-
fantry. He lives in White Hall, Illinois. James Turner is a retired
1716 HISTORY OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
farmer living in Greenfield, Illinois. William Fountain is a business
man of Roodhouse, Illinois. John Clayton is a traveling salesman; he
lives at "Willows, California. George Washington is head of the depart-
ment of History and Civics in the State Normal University, Carbon-
dale. Martha Belle married Thomas Ashburn ; she lives in Decatur,
Illinois.
George was a lad of seven or eight when the war was in progress.
He was deeply interested in the outcome of the conflict, and remembers
the presence of soldiers in the neighborhood sent by the authorities to
arrest deserters and rebel sympathizers. He attended the country schools
and has a very warm place in his memory for his teachers, among whom
he recalls Miss Winnie Season, Miss Sarah Mason, Captain John Parks
and Esquire Richard Short. The school house was on the corner of
his father's farm and was therefore easy of access.
In the fall of 1874 he entered Blackburn University, Carlinville, Illi-
nois, where he pursued advanced studies for one year when he was
obliged to sever his connection with the school and devote himself to
teaching. After teaching for a couple of years he returned to college,
but was obliged to return to teaching, after another year in college.
But his love of study kept him at work, and within a few years he
was able to pass successfully the state examination for life certificate.
Prof. Smith is very proud of this certificate of professional attainment,
more particularly since it was issued by the Hon. Henry Raab.
Prof. Smith had now taught in several of the best rural schools in
the county, and in the fall of 1883 he was called to the principalship
of the White Hall High School. At the end of this year he was elected
to the superintendency of the Perry Pike county schools. Before
taking up his new duties in Perry he was married to Miss Nellie Adams,
a popular teacher of White Hall.
Miss Nellie Adams was a direct descendant of Gov. William Brad-
ford of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Governor Bradford's son by his sec-
ond wife was Major Wm. Bradford, whose third son, Thomas, married
Anne Fitch, daughter of the Rev. James Fitch of Norwich, Connecticut.
Major Bradford's son was Lieutenant James Bradford. His daughter,
Sarah Bradford, married Joseph Adams of Canterbury, Connecticut.
From this marriage came James Adams who married Jerusha Knight.
They had two sons, James Adams and Elisha Adams. Elisha Adams
married Clarisa Cook. From this union there were thirteen children.
On January 27, 1809, there was born to this marriage twin sons, Ed-
ward and Edwin Ruthven Adams. Edwin married Ellen Parsons of
Chardon, Ohio. The Parsons were a numerous family in northeastern
Ohio. Nellie Adams was therefore the ninth generation removed from
Governor Bradford of Plymouth. The Adamses lived in Canterbury,
Connecticut; later in Landaff, New Hampshire, and still later at Rut-
land, Vermont. From the latter place Edwin and his wife came to
White Hall, Greene county, in 1856, where Nellie Adams was born,
August 7, 1862.
The year's work in Perry was very successful and Prof. Smith was
retained at an increase in salary, but on July 24, 1885, Mrs. Smith died,
leaving a son, Clyde Leon.
Prof. Smith did not return to Perry. He resigned the work there
and taught in White Hall the coming year. In the spring of 1886 he
was elected, superntendent of the city schools of White Hall, which posi-
tion he held four years. During the six years he was in the White Hall
schools he was closely associated with Prof. David Felmley, superintend-
ent of the Carrollton schools, and with county superintendent of schools,
HISTORY OP SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 1717
Mr. Win. J. Roberts, and he feels greatly indebted to these men for
sympathy and encouragement in his work.
In 1890 Prof. Smith was elected to the position of training teacher in
the Southern Illinois State Normal Universty at Carbondale. On June
16, 1888, he was married to Miss Nettie Caroline Adams, a sister to his
former wife. In the fall of 1890 they took up their work in the Normal
where for twenty-two years Prof. Smith has been a valuable member of
the faculty. He held the position of training teacher for seven years
and was then transferred to the Department of History and Geography.
Later the work in Geography was given to Prof. F. H. Colyer who had
been associated in the work with Prof. Smith.
In 1894 Prof. Smith arranged the topics for the Course of Study for
the schools of Illinois. Later he published Notes on United States His-
tory to accompany the course of study. In 1906 he published the first
text on Illinois History, a work of unusual merit. Prof. Smith has been
a director in the State Historical Society for the past ten years and
has contributed to the work of that organization.
No person has done more for the community in which he has lived.
He has always been found in the front ranks of all movements looking
toward a better community life. He has been an elder in the Christian
church for nearly twenty years; has been superintendent of the Bible
School, assisted with the music, and in other ways contributed to the
on-going of the work. For fifteen years he was a director in the local
building and Loan Association, and for the past nine years he has
served on the city Board of Education. Within this period the schools
have made great progress. Salaries have been nearly doubled, the
number of teachers increased, and new buildings erected. Domestic
science, manual training, music and art have been placed in the curric-
ulum.
Prof. Smith has done a valuable work in the county institutes. He
finds time to do a few weeks' work each year and his work is always
appreciated.
At the last meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Normal University
Prof. Smith was made "Dean of Men," a position of honor and respon-
sibility. He has been secretary of the faculty for the past seventeen
years. He is greatly esteemed by faculty and students.
Prof, and Mrs. Smith have three children : Helen Christine, Eugene
Russell and Frances Adams. Helen has just finished the course in the
Normal. Russell is a student in the Tennessee Military Institute at
Sweetwater, Tenn., while Frances is in the fourth grade in the Training
School of the Normal. Clyde, the oldest son, married Miss Mary Powers
of Owensboro, Kentucky, and is a prominent young business man in
Carbondale.
Prof. Smith is in the prime of life and looks forward to many years
of useful service to his family and to the world in which he lives.
vol. ni— 4 1
K3AW1S WDWOISIH
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11