MARTHA J. ADAMS.Mrs. Adams is related, through the families of her husband and mother, to (the) former President of the United States. Her father, David C. Little, was a native of West Virginia, and married Ann Harrison, who was born in England, and died July 25, 1888. Mrs. Little was the mother of five children: John W., Benjamin F., Martha J., James H., and Henry N. (deceased). David C. Little was a mechanic by occupation. He died October 1, 1856. Mrs. Adams' brother, Henry N., is entitled to more than passing notice, and is enrolled among the brave men who uncomplainingly sacrificed their lives while fighting for the emancipation of the Southern slaves during the Civil War. With the declaration of the war he was one of the first in his locality to tender his services to the Union cause, and the very confidence which he inspired in his superior officers resulted in irreparable loss to his family and friends. Entrusted with dispatches to be delivered at the headquarters of General Hastings, at Goldsboro, North Carolina, he was shot in the discharge of his duty, the ball passing through his watch and entering his right side, from the effects of which would he soon after expired.
The marriage of Martha J. Little and Ezra Adams occurred in Princeville, Illinois, October 23, 1856. Mr. Adams was a native of Pennsylvania, and was born January 11, 1828. He was educated in the public schools, and under his father's able instruction learned to be a practical farmer, to which occupation he devoted his active life. He represented a family which furnished brave soldiers for the War of 1812, and who ever maintained their reputation for industry, integrity, and all-round good citizenship. His death in Princeville, May 21, 1890, signalized the passing of a man of sterling worth, whose place in the old familiar haunts would not be readily filled. He was a strict advocate of Prohibition principles, and adopted this as his national platform. In religion he was a Methodist, and contributed to the extent of his ability towards the charities and support of his church. To Mr. and Mrs. Adams were born six children: F. Marion, a farmer in Princeville Township who married Leoria M. Kackley of Stark County, and has two children, Leota E. and P. Gilbert; Jane O., who became the wife of John Hoag of Akron Township, and who died January 25, 1896, leaving two daughters, Beulah M. and Elva L.; Newton E., a business man at Princeville, and who, through his marriage with Annie French, is the father of four children, Florence E., Lois F., Blanche, Marie and Ralph E.; Augustus H., a music salesman of Buffalo, New York, and whose wife, formerly Hattie Colgrove, of Painesville, Ohio, died May 8, 1899; Rowena A., who is the wife of Augustus H. Sloan, of Akron Township, and has four children, Lowell J., Leland E., Jennie (deceased), Hobart D., and Eldridge, who was born March 14, 1891; and Della E., who became the wife of Willis M. Hoag, of Princeville, March 5, 1901, and has one child, Eugene Ezra, born January 28, 1902. The Adams and Harrison families are of German and English descent.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
JOSHUA AIKEN. Among the first settlers in Peoria stands prominent the name of Joshua Aiken. He was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire, where his father, Captain James Aiken, a native of Paisley, Scotland, settled in 1719; he and his three brothers taking up the tract of country known as "Aikens' Range." Joshua Aiken was a pushing business man. When he first came West he made a farm of about a thousand acres on Horseshoe Bottom. In 1833 he bought the Hamlin & Sharp mill, the first mill ever erected on the Kickapoo River. He renovated the mill and brought it to a high standard, so that it made good merchantable flour. His mill was frequented by customers from sixty to seventy miles around Peoria. He bought wheat for money and sometimes exchanged flour for it, so that the settlers went home with bread and some cash and lumber, in exchange for the grain. Joshua Aiken saw at once the great need of capital in a new country, and, in order to supply it to some extent, went East and formed a partnership with the late George P. Shipman, of New York. At that time he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land, known as the Munson & Sanford tract, upon which Munson & Sanford's Addition to Peoria is laid out. In those days more money was paid out for wheat at Aiken's mill than at Peoria, or Fort Clark, as it was then called. The money used by Mr. Aiken was chiefly the Quinnebaug Bank money of Connecticut. The traders in Peoria raised the cry that the money was not good, that it was not money that would go at the Land Office. But in a short time a circular was issued by the Secretary of the Treasury making the Quinnebaug money receivable at the Land Office, which greatly relieved the early settlers. On his land, located near the Aiken & Little mill, was laid out the village of Peoria Mills, now extinct.
In 1839, Mr. Aiken purchased a controlling interest in the tract of land known as the Sac and Fox Reservation, south of Burlington, Iowa, and between the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers. This tract contained a hundred and one shares, of which he owned seventy-six. He applied to the Des Moines Circuit Court .for a deed of partition. The late Francis L. Key, of Washington City, was his attorney. The question of the titles by the deed of partition became permanently settled. In 1840, Mr. Aiken held a public sale of lots at Keokuk and Melrose, the purchasers taking their titles under the above deed. While attending to this business at Commerce (now Nauvoo), Hancock County. Mr. Aiken died on the 20th of November, 1840, aged sixty-nine years. His brother, Jonathan Aiken, died on the homestead west of Peoria, in May, 1842.
Messrs. Joshua Aiken, Enoch Cross, Aaron Russell, and Moses Pettengill were the originators of the Main Street Congregational Church. Mr. Aiken was a liberal supporter of every good enterprise for the advancement of morality, civilization and human freedom.
His widow, Jane Aiken, died in Derry, New Hampshire, October 6, 1872.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
When, ten years ago (May 11, 1892), Mark M. Aiken, or "Uncle Mark," as he was known to everybody, passed away, Peoria lost one of her most unique, most widely known and best beloved characters. He was descended from Edward Aiken who, about the year 1722 came from the North of Ireland to the Scotch-Irish settlement at Londonderry, New Hampshire. He had three sons, Nathaniel, James and William. Of Nathaniel were born five sons, Edward, John, James, Thomas and William. The latter settled at Deering, New Hampshire, where he married Betsy Woodburn, whose parents were the maternal grandparents of the famous Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune. William and Betsy Aiken had a son, Nathaniel, who married Susan Morrill. They had five children, of whom Mark Morrill was the eldest. He was born at Deerfield, New Hampshire, June 21, 1808. He received a common-school education in the same class with the noted divine. Parker Pillsbury. When in his six- teenth year he began to look about for something to do. He had an uncle in New York City who was in the habit of making a visit to his relatives in New Hampshire every summer, and who, taking a fancy to Mark, invited him to accompany him to New York, at the same time promising to find him employment. Mark took him at his word, and being reputed to be a good scholar, he procured from the selectmen of the town a certificate of his quali- fications and their opinion of his character. Armed with these he, with his uncle, on the 17th of March, 1824, called upon Messrs. J. & J. Harper, afterwards the famous house of Harper Brothers, and made known his wants. They read his certificate, laughed at it and then set him to work reading a book on political economy. This was his examination and it proved satisfactory. They took him on trial, he went to board with John Harper and remained in their employ until 1830, when his health failed. They then fitted him out with a lot of books and sent him to Charleston, South Carolina, where he sold the books, and, after traveling as far west as Detroit, Michigan, returned to New York.
In 1832, Mr. Aiken purchased a job office at No. 54 Liberty Street, New York, where he found Horace Greeley. As they were remotely related, they formed a sort of partnership, Greeley canvassing for jobs and Aiken doing the work and paying him a commission. The next year he sold the office to Greeley and a man by the name of S. D. Childs, who had married Aiken's eldest sister. He then took a lot of copies of a medical work by A. Sidney Doane, a professor in the New York Medical College, and started West. In September he went to Philadelphia, thence over the mountains to Pittsburg, thence down the river to Cincinnati and St. Louis, disposing of most of his books at the latter place. While running the job office he had printed a catalogue for the Western Land Company, which was operating in the Military Tract in Illinois. He had also become possessed of one or two land-patents in payment for his work, and so he concluded to run up the river and see about it. Dr. Berrian, an Episcopal clergyman of New York, had land which he thought was located at Peoria, and Mark was entrusted with a plat of it to deliver to his agent, a man by the name of Howard. Taking the steamer "Champion," he landed at Fort Clark, or Peoria, on October 28, 1833. Here he found a relative in Joshua Aiken, who was then running the first mill built on the Kickapoo. He spent the next year in trading on the Illinois River and in shipping flour to Ottawa and Cairo. When the land came into market he went to Quincy to attend the sales and made some purchases which he held for many years.
In 1836, Mr. Aiken formed a partnership in the land business with George C. Bestor, which continued until February, 1840. The business of this firm extended over the entire Military Tract. During this period they made a careful abstract of all the land titles in the Military Tract which had been recorded in Madison and Pike Counties, the records of those counties not having as yet been transcribed. It was the custom of these land dealers to keep abstracts of title of the territory in which they operated, and their offices sometimes contained more volumes than many of the Recorders' offices. In the prosecution of this business, Mr. Aiken traveled over the entire Military Tract, and so retentive was his memory that he could readily tell the location of the residences of many of the "old settlers" and could describe the quality of any land he had visited. He became a standing authority on almost all questions relating to the early history of the country. In the course of his business he became possessed of some valuable land on the bluff near the city, which is now highly improved, also some valuable coal land which he retained until the time of his death.
From education and conviction, Mr. Aiken was always an anti-slavery man, and what he saw in the South only deepened his convictions of the evil of slavery. From the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy, on the 7th of November, 1837, he boldly avowed his sentiments, when the name of an abolitionist was one of contumely and reproach. He acted with the Abolition party until the Republican party was formed, after which he voted with that party, with one exception, which was when his old partner in business, Horace Greeley, was running for President. His courage in denouncing slavery won for him the respect of his opponents, and when the War of the Rebellion broke out, he was styled "The Apostle of Liberty," a term he ever afterwards carried. It was he who rang the old "Liberty Bell" on the occasion of every Union victory in the 'slave-holders' war. He was foremost in works of charity and in helping the unfortunate. He gave one-half of the lot, and Asahel Hale the other half, to the Trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, which stood opposite the site of the present City Hall.
Mr. Aiken lived to see all the reforms for which he contended in early years successfully carried out. He was deservedly popular, and in Peoria a man need present no better credentials than the recommendation of "Uncle" Mark M. Aiken.
He never married, but for years before his death lived almost alone, keeping "bachelor's hall." He was of medium stature, robust in form, round shouldered, bald-headed, of cheerful countenance and kindly disposition. Full of wit and humor, well stocked with anecdotes and reminiscences, he was the life of any company with whom he met. He was generous almost to a fault, especially to the poor and those needing help.
In religion he was a Protestant but not tied to any particular church, being at one time found united with the Methodists, at another with the Presbyterians and at another with the Congregationalists. Although not conspicuous in church work, his faith was sincere and he chose to make it known in works of charity and benevolence, in relieving the needy and in making others happy. Unique in character, droll humor, always doing deeds of kindness, he became the friend of everybody, and everybody was his friend. Let his memory ever remain green in the hearts of Peorians.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
HORACE G. ANDERSON.It is a pleasure to review the acts and some of the incidents in the lives of the older citizens of Peoria, who have in the past contributed to its prosperity and development, and have set an example worthy of imitation. Among these is Mr. Horace G. Anderson, the subject of this brief sketch. He was born in the town of Portland, Chautauqua County, New York, on September 13, 1822. He came to Illinois with his parents, in March, 1833, and settled upon a farm in Will County, near Lockport, where the family remained for seven years, and then removed to a farm near Naperville. Mr. Anderson remained with his father upon the farm, until he was twenty-one years old, attending the country district school, for a part of the year, until he was nineteen years old. He then went to the Rock River Seminary, at Mt. Morris, in Ogle County, where he remained for two years. After leaving school he was engaged as a clerk in various places, for three years, until June, 1848, when he came to Peoria and esta- blished himself in the lumber business, which he followed for eleven years. Subsequently, he operated the Peoria Pottery for two years, with more of loss than profit. After quitting the management of the Pottery, he engaged in the foundry business in connection with the old Peoria City Foundry, which he conducted for six years with success, but finally closed it out, near the end of the Civil War, because of a general collapse all over the country in this branch of manufacture. Soon after the great fire in Chicago, he established himself in the wholesale hat, cap and fur business, in the city of Peoria, but learning that it could not be profitably conducted here, finally abandoned it.
Mr. Anderson's active business career was continued for many years; he was a well-known citizen, and one who was interested, at all times, in whatever pertained to the welfare and growth of the city. He always had confidence in the location and future of Peoria. and encouraged, at all times, the bringing in of new brains and money. He was never an office-seeker, but always ready to do his part, officially or otherwise, for the development of Peoria. He served as School Inspector for a number of years, was a member of the City Council, held an appointment as Canal Commissioner for four years, and Gauger in the United States Revenue Service for seven years. He was also a member of the Board of Supervisors that planned and constructed the present Court House, which was quite an evidence of enterprise for the conservative county of Peoria, as many of the people of that time believed that the old structure was sufficient for all needs.
Mr. Anderson married Miss Melinda Arnold, of Collins Center, Erie County, New York, in 1850. Several children have been born to them, some of whom are still at the parental home, while the others reside in the immediate vicinity.
The latter years of Mr. Anderson's life were spent in the society of his wife in the peace and quiet of their beautiful home upon the bluff, overlooking the business portion of the city. Here he died on the l6th day of February, 1902, his wife surviving him. Their life was a serene and happy one, in which they set an example that may be followed with profit by others. Always devoted to each other, to their family and their home, they grew old gracefully, with- out any of that hardness and bitterness that sometimes seems to develop with increasing years.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CLIFFORD MASON ANTHONY.Clifford Mason Anthony, son of Charles S. N. Anthony and Elizabeth Bulkeley Anthony (nee Emerson), is a native of Washington, Tazewell County. Illinois. His ancestors were among the most notable of the early New England colonists, the names of the Anthonys, the Bulkeleys and the Emersons appearing on almost every page of colonial history, while their descendants have ever since been prominent in almost every field of American enterprise and development. Mr. Anthony received his education in the public and private schools of his native village and at a military school at Stamford, Connecticut. Upon leaving school he found his first employment as clerk with his elder brother, Charles E. Anthony, who, in company with Henry Denhart, was carrying on a general mercantile and private banking business at Washington, and in a short time he was given a clerkship in the banking department. Later he became a partner with Messrs. Charles E. Anthony, Henry Denhart, Dr. R. B. M. Wilson and Charles A. Wilson in the founding of the bank of Chatsworth, at Chatsworth, Illinois, of which he was made the general manager. While occupying that position he gave special attention to the loaning of money on farm mortgages, which soon became an important feature in the business of the firm and was attended with a remarkable degree of success. Three years later the firm sold out the bank at Chatsworth, but transferred the mortgage loan department to Washington, where Mr. Anthony became partner and cashier in the bank of Anthony & Denhart and manager of the loan department. In 1885, Mr. Anthony disposed of his interest in the bank of Anthony & Denhart, retaining to himself the farm loan branch of the business, which, under his personal supervision, had grown largely and had become one of its most profitable features. He then removed to Peoria, where, a few months later, being joined by his brother Charles, the firm of C. E. & C. M. Anthony, Investment Bankers, was established at 424 Main Street, where the business is still carried on. In 1889, they opened a branch office at Omaha, Nebraska. In 1891 the firm was incorporated under the name of the "Anthony Loan and Trust Company," with Clifford M. Anthony as Vice-President and General Manager, and in 1898, Mr. Anthony became President, a position which he still occupies. In 1885, as a branch of the business, "The Peoria Safe Deposit Company" was organized, with C. M. Anthony as President. The safety deposit vaults are of the most approved style and the company is doing a prosperous business.
In all these various enterprises Mr. C. M. Anthony has been a prime mover, and it is to his business enterprise, energy and skill their great success is largely due. As the outgrowth of a business founded thirty-six years ago, the Anthony Loan & Trust Company has become one of the largest and most prosperous financial institutions of its kind in the United States. Through it millions of dollars have been loaned upon farm and city property, and its securities have been sold to all classes of investors, such as savings banks, bankers, trustees of estates, churches, schools, and charitable institutions, as well as to individuals. The high character of its loans as safe investments will be appreciated from the well authenticated fact that, in no instance has a client foreclosed a mortgage made by them, nor lost a dollar on any of their securities; no title approved by them has ever been successfully attacked, and no client has withdrawn his dealings through dissatisfaction. These results have been attained through strictly conservative management and careful personal attention to the nature and character of all securities and investments. Nearly all the stock of the company is owned by the men who founded the business, and through whose management it has been built up to its present proportions.
Through prudent and conservative business methods, strict attention to business and fair dealing in all his business transactions, Mr. Anthony has secured for himself a standing in public, social and private circles second to none in the city. In politics he is a Republican; in religious faith, as twere his parents, he is a Presbyterian. He has attained unto the thirty-second degree in Masonry, is a member of the Creve Coeur Club, and other clubs of Peoria, and of the Union League Club of Chicago. His business has brought him into close relationship with leading business men and capitalists of the country, whose confidence he enjoys in a high degree. Possessed of a fine physique, a genial temperament and affability of address, Mr. Anthony makes his way easily and pleasantly with all classes of society. On November 14, 1895, he was united in marriage with Miss Flora Thomas, daughter of Dr. D. E. Thomas, of Lacon, Illinois, by whose companionship his life has been greatly blessed. They have one son, Emerson Thomas, born July 9, 1898, a promising lad, in whom they take great delight and in whom they entertain great hopes for the future.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
GILMAN WILLARD AVERY.Gilman Willard Avery was born in Greenville, New Hampshire, March 14, 18.35, to Amos and Lydia (Evans) Avery. His father was engaged in the farming business in that country of rocks, where the most earnest effort and economy were necessary to secure a living. When the subject of this sketch was ten years of age his father re- moved to Jaffrey in the same State. Mr. Avery was educated in the common schools of his native State and at the Kimball Union Academy, located at Meridan. After leaving the Academy he taught for a time in Westmoreland, New Hampshire, but at nineteen years of age went to Missouri and taught school at Greenfield and in Greene County during the years 1857 and 1858 subsequently starting a high school at Ebenezer, Missouri, which he conducted successfully for a few years. Having left that employment, he started a general store at Lebanon, Missouri, which was. continued successfully until compelled to leave the State on the breaking out of the Civil War, losing all he had. Mr. Avery then went to Brocton, New York, and taught school for a winter. In August of that year he located at Gridley, Illinois, and engaged in general merchandise, but the following fall came to Peoria, and has ever since remained here.
In 1864 he engaged in business under the firm name of Comstock & Avery, dealing in furniture and house supplies. The business was carried on by the firm until about ten years ago, when it was incorporated under the style of the Comstock-Avery Furniture Company. Mr. Avery has been in the management of the Peoria store from its inception and has conducted the business with marked success, enlarging it to meet the growing demands of a growing city. He has always had the reputation of being thoroughly honest and reliable. This fact has done as much to increase his trade and intrench him in business as all others combined. He still enjoys the confidence of his fellow citizens and his trade, at the present time, is by no means confined to the limits of the city of Peoria. He has always been public spirited and interested in whatever pertains to the welfare of the city. He was at one time a member of the City Council. He has been for many years an influential member of the Baptist Church, and had much to do with erecting the fine stone edifice now occupied by that denomination.
He was married to Ellen Haywood, of East Jaffrey, New Hampshire, January 18, 1859. She died, April 19, 1890. She was a well educated, domestic woman, devoting herself exclusively to the care of her household and the comfort and happiness of her family—a woman of a gentle, happy, sunny disposition.
Mr. Avery married, for his second wife, Alice J. Sawyer, at Peterboro, New Hampshire. Three children were born of the first marriage, namely: Frank E. Avery, Preston A. Avery and Fred H. Avery. The oldest and youngest still survive. The second son died in 1864. Mr. Avery, while an active church member and strictly temperate in all his habits, has never been narrow or bigoted. He is, and always has been, willing to concede to every other man or woman the rights and privileges he claims for himself. His word has always been regarded as good as his bond. His reputation for integrity and uprightness has never been questioned, and his business career furnishes a good example to young men about to enter into the active business of life.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
ROBERT H. AVERY.Probably no city in the United States owes more of its development in wealth and population to the manufacturing enterprises with which its history has been identified, than does the city of Peoria. This is especially true of its manufactures of agricultural implements which, in extent and variety, equal, if they do not surpass, those of any other city of its size in the country. For a generation Peoria has been recognized as the center of this great industry so intimately connected with the growth and development of one of the richest and most prosperous agricultural regions of the American continent; and the demand and source of supply have kept pace with each other, until now the products of Peoria manufacturing establishments are found in almost all the markets of the world. This has been due not alone to the advance made in the methods of cultivation and harvesting the products of the soil within the last two or three generations, but to the skill and enterprise of individual inventors and manufacturers in meet- ing the wants of the agriculturist and in pointing the way to new and profitable lines of production.
To the above Robert H. Avery contributed his full portion. He was the founder of what is now known as the Avery Manufacturing Company. Born in Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois, January 21, 1840, he grew up as a farmer's boy, receiving a common school and academic education in his home town. Like thousands of the patriotic young men of his time he had barely reached his majority, when the war for the preservation of the Union having come on, he entered the army as a volunteer, serving for three years, about eight months of this time being spent in rebel prison-pens. It was while confined as a prisoner at Andersonville awaiting the time of release, that he devised his first farm-tool—a cultivator—and, while he was deprived of the means of perfecting his invention there, at least in the construction of a practical machine, he did afterwards complete it from the plans which he had there designed, and thus began an industry which has grown to such large proportions in connection with the Manufacturing Company of which he afterwards became the head.
The Civil War over, the youthful soldier and inventor returned to the farm, but not to remain. In 1869, taking his brother, Cyrus M. Avery, as a partner, he built from the plans devised in the Andersonville prison, his first culti- vator. known as the ''Avery Cultivator." The followed the Avery Stalk-Cutter and the Avery Planter, both of which have come into extensive use and received the approval of the most enterprising and progressive agri- culturists, as shown by their wide sale at the present time. In 1882 the Avery brothers removed their establishment from Galesburg to Peoria, and during the following year the partnership of R. H. &. C. M. Avery was organized into a stock company and chartered under the name of the Avery Planter Company. of which Robert H. Avery continued to be the President during the remainder of his life. Around this establishment in the next few years, grew up the flourishing village of Averyville. now a suburb of the city of Peoria near its northern border. The products of the concern embrace many devices required in the cultivation of the soil and the harvesting of its crops by machinery—including corn-planters, check-rowers, stalk-cutters, cultivators, stackers, threshing machines, etc. Its output, amounting in 1883 to $200,000 and employing 150 men, has increased in less than twenty years to one and a quarter millions annually, furnishing employment to over 750 men, and finding a market in both hemispheres.
The first ten years after the removal of the Avery Manufacturing plant from Galesburg to Peoria not only saw its success assured, but its business vastly increased. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Avery was not destined to witness the still greater development of an enterprise to which he had devoted so many years of persevering and assiduous labor, backed by the intelligence and mechanical genius of the inventor. His death occurred in the very zenith of his successful business career while on a trip to California, September 13, 1892, at the age of a little more than fifty- two years. Mr. Avery was a man of rare integrity, in his every act considerate of the interests of others—an inventor of absolute originality, he was never accused of appropriating the ideas or labors of others. His intimate friends were few but well-chosen, and those who knew him most intimately valued his friendship most highly. Surely, if "He is a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before," Robert H. Avery proved himself by the results of his life-work a benefactor of his race.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
OLIVER JOSEPH BAILEY.Oliver Joseph Bailey was born, September 6, 1846, in Arcadia, Wayne County, New York. He was a son of Morrison and Mary Bailey and the eldest of six children. When he was two years old his father removed to Illinois and located government land in Will County, about sixteen miles southwest of Joliet. In 1852, selling to good ad- vantage the farm he had improved in that county, he removed with his family to Blackhawk County, Iowa, on the frontier, locating at Waterloo, a town then existing only in name. He was a man of high character. He served a term in the Legislature of that State, and, in 1862, having enlisted in the Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, was made Quartermaster of his regiment, serving throughout the war. At the age of thirteen years Oliver left the farm to enter the store of Nathan S. Hungerford, where he remained for five years, ever enjoying the full trust and confidence of his employer, in whose family he is yet thought of and cherished as a son and brother. After the close of the war and his father's return, so that the mother and children were no longer his special care, Oliver, following a strong inclination for the study of law, returned to Illinois, securing the position of Deputy Circuit Clerk and Recorder of DeKalb County at Sycamore, and at once entered upon his studies with General F. P. Partridge, an able lawyer. The hard life of a farmer's son on the prairies of Iowa, in those early days, had limited his edu- cational advantages to the common schools, but Mr. Bailey is only one of many of our prominent men who have made up for the lack of early schooling by a study of Blackstone and the English Common Law. Given a sturdy ancestry, a farmer boy's good health, a resolute will, high moral purpose and a diligent study of the great under- lying principles of law, as explained in the lucid English of Blackstone, a young man, although conscious of deficiencies in his school training, will, nevertheless, have acquired a habit of exact thinking, a discipline of mind and a preparation for future success that will always stand him in good stead in the business affairs of life. The successful business career of Mr. Bailey in our city affords a striking illustration of this fact. Mr. Bailey was admitted to the bar in 1868, and at once, and with good success, entered upon the practice of his chosen profession. In 1872 he entered into partnership with James H. Sedgwick, an able lawyer practicing at Sandwich, and the firm removed to Chicago, where they built up a successful law practice, but later came to Peoria. In 1875 the Aetna Life Insurance Company consolidated at Peoria its Springfield and Peoria investment agencies. The Peoria agency had been under the able management of Mr. B. L. T. Bourland and the business had grown to large proportions. Mr. Bailey was at this time given the position of General Attorney for the company in asso- ciation with Mr. Bourland as Financial Agent. This was the origin of the firm of Bourland & Bailey, one of the most widely known, successful and honored firms in Central Illinois. The legal interests of the company in charge of Mr. Bailey have carried with them large responsibilities in municipal bond litigation, regularity of titles and proceedings in the issuing of securities and many other intricate points of law, demanding the utmost care and vigi- lance, combined with legal acumen and good judgment. Outside of his law business, which has been mostly in the Federal Courts—having been admitted to the United States Supreme Court in 1878—Mr. Bailey has been a successful business man. He has faith in Peoria. and his investments here made with farsighted shrewdness, have resulted in placing him among the wealthy men of the city, one of its leading and most highly respected financiers. He is President of the Central National Bank, of the Title & Trust Company, of the Board of Trustees of Bradley Polytechnic Institute, of the Peoria Young Men's Christian Association, the Cottage Hospital Association and the Training School, and is Vice-President of the Dime Saving Bank.
During the past sixteen years Mr. Bailey has been a member of the Peoria School Board, and to his prudent finan- cial management as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Board, the city owes a greater debt of gratitude than any but a few are aware of, in gradually paying off a heavy indebtedness and in keeping the Board out of debt. It hardly need be said that, in all that concerns the welfare and prosperity of the city, materially, morally or educationally, he is a sympathetic, broad-minded, public-spirited citizen, generous with his time and with his means in the support of every good cause. In politics, Mr. Bailey is a Republican; in church relations, a Congregationalist. He was married in 1865 to Miss Mary E. Needham, of Geneva, Illinois. Their children are Ralph Needham and Edna Lilian.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
EUGENE F. BALDWIN.Peoria has no more widely known member of the editorial profession than he whose name heads this article. Mr. Baldwin is a native of the staid old "Nutmeg State," which will account for his strong Puritan proclivities. His birth- place was Watertown, Connecticut, where he entered upon his mundane career on December 1, 1840—the son of Stephen and Julia (Pardee) Baldwin, who were natives of the same State. Stephen Baldwin came West in 1818, stopping for a time at Shawneetown, Illinois, and going as far South as New Orleans, whence, a year or so later, he returned to his home in Connecticut. The elder Baldwin, we are informed, "was a Deacon in the Con- gregational Church," as was his father before him. Hence we have the testimony of the son that he was himself "brought up on a strict diet of Calvinism. He read the Bible through twice before he was seven years old, and this mental diet," as we are assured, "powerfully contributed to give his mind that religious cast that is perhaps, his strongest characteristic. His father was a builder by profession, and he conceived the idea that he was designed by an overruling Providence to devote his life to the construction of churches. He removed to the western part of New York, and instructed his son, at an early age, in all the mysteries of the carpenter's trade. One of the earliest recollections of the latter is that of being propped up. while an infant, and holding a candle at night while his father carved some enormous capitals that were to adorn a Presbyterian Church in one of the small towns in the Genesee Valley. When not engaged at the labors of the bench, it was the delight of the elder Baldwin to teach his children the 'Shorter Catechism,' the Gospels and Psalms , 'Watts' Hymns,' 'Baxter's Saints' Rest,' and Jonathan Edwards 'Call to the Unconverted.' " None will be prepared to estimate more accurately the depth of the impression made upon the infantile mind of the younger Baldwin by this early training, than those most intimately acquainted with its subject.
Again, in 1855 or '56, the elder Baldwin came West bringing his family with him, and finally settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Eugene attended the Milwaukee High School, intending to fit himself for the vocation of a teacher. In 1860, young Baldwin went to Clinton County, Illinois, where he engaged in teaching; in the fall of the same year, entered the State Normal School at Bloomington. but in the following spring, rejoined his father's family, then living at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and there resumed work at the carpenter's bench. The War of the Rebellion having commenced about this time, he enlisted in the Twelfth Indiana Volunteers, but was captured by the Confederates at Richmond, Kv., bringing his military career to a close, in the fall of 1863. The hardships of the campaign broke him down physically, and he was discharged from the army as an invalid, when he returned to Normal to resume his studies; was soon after engaged as a teacher and Principal of the schools at Chillicothe, Peoria County, which he successfully conducted until he was employed as Principal of the First Ward School in Peoria. A year later he accepted the position of local editor of the Peoria Transcript, remaining three years, when he became political editor of that paper, occupying this position one year. He then resigned his place on the Transcript, and bought the El Paso Journal, but the next year returned to Peoria and, in company with A. R. Sheldon, afterwards of the United States Court for Arizona, established the Peoria Review, which they conducted for three years. His next experience was upon the Rock Island Union, which he edited for a few months, when he purchased his old paper, the El Paso Journal, with which J. B. Barnes was soon after associated as partner. In the fall of 1877, they removed their plant to Peoria and established the Peoria Journal, which they conducted until 1891, when Mr. Baldwin withdrew, and, in company with Charles H. Powell, started the Sylvan Remedy Company, for the purpose of dealing in patent medicines. This they operated for several years, but financially it proved a failure, according to Mr. Baldwin's frank statement, leaving "the two partners without a dollar in the world." Having determined to start anew in the newspaper line, they began the publication of the Peoria Star, the first number being issued, September 27, 1897. Quoting again from Mr. Baldwin— "Neither partner had any money. They bought a press on credit, and so poor were they that, when it was shipped down to them, they did not have the $21.00 necessary to pay the freight." They fought an up-hill fight but, in the last four years, the paper has grown steadily in circulation and influence, until it now has confessedly the largest circulation of any paper in the State outside of the city of Chicago.
As every successful newspaper man must be, Mr. Baldwin is a hard worker, putting in, when occasion requires, sixteen hours of labor per day, and, with his partner, Mr. Powell, as business manager, they have carried forward their great enterprise without a break. One secret of their success is the fact that they do not allow one day's work to interfere with another. Everything is taken up and finished at the time appointed. Mr. Baldwin has done con- siderable other literary work, being the author of several pamphlets, a novel, and a work on hypnotism, although his work in this line, of late years, has been confined to lectures and speeches. He was also one of the projectors and builders of the Grand Opera House, erected some twenty years ago, which still continues to be Peoria's most popular place for high class entertainments.
On April 23, 1866, Mr. Baldwin was married to Miss Sarah J. Gove, a lady of New England birth, whose intelli- gence and refinement have won for her, in a high degree, the respect of the community in which she resides. Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin have had three children: Ethel (deceased), Frank Eugene, and Mildred. As for Mr. Baldwin himself, we have his own modest assurance, that "he is now spending a serene old age, happy in the feeling that, in the language of the English prize-fighter, he has "bested as many fellows as ever bested him." Gifted with a remarkable fluency both as to tongue and pen, he takes as keen delight in "scoring" an enemy as in lauding a friend. Probably his greatest passion is a fondness for satire, which a long journalistic experience has developed in a marked degree, while an original acumen, combined with a retentive memory, has placed him in possession of a rare fund of fact, fancy and anecdote, which he does not fail to draw upon for the confusion of his opponents when circumstances may seem to require.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CHARLES BALLANCE.The life of Colonel Charles Ballance is a record of energy and of perseverance under difficulties, crowned with ultimate and complete success. Through the long period of his life he retained his enterprise, his cheerfulness of disposition and, above all, his desire to know. The fact that a subject was new or obscure was sufficient to inspire in him a warm interest, and no amount of difficulty could daunt his industry. Although, in common with most young men of the early days of the past century, he had little direct schooling, his love of study led him in every direction till his knowledge became encyclopaedic. Science and philosophy, theology and medicine, history and poetry all interested him, and so well could he converse on any one of them that, to the listener it seemed that the subject under discussion must be his chosen one. "Never waste a minute" was his favorite motto, and much of his reading was done in the odd moments when waiting for others.
Mr. Ballance was descended from an old English family, a portion of which emigrated to Virginia more than two centuries ago. His grandfather, Charles Ballance, was killed during the War of the Revolution. His father, Willis Ballance, was married to Joyce Green, in Culpepper County, Virginia, in 1796, and soon after removed to Madison County, Kentucky. Here their second son, Charles, was born November 10, 1800. His mother died soon after, and his father having married a second time, the boy seems to have grown toward manhood without much guidance or control outside of his own strong sense of right. One thing he was determined upon, and that was an education superior to what the country school afforded. Having but little money he turned his attention to anything that offered a support, and finally obtained a place to study law with Judge Terry T. Haggin, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Entering upon the practice of law in Kentucky, Mr. Ballance continued there for a couple of years, and then coming to Illinois, opened an office in Peoria in 1831, where he continued in active professional work until a year or two before his death. Soon after coming to Peoria he was appointed County Surveyor of Peoria County, in which capacity he served for some years.
His legal ability was of a high order and, in all questions involving the rights of property holders, he had no superiors. It was in this line his reputation rests. Owing to the way in which Illinois became a part of the United States, there was much vexatious controversy over the "French Claims," some of which were just, but many spurious and absurd. By the purchase of a large tract of land in the southern part of Peoria (now Ballance's Addition), on which some of these claims infringed, Mr. Ballance became almost immediately interested in the study of land titles.
For a long series of years he fought these claims, sometimes with other attorneys to assist him, but more frequently single-handed, against some of the best lawyers in the West. Several of the cases were carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, where they were argued by him in person. Sometimes successful and sometimes defeated, he persevered till he triumphed over all his opponents, and removed entirely and forever that incubus on the prosperity of the city (the "Peoria French Claims"), so that now no such claims exist.
In politics Mr. Ballance was an old line Whig. When that party disbanded, his anti-slavery proclivities induced him to join the Republicans, with which party he acted till his death. In 1855, he was elected Mayor of the city, and discharged the duties of that responsible office to the general satisfaction of his constituents. Previous to this he had been Alderman for the First Ward, then embracing one-fourth part of the entire city, He was a man of public spirit and intensely devoted to the prosperity of Peoria. His individuality was strong, and, although differing from some others in the advocacy of measures promotive of its interests, none could impeach his honesty of purpose or his desire to further its commercial prosperity. In 1870 he published a "History of Peoria" of standard authority and of great historical value, in which his views upon public measures affecting the city are somewhat fully set forth.
During the Civil War Mr. Ballance was a stanch Union man, and, though more than sixty years of age, raised, largely at his own expense, the Seventy-seventh Regiment of Illinois Volunteers and was elected Colonel of the same. To his great grief, his age and the state of his health compelled him to resign the position before the regiment was ordered to the front. This regiment did good service during the war, and was in the disastrous Red River Expedition where Lieutenant Colonel Lysander R. Webb, a son-in-law of Col. Ballance, was killed.
Col. Ballance was very happy in his domestic relations. In 1835 he was married to Miss Julia M. Schnebly, daughter of Henry Schnebly, who is well remembered by all the earlier citizens. To them ten children were born, all but one living to adult age. More than half of these have since passed to the great hereafter, but many grandchildren remain, happy and respected themselves, and proud of the virtues of their honored ancestor.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
Gardner T. Barker was born in Moriah, Essex County, New York, January 10, 1814, the son of Gardner T. and Harriet (Lyon) Barker. He received a public school education, came west in 1838, and associated himself with the then but dimly outlined fortunes of Peoria. His almost immediate success presaged, in no measured terms, a future in which he should be regarded as one of the strongest, most substantial, wisely conservative and reliable members of the community. He engaged in the general mercantile business with Almiran S. Cole, under the name of Cole & Barker, the business afterwards being carried on under the firm name of Barker & Steams, and ulti- mately by Mr. Barker alone. He advanced rapidly to the front in the affairs of the city, and in 1867 engaged in the distilling business and various public enterprises, which netted him large returns for capital and labor invested. His devotion to business, evinced in his constant personal attention to the same, won for him conspicuous success. He continued in active business until 1887, when he retired, devoting his attention to the care of his property and to his duties as President of the Commercial National Bank. He was also President of the Allaire-Woodward Chemical Company. With innate discernment and wise business sagacity, he mastered the surrounding oppor- tunities and directed his efforts into channels of permanent and logical results. As one of the wealthy men of Peoria, he took up the bonds when the city borrowed large sums of money, and negotiated them in New York.
Mr. Barker was, for many years, prominent not only in business, and in business circles in the city of Peoria, but also in politics. He was always an active, stanch Democrat. In 1852 he was a member of the City Council, was Mayor of the city in 1862, and elected a second time. serving in 1870 and '71. His management of city affairs, and particularly the finances of the city, was attended with the same success that had marked his personal business career. He always prided himself upon his strict business habits, upon his integrity and his honor as a man. His word, when given, could always be relied upon, whether in business or politics. August 20, 1840, Mr. Barker was married to Helen White, of Champlain, New York, daughter of Elial and Mary B. (Lewis) White, natives of Massachusetts, the former born at Medway, December 21, 1794, and the latter at Amherst February 9, 1799. Of interest is the fact that Mr. and Mrs. White, the grandparents, were married by the Rev. Daniel Morton, father of Vice-President Levi P. Morton.
Mr. Barker left his fortune to his son, Walter, who succeeded to the business formerly conducted by him, and also succeeded him as President of the Commercial National Bank; to his daughter, Ellen B. McRoberts, and her two sons., Walter and W. G. McRoberts, and to his grand-son, Jesse, who was the son of the youngest daughter, who had died while Jesse was an infant. The latter was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Barker. Mr. Barker died October 26, 1894, leaving the record of a busy honorable upright life as an inheritance to his descendants. Mrs. Barker's death preceded that of her husband by about three years.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
AMOS P. BARTLETT.Amos P. Bartlett was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. May 14, 1812. He was the son of Samuel C. and Eleanor (Pettengill) Bartlett, and the brother of Reverend Joseph Bartlett, a prominent Congregational minister in the East; Dr. Samuel C. Bartlett, late President of Dartmouth College, and William H. Bartlett (deceased), a member of the Supreme Bench of New Hampshire.
Mr. Bartlett received an academic education at Salisbury and Derry, fitting for Dartmouth College, but declined to enter College, choosing to follow a business life. He commenced the dry-goods business for himself in Brockport, New York, in 1832, remaining in that place until 1836, when he came to Peoria and formed a partnership with the late Moses Pettengill in the stove and hardware business. Prior to coming to Peoria, on October 4, 1836, he married Sarah M. Rogers, of Dansville, New York, who still survives him. He continued in partnership with Mr. Pettengill for five years. In 1843 he entered into partnership with Leonard Holland and continued with him for a period of five years, afterwards conducting the business on his own account until 1861. when his cousin, P. C. Bartlett, became a member of the firm. Mr. Bartlett continued in the business until 1877, when he retired from the dry-goods trade and became interested in the business of his sons, Samuel C. and and William H. Bartlett, doing a grain and commission business in the city of Peoria, under the name of S. C. Bartlett & Co. He continued with his sons until about eighteen months prior to his death, which occurred at Peoria on April 11, 1895. His two sons subsequently removed to Chicago, where they established the firm of Bartlett, Frazier & Company, an extensive grain and commission firm, of which Mr. William H. Bartlett is the senior member. The business is still continued in Peoria, under the old firm name. Samuel C. Bartlett, the senior member, died in Winnetka, Illinois, in March. 1893.
Mr. Bartlett early identified himself with the cause of education in the city of Peoria, bringing with him the New England ideas upon that subject. He came of an educated ancestry, prominent in politics, in law, in medicine and in business, and, although declining a college-education, he believed in it to the fullest extent, and actively interested himself in establishing a school system in Peoria. which resulted in the organization of the "Peoria Academy" for girls, and the "Peoria Academy Association," for boys. These were stock or subscription schools, and were practically the beginning of public education of the boys and girls of Peoria. They continued for four or five years, until about February 15, 1855, when the Board of Education of Peoria was organized by act of the Legislature. Mr. Bartlett was a member of that Board and. for five years, its President, actively interesting himself in the establishment of the free-school system in this city. He was instrumental in bringing educated young men and women from the East as teachers in the public schools. When these schools became firmly established he declined longer to serve upon the Board, but continued his interest in the public school system to the day of his death.
His sons were both graduates of Dartmouth College; his daughters were graduates of the Peoria High School, and his youngest daughter was a graduate of Abbott Female Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts, and of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She took a post-graduate course at the latter institution, and received her Doctor's degree. She also studied abroad three years, and was connected, for a time, with Newnham College, Cambridge. She is now Dean of the Women's Department of the Bradley Polytechnic Institute. Mr. Bartlett thus exemplified, in his treat- ment of his own children, his belief in the value of a thorough education. During his life in Peoria he was identified with all that pertained to the growth and the best interests of the city.
Mr. Bartlett had no ambition to be an office holder, but was always active in local politics in the interest of honesty, morality and good government. He believed .in and advocated a high standard of civic and social life. He was the active foe of all that was low, unclean, immoral and dishonest. He lived to see the small country village become a commercial and manufacturing center—a city of cultivated homes, churches and schools, second to none in the country, largely through the active efforts of himself and his associates.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
PETER COLCORD BARTLETT.It has been said that a man is not to be blamed for his ancestry, nor is he entitled to any particular credit for their characters or careers; but that man is fortunate who can point to a long line of ancestry with pride and satisfaction.
The subject of this sketch, Peter Colcord Bartlett, can go back over his ancestry, step by step, and find nothing of which any descendant should be ashamed. He was born, February 13, 1826, in Salisbury, N. H., to Peter Bartlett and Anna (Pettengill) Bartlett. His father was an educated, prominent physician and removed to Peoria, Illinois, from Salisbury, New Hampshire, in 1836. He died, after residing here for a short time, of over-fatigue and exposure in the discharge of the duties of his profession. Dr. Bartlett belonged to the Bartlett family of New England, prominent in the legal and medical profession. The names of the family are found prominently identified with the educational institutions of New England, and have an honored place in the records of the bar and medicine.
Mr. Bartlett was employed as a clerk for a time in a general store in Peoria, and then entered the employment of Pettengill & Bartlett, who were also engaged in the selling of general merchandise—the last named member of the firm being a cousin of the subject of this sketch. P. C. Bartlett established himself in Peoria in the retail grocery business, which he conducted with fair success for a period of twelve years, and then engaged in the dry-goods business with A. P. Bartlett, formerly connected with Mr. Pettengill. This firm was dissolved in 1877. A. P. Bartlett retired from business, and P. C. Bartlett entered the revenue service in 1878, in which he continued for seven years. He then engaged in the retail grocery business, which he is still conducting with success. November 12, 1851, he married Abigail Thompson by whom he had four sons. She died September 2. 1861. One son only, Henry T. Bartlett, survives, and is now cashier of the Peoria National Bank. He married for his second wife Margaretta Culbertson. Five children have been born during this second marriage, namely: Sue Herron, Nancy Culbertson, Edward Peter, Lucy Ellen and William Culbertson Bartlett—all of whom survive and are an honor, comfort and credit to their father and mother. Edward P. is in business with his father : Sue H. is a prominent teacher in the Peoria High School; William C. has an important and responsible position with the Acme Harvester Works; Nancy C. and Lucy E. are at home.
Mr. Bartlett is peculiarly happy in his domestic relations, and no man has a pleasanter home, or a wife and children of whom he can be prouder, or in whom one can find more satisfaction. Mr. Bartlett has always maintained a reputation for the strictest integrity and uprightness. and bears an honored name in the city of Peoria, where he has resided and been in active business for so many years. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, but broad, charitable and catholic in his views, always ready and willing to concede all rights to another which he claims for himself.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
MARK MITCHELL BASSETT.Mark Mitchell Bassett was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, March 27, 1837, a period of stress and hardship for early settlers in Illinois. For years prior to that date there was a dearth in his family of everything but labor for the necessaries of life. Beyond the fact that his father's people were Kentuckians, but little is known of his paternal ancestry. His earliest remembrance is of a widowed mother, who, with "little Mark," shared the home and meager fare afforded by some relative for such return as could be rendered by a delicate woman crippled by rheumatism — chiefly knitting. Thus his childhood was spent, at times a nearby school-house affording a few weeks "schooling," where lessons were learned from Webster's Spelling book. An only sister, ten years his senior, having married when Mark was about seven years old, shared her home in Fulton County with her mother and brother almost continuously so long as the mother lived. Under the direction of a thrifty farmer, he assisted in reclaiming many acres from the hand of Nature, and thus acquired habits of industry, energy and perseverance which— based upon an inheritance of strict honesty and integrity, the ruling characteristics of the Carlocks of Virginia, from whom the maternal side of his house was descended—made strong the foundations on which his after-life was reared. In such hard but wholesome experience as clearing and tilling the soil, and rafting logs to the St. Louis market, were gained that tenacity of purpose and those powers of endurance which served him so well in after years.
In August, 1857, Mr. Bassett was induced to leave the plough, and, with a partner—but with no other capital than an intent to be honest—to engage in the management of a store, which was operated successfully until he bought his partner's interest. Later he conducted the concern alone and profitably, doing a considerable business in grain and stock, besides managing the farm, until December, 1861, when he enlisted in the war for the preservation of the Union, and was assigned to Company E, Fifty-third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. The story of heroic endeavor and endurance which followed is gathered, not alone from Captain Bassett's memory, but from the diaries of comrades-in-battle, comrades-in-prison and comrades-in-escape, and from the most tragic pages in our national history, as also from the letters of Union men in North Carolina and East Tennessee who afforded them shelter, a hiding-place, food, clothing and a guide to the next point of safety nearer the Union lines. The record of the Fifty-third is only partly told in the battles of Shiloh and Corinth, and Hatchie (where Lieutenant Bassett was ordered to take the insignia of rank from the lifeless body of his superior officer, First Lieut. Armand Pollisard, of Kankakee) ; in the siege of Vicksburg and the battle of Jackson, Mississippi, of July 12, 1863, in which last engagement, in a charge by his brigade upon the rebel breastworks, orders ignorantly given but faithfully obeyed, sent many a gallant soldier needlessly to his death, and hundreds of others into the hands of the enemy as prisoners -- among the last being Lieutenant Bassett who was leading his company in the fearful onslaught, thus winning the commission as Captain which was issued while he was a prisoner. Capt. John D. Hatfield, of Company H, now living at Neligh, Nebraska, was Captain Bassett's close companion in the long months of im- prisonment in Libby Prison which followed, and his fellow-toiler in digging the famous tunnel by which, with 107 other prisoners, they succeeded in escaping on the night of February 9, 1864. Having been recaptured on the fourth night out when near the Union lines on the Pamunkey River, Captain Bassett was thrust into an underground dungeon and kept on bread and water—if a composition of corn, cobs and husks ground together could be called "bread." After the battle of the Wilderness, through fear of the capture of Richmond by Grant's army, came the removal of the prisoners from Libby; first to Danville, Virginia; next to Macon, Georgia—where another unsuc- cessful attempt was made to escape; then to Charleston, and and finally to Columbia, South Carolina. Here they were held in an open camp called "Camp Sorghum"—but no sweeter as a home on account of its name. On the night of November 10, 1864, just before the completion of a stockade around the camp, a squad of nine made a third attempt at escape by running the guard. After being out thirteen nights, the blood-hounds with which the Con- federates were pursuing them got on their track, when the fugitives separated into groups of four, three and two. The four having soon been overtaken, were shot where they surrendered ; the two were recaptured and taken back to their prison-pen, while the three—consisting of Capt. A. S. Stuart, now of Osceola, Missouri; Lieutenant Tom Payne Young, since deceased, and Capt. Mark Bassett—set their faces towards the west and north and, after wandering fifty-two days and nights among the mountains of the Blue Ridge, reached the Union lines at Sweet Water, Tennessee, and Knoxville on January 1, 1865. They were not alone, having been joined in the mountains by other escaping prisoners, Union men who had deserted the rebel ranks and others who had become separated from their commands. The picture of that ragged group of twelve, taken at Knoxville on that Happy New Year's Day, is one of the cherished relics of a historic past, which the Captain could not be induced to part with. The appearance of the same picture on page 130 of Vol. Ill, of "Lossing's History of The Civil War," as a group of "Union Refuges," illustrates the errors which sometimes creep into "history." Another relic highly prized by the Captain is a lithograph of a highly embellished chart containing the names and rank of all the prisoners in Libby at the time, the original having been prepared with pen and ink by Capt. B. F. Fischer, of Cincinnati. It would be difficult to conceive anything more thrilling than the reminiscences related by these heroic comrades of their experiences of prison-life, and their terrible suffering in mind and body while attempting to make their escape. These eighteen months of hardship and peril left Captain Bassett physically unfitted for a return to duty; so, at the expiration of his leave of absence, on the order of the Secretary of War he repaired to Camp Blair, at Jackson, Michigan, where he received his discharge, April 12, 1865, three days after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. Having spent a year and a half on his farm and in buying and selling grain, he engaged in the study of law with Capt. A. W. Bull, at Pekin, Illinois, (under whom he enlisted), later with Hon. B. S. Prettyman, and, within the next two years, in the face of many difficulties and meager educational advantages, he was admitted to the bar, thus realizing his early ambition to become a lawyer. In 1872 Captain Bassett moved to Peoria and has at different times been associated with some of the leading lawyers of this city. As a Republican he was elected to the lower branch of the General Assembly in 1884; four years afterwards was advanced to the State Senate, and, in 1898, was elected Probate Judge of Peoria County, which office he still holds discharging its duties honestly, faithfully and acceptably. Judge Bassett's family—though there are now none left to bear his name—includes all deserving young people of his acquaintance in whom he takes a practical interest, which is shared by his wife. Although not identified with any church organization, his "religion is of the life, and the life of his religion is to do good."
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
GEORGE CLINTON BESTOR. George Clinton Bestor was born in Washington, D. C., April 16, 1811. His parents, Harvey and Matilda (Owens) Bestor, both natives of Massachusetts, removed from that State and settled in Washington at an early day. His father was Assistant Postmaster-General under Hon. Francis Granger, and was highly respected for his talents and virtues. George inherited his father's traits of character, and gave early promise of the ability and integrity which marked his subsequent career. As a boy he manifested those noble and generous qualities which endeared him to so many friends, and that conscientiousness in the discharge of duties which inspired confidence in his honor and integrity. He was first employed as a page in the House of Representatives, and, at the age of sixteen, was appointed Assistant Document Clerk of the same upon the recommendation of many of the leading statesmen at that time in Washington, and held the position eight years, or until May, 1835, when he came to Illinois. Being a young man of energy and enterprise, in. the twenty-fifth year of his age, he resolved to strike out into a new country, where a better field was opened for his ambition and his talents, to achieve for himself a successful career. Peoria was then one of the most promising points in the West. It had begun to grow in popu- lation, and the beauty and desirableness of the location were attracting emigration from all parts of the country. Here was a desirable and promising field for a young man of talents and enterprise, and here Mr. Bestor came to make his future home, arriving in Peoria August 3, 1835.
"After settling here, he was engaged for many years in the real-estate business, dealing in military lands, in which he accumulated a large property. From 1835 to 1840 a copartnership existed between him and Mark M. Aiken, during which they made an abstract of the Edwardsville and Pike County records—a voluminous and carefully prepared work. showing the accuracy, system, and thoroughness, of everything that passed under the hand of Mr. Bestor. On February 18, 1837, he was elected one of the Trustees of the Town of Peoria, and re-elected on the 5th of November, 1839. On April 4, 1842. he was appointed Postmaster of Peoria by President Tyler, and again, on March 27, 186l, was appointed Postmaster by President Lincoln. He was elected Police Justice in 1843. He was three times elected Mayor of the City of Peoria, filling the seventh, ninth and tenth places in the list of Mayors with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents.
"For several years Mr. Bestor was Financial Agent, and afterwards President, of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad Company (now the Peoria and Burlington branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad), and, during the time he held that position, succeeded in extricating the company from its financial difficulties. He was also a Director of the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railroad at the time of his death.
"Before the organization of the Republican party, Mr. Bestor was an earnest and devoted Whig. He fought the opposition with zeal and energy, and, when defeated, was always ready to renew the contest. He was a personal friend of Henry Clay, to whom he was ardently and strongly attached. In 1852 he was a delegate to the Whig National Convention that nominated General Scott. In 1858 he was elected to the State Senate by a majority which, at that time, was entirely unexpected in a district so strongly Democratic. That was the year of the Lincoln and Douglas joint campaign of Illinois for the United States Senatorship. Mr. Bestor espoused the cause of Mr. Lincoln, and, while in the Senate, had the opportunity of voting for him, in opposition to Judge Douglas, for United States Senator. In the campaign which followed in 1860, he did his share toward electing Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. During that four years in the Senate he was on the Committee on Canal and Canal Lands, Banks and Corporations, Penitentiary, Swamp Lands, and Military, and was Chairman of the Committee on Internal Navigation.
"Almost everybody in Illinois knew Mr. 'Bestor, and none knew him but to respect and love him. His name is identified with the early history of Peoria, and no man contributed more to its development. His genius and enterprise are stamped upon its growth. At the commencement of the late Civil War he was an ardent patriot, and his talents, his energies and his means were devoted to the cause of the Union. He was widely known as an influential man in politics. He was a vigorous supporter of Governor Yates in all his measures for the arming and equipping of the Illinois Volunteers, and was one of the first to advocate a large appropriation for that purpose by the General Assembly of which he was then a member. Mr. Lincoln esteemed him highly, and Judge Douglas, whom he opposed, said of him: 'There is no man in Illinois I respect more; what he is, he is.' He was zealous in the support of the principles of his party, a warm and ardent friend, and a courteous and manly opponent.
"For several years before his death, Mr. Bestor had spent most of his time in Washington, prosecuting a claim before Congress, for $175,000, for gunboats which he had built for the Government during the war. The construction of these boats had reduced him almost to poverty, and it is thought that the trouble and anxiety growing out of this, and what he believed to be the unjust delay of his country in meeting his reasonable demands, added to his feeble state of health, hastened his death. Shortly after his death Congress appropriated $25,000 to his heirs in satisfaction of this claim.
"He died at the National Hotel, in the city of Washington, on the 14th day of May, 1872. None of his family, except Mrs. Bestor, were present at the time of his death.
"Hon. George C .Bestor was twice married— first, on the 20th of October, 1835, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Miss Mary Jane Thomas; and, second, on the 13th of September, 1848, to Miss Sarah E. Thomas, sister of his former wife. He left by his first marriage four children and the same number by his second marriage."
Physically Mr. Bestor was a man of perfect mould, and having from his youth been brought into personal relations with men of the highest culture, he had early learned and adopted the manners of a perfect gentleman, which he carried with him through life. He was courteous, gentle and genial in disposition, graceful in speech and manner, yet firm and determined in all his business relations. Generous almost to a fault, he dispensed charity, in all directions, which was manifested in an especial manner in his contributions in aid of the soldiers during the war.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
WILLIAM HENRY BINNIAN. William Henry Binnian was born, January 29, 1857, at Peoria, Illinois. His grandparents were William and Ann (Jasper) Binnian, and Charles and Ann (Allbut) Walford, born in England. His parents, Henry and Elizabeth (Walford) Binnian, were born in Kidderminster, England, where they married and came to Peoria in 1852. They were of sterling English stock and of high character. They were upon the right side of every question involving public and private morals.
W. H. Binnian was educated in the public schools of Peoria and graduated from the High School. His public career and that of many others in recent years, testify to the high character and efficiency of the public schools of Peoria. After graduating from the High School he was employed in the wholesale leather and shoe-finding business conducted under the name of Burnham, Binnian & Company, his father being a member of the firm. Later he entered the employment of James T. Rogers & Company, lumber merchants, as bookkeeper. In 1880 he became a member of the firm and so continued until 1889, the firm doing business as Rogers & Binnian. They did a very large and prosperous business, extending over a large portion of the country. In 1889 Mr. Binnian sold his interest in the business to his partner, James T. Rogers, and entered largely into real-estate, buying land in the vicinity of Peoria, laying it out into lots and selling it to settlers. In this business, which was carried on with his usual spirit and energy, he was very successful.
In 1890, in connection with the late William E. Stone and E. C. Foster, he built and equipped the Peoria Straw- board Mill, the second largest in the world, and was elected President of the company. The successful operation of the mill was very largely due to the energy, foresight and business skill of Mr. Binnian, who had become one of the best business men in the City of Peoria; always enjoying perfect health he was full of energy and untiring in his devotion to business.
In the fall of 1890 he joined with William E. Stone in the purchase of what was known as the Acme Harvester Works, operated in Pekin, Illinois. by A. J. Hodges & Company. They organized a company known as the Acme Harvester Company, and Mr. Binnian became its Vice- President and general business manager. In 1894, upon the death of Mr. Stone, he became President of the company. Mr. Binnian's peculiar business traits, his energy, industry, courage and foresight have borne marvelous fruit in the development of the business of the Harvester Company, which has grown from small dimensions into a world-wide reputation and has required a very large increase of capacity. To meet the growing demands of the trade the company purchased sixty-one acres of land for its plant at Bartonville, with a capacity four times as great as the old works at Pekin. The company purchased forty-seven acres of land for its factory site, and has already erected buildings covering a floor-space of over fifteen acres. The sale of harvesters made by the Acme Harvester Company was originally confined to a small portion of the Northwest and California, but now extends over the entire range of wheat-growing countries. Its export business to South America and elsewhere is very large. Mr. Binnian keeps well in hand all of these different branches of business in which he is engaged. He is fortunately situated in never allowing anything to discourage him or undermine his courage. He is cool, calculating and carefully plans all his business enterprises, and then deliberately and persistently goes about their execution.
Although still a young man, Mr. Binnian is regarded as one of the strongest and safest business men in Peoria. He has not interested himself in office holding, but has taken an active interest in all that pertains to the good of the city. In politics, he is a Republican. He is a regular and generous contributor to the various charitable and bene- volent institutions of the city, and and stands deservedly high in the estimation of his fellow-citizens.
He has always enjoyed the companionship of good books, and, from the time he was a boy, has regularly added to his library, until he now has one of the choicest and best selected private libraries in Peoria. A recent Trade Journal, in reviewing his success in the manufacture of agricultural implements, says tersely: "He had the will power to grasp opportunities, and the ambition to make me most of them. He was not afraid; he did not hesitate; he did not put off his decision from day to day until some other man stepped in and seized the opportunity. He acted quickly and with unconquerable determination. No one could stop him." This quotation very fitly characterizes Mr. Binnian and his business career in this city and vicinity.
He was married, November 27, 1883, to Elizabeth Ann Babcock, daughter of Colonel William Babcock, of Canton, Illinois. Two sons were born to them; Walter Babcock Binnian, born November 27, 1884, now a student in Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, and Robert Binnian, born July 29, 1886, died January 10, 1887.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
Robert Boal, M.D., veteran physician and surgeon of Illinois, now of Lacon, Marshall County was born near Harrisburg, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1806, the oldest of a family of four children, his parents being Thomas and Elizabeth (Crain) Boal. Both of his parents were natives of Dauphin County, but of Scotch descent, their ancestors having come to America at an early period. The father was a merchant who, having removed to Cincinnati with his family in 1811, conducted his business there until his death, which occurred in 1816. The son then became a member of the family of an uncle, also a resident of Cincinnati, for whom he was named, and, after receiving a rudimentary education in the public schools, took a partial course in the Cincinnati College. Having determined to enter the medical profession, he spent a year and a half reading medicine with Dr. Wright, of Reading, Ohio, which he afterward continued with Drs. Whitman and Cobb, who were professors in the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, which he finally entered as a student, graduating therefrom in 1828. He then began practice at Reading, but four years later returned to Cincinnati, where he continued in practice for three or four years, a part of the time holding the position of Demonstrator of Anatomy in his Alma Mater. Meanwhile, in 1834, he made a tour through Central Illinois with a view to settling in the State, which he carried into effect two years later by his removal with his family to Lacon (then Columbia), Illinois, which continued to be his home until 1862, when, having been appointed Surgeon on the Board of Enrollment for the Fifth Congressional District, he removed to Peoria. His service in this capacity continued until the close of the Civil War in 1865, and, during that period he examined some 5,000 volunteers and drafted men, a large majority of whom were mustered into the service and fought for the preservation of the Union. While discharging the duties of this office and some twenty-five years afterward Dr. Boal continued in the practice of his profession at Peoria, being a prominent member of the Peoria Medical Society, and, for a part of the time, its President, as well as a member of the American and State Medical Associations, of the last of these being elected President in 1882. He was one of the organizers of the Edward Dickinson Medical Club (of Peoria), of whom only three of the nine original members now survive -- Drs. Boal, Steele and Murphy. He was also one of the founders and original incorporators of the Cottage Hospital of Peoria, of which he served for a time as director.Dr. Boal, while not neglecting his profession, was an earnest opponent of the extension of slavery during the period following the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and one of the potent factors, in this section of the State, in the organization of the Republican party -- being a delegate from his county to the historical convention at Bloomington, in May, 1856, which nominated the first Republican State ticket in the history of the party in Illinois. In 1860 he was an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, which nominated Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency for the first time.
The civil positions held by Dr. Boal included those of State Senator from 1844 to 1848, and Representative in the General Assembly for two terms (1854-58) -- during the first of these two terms (1855) being one of the most earnest supporters of Abraham Lincoln for United States Senator, at whose personal request he finally cast his vote for Lyman Trumbull, thereby defeating the hopes of the opposition for the success of their candidate, and contributing to the beginning of the career of one of the most conspicuous members of the United States Senate during the war period, and which was continued for eighteen years. During the session of 1855, he was appointed upon a joint Legislative Committee to investigate the affairs of the State Institutions at Jacksonville, serving as Chairman of the committee, and, on the accession of Governor Bissell in 1857, was appointed one of the Trustees of the Institution, for the Deaf and Dumb -- a position which he occupied continuously by successive reministrations of Governors Yates, Oglesby, Palmer and Beveridge -- for the last five years of the time being President of the Board.
On May 12, 1831, Dr. Boal was married, at Reading, Ohio, to Christiana Walker Sinclair, their wedded life extending over a period of more than fifty years. Mrs. Boal was of Scotch descent, and a lady of intelligence and refinement. She died in June, 1883, leaving, besides her venerable husband, a family of three children -- two sons and one daughter. Charles T., the older son, is now a business man of Chicago, while the younger son, James Sinclair, studied law, and was for some ten years Assistant United States District Attorney, under various administrations, but died in 1888. The daughter, Clara B., became the wife of Col. Greenbury L. Fort, who was a soldier of the War of the Rebellion, and afterward served for four terms as a member of congress from the Lacon District.
About 1893 Dr. Boal removed from Peoria to his former home at Lacon, where, in the ninety-sixth year of his age, with unimpaired faculties and remarkable vitality, he is spending the evening of a busy and earnest life with his daughter, Mrs. Greenbury L. Fort. His career has been as conspicuous for its usefulness to the State and the community in which he resides, as it has been for its long continuance and the results which have been achieved within the period which it has covered. Dr. Boal is at the present time (1902) the oldest living alumnus of the Medical College of Ohio -- now the Cincinnati University -- at which he graduated nearly three-quarters of a century ago.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
FRANK CARL BOURSCHEIDT. The reputation of Dr. Bourscheidt as a scholar, chemist, and medical exponent, is undoubtedly largely due to the depth of scientific research required of the German student who would enter the ranks of the professionally great, a consummation rendered practically certain of accomplishment, owing to the luminously profound and philo- sophical mind of the upper class scholar of Teutonic ancestry. In contrast therewith is the more or less superficial training received in the money-getting atmosphere of many American institutions, and where concentration and singleness of purpose are drowned in a multiplicity of distracting influences. The calm, trained and reflective intelligence of such men as Dr. Bourscheidt is, therefore, of incalculable benefit to any community, and sure of the recognition and appreciation of all thoughtful people.
A native of Cologne, on the Rhine, Germany, Dr. Bourscheidt was born, January 15, 1851, a son of Frank C. and Christina Bourscheidt, the former of whom was a furrier for many years, but has long since retired from business. The parents appreciated the benefits of a thorough education, and their son graduated from the scientific and classical courses at the Gymnasium in Cologne, in 1868. He then spent one year at Dolhain-Limbourg, France, and devoted himself to acquiring a knowledge of the French language. In 1869 he came to America, locating in Saint Louis, where he began the study of medicine at Pope's College, but in 1871 removed to Kansas to practice medicine, and, at the same time, conducted a drug store at Howard City, Elk County. Owing to the prevalence of malaria in the region in which he had located, he came to Peoria in 1874, and accepted a position as clerk in the drug store of W. H. Davis, where he remained for two years. A similar position was afterwards maintained for the same length of time with the late A. W. H. Reen. In January of 1879, Dr. Bourscheidt opened a drug store in the old library building, and conducted the same until he disposed of his interest in the drug business to W. M. Benton in 1885. Desiring then to return to the practice of medicine, he attended Rush Medical College in Chicago for two years, graduating therefrom in 1887. From that period until the present time, he has devoted himself to his chosen profession. While engaged in general practice he makes a specialty of gynecology, or the diseases of women.
In his younger days Dr. Bourscheidt devoted much thought and study to microscopical and analytical chemistry, and was ranked among those who are more than ordinarily proficient in these directions. The knowledge thus acquired has been particularly efficacious in many of his most important services to the State of Illinois, for the best interests of which he has labored long and faithfully. He was one of the founders in 1879 of the Illinois State Pharmaceutical Association, of which he served as President in 1881, and was one of the committee which drafted and helped to pass the State Pharmacy Law. From 1880 until 1800 he was a member of the committee on the revision of the United States Pharmacopoeia—which revision takes place once in ten years, the treatise being issued by official authority, and everywhere accepted as an authoritative standard in reference to drugs and their preparations. From 1899 until 1901 the Doctor was the Health Commissioner of Peoria, and, during his administration, a high order of service was maintained, and more accomplished in the way of systematizing the work of the office and rendering it efficient, than by any other incumbent of the office in the history of the city. Dr. Bourscheidt is Gynecologist, to Saint Francis Hospital ; is a member of the Peoria Medical Society, of which he was President for one year, and Secretary for two years, and is also a member of the American Medical Association.
The marriage of Dr. Bourscheidt and Dora Stewart, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, occurred June 14, 1873, in Kansas, and of this union there are two children, Frank Carl, Jr., and Jennie M. Dr. Bourscheidt is a Republican in national politics, and has ever been an active participator in the undertakings of his party. Fraternally he is associated with the Masons, having joined that organization in 1872. He is affiliated with the Episcopal church. Like the majority of his countrymen, he has derived much consolation from music, which noble art has been a relaxation from the worry and struggle of an unusually active life. He was an active member of the Peoria Choral Union, which was disbanded in 1881, was also one of the organizers of the Peoria Chorus and has been one of its most ardent and stanch supporters. He is a believer in the beneficent and uplifting influence of music, and has earnestly labored to secure its dignified elevation among the residents of his home town. In all ways this disciple of medicine and all-around medical expert has contributed, to the extent of his ability, to the improvement of the conditions of the city, and his purse and counsel are at the disposal of all worthy appeals.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
JOSEPH BRADLEY. During the many years of his residence in Chillicothe, Joseph Bradley represented the most advanced commercial element in the town, and realized a success commensurate with shrewd financial acumen, and unswerving allegiance to honest dealing. Though at the time of his death, October 27, 1900, he was practically retired from active participation in business life, he yet retained a vital interest in general public affairs, and in the many friends which his genial and kindly nature had brought his way. In Yorkshire, England, where he was born April 27, 1830, Mr. Bradley received a substantial education in the public schools, and his home training was conducted along lines calculated to inspire confidence in himself and the future. The more thoroughly to prepare for the necessity of self-support, he was apprenticed to a wagon-maker, and eventually embarked upon an independent trade venture. Accompanied by his wife, formerly Mary A. Story, whom he married in 1850, he emigrated to the United States in 1851, and upon locating in Wyoming County, New York, engaged in wagon-making for two years. Failing to realize in their entirety his expectations in the East, he removed to Chillicothe, and, in 1853, established the wagon factory which, under his able management, developed from small to large proportions. and became one of the important manufacturing concerns of the city. Having amassed a competence during his years of toil, Mr. Bradley availed himself of the opportunity of leisure in 1887, and from then until the time of his death, his home circle was the gainer by his additional presence among them, and by his unceasing devotion to the welfare of those near to him. The domestic life of this honored pioneer was noticeably a happy one, and March 10, 1899, his numerous friends and relatives made merry at his golden wedding. To mourn his loss there remained a wife, and daughter, Jane A., who, April 11, 1877, became Mrs. Edgar Heath and has three children; Pearl, Joseph, and Horace Heath. The Heath family live at Henry, Illinois.
A Democrat in politics, Mr. Bradley was prominently identified with the local undertakings of his party, and held numerous positions of trust within the gift of his fellow townsmen. For two years he acceptably filled the office of Mayor of Chillicothe, and for eight years was Supervisor. He was a member of, and liberal contributor to the support of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
ABRAHAM BRAYSHAW. The Mexican Amole Soap Company of Peoria, of which Abraham Brayshaw is President and General Manager, is entitled to more than passing consideration, for the manner of its conduct, and the excellence of its productions.
From a long line of ambitious ancestors devoted to the manufacture of cloth, Mr. Brayshaw inherits the requisite force of character, tact, and knowledge of human nature, for the management of a concern fast attaining a world- wide reputation. He was born in England, December 21, 1838, and is a son of Benjamin and Anna (Berry) Brayshaw, who were also born and reared in England. It was but natural that Abraham Brayshaw should emulate the example of his forefathers, and, for some time at least, engag-e in the manufacture of cloth. Of the twelve children in the family he was the one exception who found a larger field of enterprise in America, and he came hither when thirty years of age as superintendent of the woolen mill of James Standring, in New York. At the expiration of two years he came to Illinois and located in Peoria, and until 1884 engaged with varying success in the carpet business. In the meantime, about nineteen years ago, he became interested in the prospects of a company organized for the manufacture of a high-grade soap, and which was incorporated under the firm name of Albaugh's Mexican Soap Company, the president being M. H. Haverhill. The realization of the original promoters falling far short of expectations, and more or less money being lost in a venture at bottom containing. real merit, an emergency was created into which the shrewd business sagacity and common sense principles of Mr. Brayshaw came in recognition of an undeveloped opportunity. When the new order of things was brought about the name also was changed to that under which the firm now conducts its business.
The Mexican Amole Soap Company's products have long since passed the experimental stage, and have stood the test and approbation of several years. At the present time the company does a business amounting to $100,000 per annum, and, judging from the unprecedented increase within the last two or three years, much larger returns may be expected in the near future. Much of the soap manufactured is composed entirely of vegetable ingredients derived from the Mexican Amole Soap tree, the peculiar qualities of which are utilized by a patent process. Aside from bath and toilet soaps, the latter of which is best represented by the fragrant and refreshing Amoleine, a shaving soap has been perfected by the company which not only gives a fine and lasting lather, but is as well a great skin tonique. The Amole Shampoo is most efficacious for all scalp disorders; the Amole Rose Cream is an excellent balm for the skin, and the Amoleine Washing Powder is unexcelled for the laundry. As evidencing the more than local prominence of the articles manufactured by this enterprising firm, it is necessary only to state that the United States Army specifications for 1901, for supplies to be furnished to the post commissaries of our American and foreign possessions, call for an amount of Amole soap larger than all other kinds combined, the soap specified being the Amole Diamond King. The soaps turned out from this factory, which has the most modern equipments possible, are in demand in all parts of the world, large shipments being made daily to different parts of the United States, Canada and Cuba, as well as frequent consignments to England, France, Germany, Australia and the Philippines. It will thus be seen that, in the war of competition, Peoria may boast an enterprise in this line based upon genuine superiority, and therefore of lasting benefit at home and abroad.
Not long after arriving in America Mr. Brayshaw was united in marriage, May 13, 1868, to Caroline Wilby, who also is a native of England. Mrs. Brayshaw, who is a woman of rare intelligence and social tact, is the mother of three living children: Benjamin W., Walter and Clarence. The sons are all interested in business with their father, and the better to qualify them as practical manufacturers of soap, took special courses in chemistry in the Illinois University at Champaign. Illinois, and at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Benjamin Brayshaw was married, first, to Mamie Le Page, who died April 13, 1897, his second marriage occurring April 25, 1901, to Mrs. Nellie (Zipprich) Haessel. Walter W. married Florence McIntyre on April 18, 1900, and of this union there is one child, Lena. In political affiliations Mr. Brayshaw is a Democrat, and is a believer in the doctrine of Free Silver. He is a man of broad intelligence, unusual business ability and of unquestioned integrity, and is popular in the commercial and social world of Peoria.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
PETER R. K. BROTHERSON. Peter Rutgers Kissam Brotherson was born in Charlton, Saratoga County, New York, July 14, 1811. He was the third of a family of five children of Philip Brotherson and Catharine (Kissam) Brotherson. For the first sixteen years of his life he resided at home, then went to New York City where he spent three years as clerk in a mercantile house and acquired that knowledge of business affairs which fitted him for his future career. In 1830, he went into business in Elmira, in the State of New York, where, three years later, he married Frances B. McReynolds, daughter of Matthew McReynolds of that place. In 1836 he, with his father-in-law and his family, emigrated to Cadiz, Ohio, where he and Mr. McReynolds spent fourteen years in merchandising. In the spring of 1850 they all came to Peoria, where they established the first exclusively wholesale grocery in the city, under the firm name of Brotherson & McReynolds. It was situated on the upper side of Liberty near Water Street. Six years later Mr. Brotherson severed his connection with that firm and entered into co-partnership with his son-in-law, Alexander G. Tyng, in the grain and pork business, under the firm name of Tyng & Brotherson. This firm con- tinued to do an extensive business for the period of twenty years. At the end, of that time it met with heavy losses, in consequence of which Mr. Brotherson was forced to retire and to seek other employment, which he found in the Internal Revenue Department as Government Gauger of distilled spirits, a position he occupied for several years.
Mr. Brotherson had the good fortune to be the head of a family the most noted in the city for their faith manifested in good works. Mrs. Frances B. M. Brotherson was a woman of extraordinarily strong character. She was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church and one of the stanchest supporters of St. Paul's Parish until the time of the division, when, with her husband, her daughter, Mrs. Tyng, and husband, she cast her lot with Christ (R. E.) Church. Besides her ordinary work in the church, her charities were wide-spread and munificent, so that to no one were the needy of the city more indebted than to her. She was also active in relief work during the war, being one of the organizers of the original Ladies' Aid Society. She was a woman of marked intelligence and, withal, a writer of ability both in prose and verse; her poems, which were numerous, having been collected and published in a handsome volume. She died December 27, 1879, much lamented by the entire community. The eldest daughter of this interesting couple, Lucie, became the wife of Alexander G. Tyng, and is a worthy successor of her mother. The second daughter, Martha, became the wife of William Reynolds. Of these two ladies, who survive their re- spective husbands, it would be superfluous to speak. Their names appear on almost every page which recounts the benevolent, charitable and Christian work of the city. Mr. Brotherson had a son Philip, who died at the age of twenty-three years.
Mr. Brotherson's services to the city in a public capacity were very valuable. Besides representing his ward for several terms as Alderman, he was twice elected Mayor and served, first, from April 1, 1868, to November, 1869, while the water-works were being constructed, in which improvement his assistance was valuable; secondly, from November, 1871, to November, 1873.
He laid out two additions to the city which bear his name, and one street was named after him. He was one of the most active men in carrying on the home sanitary work during the war, and was always found in the front rank of all public benefactions. He was at one time President of the Central City Street Railway Company, and continued to be one of its stockholders and directors for many years. He occupied a charming residence on the corner of Adams and Harrison Streets, where hospitality was dispensed with a generous hand so long as means would permit; and, when retrenchment became a necessity, it was acquiesced in with that dignified submission which stamped upon him the character of a true gentleman.
Mr. Brotherson died July 6, 1891. His funeral took place from Christ Church, which was filled with sorrowing friends anxious to pay their last tribute of respect to departed worth. Bishop Cheney, of Chicago, a lifelong friend of the family, assisted the Rector in the services.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CHARLES MONTGOMERY BROWN. Charles Montgomery Brown was born in Limestone Township, Peoria County, Illinois, March 25, 1859. He is a son of Isaac Brown, for many years conspicuous in politics and business in the City of Peoria. The father and mother of Mr. Brown removed to Peoria with their family in 1864, where Charles M. was educated in the public schools, graduating from the High School in the class of 1877. Soon after graduation he entered the employ of the Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railway Company, at Peoria, and continued in the railroad business for eight years, the last three as General Agent of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company's Fast Freight Line.
In 1885 he embarked in the insurance and loan business, in which he has continued to the present time. He has held several important general agencies of leading insurance companies, at Peoria, and now holds the important position of General Field Agent of the Aetna Life Insurance Company in the States of Illinois and Indiana.
June 2, 1887, he married Netta A. Cole, who is a pianist of rare skill and a women of charming personality.
Mr. Brown has been an active member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church for many years, and for a long time a member of its official Board. He is also interested in and is a Director of, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Peoria Lyceum Association, and is prominent in the Chautauqua work of the latter organization. Mr. Brown is a member of the Peoria Board of Trade. He has been actively connected with the Masonic Fraternity, being a Past Commander of Peoria Commandery, Knights Templar.
By his genial manners and uniform courtesy Mr. Brown commends himself to all with whom he comes in contact. His peculiar qualities have proved very advantageous to him in building up a business wherein he has had strong competition. He commands the respect and esteem of all who know him. Now in the prime of life, he has the promise of many years of success in the business world.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
DELOSS STODDARD BROWN. Deloss S. Brown, President of Brown, Page & Hillman Company, dealers in pianos and other musical instruments, was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, May 22, 1840, the grandson of William Brown, and son of Hiram and Eveline (Bradt) Brown. His father was born in the "Notch." Cheshire, Massachusetts, October 24, 1707, and his mother at Canajoharie, New York, March n. 1800; the former died at Elmwood, Illinois. October 20, 1891, and the latter at Cummington. Massachusetts, May 4, 1866. Deloss S. received his early education in the common schools of his native place, and, at ten years of age, began working in a factory in which he was employed in the manufacture of various kinds of wooden implements; was next engaged in making scythe whet- stones, after which he worked for a time in a sewing-machine factory. In 1863 he removed to Elmwood Illinois, where he opened a wholesale and retail jewelry store, which he conducted for thirteen years, when (1876) he came to Peoria and purchased a half interest in the distillery of William R. Bush, afterwards known as the Bush & Brown Distillery. In this he continued for a period of ten years, when he sold out his interest to the Distillers' and Cattle Feeders' Company. His next business venture was the purchase of the stock of Brown, Page & Hillman, dealers in books, stationery, music and musical instruments, which has been continued ever since under the old firm name,—the business now being restricted to pianos, organs, sheet music and musical goods, which is conducted on a large scale. Mr. Brown's principal business, however, is in the line of Peoria real estate in which he is largely interested. At the present time, in connection with others, he is engaged upon some improvements in East Peoria, which promise to result in the future rapid development of that growing suburb. His business career has been conspicuously and uniformly successful, due to early acquired habits of application and industry, supple- mented by business acumen. His influence upon the business development of Peoria has been as potential as it has been successful from a personal point of view. Although his business life has been of a strenuous character, he permits no business entanglements to interfere with his social and domestic enjoyments. His genial temperament and courteous bearing have secured for him a wide popularity, and no really deserving cause appeals to him in vain. Mr. Brown inherited from his ancestors those doctrines in favor of free speech, a free press and free soil for free men, which constituted the essential principles of the Free Soil or Abolition party before the days of the Civil War, and on the organization of the Republican party, as a protest against the attempt to carry slavery into free territory, espoused the cause of the party of Lincoln and an undivided Union with zeal, and has supported it ever since. Although not a politician in the professional sense of the word, he served his Ward as Alderman for a period of four years. He has been twice married; first, at Elmwood, Illinois, to Eunice Whiteside, who died in 1866. On October 12, 1869, he was united in marriage to Frances L. Bush, daughter of his long-time business partner, William R. Bush, and they have had five children: Eveline A., born August 24, 1870, died January 8, 1805; Alice J., born October 8, 1872; Eugene de A., born August 9, 1875; Edna K., born July 22, 1877, now Mrs. William Turnbull, and Deloss S. Jr., born November 4, 1879 —the three first named having been born at Elmwood, Peoria County, and the last two in the city of Peoria.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
ISAAC BROWN. Isaac Brown was born in South Shields, England, August 16, 1817. His parents were Jabez and Margaret Brown. His father was Superintendent of one of the large collieries near New Castle on the Tyne, England, and was killed in a mine by the falling of coal when Isaac Brown was a mere boy. Soon after the death of his father, in 1835, young Isaac sailed for America, going first to Cape Breton Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, where he remained but a short time, when he sailed for the United States, landing at New Orleans. He removed to Galena, Illinois, in 1836, and soon after traveled over various sections of the country seeking a more desirable location. He finally settled at St. Louis, where, in 1839, he was married to Anna Mary Catherine Gaussmann, a native of the Province of Westphalia, Prussia, where her father was a well-to-do farmer and land-owner, who, with his family, had removed to the United States about one year before her marriage.
Mr. and Mrs. Brown, with two small children, removed to Peoria County, in 1844, first locating on a farm in Rosefield Township, and afterwards in Limestone Township, and in 1864 came to Peoria, where Mr. Brown died January 30, 1888, and where Mrs. Brown still lives. The married life of the couple was a very happy one. They had five children: William J., who died in New Orleans in 1878; Henry I.; Margaret E., now Mrs. O. R. Clough; Mary E., who married Mr. John R. Schnebly, and died August 9, 1900; and Charles M.
Mr. Brown was for several years a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was for many years active as a Trustee of the First Church of that denomination in Peoria. He was the first Supervisor from Limestone Township. In 1860 he was elected County Treasurer, and was twice re-elected, in 1862 and 1864, and subsequently filled several important offices in the City of Peoria.
Mr. Brown was a man of the strictest integrity, and filled with fidelity every official position to which he was elected or appointed. He was originally a Douglas Democrat, but always a strong Union man. During the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, with Lucius L. Day and Washington Cockle, he served upon the Committee of Public Safety, having in charge the Government's interests in Peoria and vicinity. He was a man of strong physique and marked personality, with a pleasant and sunny disposition, and was universally trusted and esteemed. No man had the public confidence to a greater extent than Mr. Brown. He was careful, frugal and economical, without being parsimonious or mean. He left a name and reputation for his family, unsullied and clean.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
JAMES L. BROWN. One should scarcely desire a higher position in society than the reputation of a good physician—not "good" alone in the ordinary sense of proficiency in his profession, but in that broader sense, embracing not only qualifications but character and reputation as well. There is some danger, even in the medical profession, of a controlling influence of the commercial spirit so characteristic of the present day. It is to be hoped, for the honor of the profes- sion, that it may be kept from the degradation that necessarily follows the purely commercial aspect of it.
James L. Brown belongs to that class which has not yet departed from the old straight-forward professional course; not yet put a purely monetary value upon his services. He was born at Goshen, Clermont County. Ohio, on January 5, 1841, to Benjamin and Elizabeth (Lafferty) Brown. His father followed the occupation of a farmer. The stock from which Dr. Brown descended came from England before the Revolutionary War and obtained a grant from the King of some three thousand acres of land in the State of Pennsylvania, where the father of Dr. Brown was born. On the mother's side, his ancestors were descendants of the French Huguenots.
Dr. Brown received a common school education at Clermont, and also took a course in Mainville Seminary, in Warren County, Ohio. After leaving- school he taught for a time, whereby he acquired the means for his medical education. He graduated at the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, in 1868, and began practice in that city, continuing until 1873, when he came to Peoria. where he has ever since resided, continuously and successfully practicing his profession.
The immediate ancestors of Dr. Brown were conspicuous in the War of 1812, among, them being General Jacob Brown, who commanded at Lundy's Lane, and later at Fort Erie. Thus, it will be seen that he comes of good stock, and he has in every respect, during his life in Peoria, honored his ancestry. He has devoted himself assid- uously to his profession and has, with economy and care, provided himself with a reasonable competence, all of which has been done without wrong or oppression, robbery or fraud. He has never hesitated to give his professional services to the poor, as well as to the rich, without compensation as well as for it. He has been free from the petty jealousies and envies that sometimes have marred the reputation of men of his profession. Fortunately, all that is passing away. He has always been regarded in this city as an honorable, upright, high-minded man and a thoroughly conscientious physician.
In politics, Dr. Brown has been a Republican, although he has never taken any very active part in politics, but has in this respect been ready and willing at all times to discharge his full duty as becomes a good citizen.
He married, June 28, 1881, Miss Lida Black, who died January 4, 1883. October 3, 1894, he married for his second wife Miss Margaret Pfeiffer, by whom he has one son, James L. Brown, born August 4, 1895.
Dr. Brown enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him, and will, to the end, be regarded as an efficient, kindly, charitable physician. He has been for years an active member of the Peoria City Medical Association, having twice been its President, and is now an honorary member thereof by reason of his long connection and his standing as a physician. He is a member of the Illinois State Medical Society and of the American Medical Association. Such men honor the community in which they live and, in dying, leave behind them a monument, in the love and respect of those whom they have befriended and served, more desirable than the most costly marble.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
WILLIAM FREDERICK BRYAN. William Frederick Bryan, the present Mayor (1902) of the City of Peoria, has the distinction of having been elected to the position which he now holds by the largest majority ever accorded to a mayoralty candidate in the history of our city. Mayor Bryan is of Anglo-Irish ancestry, and was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, although his parents had previously resided in Peoria and returned to this city while he was still a child. His father, the late William F. Bryan (see sketch), was a prominent and well-known attorney, who died in 1000, while the mother's maiden name was Jane G. Evans—the daughter of a successful merchant of Lancaster—their marriage taking place at Lancaster in September, 1845. After the return of the elder Bryan's family to Peoria, the son acquired his early education in the public schools of this city, after which he attended college for a time. His first experience in business was as book-keeper in a grain-broker's office, after which he became an active operator on the Board of Trade. He served for several years as a Director, and, in 1896, was chosen President of the Board, but retired from active business in 1897, to devote his time to private interests which demanded his attention.
Mayor Bryan's political career dates from the year 1895, when be was elected Alderman for the Second Ward, being re-elected in 1897, and serving until 1889. During his connection with the City Council he served upon the Finance and other important committees—was also a member of the committee which had charge of the erection of the present handsome City Hall. In 1890 he became the Democratic candidate for Mayor, but was defeated by a majority of less than two hundred votes. In 1901 he was again a candidate for the same office, and this time was elected by the unprecedented majority of 3,000 votes. Mr. Bryan's experience has rendered him thoroughly conversant with the details of every department of the city government, and his administration has proved an eminently successful one. Unhampered by business cares and perplexities, be gives to mumcipal affairs his individual attention, and, by his devotion to public duty. has won the confidence and respect not only of his own party, but of the entire community. Direct, forceful and strictly impartial in his methods, he has taken rank as one of the most able and far-sighted municipal officers in the history of Peoria. While the administration of his father's estate have made large demands upon Mayor Bryan's time for the past two years, it has not been permitted to interfere with his public and official duties. His reputation as a public-spirited citizen has been well established and has, undoubtedly, proved the basis, to a large extent, of his p-opularity as a public officer.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
WILLIAM FREDERICK BRYAN. William Frederick Bryan was for some years prominently identified with the legal profession in this city. He was descended from Anglo-Irish ancestry. The name Bryan is derived by English heraldry from Bryn, which is the Anglo-Saxon name of a hill. It is now found among old family names of England, buried under titles. Ireland, however, has her familiar O'Brians and O'Briens, and France her Chateaubriands, Brians and Briens. The great-grandfather was Samuel Bryan a native and resident of Dublin, and a prominent shipping merchant of that place. He married a Miss Dennis, who was also born in that locality and brought the pure Irish strain into the paternal ancestry, although France claims title to this name also, through her national Saint Denis, deriving it from Dionysius (Dionese), of Gracca.
George Bryan, their eldest son, and the grandfather of our subject, was born in Dublin, in 1730, and in 1750 crossed the Atlantic to the new world, locating in Philadelphia, where he also engaged in business as a Shipping merchant. He was then only twenty years of age. He not only won the respect and esteem of his fellow men, but also received at their hands high honors, and left the impress of his strong individuality upon the early history of the State. He had acquired a collegiate education and his tastes and ambition soon inspired him to other than a mer- cantile life. From 1764 until his death, in 1790, he was the popular favorite and active recipient successively of judicial, ministerial, executive and legislative honors, and finally, in 1780, won the highest judicial honors within the gift of the people of the State, serving as Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania until the time of his death. In his first contest for political office, in 1764, he was elected burgess over Dr. Franklin and another opponent. "Franklin," writes the chronicler naively, "died like a philosopher: his associate agonized in death, and afterward General Reed went over to the British." (Life of General Reed, Volume I, page 30.) "An active political opponent, a Federalist, accredits Judge George Bryan as the author of the first constitution of Pennsylvania, which the Federalist denounces as the inevitable precursor of anarchy. (Life in Pennsylvania, I, 302.) An electric flash of sarcastic humor now exhibits Dr. Franklin as an 'oily gammon,' who had discovered that 'oil would smooth the ruffled surface of the sea.' So had he found it most effectual in assuaging the troubled minds of his fellow men. Hence he was claimed by both constitutionalists and antis."
He was also a delegate to the Congress, held in New York in 1765, to protest against the British Stamp Act. (Life of Reed, Volume II, page 481.) As Vice-President and as acting President of Pennsylvania, in 1778, he urged the Legislature to abolish slavery, and in 1779 secured the passage of the first act abolishing slavery in this country. (Ibid. Volume II. page 173). In 1779 he was appointed, in connection with James Madison and others, to establish the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia, and while so engaged, advised and secured the adoption of the Mason and Dixon line, which was subsequently (1780) ratified by Congress. In 1780 he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and served in that capacity for ten years, when death ended his career. He was married in Philadelphia, to Elizabeth Smith, and they had five sons and two daughters. One of the sons, Arthur Bryan, became the father-in-law of Commodore Turner of the navy.
George Bryan, Jr., father of William P., was born in Philadelphia and acquired a collegiate education. His early manhood was devoted to mercantile pursuits in that city. He was a man of domestic tastes and retiring disposition, and the only public office which he held was that of Auditor General of the State, and at the time of his elevation to the office he removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which was the capital of the State from 1799 until 1812. On its removal to Harrisburg, Mr. Bryan took his family to that place; but, on his retirement, he returned to Lancaster, where he carried on merchandising until his death, in December, 1838. He married Anna Maria Steinman, a native of Lancaster and of German (Moravian) parentage. She was educated in the noted Moravian Academy, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the first school for young ladies in America. Her father, Frederick Steinman, was an active and prosperous hardware merchant and manufacturer, and her mother was Margaretta Sybilla (Mayer) Steinman.
W. F. Bryan was born in Lancaster, August 28, 1810, and, when only two years of age, was taken by his parents to Harrisburg, where he began his education. He afterwards studied in his native city, the family returning there on the father's retirement from office. He pursued a regular college curriculum in private schools, and soon after laying aside his text-books, he was sent to Washington, D. C.. to learn the art of printing. His father had a wealthy cousin who had retired from an active and successful career of politics and journalism, and was then enjoying the fruits of his labors im an elegant country villa near that city. The ultimate object of this choice of a profession, as he afterward learned, was to equip him for the higher career of editor; but setting and distributing type became monotonous to him and he returned home. While preparing for the bar in the city of Lancaster, he realized, in his small way, though incognito, his father's aspirations for him by assuming the editorship of a weekly political paper. His residence there was enlivened by weekly visits to the hospitable mansion of his relative, Samuel Harrison Smith, and there he was often brought in contact with many distinguished statesmen of the time, which, of course, had its influence upon his life. After his return from Washington, Mr. Bryan was sent to Chillicothe, Ohio, to be initiated into the vocation of merchandising; but the business pursuits selected for him by others did not accord with his tastes and temperament, and he ultimately drifted into a profession more in harmony with his tastes and desires. It was while in Chillicothe that he became a member of a debating club, where he frequently met Allen G. Thurman, afterward the distinguished Senator from Ohio, and the eminent lawyer and jurist. From that time the bar became the pole-star of Mr. Bryan's ambition. He bent all his energies toward reaching the goal, immediately returning to Lancaster, where he began the study of law.
In due course of time he was admitted to the bar. About that time the cry of "Westward, Ho!" resounded through the land, and, on the tide of emigration steadily drifting toward the setting sun, he made his way to Illinois. The journey was made by stage to Pittsburg and thence by the Ohio and Illinois Rivers, stepping from the steamer to the levee at Peoria in the spring of 1839. For many years thereafter he engaged in the practice of law and secured a large clientage. He was a close and diligent student and gained a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the science of jurisprudence. He won some important suits, yet the theory and the science of law were ever more attractive to him than the contests of the forum. His cases were prepared with the greatest thoroughness and pre- cision, and his arguments were logical, forceful and convincing. Possessed, however, of an extremely nervous organism, he was in a measure unfitted for the exciting scenes of the court room, yet the court records indicate, by the many leading cases which he won, his marked ability and talent for the law.
In September, 1845, Mr. Bryan was united in marriage to Miss Jane G. Evans, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her father, Robert Evans, then deceased, was a successful merchant and left his family in comfortable circumstances, and the mother, Anna Margaretta (Gundaker) Evans, being most devoted to her children, provided them with the best educational privileges. She was a member of the Lutheran Church until her marriage, when she joined the Presbyterian Church, to which her husband belonged. Her daughter, Mrs. Bryan, who completed her education in Philadelphia, was a most cultured lady. To our subject and his wife were born six children, namely: Anna Margar- etta, wife of Arthur H. Rugg, a resident of Chicago; George, of Peoria, who married Eugenie M. Steele, of Romulus, New Yoirk and has two children—Margaretta and George; William Frederick, who is now Mayor of the City of Peoria; Edward Arthur, who married Lucy Gibson of Peoria, and, with his wife and son, William Frederick, reside in Chicago; Robert Evans, who died in early childhood; and Jennie Logan, who resides in Peoria.
Largely on account of his nervous temperament and studious inclination, Mr. Bryan always preferred the retired life of the scholar to the active one of the politician or society man. He never sought or desired political preferment and held no public office whatever, except in scientific and literary societies to which he belonged. He carried his research and investigation far and wide into the realms of literature and science, and delighted in the companion- ship of his favorite authors, who were to him true and tried friends of long years' standing. At all times he commanded the respect and esteem of his fellow men, and well deserves mention in the history of the Illinois bar, at which he won high standing. He died August 27, 1900.—From "Bench and Bar of Illinois."
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
NELSON BURNHAM. The subject of this sketch, Nelson Burnham, was born at Crown Point, New York, September l, 1826. The family was of Scottish descent, and, coming to this country, settled in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, James Burnham, went from Hartford to Saratoga County, New York, and later to Lake Champlain, where Nelson Burnham was born. The family consisted of three boys and one girl, Nelson being the youngest of the family. His father was a lumberman upon Lake Champlain, and for many years conducted the business with great success, but finally failed, while Nelson was quite young. The latter received a common-school education only. In 1850, with that enterprise and courage which characterized many young men of ambition and force, in that section of the country, he went to California and engaged in mining on the Macausmo River, where he was very successful, and. in a year or two, returned to the States with sufficient funds for a good start in life. Prior to going to California he had learned the carpenter's trade. Having returned from California he settled at Farmington, Fulton County, Illi- nois, working at his trade to some extent, and investing money in lands. He has, from that time, made a specialty of investments in farmlands, and became the owner of large tracts in Kansas and in Stark County, as well as in other places in the State of Illinois. In 1869 he moved to Peoria and engaged in the milling business with Richard Gregg, in which he continued for about five years. Since that time he has devoted himself altogether to investments in farms and carrying on a farming business. In 1875 he purchased sixteen thousand acres of land in Allen and Morris Counties, Kansas, much of which he still owns. He is also the owner, at the present time, of considerable tracts in Missouri and Stark County, this State.
For the past few years he has taken life somewhat easily, and has been an extensive traveler, having twice gone around the globe. He spends his winters in California, where he finds relief from a troublesome bronchial difficulty which has annoyed him for several years. He has been, and still is, a stockholder in the Peoria National Bank, and has made other investments in Peoria and its vicinity.
In 1852 Mr. Burnham married Emily R. Sloan, who died in September, 1897. He has always been liberal in his religious views, and has been, and still is, a Republican in politics. Maintaining the highest character for personal integrity, he has very little patience with trickery and dishonesty in business or politics. He has been liberal in his charities and in his attempts to assist deserving persons needing assistance. He has been remarkably successful in his business career, is a good judge of men and of values, and his success may be attributed largely to his sound judgment and strict integrity.
While never having had any children of his own, he has always been interested in the children of others, and is the friend and helper of all little children, so far as possible.
Mr. Burnham's career well illustrates what a man of purpose, energy and character can accomplish in this country of ours. He has the respect of all with whom he is acquainted.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
WILLIAM R. BUSH. A man successful in business, through individual energy, intelligence and uprightness, is a benefit to the community in which he lives.
William R. Rush, the subject of this sketch, belonged to that class. He was born at Moores Hill, Dearborn County. Indiana, July 18, 1824. His father's name was John Dean Bush, and his mother's maiden name, Elizabeth Winings. In his earlier years, his father learned and followed the trade of a carpenter, but subsequently became a minister and devoted himself to that calling to the end of his days. He was an earnest student of the Bible and thoroughly familiar with it. In his calling as a minister he moved from place to place along the Ohio River. Both the parents belonged to long-lived families, and both lived to advanced age. There were born to them eleven children, who, leaving the old home, settled in different parts of the country, and engaged in various callings with reasonable
success.William R. Bush had but little opportunity for education, and it was one of the serious regrets of his life that his opportunities had been so limited. He was obliged to educate himself throughout his life, which he did by reading and by keen observation of men and things. When a mere boy, he left home with some other lads, and started down the Ohio River with a view to supporting himself, and in the hope of making a fortune. He met with many disappointments and misfortunes, but, on the whole, considered this adventure the foundation of his subsequent successful business career. He came to Peoria in the '30s. and engaged in brickmaking, establishing a yard of his own, became interested in coal mines, and, subsequently, went into the distilling business at Fort Madison, Iowa, which he carried on for several years. Then returning to Peoria, he engaged in the same business with C. C. Clarke, under the name of Clarke & Bush Distillery Company. This business he continued for some years, but subsequently established a distillery of his own in South Peoria, which was operated successfully, under the name of the Bush & Brown Distilling Company. In this business he was very successful and accumulated quite a fortune. The business carried on was that of the distillation of spirits and alcohol. The company did not engage in the manufacture of any finished goods for personal use.
Mr. Bush always interested himself in the development of Peoria; was one of the few men who constructed the Main Street car line. He also erected several buildings in the city in addition to his pleasant home upon the bluff. The later years of his life he spent in traveling and acquiring information, thus becoming familiar with all parts of his own country. He never united with any church, but always was liberal in his theology, and believed in all that was good in the churches and in the schools, and did what he could to foster these institutions in the City of Peoria, believing that, through them, the moral and intellectual standing of the city was elevated. In politics, he was a Democrat of the somewhat liberal stripe, and not so influenced by his political views as to prevent him, on all occasions, from voting in municipal affairs for the men he believed best fitted to discharge the duties of the positions for which they were nominated.
He was married, in 1846, to Melvira Kindred, by whom he had two children: Frances L. Bush (now Brown) and Edna J. Bush. His wife died, and, in 1856, he married, as his second wife, Annie B. Brush, to whom four children were born, two girls and two boys: Harriet A., Lucy I., William C, and John D. His second wife was descended from the Choate family, a name famous, particularly, in the legal and literary world.
While Mr. Bush was in business, he devoted himself earnestly and conscientiously to it, and in every branch of business in which he engaged, he was a success.
He was fond of companionship, genial and pleasant in his disposition. kindly in all his instincts and acts. He made and retained people as his friends, and died regretted by all to whom he was well known. He loved Peoria, the city of his adoption, becoming more and more attached as time went on. and often expressed himself as living in as delightful a spot as fell to the lot of man. Unlike some others, he was loyal to the city and anxious for its improvement and development. He always encouraged capitalists and business men to settle here, believing in the future of the city. Mr. Bush died January 8, 1889.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
AUGUSTINE ANDREW BUSHELL. Augustine Andrew Bushell was a native of Dublin, Ireland, born August 30. 1833, and in 1841, at the age of eight years, came with his parents to Canada. A few years later his parents removed to Newburg, New York. where most of his boyhood was spent, and where he learned the tinner's trade, in the meanwhile receiving a common- school education. In 1852—his parents having previously removed to Peoria—he came to this city, but two years later returned to Newburg where, on November 13, 1854, he married Miss Ann T. Callahan of that place. The following year (1855) he returned to Peoria, where he established himself in business as a tinner, and also engaged in gravel-roofing, making Peoria his home for the remainder of his life. His place of business was on Washington Street, where he built up a large and successful trade, not only in the roofing business but in the manufacture of roofing material, to which he added various kinds of tiling and artificial stone-work. He was succeeded by his son, John W. Bushell, who, under the firm name of A. A. Bushell & Son and the Bushell Manufacturing Company, has built up a large and prosperous business at 1317 to 1323 South Washington Street. It is a tribute to the founder of this industry nearly a half century ago, that his name is still retained in the title of the firm which he established. In addition to his private business, Mr. Bushell served for twenty consecutive years as Sealer of Weights and Measures for the City of Peoria, and was also the first Oil Inspector who ever held office under the City Government.
Mr. Bushell took a deep interest in matters connected with the art of music, was an expert performer on the bass tuba and bass viol, and one of the organizers of the famous Spencer's Band so intimately identified with the history of Peoria of thirty to forty years ago. When he first came to Peoria he established his home at 204 Harrison Street, where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred October 29, 1888, as the result of dropsy by which he had been affected for some time. His funeral, celebrated at St. Mary's Catholic Church two days later, was an imposing event, representatives of the various musical organizations and bands in the city taking part in the ceremonies. In politics Mr. Bushell was a Democrat, and, in religious belief, a Roman Catholic. Of eight children born to Mr. and Mrs. Bushell, six are still living: Charlotte M., now Mrs. Frank Kimmett; Robert E. : John W., married to Catharine Donnelly and of the firm of A. A. Bushell & Son; Monica, married to James E. Bennett: Mary Emma; and Ruth E., married to Dr. W. F. Whalen—all of Peoria. Mrs. Bushell still survives and represents her husband's estate in the firm of A. A. Bushell & Son.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CALHOUN, JOHN H.; son of Alexander and Ann (Phillips) Calhoun, natives of New York; born in Warren County, Ohio, November 16, 1815. When ten years of age his father moved his family to Fountain County, Indiana, and settled near Covington, but four years later came with his brother to Illinois, which was then a wilderness. They took up a claim near the present site of Joliet, which was then a prairie region inhabited by Indians. The outbreak of the Blackhawk War compelled them to return to Indiana. In 1845 Mr. Calhoun came to Peoria and engaged in butchering and supplying meat to the citizens and to the steamboats then on the river. His shop was on Washington Street, where a large part of the business was then done. He engaged in the ice business at an early day, following this business from 1850 to 1875. He was the owner of the Railroad Exchange Hotel Building, a commodious residence which he built in 1847 at No. 3 Bryan Street, besides other property in Peoria. May 21, 1840, he married Mary Corrington in Butler County. Ohio. Eight children were born of this marriage, of whom four are now living: Samuel, Martha (now Mrs. J. Anderson). Mary and Florence (now Mrs. W. E. Gill). Mrs. Calhoun is a descendant of Joseph Corrington, a native of New Jersey, who died in 1834, at the age of seventy-six years. He was a farmer who served in the Revolutionary War, and moved with his family to the site of Cincinnati, Ohio, when only a block house and two other buildings were there. Joseph's son. Samuel, was born in New Jersey in 1786, and married Ruth Dickinson in 1811. They had eleven children, of whom Mrs. Calhoun, the sixth child, was born in Butler County. Ohio, November 17, 1820. Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun are spending their declining years in comfort in the home they have occupied continuously for fifty-three years.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CAMPBELL, ALBERT D.; Dealer in Hay and Grain; born December 22, 1850; son of George and Martha (Camelin) Campbell. His father was born in the Highlands of Scotland and his mother in Virginia, his paternal grandfather being William Campbell, of the Clan Campbell of Scotland. The maternal grandparents were William and Elizabeth Camelin. George Campbell came to America at the age of sixteen and settled in Pennsylvania, subsequently locating in Fond du Lac Township, Tazewell County, Illinois, where he taught some of the early schools of that county. Later he engaged in brick-making, but coming to Peoria about 1854, served on the police force and as Constable and City Marshal. During the War of the Rebellion he raised a company for the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry (Col. Ingersoll's Regiment), of which he was commissioned as Captain, but was compelled to resign on account of ill health. Subsequently he went to St. Louis and helped construct the Mississippi River gunboats. In 1865 he returned to Peoria County, and settled on a farm, where he died a year later, leaving a widow and two children: Albert D. and G. Frank. William Camelin built the first frame house between Peoria and Springfield, also the first distillery, the first flour mill and the first saw-mill in Tazewell County. They were located on Farm Creek and run by water-power. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and in the Blackhawk War. Both he and his wife spoke the language of the Indians. He was very fond of a joke and a great story teller. His wife died at the age of eighty. After the death of George Campbell his family removed to Peoria, where Frank entered into the employment of the railroads— serving for a time as Traveling Auditor of the Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Railway, and later held a similar position in Indianapolis and also in Mexico. He went to the Island of Cuba several years ago. Albert D. Campbell was educated in the Grammar and High schools of Peoria, and at the age of twenty-two years he left the farm and engaged in his present business in his home city, in which he had but one competitor. This business he has pursued continuously ever since. He has served as City Weighmaster for twenty-five consecutive years—also served three terms (six years) as Supervisor. On December 25, 1871, he married Jennie Gale, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Gale, who died in 1880 leaving one child, Lulu. In 1882 he was married to Kate Kuhn, a native of Chillicothe, daughter of Peter and Maria Kuhn. Of this marriage there has been born one son, Albert D. Mr. Campbell is a member of the Knights of Pythias, has filled all the chairs in the subordinate lodge, and has been four times Grand Representative. He is also a member of the Elks, the Royal League, the Columbian Knights, the Modern Woodmen, the Fraternal Tribunes and the Rathbone Sisters. In politics he is a Democrat—is also a member of the Episcopal Church. He has traveled quite extensively in the United States, enjoys a first class business at 128 Main Street, and has a fine residence at 417 St. James Street.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CAMPBELL, ROBERT M.; Assistant Postmaster, Peoria, was born November 10, 1839, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Mungo D. and Mary A. (Mabon) Campbell, who were both of Scotch descent, and coming to Illinois in 1836, located at Monmouth, Warren County. Soon after he had entered Monmouth College the Civil War was inaugurated, and, when Fort Sumter was fired upon, he immediately enlisted in response to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers. On April 19, 1861, he assisted in organizing a company which was ordered to report at Peoria, .where they were mustered in May 24, 1861, as Company F, Seventeenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with Leonard F. Ross as Colonel and Josiah Moore as Captain of his company. Mr. Campbell participated in all the engagements in which his regiment was engaged, and in its many long and weary marches. The regiment took part in the Missouri campaign of 1861, was in the battle of Fredericktown on November 21st, at Forts Henry and Donelson in February, 1862, in the battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862, and at the siege of Corinth. The loss in killed and wounded was very heavy. Campbell was pro- moted to Sergeant for meritorious services at Fort Donelson, and was again promoted to Color Sergeant of the regiment, March 29, 1863. When President Lincoln decided to organize colored troops, officers were selected from the non-commissioned officers of the white regiments. Sergeant Campbell was recommended for appoint- ment and commissioned Captain of Company F, Forty-seventh Regiment, United States Colored Troops, June 6, 1863, and served with distinction until January 5, 1866, when, their services being no longer required, the regiment was mustered out. While in that service he participated in the battle of Yazoo City, Miss., of March 5, 1864, when he was wounded in the left foot; also in the siege and capture of Port Blakely, Alabama, April, 1865, which was the last battle of the war. After serving faithfully for four years and nine months he returned to his home in Monmouth, Illinois, with an honorable record, feeling that he had served his country well in the hour of trial and danger. Mr. Campbell came from a patriotic and loyal family, his grandfather, Robert Campbell, for whom he was named, being an officer in the War of 1812, who lost his life from wounds received in the service of his country, while his father was an officer of an independent artillery company whose services were tendered to the Government during the Mexican War, but not accepted because it already had all the artillery it could use. He was also captain of a company organized during the War of the Rebellion, who performed home-guard duty, being too aged for active service. James S., an older brother of Capt. Robert M. Campbell, graduated from Monmouth College in June, 1862, at once enlisted in Company C, Eighty-third Regiment Illinois Volunteers, and was killed in the battle of Fort Donelson on February 3, 1863. A younger brother, John M., enlisted in the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry, and served six months; then, in 1864, re-enlisted in the Forty-seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteers, serving until January, 1866. During his connection with the army Captain Campbell served under Generals Fremont, Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Logan, McArthur, Canby and Steele. After returning home he graduated from the business college and served for a time in the freight department of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, then engaged in the grain business and located in Chicago from 1870 to 1876, when he removed to Peoria, where he has since resided, his present home being at 414 West Armstrong Avenue. During his business life in Peoria he was a member of the firm of B. H. Morgan & Co., on the Board ot Trade from 1876 to 1886, and in 1883 served as Vice-President of the Board. He was appointed Assistant Postmaster under the Harrison administration in May, 1889, serving until May, 1894; was re-appointed by Postmaster W. E. Hull in April, 1898, and has served faithfully during the past four years. He has just been re-appointed by Mr. Hull for another term from April 1, 1902. On November 30, 1871, at Monmouth, Captain Campbell was joined in marriage to Miss Effie G. Babcock, daughter of George Babcock, of Monmouth, Illinois. By this union there were born two daughters: Nellie Pallas, now Mrs. Lawrence I. Thompson, and Minnie Agnes, who died April 15, 1892. Capt. Campbell has been an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic since its first organization; has been chosen three times as Commander of Bryner Post, No. 67, Department of Illinois, served one term as Senior Vice Department Commander, and also as a member of the Council of Administration. He has always been an active member of the Republican party, training in its ranks during Lincoln's first campaign. His parents were of Scotch-Presbyterian stock, and he has been a member of the First Presbyterian Church of this city since 1876.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CARTWRIGHT, BENJAMIN K., Secretary Peoria Park Board, was born in Peoria, June 29, 1859, the son of William S. and Ann (Harrison) Cartwright, both of whom were natives of England. His father came to Peoria in 1851, was a blacksmith by trade, and, during the Civil War, served as Government inspector in the purchase of horses for service in the army. He died in 1885 and his wife in 1899. The son was educated in the public schools of his native city and Valparaiso, Indiana. He has pursued the occupation of a bookkeeper, but on the organi- zation of the first Board of Park Trustees for the city of Peoria in 1894, became a member of the Board and its Secretary; has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the village of Averyville for six years, and of the Averyville School Board for nine years. On May 15, 1883, he was married at Fairbury. Illinois, to Miss Minnie Jackson, and they have four children: Goldie, Edna, Annie and Benjamin, Jr. Mr. Cartwright is prominent in Masonic circles, being Secretary of the Peoria Consistory and thirty-second-degree member of all Masonic bodies; a member of the Order of Maccabees, Modern Woodmen, Royal League and Royal Neighbors. In religious belief he is a Protestant and in political principles a Republican.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CASE, STEPHEN; Engineer; born in Warsaw, Illinois, February 14, 1870; son of Stephen and Nancy (Mundy) Case. His father was born in New York, July 31, 1835; and his mother in Warsaw, Illinois. They were the parents of sixteen children, twelve of whom are still living: Minnie, now Mrs. Bowman; Martin; Edward; Stephen: William; Cyrus C.; Noel; Alfred; Frank; Pearl; Nancy; and Mahala, who is now Mrs. John A. Blaney. Mr. Case was an engineer in the employ of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad from the time of its construction until his death, July 10, 1899, a period of nearly forty years. He was prominent in Masonic affairs, and had taken the thirty-second degree. Stephen Case (Junior) was married to Miss Ada A. Swing, in Peoria, January 21, 1892; they have one child, Irene E. Mrs. Case is the daughter of Jeremiah Swing, who was born in 1841, and married Lizzie Coffman, a native of Germany. They had two children: George E., who is a fireman for the Toledo. Peoria & Western Railroad, and Mrs. Case. Mr. Swing is now a baggage-man in the service of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad. Mr. Case belongs to the W. F. Hines Lodge, No. 48. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He is a Republican.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CHARVAT, ALOIS L. : Blacksmith and Carriage-maker; born near Prague, Austria, July 20, 1854; son of Venzel and Ann (Hosack) Charvat. By means of manuscript now in the possession of the family its history may be traced back many generations. Venzel Charvat was a shoemaker, and came to this country with his family in 1854, landing at New Orleans, and making the journey to Peoria up the Mississippi river. He was the father of ten sons and one daughter. Four of his boys and the daughter are now living. Alois L. is the youngest of his surviving children. He learned the painter's trade, which was his principal business in Peoria until 1898, when he became interested in his present enterprise. Mr. Charvat is an artistic carriage and sign painter, and for years did the finest work of the kind in the city. During the winter season, when trade was slack, for many years Mr. Charvat was accustomed to travel and give exhibitions of magic, in which he was expert. In 1898 he opened a general blacksmith, carriage and wagon shop at Nos. 1412 and 1414 South Adams Street, where he has built up a very successful business and gives employment to six men. He belongs to the Independent Order of Mutual Aid. Mr. Charvat was married May 17, 1878, to Mary E. Kallista in Peoria, ana they have seven children: Annan; Laura; Leo; May and Delia, who are twins; Frank and Lois.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CHRISTIANSON, CHRISTIAN; Contractor; born in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2, 1850; son of Christian and Anna Margareta (Olson) Mortenson, who were born near Copenhagen. The father, who was a brick maker by trade, owned a small farm. Christian learned the carpenter trade. When he was twenty-two he came to the United States by way of Hull and London, landing in the city of New York, and making his home in Chicago for eight or nine months. At Streator he worked in the coal mines for a time, and then made his way to Peoria, where he has lived for about twenty-two years. For about five years he was a journeyman, but as soon as he had thoroughly mastered American customs and ways, began for himself in business, and his career as a contracting builder has been very successful, because it has represented honesty, intelligence and industry. About 1885 he bought the land and built the house he occupies at the present time, at No. 218 May Street; he also owns property on Washington Street. Mr. Christianson was married in Peoria to Miss Sophia Eichhorn, a daughter of George P. Eichhorn, for many years a resident of Peoria. Five children have been born to them: Wilhelm, Frederick, Katherina, Frank and Walter. Mr. Christianson belongs to several fraternal orders, Western Lodge of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen, the Royal Neighbors, Maccabees, and the South Side Turners.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CLARKE, EDWARD M.; Woodworker; born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1844, is the son of Thomas G. and Eve (Miller) Clarke. His father was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1822. The grandfather, Jacob Clarke, a native of Westmoreland County, born in 1794, married Nancy Griffith, who was born in York County, 1798. The great-grandfather, Oliver Clarke, was also a resident and probably a native of Westmorland County, Pennsylvania. In 1855 Thomas G. Clarke and family moved to Moline, Illinois, where he operated a planing mill. In the year 1859 he settled in Peoria, where he spent the remainder of his life. Mr. E M. Clarke enlisted in Company F, One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in 1864, and served one year, taking part in the campaigns of Stone River, Chickamauga, and others. He re-enlisted in Company E, One Hundred and Fifty-first Infantry, and served another year, campaigning over nearly the same territory covered in his previous service. In 1866 he engaged in carpentry and woodworking and worked in that line till 1895, being employed by the Truesdale Manufacturing Company twenty-two years. In the last year of his employment he became senior partner in the firm of Clarke & Forbes, to which firm Mr. Frank Snow was admitted two years later. Clarke. Forbes & Snow now have a large plant at 119 North Washington Street, where they do nearly all kinds of woodwork, office and store fixtures, cabinet and pattern work taking front rank. Mr. Clarke married Sarah J. Brownell, in Peoria, June 16, 1868. They have two children: Ira J. and Alta M.—two others dying in infancy. The family are members of the Baptist Church. Mr. Clarke is a member of Bryner Post No. 67, Grand Army of the Republic, and votes for the principles he fought for in the time of the Rebellion.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CLEGG, JOSEPH; Merchant, Peoria; born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1814; in infancy brought by his parents to America, the family settling in St. Louis, where the son's boyhood was spent. His father having become interested in mining property about Galena, removed to that place, and the son, while still a lad, repeatedly made the journey between St. Louis and Galena on horseback camping on the spot where the city of Peoria now stands. While still a young man, he settled at Tremont, in Tazewell County, and after remaining there a number of years, came to Peoria in 1845, where he resided for the remainder of his life. Mr. Clegg was in the mercantile business for a considerable period, but retired some fifteen years before his death, which occurred September 5, 1885. During his business career he accumulated an amole competency and spent the latter years of his life in a fine suburban residence on the Knoxville Road. He was twice married, and at his death, left one son (of the first wife), Joseph A. Clegg, now residing at 314 North Madison Avenue, and two daughters, Mrs. W. H. Miller, and Mrs. E. H. Walker (children of the second wife), both of whom reside in Peoria.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CLEMOW, DAVID G.; Dry-gauger; born in Georgetown, Beauharnois County, Canada, August 22, 1849; son of John and Catherine (Syme) Clemow, and grandson of Abraham and Elizabeth Clemow. John Clemow was born at Kenwyn, Cornwall, England, January 4, 1819, and died January 24, 1892. His wife, Catherine Syme, was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, June 27, 1824, and is a daughter of Dr. David and Cleophine (Anderson) Syme, natives of Scotland. Dr. Syme, who died September 29, 1851, settled at South Georgetown, Canada East, where he was joined by his family about 1836. For many years he practiced medicine in that place, and was drowned during a nocturnal storm, by falling from a footbridge into the Chateaugay River while calling on a patient. John Clemow came to America when it required six weeks to cross the ocean. He spent a year or more in Montreal, and then moved out to his farm in the vicinity of South Georgetown. From this place he passed to a farm near Huntington. where the greater part of his life was spent. He was married December 24, 1846, to Catherine Syme, by whom. he had two children: Elizabeth, the widow of William W. Corbett, and now a resident of Peoria, and David G. David G. Clemow left home when he was seventeen years of age to take a position as a clerk in an exporting house in Montreal. He worked there something over a year and then spent two years in a business college. After that he came to the United States and was employed at Menasha and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and learned the cooper's trade near Minneapolis. For a year and a half he manufactured flour barrels in Omaha, and came to Peoria in April, 1872. For some years he worked as a journeyman cooper in this city, and then established himself in a shop of his own, being interested in various coopering enterprises in connection with the distilleries and in other industries. At the present time he is dry-gauger and foreman of the Monarch Distillery Warehouse, a position he has held for twenty-one years, with the exception of nine months when he was out of the State. In April, 1900, he was elected Township Collector. Mr. Clemow is an Odd Fellow, and has filled all the chairs in the subordinate lodge. He united with the order in 1874, and for eleven years has been Secretary of Columbia Lodge. He has also passed all the chairs in the Encampment, and is a Patriarch Militant. For meritorious work for the Order he was invested by the Sovereign Grand Lodge with the Grand Decoration of Chivalry. Mr. Clemow was active in the organization of the Columbia and Western Association, and was largely instrumental in building the hall for these two lodges. He is a Major General on the Staff of Department Commander General Seckner. Mr. Clemow also belongs to Peoria Lodge, No. 15, A. F. & A. M., and is a Royal Arch Mason. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and Order of Mutual Protection, of which he is Supreme President. In 1888 he assisted in the formation of Baker Camp, Modern Woodmen of America, of which he was the first Venerable Consul. He has represented his camp at several meetings of the State organization, and twice attended the Head Camp as a delegate. Mr. Clemow was married February 4, 1875, to Mattie A. Stivers, in Peoria. They have one child, Sarah C. Mrs. Clemow is the daughter of Monroe P. and Sarah Stivers, and was born in Dover, Kentucky. Her father was born in Brown County, Ohio, October 20. 1828, and is still living. Her mother, who was born in Adams County, Ohio. April 30, 1828, died July 7, 1894. Mrs. Clemow takes an active interest in fraternity matters, and is Past Grand of Rebecca Lodge, No. 113. belongs to Central City Chapter of the Eastern Star, and is Oracle of Baker Camp, Royal Neighbors.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COLBURN, WALTER PHELPS; Wholesale Druggist: Peoria; was born at Bloomington, Illinois, February 6, 1843, the son of Edwin Milo and Mary Angeline (Phelps) Colburn—the former a native of Rome, New York, and the latter of Chelsea, Vermont. On the paternal side Mr. Colburn's great-grandparents were Cornelius Colburn, a native of Hampton, Windham County. Connecticut, and Rachel (Robinson) Colburn, born at Windham in the same county, while his grandparents were Walter and Anna (Sly) Colburn, both natives of Windham Town, Connecticut. He came to Peoria, April 1, 1850, educated in the public schools here and on January 1, 1863, engaged in the wholesale drug business under the firm name of Simoneau & Colburn, which, in 1872, became Colburn, Birks & Co., the firm being incorporated with Mr. Colburn as President and general manager. Mr. Colburn was married in Chicago, October 13, 1870, to Henrietta Bishop, and they have had two children: Maria Bishop Kinney and Walter Phelps, Jr.—the latter deceased. In religious faith Mr. Colburn is a Protestant, and in politics a Republican.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COLEMAN, ALBERT; Contractor and Builder: born in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1833; son of Calvin and Phoebe (Card) Coleman. The father was a native of Newington. New Hampshire, the grandfather, Woodman Coleman, was a native of England. Others of his ancestors were from Scotland. Mr. Coleman began to learn the brickmaker's trade in Boston, when he was twenty-one. In 1856 he came to Peoria and worked at his trade until 1861. That year he journeyed to California, where he spent the ensuing five years. In 1866 he came back to the East, and married in New Hampshire, and brought his bride to Peoria. Here he has since been engaged in contracting and building. Many of the best business and residence blocks and houses of this city were erected by him. Among them may be mentioned the Paddock Block, the Van Marter Block, the King and Jack Block, and many fine homes, among them E. D. Hardin's, A. J. Hodges' and S. H. Thompson's. He married Sarah A. Palmer in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. in 1866, and to them have been born four children: Calvin, who is engaged with his father as a contractor; Ada, now Mrs. J. J. Crowder; Delia, who died in 1876; and Alice. Mr. Coleman is a Democrat. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COLEMAN, CLINTON ARNOLD DOUGLAS; Teacher of Shorthand; born in Mansfield, Indiana, July 23, 1856; son of John and Martha Lavina (Glidewell) Coleman. The father was born at Mansfield in 1828; the mother, a native of Indiana, was born in 1835. They were married at Fairfield, Indiana, in 1852. The history of the family extends back to Revolutionary times. The paternal grandparents were Zophar and Emily (Smith) Coleman, the former born in Virginia, in 1794. The paternal great-grandparents were Abraham Coleman, who was born on Long Island, January 19, 1770, and Elizabeth Parker, born near Baltimore, Maryland. On the mother's side the grandparents were Gnash and Anna Glidewell, the former born in South Carolina. May 21, 1790, and the latter born October 14, 1791. The maternal great-grandparents were Robert Glidewell. who was born in Virginia in 1750, and Joanna Lovesay, a native of the eastern coast of Maryland. So far as known all these ancestors were farmers. John Coleman went to Kansas in 1858 and lived there until 1860. After returning to Indiana, where he remained until 1866, he sold his property and again returned to Kansas, taking up his residence in Coffey County, where he owned 400 acres of land, part of which lay in Andersen County. He died in Coffey County, near Burlington, in 1872. Clinton A. D. Coleman received his primary education in Coffey County. In 1890 he took a year's course in the Central Shorthand School, from which he was graduated. He located in Peoria and opened the Coleman School of Shorthand in which he has been very successful and has fitted many students for lucrative positions in life, all graduates being guaranteed positions. In politics he is a Democrat. He is a member of the Christian Church.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COLLINS, CLIFFORD U.; Physician; Averyville; born in Batavia, Ohio. December 17, 1867: son of John D. and Martha (Cox) Collins. His father was born in Clinton County, Ohio, September 17, 1838; the mother in Auglaize County, Ohio, January 21, 1839. Both are living. The paternal grandfather was Samuel P. Collins, a native of New Hampshire, who died aged sixty-nine, and the paternal grandmother. Nancy (Dalton) Collins, of New Hampshire, died at the age of forty-two. The maternal grandfather, Aaron Cox, was born in Randolph County, North Caroline, June 6, 1800—the latter died February 3, 1883. Mr. Cox married Mary Bailey, who was born in March, 1820, and died at the age of seventy-nine years. S. P. Collins settled in Clinton County, Ohio, in 1830. when the country was comparatively new, engaged in farming and became the owner of a large farm. John D. Collins received a good education. He married Martha Cox September 25, 1859. In 1862 he enlisted in Company K, Seventy-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served as a sharpshooter for three years. He went with Sherman to the sea, and was mustered out of service at Washington, D. C., after participating in the Grand Review at the close of the war. He settled in Vandalia, Illinois, in 1873, and was a prominent educator in Fayette County and Principal of Schools at Vandalia and Ramsey, Illinoin 1878 he engaged in general insurance, and has since been in that business at Vandalia. Dr. Collins was graduated from the Vandalia High School in 1885 and taught during the following five years, first in the country and later as Principal in Vandalia. Later he became a student at the Physio-Medical College at Indianapolis, Indiana, from which he was graduated in 1891. After practicing a short time he went to St. Louis and took a course at the Marion Sims College of Medicine, graduating in 1892. After practicing two years at Vandalia, he removed to Averyville, April 1, 1893, and has grown up with the town. He has a handsome cottage, a well equipped office and a fine library, cases of medical instruments, and is located at 2913 North Adams Street. He is very methodical in business and has a card index to all prescriptions for the past five years and to all articles in current medical journals. He is the Health Officer of Averyville, a member of the Peoria City Medical Society, of the Illinois State Medical Society, the American Medical Associa- tion, also of the Supreme Court of Honor, the Modern Woodmen and the Royal Neighbors, for the last three of which he is medical examiner. His maternal grandparents were Quakers and Abolitionists. His mother is prominent in the W. C. T. U., and his father is an active worker in the Prohibition party. The Doctor has always voted the Prohibition ticket. Dr. Collins married Belle Henry, in Vandalia, January 2, 1890, and they have one child, named Constance. Mrs. Collins is the daughter of Judge B. W. Henry, who has been practicing law in Vandalia for the last forty-three years. He is the son of Bushford Henry, of Shelbyville, a pioneer preacher, and was born in Shelby County in 1834. Her mother, Sarah (Johnson) Henry, was born at Pocahontas, Illinois, in 1842.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CORRIGAN, THOMAS F.; Conductor; son of Dennis and Martha (Flynn) Corrigan; born at Litchfield, Illinois, January 27, 1862. His father was born in County Tipperary in 1836, and the mother in County Clare, Ireland, in 1839. The paternal grandfather, John, came to America with his family about 1839, and settled at Red Hook, in Dutchess County, New York, where he finally died. Dennis Corrigan, a stonemason by trade, came to Illinois in 1850 and first lived at Alton, later settling at Litchfield, where he now resides. Mrs. Corrigan's parents came to America about 1851, and located in New York City, but after the death of the father the mother came to Illinois. Thomas F. Corrigan was educated in the Ursuline Academy and the High School of his native town. When eighteen years of age he was employed as a brakeman by the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad, now a part of the Big Four System, remaining there two years. For two years following he was engaged in the same capacity with the Wabash Railroad, and then served as conductor one year, with headquarters at Decatur. At the end of that time he took charge of a department in a large mill at Litchfield, where he remained one year; then became yardmaster for the Indianapolis & St. Louis Road at Litchfield, for two years, after which he accepted a position as conductor on the St. Louis & Chicago Railroad between Litchfield and Springfield. He had charge of the first construction train engaged in the building of that road. Subsequently he took the position of freight conductor and then passenger conductor on the same road, remaining in that position four years, until that road became a part of the Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis' System; since then he has been with that company as a passenger conductor.
Mr. Corrigan married Margaret Brennan, in Gillespie, Illinois, June 13, 1888. They have two children, Edward and Thomas. The parents of Mrs. Corrigan are Christopher and Margaret (Hughes) Brennan, natives of Ireland. Mr. Corrigan is independent in politics. He is a member of the Order of Railway Conductors, the Knights of Columbus, and the B. P. O. E.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COUCH, HARRIMAN; Physician; born at West Boscawen, New Hampshire, May 20, 1824; son of Benjamin and Sally (Morse) Couch, natives of West Boscawen. The paternal grandfather was Jacob Couch. He and his son were farmers, but the latter also worked at the joiner trade. When seventeen years of age Mr. Harriman Couch left home and went to Concord, New Hampshire, where he worked for Governor Hill as a compositor on Hill's "New Hampshire Patriot." From there he went to Boston, where he studied medicine and worked at the case to pay his expenses. On account of poor health he obtained passage as a sailor on a vessel bound for California. At Rio Janeiro he went on shore and he and two other comrades were left when the ship sailed. There he obtained work in the Brazilian Government Printing Office, and was brought to the notice of Emperor Dom Pedro, who was very democratic in his ideas and habits. He assisted the Emperor in studying English and was often in the Emperor's company. After a few months he started on a voyage to Capetown, South Africa, on what proved to be a slave vessel. She was overhauled by a British war vessel and the crew made prisoners, but Dr. Couch was soon released for want of evidence against him. He then returned to Rio Janeiro, and thence to Mobile, after which he sailed on a sparladen English vessel to Brest, France. Returning from France, he made a voyage to Ireland and from there to Boston; next sailed to Mobile and New Orleans, and ascending the Mississ- ippi reached Chicago in 1848. From Chicago he went to Wisconsin and remained there two years; a part of the time he worked on a paper at Geneva Lake. At the latter place Dr. Couch was married to Phebe Ann Macomber, soon after coming to Peoria. where Mrs. Couch died in 1852. Here he became manager and one of the proprietors of the ''Voice of the People," a weekly newspaper; also worked on the "Daily Republican" and other papers, and finally opened a job office, which he operated until about 1863, when he entered the service of the Government and had charge of the Military Cemetery at Chattanooga, Tennessee, where ten thousand soldiers are buried. While at Chattanooga he engaged in the practice of medicine, and, on his return to Peoria at the close of the war, he received a diploma and entered upon regular practice, which he. has since followed. May 20, 1855, he married Mrs. Margaret A. Gilbert, widow. Of this marriage there is one child, Edward H. D. Couch, born October l, 1859, who was captain of Company L, Fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in the War with Spain. He is now Captain of Company H, Twenty-eighth Regiment United States Volunteers, in the Philippine Islands. Dr. Couch resides at 312 South Jefferson Avenue, where he has lived forty-five years. His wife died Jan- uary 21, 1902.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COVEY, DELBERT A., Attorney-at-law, was born at Poplar Grove, Illinois, May 22, 1876, the son of Edwin A. and Elizabeth (Dimond) Covey —the former a native of Illinois, and the latter of Canada. Mr. Covey's paternal grandfather was Stephen Covey, who was born in Vermont, and married Susan Jenner, a native of New York. His maternal grandparents were Richard and Sarah (Luxton) Dimond, both natives of England. Delbert A. Covey was educated in the Belvidere High School, Dixon Normal School, and Kent College of Law at Chicago. He was admitted to practice at the age of twenty-one years, and became associated with his brothers, Frank R., and Ira J. Covey, in the city of Peoria —is now the junior member of the firm of Covey, Mann & Covey, with offices in the Woolner Building. Mr. Covey is a Congregationalist, and in politics, a Republican; is also a member of Temple Lodge, No. 46, A. F. & A. M.; of Peoria Lodge, No. 20, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; of West Bluff Lodge No. 177 Knights of Pythias, and of the Creve Coeur Club.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COVEY, FRANK R.; Attorney-at-law, formerly of Peoria, now of Belvidere, Illinois; was born at Belvidere, February 16, 1866, the son of Edwin A. Covey, whose father settled in Boone County in 1839. Mr. Covey was educated in the Belvidere High School and at Northwestern University, studied law at Belvidere, Illinois, with Judge Charles E. Fuller, and was admitted to the bar in 1891. In the latter year he came to Peoria and began practice, becoming the head of the firm of Covey & Covey—the junior member of the firm being his brother, Ira J. Covey. On October 10, 1899, Mr. Covey was married to Miss Harriet L. Longcor, of Belvidere, and in November, 1901, retired from the law firm of Covey & Covey in Peoria, removing to Belvidere, where he is the agent and attorney for the large estate left to Mrs. Covey by her grandmother and mother. In politics, Mr. Covey is a Republican.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COVEY, IRA J.; Attorney-at-law, Peoria; was born at Belvidere, Boone County, Illinois, October 26, 1873. His paternal grandfather, Stephen Covey, came to Illinois in 1839, and located in Boone County, where his father, Edwin A., was born in 1842. Ira J. was educated at the Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois, graduating in 1893, and studied law with Judge Charles E. Fuller, of Belvidere, being admitted to the bar in 1893. In the latter year he came to Peoria and entered into practice with his brother, Frank R. Covey. The latter retired from the firm in November, 1901, his place being taken by P. E. Mann, the title of the firm now being Covey, Mann & Covey. They are extensively engaged in practice connected with commercial law, and give especial attention to bank- ruptcy cases. Mr. Covey was married June 27, 1894, to Alta F. Linnell and they have three children: Linn, Marion, and Ira J., Jr. In religious affiliation Mr. Covey is a Congregationalist, and, politically, a Republican. For five years he has been a member of the Republican Township Committee for Peoria Township, and was also a member of the Republican City Committee for one year.
from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
COWELL, BENJAMIN (deceased); Merchant and Street-railway Promoter; born in Providence, Rhode Island, December 28, 18l8, the son of Benjamin Cowell, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Court and Collector of the Port under President Polk, and grandson of Major Samuel Cowell, a soldier of the Revolution. He became one of "Argonauts" to California in 1849, but removed to Peoria in 1858, where he began business here as a merchant. At the opening of the Civil War in 1861 he served as a member of the local Committee of Safety. Mr. Cowell believed thoroughly in the future development of the city of Peoria, and proved his faith by erecting the first store building on block 200 South Adams Street, when it was declared to be foolish to expect business to prosper so far from Main Street. The same spirit animated him in seconding the efforts of his cousin, E. J. Cowell, to secure the building of a street railway on Adams Street. His earnest arguments and persuasions. however, resulted in the construction of the Central City Horse Railway, of which he was a prominent Director, and afterwards Treasurer and practical manager at the time of his death, October 14, 1873. In business he was eminently successful, leaving a large and well established wall-paper trade to his son, who is now conducting the business at 211 South Adams Street where it was originally established by his farsighted father. He was also prominent in church work, serving as vestryman of St. Paul's Episcopal Church up to the time of his death, and the resolutions of respect then adopted by his associates in the Vestry and the Board of Directors of the Central City Horse Railway Company, attest his sterling worth to the community in which he passed the better part of his vigorous and up-right life. Mr. Cowell was married, October 1, 1845, to Amey W. Harris, who survived him twenty-eight years, dying Decem- ber 16, 1901. Their children were: (l) Joseph Harris, born April 4, 1847, served 100 days in the One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Illinois Volunteers during the War of the Rebellion, afterwards graduating from Brown University with the degree of A. B., received the degree of M. D. from Michigan University, and is now a practicing physician in Saginaw, Michigan—is married and has three children; (2) Elizabeth Howell, born October 18, 1848, died April 20, 1895 was one of the ''Women's Club" of Peoria; (3) Benjamin, born, May 9, 1853, married Mary A. Goss, of Peoria, and has five children; (4) Amy A., born December 30, 1861, married and died without issue, May 26, 1890.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CRANDELL, EUGENE A.; Carpenter and Builder; born at Prospect Hill, Richwoods Township, March 16, 1854; son of John Wesley and Jane (Stringer) Crandell. The grandfather Crandell came from the vicinity of Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Peoria County. His maternal grandfather, Moses Stringer, was a farmer and came to Peoria County in 1832 and settled in Richwoods, where he owned a large tract of land. He was a man of influence and held the offices of Assessor, Collector and Justice of the Peace. He had a family of eight children: Jane (the mother of Mr. Eugene A. Crandell), George, Isaac, Moses, Bettie, Isabel. Sarah and Rebecca. Eugene was born about two months after his father's death, which occurred January 31, 1854. His mother was left with a large family of small children, but she was a woman of strong character, and by her counsel and example her children grew up to be honored and respected. Eugene was born in a log house and went to school in a log school house. While hunting cattle on the river bottoms he often saw wild game and was several times "treed" by wild hogs. When the War of the Rebellion broke out four of the Crandell boys, Moses, Isaac, John and William, enlisted and made honorable records in the service of their country. Mrs. Crandell died July 2, 1897, aged seventy-five years. Eugene stayed at home until twenty-one years of age, and, on that day, leased Frye's Rope Ferry, not far from the upper free bridge, and operated it for five years. Later he moved into Peoria, and worked at the carpenter's trade, during which he helped to build both sugar houses. One summer he operated three pile drivers for the Iowa Central Railway Company. In 1887 he began contracting and has erected several well known buildings about the city among them the Goldsborough store at 2300 Jefferson Street, the McLane residence at 2302 Jefferson Street, and the Northern Hotel on Adams Street. He helped to build the Log Cabin in Glen Oak Park. In 1895 he built the two-story frame residence at in Van Buren Street, where he now lives. He married Julia A. Lower in Peoria, August 3, 1875, and they have five children: George, Ward, Mettie, Lizzie and Willie. Mettie is the wife of Chalmers Sebree. Mrs. Crandell was born January 11, 1855, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Decker) Lower. The father was born in Ohio and the mother in Virginia. The former died in Peoria in 1886, while the latter is still living at the age of sixty-eight. Politically Mr. Crandell is a Democrat. He is fond of hunting and owns a gasoline pleasure launch, which he uses on the river. He is a stanch supporter of the game laws, and is a Game Warden for the Tenth Congressional District, and is a private detective for several large firms and corporations throughout the State.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CRANDELL, ISAAC W.; Contractor and Builder; born at Prospect Hill, Richwoods Township, Peoria County, December 5, 1844; son of John Wesley and Jane (Stringer) Crandell, natives of Ohio. The paternal grandfather, Joshua Crandell, was a native of New England, was a shoemaker by trade and served in the War of 1812. He married Hannah Zane, a daughter of Ebenezer Zane, the founder of Zanesville, Ohio, and his sister, Sarah McIntire, was the founder of the Orphan's Home at Zanesville. He was the owner of a farm near the present village of Hollis Station in Hollis Township, where he settled in. the pioneer days of Peoria County, living there until his death, in 1842. The maternal grandfather, Moses H. Stringer, a native of Virginia, was a farmer, and served in the Black Hawk War. He married Mary Warden, who was born in the same State. He owned the west half of section 22 in Richwoods Township, where he lived until his death in 1866. John W. Crandell moved to Richwoods Township after his marriage. His home was on the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Sec- tion 22, where he was engaged in farming till his death, January 31, 1854, in consequence of being shot, at the house of his brother (which was the old homestead in Hollis Township), by his brother-in-law, Isaac Stringer, whom he was taking to the Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville. He had stopped for dinner, when the man took up a loaded rifle which stood behind the door, and, saying pleasantly, "Look out. Wesley, I am going to shoot you," fired and killed him instantly. The insane man then ran up the bluff, climbed a tree and jumping from it fell a hundred feet and was killed. Mrs. Crandell was thus left with a family of eight children, the oldest being but fifteen years old. At that time the country was still new, and deer, turkeys, wolves, wild cats and wild hogs were very numerous. Mr. Isaac Crandell got his first education in a log school house that stood in the middle of the road in the center line of Section 21. At eighteen years of age he enlisted in Company D, One Hundred and Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served from January 6, 1864, to January 6, 1866, mostly in the Department of the Gulf. He took part in the siege of Mobile, the capture of Fort Blakeley and Spanish Fort. He was one of the foremost of his regiment to enter the latter and his regiment was the second in. After coming home he was a farmer for five years, part of the time running a hopyard of ten acres on the river bottom. In 1871 he began carpentering, and in 1872 moved into Peoria, where he has built many residences: also built the Prospect Heights school house, the Amphitheatre at Lake View Park, Andrew Nelson's barn in Richwoods (the largest frame barn in the county), and many wooden bridges. He was the architect and builder in 1896 of the Log Cabin in Glen Oak Park. In 1892 he built the two-story frame residence which he now occupies at 115 Van Buren Street. He has another house and lot at Averyville. He has filled the offices of Supervisor, School Inspector and Highway Commissioner; is also a member of the Redmen and the American Home and Fireside. Mr. Crandell married Elizabeth Phillips in Peoria, May 14, 1866. They have four children: Jennie, the wife of Peter Melius; Ida, wife of Thomas Owen; William W., who married Mabel Thompson; and Isaac W., Jr. The parents of Mrs. Crandell were Joseph and Elizabeth (Sullivan) Phillips, natives of Ohio, both of whom died at the age of seventy-seven years—the former in 1877 and the latter in 1887. The father was a wheelwright and later a farmer in Kickapoo Township, where they settled in 1855. They had eleven children, of whom Elizabeth was next to the youngest. She was born in Clermont County, Ohio, March 3, 1845.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CRANE, CHARLES C.; Locomotive Engineer; born in Hancock County, Illinois, October 14, 1863; son of Calvin C. and Sarah (Chambers) Crane. The father was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and the mother in St. Louis, Missouri. Calvin C. Crane and his wife had four sons and two daughters: Frank W., Charles C., Wilbur, Frederick, Estella and Flora. Mr. Crane died in 1870; Mrs. Crane is still living. Charles C. Crane entered the railway service twenty years ago, and since that time has filled several positions in the employ of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway. For eleven years he has been a locomotive engineer, and belongs to Division No. 447, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, of Peoria. He is a member of Lodge No. 15, A. F. & A. M., through the Chapter and Commandery K. T. Frank W. Crane, his brother, who was at one time a locomotive engineer, is now superintendent of a lead and zinc mine at Joplin, Missouri. Wilbur Crane is a general freight agent for the Jeffersonville, Louisville and St. Louis Railroad Company. Frederick is a telegraph operator for the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway Company. Charles C. Crane was educated in the city schools of Warsaw. He is a member of the Methodist Church. In politics he is a Democrat.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902
CUMERFORD, MARTIN V. B.; Undertaker; Peoria; was born in Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana, February 24. 1841, the son of George and Harriet (Collis) Cumerford. His father was a native of Virginia, a cabinetmaker by occupation and politically an old line Democrat who became a War Democrat during the Rebellion. The oldest of the family of eight children, with an invalid father, "Mart" was early called upon to take his place as a bread- winner. After obtaining the rudiments of an education in the common schools, with intervals of attendance at Muncie Seminary, at the age of fifteen he became postboy, carrying the United States mail between Muncie and Marion, a distance of thirty-three miles, in spite of flood and frost never missing a trip. In 1859 he went to Indianapolis, became bell-boy in the Spencer House, then second clerk and finally first clerk, which position he held at the beginning of the Civil War. He then attempted to enlist in a cavalry company being organized by Captain Bracken; but, being rejected on account of his youth, was admitted as bugler, but finding himself unable to master the instrument, discarded it for service in the ranks. The Bracken Rangers saw service with General Sigel at the second battle of Bull Run, and when all the army except Sigel's corps had fallen back on the defense at Washington, young Cumerford was entrusted by Sigel with an order to General Pope, which was delivered after encountering many serious difficulties. Under an order for the discharge of all who had been mustered in as buglers or musicians, Mr. Cumerford severed his connection with the Bracken Rangers, returning to Indianapolis. Previous to this he had been recommended by the officers of his company for appointment to a Lieutenancy, to which General Sigel added the indorsement—"Mr. Cumerford is one of my orderlies, and an intelligent young man, whom I do not hesitate to recommend." In the hurly-burly of war and press of business incident thereto, nothing came of this. The young soldier's next move was to Nashville, Tennessee, where his old commander, General Milroy, appointed him headquarters purveyor, with Tullahoma as his base of supplies. Here he practically resumed his place in the ranks until October, 1864, when he returned to Indianapolis in time to cast his first vote for Oliver P. Morton for Governor, a month later voting for Lincoln for President. November 15, 1864, he was married to Miss Jennie E. Tout, made a trip to the South and spent two years after the war as a grocer's clerk in Indianapolis; also served as a clerk of the Indiana House of Representatives during the session of 1866-67. Then coming to Peoria, he secured a position as bookkeeper in the office of the Truesdale planing-mills; two years later became manager of Ballard's lumber-yard; still later was employed in the freight-office of the. Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railroad, and, in 1874, engaged in the grocery trade, from which he retired in 1890. In 1893, in order to assist his son Harry, who had qualified himself for the undertaker's business, he took an interest in the establishment at No. 708 Main Street, with which he is still connected. Although a thorough-going Republican from his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864, he is not in the ordinary sense of the term a politician, but in 1875 was elected the first Alderman from the newly organized Eighth Ward—the only political office he ever held. He is a member of Bryner Post, G. A. R., and of Fort Clark Lodge, I. O. O. F., is of genial temperament, and maintains a character for manly independence and unswerving integrity, which has won for him the respect of the community in which the greater part of his life has been spent.from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Volume II, 1902