ANNA E. VERTREES, fourth child and second daughter of Jacob Sneed and Nancy Hobbs Vertrees of the early Perry settlement,
was born at Perry, March 30, 1847. On March 16, 1870, she married Thomas Shoemaker of Perry, with the Reverend
William Hobbs (her mother's brother) officiating. He was a son of Benjamin T. Shoemaker and Ila Howell. He had
come to Perry in 1866 and had there secured a position in the early drug store of Freeman & Dunn. Later he
entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Daniel L. Freeman, who had married Susan Shoemaker.
The name of Thomas Shoemaker is a familiar one in Griggsville commercial history. He was for a long period of years
one of Griggsville's leading citizens, progressive and zealous in advancing the interests of that town. He was
an influential counselor and few men in that vicinity have had more devoted friends. Said the Griggsville Independent
Press at the time of his death: "In all the storm and stress of life, no matter what the provocation, he never
lost command of himself, and his unfailing serenity, reasonableness and charity won for him the sincere respect
of all."
Thomas Shoemaker was born September 7, 1840 in Pahaquary, New Jersey. His parents, Benjamin T. Shoemaker and Ila
Howell, were both natives of New England. The father followed farming in Sussex county, New Jersey, before his
removal to Illinois. He was born February 10, 1812. On November 13, 1834 he wedded Miss Howell, who was born January
18, 1809.
Benjamin Shoemaker and Ila Howell had six children, namely, Susan, Thomas, Sarah, Mary, Henry and Zilpha. Susan
married Daniel L. Freeman, a native of Connecticut, and they came to Perry in Pike county, Illinois, about the
close of the Civil War. Thomas, Sarah and Zilpha also came to Pike county. Sarah married David P. Baldwin, a son
of David Baldwin, who was born in 1793 in Newark, New Jersey, contracted on a large scale in new York City for
more than 20 years, then came to Pike county in 1835 and located in Perry, where he purchased large tracts of land
and engaged in farming and in 1849 erected the Perry Flouring Mill. He died in 1854.
David P. Baldwin, who married Sarah Shoemaker, was long connected with the celebrated Pike Mills at Griggsville,
the first of their kind in that region, erected in 1877 by the firm of McMahan & Company, which was composed
of L. W. McMahan, David P. Baldwin and George Baldwin, the latter of whom soon sold out his interest.
Zilpha Shoemaker, another of the first Shoemaker family who came to Pike county, married Edward Sylvester Hoyt
of Griggsville, January 16, 1888. Both had been previously married, Mr. Hoyt's first wife being Emily Rider, a
daughter of Captain Samuel and Angeline (Carlton) Rider, while Zilpha's first husband had been Dr. Edwin G. Wilson.
As will appear later, the Shoemaker and Hoyt families became still further inter-related by the marriage of a son
of Thomas Shoemaker and a daughter of Edward S. Hoyt.
Edward S. Hoyt was born in Griggsville township February 22, 1846, a son of Sylvester C. Hoyt and Malinda M. Reid,
the latter a native of Brown county, Illinois. After completing his schooling, E. S. Hoyt clerked in a store until
he was 23, then for seven years was a clerk on a steamboat plying the Illinois river. He later engaged in the shipping
and commission business at Griggsville Landing for ten years. Appointed postmaster at Griggsville under President
Harrison, he served in that capacity four years, and upon his retirement from that office gave his attention to
the insurance business and settlement of estates. In 1902 he entered the old Griggsville National Bank as cashier.
Mr. Hoyt married Emily Rider November 12, 1868, she a daughter of Captain Samuel Rider, who had been a seafaring
man while dwelling upon the Atlantic coast. They had three children, Herbert, Clara L. and M. Alice. Emily Rider
Hoyt died August 7, 1883.
Mr. Hoyt and his second wife, Mrs. Zilpha Shoemaker Wilson, had one son, Arthur Sherman Hoyt, born May 31, 1890.
He is married and resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. E. S. Hoyt died at Griggsville, January 20, 1934, in his 88th
year. His wife, Zilpha, died May 30, 1937, aged 86. Both are buried in Griggsville cemetery.
Henry Shoemaker, brother of Thomas, born June 4, 1848, died in California. All the Shoemaker children of the first
family were born in New Jersey.
Ila Howell Shoemaker died May 3, 1860, and on March 4, 1863, Benjamin T. Shoemaker married Mrs. Ellen (Vorhees)
Felmley, widow of John S. Felmley of Phickermin, New Jersey, whom she had married at the age of 29. She was born
at Mine Brook, Somerset county, New Jersey, January 21, 1825, the fifth of eleven children born to Garret Vorhees
and Sarah Whittaker. By her first husband, John S. Felmley, she had two sons, David and John S. Felmley, the former
of whom was long president of the state normal school at Normal, Illinois. The husband and father was accidentally
killed in 1860, when the elder of the two sons was only three years old.
Benjamin T. Shoemaker, following his marriage to Mrs. Felmley in 1863, remained about five years at Somerville,
New Jersey, and in 1868 migrated with his family, including the two stepsons, John S. and David, to Pike county,
Illinois, settling on a farm near Perry.
There were four children born to Benjamin Shoemaker and his second wife, namely, Lillian, Ella, Garretta and Raphael
Shoemaker, they being half-sisters and half-brother of David and John Felmley.
Benjamin T. Shoemaker died in October, 1872, and Mrs. Shoemaker thereupon shouldered the task of caring for the
farm and her six children. In 1885 she retired from the farm and spent her declining years with her children in
Griggsville, Normal and Perry. She came of hardy and persistent stock, forebears of Holland Dutch descent who in
the time of the Reformation had endured and suffered for their Protestant faith. She was the last survivor in a
family of eleven, all of whom lived to maturity. She died July 14, 1909, in her 85th year; she was buried beside
her husband in the McCord cemetery at Perry.
Lillian Shoemaker, daughter of Benjamin by the second marriage, married Harris Triplett. Both are dead. They had
three children, Margaret, Helen and Roger Triplett. Margaret married Thomas M. Yates and has one daughter, Maryanna.
Margaret teaches in Oak Park Junior High. Helen married Glenn Dorsey and resides in Griggsville. Roger married
Florence Wooster and resides in Emporia, Kansas, where he has a position with William Allen White on the Emporia
Gazette.
Ella Shoemaker resides in Griggsville, with Mrs. Henry Williams. Garretta Shoemaker married, first, Allen Reynolds
and by him had two children, Bertha, who married Clyde Hudelson, who teaches in the ag department at Normal, and
George Reynolds, who is married and living in Boise City, Idaho. Garretta married as her second husband Norman
Keith of Perry. Raphael Shoemaker, latest born of the children of Benjamin T. Shoemaker, is located in Springfield,
Massachusetts. He married Mary Dunn in Pike county June 21, 1893.
Thomas Shoemaker, who married Anna E. Vertrees, remained upon the home farm in Sussex county, New jersey, until
he was 18, when he began teaching, following this profession for two years. Then came the Civil War and he responded
to his country's call, enlisting in Company I of the Seventh Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers, which was assigned
to the Army of the Potomac.
For three years he endured the hardships of active field service, participating in the battle of Malvern Hill,
the second battle of Bull Run, Bristow Station, Battle of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor,
the second battle of Petersburg, and Appomattox. Although never wounded, the strenuous service told upon his health
and he never after fully regained his wonted vigor.
Coming to Perry in 1866, shortly after the close of the war, Mr. Shoemaker remained a citizen of Pike county the
rest of his life. Continuing his Perry partnership with his brother-in-law, D. L. Freeman, until 1871, he came
then to Griggsville and in that year he and Mr. Freeman started a drug store business on the south side of Quincy
Avenue. In 1873 the business was moved to the location of the present Kroger store in Griggsville.
Mr. Freeman later withdrew from the partnership and returned to his native Connecticut, where he went into the
lime business and made a fortune. The drug store was operated for a time under the firm name of Shoemaker &
Wilson, the partner being Dr. E. G. Wilson, and later G. H. (Herb) Wilson conducted a jewelry and watch-making
department in connection with the business. He later bought out a location where the Whitten barber shop now is
and set up independently.
Thomas Shoemaker had married Anna Vertrees the year before he moved to Griggsville. She was a native of Perry and
a descendant of old Virginia and Kentucky families who had grappled with the Indians on the early American frontiers.
Thomas Shoemaker and Anna Vertrees had two children, Winfred and Mary Louise Shoemaker. Winfred, born March 8,
1871, married Mary Alice Hoyt November 8, 1894. The Reverend Frank W. Parsons (who married Anna E. Vertrees's sister,
Emma T.) officiated in this wedding. The bride was a daughter of Edward S. Hoyt and his first wife, Emily Rider.
Mr. Hoyt later married Winfred's aunt, Zilpha Shoemaker Wilson.
Winfred Shoemaker died in the prime of life, as the result of an accidental gunshot wound while out hunting. He
lingered for seven weeks after the accident, his death occurring at Griggsville May 24, 1899. He was 28 years,
two months and 16 days old. He was following in his father's footsteps, having fitted himself for the druggist
business.
Winfred Shoemaker and Mary Alice Hoyt had two children, Charles Hoyt and Katrina Shoemaker. Charles Hoyt Shoemaker,
born November 7, 1895, married Myra Anna Kirkpatrick, daughter of a Methodist minister. They live in Los Angeles,
California. They have no children of their own but have an adopted son, Laurence Shoemaker, born in August, 1932.
Katrina Shoemaker, daughter of Winfred, was born May 9, 1897 and was only two years old when her father died. She
died, unmarried, March 19, 1920. The mother, Mary Alice (Hoyt) Shoemaker, lives with her sister, Clara Hoyt, in
Griggsville.
Mary Louise Shoemaker, second child and only daughter of Thomas Shoemaker and Anna Vertrees, married Arthur Warren Butterfield in Griggsville, October 9, 1901. He was a son of Henry Butterfield and Lydia Adell Garraux, both of whom are deceased. She died January 18, 1920; Mr. Butterfield died November 10, 1915. There were three children in the family, Arthur Warren, Ethel and Lulu Butterfield.
Ethel Butterfield married John Burlend (now deceased) and they had three children, Edith, William and John Vincent Burlend. Edith married John Myers, William married Ruth McLaughlin, and John Vincent married Florence Orr of Hull. John Vincent teaches in Rockford high school.
Lulu Butterfield married William Turnbull and they have one son, Arthur, who married Gladys Glenn.
Arthur W. Butterfield and Mary Louise Shoemaker have two sons, Dudley Garraux and Donald Butterfield. Dudley Garraux, born in Griggsville September 21, 1906, married Janet Elizabeth Jacob and they have two daughters, Elizabeth Breese and Nancy Vertrees Butterfield. Mr. and Mrs. Butterfield were married June 24, 1929 and reside in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he is an architectural engineer.
Donald Vertrees, born April 1, 1910, is working for the International Harvester Company in Chicago. He is unmarried.
Arthur W. Butterfield, prominent in the business life of Griggsville, is continuing the drug business which was so long conducted under the Shoemaker name. Mr. Butterfield has long been connected with Chamber of Commerce and service organization activities, being at present the secretary of the Griggsville Kiwanis club. He was one of the promoters of the Pike County Farm Bureau and was an early secretary of that organization. He is a native of the Griggsville vicinity. The Butterfields occupy a pleasant home in the south part of Griggsville.
In this home Mrs. Butterfield has some of the ancient furnishings from the old Vertrees home in Perry, furnishings that belonged to her mother. One of these is a wall mirror. Behind the glass in this mirror was found a copy of the Quincy Whig and Republican, dated February 16, 1864. James J. Langdon was its proprietor.
Thomas Shoemaker, in the time of the Civil War, became a member of the Somerville Presbyterian church in New Jersey. In 1872 he united with the Congregational church in Griggsville. He was a member of Griggsville Lodge No. 45, A. F. & A. M. He traveled somewhat extensively, visiting his native state several times, and, with his wife, traveled also through Colorado, California and other western sections.
Mr. Shoemaker died at Griggsville of typhoid fever, January 7, 1903, in his 63rd year. His widow, Anna Vertrees Shoemaker, great granddaughter of Captain John Vertrees of the Revolution, died November 18, 1931, aged 84 years, seven months and 18 days. She died in the old Shoemaker home, now the home of her daughter, Mrs. Arthur Butterfield and family. Both she and her husband are buried in Griggsville cemetery.
[Continued]
CEPHAS DANIEL VERTREES, third child and second son of Jacob Sneed and Nancy (Hobbs) Vertrees, was born at Perry
July 22, 1842. On August 23, 1862, at Morgan Spring, below Florence, at a point now marked by the Dick Gilmer Post
of the Women's Relief Corps, he was mustered into the service of his country by Captain J. H. Rathbone and the
same day moved down the river to St. Louis as a volunteer soldier in the Ninety-Ninth, the famous pike county regiment
organized by Colonel George W. K. Bailey of Pittsfield.
Mr. Vertrees became a corporal in Company B, 99th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Just prior to the siege of Vicksburg
he was relieved from service on account of disability, and returned to his home in Pike county. On October 16,
1867 he married Sarah Louisa Connett, a daughter of John Stiles Connett and Sarah Elizabeth Smith. They were married
by the Reverend William Hobbs, a pioneer minister in western Illinois and a brother of Cephas D. Vertrees's mother,
Nancy (Hobbs) Vertrees.
Sarah Louisa Connett was a daughter of pioneer settlers near Pittsfield. The parents, John Stiles Connett and Sarah
Elizabeth Smith, natives of New Jersey, were married at Rahway, New Jersey, January 15, 1843. They came soon afterward
to Pittsfield and settled on an 80-acre farm two and a half miles southwest of town, where James McGinley and family
now reside in a large country home standing on the site of the old Connett house.
John S. Connett, born in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), New Jersey, April 6, 1815, when but a young man was seized
with the "western fever" and came out to St. Louis where he worked for several years at his trade of
cabinet maker. At that time, government land was very cheap, and on a prospecting trip up into this part of the
country he selected a tract of land which he entered from the government, paying $1.25 an acre therefor. This was
the farm southwest of Pittsfield to which he brought his New Jersey bride in the early spring of 1843. She was
a native of Rahway, New Jersey, born there July 18, 1818.
John Stiles Connett was a son of Ebenezer Connett and Elizabeth Stiles, she a sister of Mrs. Janos W. Winans of
the early Pittsfield settlement. Mrs. Winans was the mother of Jennie E. Winans, the first wife of Augustus Dow,
and Mary Stiles Winans, who was Mr. Dow's third wife, her first husband being Major Dorus E. Bates, the Tilmon
Joy of John Hay's famous Pike county ballad of "Banty Tim." Mary Stiles (Winans) Dow died in the home
of her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred R. Utt of Plainfield, Illinois, on April 11, 1936, aged 90
years.
The Winans and Connet families were residents of Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), New Jersey, from early colonial
times. Moses Winans, father of Janos and grandfather of Mary Stiles Dow, was a Minute Man in the Revolutionary
War, in which he enlisted at the age of 18. Both the Winans and Connet families came to Illinois and settled at
Pittsfield in 1846, three years after John S. Connett had brought his bride to this region.
The families of Ebenezer Connet and James Winans, coming to this western country, traveled much of the way by water,
up the Hudson river, through the Erie Canal and Great Lakes, the last leg of the journey being by overland vehicle,
in all a three weeks' journey. Their furniture from back east came all the way by water, New York to New Orleans,
thence up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to Florence.
The Winans family settled on a farm near Pittsfield. Ebenezer Connet and his wife settled in Pittsfield, in the
old Mary Dow residence at 230 West Jefferson Street. Edward Connet, a brother of John Stiles Connett, came also
from New Jersey and bought a farm a quarter mile west and south of his brother, on which he lived. Around these
early Connet settlements lay the lands of the pioneer Kinmans and Hodgens, and those of Robert R. Greene and Austin
Barber.
In the east the Connet family name was always spelled with one "t." Ebenezer Connet so spelled it. The
same spelling appears on the family tombstones in New Jersey. Elizabeth Stiles, when she took the name of Connet,
added another "t," which she seemed to think gave it a more finished appearance. Her children followed
her lead and added the final "t." So here in the west the names of Elizabeth Stiles Connett's descendants
are spelled with the extra "t."
The house in which John Stiles Connett was born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, is believed to be still standing.
His granddaughter, Mrs. Myrtle (Vertrees) Starr of Winamac, Indiana, visited the house in 1892. Mrs. Starr has
five large old oil paintings representing the three generations of her mother's forebears, together with three
others, representing the mother and her descendants, or six generations in all, hanging over her front stairs in
her home at Winamac. These include a life-size painting of John Stiles, who was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey,
December 11, 1766, and died there December 24, 1857; his daughter, Elizabeth C. Stiles, born at Elizabeth, May
1, 1792; Ebenezer Connet (who married Elizabeth), born at Westfield, New Jersey, September 27, 1790; John Stiles
Connett, son of Ebenezer and Elizabeth, born at Elizabeth, April 6, 1815; Sarah E. Smith (wife of John S. Connett),
born at Rahway, July 18, 1818.
Four of these oil paintings (those of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Stiles Connet and of John Stiles and Sarah Smith Connett)
were done by an early school teacher in the now long-abandoned West Point school district south of Pittsfield.
The teacher boarded at the John S. Connett home in that district and did the paintings out of school hours. Descendants
have lost the name of this early teacher-painter. It was probably Marvin Turner, a brilliant but eccentric teacher-artist-poet,
who taught in the old West Point district in the time of the Civil War.
The other pictures in Mrs. Starr's collection include Sarah Louisa Vertrees (daughter of John S. and Sarah Smith
Connett); Mrs. Starr (daughter of Sarah Louisa); and Mrs. Starr's daughter, Ruby. Mrs. Starr also had five grandchildren
and will soon put one of them in the genealogical row, representing the seventh generation.
John Stiles Connett and his wife, settling southwest of Pittsfield in March, 1843, remained on what is now the
McGinley farm for many years, moving from the farm to Pittsfield in October, 1868. In Pittsfield they took up their
abode where Robert Warren Cantril and his wife now reside, at 321 West Washington Street. Mrs. Cantril's mother,
Mrs. Edgar Webster (daughter of John S. Connett), later resided in this house with her family.
Three children were born to John S. Connett and Sarah E. Smith, namely, Mary Smith, Sarah Louisa and James Ebenezer
Connett. All three were born on the farm where the first settlement was made southwest of Pittsfield.
Mary Smith Connett, born November 14, 1843, married Edgar Lyman Webster, October 22, 1868, he a son of Lyman and
Eliza Rebecca (Smith) Webster. The father was born November 7, 1805; the mother, May 7, 1806, she a daughter of
Lemuel Smith of Northfield, Connecticut. They were married August 28, 1828, went to Northfield, later to Morris,
then to West Haven, and finally to Huntington, Connecticut. The mother died January 21, 1856, and on January 15,
1879, the father married again, his second wife being Caroline Bradley of Whitneyville, Connecticut. There were
no children of the second marriage. Children of the first marriage were Elizabeth Jane, Mary Ann, Nancy Anna, Edgar
Lyman, George Smith and Oscar M. Webster.
Edgar Lyman Webster was the second rural mail carrier out of the Pittsfield postoffice, and the first on Route
2. The late George Webster began on Route 1 about the same time. Edgar Webster was first married to Frances Brown
Kinman, a daughter of Patrick H. Brown, who once lived where the Robert William Frazier family now resides, on
the old Richard and Jane Miller place, in Martinsburg township, on the Pittsfield-Martinsburg road. W. V. Brown,
son of Patrick, acquired this place in 1859 and in 1861 sold it to Eden M. Seeley who transferred it to Richard
Miller in 1865.
Fannie Brown was descended from one of the most noted families in the early history of Elizabethtown, Kentucky,
a family that was intimately associated with the family of Captain and Judge John Vertrees. Her grandfather was
William Brown, who settled on Nolynn, a mile from Hodgenville, Kentucky, in 1790, on land patented to him by Virginia.
Patrick H. Brown's uncle, James Brown, fell in the great defeat of the whites by the Indians in the battle of the
Blue Licks in 1782, fighting beside Daniel Boone. Another uncle, an elder Patrick Brown, was a member of the first
Constitutional Convention in Kentucky, but refused to sign the constitution because it recognized slavery. Later
he became so embittered against the institution of slavery that he freed his Negroes and came to Illinois, where
some of his descendants still survive. Patrick H. Brown was a brother of Frances P. Brown, who married Jacob Hodgen
of early Highland and Pittsfield and became the mother of the famous surgeon, John Thomson Hodgen, whose service
to humanity is commemorated by a marker in the court house square in Pittsfield. The Brown family later moved to
Lincoln, Illinois, where Fannie Brown Kinman married Edgar Webster.
Patrick H. Brown, father of the first Mrs. Edgar Webster, died October 18, 1860, in his 64th year. He is buried
near the Hodgen lot, near the main entrance to the South (Oakwood) cemetery at Pittsfield as is also his soldier
son, Lieutenant W. V. Brown, who died in the service of his country, at Little Rock, Arkansas, September 14, 1863,
aged 25 years, ten months and 27 days. Here also is buried Patrick Brown's son-in-law, Sergeant Louis P. Kinman,
of Company C, 99th Illinois Volunteers, who died in his country's defense January 16, 1863, and whose widow later
married Edgar Webster.
On October 22, 1868, Edgar L. Webster married again, his second wife being the eldest daughter of John S. Connett.
The wedding was in the house now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Cantril, in Pittsfield, this being the old Connett home,
to which the parents had moved from the farm in 1868. Mr. Webster took his bride to Lincoln, Illinois, returning
some time later to Pittsfield.
There had been no children by Mr. Webster's first marriage. By the second marriage there were five children, one
of whom, a daughter born November 13, 1876, died in infancy, unnamed. The other children were John Lyman, Fannie
Elizabeth, Mary Louise and Henrietta Winifred Webster.
John Lyman Webster, born in Pittsfield August 29, 1871, was for many years on the staff of the old Charles R. Shaw
store in Pittsfield, a position which he held at the time of his death. He had begun his business career as a delivery
boy for Park Hodgen, who had a store on the south side of the Pittsfield square, where the Gamble store now is.
He had hundreds of friends who looked upon him as one of the model citizens of Pike county. He died at the then
family home north of the Pittsfield House, March 20, 1898, mourned by all. He was never married.
Fannie Elizabeth Webster, born October 4, 1874, married the Reverend John Chandler in Pittsfield on March 14, 1903.
He was born in England November 8, 1858, was brought by his parents to Canada, was educated in Toronto, came later
to the States, attended Louisville College in Kentucky and Chicago University, working his way through school by
utilizing his knowledge of printing.
Mr. and Mrs. Chandler reside at Mountain Home, Idaho. They have one daughter, Elizabeth Edgarine, born January
19, 1906, and she has been twice married. By her first husband, Wilson Jackson, she had one son, Chandler Jackson.
Her second marriage was to Spencer Cadwell and by this marriage there is one daughter, Mary Jeanne, whose name
is a combination of the names of two grandmothers, Mary Connett Webster and Jeanne McKay Coulthard. Mr. and Mrs.
Cadwell and the two children reside at Oreana, Idaho.
Mary Louise Webster, born November 25, 1882, married Robert Warren Cantril, February 19, 1908, he a native of Des
Moines, Iowa, where he was born November 3, 1874. He later resided at Dayton, and then at Pomeroy, Washington.
Mr. and Mrs. Cantril have one son, Webster, born February 23, 1910, now a resident of Berkeley, California, where
he has a beautiful home overlooking the Golden Gate, and holds a good position with General Motors. He went to
California in August, 1933, and at Berkeley, in January, 1935, he married Unna (Ann) Tragardh, who is head of the
claims department for the Glens Falls Indemnity Company of Glens Falls, New York, having been with that company
for twelve years.
Mr. and Mrs. Cantril reside in the old John S. Connett house on West Washington Street, Pittsfield, later, in 1899,
occupied by Mrs. Cantril's parents, who thereafter made it their home. In this house Mrs. Cantril's mother was
married, as was she herself and her two sisters. Mrs. Cantril is on the staff of the Vertrees Book Store in Pittsfield,
conducted by Miss Lillia Vertrees. Mr. Cantril is a tinner, plumber and machinist.
Henrietta Winifred Webster, born in Pittsfield September 20, 1885, taught in the primary department of the Pittsfield
public schools for many years. On October 5, 1918 she married Allan Winans, a son of Park Winans of Walla Walla,
Washington, he a brother of Isaac Winans who some 68 or 70 years ago resided on the old Thompson place, now owned
by Mrs. Mildred Frazier Coulter, south of Pittsfield.
Mr. and Mrs. Winans reside in Berkeley, California, where he is chief accountant for the George Palmer Insurance
Company. They have two children, William Webster, born March 8, 1920, and Mary Christine, born October 22, 1922.
Both are at home. Webster Winans attends the University of California.
Edgar Lyman Webster, born September 12, 1839, in Northfield, Connecticut, enlisted in the time of the Civil War
in Company D, 17th Connecticut Volunteers. Following the war, he came to Illinois and located at Lincoln, in Logan
county, coming later to Pittsfield where he spent the remainder of his days. He and his first wife, Fannie Brown,
dwelt at Lincoln, where the Brown family located after leaving Pittsfield. He and his second wife also spent their
early married life at Lincoln.
Mr. Webster died in the family home in Pittsfield January 14, 1912. He came of an ancestry that dates back in American history to the early years of the seventeenth century. He was descended in direct line from John and Agnes Webster, who were natives of Warwickshire, England, whence they came to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1635, going thence with the first settlers to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636. There John Webster was appointed to the Court of Magistrates in 1637, continuing in that office for 20 years. He was elected fifth Colonial Governor of Connecticut in 1656, removed then to Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1657 and died and was buried there in 1661.
Mary Connett Webster died at the home in Pittsfield March 8, 1919. She and her husband are buried in the West cemetery at Pittsfield. The Connet (Connett) family, of which she was a member, was long prominent in the affairs of Pittsfield. The Connets were identified with the early Presbyterian church, where now is the old McClintock House, owned by Harvey Mink. The Mary Dow place on West Jefferson Street was the old home of the Connets, the early residence of Ebenezer Connet and his wife. The Connets were associated with the lumber industry in Pittsfield and Florence in the late 1850s, doing business at both locations under the firm name of McFaddin & Connet. Edgar and Mary Connet Webster lived for many years in one of the houses in Connet Row, north of the Pittsfield House. This house was later removed and is now occupied by Eldon Frank in the southwest part of Pittsfield. Edward Connet at one time owned the row of houses north of the present Windmiller Hotel (the old Pittsfield House).
Edward Connet, brother of John S. Connet, brother of John S. Connet, born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 12, 1813, married Mary Veghte September 19, 1845. There were no children. Edward died at Carlinville, Illinois, June 6, 1895. His body was brought to Pittsfield and interred in the Connet burial plot in the West cemetery, beside his wife who had died in Pittsfield March 21, 1890. She was a native of Somerville, New Jersey, where she was born December 18, 1812. Her mother, Mrs. Mary Veghte, is also buried in the Connet plot. She was born in Somerville, New Jersey, February 4, 1774 and died in Pittsfield June 24, 1858.
Ebenezer Connet died in Pittsfield December 31, 1866, his wife, Elizabeth Stiles Connet, had preceded him on May 23, 1860. A shaft dominating the burial plot in the West cemetery is thus inscribed: "Burial Place for the Family of Ebenezer Connet."
Ebenezer Connet and Elizabeth C. Stiles, married January 27, 1811, and six children of whom Edward was the eldest and John second in order of birth. The other children were Isaac, born August 29, 1817, died August 10, 1819; Ann; born October 20, 1819, died May 4, 1855; Alfred, born June 28, 1823, died January 25, 1824; and William Gardner, born June 3, 1825, died August 7, 1825.