USA > Illinois > Champaign County > A Standard history of Champaign County Illinois : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, civic and social development : a chronicle of the people, with family lineage and memoirs, Volume II > Part 32
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On October 31, 1911, Mr. Franks was united in marriage with Miss Janet Styles, who was born in Missouri, and they have one son, who bears his grandfather's honored name, Thomas Edward Franks. Mr. and Mrs. Franks are members of the Episcopal Church.
In political life Mr. Franks has been quite active for a number of years and in 1910 was elected on the Democratic ticket alderman of the Third Ward, in which office he served with the greatest efficiency and public spirit until May 1, 1917, when the city adopted the commission form of government, when Mr. Franks was elected on the commission and is now serving as commissioner of public safety. He was the only man who was carried over from the old form of government in Champaign. He is well known in fraternal circles, belonging to Western Star Lodge, A. F. & A. M .; Champaign Chapter and Commandery and Mohammed Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Champaign, and the Eastern Star, and additionally belongs to the Elks, the Order of Ben Hur and the Knights of Pythias.
JULIUS M. GEHRT has been successfully identified with Champaign County agriculture for a number of years, and is the owner and proprietor of a fine farm in section 33 of Harwood Township, near the village of Dillsburg.
Mr. Gchrt was born at Lawn Ridge, Illinois, a son of John M. and Catherine (Best) Gehrt. His parents were both born in Germany, came to America in early life, were married in this country and the father is
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still living, at the ripe age of eighty-three, on his farm in Stark County, Illinois. The mother is now deceased. Julius M. Gehrt was next to the youngest in a family of eight children.
He grew up on his father's farm in Stark County and attended the public schools at Spear in that county. January 15, 1902, he married Miss Carolina Kuhn. Mrs. Gehrt is a native of Germany, born near the city of Berlin, and fourth among the five children of Philip and Elizabeth (Hoeltzel) Kuhn. The Kuhn children were named Philip, Salome, Fred, Carolina and Elizabeth. When Mrs. Gehrt was eleven years of age the family came to America and she and her brothers and sisters attended the public schools of Peoria and of Stark County, Illinois.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Gehrt located on a rented farm in Peoria County, but in 1903 they rented a place of 160 acres owned by his father near Dillsburg in Champaign County. Here their years have been prospered and they now have the active management of a place of 347 acres. Mr. Gehrt is a very methodical and progressive farmer and has introduced many practices approved by experience. He does much stock raising, and has a herd of fine Durham cows and ships large quan- tities of cream.
Mr. and Mrs. Gehrt are the parents of five children: Forest L., Elmer F., Ernest H., Alice May and Julius. The children are being edu- cated in the Battles school district, and the oldest child, Forest, now twelve years of age, is just entering the eighth grade.
Mrs. Gehrt is an active member of the German Lutheran Church at Gifford and the children attend the Sunday school at Rantoul. Mr. Gehrt has proved public spirited in his community relations as well as progressive in his business as a farmer. He served several years as school trustee and in politics is a stanch Republican. He and his wife maintain a most hospitable home, and their relations with the community have been char- acterized by neighborly kindness as well as by hard work and the intelli- gence which has brought them a good home and substantial prosperity.
GEORGE W. HARWOOD is one of the oldest business men still in active service in the city of Champaign. He came to Champaign County soon after the Civil War, in which he had fought gallantly as a Union soldier, and during the greater part of his residence here has been in the real estate and insurance business. There is no man better informed on the changing values of real estate and with a more authoritative knowledge of realty conditions.
Mr. Harwood is of New England birth and ancestry, and was born at North Brookfield, Worcester County, Massachusetts, September 18, 1841. His parents, George and Angeline (Allen) Harwood, were also natives of Massachusetts, spent their lives there, and his father was'a farmer in mod- erate circumstances. There were three children: Anna, deceased; George W .; and Ethan A., who still lives on the old home place at North Brookfield.
George W. Harwood had the training of the typical New England boy, grew up to habits of industry, learned the lessons of the district schools, and at the age of twenty enlisted in Company E of the Thirty-sixth Massa- chusetts Infantry. He saw three years of hard service. He was in some of the greatest campaigns of the war. At Jackson, Mississippi, during the Vicksburg campaign, he was wounded, and again was wounded at Camp- bell's Station in Tennessec. He went in as private and came out as first lieutenant. He was mustered out at Reedville, Massachusetts.
The first year after his army service he was an employe in a Massachu- sctts shoe factory. In 1866 Mr. Harwood came out to Champaign County,
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and for five years was a practical farmer in Newcomb Township. He then removed to Champaign and ever since has been engaged in the real estate and insurance business. He has handled many large and important transactions in local realty and has also represented some of the standard insurance companies. Mr. Harwood is now secretary of the Champaign Loan and Banking Association. His offices are located at 21 Main Street.
His citizenship has always been straightforward and public spirited. He is a Republican, an active member of the Grand Army of the Republie, and belongs to the military order of the Loyal Legion. He and his family are members of the First Presbyterian Church. Mr. Harwood married. in November, 1866, Miss Mary N. Harwood, a distant relative and a native of Kentucky.
J. W. MCCULLOUGH has long been a resident of Champaign County. His life's activities have been expressed along different lines, as a successful agri- culturist, a merchant, and in his later years, with greater opportunity for leisure, he is applying himself to the management, with his son, of a large business at Rantoul for the handling of grain, fuel and implements.
Mr. MeCullough is a native of DeWitt County, Illinois, and a son of James and Mary Jane (Rusk) Mccullough. His parents were born in Ohio and in the early days they came to Illinois, crossing the intervening country in covered wagons or prairie schooners. They located near Clinton in this state and the children attended district school. When J. W. McCulloughi was eleven years of age they came to Champaign County and located on a farm six miles southeast of Rantoul in the Kentucky settlement.
Here Mr. Mccullough attended school and at the same time assisted his father on the farm. That was his routine of life until twenty-one, and then, in November, 1879, he laid the foundation of his own home by his marriage to Isella Boys. Mrs. McCullough was born in Ohio, daughter of Jonathan and Elizabeth Boys. Her parents came to Illinois and she received most of her education in the Prairie Star School in'Champaign County. This school has the reputation of having turned out many successful students, including a number of teachers.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. McCullough started out as renters, and subsequently moved to his father's farm. The young people proved themselves possessed of energy and industry and they practiced economy until they were able to purchase eighty acres of land. From the farm Mr. McCullough eventually removed to Urbana and engaged in the grocery business, but then returned to his farm for three years, and finally located at Rantoul, where in connection with farming he began buying stock on an extensive scale. He was one of the leading shippers of live stock out of this county for a number of years. Subsequently he expanded his operations by handling grain, and now owns a large elevator at Rantoul with a capacity of 40,000 bushels. Grain to the average of 200,000 bushels per year is mar- keted through the medium of Mr. Mccullough's enterprise. The passing years have brought a steady inerease to his land holdings, and in the counties of Champaign, Ford and Lee he now owns altogether an estate of 850 acres.
Mr. MeCullough and his fine family live in an attractive residence in Rantoul a short distance down the interurban traek below the Methodist Church. A low stone fence separates the pleasant grounds from the strect, and behind that fence is every evidence of comfort and liberal hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. McCullough have six children : Elsie, Irene, George, Frank, John and William. The parents have felt the responsibility of giving these children the best of home and school training and all have been educated in the high school at Rantoul.
George, who was also a student in the business college at Champaign, is active manager of his father's home farm. He married Miss Vera
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McCormick and they have two children, George and Ruth. The son Frank, who lives in a home adjoining that of his father, is manager with his father of the coal, grain and implement business conducted under the name Mccullough & Son. Frank Mccullough married Florence Carlson and they have a young daughter, Zella Jeanette, now three years of age. She has completely won the hearts of her grandparents.
Elsie Mccullough married Clyde Gifford and they live on a farm four miles southeast of Rantoul.
Mr. and Mrs. McCullough are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Politically Mr. McCullough supports the principles of prohibition. He is a man broad in his views and believes that the individual can exert his influence best by supporting principles rather than a party and by exer- cising a discriminating choice among candidates for office. Mr. Mccullough has served as supervisor and as school director and has done all he could to raise the standards of local education. Mrs. McCullough is a cultured and popular member of local society in Rantoul, and the family as a whole on account of their business energy, success and public spirit hold a high place in that community.
WILLIAM HARTFORD, D. O. The science of osteopathy, which has its fundamental principle in the theory that most diseases of humanity are traceable to malformation of some part of the skeleton, long since has passed the experimental stage and has become a widely recognized and sane factor in the alleviation of the suffering of mankind. A capable and enthusiastic promoter of this method of cure is found in Dr. William Hart- ford of Champaign, who has been engaged in practice here since 1899, and whose professional career has been one characterized by remarkably suc- cessful results. He is a native of Henderson County, Illinois, and was born December 6, 1856, a son of Winfield Scott and Lucetta Rebekah (Thomas) Hartford.
The family history of Dr. 'Hartford is a decidedly interesting one. In 1579 Sir John Hartford, son of Thomas Hartford, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for brave and honorable service rendered in the wars of that period, and was given a province, or manor, in southern Scotland. While he had been born in Northumberland County, England, after being given this manor he settled in Scotland, where the family resided until during the persecution of the Church of Scotland by the ruler of England, when the younger members of the family were driven into northern Ireland and became what is known as Scotch-Irish. About 1730 James and Pat- rick Hartford, descendants of Sir John, who were attending college at Belfast, Ireland, as students, were enticed aboard one of the vessels lying in the harbor one Saturday afternoon, and before they were aware of it anchor had been weighed and the vessel had put to sea. They were impressed into service as cabin boys and on arising one morning Patrick Hartford, finding his brother missing, was informed that his brother had fallen overboard, had died after being taken from the water, and had sub- sequently been buried at sea. In reality, the brothers had been kidnaped to be sold in the New World as bond slaves, a not unusual custom of the day, and were only kept apart for that purpose, although Patrick Hartford never knew but that his brother was dead, and, in fact, both brothers died ignorant of the fact that the other was living. However, the grandchildren of each brother met in Henderson County, Illinois, in 1865. In giving their family history both told the same story, when William Hartford, grandson of Patrick, asked James Hartford, grandson of James, what his grandfather's given name was. He was told and was also informed that James had been landed at New York, while Patrick had been landed at Philadelphia. When the young men became twenty-one years of age they
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were released from their bondage, after which each married and became a citizen of the New World.
When the French and Indian war broke out, in 1763, Patrick Hartford entered the service of the Crown, under Major George Washington of the Colonial army, was promoted to the position of exchanging officer, and led a company of Colonial soldiers against the siege of Louisburg. In the exchange of prisoners on the western frontier, Patrick Hartford came upon a number of women and children who had been captured by the savages, and negotiated a trade with the Indians whereby he paid one quart of rum each for the prisoners, whom he safely conducted back to their families and friends in eastern Pennsylvania. In later years he met a young lady by the name of Jane McCammant, who had been stolen by the Indians when eight or nine years of age and held prisoner by them for a period of three years and nine months, when rescued. She was the daughter of a wealthy Scotch-Irish farmer in the Susquehanna Valley. She became his wife, and in later years, when they were talking over the exciting incidents of their childhood period and he had told her of his having been kidnaped and sold as a bond slave, she in return told him of her years spent in Indian captivity. When, in a reply to her husband's question, she said that she had been exchanged at a Detroit Indian station and gave the time, he exclaimed : "Why, you were not exchanged; I bought you free with a quart of rum from the Indians," and so it developed that she was one of the party of women and children that he had been called upon to rescue when he was exchanging officer for the British army. Nine children were born to Patrick and Jane (McCammant) Hartford, Dr. William Hartford being descended from the third son, John.
John Hartford moved to Canada in 1795, when his son William, the grandfather of Dr. Hartford, who had been born in Pennsylvania, was about six months old. He resided there until the period of the War of 1812, when he moved to Muskingum County, Ohio, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away January 13, 1833. He married Betsy Patterson, whose family was of Scotch-Irish origin. Her father and four brothers, William, John, Alexander and James, enlisted for service in the Revolutionary War and when their terms of service expired re-enlisted, all being mustered out with honorable discharges at the close, with the exception of one brother, who was killed at the battle of Brandywine. This family were Covenanters, or Presbyterian, and Seceders-there were no atheists, no Universalists or Catholics among them.
At the close of the Revolutionary War, as a special inducement to secure settlers, Canada offered to give to each settler 200 acres of land and the privilege of choosing their own Legislature and making their own laws, as they were in the United States. A proclamation was issued to this effect, and as a result hundreds of poor men flocked into Canada, among them being John Hartford, who, as before noted, went there in the summer of 1795. He found, however, when he arrived that the laws were already made and that in order to secure the land he would be required to take the oath of allegiance to the king, this oath being set down by his son as read- ing as follows: "You do solemnly swear that you will bear true allegiance to King George III, and that you will forever disown and disdain any pardon from any foreign power, or dispensation whatever." This oath John Hartford refused to take, but bought a tract of a young man by the name of Gabriel Evans, who had taken the oath and secured the land, but who, in an altercation with a British officer, due to his failure to remove his hat when meeting him, had struck the officer (who had first knocked his hat off with his sword), and was thus guilty of treason and was com- pelled to flee the country. John Hartford bought his place by assuming his indebtedness for 1,000 rails which Evans had ordered split. The place
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consisted of 188 acres, on which Evans had built a cabin and cleared four or five acres, and on this John Hartford settled with his family.
William Hartford remained on this property with his father until March, 1812, when he left home to learn the trade of blacksmith. In June of the same year the second war with Great Britain was declared, and his elder brothers were drafted into the British army. When the war broke out the governor-general of Canada ordered all who claimed allegiance to the United States to appear upon the Niagara River at Queenstown and there they would be sent over to Lewiston on the American side. William Hartford, who had returned home, was among those who appeared, but the transports were so busy with a great crowd that it made it look as though Canada were to be depopulated, and he did not succeed in getting across. At this time the battle of Queenstown occurred, in which General Brock was killed, and the commander-in-chief of the British fort cancelled the order and drafted every man from the age of sixteen to sixty years into the British service, ordering them to appcar at the parade grounds at Terry Berry's cross roads at ten o'clock the next day. William Hartford evaded the service through losing his way to the point of meeting, for his sympathies were with the United States, where he had been born, but eventually he was seized by some British soldiers and taken to head- quarters, where he was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot, but through the friendly intervention of a British officer, who was a friend of his father, was taken with a gang of prisoners to fell some trees to form a block house and was put to work by himself in an isolated spot, which was the cue for him to make his escapc. He did so and arrived home that night about midnight, disguised as an Irish "paddy," with a halter on his arm as though looking for horses. His father gave him all the silver he had in the house, about $2.25, for Canadian bills were of no use to him in the United States, for which country he was heading. After numerous thrilling adventures, he finally reached his destination and found his way to the home of some relatives on his mother's side in eastern Pennsylvania. He was later arrested as a spy, but after satisfying the army of his loyalty he was allowed to enlist as a soldier in the War of 1812-14. He fought at Lundy's Lane under General Winfield Scott, and was at Fort Mackinac,.
Michigan, when its inhabitants were massacred by the Indians. With one or two others he escaped, and they subsisted on roots and bark and on rabbits which they killed with stones until they finally reached Niagara. They were never mustered out. William Hartford dared not go back into Canada and had no means of communicating with his father for three years, when a horse-trader, going up into that country, carricd a letter from him to his father. He brought back a reply, and the father eventually sold his personal property under the hammer for ready cash and came to the United States, buying about three hundred tw acres
of land eighteen miles north of Zanesville, Ohio, where he spt the
rest of his days. William Hartford was married at the age of twenty-five years to Eliza James, and they became the parents of ten children, of whom Dr. Hartford's father, Winfield Scott, was the second born.
Winfield Scott Hartford was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, and received an ordinary education in the schools that the day and locality afforded. He was rearcd to the pursuits of agriculture and was still a young man when, in the fall of 1846, he passed through Champaign County and Urbana at a time when there was but a little tavern at that point, he being then on his way to Henderson County, Illinois. Doctor Hartford has heard his father tell how the land all around Urbana was bog land, and of how one could stand and shake the ground under his feet. Winfield S. Hartford accumulated land in Henderson County, where
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he remained for four years engaged in farming, and at the time of selling out and leaving had over 400 acres. He returned to Ohio and remained that winter, and then prevailed upon his father to sell out his Ohio hold- ings and come to the west. William Hartford came through by wagon in 1852 and his first impressions of the country could not have been very favor- able, for on the present site of the Flatiron Building, of Urbana, Cham- paign, his teams mired down, so that it took him a whole day to get his wagons out of that bog hole. Land values at that time were fifty cents an acre here, and it may be that he would have purchased property had he known what they would increase to, but instead he pushed on to Hen- derson County, where the family made their home for more than twenty years. In later years Winfield S. Hartford moved on to Adair County, and later to Springfield, Missouri, where his death occurred November 12, 1900, the mother, Lucetta Rebekah (Thomas) Hartford, a native of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, having passed away in Adair County, Missouri, November 5, 1867. To their union there were eleven children born : Eliza, who is the widow of Robert G. David, and resides at Cana, Kansas ; Mary A., who is the widow of James Brooks, of Idaho; Sarah E., who is the widow of Alexander McLelland, of Miami, Oklahoma; Justice, who is de- ceased; Doctor William, of this review; John T., a resident of Missouri; Isaac J., of Manitoba, Canada; Elmira L., who is the wife of H. L. Walker, of Idaho; Martha R., who is the wife of Robert E. Bledsoe, of Oklahoma; and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, twins, the former deceased and the latter a physician and a resident of Gibson City, Illinois. The mother died at the time the twins were born.
William Hartford remained with his father until he was twenty-one years of age, in the meantime receiving such education as the meager opportunities of that time afforded. At the time that he reached his majority he entered the State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, but remained at that institution only one semester, then returning home to begin teaching his old district school where he had first attended. For four years he remained in charge of that school, each year receiving an increase in salary as an appreciation of his capable services, and in the meantime returned to the normal school during the vacation periods, thus improving his own education all the time. He graduated from the
normal 'school in 1886, and following this taught in the city school of . Middle Grove, Missouri, for two years, then being elected county superin- tendent of schools for that county in 1888. At the expiration of his term he went to Saint Edwards, Nebraska, where he was superintendent of city schools for two years, and in 1892 was nominated as county superin- tendent of schools for Boone County, Nebraska, but on account of his wife's ill health was forced to decline the nomination. He then returned to Kirksville, Missouri, where resided an osteopathic physician whom he knew and in whom he had the greatest confidence. Physicians in Nebraska had given his wife up as incurable, but under the skillful treatment of this osteopath, Dr. A. T. Still, she fully recovered her health.
For some time Doctor Hartford had been carefully watching and investigating Doctor Still's methods of practice, and his success in curing his wife caused him to fully decide to enter the American School of Osteopathy. He made rapid progress and graduated in osteopathy June 22, 1897, almost immediately thereafter going to Clarinda, Iowa, to practice, only to find that there was a state law against it, but while there he made several remarkable cures. Subsequently he went to Ogden, Utah, opened an office and began professional business, but after thirty days was arrested for the practice of osteopathy. He was acquitted at his trial, but within fifteen minutes was again arrested, was again acquitted and was arrested
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