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 51
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After paying his brothers and sisters their share he assumed an additional obligation of $1,200. He also bought another tract of eighty acres, where his beautiful country home now stands, at a cost of $3,000. Thus he started farming with the heavy incumbrance and handicap of a debt of $4,500. It was only an incentive to increased effort. With the aid of his good and loyal wife, and in spite of sickness, bad crops and interest rates frequently as high as fifteen per cent, he paid out dollar for . dollar and after acquiring the 160 acres was still in his prime and ready for further efforts and extension of, his holdings. Today, in 1917, he owns 529 acres, all of it in East Bend Township, and there is no other farm in the entire township which shows a finer outfit of barns and other equipment nor a more beautiful country home. Not a dollar of debt stands against this property, which has been won by his capable efforts and which represents a greater value today than almost any other form of wealth.
On February 10, 1879, Mr. Hummel married Miss Mary Catherine Hannagan. Six children, two sons and four daughters, have come into their home, and all of them are still living. Charles A., the oldest, is a resident of East Bend Township and engaged in agriculture, and in politics has been affiliated with the Republican party. He married Laura K. Nickell and they have a little son, Henry C. Both are active members of St. Malachi Catholic Church at Rantoul. Ellen E., the second child, is now the wife of Frederick Federer, a Champaign County agriculturist living in Rantoul Township. Both are members of the Catholic Church. Catherine A. was educated in the common school, has taken musical instruction and is still at home with her parents. She is a member of the St. Malachi Catholic Church at Rantoul and is active in the Rosary and the Altar societies. Margaret is the wife of Ernest Lorenz, a resident of Decatur, Illinois. Mrs. Lorenz is a Catholic and her two children are Charles and Mary Catherine. Aloysius is still with his parents and in active charge of the home estate. He was educated in the common schools, is a Republican and a member of the Catholic Church. Theresa Jane, whose church affiliation is also with the Catholic, married William Quirk, who is a plumber by trade and is now employed by the City Waterworks of Champaign, where he and his family reside. The despot of the Quirk home is their little son Billie. Mr. and Mrs. Hummel have every reason to be proud of their children, who have shown themselves young people of ready attainments and resourcefulness, capable of helping themselves and of rendering service to others.
Mrs. Hummel was born in Grundy County, Illinois, November 15, 1849, a daughter of Felix and Ellen (McCormick) Hannagan. Her parents had eleven children, five sons and six daughters, and all of them but one lived to adult age. Felix Hannagan was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, and when fifteen years of age came with his mother to America. He lived first in Rhode Island, and the mother subsequently moved to Philadelphia and later to Grundy County, Illinois. Mr. Hannagan had grown up in the East, and was a married man when he came to Illinois. For a number of years he followed agriculture in Grundy County, but in 1866 removed to Champaign County and this was his home until his death about 1894. Politically he was a strong Republican and was an active member of the Catholic Church at Rantoul. His family remem- ber his great interest in reading, especially on historical subjects. As a farmer he acquired 160 acres of land in Compromise Township of Cham- paign County. Mrs. Hannagan was also a native of Ireland and came to the United States when about eighteen years old. She was a devout Catholic and a gentle, kind and loving mother.
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Mrs. Hummel was educated in the common schools and in the Cath- olic Academy of St. Joseph at Bloomington and for six months was a student in the Illinois State Normal. Before her marriage she was engaged in teaching and put in ten years in the school rooms of Cham- paign County. To her task as a homemaker and mother she brought this long experience as a teacher and those qualities of true motherhood and devotion to all of life's best interests.
Mr. Hummel is a Republican. He has for a number of years served as a drainage commissioner of Champaign County and is as forceful in his public work as he is in his private business capacity. He is a director of the public schools and is a member of the German Lutheran Church at Dewey. His father aided in the construction of the church building there. Mr. and Mrs. Hummel have attained those things that are the best rewards of character and worthy ambition. They have a beautiful home, have the companionship of noble children, and have the respect and esteem of a large community. Their beautiful country estate bears the appropriate name of Forest Lawn.
LEW E. STEVENSON. The village and community of St. Joseph have had no citizen whose work and interests have been more closely identified with the general welfare than Lew E. Stevenson. His home has been there for forty years, and almost continuously during that time he was in busi- ness in the village, but has kept in close touch with the agricultural development as well. He has given liberally of his thought and purpose to the upbuilding of local institutions, particularly the Methodist Epis- copal Church, of which he is now the only surviving original trustee.
Mr. Stevenson was born in Highland County, Ohio, April 21, 1850, by which token he is by no means an old man. His parents were Elisha and Nancy A. (Keelor) Stevenson, both natives of Ohio. His mother was born near Hillsboro, Ohio, a town notable for the fact that it was the birthplace of the little organization which has now expanded into an international instrumentality of good, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
On October 6, 1854, when Lew E. Stevenson was four and a half years of age, his father arrived in Urbana, bringing with him his wife and five children. Elisha Stevenson was one of the capable pioneer farmers of Urbana Township, and spent the rest of his days in this locality. He was the father of thirteen children, seven sons and six daughters, all of whom reached maturity except one that died in infancy.
Lew E. Stevenson acquired his education in the district schools of Champaign County, and his personal recollections of this locality go back nearly sixty years. On December 27, 1877, he married at Urbana Miss Ada O. Coffman. She was born north of Crawfordsville in Fountain County, Indiana, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Noah B. Coffman. Her father was a native of Virginia and her mother of Ohio. Her father was long a prominent and notable figure in the life of Champaign County. Mrs. Stevenson was educated in Urbana and in the University of Illinois. She was one of thirteen children, all of whom were carefully educated and made good records for themselves. Several of Mrs. Stevenson's brothers went out to the state of Washington and have long been prominent in the city of Chehalis. Her brother N. B. Coffman, Jr., is president of the Chehalis Bank and has long been a prominent Republican, having served his party at different times as a delegate to national conventions. Another brother, Joseph Coffman, now deceased, was president of the telephone company in Chehalis. A. L. Coffman is in the real estate business therc, and H. B. Coffman is secretary and manager of the Chehalis Furniture Company.
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A few hours after Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson were married at Urbana they took the train for the village of St. Joseph. Some months before, on February 1, 1877, Mr. Stevenson had bought the local drug store of that village, and he was thus a factor in its business life before he brought his wife there and established a permanent home. The passing years have meant much to Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson not only in the matter of material fortune but in the good they have been able to accomplish as citizens. For thirty-eight years Mr. Stevenson was a familiar figure in the mercan- tile affairs of St. Joseph, and continued his drug business until he sold out, April 24, 1915. While never an active farmer, he has kept in close touch with the basic interests of the county by investing liberally in farm land, and at the present time he owns 405 acres in one body in Lawrence County, Illinois, not far from Vincennes, Indiana.
Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson had one child, a daughter named Mae Agnes Stevenson. She received the complete devotion and care of her parents, was liberally educated, first in the public schools of St. Joseph, afterward in high school and finished her education in the Woman's College of Jack- sonville, Illinois. Being musically inclined, she was granted every oppor- tunity to improve that talent. The daughter married Otto B. Divelbiss, a native of Rantoul and a son of John W. and Hattie E. (Dodge) Divelbiss. Mr. Divelbiss was a young man of many capabilities and had laid the foundation of a promising career when he was taken away by death on October 3, 1903. He left his wife a widow and two weeks after his death their only child, a daughter, was born. This grandchild of Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson bears the name Maeotta Divelbiss. Mrs. Divelbiss returned to the home of her parents with her little, child and has continued to remain with them for the past fourteen years. The sunshine of the home all this time has been the granddaughter. She has made a good record in her studies and is now a member of the Champaign High School.
Mr. Stevenson's family are active members and liberal supporters of the Methodist Episcopal Church at St. Joseph. When he came to the village in 1877 he at once began an agitation for the erection of a church. For years he served as chorister and in the Sunday school of the church. The local church society was organized April 14, 1877, and Mr. Stevenson was one of the first trustees chosen by the twelve charter members. These trustees were V. J. Gallion, W. O. Shreve, W. B. Simms, Harrison W. Drillinger and Lew E. Stevenson. As noted above, Mr. Stevenson is the only one still living. Though the church was small at the beginning, the interest in its work and its membership have been growing and before long they had dedicated their first church building. This house of worship was subsequently burned and was replaced by a second, and a few years ago they completed the beautiful brown stone and brick church which now stands as a monument to the progressiveness and liberality of the church community and promises to continue a beacon light for the welfare of its worshipers for many years to come.
In the political field Mr. Stevenson has for twenty-five years been one of the leading Democrats of Champaign County. He is an enthusiastic and dependable party worker and has done much to strengthen the local organization. He served as postmaster of the village of St. Joseph during both of President Cleveland's terms, and has also been a member of the town council. Fraternally he is a charter member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic. His membership in the Grand Army is not honorary, as one might infer from the fact that he was born in 1850. Mr. Stevenson is in fact one of the youngest veterans of the great War of the Rebellion. That war began when he was eleven years of age, and he- was only fourteen when it entered upon its final stage in 1864. He real-
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
ized that he was too young, strictly speaking, to get accepted into the ranks of the Union army, but his loyalty and patriotism were of such determined character that he was willing to sacrifice the truth somewhat and gave his age as sixteen. He enlisted in the spring of 1864 and was mustered in at Mattoon, Illinois, into Company A of the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Illinois Infantry. Thus he had his ardent wish and marched away with the boys in blue to do whatever duty was required. His regiment was at first stationed in southern Missouri doing railway guard duty around Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain. When the war was over he was mustered out and given an honorable discharge at Mattoon.
Mr. Stevenson has been identified with most of the fraternal organiza- tions in St. Joseph, having been a charter member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Masonic lodge and the Woodmen order. He is also a charter member of the local chapter of the Eastern Star, and both his wife and daughter are also members. In Masonry he is affiliated with the Mystic Shrine. For forty years Mr. Stevenson has had the inestimable good fortune of having a wife of charming personality and culture to stand by his side and help forward their home, their power of doing good in the community, and they have well earned the right to enjoy the coming years in leisure and comfort in their pleasant home at St. Joseph.
ISAAC T. LEAS. It is by no means an empty distinction to have lived actively and usefully in any community . for a period of over sixty years. At this writing Isaac T. Leas is in his eighty-third year and is one of the few men who knew Champaign County before the time of the Civil War. He has been both a witness and an actor in the changing developments of a long time and is a real pioneer. He has been successful in his work and business and is still a hale and hearty man, enjoying the highest esteem of a large community.
Mr. Lcas was born near Covington, Indiana, October 27, 1833, a son of George and Lydia (Robinson) Leas. The ancestors of the Leas family came from England and were colonial settlers in Pennsylvania. George Leas had ten children, eight sons and two daughters, Isaac being the third in age.
The latter spent his boyhood days and youth in his native county and when a young man came to Champaign County with his father. His father entered 160 acres of land and the son also secured a tract of land in section 9 of St. Joseph Township.
In October, 1860, Mr. Leas laid the foundation of his own home by his marriage to Miss Ervilla Sumner. Mrs. Leas was also born near Covington, Indiana, a daughter of Sclby and Rebecca (Hatheway) Sum- ner. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Leas settled down to begin wedded life on land which he bought, and with hope for the future, enthusiam and unlimited energy their prospects all partook of a rosy huc. Mr. Leas had many trials and privations in carly years. His first land he bought in Champaign County cost him two dollars and a half an acrc. and gradually his accumulations grew until he was paying taxes on 640 acres, a complete section.
Mr. Leas' brother William was a brave soldier in the Civil War, having spent more than three years in the army. As that was a long time to be away from home and friends an arrangement was made between him and Isaac that they would exchange places for a brief time to afford William an opportunity to visit home and friends. It was a risky thing to do, and had the exchange been discovered William would have been liable for arrest as a deserter. Isaac went to Louisville, changed clothes with his
9. 3 Years.
Envilla, Leas,
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
brother, took his brother's place in the ranks and every morning answered to the roll call under his brother's name. Thus he too had a share of the service required for winning the war, though his name does not appear on the records of the great armies of the North.
. During the passing years Mr. Leas gave the best of his energies to the improvement and development of his farin, erected many commodious buildings, planted fruit and shade trees, and the entire estate stands as an attractive monument to his industry.
Into their home were born nine children: Emma, Jennie, Clara, Gertrude, Sadic, Ernest, Ross, Nettie and Frank, the last three dying in childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Leas saw to it that their children were well educated, at first in the Argo district school and later some of them attended thic finc old college in Sullivan County, Indiana, on the banks of the Wabash, known as Merom College, and also the University of Illinois. Gertrude graduated from the Indiana sehool. These children have since married and have become substantially located in the world of affairs. Emma is the wife of Christian Furst, a farmer at Muncie, Indiana, and she has four children, Ervilla, Oral, Russell and Stanley, the last being now deccased. The daughter Jennie married Charles Mallow and they live in Ohio and have children named Leroy, Guy, Orr and two daughters deceased. Clara L. married William Beverlin and lives in Urbana, the mother of Gladys and Mayme. Gladys is now Mrs. E. L. Coolidge of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mayme was graduated from the Urbana High School in 1911, and then entered upon a course of instruction in the University of Illinois, but was prevented from finishing it by the sudden deatlı of her mother on January 24, 1912. W. N. Beverlin, her father, was born near St. Joseph, Illinois, and finished his education in Earlliam College in Indiana. He was a son of T. J. and Elizabeth (Stevenson) Beverlin. T. J. Beverlin was born ncar Centerville, Indiana, and was a soldier in the Union army during the Civil War. His wife was born near Ridge Farm, Illinois. Gertrude L. Leas is the wife of Dr. L. C. Phillips, a graduate of Merom College in Indiana, and they now live in Pensacola, Florida, and have seven children named Ian, Kent, Portia, Leeta, Mayme, Willis and Lawren. The daughter Sadie L. Lcas married Edwin Keller, an insurance man of Frankfort, Indiana, and they have one child, Emerson Leas Keller. Ernest Orr Leas lives in Fountain County, Indiana, and married Miss Temperance Hayworth.
Mr. Isaae Leas, as is also true of his wife, has been a lifelong member of the Christian Church and for many years worshiped in the Prairie Hope Church, to which he was a liberal supporter. Mr. Leas had an important part in the building of this venerable religious structure. From his father's farm he hauled many logs to a mill in Indiana, and then hauled the finished lumber baek to the site of the church building. The seats in the church contain a great quantity of choice walnut timber, a very rare wood at the present time. The weatherboarding on the church was sawed from fine poplar logs. This church is a splendid monument to the zeal and religious spirit of the pioneers who erected the structure and the church itself has stood as a bcaeon light in the community.
The influence of the Leas family has always been for good and uplift- ing work in that part of the county. Mr. Leas has courageously supported and upheld the principles of the Republican party, and has been firmly convineed that the best laws our nation has ever had emanated from that souree. He is a great admirer of Roosevelt and looks upon him as one of the strongest men America has produced.
The crowning sorrow of the Leas family was the death in March, 1915, of Mrs. Leas, who for years had stood side by side with her husband in
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the work of establishing a home and had been mother and adviser to her children. For twelve years before she died Mr. and Mrs. Leas had lived in the city of Urbana, where they kept up their associations with old friends from St. Joseph Township and also found many new friends in the city. When the name of Mr. and Mrs. Leas is mentioned in St. Joseph Town- ship there are many who are eager to speak of the many deeds of kindness performed by them, and there still live in that section a number of families who were aided in their early struggles and eventually came to some considerable measure of success largely through help extended in time of need by Mr. and Mrs. Leas. Notably among these is the family of John Fiock, who enjoys relating his early experience in St. Joseph Township. Landing in St. Joseph with a wife and five children and a cash capital of 35 cents, a stranger to everybody, hunting for work, he was referred to Isaac Leas, who went his security for furniture and provisions and employed him for two years, at the end of which timc he was able to purchase forty acres, making a payment of $60, the agent requiring him to sign an agreement that he was to forfeit the same if he could not pay $40 more within six months, said time to expire at 2 P. M. Being unable to raise the amount, he went to Isaac Leas at 11 A. M. of said day, telling him his troubles. Mr. Leas was busily engaged with farm hands building fence, but like the Good Samaritan of olden days, immedi- ately stopped his work, had his team hitched up and drove with Mr. Fiock to Urbana in time to draw the money from the bank and secure the home to Mr. Fiock, who returned home with a glad heart to announce to his family their little home was safe. Some people strew their flowers to the memory of their friends after the weary heart and hands are stilled, but Isaac Leas has chosen to modestly and quietly strew his flowers along the pathway of a needful humanity, while the heart may be made to rejoice at their reception, the fragrance and beauty surviving as long as memory lasts. It is these worthy acts that causes one's memory to be enshrined within the hearts of the recipients of the same generous deeds.
Since the death of his good wife Mr. Leas has continued his home in Urbana, but usually spends his winters in Florida with friends and rela- tives. On some of his journeys his granddaughter Mayme Beverlin has been with him as traveling companion. Together they made a most enjoyable tour to the Pacific coast in 1915, visiting the exposition at San Francisco and also the fair at San Diego. They were impressed with the wonderful mountain scenery between Colorado Springs and Salt Lake City, went from Los Angeles to Catalina Island, where they viewed the wonders of the deep through the glass bottomed boat, also crossed the border to the quaint Mexican village of Tia Juana, and then returned by the southern route, first pausing at El Paso, Texas, and again crossing the border into Juarez. They also remained in New Orleans a few days and from there came back to Illinois.
Mr. Isaac Leas has always been a stanch friend of the cause of temper- ance. Temperance has not been merely a theory with him but a practice from youth to old age. He has never used either tobacco or liquor, and his life and character in its essential attributes has been consistent with these moral principles. In the matter of commercial integrity there is no question that the word of Isaac Leas is as good as a gold bond. In his business relations he has always been careful, and an incident testifying to his discretion is related. An agent was recently trying to sell him a $3,000 automobile, saying to him, "You might as well buy it and enjoy it, you cannot take your money along with you into the next world." To which Mr. Leas replied, "I think I might take it along as well as I could an automobile."
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REV. ANDREW SCOTT. The qualities of real manhood and the power of leadership were never in greater demand in church work than today. The clergy have always been men of education and of fine moral standing, and with these qualities the successful pastor must now combine the spiritual enthusiasm and some of the same enterprise and energy which are such vital assets in the business world. A better type of this modern minister Champaign County does not have than in the case of Rev. Mr. Scott, pastor of the Christian Church at Fisher. Mr. Scott is a man of letters, has had the benefit of extensive travel, is a fluent and logical speaker, and in the course of his active career has shown unusual capacity as an organizer, administrator and a real church builder.
Some of these qualities he undoubtedly inherited from the land of his birth. He is a Scotchman by nativity, and was born at Melrose in Roxborough. His birth occurred February 13, 1857. He was the third in a family of six children, three sons and three daughters. All these children are living and all in Canada except Mr. Scott. His parents were Adam and Agnes (Gilroy) Scott. His father, who was born in the same locality as the son, was a Scotch teacher, an occupation also followed by the grandfather of Rev. Mr. Scott. In 1863 he determined to bring his family to the broader and more generous opportunities of the New World. The intention was to locate in the United States, but the war then raging between the North and the South caused a change of plans and he took his family to Canada and located near London, Ontario. An uncle had previously established a home in that community. After three years Adam Scott moved to Huron County, Ontario, bought a farm and followed agriculture the rest of his days. His death occurred on the old homestead at the age of eighty-nine. His wife was also born in Scotland and had a common school education. She died in Canada at the age of fifty, and both are now at rest in Sunshine Cemetery at Sunshine, Ontario.
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