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 6
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Mr. Matthew W. Busey is a Democrat in his political affiliations, but his business interests have been so extensive that he has not found time to enter actively into politics. He is well known in fraternal circles, being a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the Knight Templar body and Medinah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of Chicago, Illinois. He is also a member of Urbana Lodge, B. P. O. E. When a young man he served his time in the National Guard.
BERT RAYBURN. Champaign County with its high-priced lands is dis- iinctively the field for the highly efficient farm manager. That is the work and position of Mr. Bert Rayburn. By long experience he has proved his capability in handling the soil and resources of Champaign County in a manner productive both to himself and the owners of the land. Mr. Ray- burn has acquired a considerable stake as a land holder himself, but his chief experience has been as a renter and farm manager.
A native of Champaign County, he was born in Mahomet Township, September 24, 1872, a son of Lee and Dora (Christian) Rayburn, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Kentucky. The Rayburns were pioneers in Champaign County, where Grandfather John Rayburn located about 1856. He was a farmer, and farming has been the regular occupa- tion of the family through three generations. Mr. Lec Rayburn spent many years in that vocation and is now living retired at Champaign. He was at one time road commissioner of Scott Township. He and his wife had thir- tecn children : Estella, living at Champaign, widow of William Herriott ; Bert; Leonard, a farmer in Mahomet Township; Joseph, Pearl and Nellie, all deceased ; Myrtle, at home; Ethel, wife of Charles Keller of Urbana ; Mabel, wife of Thomas Barker, a farmer in Scott Township; Cecil, a Scott Township farmer; J. W. of Scott Township; Lce and Elsie, still at home.
Mr. Bert Rayburn had a thorough training as a farmer during the first twenty-one years of his life, which he spent at home. In the meantime he acquired a substantial education in the local schools. At the age of twenty- one he continued working a year for his father and then rented ninety acres in Scott Township, which he managed two years. He then went to a larger farm, consisting of 265 acres, and had that place under liis control
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for five years. His next experience was in the implement business at Bond- ville for a year, and removing to Mattoon, Illinois, he farmed a 240-acre place two years and for one year was in Iroquois County, farming 200 acres.
In 1909 Mr. Rayburn took the active management of the large Burnham estate in section 2 of Champaign Township. This has long been one of the noted farms of Champaign County, and for eight years Mr. Rayburn has rotated the crops on this 270 acres and has handled it both as a gen- eral farming and stock-raising proposition. Altogether he has 367 acres under his direction, including ninety-seven acres of his own located in Hensley Township. Mr. Rayburn pays successful attention to all the varied departments of farming, and if there is any one specialty it is his dairy of finc thoroughbred Holstein cows. Politically he is a Republican and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On February 20, 1895, Mr. Rayburn married Eva E. Shaffer, who was born at Ludlow, Illinois. They are the parents of six children: Fern, who was born March 23, 1896, and died in November, 1899; Glenn and Gladys, twins, born August 10, 1897; Harold, born in 1899 and died in 1901; Vernon, born in November, 1903; and Feryl, born May 3, 1910.
WILLIAM D. BURTON is a Champaign County pioneer, was a farmer during his more active years, and since moving to Champaign has done much for the betterment and improvement of that city.
Mr. Burton was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, January 28, 1830, a son of Elijah and Deliah (Dimmitt) Burton, the former a native of Pennsyl- vania and the latter of Virginia. His father was a farmer and both he and his wife died in Knox County, Illinois. There were nine children : Malinda J., who died in California ; Harvey, deceased ; William D .; Henry, of Grant's Pass, Oregon; Sarah, John and George, all deceased; Oliver, who lives in Iowa ; and Hiram, of Colorado.
William D. Burton was reared in Ohio, and first passed through Cham- paign County when on his way to Iowa. The following year, 1858, he returned to Knox County and later to eastern Illinois and located on a farm four miles north of Mahomet in Champaign County. He still owns a hundred acres of the land which he developed and cultivated in that section. In 1892 he came to Champaign, was real estate agent for some years, and invested in local property, including his own home and other parcels of real estate. Mr. Burton was the man who set out all the trees in the East Side Park addition.
On March 20, 1856, he married Mary Abbott Wright, who was born in Licking County, Ohio, October 16, 1829, and died at her home in Cham- paign February 15, 1917. Mr. Burton has two children: Eliza is the wife of Dr. J. I. Groves, of Champaign; Dora is the wife of F. J. Foote, of Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Burton is a Republican, has been affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since he was twenty-one years of age, and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
THOMAS J. COLVIN. One of the substantial commercial enterprises of Urbana, with forty years of successful and reliable business history back of it, is the meat market conducted by Thomas J. Colvin. When Mr. Colvin entered upon his career in this venture, he had little to back him save the experience he had gained as his father's assistant, his ambition, determination and industry, but out of these he has developed a paying and prosperous business, which has become so well known at Urbana as to be accounted a necessary commercial asset. The proprietor, with a supreme faith in the future of the city, has invested heavily in real estate holding here, so that he is one of the substantial property owners of the
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place. Both in his own interests and those of the city, he has always staunehly supported measures making for local improvement and eivic betterment.
Thomas J. Colvin was born February 14, 1858, in Scott County, Indiana, and is a son of John and Catherine (Goben) Colvin. His father, a native of County Down, Ireland, eame to the United States in young man- hood and engaged in working at the cabinet-maker's trade in Seott County, Indiana, where he met and married Catherine Goben. She died there in 1860, and in 1867 Mr. Colvin brought his family to Champaign County, Illinois, and settled on a farm in the vicinity of Tolono. He became one of the leading citizens of his community, won an honorable standing in business life, and finally became interested in public affairs and was .well known as one of the stauneh workers in the ranks of the Demoeratie party. Under both of President Cleveland's administrations he served Tolono as postmaster, and eventually was chosen mayor, in which office he was serving at the time of his tragie death. On the day of his demise a fire had broken out, and Mayor Colvin, hastening to the seene of the con- flagration, was struek and instantly killed by an Illinois Central train, the approach of which he had failed to note because of an umbrella which he was carrying. His death was considered a great loss to the community, in the interests of which he had labored so faithfully. There were five children in the family of John and Catherine Colvin, namely: Martha, of Los Angeles, California, the widow of Ebenezer Gordon; Mary Jane, who is the wife of B. B. Salberry, of San Francisco, California; John M., a resident of Spokane, Washington; Thomas J., of this notice; and Edward, who enlisted in the army when a mere youth, and of whom the . family has completely lost track.
Thomas J. Colvin was educated in the public schools of Tolono, and as a youth assisted his father in condueting a meat market at that place. When he had $100 saved, at the age of nineteen years, he embarked upon an independent venture, which, starting in a necessarily small way, rapidly developed into a substantial house. In 1882 he bought the business establishment which he now conduets, and which is accounted one of the leading markets of the city, it having been built up through a poliey of honorable eonduet, honest representation and straightforward methods of doing business. In investing his profits Mr. Colvin has been loyal to his home eity, and now has numerous holdings in a realty way, business and residential. His standing in business cireles is of the best, and as a citizen he has contributed freely of time, ability and means in furthering worthy projects. Mr. Colvin is a Demoerat, but not a politician.
In December, 1882, Mr. Colvin was united in marriage at Urbana to Miss Sadie Marks, who was born in Champaign County, and to this union there have been born three children: John T., who is associated with his father in the market business, one of the enterprising young business men of Urbana ; Don Otto, who is now residing in Arizona; and Ernest M., whose place of residence is Middletown, Ohio.
ISAAC E. HESS. Successful merchandising is a business that is neces- sary in a community that desires to expand and progress, but all merelian- dising is not, by any means, successful. When poor stoeks are offered to the publie and indifferent salesmen reluctantly show the wares, the business is not very likely to interest any one very long, but, on the other hand, the first elass store, filled with dependable, up-to-date goods which are brought to the attention of customers by courteous employes and sold at honest prices, is a very helpful factor in building up the name and promoting the
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prosperity of a town, village or a city. In order, however, to be a success- ful merchant, a man must have many of the qualities that make for success along any line, and foresight, shrewdness, knowledge of details, good judg- inent and integrity arc some of these. Occasionally the real mercantile spirit descends in a family from father to son and a case in point may be mentioned in referring to Philo, that bustling little city in Champaign County, where the name of Hess has been thoroughly identified with the mercantile business for the past forty-two years.
Isaac E. Hess, who is the leading general merchant at Philo, Illinois, was born at Parkville, in Sadorus Township, Champaign County, Illinois, September 3, 1871. His parents were George W. and Erzilla Jane (Dod- son) Hess, the former of whom was born in Ohio and the latter in Ken- tucky. In his earlier years George W. Hess was a farmer. He came to Champaign County and located in Sadorus Township in 1858 and engaged there in agricultural pursuits until 1875, when he moved to Philo and estab- lished himself in the general mercantile business there, but his career as a merchant was short, as his death took place August 25, 1876. His widow survived him many years, the date of licr death being May 4, 1915. They were the parents of the following children: Ella W., who is the wife of Martin Ellars, Ironton, Ohio; William S. Hess, merchant at Homer, Illinois ; Samuel, who is general passenger agent for the Wabash Railroad at Decatur; Fred C., who conducts a drug store at Villa Grove; George D., a resident of Champaign; and Isaac E.
Isaac E. Hess attended the public schools and was graduated from the Champaign High School in the class of 1887. In the meanwhile his older brothers had carried on the mercantile business established by the father at Philo, and he became a clerk in the store and soon began to cherish the ambition to make the business his own, which ambition he was able to gratify in 1898 when he bought the entire interests of his two brothers and then took charge. Mr. Hess has a fine modern store, with a carefully assorted stock and does a substantial business, his patronage not being con- fined to the town but coming from a large outlying territory. In thus being able to keep the people's money in circulation at home, Mr. Hess has assisted the community, for it is distributed in other lines of trade together with his own and the benefit has been mutual and general.
As a successful merchant Mr. Hess fills a place of usefulness and no. small distinction in Champaign County, but it is for other reasons that he is widely known over the state and has a growing list of admirers in many sections of the country. If Champaign County should ever creatc a Hall of Fame there would certainly be a niche somewhere for Isaac E. Hess. He would deserve that place, not because he has been a successful business man, but because of his quiet and sustaincd interest and study for many years of Illinois bird life. Curiously enough, Mr. Hess' services as an ornithologist is known and appreciated by more people outside Cham- paign County than within it, though this is due merely to the fact that a very restricted number of people in any one given locality are real nature Jovers and students. In recent years at different times articles on Mr. Hess' work have appeared in many newspapers, including the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, the Chicago Record-Herald, and various down-state journals. It would not be possible in this article to quote even a few of the many appre- ciations that have been written concerning his practical work as an ornith- ologist or his character as a bird poct and philosopher. In April, 1913, the Decatur Herald said editorially: "No naturalist that we know anything about makes his subjects of more gripping interest to the reader or clothes it in a finer philosophy than Isaac Hess of Philo. The Herald considers itself fortunate in being able to present to its readers Mr. Hess' series of bird articles. Mr. Hess could not be drily and formally scientific if he
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tried. He would make an ornithological catalogue fascinating and put humor into an appendix of a work on pterodactyls. It is the happy mis- sion of Mr. Hess to open the mental eyes of his fellow men to the things they have seen, but do not notice; a talk with him-and a walk through timber, along a river bottom, or a ride along a country road has a new significance."
Some months before this editorial appeared the Decatur Herald pub- lished a full page article, illustrated, under the title, "Philo's Bird Lover, Philosopher, a remarkable combination of business man and interpreter of nature, student and champion of his feathered friends, to whom it is good to listen." It is only doing justice where justice is due to quote some of the paragraphs from this very interesting special correspondent.
"Perhaps it was because of Philo's trees affording so many opportunities for songsters' nests that Isaac Hess became an ornithologist. Every eountry boy, he believes, is more or less an uneonscious naturalist up to a certain age. He is interested in the wild life about him, learns to know the names of the birds, something of their haunts and habits, and then distractions come in; further development is arrested. Mr. Hess started in as other boys have done, only in his case there was no break in his study of birds through the crowding in of other interests. Though a busy man, he has continued to be a student in his favorite subject and has become a well recognized authority on the birds of central Illinois, a writer of note on ornithological subjects, and the author of papers and pamphlets, one of which is used as the basis of a course in the University of Illinois.
"Sound him on almost any phase of his favorite subject, and Mr. Hess invariably will respond : 'I have a pamphlet on that,' or 'I am now pre- paring a paper on that very thing.' One is brought to a realization of his capacity for hard work by records of the Illinois Academy of Seienee, articles in the Bird Magazine and other popular and seientific journals to which he contributes, and in the almost countless letters and articles in newspapers by which he has sought to disseminate the information that he has acquired and make it of use to those about him.
"Mr. Hess' single greatest achievement was the gathering of data on 104 different species of birds found in a ten-mile radius from his home, which data was published in 1910 and remains the most complete and . authoritative work of its kind in eentral Illinois. Not only did Mr. Hess make his way through swamps, over hedges and along the rough course of Salt Fork Creck and the Embarrass River, often creeping on hands and knees and lying for hours at a time scarcely daring to breathe lest the knowledge of his presenee should disturb some little feathered home builder, but he collected the eggs of ninety-four different speeies, which collection occupying cases in the rear of his store, is one which bird lovers come far to see.
"Take into consideration the fact that for years Mr. Hess kept an earliest nesting record of the birds that visited this radius, and one has an idea of the size of the task. Mr. Hess also has a most complete collection of mounted birds, although most of his hunting is done with glass and camera rather than with gun, and he much prefers birds living to birds dead.
"No matter how well a genius may write he seldom writes as well as he talks. You would be interested in Mr. Hess' work on Breeding Birds or his paper on the Passing of Our Game Birds, but you will be a good deal more interested to sit down with him for an hour and hear him dis- cuss birds, for it is then that you get Mr. Hess' philosophy as well as absorbingly interesting information which he has pieked up first hand. You may not be a bird lover, but the probabilities are that after one of these talks with Mr. Hess your eyes will be opened to things that you never have seen before and your thought directed into new channels.
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"For one thing Mr. Hess is teaching the farmers in Champaign County what birds are their friends and are deserving of their protection for the good they do in devouring weed seeds and inseets. He has taught them, for instance, that the Red-Tailed Hawk that voloplanes so gracefully on strong pinions ligh in air has no designs on the henhouse, but is looking for the field mice which his wonderful eye diseloses to him in the grass 100 vards below him. The true name of this hawk, Mr. Hess says, should be the Farmers' Friend, and he is a wholly different bird from the smaller low-flying thief that darts over the fence, seizes a eliieken, and is off with it before a gun can be sighted.
"Many of his acquaintances fail to understand the work he is doing and cannot understand his willingness to put in days of hard labor to seeure a new specimen or discover some new traits in his friends, the birds. But in this respect perhaps he does not suffer so much from lack of appre- ciation as other geniuses of different bent, for there is in every human a love of nature, but even if they did not care to follow Mr. Hess into realms of ornithologieal bliss they would still listen to him so entertain- ingly does he talk on birds-or any other topie.
"Broad, fair-minded, and seeking always to find the best, rather than the other in his fellow men, Mr. Hess has inoculated most of his followers to some extent with his spirit and no matter how delieate the subject, nor how widely different may be the views on any question at his store elearing house of publie opinion, there is always that spirit of good fellowship and respect for feelings in the discussion.
"One might gather the impression from this sketch that the subject of it may be a genius but not a business man. Perhaps the reader has visions of a topsy-turvy stoek in an untidy, neglected store, but the opposite is true. Nowhere will be found a more tidy and up-to-date dry goods store and some of the commercial journals to which Mr. Hess has contributed his ideas on stoekkeeping and bookkeeping have paid him the highest compli- ments, venturing the opinion that writer must have an ideal store, which it is. And this is also true of his home, for he is married to a woman who shares his love of nature. They have a pretty home and a very pretty baby girl. Living so many years so elose to nature has made Mr. Hess an optimist. He accepts the Creator's plan and believes with the poet that 'All's right with the world.' To not everyone is given that ability or the desire to emphasize the good and minimize the bad."
Mr. Hess is a member of the seientifie associations, the American Ornith- ologists' Union, Wilson's Club, and Illinois Academy of Seienee. For three years he was a special writer for the Decatur Herald, preparing a series of 157 articles on bird life, and this series is now running in the Quiney Whig. He was one of three authors compiling work on American birds to be publislied in the German language under auspices of the royal family of Germany when war interfered with all plans. At the present time Mr. Hess is engaged on a book, "Illinois Birds," the publication of which will be eagerly anticipated by his many friends and admirers all over the state. Mr. Hess has leetured nearly everywhere in Illinois before university elubs, farmers' institutes, Boy Seout elubs, liigli schools, women's elubs, Milliken University at Deeatur, the University of Illinois and the Patterson Springs Chautauqua. These leetures and addresses are illustrated with slides from photos of his own taking of Illinois birds "in situ." Some time ago Mr. Hess was offered the position of instructor of the Nature Class Summer Seliool in the University of Illinois.
Not all of Mr. Hess' studies of bird life have been through the medium of camera and field notes. He has expressed himself many times in poetry, and it will not be out of place to inelude his verses on "The Upland Plover":
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But for notes of Whippoorwills Not a sound of spring so thrills Ear and heart and sets me list'ning, Like the weird and plaintive whistling, Of the dainty Upland Plover- Wild, elusive meadow-lover;
When o'er May-day breeze is floating, Soothing, whistled Plover-noting, I am seized of great desire Born of hidden motive, higher Than the sordid dollar chasing ; Sluggish blood, aroused, is racing Through my veins; forsaking duties I'm away with Nature's beauties ;
Slyly slipping through the sedges- Creeping, peeping, behind hedges To the fields where I discover Haunts of winsome Upland Plover ; In the fields of scented clover Bobolinks are bubbling over; Meadow-larks are tuning madly ; Dickcissels are off'ring gladly Sweetest anthems of thanksgiving ; All lute of the joys of living.
But to me the sweetest ear-sounds- Satisfying full-of-cheer sounds, Sirens from the mated lover Of the patient setting Plover; Rising like a flash from cover Poised on flutt'ring wings to hover . In mid-air above his treasure He, to show the world his pleasure, Sounds his message (song epistle) - Voloplanes down with his whistle.
Mr. Hess married, May 23, 1894, Miss Florence Adams, who was born in McLean County, Illinois. Their daughter, Edith Constance, was born March 8, 1912. For many years Mr. Hess has been a member of the Order of Odd Fellows and attends the lodge at Philo. Although a sound Republican in his political sentiments, he is by no means a politician, nor is he illiberal in his attitude on general public questions. Among other business interests he was at its inauguration and conventions secretary of the Florida Fruit Lands Company, which divided 180,000 acres of cver- glades.
THOMAS E. SMITH. The name Thomas E. Smith is at once associated with the wealthy and successful business men of Champaign. Success did not come to him like manna from the skies, but was earned by the hardest kind of effort. He gained some of his early experience as a pioneer on the Northwestern prairies of the Dakotas and Montana. For many years Mr. Smith has been in the meat business at Champaign and is now pro- prietor of two large cold storage plants and handles his business on a wholesale scale.
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He was born near Potomac, Vermilion County, Illinois, January 13, 1862. His parents were William H. and Emily (Copeland) Smith, the former a native of England and the latter of Vermilion County, Illinois. William H. Smith was brought to America when an infant, his parents locating on a farm in Vermilion County, where he grew to manhood and thereafter until his death was a successful dealer, buyer and shipper of live stock. His widow is now living in Paxton, Ford County, Illinois, having married as her second husband Lynn Corbley. William H. Smith and wife had eight children : Charles S., of Kansas City, Missouri; Alice, wife of William Palmer, of Los Angeles, California; Thomas E .; Anna, deceased; Clara, widow of Lincoln Armstrong, living at Terre Haute, Indiana; William S., who occupies the old home place in Vermilion County ; Lillian, deceased; and John R., in the meat business at Cham- paign.
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