USA > Illinois > A history of southern Illinois; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 18
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Ilis plans already matured for the preparation required for his pro- fession, he became a student in the Chicago Veterinary College. being graduated therefrom in April, 1904. No fitter location could be desired than the home of his boyhood and youth, and there he settled to follow the practice of his profession, where he has remained to the present time. Ile is recognized as one of the ablest of his profession in Southern Illi- nois, and has been particularly sneeessful in demonstrating the value of the sciences as applied to diseases of the animal world. He is a member of the Illinois Veterinary Medical Association, and is a careful student of all that applies to the profession to which he is devoted.
Dr. Lyle is able to give some of his time to the affairs of the city, and is now serving his second term as a member of the city council, in which capacity he has given especially praiseworthy service. He was chosen to that office without regard to his political faith, although he is responsive to the demands of the Democratic party, and subscribes to the doctrines enunciated by the more advanced thinkers of that faith.
On New Year's day, 1907, Dr. Lyle married Miss Mayme H. Neil, a daughter of Robert Neil. the head of an old and honored Scotch family of Sparta, and Dr. and Mrs. Lyle are the parents of two children, Cath- erine and Robert.
WILLIAM E. GEORGE. One of the most notable examples of the self- made man to be found in Johnson county is William E. George, of Cache township, who, losing his father at a tender age and being compelled to be content with but seanty educational advantages in order that he might contribute to the support of his mother's family, learned the lessons of thrift and industry so well that he has risen to a place among the lead- ing agriculturists of his section. Mr. George was born December 13. 1862, on a farm in Knox county, Illinois, and is a son of Isaac and Eliza- heth Ann (Whitman) George.
Isaac George was born in Pennsylvania, of German extraction, and lived for a short time in Knox county, Illinois. In 1864 he took his fam- ily to Muscatine county, lowa, where he met death by drowning in 1867. He and his wife, who was born November 7, 1836, in Baltimore, Mary- land, had five sons: Plummer, who died at the age of sixteen years;
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Charles, who is engaged in farming; William E .; Whitfield, who died in infancy ; and John W., an agriculturist of Kentucky. Mrs. George later married for her second husband L. A. Walker, and they had two dangh- ters, namely : Josie, who died at the age of nineteen years; and Mrs. Jennie Miller. In 1868 the family moved to northwestern Missouri, near Lexington, but in 1872 returned to linois, settling on a rented farm in Union county, where they resided until 1882, and then coming to John- son county, the sons in the meantime working on rented farms. In 1886 William E. George was married and purchased Forty acres in Cache township, and Charles E., in 1891, purchased forty acres. William E. George has prospered exceedingly, and his success has been entirely the result of his own labors. When he began farming on his own account he did not have a dollar, and went into debt to the extent of two hundred dollars for his first forty acres, which he soon had developed to such an extent that the land was worth eight hundred dollars. Soon thereafter he purchased forty acres of railroad land for two hundred dollars, and his third forty acres cost him one thousand dollars, but he is now the owner of five hundred and fifty aeres, valued at about fourteen thou- sand dollars, three hundred and fifty aeres being under cultivation. Like many of his fellow-agriculturists in this part of the county, he devotes a great deal of attention to breeding live stock, and his annual shipment of animals includes twenty males and horses, twelve head of cattle, fifty sheep and from fifty to one hundred hogs. As a man who has benefited his community by assisting in developing its resources, and as a citizen who has always been ready to assist in movements calculated to he of benefit to his section. Mr. George is respected and esteemed by his fellow- townsmen, who acknowledge him to be a good, practical farmer and an excellent judge of live-stock. He is progressive in all matters, and he- lieves in the use of the most modern machinery and methods. le he- longs to the Masonic order as a member of Belknap Lodge and Vienna Chapter, in both of which he is extremely popular, as he is with the mem- bers of the Modern Woodmen of America, with which he is also con- nected. With his family he attends the Methodist Episcopal church, and has been active in its work.
Mr. George was married in 1886 to Miss Sarah Ellen Littleton, daugh- ter of Thomas Littleton, a native of North Carolina, of English descent, who migrated to Tennessee and then to Illinois, and who died November 27, 1898. Mr. and Mrs. George have had eleven children, of whom nine are living, as follows: Raleigh, who is married and has three children, Ernest. Chelis and Madge : William T., who is also married ; and Walter E., Clyde, De Witt, Curtis, Homer, Fred and Ray, all of whom live on the farm with their parents.
CHRISTOPHER J. BOYD, who for more than forty years has been en- gaged in agricultural pursuits near Anna, in Union county, Illinois, is one of the old and honored citizens of his community, and has identified himself with various enterprises of a business nature. Mr. Boyd is one of the self-made men of I'nion county, and can look back over a life that has been filled with industrions endeavor and usefulness to his community Ile is a native of eastern Tennessee, and was born in 1s4s. a son o' John and Almira (Johnson Boyd. natives of Tennessee, both of whom died in I'nion county.
Christopher .. Boyd was three years of age when he accompanied his parents to F'nion county, where his father assisted to build the Hhino's C'entral Railroad, and he grew up on the home farm, attending the dis- triet schools of vicinity when he could be spared from his home duties llis education, however, was ent short by the death of his father in Isol.
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and from that time until 1870 he managed the home farm for his mother. In the year last mentioned he was married to Miss Minerva Hess, who was born in 1848, in Union county, daughter of John Hess, an old pio- neer resident, and at that time started to farm on his own account, rent- ing land for five years. Ilaving been reared to habits of industry and economy, he was then able to make a payment on a tract of fifty aeres in Union county, and to this he has since added from time to time, now owning one hundred and forty-nine acres of some of the best-cultivated land in his section. He has paid a good deal of attention to fruit eul- ture, having ten acres in apples and twenty aeres in strawberries, and is president of the Union Fruit Package Company and a director of the Union County Fruit Growers' Association, having held the latter posi- tion sinee the organization of that enterprise. Mr. Boyd has engaged to some extent in truck farming and breeds good horses, at present having fifteen blooded animals on his farm.
Mr. and Mrs. Boyd have had eight children, seven of whom are liv ing, six sons and one daughter. Five sons are engaged in farming and one son is a doctor of medicine. The daughter is the wife of Joseph Hart- line, a prominent farmer of Union county. Mr. Boyd has been a friend of progress along all lines and has always been ready to do his full share as a publie-spirited citizen. A strong believer in the benefits of eduea- tion, he served for nine years as a member of the township trustee school board, and for three years, from 1906 to 1909, he acted in the capacity of eounty commissioner. It has been just such men as Mr. Boyd who have developed the best resources and advanced the interests of Union county, and who are universally respected as the prime movers in transforming this section of the state from a vast, uneultivated tract of practically worthless land into one of the garden spots of Southern Illinois.
WALTER L. WYLIE, M. D. Of one of the old, historie and honored families of Southern Illinois Randolph county has a consistent represen- tative in Dr. Walter L. Wylie, of Sparta. The history of the Wylie fam- ily for three generations baek is so closely interwoven with that of Southern Illinois that it is impossible to write even briefly of the life of Dr. Walter L. Wylie without saying something of his ancestors who have done so much for the spiritual and material uplift of Illinois.
Dr. Walter L. Wylie was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1875, being the son of Rev. William T. Wylie, whose father was Rev. Dr. Sam- uel Wylie, the founder of the family in Randolph county, and the fa- mous exponent of the Covenanter faith, which he established in Southern Illinois, and he is justly termed in these parts as the "Father of the Faith." His labors in behalf of the eause were limited only by his strength, and the best years of his life were spent among his people in Sonthern Illinois, where he ministered to them in body and soul.
Dr. Samuel Wylie was born in Ballyeraigie, County Antrim, Ireland. He came to the United States alone when a young man, and thereafter made his home with an unele, Dr. Wylie, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a preacher of the Covenanter faith, to which Samuel Wylie became an ardent adherent. Dr. Wylie saw that the young man was properly edu- eated, recognizing in him the proper timber for a benefactor of the hu- man raee, and did all in his power to properly fit his nephew for the ca- reer in which he afterwards so distinguished himself. He began his ac- tive ministry in 1811, in Illinois, and was the first minister of the Church of the Covenanters west of the Alleghany mountains. He spent the first few years of his ministry in old Kaskaskia and along the Mississippi, where he labored valiantly to establish the faith in the hearts and minds of the people. No small task was his, considering that his efforts for
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the most part devoted to a people who were bound by the tenets of the church of Rome, but that he succeeded beyond his fondest expectations is amply demonstrated by conditions existing there today. After hav- ing made a beginning and having established the church securely, he made entry to a tract of land upon which he founded the old town of Eden, early famed for its intense God fearing tendencies and for its record as a second "cradle of liberty." The life of Reverend Dr. Wylie among his people was a never failing source of inspiration to all, and his labors of love will be remembered for all time. His education fitted him for his position most admirably, being somewhat similar to the training of the modern medical-missionary, and he was an indis- pensable factor at every important ceremony in the lives of his people. He brought them into the world; he baptized them; he performed their marriage ceremonials and, when life was finished for them, he finally buried them. Far and wide through Southern Illinois he was known as "Priest Wylie" and his high office was performed with the most tender love and sympathy for his ever growing flock. Early in his ininistry Dr. Wylie married Mary Milligan, and three children were born to them: William Theodore, John and Mary. But one was spared to them, however, William Theodore, the father of Walter B. Wylie. Dr. Wylie died in 1873, after a beautiful life of more than four score years, sixty of which were passed in a consuming devotion to the cause of his church and his people in Southern Illinois.
William Theodore Wylie was born in old Kaskaskia, on March 4, 1827. He was sent east to be educated, and his training was conducted under the able supervision of old Dr. Wylie, who had educated the father of William Theodore Wylie. On the completion of his regular college course he entered a theological seminary at Xenia, Ohio, the precept and example of the lives of both uncle and father having ineul- cated in him the ambition and desire to continue in his father's labors. Ile entered upon his ministry in Randolph county as a preacher of the Covenanter faith and spent his life in humble devotion to duty and service of his people, in worthy emulation of his revered father. He displayed some little interest in the development of that section of the country as a mine owner, but all matters of a business nature were but a secondary consideration to his earnest nature. He continued in active service in the ministry until the last few years of his life, when depleted health compelled him to seek some rest from his labors. Hle died December 9, 1910. at the fine ohl age of eighty-three years, leaving a gracions heritage of a well spent life, and rich in the memory of all who knew him. Rev. Wylie was thrice married. Of his first marriage two children were the result. Samuel Wylie, of Ballston Spa, New York, and Laura JJ. Wylie. now professor of English in Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. New York. Ilis third wife, who still survives him, was Miss Agnes Hays, daughter of James H. Hays, of Pittsburg. Pennsylvania. Walter L. Wylie was her only child.
Walter L. Wylie was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1875 HIo was edneated in the Sparta public schools and later in the Western Military Academy at Upper Alton, Illinois. Choosing medicine for a profession, he completed his medical course in Chicago, graduating therefrom in 1897. After some four years spent in the practice of that profession in Sparta. Dr. Wylie decided that he was unfitted by inelination for the work of a physician, and was sufficiently courageous to relinquish his practice and turn his attention to a business career. by which he was irresistibly attracted. Brokerage and real estate con- stitute his aetive business connections, and he conducts a thriving busi- ness along those lines, proving himself eminently fitted by nature for
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a business career. Dr. Wylie is a Republican, politieally speaking, and participates in the activities of his party only as an aid to eorreet national policies. He is in no wise ambitious for office or political preferment of whatever nature, and is well content to be merely a plain business man.
Dr. Wylie is a director in the Southern Illinois Improvement and Loan Association, and fraternally he is a member of the minor Masonie bodies at Sparta, as well as a member of the Peoria Consistory, having taken his thirty-second degree in masonry.
On August 10, 1903, Dr. Wylie was married to Miss Flora Hayes, a daughter of Monroe Hayes, formerly of Carbondale, Illinois, where Mrs. Wylie was educated in the Southern Illinois Normal and eom- pleted her musical studies under the personal supervision of Professor Sherwood, of Chicago.
WILLIAM C. DOWELL is deputy warden of the Southern Illinois Peni- tentiary and has spent approximately thirty-four years of his life in prison work with this institution. He was one of the first force of em- ployes who came to Chester to do the preliminary work of building the prison, and it can be truthfully said that the first work of clearing the ground for the prison site was done by him. Mr. Dowell was born at Dover, Tennessee, on the 30th of October, 1852, and his father was John C. Dowell, overseer of the iron furnaces of John Bell at Dover. John C. Dowell entered the river service and became mate, pilot and then eap- tain of a packet in the Nashville-St. Louis service. After following that occupation for about a dozen years he engaged in building the Illinois Central Railroad as one of its contractors, and when he retired from that work he settled on a farm in Williamson county, Illinois, there passing the declining years of his life. He was born in Daviess county, Ken- tueky, of Irish lineage, his ancestry having been originally from county Down, Ireland. The family name in its primitive form was "MeDowell" and was so written by Allen McDowell, grandfather of the subject of this review. Allen's children, including John C., dropped the "Me" and all of his descendants are now known under the name of Dowell. Allen McDowell was a colonial soldier in the war of the Revolution and took part. also, in the war of 1812. He came into Kentucky and died at Whitesville, in that state. He was twice married and became the father of five sons and two daughters. In the early days he was a Democrat of the old school, but after the elose of the Civil war he and his sons trans- ferred their allegiance to the Republican party.
John C. Dowell married Miss Sarah Mobley. a North Carolina lady of Irish blood and a native of County Down, Ireland. She passed away in 1886, at the age of seventy-eight years, and her honored husband died in 1907, in his eighty-ninth year. Concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Dowell, four passed away early in life; William C. is the immediate subject of this review : Alice is the wife of William Gulledge, of Williamson county, Illinois: Monroe died at Carterville, Illinois, and is survived by a family ; and Thomas L. passed away at Marion, Illinois, where his family is now residing.
William C. Dowell, of this notice, was a child of but four years of age at the time of his parents' removal to Illinois. He grew to maturity in Williamson county, to which publie schools he is indebted for his preliminary educational training. As a youth he engaged in the rail- road business on the Illinois Central Railroad as station man at Car- bondale, following that line of enterprise from 1871 to 1877. Subse- quently he spent six months with the United States pension department at Salem, Illinois, and at the expiration of that period he became inter-
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ested in the prison work and came to Chester. as previously noted. He became assistant clerk in the Southern Illinois Penitentiary in 1877 and in the following year was made purchasing agent of the institution. He served in the latter position until 1885, when he was appointed deputy warden by General Mitchell, the warden. He served as deputy warden until 1893, when he was appointed captain of the World's Fair secret service force at Chicago. From 1894 to 1896 he was assistant secretary of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, the committee which so successfully blocked the efforts of the Bryan management and carried the state by an overwhelming majority for MeKinley, thus closing the greatest political campaign ever fought in the United States. In 1997 Mr. Dowell returned to Chester as deputy warden, by appointment of J. M. Tanner, and he served as such until 1904, when he again resigned, only to be reappointed in the following year by Governor Deneen. In his capacity as prison official Mr. Dowell has covered a large portion of the United States in pursuit of escaped convicts and he has a wide ae- quaintanee among prison men and peace officers everywhere. Ilis fa- miliarity with Ilinois and her publie men is most pronounced and the statesmen and politicians developed by the conditions of the Civil war were in their palmiest days of service when he was annexed as a public servitor.
Mr. Dowell beeame interested in active polities as a young man and was a delegate to the state conventions of 1876, 1884 and 1896. as a Re- publican. He has served under all the governors of the state since 1977 and under seven wardens during that period. In fraternal circles he is a Knight Templar, an Odd Fellow and an Elk, and he was a delegate to the Grand Lodges of the Odd Fellows order in 1876 and 1877.
At Chester, Illinois, on the 18th of November, 1885, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dowell to Miss Mary Dunn. a daughter of Andrew Dunn, who was born and reared in County Antrim, Ireland. Mrs. Dowell was born at Chester, Illinois, and is a member of a family of eight children, six of whom are living, in 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Dowell are the parents of the following children,-Linie, who is the wife of D. M. Logan, of Shawneetown, Ilinois: Jean, who is with the Terminal Rail- way Company of St. Louis; and Dorothy, Margaret, David and Mary, all of whom are at the parental home.
MATTHEW W. COCKRUM. The evolution of Franklin county from an untamed wilderness into a populous, highly improved and well ordered community has occupied but a brief span of years. There are those now living who were here in time to aid in the beginning of the struggle against the forces of nature. And yet there has been time for families to grow up and children and grandchildren to be born and to seatter west, north and south. Such has been the history of the family of Mat- thew W. Cockrum, an old and respected citizen of Franklin county and a man who stands high in the estimation of all who know him. Although now spending the closing years of his life in retirement, he was at one time the leading agriculturists of his county. Mr. Cockrum was born in Franklin county, January 20, 1838, a son of Matthew and Sarah Til son) Cockrum, and a grandson on both the maternal and paternal siles of a family of Kentucky farming people.
Matthew Cockrum was born in Kentucky, and came to Ilinois at a very early day, settling as a pioneer near Ewing. In 1910 he took his family to a farm on the present site of Sesser, and started to cultivate the one hundred and eighty nere traet which he had secured from the gov- ernment. He was engaged in farming during the remainder of his hte.
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and his death occurred in 1895, when he was known as the wealthiest man of his locality.
Matthew W. Cockrum received his education in the subscription schools, and his boyhood was spent in hard work upon his father's farm. He experienced the usual trials and discouragements that befell the pioneers of his seetion, but the training gave him splendid physical strength and taught him that the true road to success lies only through hard work and persistent effort. In time he became the owner of a prop- erty of his own, on which he resided until 1908, and then retired from ae- tive pursuits and settled in Sesser. He reserved eighty aeres on the edge of the town, which he platted into lots, and also owns thirty aeres within the corporation limits. At one time Mr. Coekrum was the owner of over eight hundred aeres of land in Franklin county, but during 1910 he di- vided this among his children. He is a sturdy Republican in polities, but has given his whole attention to his farming interests, and has never allowed his name to be used in connection with publie office. In his long and active career Mr. Coekrum has had a reputation for the highest in- tegrity and business ability, a man of extraordinary foresight in placing investments and a good and publie-spirited citizen of Franklin county.
In 1860 Mr. Cockrum was married to Miss Ruth Greenwood, daughter of Willoughby Greenwood, an early settler of Franklin county. Of the children born to this union five are now living, namely : Martha Jane, who married William Jones; Arta M., who married Charles Jones; Laura L., who married Robert Sherriff; Francis M., who is engaged in farming in Franklin county ; and Monia D., who married Alva Stephenson. Mrs. Cockrum died July 3, 1909, in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church. On June 23, 1910, Mr. Cockrum was married to Mrs. Matilda (Isaacs) Brayfield, widow of J. M. Brayfield, who died in 1904. Mrs. Cockrum is a daughter of George Isaacs, a veteran of the Mexican war and an early settler of Franklin county.
ALEXANDER WILSON MILLER. The mining interests of Southern Illi- nois are vast and varied and have called forth the best efforts and aetiv- ities of some of the leading men of this section, in which connection the name of Alexander Wilson Miller stands forth as superintendent of the old Brush mining property of Carterville, now known as the Madison Coal Corporation, which includes the old Colp mine adjacent to Carter- ville. Mr. Miller has been in charge of the property since November, 1910, succeeding James Reid in the position. His life has been spent in the industry of mining, comes from a family of coal miners, and was born in St. Louis, Missouri, July 12, 1865. His parents located in Belleville, Illinois, in 1869, and around that town and in the graded schools there he grew up and secured his somewhat limited education.
Alexander Miller, the father of Alexander W., was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, was married there and came to the United States when about thirty years of age. He grew up in the atmosphere of the mines and dug coal all of his life, and his death occurred at O'Fallon, Illinois, in 1906, when he was seventy-six years of age. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Wilson, resides at Glen Carbon, Illinois, and is seventy- eight years old. They had four children: N. K., of Glen Carbon; Mrs. .Jane Clayton and Mrs. Elizabeth White, of O'Fallon; and Alexander Wilson, of Carterville.
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