USA > Illinois > A history of southern Illinois; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 40
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C., born after their advent into Jefferson county, attended school in a log school house near Walnut Ilill taught by Henry G. Hook. The mother and father of William Jennings Bryan also attended that little school, all unconscious then of the fame and name to be theirs in later life as a result of the public character of a son of theirs.
The schooling of James C. Maxey was of necessity limited, and he remained in the Mount Vernon home until he was of a sufficient age to undertake the responsibilities of looking out for himself. He became interested in farming and stock-raising. and as time went on branched ont in that industry, buying land and then more land, increasing his herds gradually until he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, en- abling him to retire from the pressing activities of the busy life he had led for so many years, and he is now living quietly and comfortably, his declining years amply provided for by the thrift and industry of his earlier ears. On October 31. 1850, was solemnized the marriage of James Maxey and Nancy J. Moss. She was a descendant on the ma- ternal side of an influential pioneer family. Louis Johnson, being her maternal grandfather. Her father, Ransom Moss, settled near Shiloh Church, and when his first wife died Old Shiloh cemetery was laid out, and she was the first person to be buried in that famous cemetery. They were the parents of eight children. They were: John R., de- ceased ; Walter S., of whom we write; Oliver W., deceased; Oscar S .; Albion F .: James Henry, agent of the Standard Oil Company and sec- retary and treasurer of the Mount Vernon Ice & Storage Company; Lillie, the wife of I. F. Sugg, a merchant of Kinmundy, Illinois; and Moss, a physician and surgeon in Mount Vernon. The father, James C. Maxey, is a veteran of the Civil war, having fought in Company L, Fifty- eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He has in his time filled numerous responsible positions of a public nature, thus demonstrating his public- spiritedness and willingness to advance the general welfare of his home community, if further demonstration were necessary. He is now in his eighty-fifth year, and his wife is in her seventy-ninth year. .
Walter S. Maxey was educated in the common and high schools of his native connty. When he was twenty years of age he began teach- ing, and devoted himself to the pedagogic art for nine years in Jeffer- son county. In the fall of 1880 he discontinued his labors in the field of education and took a position as a clerk in the grocery store of the late S. K. Latham, where he was employed for three years, a part of the time in the employ of S. G. II. Taylor, who was the successor of Mr. Latham. In the winter of 1884 Mr. Maxcy served on the grand jury at Springfield for three months, being clerk of that body. In July, 1884, he entered the drug store of Porter & Bond as a clerk, with the express intention of learning the drug business, and how well he lived up to his intentions and expectations is evidenced by the flourish- ing business of which he is now one of the proprietors. In I889 he he- came a registered pharmacist as a result of his carefully pursued studies in connection with his regular duties, and he formed a partnership with Dr. A. C. Johnson and J. H. Rackaway to conduct a drug business. In 1900 Maxey & Rackaway became the owners of the entire business, under which firm name the business is still being conducted in a man- ner most creditable to both gentlemen in charge.
In 1888 Mr. Maxey was married to Miss Almeda Ilieks, a daughter of Colonel S. G. Hicks of Jefferson county. In 1891 Mrs. Maxey died, and in 1900 Mr. Maxcy contracted a second marriage, when Miss Es- tella Wiedeman, a graduate and teacher of the Mount Vernon schools, became his wife. Of this latter nnion four children were born. They
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are : Walter Charles, aged ten years; James Wayland, aged eight ; Margaret Moss, five years old : and Taylor, aged two years.
Mr. Maxey is prominent in political circles, and is a Democrat in his faith. Ile has tilled the office of assessor for his township, also col- lector, and he was for several terms a trustee of the schools of Mount Vernon township. Ile was once the Democratic candidate for the office of mayor of his city, and ran better than a hundred votes ahead of his ticket, but was defeated by a small majority, Mount Vernon being a dis- tinetly Republican city. Mr. Maxey is a man of much enterprise, al- ways prominent in the front ranks of the leaders of his city, and his reputation is of a high order that permits of no adverse criticism.
ROSS SETEN, of the firm of R. Seten & Son Hardware Company. Harrisburg, illinois, came to Saline county when a young man. and as a farmer, merchant and coal prospector and operator. has helped to make history here. As one of the leading citizens of the county for many years, a sketch of his life is of interest in this work, devoted as it is to a portrayal of the lives of the representative men and women of Southeastern Illinois.
Ross Seten was born near Salem, in Washington county, Indiana. July 18, 1835, and on a farm in that county spent his boyhood days. He remained in Washington county until 1858, when, with four hundred dollars in cash and a two-horse team, he came over into the neighboring state of Illinois and established himself on a farm of one hundred and sixty aeres near Sulphur Springs, ten miles southeast of Harrisburg. This land he purchased at four dollars and fifty cents an acre. Later he sold it and bought and sold other lands, and he still owns three hun- dred and sixty acres, eighteen dollars an aere being the highest price he ever paid for any land. Here for twenty years he made his home and gave his attention to farming and stock raising, raising and buying and selling cattle and hogs, also trading for all kinds of stock, and making large shipments to market.
About 1873 Mr. Seten bought a small hardware and furniture store. and placed his son George in charge of it. A few years later he left the farm and moved to Harrisburg, where he has ever since made his home. On the present site of the Trust & Savings Bank he built a large two-story frame building, and subsequently he bought and built on the north side of the block. In the meantime he had taken his son as a part- ner in the business. In 1891 the furniture and hardware stock was di- vided, and his son took the furniture end of the business. Mr. Seten sustained loss by fire three times at his original location, and after the last fire he sold out to the bank. For several years he carried a stock of general merchandise, including dry goods, but of recent years he has confined his stock to hardware, and now under the firm name of the R. Seten & Son Hardware Company, has one of the finest hardware stores in Southern Illinois, handling general hardware, steam fittings. anto fixtures, mining tools and miners' supplies. His stock will exceed $12.000 and the annual trade of the firm amounts to between fifty and sixty thousand dollars.
Mr. Seten and his sons were stockholders in the Saline County Coal Company, pioneers in the coal industry in this county. It was about 1898 or 1899 that they began operations. They sunk a shaft three miles and a quarter west of the Big Four Railroad, and developed a mine that had an output of 600 tons when. in 1901. they sold to the O'Gara Coal Company. The old name was then dropped. although soon afterward a new company took the same name. They believed that coal in paving thickness could be found. Accordingly they seenred an option on land
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three miles west of Harrisburg and, sinking a hole ostensibly for stock water, they found coal in a seven to eight foot vein and at once began operations, and thus when the O'Gara Coal Company came to Saline county it was a ready buyer of the property. Mr. Seten's farm of three hundred and sixty acres, eight miles from Harrisburg, is all underlaid with eoal, but as yet no mines have been developed on this tract, it being held for future use. Mr. Seten was one of the original directors of the Saline County Trust & Savings Bank, and is still one of its stockholders.
While he has never been active in politics he has always been a pub- lic-spirited citizen. He cast his first presidential vote for Fillmore in 1856, and remembers having heard Fremont speak in that campaign. At one time, when Saline county was Democratic by six hundred votes, Mr. Seten was elected on the Republican ticket to the office of county commissioner, and served as such for eighteen months, at the end of that time resigning. Fraternally he is a Mason. The degrees were con- ferred upon him in Equality Lodge, No. 2, the oldest lodge in Illinois, in 1860, and he at once became a worker in the lodge. In the early days he used to come to Harrisburg to assist in the lodge work. Also he is a member of the Chapter.
On September 20, 1857, Ross Seten and Miss Mary Ann Specks, a native of Campbellsburg, Indiana, were united in marriage, and with the passing years sons and daughters to the number of nine have come to bless their home. Their children in order of birth are as follows: George W., who is engaged in the furniture business; D. K., a grocer ; Sigel and John L., in the hardware business; William, a farmer; Alice, wife of J. P. Harmon, of Phoenix, Arizona; Mollie, wife of Robert Maeklin ; Millie, wife of William Walker; and Pearl, wife of Caliborn Cecil.
EARL GREEN, M. D. The son and the grandson of able and prom- inent physicians, Dr. Earl Green, himself a talented exponent of the medical profession, occupies no insignificant place in the professional and social life of Mount Vernon, the city in which he was born and reared, and where in maturer life he has conducted his medical prac- tice. Born on September 1, 1861, Dr. Earl Green is the son of Dr. Willis Duff Green, a native of Kentucky and born near Danville. His father, Dr. Duff Green, was a native of Virginia and was of English parentage.
Dr. Duff Green served as surgeon in Barbee's Regiment of Ken- tucky Volunteer Infantry in the War of 1812. He practiced medicine in Danville, Kentucky, until 1844, at which time he removed to Pulaski, Tennessee. In 1846 he migrated to Mount Vernon, Illinois, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away at the age of seventy-three years. His son, Willis Duff Green, followed in the footsteps of the father and entered the medical profession. He was edueated in Centre College, Transylvania University at Lexington, and was graduated from the Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1844. IJe eventually became one of the more eminent practitioners in Illinois, and aside from his profes- sional attainments, was particularly prominent as a citizen of note. He was president of the company which built the first railroad into Mount Vernon, and was connected with various other enterprises of a public nature. He was prominent in fraternal eireles, and was grand master of the Illinois Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1858 and grand rep- resentative to the Odd Fellows national convention in 1859. He was prominent in a political way, being an adherent of the Democratic party, and was a delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1876, which nominated Samuel J. Tilden for the presidency. In 1845 Dr. Green
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married Corrinna L., daughter of Isaac Morton, a merchant of Hartford, Kentucky, of New England ancestry. Dr. and Mrs. Green were the parents of ten children, six of whom are living at present. They are Alfred M., an attorney in Gainesville, Texas; Inez I., instructor in Southern Illinois Normal University at Carbondale: Laura Reed; Minnie ; William H., judge of circuit court, and of whom more extended mention is made elsewhere in this sketch ; and Earl, practicing physician of Mount Vernon. The four deceased were Duff, Cora Lee, Maidelyn F., and Lucille. The father, Dr. Duff Green, passed away on Septem- ber 5, 1905, at the age of eighty-Four years.
The youth and boyhood of Dr. Earl Green were passed in attendance upon the public schools of Mount Vernon, and finishing his studies there, he entered the State Normal at Normal. Illinois, following which he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, studying there from 1881 to 1883. He then entered the Bellevue Hospital Medical Schools of New York City, graduating therefrom in 1884. He began the practice of medicine in Mount Vernon, than which no fitter place could be named for the son of the leading member of the medical profession in that city for many years. He has carried on the good works of his honored father, winning to himself an extensive practice, as well as the unqualified respect and esteem of the best citizenship of his native town.
Dr. Green's prominence in the communal life of Mount Vernon is not alone confined to his profession and its practice. He is a stock-holder in the Jefferson State Bank, as well as a member of its directorate. He is a member of various fraternal organizations of a social and other na- ture, one of them being the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of Mount Vernon, and as an adjunct to his professional labors, he is a member of the County, State and American Medical Associations. Dr. Green is a man widely read and of fine scholarly attainments, and his cirele of friends in Mount Vernon is bounded only by the limits of his acquaintance.
Among other members of the family of Dr. Willis Duff Green who have attained a generous portion of prominence in Mount Vernon and Southern Illinois is JJudge William H. Green, a brother of Dr. Earl Green of this sketch, and it is not unfit that a few words be said here in connection with the life and accomplishments of Judge Green.
William H. Green was born in Mount Vernon on October 14, 1858. He was educated in the public schools of the city, and following his graduation therefrom he entered the University of Michigan in 1877, pursuing a literary and legal course in that splendid institution in 1878. For two years thereafter he studied law in the offices of a prominent firin and in 1880 he was admitted to the bar. Mr. Green began the prac- tiee of his profession in Mount Vernon, his efforts from the first being attended by a pleasurable degree of success. In 1882 he served as mas- ter in chancery, and in the same year was elected to the office of city at- torney, retaining the office for two years. In 1884 he was elected state's attorney of JJefferson county, filling the office in such a manner that he was re-elected in 1888. From the beginning of his publie career honor followed upon honor, and no office within the gift of his fellowmen in Jefferson county and his district has been withheld from him. In 1894 Mr. Green was elected to the house of representatives in the Ilinois Legislature, serving one term, with honor and eredit to himself and his constituents. In 1909 he was elected to the office of circuit judge in the judicial district comprising the counties of Hardin, Gallatin, White. Hamilton, Franklin, Jefferson, Wayne. Edwards, Wabash, Richland, Lawrence and Crawford, and is still the incumbent of that office. In 1896 he was a delegate to the national Democratic convention at Chicago,
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and he was a member of the notification committee which informed Wil- liam J. Bryan of his nomination. Judge Green has been president of the Jefferson State Bank and is now a member of its directorate and a stockholder in the institution. He served as president of the Illinois Bankers Fire Insurance Company during its life, and has been active in the administration of the affairs of numerous other concerns. JJudge Green is prominent as a fraternalist, being a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Knights of Pythias, Ancient Free and Ae- cepted Masons, including the Chapter and Knights Templar, and of the Independent Order of Red Men.
CHARLES CLARENCE DINWIDDIE. As the capable, efficient and popular superintendent of the public schools of Pocahontas, Charles Clarence Dinwiddie occupies a noteworthy position among the educators of Bond county, and is eminently deserving of more than passing mention in a work of this character. He comes of honored Virginian ancestry, being a lineal descendant of the founder of that family from which Robert Dinwiddie, one of the early governors of Virginia, was sprung. He is a true type of the self-made men of our times, having measured his own ability, and through his own efforts having hewn his way straight to the line thus marked ont. A son of the late Joseph M. Dinwiddie, he was born near Woburn, Bond county, Illinois, March 6, 1880.
Joseph M. Dinwiddie was also a native of Illinois, his birth having occurred August 1, 1832, in White Hall, Greene county. Succeeding to the occupation in which he was reared, he was engaged in farming and cattle dealing throughout his entire life, which was comparatively brief. He died February 28, 1881, while in manhood's prime. He married, in 1869, Millie A. Anthony, of Woburn, Illinois, and she is now living in Smithboro, Bond county. He was a stanch Republican in polities, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The youngest of a family of five children left fatherless when small, Charles Clarence Dinwiddie spent his earlier years in Smithboro, ac- quiring his elementary education in the public schools and at the home fireside. At the age of eighteen years he began his active career as a teacher, and for two years had charge of a school in Concord, after which he taught for a time in Seagraves. Going then to Decatur, Illinois, Mr. Dinwiddie worked in the railway shops for awhile, and after his re- turn to Smithboro was variously employed, for a year being connected with the Vandalia Railroad as an employe. Resuming then his profes- sional labors, he taught in Union, Illinois, in 1904 and 1905, later hav- ing charge of schools in different places in Southern Illinois. In 1909 he accepted the principalship of the Pocahontas schools, and has since filled the position to the eminent satisfaction of all concerned. Under his management the schools, which are housed in a large, well-lighted brick building, have made rapid progress, the course having been en- larged and now embracing two years of high school work.
Mr. Dinwiddie married, in 1905, Grace Stubblefield, of Pleasant Mound, Illinois, and they have two children, Geneva and Joseph II. Politically Mr. Dinwiddie is a sound Republican; religiously he is a member of the Christian Church; and fraternally he belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons and to the Modern Wood- men of America.
ALBERT C. MILLSPAUGH. The entire career of Albert C. Millspaugh has thus far been marked with many honors, which as a publie man the people have bestowed upon him. As city clerk, city attorney, mayor of his city for two terms, then chief clerk of the Southern Illinois Peniten-
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tiary for a number of years and clerk of the appellate court since 1902, Mr. Millspangh has been a man of affairs since he began the practice of law in 1889. In addition to the many public offices he has filled so admirably he has been honored in divers ways as a private citizen, and the esteem in which he is generally held in his community is evidenced by the many important positions of trust he holds in connection with financial and other organizations in Mount Vernon.
Albert C. Millspaugh was born on September 26, 1858. in White County, Illinois. He is the son of JJohn and Sarah (Bogan ) Millspaugh, of Dutch and Irish descent. John Millspaugh was a native of Orange county, New York, born there in 1815. He was a member of the medical profession and passed his life in the practice of medicine. He was the son of Daniel G. Millspaugh, born December 26, 1781, in Orange county, New York, and the grandson of John Millspaugh, born January 22, 1758. The latter was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and fought and was wounded at Bunker Hill, and his father was Peter Millspaugh, who immigrated from Germany to America in about 1750.
When quite a young man Dr. John Millspaugh went to Kentucky, thence to White county, Illinois, where he remained for some years en- gaged in the practice of medicine, and later, in 1876, he removed to Gallatin county, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away there in 1898. Dr. and Mrs. Millspaugh reared a family of nine chil- dren, including: J. W., in Shawneetown; Mrs. Margaret A. Joyner, of Equality : Daniel, a farmer in Gallatin county : Mrs. Emma Fowler, also of Gallatin county; Robert L., of Shawneetown; J. M., a farmer and stock breeder of Equality : William L., of Equality; and Albert C., clerk of the appellate court of the fourth distriet.
The preliminary education of Albert C. Millspaugh was obtained in the schools of Shawneetown, which he attended after he was twenty-one years of age, paying for the privilege five cents per day as tuition. After leaving his studies he was employed for some years in the offices of the circuit clerk and the county sheriff, reading law in his spare moments. In 1889 he had so far advanced with his studies that he was admitted to the bar. and in that same year he was elected to the office of city at- torney. For a number of years he served the city as clerk. and in 1894 he was elected mayor of Shawneetown. He discharged the duties of his office in such a manner that he was again elected in 1896, serving from April of that year to January, 1897, at which time he was appointed chief clerk of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at. Chester, and he re- signed from the mayoralty to assume the duties of his new position. Ile held that office for a period of six years, and was still in office when he was elected clerk of the appellate court of the fourth distriet. which com- prises the thirty-four southern counties of the state. He resigned his position as clerk of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary to assume, as in former years, the place higher up, and after six years of praiseworthy service in that berth was re-elected in 1908. He bears the honor and distinction of being the first and only Republican ever elected to that office since the court was established in 1877. Following his resignation at the State Penitentiary and his election to the elerkship, he moved to Mount Vernon, where he has since been a resident. In January, 1912, Mr. Millspangh was elected to the directorate of the Third National Bank of Mount Vernon, and he has been variously connected with the leading enterprises of that city since he established his residence in it. In 1906 he was one of the leaders in the organization of the Jefferson County Fair Association, and served as president of that organization until 1911, when he resigned, owing to the pressure of other matters of a more im- portant nature. Mr. Millspaugh is a member of the Poultry Raisers'
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Association, which he has assisted very materially in financial and other ways. He bears an enviable reputation not only in Mount Vernon and Jefferson county, but throughout all Southern Illinois, where he has a wide acquaintance. Mr. Millspaugh is in line for further honors at the hands of the people and his party, if popular sentiment is any criterion as a guide to the future. In addition to the many calls upon his time and attention he has been able to give some consideration to the claims of the many fraternal organizations extant in Mount Vernon, and has become affiliated with the A. F. & A. M., being a member of the Blue Lodge, H. W. Hubbard Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, and Patton Com- mandery, No. 69, Knights Templar, of Mount Vernon. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias of Mt. Vernon and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of East St. Louis, and a member of the Council at Mt. Vernon.
On January 14, 1894, Mr. Millspaugh married Miss Julia Scanland, of Shawneetown, the daughter of William Scanland, at one time a lead- ing business man and prominent citizen of that city.
PETER J. VALTER, vice-president of the Gallatin County Bank, of Ridgeway, Illinois, and one of his section's leading capitalists, has been engaged in various lines of business for a number of years in Ridgeway, has associated himself with enterprises for the development of Gallatin county land, and is now the owner of much valuable real estate in this part of the state. Mr. Valter is a produet of Brown county, Ohio, and was born December 26. 1864, a son of Nicholas and Barbara (Pfarr) Valter.
Nicholas Valter was a native of the province of Alsace, France, and came to the United States as a young man, settling in Ohio, where he was married to Barbara Pfarr, a native of Bavaria, Germany. During the spring of 1883 he came to Gallatin county, Illinois, and purchased a tract of sixty acres of farming land adjoining the village of Ridge- way, erecting the present family home during that same year. He also owned a farm near Bartley Station, and the remainder of his life was devoted to clearing and cultivating these properties, on which he erected four tenant houses. His death occurred in 1887, when he was fifty- eight years of age, in the faith of the Catholic church. His widow sur- vived her husband three years and was also fifty-eight years old at the time of her death. Three of their children grew to maturity, as follows: Mary, wife of Alexander Drone, of Evansville, Indiana, whose son, Marion, is cashier of the First National Bank of Ridgeway; Peter J .; and Katie, who is the widow of Henry Zirkelbach.
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