USA > Illinois > Biographical and memorial edition of the Historical encyclopedia of Illinois > Part 11
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Swannell served as mayor of Kankakee for two terms, and assisted materially in securing troops from this part of the state. He was one of the organizers of the Building and Loan Association, of which he was president at the time of his death. Ilis good taste has left its mark in the beautiful Mound Grove cemetery and many of the large business blocks. Ilis advice and counsel in business affairs were al- ways valuable and greatly sought. Fraternally, he was connected with the Masons and Odd Fellows, being one of the charter members of Howard Lodge, and at one time a representa- tive of the Grand Lodge of the State. His numerous friendships were evidence of his uni- versal popularity. Ever an earnest Christian,
he was, until within a short time of his death, senior warden and a Sunday school teacher in St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, and was always active in its movements, being of a generous and charitable nature.
On October 2, 1:56, Mr. Swannell was mar- ried to Miss Laura A. Bristol, an aunt of Bish- op Frank Bristol, at Royalton, Niagara County, N. Y., daughter of Leverett and Elizabeth A. (Cowles) Bristol, natives of western New York, and strong, conscientious, God-fearing people. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Swannell, namely : Florence, Mildred, Bertha, Winifred and William Gordon, of whom Florence and William Gordon are deceased.
FREDERICK BARNARD.
The ordinary man never stops to think what he owes to John Guttenberg who about 1437 invented movable type, or the countless ones who came after him improving the art of print- ing, until at the present time it has been brought almost into a state of perfection. Without this art, civilization would have stood still; the newspapers would have never come into exist- ence; books would be only of the kind that were preserved through the painstaking care of those whose penmanship was readable, and his- tory would be not much more than legends handed down from father to son. It is a far cry, however, from the invention of the pioneer printer John Guttenberg, to the magnificent plants of the modern printing establishments of today. Nothing seems impossible in the reproduction art, and countless inventions have been perfected until it appears that nothing further can be accomplished, although those who understand all the possibilities of the work declare that the end is far away. Chicago, as is natural, is the home of some of the most reliable printing houses of the country, and one, that has the distinction of being the oldest law printing establishment in the city, is that of Barnard & Miller, of which Frederick Barnard was not only the senior member, but at the time of his death, the oldest employing printer of Chicago. Mr. Barnard was born at Somerton, Somersetshire, England, October 3, 1936, a son of Thomas and Amelia (Frampton) Barnard.
Growing up in his native place, Mr. Barnard was given the advantages of the schools there until 1847, when he came to the United States, and settling at Chicago, began what was to be
a successful business career, as a newsboy for the Chicago Journal. Later he developed into a printer, learning his trade in the Journal office, and became a master printer in January, 1$57. In that year he founded the firm of Beach & Barnard, which later became Beach, Barnard & Company, thus continuing from 1571 to 1503, when the present caption was adopted, so that this concern is one of the oldest job printing houses in Chicago, as well as the old- est legal printing firm. After the name became Barnard & Miller, the house began specializing in legal printing, and have since continued to confine themselves to that class of work, their accuracy and efficiency having been demon- strated through years of successful prosecution of their business. Mr. Barnard took pleasure in the fact that he was the oldest "boss" printer and the oldest "ex-newsboy" of Chicago. In former years Mr. Barnard was president of the Chicago Typothetae, and he was a member of the Chicago Historical Society, the Oak Park Lodge, A. F. & A. M., the Lincoln Council, the National Union and the Old-Time Printers' So- ciety, having been a valued member of all. The Congregational church held his membership, and benefited from his generosity.
In 185S Mr. Barnard was married to Miss Jon- nie A. McLean of Chicago, who survives him. Six children were born to them, namely: Jen- nie A., who is deceased; Bertie, who is Mrs. John J. Miller ; Lucy, who is Mrs. W. M. Elton ; Alice, who is Mrs. F. M. Wagner; and Edward and Frederick, all of whom have been a credit to their parents. Mr. Barnard had nothing to assist him in his fight with the business world
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except true grit, a determination to win, and the ability to work hard and often. It was his honest belief that what he did any industrious, thrifty young man can accomplish, especially when so many advantages are offered that never came his way. He was never satisfied with what he accomplished, but he kept on working for something just beyond, and as he had abil-
ity, he never failed to grasp firmly what he overtook. Having worked his way up from the very bottom of his line of business, he knew what to expect of his men, and how to make due allowance for them, and was greatly be- loved by them as well as by his associates in the business world, and in neighborhood and fraternal circies.
CHARLES FREDERICK GUNTHER.
Only in name does Charles F. Gunther give indication of his German birth and parentage, for he is distinctively American in thought and interests. This does not mean that he does not feel a love for the land of his nativity, and in- deed he is recognized as a man of the widest catholicity of spirit, to whom all people are a subject of interest and all history a field for research. To characterize Mr. Gunther and his life work in.a single sentence is impossible, for his interests are of a most broad and varied nature, and while he can give sage advice to the young man starting in business, for he carved out for himself the path to success, he can speak with equal authority concerning an- cient civilization and modern scientific investi- gations. While he has traveled widely, he has made Chicago his home since 1863, and it is in this city that his commercial activities have centered. The beautiful town of Wildberg, in the midst of the celebrated Black Forest district of Germany, was bis birthplace, and the date March 6, 1837. He was, however, only six years of age when his parents came to the United States with their family, arriving at New York after a voyage of fifty-two days from the port of Havre. The family home was established in Lancaster County and later Somerset, Pa., and after pursuing his education in the public schools there, Charles F. Gunther began carry- ing government mail over a route of forty miles to Johnstown and return on horseback for the meagre wage of twenty-five cents per day. Since the spring of 1850, however, he has been con- nected with the middle West, for in that year the family removed to Peru, Ill., and he there had the opportunity to continue his education as well as to advance in business training and competency.
In his youthful days he became a clerk in a drug store and to some extent read medicine. He was also at one time an employe in the post office at Peru and afterwards became con- nected with the banking house of Alexander
Truckshant as the local correspondent with the famous Chicago bank of George Smith & Com- pany. He seemed in this connection to have found a task suited to his abilities, for he worked his way upward and after a few years was made cashier of the institution. However. be severed his connection with the bank to enter the service of Bohlen, Wilson & Company at Memphis, Tenn. They were conducting the most extensive ice business in the South, obtaining their supply at Peru, Ill. Residing below the Mason and Dixon line and being brought, by the impressment of his firm's resources and steam- ers, in the natural course of circumstances, to the cause of the Confederacy, he entered the Confederate navy service as a steward and purs- er, purchasing supplies and transporting troops along all the southern rivers tributary to the Mississippi. At length the Union troops ob- tained possession of Memphis and New Orleans and captured the steamer upon which Mr. Gun- ther was serving that had escaped up the Arkansas River, and the steamer was burned by the Union troops. A year later he was cap- tured in the line of battle in a cavalry charge and made a prisoner of war. Soon afterwards, however, he was released and returned to his old home in Peru. Later he accepted a position in a Peoria bank and his next change in business connection brought him to Chicago as the first traveling salesman out of this city into the eastern and southern territory as far as New Orleans for the confectionery house of C. W. Sanford. He traveled over Ohio, Michigan, In- diana, West Virginia and Kentucky, and while thus employed made his first trip to Europe. Hle afterwards became an employe of Thompson, Johnson & Company, wholesale grocers of Chi- cago, and later became the Chicago representa- tive of Greenfield, Young & Company, leading New York confectioners. In the fall of 1868 he opened a retail business on his own account on Clark street and thus established the first high-class store of the kind in the city and for
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many years thereafter his establishment set the standard for kindred undertakings.
It was Mr. Gunther who first introduced and placed upon the market the caramel. one of the most notable of the American confections. In the great conflagration of 1871 his store was destroyed, but with notable energy and deter- mination he resumed the business and on State street built up an enterprise second to none in Chicago and with few parallels in the country. Until recently he has remained proprietor of this establishment, which had become a synonym to Chicago residents and visitors of all that is attractive and artistic in the way of equipment and purity in the matter of the product. Net only have the confectionery and restaurant de- partments been kept up to the highest standard, but the patrons of the store have had an chject lesson in history in the rare and almost price- less portraits and works of art which there adorn the walls. Originality has always char- acterized the business methods of Mr. Gunther, who in fact has manifested the spirit of the pioneer in formulating and executing plans for the development of his commercial interests. Many of the supposed up-to-date ideas prevail- ing among Chicago retail merchants at the present time were introduced into the city by him and utilized by him many years ago. In fact he raised the standard after which many have followed. He was the first merchant in Chicago to advertise in the local news space of the daily journals when all other matter of that character was found in the advertising columns. He realized how quickly and effect- ively such advertising would be brought to the attention of readers and thus he instituted a plan that has since been widely adopted. He was the first merchant in Chicago to introduce advertising novelties in his business. More than thirty years ago the unique and novel, as well as artistic, character of the Gunther advertise- ments was as distinctive as the superior qual- ity of his product. Many of these novelties were brought from Europe by Mr. Gunther, and while not originally manufactured for that pur- pose, he readily understood how this use could be made of them and, adding his name and business address, sent these out to make known to the city and country at large the progres- sive methods of Chicago's foremost confec- tioner. In the management and direction of his business he was very systematic. No detail was regarded as too unimportant to claim his
notice, and, moreover, he knew the duties of almost every employe and knew when they were being properly discharged. A man of great en- ergy and wonderin capacity for work, he not only founded sod conducted the extensive manu- facturing and mercantile interests with which his name was so ieng associated, but even now, at the age of seventy-eight years, when success is his entlicient to enable him to put aside business cares, he gives his personal attention to the management of his extensive private in- terests and nets as president and active man- sger of the Gunther Confection and Chocolate Company, the business he founded, and which is one of the best known concerns in its line in the United States.
Long recognized as the leader in his line and as a most successful merchant, it has followed as a logical sequence that Mr. Gunther has taken an active part in affairs of public mo- ment, improvement and upbuilding of the city. A remarkable ceincident in the life of Mr. Gun- ther and the history of the city of his success is the fact that he was born the same year, month, week and within two days, in 1837, that Chicago was. incorporated. One of the leaders of the Chicago Democracy and with firm belief in the democratic principle of equal rights to all and special privilege to none, and tariff for' revenue only, which latter doctrine has long been one of the strong planks in the Democratic platform, he has nevertheless eschewed public office, desiring no such recognition of his party fealty. However, his fellow citizens have twice called him to the city council and in 1901 he was elected city treasurer, in which position his administration was characterized by the same business-like and energetic spirit that has gained him prominence and leadership in com- mercial circles.
In 1869 Mr. Gunther was married to Miss Jennie Burnell of Lima, Ind., and unto them were born two sons, Burnell and Whitman, the latter of whom is now deceased. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gunther have long been identified with or- ganizations for the promotion of Chicago's wel- fare and he has ever wielded a wide influence for progress and improvement. It is true that his chief life work had been that of a remark- ably successful manufacturer and merchant, but the range of his activities and the scope of his influence have reached far beyond that spe- cial field and he belongs to that public-spirited, useful and helpful type of men whose ambitions
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are centered and directed in those channels through which flow the greatest and most per- manent good to the greatest number. Chicago owes to Mr. Gunther a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid for what he has done in bringing to the city and placing upon exhibition works of art, relics and historical treasures. which visibly teach history and progress of the world. Speaking German, French and Spanish as well as English, Mr. Gunther has been able to personally conduct investigations in foreign fields. For many years he had above his store what was in many respects one of the finest museums of the country. His success has ena- bled him to indulge his love for historic re- search to the fullest extent and he has been most generous in allowing others to benetit by the collections that he has gathered, collections of manuscripts, historie volumes and portraits as well as relics of all the American wars from Colonial times down to the late Spanish-Ameri- can war. His treasures comprise manuscripts of the most ancient writings of the world, from the stone rolls of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods and the papyrus parchments of the Pharaohs, to the present time. He undoubtedly possesses the rarest collection of bibles in Amer- ica, including a copy of the New Testament printed in English (1528), all of the first bibles printed in Europe and on the American conti- nent, such as the Eliot Indian Bible and the Martha Washington Bible and the first Ameri- can bible by Atkinson in 1782. The famous Gunther manuscripts include a well authenti- cated and very rare autograph of Shakespeare, and a Moliere and original manuscripts of Goethe, Schiller, Tasso, Michael Angelo, Galileo, Raphael and many other famous characters of Europe and America-memorials direct from the hands of noted writers, poets, musicians, clergymen, politicians and monarchs. In his galleries are the original manuscripts of the Star Spangled Banner, Home Sweet Home, Auld Lang Syne, Old Grimes, Lead Kindly Light, and many others. Among the maps are the earliest ones relating to America from 1500 up, and the first edition of Martin Waldsee- mueller's Cosmography, 1507. which for the first time gives the name of America to the new world. Of the Gunther portraits perhaps the most famous is that of Columbus by Sir An- tonio Moro, painted about 1552 from a min- iature, then forming a part of the historic museum in the Prado Palace in Madrid, Spain.
Washington Irving who thoroughly searched the archives of Spain, pronounced this the best and truest portrait of Columbus extant. The collection also contains seventeen original por- traits of Washington, including the first ever made of bim by the endler Peale, and the only portrait in existence of Washington's sister Betty and her husband, including the two lost portraits of. George and Martha Washington by Saint Memen. The relics of George Washington cover his entire career. and the department of Americana includes also rare memorials of Abraham Lincoln and all other great historical characters. In addition to all this Mr. Gunther was instrumental in bringing to Chicago the priceless exhibit of Civil war relics. In the late eighties he was the prime factor in the movement to transport Libby prison from Rich- mond. Va., to this city, and within its historic walls installed the war museum, acting as presi- dent of the Museum Association during its ex- istence and later becoming president of the company that erected upon the former museum site the now famous Coliseum. In 1912 Mr. Gunther put up the Gunther building on the northwest corner of South Wabash avenue and Harmon court.
Mr. Gunther is not only Democratie in prin- ciple -- of the Jefferson and low tariff democracy of Woodrow Wilson but in spirit, and is one of the most approachable and genial of men, and his unfeigned cordiality has gained for him a circle of friends almost coextensive with the circle of his acquaintances. He is a welcome member in various fraternities, clubs and societies; a Knight Templar Mason, a Noble of the Mystic Shrine of Medinah Temple, and upon him bas been conferred the Thirty-third. the honorary degree, of the Scottish Rite. Much of the na- ture of his interests, activities and associations is indicated in the fact that he is a member of the Urion League, Jefferson, Caxton, Germanic, Cook County Democratic, Illinois Athletic and Iroquois clubs, and of the last named he has served as president. He also belongs to the Geographic Society, is a trustee of the Chicago Historical Society and the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and is a governing member of the Chi- cago Art Institute and belongs to the Alliance Francaise. Although largely self-educated, he is one of the most widely informed men of Chi- cago. There is nothing in his manner that would indicate his consciousness of superiority because of his diversified knowledge resulting
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from study and travel, speaking French, Ger- man and Spanish, yet all who know him recog- nize the fact that association with him means expansion and elevation. Splendidly preserved physically, his mind is as alert and his judg- ment as keen as it was thirty years ago. He belongs to that class to whom advanced years
do not mean a decrease in mental power. There are those who grow mentally and morally stronger as the years pass by, giving out of their rich store of wisdom and experience for the benefit of others, and of these Charles F. Gunther is a notable representative.
WILBUR F. HEATH.
When the history of music in America shall be properly written few men will be found who have more deeply stamped their individuality upon the musical development of their period than did the late Judge Wilbur F. Heath of Danville, Ill. The complete history of his busy life would be inspiring and serve as an example to those seeking achievement that can only come through persistent and thoughtful effort. Judge Heath was born at Corinth, Orange County, Vt., June 11, 1843, a son of Cyrus and Mary ( Hutch- inson) Heath, natives of Corinth, Vt. The Heath family comes of a long line of distin- quished ancestry. The boyhood of Wilbur F. Heath was spent on a farm, but he early dis- Nayed an inherited taste for music, and in developing this be displayed a pluck that often- thues bore him along and enabled him to over- come difficulties that would have been with an- other insurmountable. One incident will illus- trate this. While still a lad he used to amuse his companions by playing for them on the flute, and often the preferred numbers were his own extemporized waltzes, marches, etc. When he was twelve years old the family moved west, and he remained on the farm near Libertyville, Ill., until eighteen years old. With the out- break of the Civil war his patriotism was aroused, and he finally enlisted in the One Hun- dred and Forty-sixth Illinois Volunteer Infan- try. Choice was given him to accept the appoint- ment of lieutenant or leader of the regimental band. He chose the latter.
During his army service Judge Heath com- posed much of the music played by the band, and was so successful that his band was chosen out of a number of others to lead the funeral pro- cession of the martyred Lincoln at Springfield, Ill., and Judge Heath led this band. The dirge used on that occasion was his own composition. When the terrible news reached him of the death of his hero, he went to bis tent, and lying in his bunk, found vent for his sorrow in that remarkable number. Mrs. Heath has the origi- nal manuscript of this dirge which shows spots
of the candle grease that fell upon the paper as the young composer worked out his idea.
In addition to his musical ability, he was pos- sessed of considerable mechanical ability, and when his service to his country expired he de- cided to become a locomotive engineer. applying for assistance in securing such a position to one of his old friends, a veteran conductor. For- tunately for the musical world. this friend ap- preciated music and Judge Heath's talent, and refused to permit his abandoning his music. Acting upon the advice of the conductor, Mr. Heath studied music and at one time thought of completing his musical education in Europe, but being a thorough American, he decided against this, and his attention was called to the possibilities of musical work in the public schools. He became thoroughly convinced of the benefit that would be derived through the musical education of the masses, and resolved to make the teaching of music to the public school pupil his lifework. His theory was that the capable teacher must go beyond the mere cultivation of the child's ability to hear and imitate, and deal with his powers to think. He believed that the facts of music should be made purely objective; that the musical development of the child should be in harmony with his mental growth ; that the child should be recog- nized as an intelligent being and not treated as a musical instrument, the latter being the idea embodied in the older methods of instruction. In addition he believed that the study of vocal music is the proper beginning of all music study ; that no time is so fitting as the years of childhood, no way so reasonable as that in con- Dection with the regular school studies; and that when properly taught, music is as legiti- mate and effective an aid in developing the men- tal powers of the child as any other study ; that, in fact, it brings many faculties of the mind into such action as is possible with no other study. He felt that this great work would develop a national musical taste. He took a thorough course in voice culture and theory at
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the New England Conservatory of Music, and was justly proud of being a member of the Na- tional Peace Jubilee Chorus. He was called to Iowa City, Iowa, where he taught in a six weeks' normal of which Dr. II. S. Perkins of Chicago was the principal. Here he had charge of the elementary classes in sight singing and harmony, and so thoroughly demonstrated his ability as a teacher of children, that an oppor- tunity to carry out his long cherished plans was speedily offered him, and he was made teacher of music in the public school of Marengo, Iowa, spending three years there, where the results were beyond the expectations of those who first favored his methods. For eighteen years he was superintendent of music in the public schools of Fort Wayne, Ind., with honor to bili- self and his pupils; and he was recognized as one of the most eminent teachers of his time, and his skill as a chorus director was widely known.
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