USA > Illinois > Biographical and memorial edition of the Historical encyclopedia of Illinois > Part 83
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fice according to law and that an indicted man, no matter what his social position, financial standing, his religion, his polities or his race, muist stand trial. When his assistants were ready to present to the Grand Jury the case of George W. Spalding, then president of the Globe Savings Bank, and treasurer of the State Uni- versity, Mr. Deneen called them into confer- ence. One said: "I think we'd better try to have Spalding indieted on the one count-it's the strongest against him." Mr. Deneen asked : "How many counts are there against him?" and received the answer : "Twenty-five." Came the quick reply: "Present every count to the Grand Jury." Mr. Deneen was prosecut- ing attorney when the case of Edward S. Dreyer, then treasurer of the West Chicago Park Commissioners, came up. It was a bitter fight and the case went to four higher courts, being twice before the Supreme Court of Illinois, and finally was taken to the United States Supreme Court, where opinions were sustained resulting in conviction. Equally representative of Mr. Deneen's methods was his prosecution of a can- didate on the same ticket with him in 1900, thereby imperilling in the minds of the party leaders the success of the ticket at the polls. When this was said to Mr. Deneen he replied : "It may not be expedient but it is right." And with Charles S. Deneen to believe in the right of his position is to follow it.
In the early days when Mr. Deneen was wait- ing for practice he became interested in politics. At first it was a local interest that brought him to leadership in his ward and led to his election to the State Legislature in 1893. The position which he took concerning certain vital ques- tions has since made him a factor in National as well as State affairs, and he has frequently been called to Washington in consultation with the heads of the party concerning the situation in the Middle West. He proved himself as forceful and as resourceful as a state leader as he had in the office of attorney for Cook County. He received his party's nomination for Governor in 1904 and during the campaign announced himself as the supporter of an enact- ment of a Constitutional Amendment to enable the General Assembly to pass special laws for Chicago; the civil service law to be applied to the state penal and charitable institutions and the rehabilitation of the state charitable institu- tions, together with the enactment of a compul- sory primary law. At the close of his first term, in the face of strong factional opposition, he was
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again nominated and re-elected, and that he stood by his campaign pledges is indicated in the fact that during his administration legislation secured the Direct Primary Law, Municipal Courts for Chicago, a State Highway Commission to en- courage good roads, a State Geological Com- mission for the study of State resources, for- estry preserves were provided for, a State Dental Board was created, safety appliances are required on railroads, and inspectors pro- vided for the placing of children in homes and providing for their visitation. The state was also divided into Insane Districts and the county insane have been taken over by these districts. Legislation has also led to the adop- tion of a Local Option Law ; employers have been required to report all accidents to en- ployes; an act requiring the protection of men employed in structural work; an act for the registration of nurses: coal mining laws were revised demanding the examination of all miners; a two-cent passenger rate law was passed ; an act requiring the State Treasurer to turn the interest on state money over to the state; a law regulating motor vehicles; an act giving the State Food Commission the right to inspect all foods; the West Park Commission authorized to issue three-million-dollar bonds : an Internal Improvement Commission created
and deep-waterway legislation begun; an act providing for an Educational Commission to revise all school laws; legislation revising and improving insurance laws; North Park Com- mission authorized to issue one-million-dollar bonds for small parks; a law authorizing the city of Chicago to fix rates and charges for gas and electricity for power, heating, lighting and other purposes; a Negotiable Instrument Act ; the revision of the Practice Act : an act to suppress mob law; an act to prevent policy playing; and thirty state buildings were either built or remodeled. After the expiration of his second term as Governor, Mr. Deneen returned to the practice of law in Chicago.
On the 10th of May, 1891, Mr. Deneen was united in marriage to Miss Bina Day Maloney, of Mount Carroll. Carroll County, Ill. Their children are four in number, namely : Charles Ashley, Dorothy. Frances and Bina. The wife and mother was educated at the Frances Shim- er Academy of Mount Carroll. Mr. Deneen is the idol of his family circle and spends his happiest hours with his wife and children. Mr. and Mrs. Deneen hold membership in the Methodist Church and in a quiet, unostenta- tious, yet effective way, he aids in church work and in various charitable movements.
HENRY DEARBORN.
Major General Henry Dearborn was born in North Hampton, New Hampshire, February 23. 1751. After finishing his education, he studied medicine, and was a practicing physician at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Hearing of the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775, he marched with sixty-five volunteers and was at Cambridge, Mass., sixty-five miles away, the next morning. He was at the battle of Bunker Hill and was made Captain, afterwards going with General Arnokl to Quebec, where he was captured, re- leased on parole, and finally exchanged in March, 1777. He served under General Gates, and was at the capture and surrender of Bur- goyne, October 17, 1777: distinguished himself
and his regiment by a gallant charge at the bat- tle of Monmouth, June 28. 1778, and was at the surrender of Yorktown, October 19, 1781. At the close of the Revolutionary War he became a resident of Maine, and was appointed, by Gen- eral Washington, United States Marshal. He served two terms in Congress, and was Secre- tary of War during the two terms of President Thomas Jefferson, 1501 to 1509. Fort Dearborn (Chicago) was named by and for him in 1803. He was collector of the Port of Boston, was United States Minister to Portugal, and distin- yuished himself in the War of 1812. He died at Roxbury, Massachusetts, June 6, 1829.
RICHARD YATES.
Richard Yates, ex-Governor of Illinois, was born in Jacksonville. IIl .. December 12, 1860, a son of Richard and Catherine (Geers) Yates, this event taking place between the date of the election and inauguration of his illustrious
father to the position of Governor, which he filled with such ability and distinction during the dramatic war period in the history of the Nation. The Yates family is of English ori- gin, the great-grandfather of Richard Yates,
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Sr., having come from England before the Revolution, and, after settling in Virginia, married Martha Marshall, a sister of Chief Justice John Marshall. His son Abner, who had two children-Henry and Martha -- re- moved in 1788 to Fayette County, Ky., where he died, his family later settling in Gallatin County, in that state. In 1809 the son Henry married Millicent Yates, a cousin, and they became the parents of eleven children, one of whom was the first Gov. Richard Yates. In 1831 the family removed to the western part of Sangamon County. Ill., and there the father located what is now the village of Berlin, and later laid out the town of New Berlin on the line of the Wabash Railway, where he died in 1865.
After receiving his elementary education in the public schools of his native city, Richard Yates, Jr., at thirteen years of age entered Whipple Academy. the preparatory depart- ment of Illinois College, and three years later (1876) was admitted to the college proper. from which he graduated as class orator in 1880. He then took a course in the law de- partment of Michigan University, at Ann Ar- bor, Mich., graduated therefrom in 1984, and was immediately admitted to the bar in both Michigan and Illinois, and soon thereafter to practice in the Cirenit and Supreme Courts of the United States. For some two years after graduating from Illinois College, he served as city editor of the Jacksonville Daily Journal.
From an early age Mr. Yates has been a prominent and influential factor in the life of the community. At the age of thirteen years he became a member of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, in 1900 served as a delegate to the General Conference, and has been actively as- sociated with auxiliary bodies, especially the Young Men's Christian Association, of which he was vice-president in 1885, during the period when Ilon. William Jennings Bryan was serving as president of that organization. He is also identified with the Masonic fraternity, the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the United Workmen and Modern Woodmen fraternities, and few men in the state have gained so wide a circle of intimate friends and associates.
Mr. Yates has been prominent as a public speaker since 1881, delivering his first Fourth of July speech during that year, and has taken
part in all the political campaigns since 1880, besides being frequently called upon to address Grand Army Reunions and other patriotic as- semblages. For four years ( 1885-89) he served as city attorney of the City of Jacksonville; in 1:22 was the pmmince on the Republican ticket for Congress for the State-at-large, but was defeated in the landslide of that year, though receiving a larger vote in the state than President Harrison; in 1894 was elected county judge of Morgan County, but resigned in 1997 to accept the position of collector of internal revenue for the Springfield District by appointment of President Mckinley, con- timming in this position until after his nomina- tion for governor on the Republican ticket at Peoria on May 9, 1900. just forty years to a day after the same honor had been conferred upon his father at Decatur, in May, 1860. During this campaign, as well as in 1892, he made an extensive canvass of the state. speaking in every county, the former resulting in his elec- tion by a vote of 580,198 to 518,966 for his Democratic opponent. Again in 1904 he was a candidate for renomination before the con- vention which met at Springfield in May of that year. After one of the most memorable contests in the history of Illinois politics, con- suming nearly two weeks of balloting, failing to secure a majority vote, though for a time being the leading candidate, he withdrew in fa- vor of Mr. Deneen, who was nominated and elected by an overwhelming majority of the popular vote.
On his retirement from the governorship in Jandary. 1904, ex-Governor Yates took up his residence in the city of Springfield, where he has built himself a delightful home, and has given his attention to the practice of his pro- fession. being retained in some important cases before the higher courts.
In 18SS Governor Yates was married to Helen Wadsworth, who was born in Jackson- ville in 1865, the daughter of Archibald C. and Delia Ann ( Wetherbee) Wadsworth --- the father a former merchant and banker of Jacksonville. Mrs. Yates' parents are natives of Ohio, her grandfather, Capt. Edward Wadsworth, having been a soldier of the War of 1812, and her great-grandfather, Gen. Elijah Wadsworth, a soldier of the Revolution. Mr. and Mrs. Yates have two daughters, Catherine and Dorothy.
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JOSEPH B. CAVANAUGH.
Joseph B. Cavanaugh was born at Milwaukee, Wis. He was the only child of Bernard and Margaret (Oxley) Cavanaugh, who were natives, respectively, of Syracuse, N. Y., and County Tipperary, Ireland. The mother came to New York with her parents when she was but sixteen years old.
Joseph B. Cavanaugh attended the public schools in Milwaukee. After finishing the pre- scribed course, he entered the Sacred Heart Col- lege at Watertown, Wis., and, immediately on graduation, began "at the bottom of the ladder" in the employ of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. The earnestness that he applied to his work in his lowly office soon brought promotion and subsequently he was made general freight agent of the Chicago division. His offices were then in Milwaukee, and there it was that, through close association, he formed a lasting friendship with Harry N. Taylor. Mr. Taylor at that time was the dock representative of the Sunday Creek Coal Company, and he and Mr. Cavanaugh, some time later, formed the Big Four Wilmington Coal Company, Mr. Tay- lor assuming control while Mr. Cavanaugh re- mained in the railroad service. In 1894, Mr. Barlow, of the Evansville & Terre Haute Rail- road, prevailed on Mr. Cavanaugh to accept a position as general freight and passenger agent of that line, and with them he remained for four years, only leaving to become manager of the western branch of the Sunday Creek Coal Company, which position was offered him on the resignation of Mr. Taylor. It was in the capacity of manager for the Sunday Creek Coal Company that Mr. Cavanaugh first showed some- thing of his executive ability and of his par- ticular genius as a coal salesman. He evinced great business sagacity, and the knack he had for creating and keeping . orderly organization in the working forces under him was of great intrinsic value to him and his associates.
The organization of the Western Coal and Dock Company, by Mr. Cavanaugh and Harry N. Taylor, was accomplished in 1900, after Mr. Cavanaugh had resigned his connection with
the Sunday Creek Coal Company. To this new company Mr. Cavanaugh devoted a large portion of his time and energies, and was its chief executive at the time of his death. Not satisfied with undertaking merely the transpor- tation of coal, he interested himself later with much success in both its production and distri- bution. Aside from his connection with the Western Coal and Dock Company, he was an extensive owner of real estate in Ravens- wood, and was owner also of several mining properties in Coal City, Ill., Birmingham, Ala., and in Tennessee. During his exceedingly ac- tive business career, Mr. Cavanaugh was presi- dent of the Barney Coal Company; vice presi- dent of the Sterling Coke and Coal, and the Egyptian Powder companies; secretary and treasurer of the Big Black Coal Company ; treas- urer of the Calumet Engineering Works and of the General Wilmington Coal Company. His native wit and human understanding were among his greatest assets, for, without design or effort, he made friends, and he kept theni. Ile had a respect for himself that held him above the petty differences that active commercial in- tercourse is so apt to breed, and the respect that he unconsciously engendered in his acquaint- ances added greatly to his influence.
In religious faith Mr. Cavanaugh was a Cath- olic. He was a member of the following clubs : Union League, Mid-Day and Chicago Automobile.
Mr. Cavanaugh was married October 9, 1SS9, to Miss Mary Shea, a daughter of Thomas and Ann ( Hadley) Shea, of County Tipperary, Ire- land, the service being performed by the Rev. Father Kegh in St. John's Cathedral. A daugh- ter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh, and received the name of Mary. She now lives at home with her mother. Mr. Cavanaugh died late in 1912. Devoted to his home and family, loyal to his many friends, his death was greatly deplored, for such men as he, removed in the very prime of life, can ill be spared. The work he had done and was doing, the example of true worth which he set. marked him as the pos- sessor of extraordinary qualities.
JOHN FRANCIS SNYDER.
Doctor John F. Snyder, a retired physician well known throughout the state, was born at Prairie du Pont, St. Clair County, Ill., March 22, 1830, a son of Adam Wilson and Adelaide
(Perry ) Snyder, the former of whom was born at Connellsville, Pa., and the latter at Prairie du Pont, Ill. The birth of Dr. Snyder occurred in the huge log building erected by the monks
رحل المطلة
Porple . 3. Cavanaugh
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of St. Sulpice in 1739, at Prairie du Pont, a mile south of Cahokia. It was in this same building that his mother was born January 24. 1803, and her mother was born in the nearby village of Cahokia in 1784. At the time of their son's birth, Dr. Snyder's parents resided on their "Square Mound" farm, five miles south of Cahokia, from whence they moved to Belle- ville in the spring of 1833. Mrs. Snyder was of French ancestry, being the granddaughter of Capt. John Francis Sancier, the architect of Fort Chartres. Ilis father, a son of Adam Snyder, a German soldier of the Revolution, was born October . 6, 1799. In 1817 he came, penniless and afoot, to Cahokia, and in 1820 married Miss Perry. Although he possessed but limited educational advantages, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and became a man of distinction in Illinois. During the Black Hawk war he served as a captain, was repeatedly elected to the state senate, was sent to congress, and at the time of his death, May 14, 1842, he was the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor of Illinois.
Dr. Snyder was educated at the subscription schools of Belleville, MeRendree College, and the St. Louis ( Mo.) University. During his boyhood he was fond of his books and a close observer of nature and natural history, and early began collecting fossils, minerals, archaeo- logical relics, etc. During the winter of 1849-50 he was a student at the McDowell Medical Col- lege at St. Louis, and the following summer he crossed the plains to California, visiting the Sandwich Islands in 1852, and returning home that year by way of the Isthmus of Panama, Havana, and New York, arrived at Philadelphia in time to attend the medical session of 1852-3, graduating in medicine in the spring of 1853.
For a short period thereafter, Dr. Snyder was in the government medical service in the west- ern territories ; and he went over the old Santa Fe trail to Taos and Albuquerque in New Mex- ico; but resigned and located in the practice of medicine at Bolivar, Polk County, Mo. He abandoned the profession of medicine and com- menced the practice of law there in the fall of 1859. In June. 1861, Dr. Snyder joined Gen. Sterling Price with a battalion of mounted men. After the battle of Wilson Creek, his term of service having expired, he was appointed ord- nance officer of the Sixth Division, and was in the battles of Lexington, Pea Ridge, Helena,
Corinth, Iuka, and Baldwin, as a Confederate officer. Although he had no inclination or taste whatever for public life, he was elected a men- ber of the Thirty-first Illinois legislature; but at the expiration of his term, he retired from further participation in party politics, and at- tended strictly to the duties of his medical . practice, which he resumed after the war. Al- though always a Democrat, he was long ago convinced that unswerving allegiance to party platforms and servile adulation of party leaders are not the paramount objects of existence. It is but justice to Dr. Snyder to state that al- though he was reared in the institution of slavery (French "indentured" slaves), served in the Confederate army, and was himself a slave- holder on a small scale, he always abhorred slavery, nover defending it excepting upon the meagre ground of expediency.
On September 27, 1854, Dr. Snyder was mar- ried at Bolivar, Polk County, Mo., to Miss Annie E. Sanders, who was born at Jacksonville, Ill., January 21, 1837, a daughter of Landon N. and Eliza A. (Houston) Sanders, natives of Lexing- ton, Ky. One son and three daughters have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Snyder. He was never a member of any secret society, but was one of the founders of the Illinois State Historical So- ciety, and of its Journal, serving as the first vice-president of the society, was then its presi- dent, and he has been a frequent contributor to its transactions. From boyhood he has been a devoted student of history, particularly that of bis native state, Illinois, and also an amateur delver in the natural sciences. He was elected a member of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, and of the Illinois Academy of Sciences, and for years was a correspondent of the Smith- sonian Institution. He is well versed in the science of geology. and is a recognized authority on American archaeology.
Dr. Snyder is not a member of any church, or a believer in the existence of the super- natural, but endorses what he holds to be the rational philosophy of Hume. Spencer, Huxley, and Hlegel. Ile has never used tobacco in any form, and is a total abstainer from the use of all liquors. With a sufficient competency, a pleasant home in the city of Virginia, and an ample library, he is passing the evening of a long and very active life in the enjoyment of good health and the respect of his fellow citizens.
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MATTHEW H. PETERS.
That truth is stranger than any tiction created in the mind of an imaginative writer has been proven time and again, but never more con- clusively than in the history of the lives of some „of the self made men of the country. It would not be matter for wonderment should one who was able to command every advantage, rise to a dignified position and acquire ample means, but when such attainments are reached by those who are hampered from the beginning, then comes the realization that there must be an inherent something which sets them aside and makes them destined from their birth as men of worth. One of the best examples Illinois has afforded of a man who has brought about his own prosperity through his own persistent efforts, and developed very desirable character- istics, is the Hon. Matthew H. Peters of Wat- seka.
Matthew Peters was born in Rhenish Bavaria, June 6, 1843. The family emigrated to New Orleans, La., when he was still a baby, and soon after their arrival, the mother died. Her demise was followed by the death of two daugh- ters. The bereaved husband and father was left with two small sons, Samuel M. and Matthew H., and was trying to care for them, when he died of yellow fever. The little lads were placed in an orphan asylum, and both bound out. the former to a planter of New Orleans, La. Being treated as a slave, he endured the indignities as long as possible, and then ran away, enlisted in a cavalry company in the Third Louisiana, and served through the conflict between the states. He later returned to Louisiana, and located at Opelousas, La., where he died No- vember 17. 1913. The two brothers became ac- quainted with each other's history subsequent to their leaving the orphan asylum, after the war in which one had worn the blue and the other the gray.
The man who had Matthew H. Peters bound out to him, appeared to be utterly without human sympathy, and so abused the lad, that when twelve years old, he managed to escape. For days he lived on what he could pick up from refuse, looking all the while for some work he could do. In March, 1835, he was given employment by a cook of a Mississippi River boat, and while thus working he met Henry S. Roberts, then traveling. This gentleman, at- tracted by the boy's brightness and accommo- dating spirit, took him to his own home in Ohio.
Unfortunately Mr. Roberts died soon thereafter, but his widowed mother assumed charge of the lad, and never had cause to regret her kindness to him, as he cared for her in her old age, and loved her as though she had been his own flesh and blood. During the five years that fol- lowed, Matthew H. Peters worked on the farm aml studied as he could, and so improved him- self that in 1860 he began teaching. His scho- lastie work, however, was destined to be broken in upon by a wider call to duty, for he enlisted April 23, 1861, as a private in Company E, Six- teenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and in Decem- ber. 1861, re-enlisted in the Seventy-fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, under Granville Moody, fa- miliarly known as the "fighting parson." After being made sergeant, Mr. Peters was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and commissioned as such January 7, 1862. On December 31 of the same year, he was severely wounded at the battle of Stone River, December 31, 1862, but recovered and joined his regiment, to be again shot on May 9, 1864, on the Atlanta campaign, while charging a battery on Buzzard Roost mountain. For "gal- lant and conspicuous service," he was promoted to the rank of captain. Once more he rejoined his regiment, then at Savannah, Ga., and served until the close of the war, participating in the Grand Review at Washington, D. C., on May 24 and 25, 1865. He was at that time detailed by General George P. Buell, commander of the brigade, on his staff as assistant inspec- tor general. He was not mustered out until July 12, 1865, having in the meanwhile been commissioned major of his regiment.
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