USA > Illinois > Brown County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 48
USA > Illinois > Cass County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 48
USA > Illinois > Schuyler County > Biographical review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois: Containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens > Part 48
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August 16, 1887. His wife is still living and is a member of the Christian Church. The two came with about $200 in capital, and in the time they lived in Illinois became rich and influential people. They had ten children, seven of whom grew up, namely: Jane Cady, Cyrus, Andrew, Vintson, Frank, Sarah McHatten and John.‘
Subject was two years old when the family settled in Schuyler county, and he resided at home until he attained liis majority. His school advantages were limited. At the age of twenty-one he went to Fort Snelling, Min- nesota, and broke prairie and engaged as cook to a gang of men who were cutting hay for the Government. At that date Min- neapolis consisted of a sawmill and a few houses. He remained in Minnesota about six months and then returned to Illinois and engaged in making brooms at Clayton, Adams county, Illinois. He followed this business four years and then removed to Brown county, but after a few years residence there, removed to Schuyler county and settled where he now resides on land entered by his father. He has a farm of 105 acres. He is a Democrat in politics, and has been Road Commissioner for many years. He has filled that office with great credit to himself.
He was inarried in 1858 to Jane McDonald of Brown county, born October 15, 1840, daughter of John B. and Sarah C. (Orr) Mc- Donald. The former was born in county Antrim, Ireland, and came to the United States when a young man, and resided in the Southern States for a short time, but finally settled in Brown county in 1833, and soon after married Sarah C. Orr, who was the daughter of Mr. G. Orr, a settler of Brown county in 1831. She was born in Tennessee in 1810. Mr. and Mrs. McDonald had four
children, all of whom are now married and well settled.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have had seven children: Carrie, wife of William Nelson of Huntsville township; Cora, at home; Will- iam J. died in infancy; Frank C. at home; Pearl at home; Myrtle died at the age of four; and Nina E., at home.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are members of the Christian Church. Mr. Anderson is a member of Camden Lodge, No. 648, A. F. & A. M., in which he is the Junior Warden.
HOMAS BARTON was boru in Brown county, Illinois, October 15, 1839. His father, Thomas, was born in Ken- tucky, in 1809, and died in Brown county in 1878, aged seventy years. - His father was David Barton, who was born in Maryland, and taken to Kentucky when but a lad. He was a teamster when a young man, and later a landholder. His wife was Elizabeth Marsh. They reared five children, Thomas being the second child. The mother of these children died, and the father married again and had five more children. The mother of our sub- ject was nained Clarissa Ingles, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, daughter of James Ingles, a large planter and distiller, largely engaged in the manufacture of Bourbon whisky. Thomas came direct to Brown county upon reaching Illinois in 1835. He brought his wife and daughter with him. He bought eighty acres of land at the Government price. They began life in a log cabin. They received their Government deed in 1837, and Mr. Barton was appointed Justice of the Peace. Sixteen children were born to them, many of them dying in infancy, but six of
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them growing to adult age; three of them are now living. The father and mother now rest in the Huffman graveyard.
Thomas had very limited school advantages, barely learning to read and write. He left his home at twenty-one, and enlisted August 8, 1862, in the Eighty-fourth Illinois Infan- try, Company D. He was very soon pro- inoted to be Second Sergeant. He was on duty and at his post every day during his term of nearly three years. He received slight wounds in his left hand and right shoulder, both flesli wounds. He was mus- tered out at Camp Harker on June 8, and discharged at Camp Butler in Illinois, June 17. He returned to civil life in Brown county in broken health, and paid large doc- tor bills for six months.
He was married April 30, 1866, to Matil- da, danghter of Jacob and Margaret (Briggle) Fry, both of Ohio, coming to Illinois in 1840. He died on the farm in middle age, and left his widow with eiglit children. His wife survived him and died when about sixty years old. Mrs. Thomas Barton died Octo- ber 24, 1890, leaving eight children: Charles W., farner of this county; Nina, prepared at Rushville Normal School for teaching; Edna lias liad the same advantages; Idalla and Charlotte are prepared to teach; Law- rence Arthur is at home, going to school; James Edgar is a rugged farmer lad, and Jessie H., a bright lass for her years. Mr. Barton is giving his children a good educa- tion, and inculcating habits of honesty and industry.
Mr. Barton voted for Lincoln and Grant, but has since been a reformer. Religiously he is free, and does his own thinking for himself, regardless of consequences. He was a candidate for the State Senate in 1888, and for Congress in 1890, on the reformn ticket,
and is the People's party candidate for the State Senate. He began life barefooted, and owns now 390 acres of good farming land, wortlı $40 an acre. He built his barns in 1884, and his house which he lives in was built on the ruin of the first. He does a diversified farming, mostly grain. He also raises a number of cattle and sheep, and yearly turns off from forty to fifty hogs.
EORGE W. LUCAS was born in Lee township, near Mount Sterling, in June, 1845. His father was a native of But- ler county, Ohio, named Daniel R. Lucas, born in 1810. His father, John Lucas, was a native of Virginia, a soldier of the Revolu- tionary war, and emigrated to Ohio, wliere he died at an advanced age, having reared a large family, of whom our subject's father was the youngest. He was reared on the farm to that kind of life, and was educated in the English branches. After lie reached manhood he obtained a medical education by his own efforts. He came to Mount Sterling when quite young, from Crawfordsville, In- diana, and began the practice of medicine.
He bought 160 acres of land two and one- half miles southwest of Mounds, and sold it in 1851, three years after lie had bought it. From there lie went to Texas. Prior to this he and his brother-in-law, Dr. King, practiced medicine together in Clayton, Adams county. He remained in Texas only one summer, and then returned to Lee township and bought a farm of 160 acres one and one-half miles south of this village, on which he settled and where lie died in 1884. He bought other lands, amounting in all to over 1,000 acres. He died January 26, 1884. He began life
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without any money, but the handsome estate he left at his death was worth at least $30,- 000. His wife was Sarah Ann Keith, of Kentucky, to whom he was married in 1836. They had twelve children, of whomn nine are still living, and all are married except one. Mrs. Lucas died in 1890, six years after her husband.
His son, George W., followed his father in the choice of a profession, and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Keokuk in 1878, and began his practice in the fall of the same year. The Doctor takes a great interest in the affairs of his State and county. In 1862, althoughi only a boy of seventeen, he enlisted in the Third Missouri Cavalry, and served three years withont receiving any wounds, although his health was impaired by the hardships of camp life. His bravery was rewarded by a medal from Congress. He is a member of the G. A. R., the R. K. McCoy Post, No. 311, of Clayton, Illinois. He has never sought after public office, but is the candi- date of the Republicans in this district for the State Senate.
He was married in 1872, to Miss Josephine L. Kilby, daughter of C. G. and Leora E. (Hubbell) Kilby. They were from Cleve- land, Ohio, her native State. They came to Illinois in 1870, but after four years returned to Ohio. Mrs. Lucas is one of four children, namely: Mrs. Lucas, Mary G. Kilby, Wilford H. Kilby and Amelia A. The father died in 1889, at the age of sixty-eight, but his wife is still living at her home in Ohio, at the age of sixty-three. The maternal grandmother was Annis Bell, and she lived to the age of ninety-three, not dying until 1881. Mrs. Lucas' maternal grandparents were Solyınan and Lucinda Hubbell. Mr. Hubbell was a lineal descendant of one Jaines Hubbell, who
came to America in the early days of the set- tlement of Massachusetts, and came to Ohio in a very early day, locating near Cleveland, where he lived until his death, which occurred in October, 1874. Lucinda Hubbell still lives with her daughter, Mrs. Kilby, aged eighty-three. The paternal grandfather was William Kilby, a farmer of Massachusetts, who died at cighty-six.
Dr. and Mrs. Lucas have the following children: Charles H., Lena L., Mary Ethel and George D., aged nineteen, thirteen, eleven and nine, respectively. The oldest son is at the Normal School at Valparaiso, Indiana, in his second term, and is very pro- ficient in his studies. Dr. Lncas has a good practice and his skill is depended upon by all the best people in the township and surround- ing country.
ILLIAM M. WYATT, a prosperous retired farmer and esteemed pioneer of Cass county, Illinois, was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, February 22, 1828.
His parents were James and Sarah (Steven- son) Wyatt, both of whom were natives of Kentucky, and who came to Morgan county, Illinois, in 1830, and located on a farm, on what is known as Golden Prairie. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, a Virginian by birth, had previously emigrated to Morgan county, in 1828. James Wyatt and wife were the parents of four children, three sons and one daughter, only two of whom are now living. John, the eldest son, died in Cass county about ten years ago; he was married and left three sons and one daughter, one now in Kansas, two in Cass county and one in Braden, Illi- nois, the sons being farmers by occupation ;
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our subject was the second child; Elizabeth, the third, married Hugh Sheridan, and died in Lincoln, Logan county, Illinois, leaving a family of one son and two daugliters; Wal- ter, the eldest of the children, died in youth.
The subject of this sketch was but two years of age when his parents removed from Kentucky to Morgan county, Illinois, and he vividly remembers the experiences of those early pioneer days, which were calculated to test man's endurance and cultivate his powers of invention. The habitation of the family was the primitive log cabin, cooking being done over an open fire-place, while all baking was done in a kettle-shaped oven, on the lid of which coals were placed. Wheat bread was unknown for many years, and finally becaine a treat for Sunday morning. When wheat was first raised, it was cut with a reap hook and disengaged from the straw by the tread- ing of horses, afterward being separated from the chaff by being thrown to the wind. It was first bolted by inachines which were run by hand, the first mill erected, being fifteen miles distant, which was run by wind power, operated by an ox. Corn was plowed with a wooden-moldboard plow, drawn by au ox with an ox harness. The whole neighbor- hood would turn out to assist in raising log buildings, and it never occurred to any one to expect pay for the most valuable services, money being unknown.
Surrounded by these peaceful, rural scenes, and in the pursuance of these primitive duties and pastimes, passed the youth and early inanhood of the subject of this sketch. April 26, 1851, he and an estimable young lady of his neigborhood were united in mar- riage, commencing life with few earthly pos- sessions but with unbounded faith in each other and the future. The year preceding this momentous event, Mr. Wyatt had raised
a small crop of wheat on a portion of his father's land, and hauling a load of this to Beardstown, he procured a marriage license and other necessaries. He was married on Snuday, and on Monday they and their friends liad dinner at his father's house. Tuesday, having but one horse, he inounted and taking his wife up behind him moved with all their belongings to his brother's house, where they boarded until their cabin was ready for oc- cupancy. The two brothers plowed the little farm of forty acres, for which Mr. Wyatt had gone in debt, and, together, erected the cabin. Mr. Wyatt's young wife dropped the corn on eighty acres of land, dropping a row every third round of the plow. By 1855, the little home was paid for, while they had a snug little sum of $900 ahead.
In 1850, Mr. O. B. Nance, our subject's father-in-law, had removed to Texas, where he pre-empted a large tract of land, and be- ing desirous of having his daughter near liim he offered to bestow a quarter section of land on Mr. Wyatt, if he would remove to that State. Accordingly, they went to the Lone Star State, but, not liking the country there, returned to their little Illinois home, where he commenced working his farm with renewed energy. He erected a new fence around it by working up the fallen timber on his father's land, making 100 rails a day and bringing a load home in the evening. At night, he would cnt corn until ten o'clock, and this experience was repeated day after day for a long time. Heretoforc, he had not increased his possessions in land, but as his means accumulated, he bought another forty acres, and in time became the owner of 260 acres of as choice agricultural land as is to be found in the county, which he still retains. About eight years ago, he retired from active work on the farm, and located in Ashland.
.
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investing his surplus means in stock in the Ashland Bank, and he and his worthy wife are enjoying in comfort the means which their early industry accumulated.
They have had four children, three now living: John Harding, the eldest, died aged sixteen years; Fannie married Mr. Thomp- son, a retired fariner of Virginia, Illinois; Alice married Mr. Struble, a prominent farmer and merchant of Newmansville, the same State; James J., who received an ex- cellent education in Jacksonville, Illinois, has been connected with the Ashland Bank, as a stockholder and official, for eleven years, from which he receives a good salary. He married Miss Bertha Loliman, a highly esteemed resi- dent of Ashland, and they have one child.
The entire family are earnest and nseful. members of the Methodist Episcopal Churchi
Mr. Wyatt is a man of strong and consci- entious convictions, as is evidenced in his political views. He was formerly a Republi- can, but five years ago joined the Prohibition party, for which he works with his usual energy.
Few men more fully deserves their pros- perity and happiness than Mr. Wyatt, who has acquired all by the exercise of intelligent and persistent effort.
1
ING KERLEY was born in Sumner county, Tennes see, September 25, 1814. His father, William, was born in South Carolina in 1785. When three years of age he was taken to Tennessee by his father, who was also William and who died on his small farnı in Tennessee, at the advanced age of ninety-three years. King has heard his grandfather tell how he crawled under the barn in South Carolina to hide their small
store of silver coin during the Revolution. His son was a soldier for three months in the war of 1812 and received a land warrant of forty acres for this service. He married Jane Carr of Tennessee, whose father, King Carr, was a native of Virginia. They reared to adult age eleven children and buried two in infancy. The mother died at the age of seventy years and the father lived to be an octogenarian. Both are sleeping side by side on the old farm which is still in the family.
Mr. Kerley went to school only until he was ten years of age, learned to read and write, but had no instruction in numbers. He remained on his father's farm until his 'majority and was a volunteer in the Seminole war with his brother, John. When he re- turned home he was married, March 9, 1837, to Elizabeth Brown of Sumner county, T'ennessee. They had grown up together. She was the danghter of John and Elizabeth (Ball) Brown. Mr. and Mrs. Kerley began their married life on his brother's farm, but within a year they bought and settled on a farm of their own. Mr. Kerley was in the Seminole war, in which he received a gunshot wound in his thigh. 1n 1846 Mr. Kerley voluteered in the Mexican war as a private, and was made Second Lieutenant which posi- tion le held during his twelve months' ser- vice. After his return home he was elected to the Legislature in Angust, 1847, and next he ran for the State Senate against a promi- nent man, but was defeated although he ran ahead of his ticket. The first railroad charter was passed during his term of office. In 1851 he left there and by teams he moved his fan- ily to Brown county on his present farm in section 17. His wife's family had come to Illi- nois fourteen years earlier. Mr. Kerley bought eighty acres of land for $1,000, and by a tax title another eighty, which cost him $100 for
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the patent. He left his family and returned to Tennessee, sold out his farm there and re- turned to Illinois in February to find his wife dead and buried! She died, as did her father father, stepmother and five others of the family, of ship fever, which had been brought by a returned Californian. Mr. Kerley went on his farin with his three children, but in December, 1853, he married Amanda J. Pell, a danghter of Henry Pell, whose wife was a King. They had eight children. There are four sons of this family still living, one son , of the first wife. The stepmother was a real mother to his children, a dearly beloved woman who died January 16, 1891, in her sixty-sixth year. Pleasant Hart Kerley his oldest son, lives at Camp Point, Illinois; Robert is a farmer in Adams county; James N. lives in Oakland, California; Edgar is a farmer near home; and so is the last son, John.
Mr. Kerley was elected to the State Legislature in 1856 and introduced the bill for the railroads running through this county. He was re-elected in 1858 and again in 1864. When he lived in Tennessee he held the office of Sheriff and had to dis- charge the unpleasant duty of executing a convict. He was Supervisor in 1864 and re- elected some fifteen times and several times was chairman of the board. He was the first Assessor for Lee township and held that office for five years. He has been a Democrat and is well named King, as he is a king among jokers. He has retired front active farming and lives with his youngest son on his 200- acre farm. He has been very successful and though nearly seventy-eight years of age is in good health, with the exception of some trouble with his eyesight. Nature has done more for this man than for many of those known to fame. He takes a daily walk to
Mound Station and is a very interesting com- panion as his memory is phenomenal. There is probably no one who can relate in a more interesting manner more incidents of an eventful life than can this well preserved old gentleman. It is the wish of his friends that he may long continue with them.
RS. MARY F. RAVENSCROFT, is the widow of the late Ashford D. Ravenscroft, and is a native of Ver- sailles, Woodford county, Kentucky. Her father was Henry Casteen of Virginia, and her mother was Lucinda . (Peters) Casteen, also of Woodford county. The parents of our subject came to Illinois in May, 1832, when she was but a small child and the long trip was made by water. The first home of the family was on land one mile north of Ver- sailles, on which her father had secured a claim in 1830, when he came through on horseback, and bought the improvements of a squatter settler. They moved into the sniall, crude, log cabin which this settler had built, and here they lived for a short time nutil her father could build a good two-story frame honse. There were then in the family four daughters and one son, and two daughters and one son were born here in Illinois, mak- ing a family of eight children. The mother of Mrs. Ravenscroft died April 16, 1839, and the children she left were: Louisa, who died in the bloom of maidenhood; John A. Cas- teen, who was for many years a merchant of Versailles and died here September 29, 1887, at the age of sixty-five years; Mary, of this sketch; Martha, residing in Versailles with her sister, Mrs. Julia Bond, widow of the late Dr. John 'Bond; Catherine, who died at the age of seventeen years; Elizabeth, who died
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at the age of four years; and William who died in infancy, soon after his mother. The father was again married, to Elizabeth Hew- ett, of Springfield, Illinois, a native of Ver- sailles, Kentucky. By this union there were three children, one son dying in infancy. Thomas Henry died in Versailles, June 27, 1892, aged forty-nine years; and Joseplı, a resident of Versailles but now viewing the wonders of Montana. He has a wife and four children. Henry Casteen died April 14, 1854, aged sixty five years.
The marriage of our subject took place November 21, 1841, to A. D. Ravenscroft. He was born near the north branch of the Potomac river in Hampshire county, Vir- ginia, at Romney June 22, 1808, and died in Versailles, Illinois, April 19, 1872, in his sixty-fourth year.
Ashford D. Ravenscroft was the son of James and Charlotte (Dowden) Ravenscroft. His paternal ancestry was of English descent and were old settlers of the Old Dominion. His maternal ancestors werc an old family in Virginia. He had one sister and four brothers, and was reared in Virginia, where he had a common-school education, and lie liad a good business education. Being a bright and brainy man he became a strong, influential business man, developing the characteristics of the statesman and leader among men. He left his native place at the age of twenty-four years and went to Hills- boro, Oliio, in 1832, and while here was elected Sheriff. During his four year's resi- dence he made a trip to Illinois and soon moved to this State, coming in 1836. This connty was a part of Schuyler county and the town of Versailles was only projected, but was attracting attention; so witli a limited capital of about $1,000, the savings of his own labor, lie decided to embark in the mercantile
trade here. In the winter of 1836-'37, he built a small frame building of two rooms for a store, which he filled with a stock of goods in the following June. This was the first store in Versailles and still stands, a relic of pioneer times and primitive Versailles. To the first rooms he built an addition and to this home he brought his bride, and they lived here in happiness some time. Soon competitors canie and with varying success, but Mr. Ravenscroft was steadily succeeding, and by his business qualities he built up a prosperous business in his line and became an owner of a part of the town site. Stimu- lated by the growth of the place, perhaps, or inore by his genial manner and upright deal- ing, he gained the confidence and friendship of the people of this section and built up a trade which made him a wealthy mnan in the course of inany years of merchandising The first entry on his books was made June 25, 1837, and the large piles of his account books eorded up in the library of his handsome residence, where he lived until death, show something of the volume of his trade in his thirty-five years in business here. The last few years of his life he was afflieted with rheumatism, but was confined to his couch but a short time and np to the time of his death he was around looking after his business. But the summons of that stern Sheriff came suddenly on the 19th of April, 1872. A vast concourse of people at his obsequies testified to the large circle of friends and admirers. It is said to have been the largest funeral in this pleasant little hamlet of Illinois. Mr. Ravenscroft was endowed by nature with more than com- inon energy and talent, and would have been successful in alınost any calling in life, es- pecially as a statesman or in a judicial line. He was one of the few great men in his own home and domestic relations. To his devoted
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wife and daughter still at home, this was an overwhelming sorrow, and his memory is most sacredly cherished by them and his other surviving children.
Mr. and Mrs. Ravenscroft had five children, one son and four danghters: Mattie Charlotte died at the age of four years, May 15, 1856. The surviving are: William Henry, a rcsi- dent of Versailles; Lucinda J. is the wife of Thomas H. Graves of Versailles; Lydia A. is the wife of William Yates of Pike county, Illinois, and Virginia C. Ravenscroft.
OHN W. DANIEL, an intelligent and progressive fariner of Ashland, Cass county, Illinois, and an honored veteran of the late war, was born in Morgan county, this State, January 12, 1839.
His parents were Joseph and Jemima (Stiltz) Daniel, both of whom were natives of Tennessee, in which State they were mar- ried and where their eldest child, Somers T., was born. They had four sons and four daughters, the youngest of whom was a inan full grown, when the father died, that being the first death in the family. Somers T. died in mature life, leaving a wife and one son; Mary J. went to California in 1849, and has never been heard from since; she was un- inarried; James M., a miller by trade, lives in Kansas, is a widower and has a family; Eliza Ann married Mr. Hodgson, and is now deceased; Ellen is the wife of John Goodall, a prosperous fariner of Kansas; Lavinia, wife of John May, a well-to-do farmer, lives in Arkansas; Joseph is married, and lives in Montana, where he is a miner by occupation.
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