USA > Illinois > Madison County > Centennial history of Madison County, Illinois, and its people, 1812 to 1912, Volume II > Part 9
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In his political faith Mr. Conrad is a Demo- crat, with liberal tendencies, especially as re- gards local officials, whom he would always test by their personal qualifications rather than their partisan connections. His own reliability as to public affairs has been often endorsed by his fellows, who have chosen him to such of- fices as highway commissioner, school director and treasurer of the Seibert school fund. Both Mr. and Mrs. Conrad are active and prominent members of the German Evangelical church of Marine township, and have always been concerned in not only the upbuilding of the same but in the advancement of all other worthy institutions and causes. In fact, as a family the name Conrad carries unbounded respect and widespread affection.
KATHARINE V. DICKINSON, founder and director of The Studio School of Music, has performed a far-reaching service for the cause of musical education in Alton and vicinity. The Studio School was established in 1899. For eleven years its work has been conducted with increasing success and prestige, and it has graduated many pupils who themselves are successful teachers. The school comprises
a number of departments, including piano, voice, theory, violin, public school music, ora- tory, public school drawing, and besides the director, Miss Dickinson, the faculty includes Miss Mary A. Dickinson, Mrs. Louise K. Murfree, Miss Sara Hudson, Mrs. A. Don Stocker, Miss Edna Sawyer and Miss Stella Van Horne.
Miss Dickinson has been identified with Alton musical affairs since 1891, when she be- came the director of the voice school at Shurt- leff College, and from 1893 to 1899 was con- nected with the Alton Conservatory. Her native home was Penn Yan, New York, her parents being Charles F. and Martha Cole Dickinson. Educated in New York city and Boston, she was a student in the New England Conservatory of Music, and was under the personal guidance of such eminent teachers as Mr. J. Harry Wheeler, Mme. Lena Doria De- vine, studied piano under Otto Bendix, Flor- ence Keer and Carl Lachmund, and theory and harmony under Louis Elson and Stephen A. Emery. In addition to her work with schools of music in Alton, Miss Dickinson founded and became director of the Camerata Chorus, and has been director of several church choirs and has established various jun- ior choirs of the city.
Miss Dickinson's father was for many years connected with the press of his native state. From Penn Yan he moved to Olean, where he established and edited the Olean Times un- til his death. His widow, a talented woman, continued the editorial management of this paper for two years afterward. She was pre- viously the founder of the Golden Rule, a tem- perance journal, and was its editor for a num- ber of years. Under the auspices of the WV. C. T. U. and the Good Templars she was a lecturer, also was chief superintendent of the juvenile work of those organizations, and represented the American order in the world's convention at London. After the death of her first husband she became the wife of Hon. John O'Donell, of Lowville, New York. He was prominently identified with New York politics, being clerk of the assembly, repre- sented his district in the house of representa- tives and the senate, and later was chairman of the state railroad commission and in that capacity was influential in settling the Brook- lyn Rapid Transit troubles. He died at Brook- lyn in 1002. Miss Dickinson's sister, Ida A., is the wife of Dr. William Asbury Hall, of Minneapolis, and her mother also resides there.
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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY
JOHN J. BRENHOLT, for thirty-five years a member of the Madison county bar, a former mayor of the city of Alton, and state senator from 1898 to 1902, was born in St. Louis. His father, Jacob Brenholt, a native of Penn- sylvania, was for many years an architect in St. Louis, and after his death his widow moved to a farm in Madison county, where her son, John J., and his brother Byron, were reared and attended the public schools.
John J. taught school for a time, and was graduated from Illinois College at Jackson- ville in 1869. He prepared for his profession in the noted old Albany Law School, where he graduated in 1870. After a brief practice in Chicago he located in Alton, where he has been one of the most successful and active members of the profession.
His first important public service was as corporation counsel, during 1879-1881, and he received appointment to the same office under the new city administration of 1911. As an independent candidate he was elected mayor of Alton in 1893, and gave the city a progres- sive administration, as the history of the mu- nicipal improvements undertaken in that pe- riod shows.
During his term as state senator, Mr. Bren- holt was president pro tem of that body, and for about a month was acting governor of Illinois. During this period the body of Abra- ham Lincoln was re-interred in its present tomb at Springfield, and Mr. Brenholt was called upon, as acting governor, in the dis- charge of his duty, to officiate at this ceremony. A student in Illinois College at the time of Lincoln's death, he had gone to Springfield and passed before the bier of the great presi- dent in 1865, and over thirty-five years later he had represented the state when the remains were consigned to their permanent rest.
In 1901 he made an unsuccessful campaign for congress in the old eighteenth congres- sional Democratic district. Mr. Brenholt has served on the staff of two governors, and as a Republican and an attorney has participated in many public affairs of recent years. He was the leading attorney in many notable cases.
Mr. Brenholt married, in 1877, Elizabeth Eldredge. daughter of Judge Phineas Eldredge. Their children are: Gertrude, deceased ; Edith and John.
JOSEPH SCHEIBAL. There is very little in connection with farm work that Joseph Schei- bal, the prominent farmer of Edwardsville township, does not know, but he is not one
of those men who feel sure that they know it all. If anyone has anything better than he has in the way of methods of work or modern im- provements, he is always glad to look into the matter and he tries to have the best that is go- ing. He is greatly respected by the people in the community, who surely have reason to know him, as he has spent all of his life in their midst.
He was born in Edwardsville township, Madison county, Illinois, on the farm where he now lives, December 28, 1858. His father, William Scheibal, was a native of Bohemia, who immigrated to this country in 1850. On the same boat with him was his sweetheart, Mary Janecek, to whom he was married in St. Louis as soon as they arrived there. They had landed at New Orleans and come up the river by boat. For the first year after they came to America they stayed in St. Louis, where William worked in various factories. He then moved to the farm in Edwardsville township where Joseph now lives. Mr. and Mrs. Scheibal spent the rest of their lives on the farm and had eight children there, three of whom are still living, William, Joseph and Mary, the latter the wife of Jacob Weber.
Joseph was educated in the country schools of the county until he reached his fourteenth year, when he devoted all his time to farm work. Since then he has learned all he could about farm work and methods and now owns one hundred and forty acres of land in Ed- wardsville township.
In 1880, when he was twenty-two years of age, Joseph Scheibal married Anna Wer- ner, a daughter of Nicholas Werner, who was a native of Germany. He immigrated to this country and settled in Edwardsville township. His daughter Anna and Joseph Scheibal at- tended the same school and were friends from the first of their acquaintance. Indeed they have known each other practically all of their lives. Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Scheibal, all of whom are living, as follows, Laura, Joseph, Jr., William, Nicholas, Bertha, Leonard, Julia, Thomas and Eleanora. Laura is now married to Joseph Schlemmer and Bertha is the wife of Frank Mateky.
Mr. Scheibal is a member of the Catholic church in Edwardsville, Illinois; he is also a member of the Catholic society, the Central Union. He carries insurance policies in the New York Life Insurance Company. In na- tional politics Mr. Scheibal is a Democrat, but he is liberal in his vews and in local affairs he is more apt to consider the characteristics of
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the man than the party. He is an influential man in the county and has served in various township offices, in all of which he has given the greatest satisfaction. When he was mar- ried he was possessed of only a few dollars; since that time he has brought up and educated his large family, made a good living for them and is now a prosperous farmer.
A. J. IHNE, M. D., has been a practicing physician in Fosterburg, Madison county, Ihi- nois, for the past six years, during which pe- riod he has gradually worked up a lucrative practice. The Doctor is an educated man in the fullest sense of the word. The biggest and best part of life lies in supplying for ones- self the things one needs, and education ( which is development ) comes from doing without things more than from using that which rich men supply gratis. If everything is done for a man he is not apt to do much for himself, and probably one of the chief causes of the present efficiency of Dr. Ihne is the fact that his knowledge-technical and literary-has been obtained as the result of his own strong deter- mination to become thoroughly well educated.
On the Ist day of October, 1877, the Doctor began life at Bay, Gasconade county, Missouri. His parents, Herman E. and Sophia ( Beine- cke) Ihne, were natives of Germany, and im- migrated from that fine old Fatherland. On arriving in America they settled in Gasconade county, Missouri, where the father followed agricultural pursuits. In 1886 he moved to Humboldt, Nebraska, where his demise oc- curred in the year 1887. He raised a family of fifteen children, of whom the Doctor was the fourteenth in order of birth.
The first ten years of Dr. Ihne's life were spent on the farm where he was born, at Bay, Missouri. He gained some schooling at the district school in the neighborhood and, young though he was, he learned to assist in the necessary farm work, thereby laying founda- tions of industry which have stood him in such good stead in later years. When he had at- tained the age of ten years he accompanied his parents to Humboldt, Nebraska, where he attended the public school, completing both grammar school and high school courses. He received no further educational training until 1894, and in the meantime the family had moved to German Valley, Illinois. In 1894, after working in various ways to earn means of defraying the expenses of the education which his.nature felt was a necessity, he en- tered the Pleasant Prairie Academy at Ger- man Valley, where he remained for two years.
Then followed another period of labor to ob- tain dollars and cents, and in 1901 he was able to enter the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, after three years' service in the office of a physician. He worked his way through this college and was graduated in April, 1905. Immediately after obtaining his degree he went to Fosterburg, Illinois, and commenced his professional work : he now has an excellent practice obtained from patients who live long distances apart-his territory extending over an arca of several miles. He keeps up with the latest discoveries in the medical field by his association with various medical societies. He holds membership in the Alton Medical Society, in the Madison County Medical Society ; in the Illinois State Society and the American Medical Association. In 1908 he attended the American Association meetings at Chicago and in 1910 he was pres- ent at the gathering at St. Louis when the American Medical Association convened there.
In 1906 Dr. Ihne was united in marriage to Miss Rosa Pfaff, daughter of V. and M. Pfaff, residents of Fosterburg. The Doctor is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. Ile owns his office and also his residence prop- erty ; he has become prominent among his pro- fessional brethren as well as popular with his patients, and is now reaping the rewards of liis years of successful efforts to fit himself for the work to which he is so admirably adapted by nature.
WILLIAM BLASE. On a beautiful and finely improved estate of eighty acres, eligibly located two miles north of Hamel, in Madison county, Illinois, William Blase is most successfully en- gaged in diversified agriculture and the rais- ing of high-grade stock. As a business man his methods are of the fair and honorable type and as a citizen his intrinsic loyalty and public spirit have ever been of the most insistent order.
William Blase was born in Germany, on the 28th of February, 1842, his parents having been Albert and Wilhelmina ( Rahtard) Blasc, both of whom were born and reared in Ger- many. They had three children, one of whom died in infancy. Concerning the other two, Louise is the wife of William Holle, of Hamel township, and William is the immediate sub- ject of this review. William Blase passed his boyhood and youth on his father's farm in Germany, in the work and management of which he waxed strong physically and men- tally. His educational training consisted of such advantages as were afforded in the schools
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of the locality and period, and he came to Madison county, Illinois, in 1866. After his marriage in 1873, he initiated his independent career as a farmer. Subsequently he pur- chased a farm of eighty acres just north of Hamel and on this fine estate he has continued to reside during the long intervening years to the present time. He also owns eighty acres one-half mile north of Hamel. He devotes the major portion of his time and attention to gen- eral farming and the raising of thoroughbred stock, and in those lines of enterprise has been eminently successful.
At Hamel, in the year 1873, Mr. Blase laid a foundation for a happy home life by his marriage to Miss Mary Brunnworth, who was the first in order of birth of the twelve chil- dren born to Henry and Sophia Brunnworth, natives of Germany. To Mr. and Mrs. Blase have been born twelve children, of whom one died in infancy. Concerning the others the following brief data are here incorporated : Henry married Ekka Wilms and he is engaged in farming in Lincoln county, Kansas; they became the parents of six children, Henry (died in infancy), William, Louis, Herbert, Arnold and Antoinette. Fred, Albert, William and Martin Blase are engaged in agricultural pursuits in Madison county, Illinois. Sophia is the wife of August Siebers, and they have four children, Martha, Clara, Hulda and William. Minnie is the wife of Rev. Henry Bornemann, pastor of the Lutheran church at Wakefield, Nebraska, and they have three children, Theo- dore, Mary and Dorothea. Louise is now Mrs. Fred Lueker, of Madison county. Lena, Martha and Emma remain at the parental home. All the above children received their early educational training in the parochial schools of Hamel township and they were reared in the faith of the German Lutheran church, of which the entire family are con- sistent members.
In politics Mr. Blase is a stanch advocate of the principles promulgated by the Republi- can party. His entire life has been character- ized by thrift and industry and his splendid management has resulted in a most gratifying success. The Blase home is one of comfort and good cheer and it is renowned for most generous hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Blase are kind and considerate neighbors and they com- mand the confidence and esteem of all with whom they have come in contact.
GILBERT H. LANE. Noteworthy among the prosperous and progressive citizens of Alton is Gilbert H. Lane, a well-known insurance
man. A son of the late Hezekiah Woodruff Lane, he was born on a farm at Union Grove, Whiteside county, about a mile and a half from Morrison, Illinois, March 25, 1852. A native of New Jersey, Hezekiah W. Lane was born in 1809, in Hunterdon county, where he acquired his early education and also learned the cabinet maker's trade. Instead of settling down at his trade, he followed the emigrant's trail westward, and after living in Ohio for about five years came to Illinois, in 1849, lo- cating in Whiteside county. He first pur- chased land at Union Grove, and after manag- ing it awhile sold out and bought a larger es- tate three and one-half miles from Mount Ver- non, Illinois, where he carried on general farming and stock raising until 1865. Moving then with his family to Irvington, Washington county, Illinois, he was there engaged in mill- ing until his death, in 1868, at the age of fifty- nine years. He married Catherine Ann Apgar, who was born in Hunterdon county, New Jer- sey. She survived him, passing away in 1876, having reared five children, namely: John W .; Mary Elizabeth, who died in 1860; Ger- trude, who married Dr. W. C. Maxey, and died at Caldwell, Idaho, in 1909; Jane, wife of the Rev. H. W. Ganneway, a preacher in the Meth- odist Episcopal church; and Gilbert H. John of the Eighteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry W. Lane, the eldest child, served as chaplain during the Civil war, and was later pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church at Alton, and presiding elder of the Litchfield district. He is now a resident of Siloam Springs, Arkan- sas, and is adjutant for that state of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Educated in the public schools of Illinois, Gilbert H. Lane began clerking in a drug store at the age of eighteen years, and at the end of two years, having obtained a practical knowledge of the business, he began his career as a commercial salesman and traveled on the road, in the interests of the drug trade, for thirty-four consecutive years. He has subse- quently been profitably employed in the life and accident insurance business, with head- quarters at Alton.
Mr. Lane married, in 1876, Anna A. Hus- kinson, who was born at Alton, Illinois, a daughter of William H. Huskinson, of whom a brief biography may be found on another page of this work. Mr. and Mrs. Lane are the parents of two children, namely: William Ward, who married Nora Bischof and has one daughter, Ruth Helen, and Nellie Lucille, wife of Edmund H. Beall.
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Mr. Lane is a past grand chancellor of the United Commercial Travellers of America, and has represented Illinois at the last three national conventions of this order. He is also a member of Fleur-de-Lis Lodge, K. of P., and of Alton Lodge, No. 746, B. P. O. E.
JOIN NEWTON DRUMMOND. Possessing sound judgment, keen foresight, and much executive and financial ability. John Newton Drummond, late of Alton, was for many years one of the more prominent and prosperous business men of this city and a citizen of in- fluence. A son of Harrison Drummond, he was born November 14, 1836, in Wentzville, St. Charles county, Missouri. His paternal grandfather, James Drummond, Sr., was born in Virginia of colonial Scotch ancestry. He was a planter and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war.
Born in Fauquier county, Virginia, Harri- son Drummond was a pioneer settler of Wentz- ville, Missouri, where his death occurred while he was yet in manhood's prime. His wife, whose name was Elizabeth Wilkins, was born in Virginia, her grandfather, who was a Revo- lutionary soldier, having owned at Alexandria, a large plantation, which he operated with slave labor. She died in early womanhood, leaving five children,-Elizabeth, Emily, James, Thomas and John Newton, while one son, William, died in young manhood.
John Newton Drummond grew to manhood in his native state, and, with the loyalty of a true Southerner, cast his fortunes, at the out- break of the Civil war with the Confederacy. In the fall of 1861 he was mustered into Com- pany C of Colonel Burbridge's regiment of Missouri State Guards, at Lexington, Mis- souri, as a private soldier. Shortly after his enlistment he was prostrated by an illness which confined him in the hospital most of the time during the following winter, during which his regiment was encamped at Springfield, Missouri. In the spring of 1862 he became a member of the reorganized regiment and served with it until the close of the war, par- ticipating in all the engagements in which the First Missouri Confederate Brigade took part. The commander of this brigade was General Frank M. Cockrell and in neither army was there a brigade more conspicuous for its gal- lantry and fighting qualities. During his term of military service Mr. Drummond was a par- ticipant in many of the most memorable battles of the war, among which were those at Elk- horn, Arkansas; Iuka, Corinth, Port Gibson. Grand Gulf, Baker's Creek and Big Black
Ridge, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; and Franklin, Tennessee. At Blakely the brigade was compelled to capitulate to a superior force and the men were taken to Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico where they were kept under guard for three weeks. They were taken from there to New Orleans and thence to \'icks- burg where an exchange of prisoners restored them to the Confederate service. The final surrender of the brigade was at Jackson, Mis- sissippi, when the war was drawing to a close, and immediately Mr. Drummond re- turned to his old home and went thence to Alton, Illinois.
In Alton Mr. Drummond joined his brother, James T. Drummond, with whom he embarked in the manufacture and sale of tobacco. These brothers built up a substantial business, which was carried on for a time under the firm name of Myers & Drummond, later becoming Daus- man & Drummond, and still later the Drum- mond Tobacco Company. The plant was sub- sequently removed to St. Louis where the business grew apace, becoming one of the most extensive of its kind in the world. Mr. Drummond retained his connection with the business until they sold out to the trust. He was afterward connected with banks in St. Louis until his death March 24, 1909, in the meantime accumulating considerable wealth.
Mr. Drummond was united in marriage with Mary Elizabeth Randle, who was born at Up- per Alton, Madison county, Illinois, Decem- ber 20, 1839, and passed to the higher life March 12, 1911. Her father, Irwin B. Randle, who was born in Tennessee, of English ances- try, came to Madison county, Illinois, in pio- neer days, when the present site of Alton, and the surrounding country, was a wilderness, in- habited principally by deer, bears, panther, turkeys, and other kinds of wild game common to this section of the state. He was well edu- cated for his time and was for a period a li- censed preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church, but later retired from the ministry and devoted himself to the legal profession. He lived for a number of years at Upper Al- ton, afterwards being a resident of Edwards- ville, and from there coming to Alton, where he continued the practice of law until his death. at the age of 82 years. He served several terms as justice of the peace. Irwin B. Randle married Mary Elizabeth Harrison, who was born in Virginia, being a member of that branch of the Harrison family from Rock- ingham county, Virginia. Her father located in Kentucky at an early day. His wife subse-
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quently returned to Virginia to visit her par- ents and while she was there, her daughter, Mary Elizabeth Harrison, was born. The tiny infant was immediately presented by her grandparents with a negro girl about ten years old, who accompanied the family to their home in Kentucky, riding on horseback beside the carriage in which her little mistress and the mother made the overland journey. Mrs. Drummond's grandmother Harrison was left a widow and after the death of her husband migrated to Illinois, becoming an early settler of Sangamon county. She secured large tracts of land, mostly wild prairie, a part of which is still owned and occupied by her descendants. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth Harrison, came from Sangamon county to Madison county to visit a married sister living at Alton and here met and married Irwin Randle, Mrs. Drum- mand's father.
Mr. and Mrs. Drummond became the par- ents of three children, namely : Bertha, wife of Edward M. Bowman; Mary E., widow of Ze- phaniah B. Job, Jr., and John N., Jr, who married Evora Myers.
JOHN KRIGER. One of the successful farm- ers in Madison county is John Kriger, of Ed- wardsville township. He learned to farm when he was a boy and his friends would say that he has learned all there is to know about farm- ing. If we were to select the one class of men who have done more to make of Illinois the thriving, prosperous state it now is, we should point to the farmers. Where there are so many efficient agricultural men it seems in- vidious to pick out one as being more effective than another, but all will agree that we should give John Kriger a position in the front rank:
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