USA > Illinois > Mason County > Centennial history of Mason County, including a sketch of the early history of Illinois, its physical peculiarities, soils, climate, production, etc. > Part 19
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"He crossed Time's river. Now no more He hecds the baubles on its breast, Or feels the storms that sweep its shore."
Judge McReynolds was one of the pioneers of Mason county, having removed here in 1838. During his long residence here he was frequently called to serve the county in various official positions, and for some time in the office of County Judge. In every posi- tion, public or private, conscientious integrity marked his course. He was born in Union county, Penn., April 13, 1791, consequent- ly, at the time of his death, was eighty-one years seven months and one day old. For more than a year the hand of Time bore heavily upon him, but happily and cheerfully he could say with Job, "all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come."
The deceased was an old-time christian. He united with the M. E. Church in 1831, consequently was not only a pioneer in this country, but a pioneer in Methodism in the west, and for long years the in- timate friend of the venerable Peter Cartwright, who so recently preceded him to the Spirit Land. About six years ago these two aged veterans together called on the writer. What a history and
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experience was comprised in their long lives of usefulness ! In the demise of our friend, we are again admonished that we are mortal, and have no abiding city here. If there be those who think that the contractedness and debility of the human faculties in our present state, seem ill to accord with the expectations of religion, I would ask them whether any one who saw an in- fant would ever expect it to comprehend the abstruse sciences of the schools. What may be our powers, endowed, as we will be, with a sensorium, adapted as it undoubtedly will be, as our pres- ent senses are, to the perception of the subjects and properties of things with which our concern may be. But in everything which respects this solemn subject with which we all have to do, we have a wise and good Being upon whom to rely (as did our departed friend) for the choice and appointment of means adequate to the execution of any plan which His goodness or His justice may have formed for the moral and accountable part of His creation. That office rests with Him, be it ours to hope and prepare under a firm and settled persuasion that living or dying we are His; that life is passed in his constant presence, that death resigns us to His merci- ful disposal.
GEORGE H. CAMPBELL.
Was born July 19, 1821, at Nashville, Tennessee; a son of P. W. Campbell, also an early resident and large property owner in Mason county. His parents, on both sides, were related to some of the early historical families of Tennessee. In 1838 he came to Mason county to superintend the fencing and cultivation of lands his father had entered between the Sangamon and Illinois rivers, then a part of Sangamon county.
Thus, we find him a boy of seventeen, a stranger in a wild fron- tier country, dependent on his own sagacity for a beginning in life. For two years he carried out the plans designed, and was followed by his father, P. W. Campbell, in 1840. P. W. Campbell was elected to a county office on the organization of the county in 1841, and our subject, George H., was elected as soon as he attained his majority, to the office of assessor and treasurer of Mason county. After a course of legal study he was admitted to the bar at the age -28
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of twenty-three, and soon after actively participated in the politics of that day. In August, 1846, he was married to Miss Eliza Janc, daughter of Major B. H. Gatton, a noble woman, a true and devo- ted wife and mother. For more than a quarter of a century she shared his joys and sorrows, but on the first of July, 1873, she was taken to her final home. Their oldest son, W. H. Campbell, is a member of the law firm of Dearborn & Campbell, of Havana .- (See biography of W. H. on another page.)
In politics Judge Campbell was an old line whig, but more lat- terly has been identified with the democratic party. In 1856 he was tendered a nomination for the legislature by the democratic party, but declined. In 1857 he engaged in the practice of law in Havana, and the same year was elected county judge. In 1858 he was elected to the legislature to represent the counties of Mason and Logan, in which body he was second to none in ability and influence. An epitome of his legislative career would be of inter- est, but too lengthy for this work; suffice to say that he was at the head of many important committees, originated many useful laws, and was regarded one of the most able debaters in the house. He received the nomination for the office of Secretary of State in 1860, but failed of election.
On the breaking out of the rebellion he assisted in raising the 106th regiment of Illinois infantry in Logan county, and was made lieutenant colonel of that regiment, but resigned after about one year's service on account of poor health. In 1868 he engaged in a mercantile and banking business in Mason City. In 1870 he took the necessary measures to organize the First National Bank of Ma- son City, and was elected President.
It would be superfluous verbiage to add encomiums on the tal- ents and abilities of Judge Campbell; neither is it the province of this work so to do. We relate historical facts, dates and figures. Prominent official positions, long continued, prove ability, honesty and the confidence of friends and constituents, more emphatically than words can do. If mens' lives and acts, that go to make up a man's history, are compliments to him, then facts of his life and not we flatter him.
Long will the Campbell family be remembered in the official archives of Mason county, as for three generations they have been its most honored citizens.
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A. E. FIELD.
Among the first families who settled in Mason county, and served an important part in its early history and improvements was the Field family. Drury S. Field, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Petersburg, Virginia, and born Oct. 6, 1792. The family settled in Mason county, in 1835, on what is now known as Field's Prairie, and here he resided to the time of his death, in April, 1838.
A. E. Field was born March 6, 1823, came to Mason county with his parents, and this has since been his home, consequently he is one of the earliest settlers of the county now living. His ex- perience includes the pioneer condition of this section of the State, and the transformation of Mason county from a wilderness to its present high state of improvement and its present society.
In early life he read medicine and adopted the profession of his father, and assisted him in his practice. He afterwards engaged in agriculture.
He was married, in Dec., 1845, to Miss Bessie Craggs, of this county. They had seven children, four of whom are still living. Mr. Field is a faithful and consistent member of the Baptist Church, and a lifelong member of the Democratic party.
Possessed of more natural abilities than usually falls to the lot of mortal man, and also of a good education and much reading, it follows of necessity that he has ever held a position of influence among his friends and acquaintances, and is one whose opinions are sought and relied on by his neighbors. He is, as might be ex- pected in a man of his strong sense, entirely free from all ostenta- tion and pretense, but a model of genial sociability and neighborly kindness.
THE FALKNER FAMILY.
The ancestors of this family came to America with the Dutch colonists, and settled at New Amsterdam and Fort Orange (now the cities of New York and Albany), and in the Revolutionary times were on the side of the colonists, and actively participated in that memorable struggle.
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Thomas K. Falkner was born in the year 1800, and in 1815 re- moved with his parents to Dearborn county, Indiana, where, in 1820, he married Miss Phoebe Heaton. Ten years after, they re- moved to Madison county, Indiana, and settled on the banks of White river. In 1838 they removed to Illinois, and entered lands in section 7, town 21, range 7, west of the 3d P. M., in Tazewell county, now Mason, built a cabin, and on the opening of spring began to break prairie.
This was the first improvement in what is now Sherman town- ship. The next fall came the Hibbs, Hampton and Dentler fami- lies, and settled in the vicinity. West of their location to the town of Havana there were seven or eight families along the border of the woods, to-wit: Coder, McReynolds, Robert Falkner, Fisk, Howell, Brown, Fesler and Rishel. These lived east of Havana, and constituted the inhabitants in the first thirty miles or further. Nearly the whole country, from a short distance east of Havana, was a vast unbroken prairie, over which roamed, at pleasure, herds of deer and wolves, "none daring to molest or make afraid." I an informed by Mr. John R. Falkner, that in the spring of 1840, he, with two others, counted on Bull's Eye Prairie fifty-nine deer in one herd, and forty-two in another, all in sight at the same time.
The marshes and sand hills about the heads of Quiver creek and Long Point timber were famous hunting grounds for many years after this. The only mill within the present boundaries of Mason county, was on Crane creek, and known as the Corn Cracker, (see Mount's mill) with a pair of seven inch burns, and when every- thing was favorable, could crack one and a half bushels of corn per hour. A boy was set on the top of a sack of corn, on horse- back, and traveled twelve, fifteen or twenty miles to this mill.
When wheat was to be ground the settlers must either go to Mackinaw or to Fulton county, but usually to the former, by rea- son of the scarcity of means to pay the toll at Ross' ferry, (now Havana,) which cost eighty-seven and-a-half cents the round trip. The journey to Mackinaw mill took four or five days, governed by the time they had to wait for a "grist" to be ground. The con- trast between living and farming in 1840 and 1876 cannot be reali- zed by a person who has not seen both. Now we look over the finely cultivated fields and we see the farmer sowing his small grains by means of a drill, and harvesting with a header or a self-
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raker, and planting his corn with a check-row planter, and plowing it with a Blackhawk cultivator, or some other modern improved plow. Then, you would have seen here and there a farmer sowing his two or three acres of wheat by hand, broadcast, and harrowing it in with a blackjack brush, and furrowing his ground for corn with a two-horse plow, dropping it by hand and covering it with a hoe, and often plowing it with a forked sapling hitched to a "steer." He sowed his flax-seed on Good Friday, and "in the moon," and after "pulling" it, laid it out to "rot," and then "break- ing" and "scutching" it by hand, it was turned over to the female department of the household, to be "hackeled" and spun and wove into cloth, to make for the girls and boys their summer wear.
But to return to our subject. Mr. Falkner's family consisted of five children, two boys and three girls-all lived and arrived at maturity. William is on his farm in Salt Creek township, a happy independent farmer. Jane is the wife of John Henninger. John R, was for many years our very able, competent and efficient coun- ty surveyor, now on his farm in the eastern part of Mason county. Did space permit we would like to pass a deserved tribute to the ability and the disinterestedness of Mr. John R. Falkner in his official duties, but we are reluctantly compelled to forbear.
In June, 1839, within a short time after the location of the fam- ily in their new home, the wife and mother was called to that bourne whence no traveler returns, but the little family struggled on, and the father was with them until 1865, when he too "follow- ed that beckoning hand to the shore" of that cold, dark river.
WILLIAM ALLEN.
There will always attach an interest to the history of the pioneer families of the west which will never properly belong to others who came at a later date, as they have laid the foundations of our social and material status, and coming generations can only modify and develop that which they, by their energy and perseverance, estab- lished. By their strong arms were the forests felled, the undergrowth cleared away, and the prairie sod broken; by them were the primitive cabin, the log school house and the church erected. Later emi- grants make further and higher advancements in all these, and pro- ceed to further develop the embryo foundings of the pioneer. To
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the later class of emigrants belongs the subject of this notice. He was born in Dearborn county, Indiana, in 1807, and at the age of fourteen he spent the two succeeding years at school at Vandalia, Illinois, and at the age of sixteen settled at Shelbyville, Indiana, where he resided for ten years, and from there he removed to Laporte, Indiana, in 1834. In the pleasant city of Laporte he made his home for twenty years, and served the people for two terms as sheriff of that county, and was also a member of the Legislature of the State of Indiana, from that district. From there he removed to Mason county in 1854, and settled in Havana, where he has since resided.
In 1838 he married Miss Sarah E. Shortwell, of New Jersey, and together for thirty-eight years have they shared the joys and sorrows incident to human life, but in their case the former have been largely predominant. The result of this union has been three sons and two daughters, all living at this date, in the full vigor of maturity. Randolph, the oldest son, is an honored minister of the M. E. church, in this State, doing good and acceptable service in his calling; an educated gentleman of more than medium talents.
William, the next son, resides at Hood river, Oregon, whither he emigrated with a colony in 1875, and is engaged in business there, as a permanent home.
Henry, the youngest son, is in a mercantile business in Missouri.
Louisa F. is the wife of W. S. Dray, Esq., a prominent citizen, and long identified with the business interests of Havana.
Kate, the youngest daughter, is with her parents.
Mr. Allen became identified with the Presbyterian church at Laporte, Indiana, in 1835, and after his removal to Havana, there being no society of that denomination, he found no inconvenience in identifying himself with the M. E. church.
During the war of the rebellion he served as Assessor of inter- ternal revenue of this district. Comment is superfluous in this connection, for the integrity, the honor and business abilities of Mr. Allen have long been proverbial with the people of Mason county.
WALTER S. DRAY.
Was born in Alleghany City, September 20, 1838, and with his parents removed to the territory of Iowa in 1839, and in IS45 to
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Pike county, Missouri, and in 1848 to Vermont, Fulton county, Illinois, the mother having died in Iowa, and his father being at that time in California, he was in the care of a grandmother.
From Vermont they removed to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1857, and in 1859 returned to Illinois, and settled in Canton, Fulton county, and engaged in the jewelry business.
On the 27th of July, 1861, he located in Havana, where he has since resided, and engaged in the business of jewelry, watches, clocks, musical instruments, etc. In 1864 he took into his employ Mr. O. C. Town, of Pekin, Illinois, a workman of rare abilities and good business tact, and after four years of successful trade they became partners, or in the year 1868. For eleven years a success- ful partnership continued, and in 1875, Mr. Dray desiring to look more especially after his important real estate interests, sold out to Mr. Town the business so long and so successfully prosecuted by that well-known firm.
In 1864 Mr. Dray was married to Miss Louisa F., daughter of Hon. William Allen, of Havana. The result of this union was three children, only one of whom survives. He is a member of the Board of Alderman of the city of Havana this centennial year, a body that is profited by his influence and business abilities. For fifteen years Mr. Dray has been largely identified with the interests of the city in which he resides, and the success attending the long partnership of Dray & Town is simply another addition to the thousands of cases that an observer may notice, in which fair deal- ing, business integrity and an honorable sense of justice, meet their reward.
HENRY ONSTOT.
"We are sorry when a good man dies." Such was the feeling visible at Forest City on the first of August, 1876.
When the man whose name is at the head of this article ceased to be, although he was past three score years and ten, the allotted period of man's earthly pilgrimage, we would yet have had him stay longer. He was born near Danville, Kentucky, in November, 1804. He removed to Menard county, Illinois, in 1824, having pre- viously married Miss Susannah Schmick, also of Kentucky, and who preceded him to their home over death's dark river, on Dec.
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14, 1867. For forty-four years the joys and sorrows incidental to this world's journey, they shared together, not in wealth and afflu- ence, nor in poverty, but in
"That golden mean, That lived contentedly between The little and the great; Felt not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, Embittering his estate."
From Menard county they removed to Mason county in 1845, since which time they have made this their home. For the past eight years, or since the death of Mrs. Onstot, he has made his home with his son in Forest City.
It is of the christian character of Mr. Onstot that we love to speak. Early identified with the Cumberland Presbyterian church, he ever remained a faithful member thereof, and faithful and dili- gent in all his religious duties. We know whereof we speak in this matter, for we have known of his faithfulness when it was not popular to be identified with the religious interests of the commu- nity.
Kind and courteous with all, firm in his convictions of the right, but always willing to be convinced, unostentatious, candor was the strongest element of his character. His funeral was attended in Havana on the evening of August Ist, by a large concourse of his friends, and all were his friends.
The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies; but time writes no wrinkles on eternity. The ever-present, unborn, undecaying and undying-the endless chain composing the life-God -the golden thread entwining the destinies of the universe. Earth has its beauties, but time shrouds them for the grave; its honors are but the sunshine of an hour; its palaces, they are but the gilded sepulcher; its pleasures, they are but bursting bubbles. Not so in the untried bourne. In the dwelling of the Almighty can come no footsteps of decay.
BARNHARD KREBAUM.
Was born in Hesse Cassel, Germany, in the year 1781 ; came to America in 1834, and arrived in Havana, in this county, on the 3d
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of July of that year, by the way of New Orleans. The Krebaum family were the third in Havana, and the fourth in Mason county. He resided here until the time of his death, which occurred in 1853, at the age of seventy-one years.
On his landing at Havana he found Mr. Ross and Mr. Myers- the only residents here. Mr. Shepherd, where Matanzas now is, and a Mr. Barnes, north of Havana, came near the same time. His family consisted of Frederick, Adolph, William, Edward and Charles G .; the latter born in this city, and the oldest inhabitant now here that is a native born. There are also two daughters. A very remarkable fact in this connection is that this family of sons and daughters are all yet living, with a single exception, viz: Ed- ward, who died here some years ago. Frederick, the oldest son, is now sixty-three years old, and bids fair for many more years to be added to his longevity; and Charles G., the youngest, will be thirty-nine years old in December, this year.
These brothers have from their first settlement in the county been largely identified with its business interests. William built the first saw-mill in the county, and was in the employment of Scovil & Low in their mill on the bank of the Illinois river, and worked on the job of sawing the timbers for the first railroad in Illinois. Adolph has been county clerk for many years, and was the second incumbent of that office after the organization of the county. Charles G. is a member of the firm of Otto & Krebaum, extensive and successful grain dealers in Havana, whose business integrity commends them to all.
HENRY BISHOP.
Was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1824, and emigrated to America in 1829, and located in Mason county, which has since been his home. In 1848 he was married to Miss Catharine Wes- ling, a member of one of the substantial families of Mason county. They have had a large family, and nine children are now living. An aged mother, now past her four score years, makes her home with Mr. Bishop. The father died the first year after his arrival in Mason county.
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Mr. Bishop is the proprietor of the town known as Bishop's Sta- tion, on the P., P. & J. Railroad, northeast of Havana, laid out in the spring of 1875. A post-office was established there in 1871. He is engaged in farming, and has the peculiar faculty of being suc- cessful in all his undertakings. His good judgment and fine busi- ness abilities have secured him a competency of this world's goods, and he and his amiable and intelligent wife are living with more happy contentment in their surroundings than is usually the lot of man to enjoy.
JONATHAN CORY, EsQ.
In Mr. Cory we have another illustration of the superiority of practical strong sense, in contrast with the too many instances we meet in the world where a forced education is urged into a small head, and no room to store it.
He is a graduate of the noblest of all American Institutions, the common schools, and his own tireless energies. He was born June 13, 1815, in Summerset county, New Jersey, and was admit- ted to the bar in 1841.
In February, 1856, he located in Mason county, and since that time has been a resident thereof. He was married in 1836. Mr. Cory's business abilities are of a high order, consequently his suc- cess in life. Though he is past his three score years, he would pass for fifteen less, and enjoys that vigorous health incident to obe- dience to the laws of nature.
JESSE BAKER.
Mr. Baker, whose rapidly failing faculties bespeak this earthly pilgrimage nearly closed, was one of the first white men in Mason county. He was born in Tennessee, in 1798, and is now in his seventy-ninth year. He came to Illinois Territory in 1816, and settled in what is now Morgan county, and became a citizen of Mason county in 1833, and since then this has been his home.
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Mr. Baker has had a varied'experience. Possessed of an unusu- ally vigorous and robust frame, he endured the privations and hardships of a pioneer life, the chase of the deer, and the defense against "the noble red man" that few could endure with him. But now that eye is dimmed with age, and that vigorous arm that once poised the unerring rifle with the grip and steadiness of a vise, hangs feebly by his side; that six foot, stalwart frame totters feebly along, his mental vision dimmed, and all his faculties bespeak the needed rest the grave will soon afford,
He has fought the Indian from tree to tree; was cotemporary in Havana with Ross and Scovil, and Yardley and Krebaum, etc.
He engaged in farming, on Crane creek, near where he and his descendants now reside, and here has grown his ninety bushels of corn per acre, and sold supplies to Mr. Falkner, the first farmer in Sherman township.
These new comers took pride in the duty of assisting new com- ers, and gladly welcoming them as accessories to their strength.
Mr. Baker's pilgrimage will soon be done. His descendants are among the substantial residents of the county, and we gladly here record his worth, and honorable sense of right, for his successors when he has passed away.
SAMUEL SLOANE.
Was born in Maryland, in 1787, and died in Fulton county, Illi- nois, in 1859, at the age of seventy-two years. He came to Havana in 1835, in the month of June, and lived in a cabin where the cor- ner of Orange and Main streets now is. His family was John M., Miss Deziah, Miss Athliah, Hiram W., Samuel, Jr., Uriah B., An- drew J., Amberiah, Daniel R., Miss Jane and Miss Charlotte, only four of whom now survive, viz: Hiram W., Satuuel, Uriah B. and Amberiah, all of whom reside in Fulton county, except one, who is in Kansas; their ages range from forty to sixty-one.
The settlers in Havana at that time were Krebaum, Ross, Tim- ony, Hilbert, Miller, Sloan, and north of Havana were Burnell and Barnes, south, at Matanzas, was Shepherd, and at Moscow, a Mr. Herbert. Nine miles east was Gibson Gerret, who, with those before named, were all the inhabitants in the west side of the county.
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