Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Part 7

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913; Gale, W. Shelden
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1388


USA > Illinois > Knox County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois > Part 7
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USA > Illinois > Kane County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois > Part 7
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USA > Illinois > Coles County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois > Part 7
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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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BANKSON, Andrew, pioneer and early legis- lator, a native of Tennessee, settled on Silver Creek, in St. Clair County, Ill., four miles south of Lebanon, about 1808 or 1810, and subsequently removed to Washington County. He was a Col- onel of "Rangers" during the War of 1812, and a Captain in the Black Hawk War of 1832. In 1822 he was elected to the State Senate from Washington County, serving four years, and at the session of 1822-23 was one of those who voted against the Convention resolution which had for its object to make Illinois a slave State. He sub- sequently removed to Iowa Territory, but died, in 1853, while visiting a son-in-law in Wisconsin.


BAPTISTS. The first Baptist minister to set- tle in Illinois was Elder James Smith, who located at New Design, in 1787. He was fol- lowed, about 1796-97, by Revs. David Badgley and Joseph Chance, who organized the first Baptist church within the limits of the State. Five churches, having four ministers and 111 mem- bers, formed an association in 1807. Several causes, among them a difference of views on the slavery question, resulted in the division of the denomination into factions. Of these perhaps the most numerous was the Regular (or Mission- ary) Baptists, at the head of which was Rev. John M. Peck, a resident of the State from 1822 until his death (1858). By 1835 the sect had grown, until it had some 250 churches, with about 7,500 members. These were under the ecclesiastical care of twenty-two Associations. Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist Indian missionary, preached at Fort Dearborn on Oct. 9, 1825, and, eight years later. Rev. Allen B. Freeman organized the first Baptist society in what was then an infant set-


tlement. By 1890 the number of Associations had grown to forty, with 1010 churches 891 ministers and 88,884 members. A Baptist Theo- logical Seminary was for some time supported at Morgan Park, but, in 1895, was absorbed by the University of Chicago, becoming the divinity school of that institution. The chief organ of the denomination in Illinois is "The Standard." pub- lished at Chicago. 1302265


BARBER, Hiram, was born in Warren County, N. Y., March 24, 1835. At 11 years of age he accompanied his family to Wisconsin, of whichi State he was a resident until 1866. After gradu- ating at the State University of Wisconsin, at Madison, he studied law at the Albany Law School, and was admitted to practice. After serving one term as District Attorney of his county in Wisconsin (1861-62), and Assistant Attorney-General of the State for 1865-66, in the latter year he came to Chicago and, in 1878, was elected to Congress by the Republicans of the old Second Illinois District. His home is in Chicago, where he holds the position of Master in Chancery of the Superior Court of Cook County.


BARDOLPH, a village of McDonough County, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 7 miles northeast of Macomb; has a local paper. Population (1880), 409; (1890), 447.


BARNSBACK, George Frederick Julius, pio- neer, was born in Germany, July 25, 1781; came to Philadelphia in 1797, and soon after to Ken- tucky, where he became an overseer; two or three years later visited his native country, suf- fering shipwreck en route in the English Channel; returned to Kentucky in 1802, remaining until 1809, when he removed to what is now Madison (then a part of St. Clair) County, Ill .; served in the War of 1812, farmed and raised stock until 1824, when, after a second visit to Germany, lie bought a plantation iu St. Francois County, Mo. Subsequently becoming disgusted with slavery, he manumitted his slaves and returned to Illinois, locating on a farm near Edwardsville, where he resided until his death in 1869. Mr. Barnsback served as Representative in the Fourteenth Gen- eral Assembly (1844-46) and, after returning from Springfield, distributed his salary among the poor of Madison County .- Julius A. (Barnsback), his son, was born in St. Francois County, Mo., May 14, 1826; in 1846 became a merchant at Troy, Madison County; was elected Sheriff in 1860; in 1864 entered the service as Captain of a Company in the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Volun- teers (100-days' men); also served as a member of the Twenty-fourth General Assembly (1865).


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BARNUM, William H., lawyer and ex-Judge, was born in Onondaga County, N. Y., Feb. 13, 1840. When he was but two years old his family removed to St. Clair County, Ill., where he passed his boyhood and youth. His preliminary ednca- tion was obtained at Belleville, Ill., Ypsilanti, Mich., and at the Michigan State University at Ann Arbor. After leaving the institution last named at the end of the sophomore year, he taught school at Belleville, still pursuing his clas- sical studies. In 1862 he was admitted to the bar at Belleville, and soon afterward opened an office at Chester, where, for a time, he held the office of Master in Chancery. He removed to Chicago in 1867, and, in 1879, was elevated to the bench of the Cook County Circuit Court. At the expi- ration of his term he resumed private practice.


BARRERE, Granville, was born in Highland County, Ohio. After attending the common schools, he acquired a higher education at Au- gusta, Ky., and Marietta, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in his native State, but began the prac- tice of law in Fulton County, Ill., in 1856. In 1872 he received the Republican nomination for Congress and was elected, representing his dis- trict from 1873 to 1875, at the conclusion of his term retiring to private life. Died at Canton, Ill., Jan. 13, 1889.


BARRINGTON, a village located on the north- ern border of Cook County, and partly in Lake, at the intersection of the Chicago & Northwestern and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, 32 miles northwest of Chicago. It has banks, a local paper, and several cheese factories, being in a dairying district. Population (1880); 610; (1890), 848.


BARROWS, John Henry, D. D., clergyman and educator, was born at Medina, Mich., July 11, 1847; graduated at Mount Olivet College in 1867, and studied theology at Yale, Union and Andover Seminaries. In 1869 he went to Kansas, where he spent two and a half years in mission- ary and educational work. He then (in 1872) accepted a call to the First Congregational Church at Springfield, Ill., where he remained a year, after which he gave a year to foreign travel, visiting Europe, Egypt and Palestine, during a part of the time supplying the American chapel in Paris. On his return to the United States he spent six years in pastoral work at Lawrence and East Boston, Mass., when (in November, 1881) he assumed the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Dr. Barrows achieved a world-wide celebrity by his services as Chairman of the "Parliament of Religions," a branch of the "World's Congress Auxiliary," held during the


World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Later, he was appointed Professorial Lec- turer on Comparative Religions, under lectureships in connection with the University of Chicago en- dowed by Mrs. Caroline E. Haskell. One of these, established in Dr. Barrows' name, contemplated a series of lectures in India, to be delivered on alternate years with a similar course at the Uni- versity. Courses were delivered at the University in 1895-96, and, in order to carry out the purposes of the foreign lectureship, Dr. Barrows found it necessary to resign his pastorate, which he did in the spring of 1896. After spending the summer in Germany, the regular itinerary of the round- the-world tour began at London in the latter part of November, 1896, ending with his return to the United States by way of San Francisco in May, 1897. Dr. Barrows was accompanied by a party of personal friends from Chicago and elsewhere, the tour embracing visits to the principal cities of Southern Europe, Egypt, Palestine, China and Japan, with a somewhat protracted stay in India during the winter of 1896-97. After his return to the United States he lectured at the University of Chicago and in many of the principal cities of the country, on the moral and religious conditiou of Oriental nations, but, in 1898, was offered the Presidency of Oberlin College, Ohio, which he accepted, entering upon his duties early in 1899.


BARRY, a city in Pike County, founded in 1836, on the Wabash Railroad, 18 miles east of Hannibal, Mo., and 30 miles southeast of Quincy. The surrounding country is agricultural. The city contains woolen and flouring mills, pork- packing establishments, etc. It has two local papers, a bank, three churches and a high school, besides schools of lower grade. Population (1880), 1,392; (1890), 1,354; (1898) estimated, 1,600.


BARTLETT, Adolphus Clay, merchant, was born of Revolutionary ancestry at Stratford, Fulton County, N. Y., June 22, 1844; was educated in the common schools and at Danville Academy and Clinton Liberal Institute, N. Y., and, coming to Chicago in 1863, entered into the employment of the hardware firm of Tuttle, Hibbard & Co., now Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co., of which, a few years later, he became a partner, and later Vice-President of the Company. Mr. Bartlett has also been a Trustee of Beloit College, Presi- dent of the Chicago Home for the Friendless and a Director of the Chicago & Alton Railroad and the Metropolitan National Bank, besides being identified with various other business and benevo- lent associations.


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BASCOM, (Rev.) Flavel, D. D., clergyman, was boru at Lebanon, Conn., June 8, 1804; spent his boyhood on a farm until 17 years of age, mean- while attending the common schools; prepared for college under a private tutor, and, in 1824, entered Yale College, graduating in 1828. After a year as Principal of the Academy at New Canaan, Conn., he eutered upon the study of theology at Yale, was licensed to preach in 1831 and, for the next two years, served as a tutor in the liter- ary department of the college. Then coming to Illinois (1833), he cast his lot with the "Yale Band," organized at Yale College a few years previous; spent five years in missionary work in Tazewell County and two years in Northern Illi- nois as Agent of the Home Missionary Society, exploring new settlements, founding churches and introducing missionaries to new fields of labor. In 1839 he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, remaining until 1849, when he assumed the pastorship of the First Presbyterian Church at Galesburg, this relation continuing until 1856. Then, after a year's serv- ice as the Agent of the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church, he accepted a call to the Congregational Church at Princeton, where he remained until 1869, when he took charge of the Congregational Church at Hinsdale. From 1878 he served for a consider- able period as a member of the Executive Com- mittee of the Illinois Home Missionary Society ; was also prominent in educational work, being one of the founders and, for over twenty-five years, an officer of the Chicago Theological Seminary, a Trustee of Knox College and one of the founders and a Trustee of Beloit College, Wis., from which he received the degree of D. D. in 1869. Dr. Bascom died at Princeton, Ill., August 8. 1890.


BATAVIA, a town in Kane County, located on Fox River, and ou branch lines of the Chicago & Northwestern and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroads, 38 miles west of Chicago. It has water power and establishments for the manufacture of wagons, paper bags and wind- mills. There are also extensive limestone quar- ries in the vicinity. The town was founded in 1834 and incorporated as a village in 1856. It has two weekly papers, eight churches and six public schools, besides a private hospital for the insane. Population(1880), 2,639; (1890), 3,543.


BATEMAN, Newton, A. M., LL.D., educator and Editor-in-Chief of the "Historical Encyclo- pedia of Illinois," was born at Fairfield, N. J., July 27, 1822, of mixed English and Scotch an-


cestry ; was brought by his parents to Illinois in 1833; in his youth enjoyed only limited educa- tional advantages, but graduated from Illinois College at Jacksonville in 1843, supporting him- self during his college course wholly by his own labor. Having contemplated entering the Chris- tian ministry, he spent the following year at Lane Theological Seminary, but was compelled to withdraw on account of failing health, when lie gave a year to travel. He then entered upon his life-work as a teacher by engaging as Principal of an English and Classical School in St. Louis, remaining there two years, when he accepted the Professorship of Mathematics in St. Charles Col- lege, at St. Charles, Mo., continuing in that position four years (1847-51). Returning to Jack- sonville, Ill., in the latter year, he assumed the principalship of the main public school of that city. Here he remained seven years, during four of them discharging the duties of County Super- intendent of Schools for Morgan County. In the fall of 1857 he became Principal of Jacksonville Female Academy, but the following year was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, having been nominated for the office by the Republican State Convention of 1858, which put Abraham Lincoln in nomination for the United States Senate. By successive re-elections he con- tinued in this office fourteen years, serving con- tinuously from 1859 to 1875, except two years (1863-65), as the result of his defeat for re-election in 1862. He was also endorsed for the same office by the State Teachers' Association in 1856, but was not formally nominated by a State Conven- tion. During his incumbency the Illinois com- mon school system was developed and brought to the state of efficiency which it has so well main- tained. He also prepared some seven volumes of biennial reports, portions of which have been republished in five different languages of Europe, hesides a volume of "Common School Decisions," originally published by authority of the General Assembly, and of which several editions have since been issued. This volume las heen recog- nized hy the courts, and is still regarded as authoritative on the subjects to which it relates. In addition to his official duties during a part of this period, for three years lie served as editor of "The Illinois Teacher," and was one of a com- mittee of three which prepared the bill adopted by Congress creating the National Bureau of Education. Occupying a room in the old State Capitol at Springfield adjoining that used as an office by Abraham Lincoln during the first candi- dacy of the latter for the Presidency, in 1860, a


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close intimacy sprang up between the two men, which enabled the "School-master," as Mr. Lin- coln playfully called the Doctor, to acquire an insight into the character of the future emanci- pator of a race, enjoyed by few men of that time, and of which he gave evidence by his lectures full of interesting reminiscence and eloquent appreciation of the high character of the "Martyr President." A few months after his retirement from the State Superintendency (1875), Dr. Bate- man was offered and accepted the Presidency of Knox College at Galesburg, remaining until 1893, when he voluntarily tendered his resignation. This, after having been repeatedly urged upon the Board, was finally accepted; but that body immediately, and by unanimous vote, appointed him President Emeritus and Professor of Mental and Moral Science, under which he continued to discharge his duties as a special lecturer as his health enabled him to do so. During his incum- bency as President of Knox College, he twice received a tender of the Presidency of Iowa State University and the Chancellorship of two other important State institutions. He also served, by appointment of successive Governors between 1877 and 1891, as a member of the State Board of Health, for four years of this period being Presi- dent of the Board. In February, 1878, Dr. Bate- man, unexpectedly and without solicitation on his part, received from President Hayes an appoint- ment as "Assay Commissioner" to examine and test the fineness and weight of United States coins, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress of June 22, 1874, and discharged the duties assigned at the mint in Philadelphia. Never of a very strong physique, which was rather weakened by his privations while a stu- dent and his many years of close confinement to mental labor, towards the close of his life Dr. Bateman suffered much from a chest trouble which finally developed into "angina pectoris," or heart disease, from which, as the result of a most painful attack, he died at his home in Gales- burg, Oct. 21, 1897. The event produced the most profound sorrow, not only among his associ- ates in the Faculty and among the students of Knox College, but a large number of friends throughout the State, who had known him offi- cially or personally, and had learned to admire his many noble and beautiful traits of character. His funeral, which occurred at Galesburg on Oct. 25, called out an immense concourse of sorrowing friends. Almost the last labors per- formed by Dr. Bateman were in the revision of matter for this volume, in which he manifested


the deepest interest from the time of his assump- tion of the duties of its Editor-in-Chief. At the time of his death he had the satisfaction of know- ing that his work in this field was practically complete. Dr. Bateman had been twice married, first in 1850 to Miss Sarah Dayton of Jacksonville, who died in 1857, and a second time in October, 1859, to Miss Annie N. Tyler, of Massachusetts (but for some time a teacher in Jacksonville Female Academy), who died, May 28, 1878 .- Clifford Rush (Bateman), a son of Dr. Bateman by his first marriage, was born at Jacksonville, March 7, 1854, graduated at Amherst College and later from the law department of Columbia Col- lege, New York, afterwards prosecuting his studies at Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris, finally becoming Professor of Administrative Law and Government in Columbia College-a position especially created for him. He had filled this position a little over one year when his career- which was one of great promise-was cut short by death, Feb. 6, 1883. Three daughters of Dr. Bate- man survive-all the wives of clergymen .- P. S.


BATES, Clara Doty, author, was born at Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec. 22, 1838; published her first book in 1868; the next year married Morgan Bates, a Chicago publisher; wrote much for juvenile periodicals, besides stories and poems, some of the most popular among the latter being "Blind Jakey" (1868) and "Æsop's Fables" in verse (1873). She was the collector of a model library for children, for the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893. Died in Chicago,-Oct. 14, 1895.


BATES, Erastus Newton, soldier and State Treasurer, was born at Plainfield, Mass., Feb. 29, 1828, being descended from Pilgrims of the May- flower. When 8 years of age he was brought by his father to Ohio, where the latter soon after- ward died. For several years he lived with an uncle, preparing himself for college and earning money by teaching and manual labor. He gradu- ated from Williams College, Mass., in 1853, and commenced the study of law in New York City, but later removed to Minnesota, where he served as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1856 and was elected to the State Senate in 1857. In 1859 he removed to Centralia, Ill., and com- menced practice there in August, 1862; was com- missioned Major of the Eightieth Illinois Volunteers, being successively promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel, and finally brevetted Brigadier-General. For fifteen months he was a prisoner of war, escaping from Libby Prison only to be recaptured and later exposed to the fire of the Union batteries at Mor-


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ris Island, Charleston harbor. In 1866 he was elected to the Legislature, and, in 1868, State Treasurer, being re-elected to the latter office under the new Constitution of 1870, and serving until January, 1873. Died at Minneapolis, Minn., May 29, 1898, and was buried at Spring- field.


BATES, George C., lawyer and politician, was born in Canandaigua, N. Y., and removed to Michigan in 1834; in 1849 was appointed United States District Attorney for that State, but re- moved to California in 1850, where he became a member of the celebrated "Vigilance Committee" at San Francisco, and, in 1856, delivered the first Republican speech there. From 1861 to 1871, he practiced law in Chicago; the latter year was appointed District Attorney for Utah, serving two years, in 1878 removing to Denver, Colo., where he died, Feb. 11, 1886. Mr. Bates was an orator of much reputation, and was selected to express the thanks of the citizens of Chicago to Gen. B. J. Sweet, commandant of Camp Douglas, after the detection and defeat of the Camp Doug- las conspiracy in November, 1864-a duty which he performed in an address of great eloquence. At an early day he married the widow of Dr. Alexander Wolcott, for a number of years previ- ous to 1830 Indian Agent at Chicago, his wife being a daughter of John Kinzie, the first white settler of Chicago.


BATH, a village of Mason County, on the Jacksonville branch of the Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railway, 8 miles south of Havana. Popu- lation (1880), 439; (1890), 384.


BAYLIS, a village of Pike County, on the Naples & Hannibal branch of the Wabash Rail- way, 40 miles west of Jacksonville; has one newspaper. Population (1890), 368.


BAYLISS, Alfred, Superintendent of Public Instruction, was born about 1846, served as a private in the First Michigan Cavalry the last two years of the Civil War, and graduated from Hillsdale College (Mich.), in 1870, supporting himself during his college course by work upon a farm and teaching. After serving three years as County Superintendent of Schools in La Grange County, Ind., in 1874 he came to Illinois and entered upon the vocation of a teacher in the northern part of the State. He served for some time as Superintendent of Schools for the city of Sterling, afterwards becoming Principal of the Township High School at Streator, where he was, in 1898, when he received the nomination for the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion, to which he was elected in November follow-


ing by a plurality over his Democratic opponent of nearly 70,000 votes.


BEARD, Thomas, pioneer and founder of the city of Beardstown, Ill., was born in Granville, Washington County, N. Y., in 1795, taken to Northeastern Ohio in 1800, and, in 1818, removed to Illinois, living for a time about Edwardsville and Alton, In 1820 he went to the locality of the present city of Beardstown, and later estab- lished there the first ferry across the Illinois River. In 1827, in conjunction with Enoch March of Morgan County, he entered the land on which Beardstown was platted in 1829. Died, at Beardstown, in November, 1849.


BEARDSTOWN, a city in Cass County, on the Illinois River, being the intersecting point for the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railways, and the northwestern terminus of the former. It is 111 miles north of St. Louis and 90 miles south of Peoria. Thomas Beard, for whom the town was named, settled here about 1820 and soon after- wards established the first ferry across the Illinois River. In 1827 the land was patented by Beard and Enoch March, and the town platted, and, during the Black Hawk War of 1832, it became a princi- pal base of supplies for the Illinois volunteers. The city has six churches and three schools (including a high school), two banks and four papers, two of them daily. Several branches of manufacturing are carried on here,-flouring and saw mills, cooperage works, a baking powder factory, a feed-cutter factory, large machine shops, and others of less importance. The river is spanned here by a fine railroad bridge, costing some $300.000. Population (1880), 3,135; (1890), 4,226; (1898), estimated, 5,600.


BEAUBIEN, Jean Baptiste, the second per- manent settler on the site of Chicago, was born at Detroit in 1780, became clerk of a fur-trader on Grand River, married an Ottawa woman for his first wife, and, in 1800, had a trading-post at Mil- wankee, which he maintained until 1818. He visited Chicago as early as 1804, bought a cabin there soon after the Fort Dearborn massacre of 1812, married the daughter of Francis La Fram- boise, a French trader, and, in 1818, became agent of the American Fur Company, having charge of trading posts at Mackinaw and else- where. After 1823 he occupied the building known as "the factory," just outside of Fort Dear- born, which had belonged to the Government, bnt removed to a farm on the Des Plaines in 1840. Out of the ownership of this building grew his claim to the right, in 1835, to enter seventy-five


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acres of land belonging to the Fort Dearborn reservation. The claim was allowed by the Land Office officials and sustained by the State courts, but disallowed by the Supreme Court of the United States after long litigation. An attempt was made to revive this claim in Congress in 1878, but it was reported upon adversely by a Senate Committee of which the late Senator Thomas F. Bayard was chairman. Mr. Beaubien was evidently a man of no little prominence in his day. He led a company of Chicago citizens to the Black Hawk War in 1832, was appointed by the Governor the first Colonel of Militia for Cook County, and, in 1850, was commissioned Brigadier-General. In 1858 he removed to Nash- ville, Tenn., and died there, Jan. 5, 1863 .- Mark (Beaubien), a younger brother of Gen. Beaubien, was born in Detroit in 1800, came to Chicago in 1826, and bought a log house of James Kinzie, in which he kept a hotel for some time. Later, he erected the first frame building in Chicago, which was known as the "Sauganash," and in which he kept a hotel until 1834. He also engaged in mer- chandising, but was not successful, ran the first ferry across the South Branch of the Chicago River, and served for many years as lighthouse keeper at Chicago. About 1834 the Indians trans- ferred to him a reservation of 640 acres of land on the Calumet, for which, some forty years after- wards, he received a patent which had been signed by Martin Van Buren-he having previ- ously been ignorant of its existence. He was married twice and had a family of twenty-two children. Died, at Kankakee, Ill., April 16, 1881. -Madore B. (Beaubien), the second son of General Beaubien by his Indian wife, was born on Grand River in Michigan, July 15, 1809, joined his father in Chicago, was educated in a Baptist Mission School where Niles, Mich., now stands; was licensed as a merchant in Chicago in 1831, but failed as a business man; served as Second Lieutenant of the Naperville Company in the Black Hawk War, and later was First Lieutenant of a Chicago Company. His first wife was a white woman, from whom he separatod, after- wards marrying an Indian woman. He left Illi- nois with the Pottawatomies in 1840, resided at Council Bluffs and, later, in Kansas, being for many years the official interpreter of the tribe and, for some time, one of six Commissioners employed by the Indians to look after their affairs with the United States Government .- Alexander (Beaubien), son of General Beau- bien by his white wife, was born in one of the buildings belonging to Fort Dearborn, Jan. 28,




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