USA > Illinois > Ford County > History of Ford County, Illinois : from its earliest settlement to 1908, Vol. I > Part 10
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The following is a brief mention of some of the leading business men and prominent farmers who have lived and are still living in Drummer township:
LEONARD PIERPONT was born in Litchfield county, Connecticut, October 28, 1819. He came to Illinois in 1858, and settled in this township. Ile was a good farmer, an honest, industrious citizen and treasurer of Ford county for four years. He died in April, 1874, leaving a large family. Three of his sons were killed in the war.
WILLIAM II. GUTHRIE was born in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, in 1832. He settled in Drummer township in 1865. He purchased from time to time, until he owned a fine farm of nine hundred and sixty acres. Ile was mar- ried in 1868 to Miss Jennie Stewart. They had five children.
JAMES B. FOLEY is a native of Adams county, Ohio, where he was born in 1847, and came to Putnam county, Illinois, with his parents when he was three years old. He lived there twenty-four years; then settled in this town- ship on section 20. Hle was married to Miss Olive L. Skeel, December 24, 1874.
There is hardly a place in the southern part of Drummer that surpasses the fine home of Joseph T. Roberts, on section 35, coming from Tazewell county, Illinois. He was married in 1857 to Mary C. Bosserman, a native of De Witt county, Illinois.
NATHAN L. SKEEL was born in Putnam county, Illinois, August 19, 1848. IIe lived there until about twenty-four years of age, assisting his father on a farm, when he settled in this township. In 1873, he married Mary Wallace.
WILLARD PROCTOR was born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1827, where he lived for about twenty-five years, then moved to Illinois. In August, 1862, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Fourth Illinois Regiment, and served in the
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war until its elose. He was married, March, 1847, to Miss Sarah A. Hewitt, a native of Rutland, Vermont.
ALBERT GILMORE was born in Harrison county, Ohio, in 1841. In 1861. he came here and bought sixteen hundred acres of land. In 1880, he married Miss Elizabeth A. Boundy, of Peoria county, Illinois. She was born in 1858.
ROBERT A. MCCLURE was born in MeLean county in 1843. He lived there until 1867, when he came to this township. In 1862, he enlisted in the Ninety- fourth Illinois Regiment, and was in the service until the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged and returned home. He was married in 1865 to Miss Ann Mclaughlin.
AUSTIN CRABBS was born in Richland county, Ohio, January 8, 1838. ITis father, David Crabbs, was a native of Pennsylvania, and removed to Indiana in 1852, where he departed this life in August, 1854. Mr. Crabbs came to Illinois in 1873, and located at Gibson. Hle engaged in the mercantile trade. Mr. Crabbs served in the civil war for three years, being captain of Company C, Forty-seventh Indiana Volunteers. He erected two handsome buildings in the Center block. He was married to Miss Catharine Yeiter in Decatur county, Indiana, March 3, 1864.
Gibson also has a Christian church, a Swedish Lutheran and Swedish Mis- sion church.
The opera house was built in 1884 by N. T. Burwell.
A mile of brick paving on Main street was laid in 1906, at a cost of forty thousand dollars.
The waterworks was built in 1895. The water, of a fine quality, is obtained from wells and pumped into a tower and reservoir. One pump has a capacity of one million five hundred thousand gallons every twenty-four hours. Cost of plant thirty thousand dollars.
The city hall was built in 1906. Lot and building cost eleven thousand dollars.
Gibson has three school buildings. A new one was erected in 1888, at a cost of ten thousand dollars.
Gibson City has two hotels: the New Gibson and the Central. The New
Gibson was built in 1900, by W. W. Johnston. Cost twenty thousand dollars. Gibson's new Presbyterian church edifice was erected in 1905. It is of briek and stone, and the cost was twenty thousand dollars.
The Christian church building was erected in 1891, at an expense of ten thousand dollars.
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The physicians now practicing in Gibson City are : F. O. Culter, D. Y. Shamel, F. B. Lovell, W. R. Cothern, G. A. Wash, J. C. Cunningham, H. D. Rothgeb.
The veterans of the Civil war have at Gibson City Lott Post, No. 73, G. A. R.
Gibson City has an improvement club, woman's club, recreation club. It also maintains, in prosperous condition, Masonie, I. O. O. F., K. of P., M. W. A., and Court of Honor lodges, not forgetting the Rebekahs, Rathbone Sisters, Royal Neighbors and others.
The present mayor is C. W. Knapp; clerk, W. A. Davidson; attorney, h. A. Cranston.
BANKS OF GIBSON CITY.
The Farmers and Merchants' Bank was established in 1885 by H. C. MeClure and his sons, Robert A., Herman W., and George L., as a private con- cern. Capital, ten thousand dollars. W. J. Stone, now president of the bank, came into the concern April 1, 1907. The other proprietors of the bank are members of the McClure estate. Robert A. MeClure died in 1906. The present officers of the bank are as follows: President, W. J. Stone; vice president, Mrs. Robert A. MeClure; cashier, J. C. MeClure ; assistant cashier, W. A. Davidson.
The First National Bank is the culmination of a private bank organized in 1872 by N. T. Burwell. About 1876 Mr. Burwell took into partnership W. J. Wilson, and the style name of the firm became Burwell & Wilson, and so continued until 1880. The concern was reorganized in the latter year, by the admission of E. O. Leffel, and the firm name became Burwell, Leffel & Company.
In 1882, a further reorganization took place when Evan Mattinson and Matthew Mattinson, his father, and Washington Wilson, father of W. J. Wil- son, became partners, and the banking firm took the name of Mattinson, Wilsor & Company. April 1, 1906, Messrs. Burwell and Leffel retiring, a charter establishing the First National Bank was secured. Evan Mattiuson became the first president; W. HI. Simms, vice president ; E. L. Rockwood, cashier; Bry- son Strauss, assistant cashier. Capital and surplus, one hundred thousand dollars.
Gibson City has three railroads : The Illinois Central, Wabash and Lake Erie & Western.
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BUTTON TOWNSHIP.
Button township is bounded on the north by Iroquois county ; on the east by Vermilion county; on the south by Champaign county, and on the west by Patton township. It is situated in the extreme southeast corner of the county, lying in three different ranges and two different meridians. It is six miles north to south, and varying from five to six miles east and west. This town- ship is favorably located; settled with thrifty, industrious people, who are mostly well-to-do farmers, with improvements and buildings suitable and adapted to the day and age. This township was set off from Patton and organ- ized in December. 1864, and derived its name from James Porter Button, its first supervisor.
Among the early settlers of Button township were Edward Pyles, John Rails (two squatters, Cook and White), Joshua Trickel. Robert Trickel, W. J. and W. R. Trickel, William and Samuel Swinford, O. H. Campbell, Story But- ton, David Patton, Matthew Elliott, Bennett Lucas, Jacob Tanner, John Dopps, Milton Strayer, Harmon Strayer. J. B. Strayer, Joseph Harris, William Walker, J. H. Flagg, A. F. Flagg, E. Wait, Eli Dopps, Spencer Cushing, Dan- iel Stamps, William McClintock, David Saunders, William Phebus, Daniel Moudy, William Montgomery, A. Lance.
"Triekel's Grove" is beyond a doubt the first settled locality in Button township and in Ford county. A few squatters, who never became permanent settlers, built log houses and lived in or near the grove prior to 1835. In 1836, two brothers, Joshua and Robert Trickel, located at the grove which was then a part of Vermilion county, and bought out these squatters' elaims, and we have every reason to believe the Trickels were the first permanent settlers of what is now Ford county, except it might have been Andrew Sprouls, who occupied for a short time what was afterward the W. Walker farm.
The first schoolhouse built in Button township was of logs, and located on the farm owned by John Rails near Trickel's Grove. This farm was entered by Edward Pyles; afterward owned by William Swinford, and later by A. L. Clark.
The first schoolhouse built north of the timber on the prairie was located on section 16, near the Vermilion county line, on the farm which was later owned by A. H. Morrison.
The first school taught in the township was by Simon Mitchell, in a cabin belonging to Jacob Tanner.
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CLARENCE.
Clarence postoffice (Kirk's Station. Lake Erie & Western Railroad) is a thriving village and grain center, located on sections 7 and 8, on the farms of W. T. Morrison and S. I. Hutchison. It was surveyed and laid out by Robert F. Whitham in August, 1878. The village is surrounded by a fine farming country.
The following are sketches of the early settlers and other prominent men who lived and are yet living in Button township :
JAMES PORTER BUTTON (deceased ) was born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, January 29, 1822. He came to Ford county in 1852. Mr. Button was mar- ried to Miss Sarah R. Hock, in Fountain county. Indiana, February 8. 1845. They have had a family of eight children. Mr. Button entered land in sec- tion 25. town 23, range 10, in the township which now bears his name. Mr. Button filled many positions of trust with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents. He was the treasurer of Ford county at the time of his death, which occurred at Paxton March 22, 1866.
DAVID PATTON (deceased) was born in Ross county, Omo, December 20. 1815. Thomas Patton, the father of David. emigrated to Vigo or Parke eoun- ties, Indiana, when David was about three years old. He remained there only a few years. In 1823 the family moved to Fountain county, Indiana, where Thomas Patton died. December 10, 1844, David was married to Miss Jane Cade, daughter of William Cade, who settled in Fountain county in 1823. November 2, 1854, David Patton came to Illinois and settled in Button town- ship, then in Vermilion county. Here he resided until his death, February 29, 1880. He entered four hundred and eighty aeres of choice land in section 23, range 14 west, in Button township. There were eight children. The widow is still living on the old homestead.
MATTHEW ELLIOTT (deceased) was born March 4, 1799. in the District of Columbia. When about twenty-one years old, he came west to Ohio, where he remained until the spring of 1850; then came to Ford county, Illinois (then Vermilion) and entered land in the southeast quarter of section 25, and moved his family here from Ohio in the spring of 1852. HIe purchased the home place of Benjamin Stites, who entered the land and made the first improve- ments in Button township. Mr. Elliott died August 23, 1881. They had a family of five children.
JOSHUA TRICKEL (deceased) was born August 5, 1788, in Virginia. Mary Trickel, his wife, was born February 8, 1800. William Trickel, son of Joshua
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CLARENCE, ILL.
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Trickel, was born in Piqua county, Ohio, October 17, 1820, and came to Illinois with his parents when only seven years old. His father settled at Butler's Point, in Vermilion county, until they took up their residence in Ford county. Elizabeth, wife of William Trickel, was born in Lawrence county, Indiana, July 29, 1838. Her father, Alexander Henry, was an old settler of Iroquois county, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Trickel were married January 7, 1857.
DAVID SAUNDERS was the first to buy land in school section 16, afterward owned and improved by William Phebus.
OBADIAH LENEVE was born in Halifax county, Virginia, December 30, 1801. Sammel Leneve, father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of France, and emigrated to America with his brother John. They came to this country at the time La Fayette and his troops came over to assist the Americans in their strife with England for the independence of the colonies. John Leneve, grandfather of Obadiah, was one of the soldiers who came over with General La Fayette; he died in Virginia. Samuel, the father of Obadiah, was about three years old when he landed on American soil. They settled in Virginia near the old Halifax courthouse; here he grew to manhood and married Katie Arrington, a native of that place. About 1806 he emigrated to Tennessee, where he remained about one year; then journeyed on to Kentucky and settled in Mercer county ; there he remained eight years; then moved to Nelson county ; then again moved to Sullivan county, Indiana, and settled at Shakers Prairie. Here he remained only a year, when he made his last move to Lawrence county, Illinois, and resided until his death in the spring of 1831. Obadiah was mar- ried in Lawrence county, Illinois, to Polly Lemons, a native of Tennessee. She died in May, 1878. They located in Vermilion county in 1824, in the Newell settlement, in the northeastern part of the county. They had a family of eight children. Mr. Leneve was one of the hard working and successful pion- eers of Vermilion and Ford counties. Mrs. Moudy (deceased) first wife of Daniel Moudy, one of the prominent farmers of this county, was a daugh- ter of this old pioneer. Mr. Leneve died in Paxton, February 4, 1884, at the home of one of his nephews.
PETER MOUDY was a native of Virginia, where he was born August 1, 1804, but was raised in Butler county, Ohio, where his father moved when he was an infant. Here he remained until 1835. He was married to Miss Eliz- abeth Herring, daughter of George Herring, December 25, 1825. She was a native of Pennsylvania, but left there when about five years old and was raised in Butler county, Ohio, until 1835, when they emigrated to Western Indiana and located in the Wabash valley. In Vermilion county, Indiana, Daniel
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Moudy, son of our subject, was born February 4. 1836. Peter Moudy had a family of twelve children. He located in Vermilion county, Illinois, in the spring of 1855, where he resided until his death, May 7, 1875. Daniel Moudy is among the early settlers of Button township, coming to his farm place in 1859. where he commenced making improvements by breaking prairie with oxen. Very few settlers had located north of the timber at that time. Mr. Mondy has owned several fine farms in this township, comprising seven hundred and eighty acres in all. Ile has at all times been one of the leading and progres- sive farmers and stock-raisers of Ford county. The first wife of Mr. Moudy was a daughter of Obadiah Leneve, an old pioneer of Vermilion county, Illi- nois. She died January 31. 1879. Henrietta. his second wife. is a daughter of O. H. Campbell, an early settler of Ford county.
OBADIAHI II. CAMPBELL was born in Northumberland county. Pennsylvania, December 17, 1811. Ile left that state and came to Indiana in 1855; remained there till the spring of 1856, when he located at Trickel's Grove, buying out the heirs of Joshua Trickel. Mr. Campbell was one of the oldest living set- tlers of Button township, and owned one of the very first settled places in Ford county, owning altogether three hundred and seventy-three acres. His father. James Campbell, was born in New Jersey, and emigrated to Pennsylvania when fifteen years old. He died there at an advanced age. Mrs O. II. Campbell (deceased) was a native of Pennsylvania. She was born in 1817 and died on the 2d of February, 1867. They had a family of nine children.
JACOB STRAYER, father of Milton and Harmon Strayer, was born in Berke- ley county, Virginia, in 1796; he came to Ford county in 1854, and lived here until he died January 3, 1879. Elizabeth, his wife, was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, August 1, 1803. She died June 21, 1883.
MILTON STRAYER was born in Fountain county, Indiana. In September, 1851, he moved to Ford county on the line of Champaign county, and entered the land where La Fayette Patton lived. In 1854, Mr. Strayer moved onto his farm on section 25. in the narrow range of sections in this township, which land he entered in 1853. He was married, August 31. 1851. to Miss Sarah Jane Middlebrook, a native of Ohio, and a daughter of William Middlebrook. who located in Fountain county, Indiana, about 1841. Mr. and Mrs. Strayer have had ten children.
HARMON STRAYER, son of Jacob and Elizabeth Strayer, was born in Fair- field county, Ohio, September 20, 1820. He came with his parents to Foun- tain county, Indiana, in 1824. Ile came here in the fall of 1851. In 1858
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he assessed all the lands in Ford county, then Patton township, Vermilion county. In 1858, he married Miss Martha MeClure, daughter of Samuel McClure, an early settler of Cass county, Indiana. She was born in Ohio. They had a family of four children.
JOSEPH HARRIS was born in Germany, March 25, 1838. When nineteen years old he came to America, and in 1857, located in Ford county. In 1860 he was united in marriage with Miss Josephine Strayer, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Strayer. She was born in Fountain county, Indiana. They had nine children. Mr. Harris, for five years, worked by the month. In 1865, he bought land of the Illinois Central Railroad Company.
J. C. KIRKPATRICK was born in Adams county, Ohio. He came to Button township in 1861, settling on section 17. Mr. Kirkpatrick was united in mar- riage with Miss Sarah A. White, of Oak Grove, McLean county. They had eight children. Several years ago he engaged in the hardware business in Clarence ; he also dealt in grain, coal, lumber and agricultural implements.
WILLIAM A. HUTCHISON was born in Wayne county, Ohio. Ile came to Ford county in 1868. He was married to Miss Margaret Ghormley, of Ohio, Ilis father, Samuel Hutchison, helped lay out the village of Clarence. The subject of our sketch was postmaster of Clarence and also ran a grocery store,
DAVID A. FREDERICK was born in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, and came to Ford county in 1857.
HUGH MCCORMICK was born in Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. IIe came to Ford county in April, 1866, settling on section 9.
WILLIAM PHEBUS was born in Fountain county, Indiana, and settled in Ford county in 1865.
WILLIAM T. PATTON, a son of David Patton, was born in Fountain county, Indiana, and came to Button township in 1854, locating on section 33.
JAMES H. and ARTHUR F. FLAGG, brothers, natives of the state of Maine. James HI. eame west and settled in Button township in 1859. Arthur F. came to this township in 1861.
MITCHEL A. KARR, son of John Karr, was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, and came west to Illinois and settled in Button with his father in 1864.
WILLIAM T. MORRISON was a native of Adams county, Ohio, and settled in this township in 1868. He lived closed to the village of Clarence, in one of the finest houses in Button township.
ALBERT J. POOL, a native of La Salle county, Illinois, settled in Button township in 1873.
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WILLIAM MONTGOMERY, a native of Shelby county, Indiana, settled in Ford county in 1857.
WILLIAM WALKER, a native of Waye county. Indiana. He settled in this county in 1859.
J. E. WALKER, OF ELMER WALKER. was born in Fountain county, Indiana, in 1858, and that year came with his parents to this township.
SAMUEL PARSONS, a native of England, settled in this township in 1869. owning a farm of one hundred and sixty acres.
THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERESTING VOLUME, ENTITLED "'REMEMBRANCES OF A PIONEER, " PUBLISHED IN BOOK FORM IN
1904, BY MRS JANE PATTON, WHO IS STILL LIVING ON THIE OLD HOMESTEAD IN BUTTON TOWNSHIP.
In 1884, my husband and I moved to Vermilion county, Illinois. We bid farewell to the home of our childhood and the homes that we had lived in and the good people that had lived there. Some of them live there yet, and I love to visit those old scenes of my young days. Ilow sweet is their memory after so many years spent away from them !
The day we loaded our wagons to leave for Illinois, we had a house and yard full of people. They were so glad to get us away that they all wanted to help us start. They made us a barrel of kraut, and loaded five wagons, and about sundown we came across the ereek to one of the places that I never get tired of going to, that was my Aunt Jane Campbell's and Uncle Samuel and Joseph Campbell's and spent the night. It was a hard trial to leave all the relatives and neighbors behind,-Mrs. Harshbarger, Mrs. Dice, Mrs. Greenley, an I many more that had been good to me in so many ways, besides all the relatives, but we had decided to come, and I think it was for the best that we did.
We were two days on the road. We brought two cows, four horses, chickens and turkeys. We stayed at Mr. Joseph Delay's, six or seven miles from the State line city, and ate dinner at Marysville, what is Potomac now. We got to our future home in the afternoon, in time to unload our goods and put up four beds and the cook stove. These were essential things that night, for there were five men came with us besides our own family ; they came to drive the teams and have a good time, and they had it. We had brought lots of things cooked. and had a turkey for the first meal in our new home, and we all enjoyed our supper that evening.
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That was Thursday evening, and all stayed with us until Monday morning, and then started for home. They had all seen those black prairies, but before they started for home they visited the deep eut prairie, Prospect City, what was afterward Paxton, but the railroad was the object in view. None of them had ever seen a railroad, as far as I know. I know I had not. There was only one house in Paxton, or what is Paxton now. The Mr. Stites' family was there, and the trains stopped when needed.
The boys wanted to get something to take home with them, and found some beans for sale, and bought them to take home. They wanted to kill a deer to take home, but did not get to do that, but got some venison some place, I think, but am not sure of that. Deer were plenty then, for you could see them almost every morning going from the timber out on the prairie, but they could see you about as soon as you would see them.
Mr. Patton went back to Indiana in December, and took the boys back there to go to school. There was no school here that winter.
The Illinois Central commenced to run trains the spring that we came here : in the fall there was no railroad at Danville, Illinois. Then men came to our house from Covington and the country around there more than once to go to Loda or Paxton and take the train to Chicago.
I forgot to tell the names of the ones who came with us when we moved to this country-Obidah Marlatt, long since dead, my uncle, Samuel Campbell, Joseph Douglas, a cousin, and my own brother, S. Cade.
The first Sunday Mrs. William Robison came. I had never met her, but she and Mr. Robison came here from Fountain county. Some of the Robisons and Woods live there yet. They lived in the field just south of here, but there is no house there now. She died the next June.
She came the first Sunday and was very cheerful and friendly. It did me lots of good to have a neighbor so soon. She helped me just as if she had always known me, but she was taken suddenly sick of inflammation of the stomach, and died. We miss our friends when they are gone, and do not forget their kindness.
I will now tell about who lived here when we came here that fall. Unele Tommy Lion lived at Sugar Grove then-in the house that has always stood there until lately. Mr. Bittle bought Mr. Lion out, and then Mr. Patton bought the land of Mr. Bittle. Mr. Hiram Driskal and his family lived on the Driskal farm. All these have gone to their long homes, Mrs. Driskal lately. A Dr. Ilobert lived in what is now a cattle pasture, just east of the Sugar Grove schoolhouse. His family all died, three or four with what is known as milk sickness, and then he left and got married again, and then died. Vannata
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lived at what is known as the Lamb farm: Mr. David Morehouse lived where Joseph Kerr lives now; Mr. Jesse Piles lived on the Piles farm, the farthest out from the timber. Mrs. Piles still lives in Hoopeston, but Mr. Piles had gone to his long home. Estrige Daniels lived on the farm that La Fayette Patton lives on, but the house was over in the field. Elihu Daniels lived south of William Moudy's. There is no house there now.
Three families of Tanners lived up close to where the frame and brick churches are now ; the father, old Mr. Tanner, lived west of the brick church, and Peter lived southeast, close to the frame church, and John lived north. Uncle John Dobbs, as every one called him, lived between the two churches, on a farm known as the old Walker home. His house was the place where we all went to church, had preaching every three weeks, and class meeting every Sabbath. something we do not have now.
The house was a large hewed log house, with a fireplace, and room for three beds, and for all the people that there was to come. Unele John Dobbs was class leader, and a good one. I would like to go to a meeting of that kind now.
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