USA > Illinois > Iroquois County > History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 62
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119
99
MIDDLEPORT AND BELMONT TOWNSHIPS.
he handed his father, they being the proceeds of his two years' man- agement of affairs in Ireland. His father in the meantime had pur- chased a small farm near St. Joseph, on which Edward began work, continuing until the following March, 1835. He then started on foot for Chicago, resolving to begin life on his own account. On his arrival at Chicago he found employment in the capacity of clerk for Henry & Gurdon S. Hubbard, they at that time having the only brick store-house in the city. It was their intention to send him to Rock river, where Rockford, Illinois, now stands, and let him have charge of a store in trading with the Indians and settlers. This prospect, which was very gratifying to him, was spoiled by the Hubbards quit- ting the mercantile and entering the real estate business. Now young Dalton had again to look for employment, or embark in business for himself; but, having no capital, the latter seemed quite out of the question. But this obstacle was overcome by Mr. Henry Hubbard, who supplied him with a stock of goods, and offered to furnish a con- veyance also. But this Mr. Dalton refused, and, taking his pack, he started out to peddle; though he soon quit the business, squared accounts with the Hubbards, and returned to St. Joseph, Michigan, where he and his father erected a building in North St. Joseph, and opened a hotel. There he continued business until 1838, when he went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and in the spring of 1839 he and his father went a short distance west of Grand Rapids, to a place called Sand Creek, where, in 1845, he built a saw-mill. This mill Edward ran for about one year. He then went to Chicago and opened a lumber-yard, at the corner of Clinton and Randolph streets, which he managed successfully for about one year. His father then took charge of the yard, and he went back to the mills at Sand Creek. From 1847 until 1853, his father, brothers, and himself were doing business together. In 1853 he began operating on his own account, in the manufacture of lumber at Sand Creek. In 1861 he quit milling, and, until 1865, was engaged in no active business. In 1861, when troops were being raised for the war of the rebellion, he was offered a cap- tain's commission in Col. St. Clair's regiment, the 14th reg. Mich. Vol. Inf. This he did not accept until too late, the commission being given to another. In 1865 he became a resident of Watseka, where his brothers were engaged in the lumber trade. In 1868 he bought them out, and has since conducted the business alone. In the fall of 1872 he met with an accident which crippled him for life. He had been at Rankin, where he proposed opening a branch yard, and in returning to Watseka, jumped from a freight train which was in motion, at Sheldon, and broke his left hip, injuring it so badly as to have never
100
HISTORY OF IROQUOIS COUNTY.
recovered complete use of it. This accident caused him to abandon the business at Rankin. He is now doing a small business in the lum- ber trade at Watseka, the principal part of his property being farm lands located in different parts of Michigan, of which he has about 1,500 acres, most of which is very valuable land. Mr. Dalton is a man possessed of a high sense of lionor, and, while he is naturally unassum- ing, he is still a vigorous and active man, of mnuchi culture and well read. He has never been an office-seeker, though solicited many times during life by his friends to become a candidate, his attention having been given mostly to business affairs. He being naturally a shirewd business man and good financier, the result of his efforts has been success. He bears a good name and reputation, and has the respect and esteem of the community in which he resides. Mr. Dalton has never married, whichi, perhaps, is the only failure he has ever made in life.
Hon. Matthew Henry Peters (contributed by Maj. George C. Har- rington). America is peculiarly the province of self-made men, for in no other land can the efforts and energies of an ambitious man meet with so full a reward by the appreciation of his fellow-man. To every boy, no matter how humble or discouraging may be his position in early life, the future promises a reward for his struggles and privations, providing he makes use of all the faculties he possesses, and has suffi- cient will-power to determine upon success. This fact is illustrated by the history of so many noble men and women who have patiently and diligently worked through the long night of doubt and discouragement, and yet lived to see the bright day of success with its attendant honors and prosperity. And lie who rises to prominence from the lowest level, and conquers obstacles apparently the most insurmountable, is deserving a higher meed of praise in proportion as his struggles have been severer than those of his fellow man. An illustration of the matter in point is well shown in the history of the subject of this sketcli, Matthew H. Peters, the stirring events of whose life, given in detail, would equal in interest the most dramatic tale of our best novelists. Born in Rhenish Bavaria in 1843, he was brought to New Orleans, by his parents, when a babe. His mother died a year or two after reaching America, soon followed to the grave by his two sisters, leaving his father with two small boys, a stranger in a strange land, very poor in worldly means, and unable to speak the language of the people whom he was among. In a brief time the father was carried off by the yellow fever, thus leaving the two little boys without home or friends. Samuel, the younger brother, was placed in the orphan asylum, while Matthew, the subject of this sketch, was taken by an
Very Truly
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
103
MIDDLEPORT AND BELMONT TOWNSHIPS.
acquaintance, who made him the subject of a series of abuses that can scarcely be realized-forcing the illy-clad and homeless orphan to steal for him, and beating lin in a terrible manner if he was not successful. This man had a small tailoring shop, and kept the boy at work from early morn until 10 or 11 o'clock at night, and even Sundays, allowing him as his food but one slice of bread three times a day. In the year 1855, nearly broken down by lack of food, and by the beatings and bruises from this cruel master, lie determined to escape. The night before his attempt he was given fifty cents to do the morning market- ing. He arose early, took his half dollar-he had not even clothes enough to make a bundle to carry along-and started to try for him- self the world. He took up his quarters in another part of the city, lived a precarious life upon the streets, slept under the wharves, old culverts and store boxes, among thie bales of cotton, or bags of rice and coffee,-anywhere that offered a place to stay as night approached. The days were spent in picking up old horse-shoe nails, scattered grains of coffee or loose bits of cotton,-anything that would be bought by the junk dealer ; fishing out of the slop barrels at the St. Louis or St. Charles hotels a crust of bread, or picking up from the gutter half decayed fruit in order to escape starvation. In the March following he got employment with the cook of a Mississippi steamboat, and dur- ing this period a great change took place in his fortunes. A traveling gentleman, Henry S. Roberts, attracted by the briglit appearance of . the poor boy, soon learned his sad history, and took him with him to Ohio. A short period after giving him a home in his family, this kind friend also died, leaving the boy with his widowed mother, Mrs. Rob- erts, whose kindness and motherly love has found a full recompense, as the boy, when grown to manhood, has given this woman a home with him in her old age, where she is loved and revered as if she were indeed his own mother. For the next five or six years after reaching Ohio, Peters spent his time in farm work and odd jobs for his neigh- bors, working for a long time in the manufacture of brick. He was always something of a student, and while other boys spent their time at play he was devoted to his books, studying night after night by the uncertain light from the burning kiln. In 1860 he commenced teach- ing, in which he was eminently successful, and in which he continued until the cry of war was heard over the land, and the call for volun- teers came. He promptly responded to the call, and enlisted as a private, April 23, 1861, in the Jefferson Guards of Springfield, Co. E, 16th Ohio ; served in West Virginia; was at the battles of Phillippi, Laurel Hills and Carrick's Ford, at which latter place the first Confed- erate general (Garnett) was killed; served out the term and reënlisted 7
104
HISTORY OF IROQUOIS COUNTY.
as a private, in December, 1861, at Xenia, Ohio, in the 74th reg. under Col. Granville Moody-the fighting parson. Walter Crook, brother of Gen. George Crook, of Indian notoriety, was captain. By him he was made orderly-sergeant of the company, and was soon afterward chosen by the company as lieutenant, and commissioned by Gov. Tod on January 7, 1862. Lieut. Peters was severely wounded at the battle of Stone River, Tennessee, December 31, 1862, and was thought to have been killed, and so reported at first, his comrades being obliged to desert him on the field. He survived, however, to fight another day, and suffered all the hardships incident to incessant campaigning. When Sherman started on his march to Atlanta, it began witlı a skirmish at Tunnel Hill, and was a continual battle for one hundred days before Atlanta fell. Peters was at this time adjutant of his regi- ment, having been appointed to that position by the colonel, on the reorganization of the 74th reg. as veterans. Adjt. Peters was wounded early in the campaign, being struck with a fragment of sclirapnel-shot while charging a rebel battery on Buzzard Roost mountain, May 9, 1864. On July 13, 1864, on recommendation of his colonel, he was promoted captain for "gallant and meritorious services." While his comrades were gallantly bearing aloft the old flag, he lay, during the remainder of the summer, flat upon his back unable to move, suffering all but death; but a vigorous constitution and a stout heart triumphed, and at last enabled him to hobble upon crutches, and soon to walk with a cane only. Restless of such inactivity, he rejoined his command at Savannah, Georgia, though scarcely able to walk. He served through the Carolinas, and had many hair-breadth escapes. He was at the last battles fought by Sherman's army at Bentonville and Averysboro, and at Greenville, North Carolina, at the surrender of Gen. Joseph John- ston. His proudest day of military life was enjoyed at the grand review of the armies at Washington, May 24 and 25, 1865. Gen. George P. Buell, commanding the brigade, detailed Capt. Peters on his staff as assistant inspector-general, in which capacity he served until notified that his regiment was to be inustered out; then asking to be relieved, rejoined his comrades on their happy march home. But before being finally mustered out of service, he was commissioned major of lis regi- ment, July 12, 1865,-major of the same regiment in which he enlisted as a private,-promoted, not through the assistance of influential friends or political favoritism, but on his own merit. In April, 1866, Maj. Peters came to Watseka and engaged in the hardware trade, but that business was unsuited to his tastes, so he sold out to his partner, Alex. Archibald, within a year. In the spring of 1867, he opened the first book and stationery store in Watseka, and in this business he continued
105
MIDDLEPORT AND BELMONT TOWNSHIPS.
until November, 1879, when he turned over his stock to his worthy clerk, Henry H. Alter, who lad served him faithfully for over ten years. Politically Maj. Peters was in his early days, and up to 1872, a republican ; he continued to follow in the footsteps of Horace Greeley, whom he had been taught, from his first arrival in the north, not only to honor, but to love. He was, in the same year, nominated as a can- didate for circuit clerk by the Greeley republicans, his nomination being indorsed by the democrats; but he was defeated, though by a largely reduced republican majority. In April, 1875, he was elected mayor of Watseka, and served two years to the entire satisfaction of the people, who again reelected lıim in October, 1877, to fill the unexpired term of Hon. Franklin Blades, who resigned to accept the circuit judgeship. In December, 1872, Maj. Peters took control of tlie "Iroquois Times," and for eighteen months ably managed its columns, but in July, 1874, he sold the "Times," having inade it a very desirable property. He, however, repurchased the paper in July, 1878, and is its present editor and proprietor. Maj. Peters always took great pride and a very active interest in military matters, and was mainly instrumental in organizing the first inilitia company in Iroquois county, which was in May, 1874; of this company lie was elected captain. When the military code of Illinois became the law, the various companies of the state were organ- ized into regiments and battalions, the Watseka Rifles being designated as Co. A, 9th batt. I.N.G., and Capt. Peters was elected to com- mand the battalion, by the line officers, who met at Champaign, Illinois, October 10, 1877, for that purpose. Hence his later title of colonel. Col. Peters was married to an accomplished young lady, Miss Clara M. Lyon, at Sycamore, Illinois, June 19, 1867, in the Congregational church, by Rev. J. T. Cook. Mrs. Peters is a fit companion for our worthy subject; of a charming disposition; she is very active, ener- getic, kind, generous and public-spirited ; a lady of intellect and cul- ture. In August, 1878, Col. Peters was nominated by a convention of the nationals as their candidate for member of the legislature, and in the following November was elected by a mnost flattering vote. He took a prominent part in the session of the thirty-first general assembly, and acquitted himself with great credit, having won the confidence and esteem of his fellow members, and Iroquois county was proud of her representative. Col. Peters is a very active and honored member of the order of Odd-Fellows, and has represented his lodge and encamp- ment in the grand bodies of that order. Also a prominent member of the Knights of Honor; he represented his lodge in the grand lodge of this state, and in 1880 represented Illinois in the supreme lodge of the United States. Col. Peters is a gentleman of unbounded energy
106
HISTORY OF IROQUOIS COUNTY.
and generosity, and there is no man living more public-spirited and benevolent than he is. As a business man he is very successful, and is held in great esteem by all the citizens of Iroquois county who are acquainted with him, and there is probably no man in the county bet- ter or more favorably known.
Mrs. Jemima Walters, Watseka, is the widow of the late Ephraim Walters, who was born in Perry county, Ohio, January 6, 1827. From Ohio he moved to Indiana, and was married to Miss Jemima Good in 1849. She was born in Perry county, Ohio. They moved to Ohio and remained there until 1865, when, with nine children, they moved to Illinois, and located in Iroquois county, on the present homestead. Here they commenced farming. While a resident here, Mr. Walters held several offices of public trust: township clerk and school director,-giving entire satisfaction. He was a man who was loved and respected. He died November 28, 1872, leaving a wife and twelve children to mourn his loss. He followed farming through life, and by hard labor and good management he had accumulated over 350 acres of land. The sons are now engaged in farming the land.
Alexander L. Whitehall, attorney-at-law, Watseka, is perhaps one of the best known and most highly honored attorneys of Iroquois county. He was born in Newton, Fountain county, Indiana, August 29, 1845, and is the son of Nicholas and Amelia (Stephens) Whitehall. Mr. Whitehall received a common-school education in the district schools in the winter months only, as his time was taken up in the summer in working on the farm. . From the farm he entered the service. From the moment Sumter was fired on, young Whitehall, though under six- teen, was eager to enlist, but, as he was the main-stay of a family of six motherless children, his father refused permission, even when his patriotic boy could have had a good non-commissioned position. In September, 1864, chafing under the restraints of his father, he had determined to enlist at all hazards, and wishing to turn his knowledge of tactics to account, he had recruited thirteen men, and was trying to secure a lieutenancy, when his father was drafted, and did not refuse to allow his patriotic son to step into his shoes as a substitute. A neighbor offered young Whitehall $1,200, a few moments before he was mustered in at the provost-marshal's office in La Fayette, if he would let his father shift for himself, and go as his substitute, which offer was indignantly refused. He had only been three days from home when a call for fifty recruits was made by the officer in charge of Camp Carrington to go to the 9th reg. Ind. Vet. Inf., and young White- hall was the first to respond to the call, and urge his new found comrades to join a regiment that " had a history." He was informed
107
MIDDLEPORT AND BELMONT TOWNSHIPS.
that he could stay at Camp Carrington as a drill-sergeant, but he replied that he had enlisted to go to the front, and proposed to see the "elephant." Five days after tearing himself from the five little brothers and sisters, who were nearly crazy with grief, he was in the heart of the Confederacy, as it existed in 1862,-Nashville. At Chat- tanooga, attracting the attention of Col. Doane, who was organizing a brigade of convalescents and substitutes, he was, despite his boyish appearance and small size, placed in command, as acting orderly-ser- geant, of a company of forty-two men, and, while Hood was menacing Chattanooga, he and his company occupied a part of the defensive line of works around the city, and a few days later he marched through to Resaca, Georgia, still commanding his company. On arrival at Resaca, his battalion was broken up, and, at the head of fourteen recruits going to the 9th regiment, he went to Kingston, Georgia, and, not being allowed to go any further south with his squad, augmented to twenty-nine men, from other regiments, he went into camp for two days there. Learn- ing the 4th corps was marching back to Chattanooga, he started back on a freight train, that was attacked by bushwhackers near Calhoun, and, under direction of Gen. Elliott, Whitehall took his men into a cornfield, and drove out a squad of rebels, killing one. At Chattanooga, two days later, he reported to his brigade commander, and three days after overhauled his regiment at Bridgeport, Alabama, it having just got in from an extended scout through the mountains of north Georgia. He and seven of his fourteen men were assigned to Co. F by Col. Suman, of the 9th, and his journal shows that, as a private soldier, he was from that forward on hand wherever his company went, through "thick and thin," marching from Athens, Alabama, to Pu- laski, Tennessee; and then, as rear-guard of the retreating army of Thomas, to Spring Hill, taking part in the movements at Columbia and Duck River, and doing his whole duty as a soldier at Franklin, Tennessee, in one of the bloodiest engagements of the war, escaping unhurt, though getting his hat-rimn shaved by a stray ball from the 77th Pennsylvania regiment in the rear, soon after the battle opened. In consequence of being barefooted at Pulaski, in the latter part of November, and " foraging " a pair of No. 10 brogans-" gunboats "- while loading stores the day of evacuation, which he tried to wear on a No. 4 foot while making a forty-mile march in fourteen hours back to Columbia, his ankles were terribly lacerated, and a month after pieces of yarn were taken out of the wounds on his ankles. At Franklin he was used up with sore feet, chronic diarrhea, and had, with the rest of his comrades, been forty-eight hours without a wink of sleep, but for all that he and his brave comrades rendered a good
108
HISTORY OF IROQUOIS COUNTY.
account of themselves, as the history of our late war will attest. While besieged at Nashville, the 9th regiment lay behind a stone parapet to the right and near Fort Negley. A few days before the battle a terrible storm of sleet and snow fell, and, as fuel was scarcely to be had, the men lying in their shelter-tents nearly froze to death, and Whitehall, in addition to the dysentery, which had reduced his "fighting weight " to ninety-six pounds, contracted a severe cold, which terminated in lung-fever, of which disease he had nearly died while at home the winter before. On December 15 he was so sick that he coughed nearly every step as he ran upon the charges, and yet he held his place in the front rank, and captured a prisoner in the final charge on the stone redoubt on the Granny White pike. In this charge he was thrown down while clambering through an embrasure of the fort, and that night his messmates reported to Capt. Stephens, his uncle, who came over from his division (the 3d) to learn the fate of his nephew, that " poor Aleck fell just as he got into the fort ;" and they were surprised to find the "dead boy," who had wandered a part of the night alone over the battle-field, in his place at the foot of the conr- pany the morning of the second day's fight. In the battle on the 16th Corp. Beeson and Sergt. Porter were wounded on each side of White- hall, the former touching him when struck by a piece of shell, and in the afternoon another comrade was struck, and, falling back, knocked Whitehall down. But he passed through unscathed, except the fever had so deep a hold of him that all night he was delirious, and kept the poor, brave boys of his mess awake nearly all night. Filled with excitement, he kept on with his regiment in the pursuit of Hood, to a point near Spring Hill, where, as his journal shows, he fell in a cramp and was carried to a negro cabin, and the next day rallied enough to scrawl a letter home, and send by a passing straggler to the mail office, saying: "I am dying with lung-fever in a negro cabin near Spring Hill. We whipped old Hood at Nashville badly, and the backbone of the Confederacy is broken. Good-by." He was finally taken into the post-hospital at Franklin, and from there sent to Nash- ville, and, though worn to a shadow, he still had the grit of a cub tiger, and Dr. Tuttle said of him at one time: " I believe, if that little boy there had been in his last gasp, and I had asked him how he felt, he would have said 'first rate.'" All the winter of 1865 he was confined most of the time to his bed, but was cheerful, and would sit on his cot and cut paper hangings, and then get the nurses to make paste, and hang them on the framework of the hospital tent until the surgeon and wardmaster, with a good deal of pride, several times brought ladies to examine the tent, and to see the little boy that had
109
MIDDLEPORT AND BELMONT TOWNSHIPS.
planned to give it so homelike an appearance. Fred. Kimmer, the brawny German nurse, would pick up the poor, wasted boy in his arms and carry him as tenderly as a babe. In the spring, as he grew better, Chaplain Hoover had him deliver, in the chapel of the stone college in the grounds of Hospital No. 2, Nasliville, a temperance lec- ture, and a temperance club was organized with Whitehall as secretary. He rejoined his regiment at Camp Harker in May, 1865, and, as head clerk of the brigade detachment, sent in the latter part of June, 1865, to Exchone barracks, Nashville, for muster out, he had the pleasure of filling out his own discharge, and July 3 he was mustered out and paid off at the Soldiers' Home, in Indianapolis. He returned to his home and remained there until 1865, when he came to Iroquois county, and taught school the first winter. The next summer he com- menced farming on 30 acres of land, on which he raised 1,500 bushels of corn, and sold it for 20 cents per bushel. In 1867 he entered the Michigan University, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, from which school he graduated in 1869. He returned to Watseka in April, 1869, and formed a law partnership with J. C. Steely, and commenced the prac- tice of law. This partnership lasted until 1871. Since then Mr. Whitehall has been alone in the practice of law. In 1872 Mr. White- hall was elected state's attorney, in which office he gave entire satisfac- tion. In 1873 he formed a partnership with Mr. E. Bremhall, in the publication of the "Iroquois County Republican," which con- tinned until 1876. Mr. Whitehall was married, in 1869, to Miss Alice Roberts. They have had two children, a son and a daughter.
James Wasson, brickmaker, Watseka, was born in Butler county, Ohio, January 18, 1827, where he remained until 1839, when he moved to Delaware county, Indiana. In 1844 he first commenced working in a brick-yard in Wayne county, Indiana, at $8 per month. He worked in Wayne county about three years, and then went to Newcastle, Henry county, where he stayed six years. He subsequently removed to Muncie, Indiana, where he remained until 1865, when he moved to Iroquois county and located in Middleport. He commenced the man- ufacture of brick in 1866, in the yard south of his present brick-yard. At that yard he made brick for the present court-house, the brick school east of Chamberlain's, and other buildings. He moved to his present yard in 1869, where he had at one time a capacity for making 15,000 bricks per day. He now employs some six men, and finds sale for his brick in the surrounding country. Mr. Wasson was engaged about one year as a contractor in building the Chicago & Eastern Illi- nois railroad. Like most of the contractors engaged in the building of this railroad, he lost heavily, being out of pocket some $12,000; but
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.