USA > Illinois > Lee County > History of Lee County, together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. > Part 38
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HENRY T. FORD, employé, Amboy, son of Lebbeus and Bathsheba (Thorp) Ford, was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, June 14, 1821. His grandfather, John Ford, did veteran service in the revolution, and died about 1845 at the age of ninety-two. Mr. Ford arrived in Am- boy April 2, 1866, and the next March he began work for the Central company as clerk in charge of the oil department, and is still in that
ISAAC EDWARDS,
THE NEW YORK PUBLI' LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS B
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position. He was married January 12, 1842, to Miss Sylvia M. Crampton, of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her birth was on the 12th of January 1822. They have had five children, as follows : Marian P., born June 3, 1843, married to John E. Pettibone, of Chi- cago, January 1, 1863 ; Mary E., born April 12, 1845, married to John Trainer June 4, 1867; Myron H., born March 21, 1847; Charles L., born May 28, 1849, died October 29, 1879 ; John Wallace, born De- cember 15, 1859, died in infancy. In Massachusetts Mr. Ford was selectman six terms; in Amboy he has been a member of the board of education two years, and is a trustee of Prairie Repose Cemetery. Politically he is a republican. Both he and Mrs. Ford are members of the Congregational church, and he is a trustee.
CHARLES TAIT, machinist, and foreman of engine house, Amboy, was born July 7, 1830, in the county of Northumberland, England. He was a son of John and Mary (Gibson) Tait. About 1850 he com- menced to learn the machinist's trade, and the next year came to America and went to work at Paterson, New Jersey. In 1852 he came to Cleveland and finished his trade, remaining till 1857. On the application of the Central company he came to Amboy in the fall of that year. In 1866 he was promoted to foreman of the engine house. He was married May 5, 1858, to Mrs. Mary (Hatton), widow of Joseph Garner. The following are their six children : Hannah, now Mrs. William McKinzie; Charles W., James H., Alice M., Joseph W. and Ida G. Mrs. Tait belongs to the Congregational church, and he is a republican, a Mason, and a workman. He owns 120 acres of land at Clear Lake, Iowa.
CHARLES H. MARSTON, locomotive engineer, Amboy, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, June 27, 1820. In 1825 his mother, Lydia (Staples), died, and his father married again, and in 1830 him- self died. Four years later young Marston went to sea : during two seasons he was steamboating on the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and at other times making voyages to the West Indies, to Europe and to the Mediterranean. His seafaring life lasted five years, and at the age of nineteen he set himself to learn the machinist's trade. Beginning at Portsmouth he worked two years with Jefferson MeIntyre, who gave up business at the end of that time. In 1844 he went to Boston and finished with Hinckly & Drury, engine builders, for whom he worked a year and a half. Next he was employed by Jabez Coney, of south Boston, and helped build two engines. He left there in the early summer of 1847 and went to Springfield, remaining till the latter part of 1848 as gang-boss in the engine works at that place, where he superintended the putting up of seven or eight more loco- motives. He now went to Cleveland, Ohio, with an engine and six car- 23
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loads of machinery for the same parties, from the Springfield Car and Engine Works, to start car shops there, and took employment from Harback, Stone & Witt. In April, 1854, he changed his location to Chicago, and began work for the Central Railroad Company, and con- tinned with them until 1857, first on the branch as engineer and then on the main line, making Amboy his home after November 1854. He subsequently ran on the Racine & Mississippi railroad, the Mississippi . Central, the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis, and the Great Western. On May 17, 1864, he started overland to California, but reaching Salt Lake sold his outfit, and after remaining three months departed Jan- uary 7, 1865, for Arizona, where he arrived in March after a hard journey of fifty-four days on horseback, in the dead of winter, not hav- ing taken a meal nor slept but once in a human habitation. In a few months he started home, and at Jacob's well was plundered by the In- dians, and lost both his horses. He arrived in the fall, and from then until 1869 was again working for the Central company in the machine shop. He then went to Bryant, on the Union Pacific, as division mas- ter mechanic, and early in 1871 came home and ran the first construction train on the Chicago & Rock River road, and after that a passenger. He was on this road little more than a year. In 1876 he removed a grist-mill which he had bought at Compton and set it up in Amboy, and ran it till 1879. In the fall of that year he returned to the Union Pacific and worked another year. About 1858 he erected two business houses in the city, and at other times two residences. He was married February 2, 1852, to Miss Jane Van Noate, of Bricksville, Ohio. They have three sons : Lannes, Frank, and Alpha. Mr. Marston is a Royal Arch Mason.
HENRY S. WYMAN, locomotive engineer, Amboy, third son of Col. John B. Wyman, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, June 12, 1852. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Chicago, where they resided about a year before settling in Amboy, in which place Mr. Wyman lived until he was eleven years old. From that time until he was sixteen he was at Shewsbury and Worcester, Massachusetts, attend- ing school. He returned to Illinois and was in Bloomington three years learning the miller's trade; but as this business did not agree with his health, in 1871 he obtained employment from the Central Railroad Company, and has been in their service since as brakeman, fireman, baggageman, and engineer. He was married February 3, 1876, to Miss Lilian Daniels. They have one child, Henry Westcott. Mrs. Wyman was born at Shippingsport, La Salle county, July 26, 1854. She is a member of the Episcopal church, and Mr. Wyman is a vestryman. He is also a republican and a workman.
CHARLES C. STONE, junior proprietor of the drain tile and brick
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works at Amboy, was born in Medina county, Ohio, June 19, 1843. His parents were Levi H. and Laurana E. (Parsons) Stone. He was bereft of his father when he was seven years old, and he suffered from feeble health during his early life. In 1854 his widowed mother removed with her family to Findlay, Ohio, and here Mr. Stone obtained his education in the graded schools. In the winter of 1861-2 he began the study of telegraphy, but made no use of it after acquiring it; the next autumn he went to clerking for his uncle in a retail dry-goods store ; and in the fall of 1864 he started as commercial traveler for a New York wholesale dry-goods house, and was in this business four years. In November, 1868, he settled in Clinton, Illinois, in the printing business, in company with his brother-in-law, W. L. Glessner. They purchased the " Clinton Register " and published it together five years. In 1873 Mr. Stone sold to his partner and accepted the position of station agent at Clinton, on the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western railroad. He held this till March 1, 1881, and then resigned to give his personal attention to the manufacture of tile and brick at Amboy, and the erec- tion of the necessary works preparatory to undertaking the business. The year before he had formed a partnership with Mr. John Wight- wick, of Clinton, who is the senior member of the firm. Mr. Stone was married February 8, 1876, to Miss Emily J. Smith, who was born in London, England, December 6, 1853. They have two children, Winnie and Nellie. Mrs. Stone belongs to the Methodist church.
WILLIAM B. ANDRUSS, merchant, Amboy, was born in the township of Jerusalem, county of Yates and State of New York, February 23, 1824, and is a son of Henry G. and Pamela (Weed) Andruss. As the genealogical history of the family shows, he is the eighth generation from John Andrews (termed the settler) who with a brother settled in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1640, from England. Mr. Andruss, the subject of this sketch, was raised a farmer, received an academic educa- tion at Franklin Academy, Prattsburgh, Steuben county, New York, taught school a number of terms while a young man. He married Miss Dolly Bell, of Gorham, Ontario county, New York, daughter of Thomas and Sophia Bell, October 6, 1846, and resided for one year in Pittsford, Monroe county, New York, where their only child, Virgil B. Andruss, was born, July 21, 1847. He then returned to his native town, where he remained until 1855, when he came west, finally set- tling in Amboy, Illinois, in February 1856, where he has since resided. He found a somewhat divided village, considerable strife existing as to whether the main town should be on the east or west side of the rail- road .. His first location was in what was called Exchange block on the west side. His health had failed him, and Mrs. Andruss opened daguerreotype and photographic rooms. They remained in that locality
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about two years, when they came to the east side, and occupied rooms near the corner of Main street and Adams avenue. Mr. Andruss' health gradually improved, and he was elected township collector for four successive years, and town clerk for two years. In 1862 he was elected justice of the peace, and with the exception of about two years has held the office since to May 1, 1881. He was alderman for the second ward eight years. He was county surveyor for the years 1863-4. He was appointed notary public by Gov. Bissell in 1858 or 1859, and has been continued such since, his last commission received in 1880. In 1866 he engaged in the hardware and farming implement trade as partner with C. J. Blackstone. This continued to 1868, when he purchased his partner's interest, and he, in connection with his son Virgil B. Andruss, has continued the business to the present time, for some years in the firm name of W. B. Andruss & Son. Virgil B. Andruss enlisted in Co. D, 134th Ill. Vols., at its organization in Chi- cago, and remained with the company until the regiment was mustered out of the service. Mr. Andruss has been a member of the Presbyte- rian or Congregational church since 1842; he and Mrs. Andruss have been members of the Congregational church of Amboy since January 1857, and he a deacon thereof since February 1857; their son, a member since May 1863. Mr. Andruss has always advocated the tem- perance reform, having been identified with almost all societies organ- ized to carry forward the work, but more prominently with the Sons of Temperance, having first united with that order in 1845, and now being a representative in the National Division of North America. In politics he has been a republican since the organization of that party.
SIMON BADGER, deceased, brother to H. E. and Chester Badger, was born in Broome county, New York, June 11, 1820. In 1838 he came west with his father, who was a millwright, and worked with him at that trade until 1841. He then turned his attention to farming, and in 1848, in company with his brother Warren, erected the Badger grist- mill at Binghamton, the first of consequence in the county. His in- terest in this property continued until 1860. In 1850 he went over- land to California, accompanied by his brother Chester, and remained there nearly a year. His wife, whose maiden name was Emily McKune, and to whom he had been married about two years, died in his absence, on July 5, 1850. Tidings of his loss decided him to return at once, and he arrived home late in the autumn. By this marriage was one child, now Mrs. Joanna Morgan. Mr. Badger married again, taking for his second wife Miss Roxy M. Wasson, daughter of Lorenzo Was- son, sr., with whom he lived in great happiness until her death, May 26, 1863. Mr. Badger was a man actively engaged in business during his life, and enjoyed a high degree of confidence and respect from a
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large circle of friends. He filled various township offices, and for six- teen years was justice of the peace, and was discharging the functions of that office at the date of his death. He was a sufferer several years from diabetes, from which disease he died July 28, 1876. In his death the community sustained the loss of an upright, public-spirited citizen. By his last marriage three children were born : Rush, September 7, 1855 ; Stella, September 4, 1857 ; and Claribel, April 25, 1859. Rush received a common school education, and supplemented it with a com- mercial course at Bryant & Stratton's college at Davenport, Iowa, in the winter of 1875-6. In the summer of 1879 he traveled four months in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany and Switzerland.
OSCAR A. COMSTOCK, locomotive engineer, Amboy, eldest son of Alfred and Harriet (Westbrook) Comstock, was born August 15, 1837, in St. Clair county, Michigan, to which his parents had removed from Oneida county, New York, at its first settlement abont 1830. Here his father farmed on a small scale, but owning a saw-mill and timber, he made lumber manufacturing his principal business. In 1849 Mr. Comstock went on the lakes as a cook on board a vessel, and after that as a common sailor, returning home winters to work in the pineries. He kept this up till the fall of 1860, and then located in Amboy in the employ of the Central company as locomotive fireman. In August, 1862, he volunteered in Co. I, 89th Ill. Inf. (railroad regiment), Capt. Samuel Comstock, a cousin, being his commanding officer. He fought at Stone River, Liberty Gap, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Strawberry Plains, Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, and Peach Tree Creek, and followed Hood back to Tennessee and fought at Franklin and Nashville. He was promoted to sergeant, and at Mission Ridge was wounded by a bullet which broke his arm. In May, 1865, he was mustered out at Chicago, and immediately returned to Amboy and went to work again for the railroad company. In 1867 he was promoted to locomotive engineer. His marriage with Miss Anna Hill was on March 31, 1866. Her parents were English, and emigrated to New Orleans, where she was born March 17, 1848. The next year they came north, her mother dying on the passage, and her father set- tled at Galena, and followed lead mining. She is a member of the Baptist church, and Mr. Comstock is a republican, and belongs to divi- sion No. 72, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
ANDREW J. POLAND, train master Illinois Central railroad, Am- boy, son of Benjamin F. and Lucy S. (Sanborn) Poland, was born Au- gust 12, 1832, in Standish, Maine, and was reared at Gloucester. His father was a captain in the last war with Great Britain. Mr. Poland went to Boston in 1850, and to Chicago in 1854. He ran on the Cen- tral branch from May till September, and from this date till January,
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1855, was running between Chieago and Galena, still in the employ of the Central company. He then was located at Amboy until 1859, when he removed to Chicago and ran between that eity and St. Louis over the Chicago & Alton railroad sixteen months. In 1861 he re- turned to Amboy and remained here till January 1866, being train master at this time, and his family residing at Centralia. He was next stationed at Decatur until 1873, when he came back to Amboy, where he now resides. He was married in 1857, to Miss Caroline Potter, of Chicago, who died February 8, 1879, and by whom he had five children, as follows : Edward W., Luey (dead), Lizzie J., Carrie S., and Helen. .
PHILIP FLACK, barber, Amboy, is a native of Oberhoechstadt, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, where he was born May 14, 1837. He emigrated to America, arriving at Castle Garden, New York, Octo. ber 1, 1853. After eight months he went to Virginia, in September, 1855, he came to Mendota, and in January, 1856, permanently located in Amboy, and was the first white barber who followed his vocation in the town. He lost his business property, in which his family was liv- ing at the time, by fire, on December 10, 1863. This conflagration destroyed all of East avenue except Edwards' livery stable, at the north end of the row, and Carson & Pirie's briek building, where Bourne's now stands. He was married February 15, 1858, to Miss Margaret Hauck, by whom he has had the following children : Francis Albert, Marion, Philip Andrew (deceased), Josephine Barbara, and Clara Amelia. Mr. Flack and his family are Catholics.
GEORGE H. McFATRICH, car-builder and assistant foreman of the car-shop, Amboy, is a native of Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where he was born March 31, 1819. He was the second son and fourth child of Hugh and Margaret (Bennett) McFatrich. He spent his early boy- hood on a farm, received a good English education, and learned the cabinet trade. In 1842 he settled at Hazel Green, Grant county, Wis- consin, where he lived by his trade, and was married to Miss Fannie Lindsay. In 1854 he moved to Rockford, Illinois, and sold drugs with his brother James a year, and in April, 1855, came to Amboy and has sinee had his home in this place. He built on the site of Wheat &. Gridley's store one of the first business houses in Amboy. In the fall he began work for the Central Railroad Company, in the car-shop, and has continued ever since in their employ, a period of twenty-six years. During the last sixteen years he has been assistant foreman. The only office he ever held was that of collector, the last year he lived in Wis- consin. Mr. and Mrs. McFatrich were formerly Presbyterians, but on coming here they found no church of their denomination, and so joined the Methodist, of which they had been members until two years ago. The latter is now a Congregationalist. Mr. McFatrich was an elder in
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the Presbyterian church. In politics he was originally a whig, but be- came a republican on the formation of that party. They have had five children : Sarah Melissa, wife of David I. Finch, of Peoria ; Fannie, now Mrs. Louis Santee, of Des Moines, Iowa, but formerly of Brook- lyn, New York; Hadessa (deceased), and Ella and Emma, twins (deceased).
CHARLES W. BELL, constable, Amboy, was born in New York in 1826. In 1840 he emigrated with his parents, Royal and Amanda (Judd) Bell, from Chautauqua county to Kendall county, Illinois. In 1852 he came here with his brother-in-law, Levi Chapman, of the firm of Chapman & Roberts, contractors, and worked for them at grading on the railroad till August 1853. He then brought his family to the present site of the city, and engaged in boarding railroad men, and at the same time doing a teaming business for the company in hauling stone from Grand Detour, and other building material from Mendota. For several years after he did contraet work about the town. In 1858 or 1859 he was elected city marshal, and held the office seventeen or eighteen years, and was also most of the same time constable and deputy sheriff. In 1850 he was married to Miss Adeline Butler. They have had four children, as follows: Clara, now Mrs. John Shear; Medora, died February 5, 1869, aged fourteen years, six months and nine days ; Jessie, died February 15, 1869, aged ten years, ten months and seven days; and Lillie, died February 3, 1869, aged seven years, eleven months and twenty-four days. These were carried off by scarlet fever. Mr. Bell is an Odd-Fellow. Mrs. Bell is a member of the Baptist church, and both belong to the Sons of Temperance.
GEORGE W. FREEMAN, train master Illinois Central railroad, Amboy, son of Chauncey and Harriet (Johnson) Freeman, was born in Clark- son, New York, in 1834, and reared on his father's farm and educated in his native town. In 1852, when but eighteen years of age, he came west and went to work on the Wabash railroad between Decatur and Springfield, and in the autumn of 1853 he went to Knox county, Ill- inois, where he was employed until the following March. At this time he entered the service of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company as brakeman, and after six months was advanced to a regular train, and so continued in the employment of the company until April 1861. Immediately on the call of the president for troops he volunteered for three months in Co. E, 17th Ill. Inf., and was appointed sergeant. After serving his time he returned home and recruited Co. C, 11th Ill. Cav., Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, principally about Galesburg. He was commissioned captain of this company and went into the service, but was stricken with rheumatism and obliged to resign, which he did in March 1862. He recovered sufficiently to
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go to work again in the summer following, and engaged with the Illi- . nois Central company, in whose service he has been until the present date. He was freight conductor nine years, and passenger conductor the remainder of the time, until he was transferred in the spring of 1881 to the train master's office in Amboy. Mr. Freeman was married January 13, 1858, to Miss Caroline Dailey, daughter of Edward Dailey, of Galesburg. Edward and Frederick are their two sons. Mrs. Free- man is a Congregationalist, and he is a Knight Templar and a repub- liean.
JOSEPH E. LEWIS, attorney-at-law, Amboy, the youngest child of Joseph Lewis, was born in Amboy township, December 21, 1847. His father was born in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, in 1807, and his mother, whose maiden name was Rachel Cargill, in Cheshire county, New Hampshire, in 1806, and both are now living in Binghamton. In 1845 they emigrated from Pennsylvania to this township with five children, all of whom are now dead, as follows: Gaylord J., who left here March 29, 1852, at the age of nineteen, for California, and was never heard from after he had been there three years; James C., who volunteered in Co. I, 89th Ill. Vols., was wounded in the knee at Buz- zard Roost, Georgia, May 9, 1864, died at Chattanooga July 23; John, who enlisted in Co. G, 39th Ill. Vols. (Yates' Phalanx), August 20, 1861, served on the Peninsula under McClellan, and in the Shenandoah under Shields, discharged in January 1863, came home to Amboy and died of disease contracted in the service, November 29, 1864; Andrew J., who enlisted in Co. G, (Yates' Phalanx), August 2, 1861, died at Foley Island, Charleston harbor, of typhoid fever, July 4, 1863; and Electa Jane, who died in infancy the first year of their residence here. These parents have given much to their country. Both have been members of the Methodist church since 1824, and Mr. Lewis has always held official connection as steward, trustee, or elass leader, and some- times has filled all three of these positions at once. The subject of this sketch did not walk on pavements of gold, nor lie upon beds of roses. He obtained a good education by putting two years of schooling at Mount Morris Seminary, with much hard private study at irregular in- tervals, making his way as best he could by teaching school. He used to keep up with his classes and go to school but one-third of the time. In 1870 he began the study of law in the office of Norman Ryan, but it was necessarily desultory, and several years elapsed before he was admitted. In 1871 he was married to Miss Melissa Hayes; and from 1872 to 1875 he had charge of the Rockton public schools of Winne- bago county as principal. He is a republican and takes an active part in politics. His children have been as follows: Stella (dead), Ada, Benjamin B., Paul, and Ethel.
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CHARLES W. DEMING, grocer, Amboy, is a native of Steuben county, New York, where he was born May 1, 1817. His parents were Charles S. and Elizabeth (Corbett) Deming, by whom he was reared a farmer until the age of fifteen, when he was put to mercantile employment. He was married September 24, 1840, to Miss Sabrina Chamberlain, who was born September 1, 1823. Their family of seven children are all living: Louisa S., now Mrs. Jacob L. Holmes; Charles Gaylord ; Ann E., wife of Isaac E. Holmes; Jason L .; Helen A., now Mrs. Na- thaniel Burnham; Carrie, and Olin E. Mr. Deming came west in April 1855, and settled at Linden, Whiteside county, where he farmed until he came to Amboy in 1864. Since that time, except one year, he has been in business. He is an influential member of the Methodist church, to which he has belonged since 1838. Mrs. Deming has been a communicant in the same church since 1840. He has filled the offices of steward, trustee, class leader, and Sabbath-school superintendent. His connection with the Sons of Temperance dates from 1844, and he is now the oldest member in the state, and is invested with the dignity of grand worthy associate of the Grand Division of Illinois. Mr. Deming is a republican. His brothers, Asaph C. and George A., died of disease in the army ; the former at Nashville, Tennessee, and the latter at Grand Gulf, Mississippi.
JARED SLAUTER, railroad yardmaster, Amboy, son of Sylvanus F. and Lurena (French) Slauter, was born in West Stockbridge, Massa- chusetts, in 1824. His grandfatherSlauter was a veteran of the revo- lution who fought in several battles. Mr. Slauter was bred to farming, and followed that occupation until he removed to Amboy, arriving here April 15, 1856. He was married March 30, 1847, to Miss Adeline Lord, who died in 1849, leaving one child, Maria Adelaide, who also died, aged nineteen. His second marriage was on November 28, 1849, to Miss Caroline Bradley, whose death occurred May 10, 1861. She was the mother of two children, Lurena and Frank F. On April 6, 1862, he celebrated his third marriage with Catherine (Smith), widow of Addison Smith, and by this union has one child, George W. Mr. Slauter has worked for the Central Company since his settlement here, and during the period of over twenty-five years has not lost more than two months' time. He was employed on the track for a few months at first, next was switchman three years, and in 1859 became yardmaster, and has held this position since. He is a republican in politics, and has been an Odd-Fellow twenty-seven years, and filled the chairs of the vice grand and noble grand. He was a Baptist when in New England. Mrs. Slauter belongs to the Congregational church.
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