USA > Illinois > Macon County > History of Macon County, Illinois : with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 36
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JOHN K. WARREN.
MR. WARREN is a native of the city of Philadelphia, and was born on the tenth of August, 1834. His father was Josiah Warren, and his mother's uame, before marriage, Aun Reynolds. On his father's side his ancestors were English, and on his mother's Scotch-Irish. He was raised in Philadelphia. He attended the preparatory academy, preliminary to entering the college at Princeton, New Jersey, but ill health compelled the abandonment of a collegiate course of study. He engaged in agricultural pursuits for four or five years at Bristol, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. Believing that the west would relieve him of the asthma, with which he was afflict- ed, he came to Chicago in the year 1855, intending to locate in that city. Finding no improvement resulting from the change, lie de- termined to go south, and, passing down the Illinois central rail- road, then just completed, he stopped over night at Decatur. He awoke in the morning to find himself free from asthma, for the first time in many months ; and this circumstance induced him to settle in Macon county. Within a week he purchased a tract of land three miles north-east of Decatur, and returned in the spring of 1856, accompanied by his mother, since deceased, and began farm- ing. In 1858 he became a resident of Decatur, and has since been closely connected with its business interests. He entered into the real estate and insurance business in 1859. From 1863 to 1866, the late Henry B. Durfee was his partner ; and since 1865, he has been in partnership with B. K. Durfee under the firm name of Warren & Durfee. The firm of Durfee, Warren & Co., as it was formerly known, prepared the first set of abstracts of titles ever used in Macon county, and were the pioneers of copyright as applied to abstracts of titles in the United States. From 1873 to 1878, Mr. Warren spent the greater part of his time in California and Texas, seeking in a change of climate a cure for the asthma, which had returned in a complicated form. The chauge proved to be a very successful one for his health.
With the railroad interests of Decatur he has had much to do. He recognized the fact that the prosperity of the place depended largely on its railroad connections, and from 1867 to 1872 was ac- tively engaged in securing new lines to important points. He was connected with the Pekin, Lincoln and Decatur (now the Peoria, Decatur and Evansville) road from the first inception of the enter- prise till the road was completed and trains ran into Decatur.
With the Indiana and Illinois Central Railway, originally organ- ized in 1853, (now the Indianapolis, Decatur and Springfield, ) he was associated as President from 1868 to 1871. He succeeded in overcoming the obstacles which had long stood in the way of the building of the road, a most difficult and trying undertaking, and secured such a reorganization of the company as resulted in the eventual building of the line. In 1868 he took a leading part in the establishment of gas works. These efforts resulted in the organ- ization of the Decatur Gas Light and Coke Company, of which he is now the president. He was married in May, 1866, to Emma Powers, a native of Decatur. In his politics he comes from a line of whig ancestors. Hc, himself, has been a republican since the formation of that party. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church. He was elected mayor of the city of Decatur in 1867, and has filled other offices of trust and honor. His name merits mention in this work as one of the most public-spirited citizens of Macon county.
J. W. BUTMAN.
J. W. BUTMAN, the superintendent of the Decatur Gas Light and Coke company, is a native of the state of Massachusetts. He was born at the village of Middlesex, two miles from Lowell, on the thirty-first of January, 1823. His ancestors were of English origin. His father was named Jonathan Butman, and his mother's name before marriage was Amy W. Shattuck. Mr. Butman was the third of a family of seven children. He lived in Middlesex till he was ten years of age, and then the family moved to Lowell, where they resided three or four years. From Lowell they went to Sax- onville, where occurred the death of his father. The subject of this sketch had good opportunities for obtaining an education, attending school quite regularly, until he was sixteen years old. The school system of Massachusetts compared favorably with that of any state in the Union, but still the opportunities for acquiring an education in Mr. Butman's boyhood were scanty in contrast with those of the present time. As was the custom with boys generally in the manu- facturing districts of the New England states, who were anxious to earn their own livelihood, at the age of sixteen he found employ- ment in a woolen factory. This was his occupation for several years. On the first of May, 1845, he married Lucinda Parmenter, who was born at Sudbury; Massachusetts. Determining to make his home in the West, in the year 1855 he left Massachusetts and settled at Wyocena, Wisconsin. He resided there till 1871, when he became resident of Decatur. On coming to Decatur he took charge of the gas works as superintendent, and has held the same position ever since. In connection with his duties as superintendent of the gas works for a couple of years, he carried on a gas-fitting establishment, but his time has since been wholly employed in look- ing after the interests of the gas company. He has made an effi- cient superintendent. In his political principles he was at first a member of the old Whig party, with which he voted in the days when Whigs and Democrats appealed to the voters of the country for their support. When the Whig organization dissolved he became a Republican, voted for Fremont in 1856, and has been a member of the Republican party from that time to the present. He has taken an active and intelligent interest in the affairs of Decatur, and has served two terms as a member of the City Coun- cil. He was first elected in 1874, served two years, and was again elected in 1878. Both terms he represented the Fourth ward, the place of his residence. He has especially been a warm friend of the fire department, and has done everything in his power to con- tribute to the efficiency of the different companies.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
Iza B Curtis
DR. IRA B. CURTIS, one of the old residents of Decatur, isa native of Delaware county, Ohio. The family from which he is descended settled in Connecticut previous to the Revolutionary war. His father, Carlos Curtis, was born at Newtown, Fairfield county, Connecticut, on the twenty-ninth of September, 1786. His mother, whose maiden name was Mary Sample, was a native of the same place. Their marriage took place on the twentieth of September, 1807. In the year 1811 his father moved with the family from Connecticut to Delaware county, Ohio. They made a settlement in the wilderness. The nearest house was twenty-five miles distant. The country was still inhabited by the Indians who, however, a few years afterward, gave way before the encroachments of the white
settlers, and moved farther west. His father improved a farm, on which all his children were born, and which was his home till his removal to Illinois in the year 1835. On coming to this state he lived one year on the Round Prairie, near Springfield. In 1836 he entered land in Coles county, south of Oakland, which he improved, and on which he lived till his death on the eighth of January, 1844.
The subject of this sketch was born on the cighteenth of October, 1823. The part of Ohio in which his early boyhood was spent had by that time become well settled. The schools which he attended were much the same as those common in that state half a century ago. It was the custom to go to school about three months in the winter season. The school-house was a log building, with a log left out along the sides to admit the light. This opening was the only window. The course of instruction was poor and limited in contrast with that of the present day. The teachers, in harmony with the surroundings, were old-fashioned in their methods, and believed in wielding the rod liberally as the one great requisite to success. The main branches were taught. These backwoods schools, rude and
unpretending as they were, furnished the early intellectual training of many of the distinguished men Ohio has since produced. Dr. Curtis was twelve years old when he came with his father to this state. He went to school a short time in Sangamon county, and after removing to Coles county attended a school at Oakland, doing chores nights and mornings for his board. Coles county, at the time the family made it their home, was in a backward state, and the settlers had few of the conveniences of life. Flour was a rare thing to see. The people most of the time lived on corn meal, all the grinding being done by horse-power ; each took his own horse and harness, and waited for his turn ; sometimes traveling a long distance, and then waiting twelve and twenty-four hours, all day and all night. Wheat was hauled to Chicago, one hundred and eighty miles, and marketed at eighty-five cents a bushel. On one trip to Chicago he came home all the way at an expense of only twenty- five cents. With the proceeds of his sales his father had told him to buy so much sugar, so much salt, and so many nails; and when he had completed these purchases he found he only had twenty-five cents remaining. He did not like to ask the merchant to take back part of the goods ; he already had feed for his horses, so he invested the solitary quarter in corn meal and bacon, camped out over night along the roads, and made an economical trip back to Coles county.
When he was about seventeen his father gave him permission to leave home and make his way in the world on his own account. It was one day late in November when he quit the paternal roof. Very few of this world's goods were in his possession. Although the weather was cold and wintry, he was clad in an old pair of linen pants, stogey shoes, and a hat adapted rather for summer than win- ter wear. Twenty-five cents was his whole cash capital. This may seem a small sum, but it must be remembered that in those days
135
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
ready money was scarce. It is probable that the whole of the cash then in Macon county would have amounted to no more than a few hundred dollars. He set out for Decatur, where he had a sister living-the wife of Kirby Benedict, then a practicing lawyer at the Macon county bar, and who afterward died in New Mexico, where for a number of years he was chief justice of the territorial courts. He made the distance from Coles county to Decatur on foot, lived that winter with his sister, and attended school in a frame building which stood on east William street. Among the members of his class were R. J. Oglesby, Henry Elliott and " Doc." Martin, all well-known to the old residents of Macon county. This was the last school he ever attended. The next spring, that of the year 1842, he went back to Coles county to study Latin with a teacher who had charge of a school in the neighborhood of his home. He had increased his capital by this time to seventy-five cents, which by judicious management he made sufficient to pay the most of his way back home on the stage line. The teacher whom he expected to become his instructor in Latin had been obliged to go home to visit his sick family, and meantime Dr. Curtis was employed to teach the school. He gave such satisfaction that the directors placed him in charge permanently, and he taught the school for nine months, in those days an unusually long term. During the winter he had between fifty and sixty pupils, some of whom were larger and older than himself.
In the spring of 1843 he returned to Decatur, and began the study of medicine with Dr. Joseph King. From his early boyhood he had taken a strong liking to the medical profession, and had determined to become a physician. After reading about a year and a-half, in an unusually sickly season when malarial diseases prevailed to a great extent, he began practice in connection with his preceptor. He attended a large number of cases without losing a single one. In those days the diseases were usually of a simple character, and readily yielded to treatment. In the fall of 1846 he entered the , University of Missouri at St. Louis, better known as the old McDowell Medical College. Having no means, he obtained his tickets for lectures on time. After attending the first course of lectures he returned to Decatur and went into partnership with Dr. King, but went back to St. Louis in the fall of 1848, attended his second course of lectures, and graduated in the spring of 1849. After his graduation he determined on locating at Taylorville, Christian county, which was then thought by many to offer better prospects for future growth than Decatur. He began practice at Taylorville in June, 1849. On July the tenth, of the same year, he married Jane Butler, daughter of William Butler, of Decatur. She was born in Kentucky in the year 1825, and was six years old when her father came to this state and settled at Decatur. Her father was a man of some education, had taught school in his early years, and was one of the first justices of the peace at Decatur. Dr. Curtis practiced medicine at Taylorville seven years. He had plenty to do, and led a hard and laborious life, traveling night and day, sometimes visiting localities thirty or thirty-five miles distant from home. The charges in those days were twenty-five cents a mile -one-fourth of the present price-and at these low charges he occa- sionally booked forty and fifty dollars a day. The country was thinly settled, the streams had no bridges, the roads were bad, and a physi- cian with a large practice was obliged to undergo much hardship.
After living at Taylorville till April, 1856, he concluded to come back to Decatur, which by that time had become a railroad town, with every prospect of a rapid and important growth. For one year he was a partner with Dr. W. J. Chenoweth. He was in active practice at the beginning of the war of the Rebellion. In February, 1862, at the request of Gov. Yates he went to the front
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to assist in caring for the Illinois soldiers who had been wounded at the storming of Fort Donelson, and he afterward rendered like service at Cairo. After the battle of Shiloh in April, 1862, he again responded to a request from Gov. Yates, and went to Mound City, where the hospitals were crowded with the wounded brought from the Shiloh battle-field. After Dr. Gray, a former partner of his at Decatur, who as surgeon had charge of one of the hospitals, became sick and unable to attend to his duties, Dr. Curtis was put in his place. A thousand wounded soldiers were under his charge. The number of assistant surgeons was deficient, and work pressed on hin so hard that for a period of ten days he had not more than a couple of hours out of the twenty-four in which to catch a little sleep. The exertion was beyond the possibilities of human endurance, and in consequence he was seized with paralysis paraplegia. He was unable at once to get relieved, and while suffering with the disease, lay in bed for a week directing the affairs of the hospital. After returning home his life was still further endangered by the mistake of a druggist who prepared a preparation of corrosive sublimate in place of a harmless drug which had been prescribed. The five physicians in attendance told him that death would certainly ensue within a few hours, but he himself had every confidence that lie would recover-and so he did. He gradually became better, and his health was finally restored with the exception of the paralysis of the lower limbs. The exertions and anxiety of Mrs. Curtis during her husband's illness were largely the cause of her deafness and blindness, to which she became subject several years afterward.
His physical condition, resulting from the paralysis, unfitting him for the active practice of his profession, in the fall of 1863 he was the Republican candidate for county treasurer, to which position he was elected in the face of a large previous Democratic majority, and against William Cantrell, a popular man, and then known as the " wheel horse of the Democracy." He was county treasurer for six years, or three successive terms. He subsequently made a special study of the eye and ear, and undertook the practice of that department of medicine. Since 1877 he has filled the office of jus- tice of the peace, and has transacted a considerable part of the magistrate's business in Decatur. He has had five children. Three are now living: Lamar L. Curtis, born April twentieth, 1850; Otto E. Curtis, born February ninth, 1853; and Frank Curtis, whose birth occurred October thirtieth, 1858. The oldest is yard-master at Decatur for the Wabash, St. Louis' and Pacific railroad company, and the two others are in the jewelry business at Decatur. Dr. Curtis in early life allied himself with the old Whig party, and he cast his first vote in one of the most exciting and enthusiastic campaigns this country has ever known, that of 1840, when the Whigs elected Harrison. At that time he had not yet attained his majority, but it was a common custom in those days for young men to vote previous to their com- ing of age. He voted for Clay four years afterward. In 1856 he became a Republican, voted for Gen. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, and has since been a strong and steadfast member of the Republican party. He is a man who has made his way through life by his own energy. He had only his own talents and industry to rely on when he began his career, and previous to the misfortune that befel him in the prime of life, had made an unusually successful record. While his present condition must of necessity deprive him of much pleasure and many opportunities for the advancement of his own interests, still it must be some satisfac- tion to a patriotic mind to know that the injury was incurred in the service of his country and in the discharge of the most sacred duty that can fall to the lot of any physician-the care of her soldiers who were wounded on the field of battle in defence of her honor.
136
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
& Nb Clellan
THE present circuit clerk of Macon county, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, in October, 1818. His parents, Andrew Mcclellan and Jane Thompson, were natives of Scotland. On coming to America they settled in Franklin county, Pa., and were married there. His father was a cooper by trade, but followed farming, and was the owner of a farm a mile from Shippensburg, on which Mr. McClellan was born. The subject of this biography was the next to the youngest of a family of five children. When he was nine or ten years old the family moved to within a mile of Chambersburg, in the same county, in which town he received the principal part of his education, attending an academy in which the ordinary branches, together with Latin and Greek, were taught. He attended this academy about three years, and also went to school two years at Newville, in Cumberland county. In the year 1835, when Mr. McClellan was seventeen, his father moved with the family to Illinois. After remaining a few weeks at Beards- town, they moved to Springfield, where afterward both his father and mother died. He only staid in Springfield about six weeks, and then came to Decatur, where he obtained a situation as clerk in the store of William Cantrell & Co. He remembers Decatur at that time as a town of about three hundred inhabitants. There were three stores. The most of the buildings were log structures. He had learned surveying while at school in Pennsylvania, and after clerking in the store about two years, he undertook that business. He received the appointment of deputy county surveyor, and in 1838 was elected county surveyor. He held this office four years. In 1840 he was appointed deputy-sheriff. In the fall of 1842 he married Judith Snyder, a native of Oldham county, Ken- tucky, daughter of Henry Snyder, one of the early settlers of this part of the state, who located along the Okaw timber, then in Macon, but now in Moultrie county. Mr. McClellan was employed in va- rious ways up to 1851, when he became a clerk in the store of
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Jasper J. Peddecord, and afterward in the store of Samuel K. Thompson. In his politics he had originally been a Whig, assisting in the election of Harrison in the exciting campaign of 1840, and voting with the Whigs until the question of slavery caused a new division of parties. He was one of the early Republicans of Macon county, voting for Fremont in 1856.
In the Fremont campaign the Republicans made him their candidate for sheriff of Macon county. He was successful in the race, though the Democrats carried the county and elected the remainder of their ticket. After the expiration of his term as sheriff he was employed in the store of Hugh Taylor till 1860, when he was elected city marshal of Decatur, a position which he held three years, or during the greater part of the war. During the war he was also appointed deputy U. S. provost-marshal, and acted as such for two years. In the year 1864, as deputy to William L. Ham- mer, he entered the circuit clerk's office. Having served as de- puty for four years, in 1868 he received the Republican nomination for circuit clerk and was elected. He was re-elected in 1872 and in 1876, and at this writing is again the Republican nominee for the office. He brought to the office of circuit clerk careful attention to its business, and the fact that he has been retained in the office so long attests the fidelity with which he has performed its duties and the satisfaction he has given the people of the county. Among the lawyers it is claimed that under his administration the records of the office are as well kept as those of any county in the state. He has had ten children, of whom eight are now living. He is now one of the oldest residents of Macon county, and has been identified with its interests for many years. Every position he has occupied has been filled with fidelity and ability. His personal traits of character and long residence in the county have made him many friends, and it may be said with truth that few better deserve popularity.
Lei Dotaward
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
GEORGE D. HAWORTH.
Was born in Clinton county, Ohio, on the 29th of November, 1833. His ancestors were English Quakers. James and Thomas Haworth came to America early in the eighteenth century. One settled in Pennsylvania, the other in Virginia. Both his grandfather and great- grandfather were born in Viginia. The former, whose name was Mah- lon Haworth, was one of the pioneer settlers of East Tennessee, and about the year 1800 removed to Clinton county, Ohio. His father, also named Mahlon Haworth, was born in that part of Ohio. His mother, Sarah J. Woolman, was a native of Clark county, Ohio, and related to John Woolman, the early Quaker preacher and active opponent of slavery. Her grandmother was a Newton, a daughter of Samuel Newton, who was a cousin of Sir Isaac Newton. The part of Ohio in which he was born and raised was well-settled and abounded in good schools. His boyhood was spent on a farm near Port William in Clinton county. In the public schools of the neighborhood he studied the branches usually taught, though his education is principally the result of much reading and habits of close observation in later years. "
At eighteen he made his first important venture in life on his own account. The discovery of gold in California had drawn great numbers of enterprising young men to the Pacific slope, and in the spring of 1852, in company with his next oldest brother, Uriah E., he set out to try his fortune in the gold regions of the new El Do- rado. They went by boat from Cincinnati to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from the latter place started with a wagon train across the plains. All went well till they had traveled westward several hundred miles when his brother was taken seriously ill and he was obliged to return with him to St. Joseph, where he died. This un- fortunate incident put an end to his California trip, and he returned to Ohio. On his journey homeward through Illinois, the favorable impressions he received of the country induced his father to remove with his family to this state the following autumn-that of the year 1853.
They settled on a farm near Mechanicsburg in Sangamon county. Mr. Haworth was then nearly twenty. Two citizens of Mechanics- burg had been experimenting for some time with the purpose of constructing a corn-planting machine, the need of which was greatly felt by farmers. From his early boyhood Mr. Haworth had manifested a taste for mechanical pursuits. He had made himself familiar with the working of various pieces of machinery, and, though he had never regularly learned the trade, was a good workman at the lighter kinds of blacksmithing. The gentlemen interested in getting up the corn-planter, Cyrus Correll and Dr. A. J. Randall, accordingly called on him for assistance. The experiments were carried on during the winter of 1853-4, and by the next spring two hundred corn-planters were ready for sale, the main features of which were Mr. Haworth's invention. The machine was drawn by one horse, and the corn was dropped by means of a trigger. These were the first corn-planters ever placed on the market. Though crude and imperfect in comparison with those now made they worked successfully and were largely sold till finally superseded by the two horse planters. His attention having been attracted to the manufacture of labor-saving agricultural implements, he began to consider the feasibility of constructing corn harvesters and reaping machines. On account of the greater facilities for the manufacture of new machinery then existing in Ohio, he went to that State in 1857, and began work at Xenia. In July, 1857, he invented a corn harvester to be used for shocking corn. This machine had many excellent points about it, but its great expense prevented it from going into general use. From Xenia he went to Dayton. In 1858, he invented a combined reaper and corn harvester, a number 18
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