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 38
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bate court. He was a representative from Monroe county in the state legislature, and a member of the convention which met at Kaskaskia, in the summer of 1818, and framed the first consti- tution of the State of Illinois. Dr. Moore's mother was Mary Whiteside, daughter of Colonel William Whiteside, one of the pio- neer settlers of Monroe county. She was born at the head of the Big Elkhorn, in Kentucky, and was five years old when she came to Illinois, in the year 1793. The Whitesides were Kentuckians, and were celebrated as Indian fighters. In the annals of the early history of this state are recorded many incidents of daring and bravery in which members of the Whiteside family prominently figured.
Dr. Moore was the seventh of a family of ten children, and was born near Waterloo, in Monroe county, on the seventh of Decem- ber, 1821. His boyhood was spent. in his native county. He at- tended school at Waterloo, and secured the elements of a good Eng- lish education, principally under the instruction of Nathan Scarritt, a teacher of more than ordinary ability. For some time he taught school. In the fall of 1849, he began the study of medicine at Columbia, in Monroe county, with Dr. Knott. He received his medical education in the medical department of the St. Louis Uni- versity, now the St. Louis Medical College. He graduated from this institution in March, 1853. In the year 1851, he began the practice of his profession at Carlisle, Illinois. He became a resident of Decatur in March, 1856, and at once established himself as one of the leading physicians. During the war of the rebellion he offered his services to the government, and was commissioned as surgeon of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Illinois Regiment. His regiment was attached to the Army of the Cumberland, and during his connection with it served in Kentucky and Tennessee. After
RESIDENCE OF DRIRA N. BARNES, COR. NORTH & COLLEGE STS. DECATUR, ILL .
RESIDENCE OF DRE.W. MOORE, 49 WEST MAIN ST. DECATUR, ILL .
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
seven months' service, he resigned on account of ill health, and re- sumed his medical practice at Decatur.
He was married in October, 1854, to Miss Annic B. Lockwood, a native of Philadelphia, daughter of Hon. Danicl C. Lockwood. She was connected with the Cummins family, one of whose mem- bers was Bishop Cummins of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was a cousin of General Henry K. Lockwood of the United States Regular Army, now stationed at the Naval Academy at An- napolis, Maryland. Her death occurred in July, 1876. By this marriage he had three children, of whom only one, a daughter, is now living. Dr. Moore was originally a whig, and supported Henry Clay in the presidential election of 1844. On the dissolution of the whig party, his anti-slavery sentiments made him a republican. He voted for Fremont in 1856, the first nominee of the republican party for president, and has voted for every republican presidential candidate from that time to the present. For many years he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Although his large practice has been of a general character for the last eight or ten years, he has devoted special attention to the diseases of women and children. Of thorough attainments as a physician, a diligent student of progressive medical science, and a man of the highest personal character, he has met with merited success in his profession.
DR. WILLIAM A. BARNES.
DR. BARNES, a native of Claremont, New Hampshire, and was born on the fifteenth of March, 1824. His paternal grandfather was one of the early settlers of New Hampshire, removing from Farmington, Connecticut, to Claremont, when that part of the state was almost a complete wilderness. His father, Ira N. Barnes, was born at Clare- mont. He was a farmer in comfortable circumstances; when only about thirty years of age his death resulted from an accident. Dr. Barnes' mother, Harriet Eastman, belonged to an old New England family, which has produced several men of distinction. The subject of this sketch was the oldest of five children. He was six years old when his father died. From seven till he was fifteen years of age, his home was with his grandfather. He had good advantages for obtaining an education, the neighborhood in which he was raised abounding in excellent schools. He attended the Claremont academy. In the year 1839, when fifteen, he went to Dayton, Ohio, to live with a cousin. He attended 1 at
Dayton, and in the year 1844, 'when twenty, began teaching school in Montgomery county, Ohio. He also for a time taught music, to which he had devoted considerable attention. He began the study of medicine in 1846, in the office of Dr. Van Harlingen, at Centre- ville, Ohio. After completing his preparatory studies, he attended his first course of lectures at the Starling Medical College at Colum- bia. In the fall of 1849 he went to Philadelphia and began his second course of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in the spring of 1850. His marriage occurred on the thirtieth of October, 1849, to Eleanor Sawyer, a native of Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, with whom Dr. Barnes had become ac- quainted while she was a resident of Centreville, Ohio. His mar- riage took place in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania.
In 1850 after his graduation, he began practice at Centreville, Ohio, but in the autumn of the same year removed to Valparaiso, Indiana, where he was engaged in the practice of his profession for three years. In 1853 he became a resident of Decatur. He purchased a track of land four miles from town, and devo ted his at-
tention to its improvement. In 1855 he succeeded Drs. King and Chenoweth in the ownership of a drug store in Decatur, which he carried on till 1859. He received the appointment of master in chancery in 1861, and filled the office throughout almost the entire period of the war, resigning in 1865. He was one of the first to ent- bark in the manufacturing business, which has added so much to the prosperity of Decatur. In 1860, in partnership with William Lintner, he started a factory for the manufacture of hay-presscs, to which the making of pumps and agricultural implements was after- wards added. His was one of the first manufacturing establishments in Decatur. He disposed of his interest to his partner, from whom the factory passed into the hands of the present proprictors, who carry it on as the Decatur Furniture Factory. Since 1868 he has been principally engaged in dealing in real estate, and the improve- ment of lands, of which he owns several tracts in Macon, Piatt and Moultrie counties.
Dr. Barnes was one of the old original Republicans of Macon county, and has been a member of the party from its first organi- zation in this part of the state. He took a deep interest in the support of Fremont, the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1856, and made several speeches in his behalf throughout the county. He has been one of the representative citizens of Decatur, and has filled several public positions. Previous to the war he was Mayor of Decatur, and has represented his ward several times in the board of Aldermen. He has been an advocate of every enter- prise which he considered likely to advance the interests of Decatur, and did his full share toward securing to the city the system of railroads, which now makes it such an important railroad centre. He was one of the active members of the Citizens' Association, orga- nized to advance the public interests of Decatur. In the educa- tional interest of the city he has always taken a warm interest. For several years he has been one of the active members of the Board of Education, and is now its President. With the exception of one year he has been President of the Decatur Public Library since its organization. These facts are sufficient to show his connec- tion with the best and most important interests of Decatur, to whose superiority as an educational centre, and place of residence few citizens have done more to contribute.
W. H. BRAMBLE.
W. H. BRAMBLE was born at Piketon, Ross county, Ohio, Sep- tember nineteenth, 1821. His parents, Henry Bramble and Eliza Turner, were natives of Maryland, and at an early day emigrated to Ohio, and settled at Chillicothe, in Ross county. His mother died in Ross county. Mr. Bramble was the youngest of four children. He lived in Ross county till twelve years of age, when his father moved to Newark, Ohio, and about two years afterward to Delphi, Indiana. His father kept a hotel both at Piketon and Newark, and at Delphi engaged in the mercantile business. He then moved on a farm in Tippecanoe county, Indiana, and from there removed to Dayton in the same state, where Mr. Bramble's father died, when the subject of this sketch was seventeen years old. In the various places which had been the home of the family, Mr. Bramble at- tended school and laid the foundation of a good education. He remained on the farm after his father died, and in 1840, then nine- teen years of age, he married Miss Anna Slayback, who was born near Hamilton, Ohio. Her father, Levi Slayback, was a farmer, and from Ohio moved to Indiana.
In his early boyhood the bent of his mind led him to attempt various mechanical contrivances, and he was always employed on
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
some new invention. After his marriage he still proposed to carry on farming, but his mind was so full of different kinds of machines and improvements that he found it impossible to make agriculture a success. In 1841 he patented an improved cultivator, and then sold the farm and built a hotel four miles from Lafayette, Indiana, called the Fountain Rise, where he remained about three years. He conceived the idea that a grain scale could be invented by which grain could be measured and weighed. He worked on this plan for eleven years, devoting to it almost his entire time. His mind was completely absorbed in the project ; other business was neglected; and the money he received from the sale of his farm was soon spent. The neighbors seeing the light in his solitary room during the small hours of the night began to form the opinion that he had lost his reason, but still he worked on, trying new experiments, and changing pieces of machinery, till at last he was successful, and placed on exhibition at Lafayette a grain scale which received and measured grain, gave the number of bushels, and calculated the amount it came to at the current price. It created great excitement and enthusiasm among the people, and in six weeks he sold forty-seven thousand dollars worth of rights to territory. Thinking he had sufficient money he bought the Lafay- ette House, the largest hotel in Lafayette, but finding the house not large enough to suit his wishes, he bought a lot on the opposite corner and built the Bramble House, which still bears his name. But this prosperity was only short-lived. The grain scale worked well enough for small quantities of grain, but for large quantities it was a total failure. His recently acquired property was swept away ; to the buyers of rights he gave back their money, and he was left without a dollar. In this disheartening condition a personal friend, a banker at Lafayette, John Reynolds, came to him and asked him whether he could remedy the faults in his machine if he had time to make further experiments. Mr. Bramble replied, "Yes." Reynolds gave him a check for two thousand dollars, told him to remove his family to some suitable place, and go on with his expe- riments. He placed his family near Xenia, Ohio, and went to Cincinnati, and in five weeks perfected a new machine; this he placed in operation at Xenia, and it worked in a perfectly satisfactory manner, showing none of the faults of the original machine. He took out several patents covering the invention and improvements. The machine weighed all grain poured in the hopper from one pound to thousands with mathematical accuracy, discharged itself while the wheat was running, and kept its own accounts. The machinery to accomplish these results was remarkably simple and certain. He opened an office at Cincinnati, and in eleven months sold $128,000 worth of rights for which the cash or equivalent property was received. The most of this he was cheated out of by his partner, a man whom he had taken into the business without a dollar. This machine he exhibited in every state in the Union, received premiums at hundreds of different fairs, and a gold medal at the New York American Institute. At the World's Fair in the Crystal Palace in New York he was given the best location and drew the largest crowds of any of the exhibitors. He sent a man to Europe under an arrangement by which patents were to be taken out in the name of Mr. Bramble, but he took the patents out in his own name instead, thus defrauding him out of all the fruits of his invention in European countries.
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After these unfortunate transactions with the Automatic Grain Scale he made up his mind to go West. He had become the owner of fourteen hundred acres of land near Council Bluffs, Iowa, and in the spring of 1857 went to that locality. He found the land poor and partly covered with water, and the country wild and unsettled. His family being dissatisfied he shipped his goods back to St. Louis
without unboxing, intending to return to Springfield, Ohio, unless lie could find a location elsewhere. On his way east from St. Louis he stopped at Jacksonville, but not liking the place he came to Decatur, which appearing to be a thriving town, he concluded to settle there. At that time he was without a single acquaintance in Decatur. He had no money, though the sale of some fine furniture brought him some cash. Buying an acre of land of Orlando Pow- ers, he built a shed of lumber without a floor, into which he moved a costly piano and other fine furniture. The same fall he built the brick residence in the south-west part of Decatur now occupied by Charles Ewing. His sons helped make the brick, which Mr. Bramble laid, his first experience at brick-laying, and the house, even to the wood-work, was completed by their own hands, and was at the time one of the best residences in that part of the town. He afterward built some fine residences in the same neighborhood.
He then went to work on inventions. He patented an improved bedstead, which was a success, and was known as Bramble's Spring Rockaway Bed, many of which are still used in Decatur. His attention was next turned to a post-office lock-box, for which he made the first application for a patent in 1865. He showed it to the Boston post-master, who agreed to adopt the box, using an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars made for that purpose. The Yale Lock manufacturing company, of Stamford, Connecticut, adopted his ideas, and began manufacturing the boxes in the face of Mr. Bramble's patent. A long and vexatious contest followed, and after Mr. Bramble had brought suit in the United States courts, a compromise was effected, and Mr. Bramble now receives a royalty on every post-office box sold in the United States. Of these boxes he was the original inventor, and the courts have decided that no other company has a right to manufacture post-office boxes. He has also a complete line of door locks and padlocks, now manufac- tured by Russel Erwin of New Britain, Connecticut, and said to be the best and most perfect ever put on the market. These locks took the premium at the last Paris Exposition. He expects to devote the rest of his time to improvements on locks.
In his earlier life he was a somnambulist ; and every night was accustomed unconsciously to walk in his sleep. In his youth he has been known to get out of bed, take a horse from the stable, and ride ten miles without waking. After building the Bramble House, a high four-story building, he was seen walking on the fire walls without any consciousness of danger. The concern of his friends led them to try the experiment of locking him in his room at night, but waking and unable to get out of the door he jumped from his window in the third story to the pavement, receiving injuries from which he did not recover for several weeks. He has not practiced somnambulism for the last twenty years, and his health through life has been good. He has three children : O. N. Bramble, assistant engineer at the water-works; Edward Bramble, mail agent on the St. Louis branch of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific railway ; and Estelle, now the wife of A. F. Jenison. In his politics he was first a Whig; became an early Republican, voting for Fremont in 1856, and has since been a strong member of that party. He has been alderman from the third ward five terms, serving ten years, a longer time than any other member of the council. He is a man of con- siderable influence among the voters. He was contractor for build- ing the railroad between Decatur and Monticello, which he graded half the distance without receiving any adequate compensation on account of the financial standing of the company. He has never sworn an oath, or used whiskey or tobacco in his life. He is one of the active and public-spirited citizens of Decatur, and freely gives his time to carry out any project in which the interests of his adopted city are in question.
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
145
M. Harrostro
MAHLON HAWORTH has been a resident of Decatur since 1857. The family from which he is descended was of English origin. It is said that the first of the Haworths to come to America were James and Thomas Haworth ; one of whom settled in Pennsylvania and the other in Virginia, early in the history of the American colonies. In England the Haworths had been members of the society of Friends from its first organization. George Haworth, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Virginia and lived there during the Revolutionary war. Mr. Haworth's father, Mahlon Haworth, was born in the valley of Virginia, near Win- chester. He married Phobe Frazer, a native of Berks county, Pennsylvania, who was connected with a Scotch family which had settled in Pennsylvania at an early period. Shortly after his mar- riage he removed to the neighborhood of Knoxville, in east Tennessee, where he lived several years, and where two of his children were born. About the year 1800 he concluded to make his home in Ohio, then a wilderness in which the white settlements were far from numerous. After residing for a time in Warren county, he purchased land and settled in Clinton county. He was one of the pioneers of that region, and when he first located there had only one neighbor within a distance of many miles. Mr. Haworth's parents died in Clinton county, Ohio, on the same farm on which they originally settled.
The birth of Mahlon Haworth occurred on this farm in Clinton county, Ohio, on the twentieth of August, 1809. He was the sixth of nine children. That part of Ohio, though only forty miles from the city of Cincinnati, was in his early boyhood thinly settled. Schools had been established, but the course of instruction was 19
usually very meager and limited. The school-houses were old- fashioned log structures with slab benches. Mr. Haworth took the best advantage possible of these opportunities. He could only go to school in the winter season. He attended school in the neighbor- hood of his home, and afterward at Xenia and Wilmington. His school days were over at the age of eighteen, and he then began teaching, at which he was occupied for three or four years. On the twentieth of August, 1830, he married Sarah J. Woolman, a native of Clark county, Ohio, who belonged to the same family as the celebrated John Woolman, famous as a Quaker preacher, and an early advocate of the abolition of slavery. In the year 1832 Mr. Haworth began the mercantile business, first in Warren county, Ohio, and afterward at Port William, in Clinton county. In the year 1835 he sold out his stock of goods, purchased a farm near Port William, and engaged in farming. He also for a time man- aged a saw-mill which was run by water-power. For nine years he served as justice of the peace, and for a considerable period was postmaster at Port William. He removed to this state in 1853, and for three years lived on a farm near Mechanicsburg, in Sanga- mon county. In 1857 he removed to Decatur, which has since been his home. In 1859 he undertook the business of buying and ship- ping grain, which he continued for nearly twenty years. In the year 1869 the present firm of Haworth and Sons was established, and the manufacture begun of the Haworth Check Rower, which has since had such a large and popular sale. The other members of the firm are his sons, L. L. Haworth, George D. Haworth and James W. Haworth, Mr. and Mrs. Haworth have been the parents of nine children. The three sons now living, L. L. Haworth, George
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
D. Haworth and James W. Haworth are residents of Decatur. Of the two daughters, Annie M. is the wife of K. H. Roby, and Mary R. married George Simpson. Uriah E. Haworth, the second son, died in the year 1852, at the age of twenty, at St. Joseph, Missouri, while on his way to California. Another son, Mahlon F. Haworth, enlisted in 1861 in the Seventh Illinois Cavalry. He served with his regiment in Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and other parts of the South ; took part in several hard-fought battles, and was finally taken prisoner at Colliersville, Tennessee. He was first confined at Belle Island and was afterward transferred to Andersonville, where he died toward the closc of the war. Two other children died in infancy.
Mr. Haworth's political opinions have been in sympathy with the Whig and Republican parties. The first vote which he cast for President was in 1832, when he supported Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, against Jackson. From his earliest recollection he was opposed to slavery. His belief that no man had a right to hold another in servitude was imbibcd from his parents, who maintained that doctrine in common with the great mass of the society of Friends. He was accordingly an early member of the Republican party, and has lived to see the final triumph of the principles to which he has been devoted all his life. He has never held any political office in this state with the exception of acting as a member of the city council of Decatur in 1859.
EDWARD OWEN SMITH,
Now a resident of California, is one of the men to whom the city of Decatur and the county of Macon owe a great part of their growth and development. His father, the Rev. James Smith, was a popular and distinguished Methodist preacher of Baltimore who died in that city, leaving six children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the fourth. He was born in Montgomery county, Maryland, three miles west of Baltimore, on the fifteenth of April, 1817. After his father's death his home was with his grandmother, Mrs. Rachel Owen. When fifteen years of age lie went to Wash- ington City where he was clerk in a store during part of General Jackson's administration. He returned to his home near Balti- more, and soon afterward carried out a purpose which he had formed of trying his fortune in the west. In the fall of 1834 he set out for Ohio, then considered one of the frontier states. The nineteen dollars which constituted the whole amount of his capital had been earned by his own labor. With a knapsack on his shoulder containing all his worldly effects, he started on foot, and following the old National road across the Allegheny mountains reached Springfield, Ohio, a distance of five hundred miles from Baltimore. At Springfield he learned the trade of a carpenter with a man named Samuel Pricc, but becoming afflicted with the throat disease concluded to journey farther west. He stopped for a short time at Montezuma, Indiana; afterward worked at his trade about a ycar at Terre Haute; and in May, 1837, came to Decatur. He soon found employment. His first work was to build a house for Captain D. L. Allen on Water street, above North street, and another residence immediately south, which are now, with one exception, the oldest houses remaining in Decatur. The fall of the same year lie built the old Macon Hotel on the cast side of the Park. At that time the site of this building was in the midst of heavy timber. The following winter he built Spangler's Mill on the Sangamon river four miles east of Decatur. He was then only twenty years of age, but at once established a reputation as a good business man and an enterprising builder.
He was engaged in active business in Decatur till 1853, when he made his first visit to California. He raised a company of thirty- nine young men and crossed the Plains, reaching his destination in about a hundred days. He took with him a drove of cattle. After a stay of two years and three months on the Pacific coast he returned to Decatur, having made considerable profit from his business ventures. He then began to improve property on Water street. The entire business of the place was formerly conducted around the old square, and he was the first to turn the current toward what is now the principal business thoroughfare. He erected the first business structures on Water street, two three- story buildings, one of which is now occupied by the Decatur National Bank. The next year in connection with Dr. J. T. B. Stapp, he built several stores on the south side of the park.
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