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 39
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He started on his second trip to California in 1858. This journey proved a dangerous and difficult undertaking. He pro- posed to take a large drove of horses and cattle, which he pur- chased in south-west Missouri and the Indian territory through to California by way of New Mexico and Arizona, at that time a route but little traveled. With a company of forty-one young men he explored his way through a complete wilderness from Fort Gib- son to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Twice in this distance was his company attacked by the Indians, who each time were repulsed without loss. The blanket which he carried was pierced by an Indian lance. Five hundred miles west of the Rio Grande, among the San Francisco mountains they encountered a body of returning emigrants who had been driven back by the Indians. Eight of their number had been killed, and all their cattle had been stolen. After driving off the Indians, who were still in pursuit, it was re- solved to return to the Rio Grande river, winter there, and then proceed to California the next year by another route. On their march back their provisions soon gave out, and for six weeks their only food was boiled bcef without salt. After going into winter quarters here Mr. Smith grew restless, and determined to go through to California that winter. He managed to secure four men to assist him in driving the cattle. A Mrs. Brown of Iowa, whose husband had been killed by the Indians and who was anxious to reach some relatives in California, and her four sınall daughters, were also members of the party. They set out in January, 1859, and after a journey of thirteen hundred miles through New Mexico and Arizona, reached San Francisco in safety without more peril- ous adventure than meeting two hundred Indian warriors at Apache Pass who, however, acted in a friendly manner, the chief bestowing on Mr. Smith a quiver of lion's skin filled with arrows as a token of friendship. Mrs. Brown, the heroine of the arduous journey, found her relatives, and subsequently married Judge Johnson, of San Francisco, who thanked Mr. Smith with great cordiality for bringing him so good a wife. The cattle had been left behind in Arizona, and after grazing them for a while in Lower California near the mouth of the Colorado, he brought them to San Francisco in March, 1860, two years after starting with them from Missouri. The calves had become nearly grown.
In the fall of 1860 he started from Los Angelos, California, for Texas, intending to make arrangements to raise horses in the latter state. In passing through the Apache country his company was attacked by thirty Indians, who killed seven of their horscs. Mr. Smith had six companions, one of whom was too sick to render any assistance in the fight. While crossing the Staked Plains they traveled eighty-six miles without water. On reaching a frontier town in Texas the first sight that met his eye was the Lone Star flag of the republic of Texas, and then he, for the first time, learned that .Abraham Lincoln had been elected president and that Texas
RESIDENCE OF H.W. WAGGONER, DECATUR, MACON CO. ILL.
RESIDENCE AND DAIRY OF FRANK MOSER, DECATUR, MACON CO. ILL.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
had withdrawn from the Union, and resumed her original position as an independent republie. He expressed surprise and regret, but the Texans assured him that "they meant business." Through Texas to Galveston, from that place on the steamer, to New Orleans and thence up the Mississippi to Cairo, nothing was heard but ex- eiting talk regarding the preparations for rebellion. He had made arrangements with two men, whom he left in Texas, to raise horses on shares, but after the war broke out he entertained little hope of reaping anything from his investment. Seven years afterward, however, his share of the horses were delivered to him at Decatur.
On his return, after an absence of three years, he was elected in March, 1861, Mayor of Decatur. He occupied this position during the first year of the rebellion, when its duties were particularly important. Regiment after regiment of soldiers were fed at the city's expense. Personally he did everything in his power to assist the Union eause, assisted in recruiting soldiers, and for various objeets in connection with the war contributed liberally of his own means. In 1864 he supported Lincoln for president, believing that his re-election would prove an effectual blow to the rebellion. After the war he could not give his approval to the congressional plan of reconstruction, and has since aeted with the Democratie party.
In 1847 he was elected a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention, representing in that body Piatt and Macon counties. In 1848 he was the whig candidate for State senator for the distriet embracing MeLean, Tazewell, Logan, De Witt and Macon counties. He was elected by a flattering majority after a spirited canvass. One of his first efforts in the Senate, was to secure the passage of a joint resolution requesting the Ilinois Senators and Representa- tives in Congress to secure from the National government a dona- tion of land for the construction of the Illinois Central and the Northern Cross (now the Wabash) railroad. Aid was subsequently granted the Illinois Central. To Mr. Smith belongs the credit of taking the first steps which led to the successful completion of this important project. While in the Constitutional Convention he was identified with another measure, which proved of great benefit to the state. He was one of the authors of the special provision adopted by a separate vote levying a tax of two mills to liquidate the state debt. From thirty the state bonds advanced to par, con- ficence in the state increased, and immigration soon afterward poured in to occupy the vacant lands. He was active in securing for Macon county several of her railroads, especially the Decatur and St. Louis (now the St. Louis branch of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacifie) of which he was one of the incorporators and original directors.
His first wife, whom he married on the eighteenth of May, 1843, was Miss Harriet Krone, a native of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She was a woman of modest and retiring demeanor, a faithful wife, a devoted mother, and possessed of many excellent traits of cha- raeter. She died on the thirteenth of January, 1867. His second marriage was on the fifteenth of April, 1869, to Mrs. Catharine Hildman, of Peoria county, Illinois. He has eleven children. Rachel R., married Judge A. J. Gallagher of Decatur, now de- ceased. Two sons, James L., and Edward O. Smith, are residents of the southern part of Macon county. Lydia A., who married the late Aquilla Toland, resides in Austin township. M. Ella is the wife of the Rev. S. S. Hebberd, of Pleasant View township. Harriet, now Mrs. Frank Moore, lives in California, and Laura, the wife of Lester Brown, at Elmwood, Peoria county, in this state. Two sons, Lowell and Thomas Curtis Smith, reside in California, and Gertrude, the youngest daughter by his first marriage, in Decatur. He has one child, Kate, by his second marriage. Mr. Smith at present being a non-resident of this state, the materials of
this sketch have been furnished by his children, living in Macon county.
In 1870 he removed to California. He lives on a farm just out- side the corporate limits of San Jose, the garden city of California, and the most beautiful of all rural towns. He was a member of the recent Constitutional Convention which framed the present Constitution of California. He still owns a large amount of pro- perty in this county, including the Opera House in Deeatur, and a number of large farms. During his early residence in the county, he had sufficient foresight to see that investments in real estate would prove profitable, and so purchased town lots and unimproved land. It is safe to say that he has improved more land in Macon county, than any other one man, and has also erected a large number of buildings in Decatur. Beside the structures already mentioned he built the four large stores in the Opera House block, the first on that part of Water street, and numerous private resi- denees. He was one of the most public-spirited citizens Decatur has ever known. As a business man his characteristics are a great energy, a keen judgment, and a readiness to take advantage of every opportunity. He is benevolent and charitable in his dispo- sition, and no man has been more willing to relieve the wants of the unfortunate, or lend a helping hand to others. He came to the county without means, and, by his own talent and energy, became one of the most successful and influential citizens of the county, where he is always welcomed back by his old friends and neighbors.
BRADFORD K. DURFEE,
MEMBER of the real estate and insurance firm of Warren and Durfee, was born at Marshall, Michigan, on the twenty-fifth of March, 1838. The history of the family from which he is de- seended in this country dates back to Thomas Durfee, who came from England and settled at Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1660. Nathan Durfee, of the sixth generation in descent from Thomas Durfee, was born at Fall River ; accompanied his father to Ohio when a small boy ; grew up to manhood in that state; and at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1837, married Margaret Kirk, and the same year removed to Marshall, Michigan. The subject of this sketch was their oldest son. His home was at Marshall and Battle Creek, Michigan, till 1857, in which year he came to Decatur. For a time after coming to this state he taught school. His father during the war of the rebellion enlisted in an Ohio regiment, of which Mr. Durfee's unele, B. R. Durfee, was colonel ; and while he was absent in the army Mr. Durfee had charge of the farm. In 1863 he was employed by the firm of Durfee and Warren to prepare the set of abstracts of titles of Macon county. In 1865 he became a member of the firm of Durfee, Warren and Co., and has since been associated with John K. Warren in the real estate and in- surance business. He was married in October, 1868, to Lucy W. Hamilton, of Toledo, Ohio. He was brought up under strong anti- slavery influences. His father was one of the early abolitionists of Ohio. Mr. Durfee's sympathies were with the Republican party till 1872, when he believed its policy to be detrimental to the best interests of the country, and he has since acted with the Demo- eratic party. In 1878 he was elected as the regular Democratie candidate to the Thirty-first General Assembly. He served on the committees on appropriations, insurance, banks and banking, and labor and manufactures ; gave close and constant attention to the business before the legislature, and made an efficient member. In 1880 he again received the Democratic nomination for representa- tive, the convention unanimously presenting him as the candidate of the party.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
Frisk Brown N.D.
DR. BROWN, who has practiced medicine in Macon county since 1858, was born near Whitby, in Upper Canada, on the twenty- fourth of August, 1827. His father, Abram Brown, was a native of Rhode Island ; and his mother, whose maiden name was Bath- sheba Wood, of the State of New York. Both were members of the religious Society of Friends. They were married in Vermont, and soon afterward removed to Canada, where his father followed farming. Dr. Brown was the seventh of ten children. When he was twelve years of age his father died, and his mother was left with a large family on her hands, and a farm of one hundred acres, slightly encumbered, as the means of their support. The mother was of a frugal disposition, and kept the boys at work on the farm, so that they had few advantages'in the way of schools. Dr. Brown determined to acquire an education, and at the age of seventeen left home and obtained work in a neighborhood where he had an op- portunity to attend school. Up to that time he was barely able to read and write. He worked during haying and harvest, and through the remainder of the year nights and mornings, clothing himself, and getting only his board and schooling for his labor. In his twenty-first year he attended for six months an academy at Whitby. In the fall of 1848, then just twenty-one, he took charge of the school which he had formerly attended, and was its teacher for half a year. He then entered the Wilson Collegiate Institute in Niagara county, New York, and in 1850 was a student in the Gencsee Wesleyan Seminary in Livingston county, in the same state. The means with which to attend these schools he obtained by work during the summer. He was accustomed to work during the harvest in New York, and then go to Canada and find employ- ment in the later harvest there.
At that time a demand for teachers existed in the south, and in the fall of 1850 he went to Kentucky with the purpose of securing a position. He obtained a school near Paris, Bourbon county. During the twenty-one months he resided there, he taught school, read medicine, and began the study of law. The autumn of 1852 found him attending lectures at the Georgia Medical College at Augusta, Georgia. In the spring of 1853 he began practice at Gaylesville, Cherokee county, Alabama. He returned, however, to the Georgia Medical College in the fall, and graduated in the spring of 1854. He was engaged in successful practice at Gayles- ville till February, 1858. In November, 1854, he married Sarah E. Brown, daughter of F. A. Brown, one of the pioneer lawyers of Georgia, who afterward removed to Alabama. While living in the south, Dr. Brown paid little attention to politics, and generally voted the democratic ticket. During the Fremont-Buchanan cam- paign of 1856, secession was openly threatened on every stump. The excitement grew more intense as the opposition to slavery became more pronounced at the north. Dr. Brown determined to remove to a free state, and in February, 1858, settled at Maroa. He was the first physician in that place. In October, 1862, he removed to Decatur. He employed his spare time in reviewing his legal studies, which he had begun years previously, and in April, 1870, was admitted to the bar. He has given his whole , attention to the practice of medicine, and has only occasionally appeared in cases before the court, generally as associate counsel in important cases in which medical questions have been involved. He has had seven children ; two sons died in infancy, and three sons and two daughters are living. In politics he was a democrat before the war, though opposed to slavery. From the position of a
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
war democrat during the rebellion, he came to act with the republi- can party, of which he has since been a strong supporter. Since 1861 he has been a member of the Presbyterian Church. He has had a large medical practice, and is well known throughout the county. The republicans in 1876 made him their candidate for prosecuting attorney. His genial disposition and fine social quali- ties have secured him numerous friends, while his attainments as a physician have won success in his profession.
A. R. ARBUCKLE,
EDITOR and proprietor of the Decatur Tomahawk, is a native of Guernsey county, Ohio, and was born on the tenth of March, 1851. His father, Robert Arbuckle, was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and when a young man went to Ohio, where he married Charlotte Freeman, a native of Guernsey county. The first fourteen years of Mr. Arbuckle's life were spent in Ohio. His father was a farmer. In 1864 the family moved to McLean county in this state, and settled on a farm near Le Roy. On the first of July, 1869, he entered the law office of General Ira J. Bloomfield at Bloom- ington, with the purpose of fitting himself for the legal profession. He was admitted to the practice of the law in June, 1871, and opened an office at Le Roy, where he remained one year. He became a resident of Maroa in the fall of 1874, and for about two years was occupied in legal practice. Having a taste for the journalistic profession he became connected with the Maroa News, which he published six months. In the spring of 1876 he was elected justice of the peace, which office he filled till his removal to Decatur in September, 1878. For about a year he engaged in the practice of law at Decatur, in partnership with S. C. Clark. On the eleventh of May, 1880, he issued the first number of the De- catur Tomahawk, which has since rapidly increased in circulation. It is conducted on an independent and liberal platform, both as to politics and religion, and is the only journal occupying this pecu- liar field published in Central Illinois. He was married in Sep- tember, 1873, to Miss Anna Moore, of McLean county. In his personal political views he has always been a member of the re- publican party.
E. McNABB.
E. McNABB, architect and builder, was born in Centre county, Pennsylvania, on the seventeenth of September, 1823. His ances- tors were Scotch, and emigrated to the north of Ireland at the time of the religions persecution which drove so many Protestants from Scotland. His grandfather came to America shortly after the Revolutionary war; he married a woman of Irish descent, by the name of Mitchell. John McNabb, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Pennsylvania, and married Mary Young, a native of the same state. John McNabb was a mechanic, but after his removal to Richland (now Ashland) connty, Ohio, in the year 1834, he engaged in farming. He died in that connty, as did also Mr. McNabb's mother. The subject of this biographical sketch was the seventh of ten children. He was eleven years old when he came to Ohio. He was raised on a farm, and obtained his ednca- tion in the ordinary district schools. Two of his brothers received excellent edncations, and were ministers in the Methodist Church. When seventeen he began to learn the trade of a cabinet-maker at Ashland, Ohio, and followed it abont five years. He then stndied architecture nnder O. S. Kinney, a prominent architect, who resi- ded at Cleveland, Ohio, and became a builder. He resided a short time in Cincinnati and Cleveland.
In 1854 he came to Illinois. His first work in this state was the building of a church at Mechanicsburg, in Sangamon county. In the spring of 1855 he settled at Decatur, where he had purchased property the previous year, and has since been continuously occu- pied as an architect and builder. He has either designed or con- structed a large proportion of the buildings which have been erected during his residence in Decatur. The evidences of his taste and judgment may be seen in some of the most prominent buildings in the city, which have been erected according to his designs and under his supervision. Among these are the First and Fourth ward school-buildings, the residences of L. L. Haworth, J. L. Fenton, H. W. Hill and George D. Haworth, the store of Linn & Seroggs, a block of three stores on Merchant street and the Christian church. He was married on the twenty-seventh of April, 1845, to Maggie B. Heller, a native of Huron county, Ohio. He has four children living; Mrs. Mary Irene August; Willie O. McNabb; Mrs. Emma F. Landis, and Arthur L. McNabb. He has always taken an active interest in politics and public affairs. In early life he was a democrat, but when the question of the ex- tension of slavery came to be agitated, he stood with those in favor of free soil, and was one of the earliest members of the republican party. He was elected a member of the city council from the Second ward in the spring of 1860, and altogether has served four times, or eight years; in 1860, 1861, 1867, 1869, 1877, 1872, 1879 and 1880. He has been one of the active members of the Conncil, and his practical business experience has been of service in assist- ing to manage the affairs of the city. In 1878 he represented Deca- tur township in the Board of Supervisors. He has been a member of the Christian church for a period of thirty years. He has been a public-spirited and progressive citizen. He was one of the original advocates of the establishment of water-works, and has always been on the side of public improvement.
GEORGE S. DURFEE.
THE birth of Mr. Durfee occurred at Marshall, Michigan, on the thirteenth of March, 1840. From Thomas Durfee, who emi- grated from England and settled at Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1860, the Durfee family is descended. The parents of the subject of this biography were Nathan and Margaret (Kirk) Durfee. His father was born at Fall River, Massachusetts ; went to Ohio with his father's family when quite young ; in that state married Mar- garet Kirk ; soon after his marriage removed to Michigan, and in 1857 became a resident of Macon connty. George S. Durfee was seventeen when he came to Decatur. He principally obtained his education at Battle Creek, Michigan, and in the high-school of De- catur, which he attended two winters after coming to this place.
At the beginning of the war of the rebellion, on the seventeenth of April, 1861, he enlisted under the three months call for troops, in a company raised at Decatnr, and attached to the Eighth Illinois infantry as company A. He was mustered in the United States service on the twenty-fifth of April. The regiment lay at Cairo till the expiration of their three months' term of enlistment. Mr. Durfee at once re-enlisted for three years in the same company and regiment. The regiment was commanded by Colonel (afterward Governor) Oglesby. He had enlisted as a private, and was elected sergeant, to which position he was re-elected after his re-enlistment and was appointed by the colonel commissary sergeant. His regi- ment took part in the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Just before the battle of Shiloh he returned to his company as orderly sergeant, and in that fight received a wonnd in the hand.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
On the fourteenth of June, 1862, just after the siege of Corinth, he received a commission as second lieutenant. The regiment served under General Grant in his campaign through Northern Mississippi. On the thirteenth of February, 1863, he was com- missioned as second lieutenant. He was in the battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Mississippi, Champion Hill, and in the siege of Vicksburg. The captain of the company having been killed in the battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Mr. Durfee was promoted to be captain, his commission dating from the thirteenth of May, 1863. During the winter of 1863-4, the regiment re-en- listed as veterans. He was present at the second fight at Jackson, Mississippi, in 1864, and took part in the capture of Fort Blakely in Mobile bay, taken in April, 1865, after Lee's surrender. At Fort Blakely his regiment was the assaulting regiment, and was the first of the Union forces to enter Mobile. From Mobile his regiment was sent to Texas, where it assisted in paroling Kirby Smith's Confederate army. He was stationed at Shreveport, Loui- siana, and Marshall, Texas, till the spring of 1866, and of the latter place acted as provost marshal for four months. He was mustered out of the United States service at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the fourth of May, 1866. The regiment was dis- banded at Camp Butler, Springfield, on the sixteenth of May, 1866, five years and one month from the date of his first enlistment. He came out as third, ranking captain of his regiment in command of the colors.
After returning to Decatur he was employed by the firm of Warren and Durfee till 1871, when he engaged in the agricultural implement business in Decatur, which he has since carried on. He was married on the fifth of September, 1867, to Sarah A. Powers, daughter of George Powers, one of the early residents of Decatur. He has four children living and one deceased. He has always been a Republican.
ROBERT P. LYTLE.
ROBERT P. LYTLE was born at Waterford, Erie county, Pennsyl- vania, on the eighth of July, 1837. His education he obtained in the common schools of his native town, and in the Waterford Academy. At eighteen he secured employment in the office of the Sharon Iron Company in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, and left this position in the fall of 1857, to attend a commercial college at Buffalo, New York. In the spring of 1858 he came to New Boston, Mercer county, in this state, and was residing there at the beginning of the rebellion. He volunteered under the first call of the Presi- dent for troops, but his company was too late for acceptance. In August, 1861, he was mustered into the service as second lieutenant of company G, Twenty-seventh regiment, Illinois infantry. For gallantry at the battle of Belmont in November, 1861, he was promoted to be first lieutenant of company B. He was commisioned as captain in December, 1862. At the battle of Mission Ridge in November, 1863, he was twice severely wounded, and at Kenesaw Mountain in June, 1864, he received a musket shot in the left elbow joint, which made necessary the amputation of his arm just below the shoulder. After the war he settled at Decatur. For six years and a half he was book-keeper and cashier for the firm of William Linter & Co., and then assisted in the organization of the Decatur Coffin Company. In January, 1875, President Grant appointed him postmaster at Decatur, the duties of which office he has since discharged with great efficiency. He was married in 1864 to Elizabeth Smith of Waterford, Pennsylva- nia. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and in politics connected with the Republican party.
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