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 42
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RESIDENCE OF J. W. RACE, DECATUR, ILLINOIS.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
ter to Syracuse on the Auburn division. In 1867, he accepted a position with the Toledo, Wabash and Western road, and became a resident of Decatur. He now has charge of the tracks of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific railway from Danville to St. Louis, including the Edwardsville branch, in all one hundred and ninety- one miles. He has made an efficient railroad man. His first marriage was in March, 1848, to Catharine R. Tanner, of Anister- dam, New York, who died at Syracuse, in 1854. His second wife was Julia F. Bush, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who died at Decatur, in 1870. June 24th, 1873, he married Henrietta Dunham, of Decatur. He has always been a democrat, though in local elec- tions he votes for the man whom he considers best fitted for the office. The only republican candidate for president whom he ever supported was Abraham Lincoln, in 1864. He is connected with the Masonic organization, and is a member of Beaumanoir Command- ery, No. 9, at Decatur.
DAVID MARTIN.
AMONG the older business men of Decatur is David Martin, who became a resident of the town in 1858, but whose business trans- actions with the county date back to 1842. He is a Kentuckian by birth, and was born within six miles of Paris, in Bourbon county, on the first of April, 1820. Aaron Martin, his grandfather, was a Virginian, who served on the side of the colonies during the Revo- lutionary war. The Martin family was of English descent, and among the early settlers of Virginia, locating on the James river. About the year 1790 Aaron Martin moved with his family from Virginia to Kentucky, and settled in what became Bourbon county. This was at a time when the Indians were yet numerous, and in some parts of the state gave great trouble to the pioneer white settlers. Mr. Martin's father, James Martin, was born in Virginia on the eighth of March, 1783, and consequently was about seven years old when the family took up its residence in Kentucky. He was raised in Bourbon county, and married Catharine Layton, a native of the state of Delaware, and daughter of David Layton, one of the early settlers of Bourbon county. His marriage occurred about the year 1808. In the fall of 1829 James Martin emigrated to Clark county, Indiana, where he remained till the fall of 1835 and then moved to Sangamon county, in this state, and settled near Rochester, where he lived till his death on the twenty-seventh of August, 1857. Mr. Martin's mother died in Bourbon county, Kentucky, in the spring of 1829.
David Martin was the fifth of seven children by his father's first marriage. He was nine years old when the family left Kentucky. On account of the defective eyesight with which he was born, he was unable to enjoy the school facilities which fell to the lot of most boys. He, however, went to school some time in Indiana. He was fifteen when he came to Sangamon county, in this state. In the year 1840, when he was twenty years old, he began work for a man in the lime business in Sangamon county, and has ever since been engaged in dealing in lime. In 1842 he began to burn lime for himself, and had a kiln in the north-west corner of Christian county, twelve miles from Springfield and twenty-eight from Decatur. This was in the day before railroads were in operation, and farmers were accustomed to haul their wheat to Springfield and Beardstown. Mr. Martin sold lime in Macon county as early as 1842, the farmers stopping at his kiln for a load of lime on their return home. The most of the lime with which to construct a great part of the early buildings in Decatur came from his kiln. After running this kiln ten years he concluded to go into business on a larger scale, and in 1853 moved to Alton and went into the business of manufacturing
lime extensively. In 1855 he bought out the leading manufacturer at Alton, and operated the first Page patent kiln ever put up in that town. While in business at Alton he supplied with lime Decatur, Springfield, Pcoria, Bloomington, Clinton and Champaign in this state and also made shipments along the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Paul. Edward Ulrich, of Springfield, was his partner, and the firm was known as D. Martin & Co. Their sales amounted to two hundred thousand barrels a year. The losses with which the firm met in the financial crisis of 1857 crippled their business at Alton, and in 1858 Mr. Martin established himself at Decatur. August, 1859, he bought back an interest in the business at Alton, which he retained till March, 1865. Since 1858 he has carried on business at Decatur. From 1858 to 1869 thirteen other parties entered into the lime business in opposition at Decatur, but since the latter year he has had no competitor. His business is both wholesale and retail, and besides Decatur he supplies many of the adjacent smaller towns. According to gentlemen acquainted with the lime business, he has the best arranged buildings for handling and keeping his stock to be found in any western state. He keeps full supplies of lime, hair, plaster, cement and Frear stone.
He was married on the first of April, 1858, to Miss Sophie Granger, a native of Palmer, Hampden county, Massachusetts. She was living at Clinton, De Witt county, at the time of her marriage. He has had four children, Louisa, Edward, Lucy, who died at the age of four years, and Annie. In his politics he was raised an Old Line Whig, and cast his first vote for President for that great Ken- tucky statesman and champion of the Whig party-Henry Clay. The great speech of Abraham Lincoln, at Springfield, in 1854, in reply to Douglas, made him a Republican, and he is still a firm believer in the principles of that party through whose agency slavery was abolished and the Union saved. His time has been devoted to his personal business, and he has never been a candidate for any office. He has been a member of the Methodist Church since 1838.
I. B. GRING.
I. B. GRING is one of the oldest residents of Macon county, and for a number of years was employed in milling, at Decatur. He comes from Welsh stock. His great-grandfather, Daniel Gring, emigrated from Wales to America, and settled in Pennsylvania at a period previous to the revolutionary war. His grandfather, John Gring, was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, married and moved to Franklin county, in the same state. In that county Mr. Gring's father, Daniel Gring, was born. He was raised in Frank- lin county, and on reaching manhood married Fannie Bear, who was born within four miles of Carlisle, in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and was the daughter of Samuel Bear, who had come to that state from Canada at an early day. After his marriage, Mr. Gring's father settled down in Cumberland county on a farm and lived there the remainder of his life. I. B. Gring was born in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the thirty-first of March, 1825, and was the oldest of a family of six children. His birth- place was four miles west of Carlisle, in the Cumberland valley. He was raised in the same neighborhood, and attended the ordinary public schools. His boyhood was spent in the days before rail- roads were in general operation, and he was accustomed to make frequent trips by wagon to Baltimore and Philadelphia, to dispose of the farm produce and lay in a stock of goods for family use. He remembers when the first railroad train made its appearance in the Cumberland valley, and what a wonder it created among the in- habitants of the surrounding country, who flocked to see the novel
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
spectacle. At the age of twenty-one he left the farm and under- took to learn the trade of a miller, in a mill situated not far from his home. He worked at the milling business after that till he came West.
In the year 1850, he received a proposition to come to Decatur and take charge of a steam mill, which had been erected by Orlando Powers. He accepted. On his arrival in Decatur he found it a small place, and at first thought it offered poor prospects as an ad- vantageous place for residence. The mill, which began operations in June, 1851, was the first steam flouring mill ever established in Decatur. It stood south of the town, and years ago was destroyed by fire. Although the ownership of the mill ineanwhile passed through several different hands, Mr. Gring had charge of it for fif- teen years. About the year 1861, he bought land west of Decatur on the Springfield road, and in 1865 moved to this farm and began farming. He now owns one hundred and eighty acres three miles west of the town. His marriage took place in Decatur in April, 1854, to Salinda Bates, daughter of Frederick Bates. Mrs. Gring was born in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the opposite side of the Susquehanna, from Harrisburg. Her father died in Pennsylvania. She came to this county and settled in Decatur in the year 1851. Mr. and Mrs. Gring have been the parents of five children. David M. C. Gring, the oldest son, died on the fifteenth of September, 1877, at the age of twenty-two years. Chas. C. Gring is engaged in farming near Decatur. The three younger sons, William D., Franklin and Lewis, still reside at home. Mr. Gring was brought up in Pennsylvania to believe in the doctrines of the old Whig party, and when he became old enough to vote supported for President in 1848, Gen. Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mex- ican war. When new parties were formed with the question of slavery, as the issue between them, he became a republican, as- sisted by his vote to place Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential chair in 1861, and has been a republican ever since. When he came to Decatur it was a place of small size and importance, with- out railroad communication, and with little evidence of the sub- stantial prosperity to which it has since attained. He was one of the first aldermen elected after it became a chartered city, repre- senting the fourth ward. For some time after he came to the county, the mill which he managed at Decatur, was the only one that could be relied on, and was patronized for a distance of fifty miles. The other mills were run by water and horse-power, and could do but little steady grinding.
KILBURN HARWOOD.
KILBURN HARWOOD, agent at Decatur of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company, was born at Ashburnham, Worces- ter county, Massachusetts, on the sixth of September, 1838. The history of the Harwood family in America dates back to an early period in the annals of New England, when thrce brothers of that name emigrated from England to Massachusetts. From these three brothers the family has spread to different parts of the United States, and now embraces many members. After residing many years in Massachusetts, the immediate ancestors of the subject of this biography removed to New Hampshire, in which state Kilburn Harwood, his father, was born. In Rockingham county, New Hampshire, he married Sallie Buss, and subsequently became a resident of Worcester county, Massachusetts. At Fitchburg, the seat of one of the two court-houses of Worcester county, Mr. Har- wood's father acted as sheriff for a number of years ; he was a man of considerable influence, and was a member of the legislature from
Worcester county for two terms. The subject of this sketch was about the age of six when the family took up its residence at Fitch- burg, in the year 1844. He obtained a good education in the public schools, leaving the Fitchburg high school when he was fourteen years old to begin life on his own account. At seventeen he entered the employment of the American Rattan Company at Fitchburg, and remained with them till the breaking out of the war of the rebellion.
In July, 1861, he enlisted in Company B of the Fifteenth Mas- sachusetts Regiment. This regiment formed a part of the Army of the Potomac. He took part in the battle of Ball's Bluff, and was in General Mcclellan's campaign on the Peninsula in 1862. He was present at the battles of Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Savage Station, and Malvern Hill. At White Oak Swamp he received a serious wound in his left arm. In 1863, after his recovery, he was placed in charge of the rebel prisoners at the West Buildings, in Baltimore, in which position he was retained till the close of the war, though he was mustered out in August, 1864. He left the United States service on the 26th of May, 1866. He then came west, and settled at Decatur. He was first employed in the law office of Nelson & Roby, and afterward became book-keeper for Mahlon Haworth, who then carried on the grain business. In November, 1868, he entered the office of the Wabash Railway Company at Decatur. In 1870 he was placed in charge of the ticket office, and since 1876 has acted as agent of the company at Decatur, having general charge of the company's business in both the ticket and freight departments.
His marriage took place on the second of September, 1879, to Miss S. C. Reeme, a native of Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, but a resident of Decatur at the time of her marriage. In his politics he is a member of the republican party. In 1876 he was elected a member of the city council from the Fifth ward, of which he was then a resident ; and in 1878 was chosen to represent the First ward in the same body. Mr. Harwood is a man of good business capacity, and occupies a responsible position. The business of the railway company at Decatur, which passes through his hands, amounts annually to about half a million dollars.
A. C. EDGAR.
THIS gentleman, who has been supervisor of Niantic township since the spring of 1876, is a native of Cass county, Illinois, and was born on the twelfth of May, 1845. On his father's side his an- cestors were Irish. His grandfather emigrated from Ireland to America, and his father, George Edgar, was born in Kentucky. He finally moved from Kentucky to Illinois, and settled in Schuy- ler county, where his father married Elizabeth Hall, who was also a native of the state of Kentucky. In 1849, at the discovery of gold in California, his father went to the new gold regions, and was absent sixteen years, when he returned to Illinois, where he died. A. C. Edgar was the next to the youngest of a family of four chil- dren. His boyhood was spent in Cass and Schuyler counties, his mother moving with her family to Schuyler county and living there several years, and then returning to Cass county. He at- tended school only to a limited extent. For most of his education he was obliged to rely on his own efforts, picking up his know- ledge as best he could. The family were in limited circumstan- ces, and from early childhood he was obliged to work to help gain a support for the family. On the third of September, 1868, he married Julia Cook of Cass county. In the spring of 1869 he moved to Macon county, and with moncy he had earned in Cass
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
county, purchased cighty acres of land in section twenty-eight, of township seventeen, range one west. He moved on this tract and began improving it, and has since been engaged in farming in Niantic township. He is now the owner of one hundred and sixty acres of land, part of which lies in the adjoining section twenty-sev- en. The death of his first wife occurred in January, 1875. His second marriage took place in February, 1878, to Eliza Ford, who was born in the state of Arkansas. Her father, Elias Ford, was a Kentuckian by birth. He has had five children of whom three, Horace, Nevada and Effie May, are now living. The youngest child is by his present marriage. One child, Travis, died at the age of seven years, and another, Alonzo, by his first wife, died in infancy. In his politics he has always been a democrat, and in general elec- tions has always been consistent in the support of the democratic ticket. He cast his first vote for President for Horatio Seymour in 1868. He is a man who is much respected for his honesty and in- tegrity, and the people of Niantic township have elected him sever- al times to different positions. He was first elected a member of the board of supervisors in 1876, and has since been re-elected to that office every successive year. He has filled the position to the satis- faction of the citizens of his part of the county, and has retained the confidence of the community. Mr. Edgar is a self-made man. He began at the lowest round of the ladder, and what he has accom- plished is the result of his own industry and energy.
HENRY B. DURFEE, (DECEASED),
A FORMER citizen of Decatur, was born in Washington county, Ohio, on the twenty-sixth of March, 1820. During the same year his father died, and his mother only lived four years afterward. He was descended from English stock. His ancestor, Thomas Durfee, emigrated to the colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1660, and settled at Fall River, where many of his descendants still reside. The subject of this sketch grew to manhood in Ohio. In his early days he taught school, and during his spare moments read law. He was admitted to the bar, but never practiced the profession, preferring to work at the mechanical trade which he had learned, that of a cabinet-maker, and at which he excelled.
In the year 1849 he came to this state, settled at Decatur, and soon became closely identified with the interests of the embryo city. From that time to his death his history was but a history of Decatur and Macon county. He was active in every enterprise, and intimately connected with every interest that promised to ben- efit the town and county. As early as 1857 he was a member of the city council, in which he served also in 1875, 1876 and 1878. On the adoption of township organization he was elected the first member of the board of supervisors from Decatur township, serving as president of the board, a position to which afterwards he was frequently chosen. When the state board of equalization was in- stituted, during the administration of Governor Oglesby, he was appointed the member for the district in which Macon county was included, and was subsequently elected to serve one term. He took an active interest in everything pertaining to free-schools, and at the time of his death had been a member of the board of edu- cation, almost continuously for fifteen years. He was an active Odd Fellow, and was a member of Ionic Masonic lodge, Macon chapter of Royal Arch Masons and Beaumanoir Commandery, Knights Templar.
He was one of the comparatively few who are endowed with those qualities of mind and heart which make an active public benefactor. It was apparent, as he advanced in years that the
natural desire for personal gain was subordinated to the considera- tion of questions concerning the public good. The improvement and advancement of home interests was a constant subject of . thought and attention. In fact a competence gained by business sagacity and earnest labor in earlier years, was finally sacrificed in the attempt to re-establish an industry, the success of which he decined vital to the prosperity of Decatur. He was a positive, earnest, whole-souled, hard-working man of transparent integrity of purpose, firm in his friendships, and ever ready to lend a help- ing hand to the struggling and unfortunate. Hence it seemed on the day of his burial as though the entire community were moved with grief at a loss which was personal to each, and attested in a universal tribute of sorrow their estimate of the worth, and their veneration for the memory of a true man and friend of the people. His death occurred after a brief illness on the seventeenth or March, 1880. His loss was universally lamented by poor and rich alike, and it may be said with safety that no name is better, or more honorably known in Decatur and Macon county than was his.
GEORGE P. BLUME.
GEORGE P. BLUME, one of the younger business men of Decatur, was born in Alsace, Germany, January fourth, 1852. Soon after his birth his parents removed to America. The family lived in Chicago two years, and then removed to Dayton, Ohio, where his father and mother still reside. Mr. Blume was raised in Decatur, learned the trade of a car painter and machinist, which he followed till 1869, when he entered the employment of the Singer Manufac- turing Company at Evansville, Indiana, where he lived till 1872, and then became a resident of Decatur. In 1876 he took entire charge of the business of the Singer Manufacturing Company at Decatur. Under his management the Singer machine has been thoroughly introduced to the public, and has secured great populari- ty. He has under his charge the business in Macon, Piatt and De Witt counties, with branch offices at Farmer City, Clinton and Monticello. The annual sales amount to ten thousand machines. On an average seventeen men are employed. Twelve wagons and twenty-nine horses are used, most of which are the individual pro- perty of Mr. Blume. A competent machinist is kept at Decatur to repair all machines, and a full line of supplies and attachments are always on hand.
EDWARD HARPSTRITE
WAS born near Ettenheim in Baden, February eighteenth, 1828. In 1833, his father, John B. Harpstrite, came with the family to America, and after residing a short time in Pennsylvania, two years at Dayton, Ohio, and then at Delphi, and near Terre-Haute, In- diana, in 1844 settled near Lebanon in Clinton county, Illinois. Mr. Harpstrite was sixteen when he came to this state. In 1825 he married Dorothea C. Rubsamen of St. Clair county, and began farming for himself in Clinton county. In 1855 he moved to a farm in Wheatland township, six miles south of Decatur. In 1860 he engaged in the brewing business at Decatur, purchasing a small brewery. In 1865 he formed his present partnership with Henry Schlaudeman. Various improvements have been made, and the De- catur steam Brewery is now one of the completest establishments of the kind in the state. His wife died in October, 1876. He has eight children living. He is a democrat, and in 1880 received the democratic nonination as member of the Board of Equalization from the fourteenth Congressional district. He has twice repre- sented his ward in the city council.
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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
EDWIN R. ELDRIDGE.
THIS gentleman who has been engaged in the practice of law in Macon county since 1870, is a native of Indiana, and was born in Ripley county of that state on the thirty-first of July, 1844. His father's ancestors were early residents of New York. His great- grandfather was a soldier in the colonial army during the Revolu- tionary war. His grandfather, John Eldridge, was one of the early settlers of Sullivan county, New York, and an intimate acquaint- ance of Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston, who were among the distinguished men of the Empire state in that day. He had eight children, seven sons and one daughter, of whom the somewhat remarkable fact may be stated that, with the exception of one who died at the age of sixty-six, all are now living. One of these sons was Dr. Edwin Eldridge, who for a number of years practiced medicine at Binghampton and afterward at Elmira, New York ; constructed part of the Erie railway ; acquired considerable wealth ; and was the founder of Eldridge park at Elmira. The youngest of the children now living is fifty years of age.
Robert W. Eldridge, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Sullivan county, New York, and married Sarah M. Hunt, whose birth occurred in Ulster county, at the Overlook, at the base of the Catskill mountains. Edwin R. Eldridge was the youngest of five children by this marriage, and the only son. In 1841, three years previous to his birth, his father had moved from the state of New York to Ripley county, Indiana. Mr. Eldridge lived here till twelve years old. The part of Indiana in which the family lived was comparatively well-settled, but the school system was very defective. The schools were subscription schools held in log school- houses for a short period only in the year, and offered scant educa- tional advantages in comparison with those of the present day. His mother had died when he was three years and a half old. In 1856 the family removed to Washington, in Tazewell county, twelve miles east of Peoria. Here he had better facilities for getting an education. In his thirteenth year he undertook to learn the print- ing business in the office of the Washington Herald, but abandoned it on account of his health. In 1858 he went to reside with a brother-in-law, a merchant in the town of Fairburg in Livingston
county. Attending school during the winter of 1858-9, the next spring he entered a drug store in Fairburg in which he was em- ployed four years. One of the conditions of his going into the drug store was, that he should attend school four months in the winter, during the first two years. For one year, while his employer was in the army, he had exclusive charge of the store.
In September, 1863, lie became a student at Eureka college in Woodford county, and the next spring, when under twenty, enlisted in the 139th Regiment Illinois Infantry. He was appointed hospi- tal steward. He was stationed about three months at Cairo, and the remainder of his term of service was in Kentucky and Missouri, participating in the campaign against the Confederate Gen. Price in the latter state. He came back to Illinois in the fall of 1864, and the subsequent 'spring returned to Eureka college, where he pur- sued the full four years course of study, graduating in 1869. He had begun the study of law while in college. In 1869 he entered the law-office of Elijah Plank at Fairburg, and was admitted to the bar on the twenty-second of January, 1870. On the ninth of Au- gust, 1869, he was married to Miss Minnie Rucker, daughter of James C. Rucker, one of the leading citizens of Long Creek town- ship in this county. In May, 1870, he opened a law office at Ma- roa, where he practiced till 1872, when he removed to Decatur. From 1872 to 1875 lie was in partnership with H. L. Odor; since 1875 he has been associated with J. C. Hostetler. Anthony Thorn- ton, formerly one of the supreme judges of the state, is now also a member of the firm, which has a fair share of the legal business in this part of the state.
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