History of Macoupin County, Illinois, Part 48

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 440

USA > Illinois > Macoupin County > History of Macoupin County, Illinois > Part 48

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ARD H. DAVIS.

ard H. Davis came from Northumberland place three brothers of that name emi- Davis, his great-great-grandfather, was born Concord (then called Pencook), New Hamp of the original proprietors. His grand- in the American army during the Revolu- t Davis, was quartermaster-general of Ner st-master at Concord from 1839 to 1845. d, New Hampshire, February 25th, 1821. ge was Eliza Hall. In 1836, when sixteen ia., and learned the trade of a watchmaker d to New Hampshire, and soon afterward in unele living. He found some difficulty e, and his acquaintance with John Caren- w. West, and who had laid out the town of " to that part of Macoupin county and go r Hill in November, 1839. October 5th, under, in St. Louis, he married Jane HL Fender, who became a resident of Banker 8.

Fork, in the present Gillespie township, woved to Bunker Hill, in which part of ince 1852 he has lived on s tract of land unker Hill. Heis widely known through- uber of public positions. For seven years ars under Sheriff Henry Tappan, one . under James T. Pennington. He ws Till by James K. Polk in 1845, and re- year. Andrew Johnson appointed him .Id the office until Grant's administra- puty county assessor.

RES . of J. S.

FARMERS CUSTOM MILLS, BUNKER HILL, MACOUPIN CO., ILL. WISE & HILL, PROPS

TO:

ESTABLISHED 1875 .

FARMERS CUSTOM MILLS

RES . OF HENRY WISE

RESIDENCE.

WILLIAM FAHRENKROG, PROPRIETOR.

"DEUTSCHES GAST HAUS . BUNKER HILL, MACOUPIN CO., ILL.

STOCK FARM & RESIDENCE OF J. C. PAYNE, SEC. 10. BUNKER HILL TP., MACOUPIN CO., ILL. ( CONTAINING 321 ACRS)

ICEHOUSE

DEUTSCHES

FARM RESIDENCE OF JOHN F. BREDEN , SEC. 15. BUNKER HILL TP, MACOUPIN CO., ILL. ( CONTAINING 80 ACRES

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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

In politics he has always been a democrat, and has voted for every demo- cratic candidate for President from the time he was first old enough to exercise the right of suffrage. He has twice been elected clerk of Bunker Hill township on the democratic ticket, though the township is strongly republican. He has twice been a candidate before the democratic county convention for the nomination of sheriff, and at the convention in 1876 was the leading candidate for twenty-one ballots. He has filled every official position he has occupied with fidelity and integrity, and has many friends in all parts of the county. He has ninc children.

SAMUEL SMALLEY

WAS born in Somerset county, New Jersey, August 1st, 1815. His ances- tors came over from England in the ship Caledonia in 1716. They landed at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and settled on the Short Hills, five or six miles south of Plainfield. His grandfather, David Smalley, was a farmer in Somerset county. His two older brothers were in the Continental army during the revolutionary war, and David Smalley himself was secretary on the staff of a general officer. One brother, Jacob Smalley, commanded a New Jersey company, and the other, Isaac Smalley, was an express rider, and carried dispatches between New York city and the American army up the Hudson. After the revolution David Smalley was county judge and justice of the peace in New Jersey. Esquire Smalley's father, David D. Smalley, was born September 30th, 1782, and was a soldier in the war of 1812 with the rank of captain. He married Mary Blackford, December 3d, 1807 ; she was a native also of Somerset county. The fourth of six children was Samuel Smalley. His mother died September 12th, 1822, and his father April 26th, 1828.

After his father's death he was obliged to earn his own living, and had a home with a merchant in Morris county till he was fourteen, and then began learning the hatter's trade at Plainfield. He came to Illinois in 1837, and engaged in the business of manufacturing hats at Jerseyville. In 1841 he settled in Macoupin county. September 20th, 1842, he married Mary Dod- son, daughter of the Rev. Elijah Dodson. Her father was born in Clark county, Kentucky, in the year 1800; removed to Ohio, and married Nancy Gregg, and came to Illinois in 1822 or 1823 ; he was converted about 1826; united with the Baptist church, and soon afterward began preaching ; for several years he was employed by the Home Missionary Society ; he first came to Macoupin county in April, 1835, and built the first house ever erected on the site of Woodburn, which place was his home till his death in 1859, though he preached in other places, and was pastor of the Baptist churches at Edwardsville, Belleville, Winchester, and Bunker Hill, and was widely known as a revivalist; his wife died in October, 1877. Mrs. Smalley was born in Crawford county, Illinois, in 1824.

Esquire Smalley has been farming in the neighborhood of Woodburn since 1842. He has filled several public positions; he first served two terms as constable in Bunker Hill township, and has filled the office of justice of the peace for sixteen years. In 1878, although a decided democrat, he was chosen a member of the Board of Supervisors in the strong republican township of Bunker Hill. He is well-versed in ordinary legal business, and has frequently appeared in the management of cases before justices of the peace courts. He has had six children.

JAMES BREDEN, (DECEASED.)

ONE of the first settlers of Bunker Hill township was James Breden. He was born in the state of Virginia in October, 1784, and was the youngest of nine children, of whom five were brothers and four sisters. His father emi. grated to Virginia from Ireland. The particulars of the early family history are not known with exactness, but either his father or grandfather had been educated for the ministry of the Church of England. James Breden had very limited opportunities for getting an education. Schools in his boyhood days were few and of an inferior character, and what education he obtained was by his own efforts. He left Virginia when nineteen years of age and went to Tennessee. In that state he was married to a Miss Anderson. His home in Tennessee was White county, and he carried on a small farm and also made powder. The date of his coming to Illinois is not exactly known. On his emigration to this state he settled on Rattan's prairie, in Madison county, and resided there for several years. In March, 1827, he came to Macoupin

county and settled on section 9 of the present Bunker Hill township. What is now Macoupin county was then all wild and unsettled, and James Breden was one of the earliest pioneers. He located at the head of Wood river. Along that stream the remains of Indian lodges were still in existence. At that time no surveys had been made of the country, and when the lines came to be run his little improvement was thrown into four different sections, viz : 9, 10, 15, and 16. He subsequently entered the eighty acres in sec- tion 15, where his son, John F. Breden now lives, and which is also the house of his widow. He built a log house on this tract in which he lived till 1840, when he built the house in which he died, an illustration of which is shown on another page. His first wife died while he still lived in Madison county. In October, 1836, he married Mrs. Cynthia Ann Barrow, formerly Miss Cynthia A. Neaville.

Mrs. Breden was born in Knox county, east Tennessee, nine miles from Knoxville, in September, 1795. Her father, Enoch Neaville, was a native of South Carolina, and moved to Wayne county, Kentucky, when Mrs. Bre- den was five years old. She married William Barrow in Kentucky, 1813, and in 1817 came to Illinois while it was yet under a territorial form of government. She and her husband lived for a short time at Shawneetown and afterwards in various other parts of the state, and in 1827 came to Ma- coupin county and settled on Dry Fork, near the Bunker Hill and Carlin- ville road. Her husband, William Barrow, enlisted in the Black Hawk war; was in the campaign against the Indians in 1831, and never returned. It is supposed that he was killed while absent some distance from his com- rades.

James Breden was a man who was actively interested in public affairs, and was known by everybody in Macoupin county as "Squire Breden." He was a man of good judgment and considerable natural abilities. He was the first justice of the peace elected in the township, and filled that office for twenty-four years. He made a very faithful and satisfactory magistrate, and always endeavored to do strict justice between man and man. It is said that of all the cases he ever tried, no judgment that he himself rendered was ever reversed by the circuit court. He was also elected associate county judge, and for four years ably and conscientiously performed the duties of that office. In his politics he was a democrat, and took a deep interest in the success of that party. He was a strong admirer and supporter of Stephen A. Douglas. His personal character was excellent, and he had those old- fashioned, honest and manly traits which were peculiar to the early pioneers of that state. He had been identified with the history of the county from its first settlement, and had many warm and strong friends. He died March 10th, 1863.

He had in all, eight children, of whom four are now living. Wiley Bre- den, the oldest son, resides at Woodburn. Dorcas married Charles McPeak, and is now living in Maquoketa, Iowa. John F. Breden, the youngest son, lives on the old homestead farm. Maria is the wife of William C. Vaucom, of Woodburn. Mrs. Breden is still living, and is now one of the oldest set- tlers of Macoupin county, having been in the county since 1827. She is in her eighty-fifth year, but is still hearty and vigorous, and performs her house- hold duties with a sprightliness which would not be discreditable to a girl of sixteen. She remembers, with great distinctnesss, incidents which occurred eighty years ago.

JOHN C. PAYNE.

MR. PAYNE is a native of the state of Kentucky, and was born at Lexing- ton, on the 2d of February, 1831. His grandfather was from Virginia, and settled in Kentucky, in the vicinity of Lexington, at an early date. His father was Sandford K. Payne, and his mother's maiden name was Frances Cragg. His father was born near Lexington, and his mother in Woodford county, Kentucky. When Mr. Payne was seven or eight years of age, his father moved to Shelbyville, Kentucky, and there purchased a farm, and carried on a hotel and livery stable. The death of his mother occurred in February, 1841, and Mr. Payne lived one winter with an uncle near Louis- ville, Kentucky. The family subsequently lived in Yazoo City, Mississippi, where his father married again, and carried on a plantation and raised cot- ton. His sister, Nancy, having married Basil H. Dorsey, he came with her to Illinois in 1841, and lived with her in Dorchester township, and afterward went back to Mississippi. His father moved to Milliken's Bend, Madison Parish, Louisiana, and Mr. Payne lived there till 1848, when he came to Macoupin county, where he has been living ever since. In 1849, he bought

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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

land, which now comprises part of his present farm, two miles north-west of Bunker Hill. He built a house and went to farming, his father coming to this state and living with him. April 30th, 1854, he married Eliza Cherry, daughter of Elijah Cherry. She was born in Tennessee, and before coming to Illinois had lived in Missouri.

When he commenced farming, he had but scanty means, and was obliged to rely on his own industry and economy to get along as best he could. His only capital which he had to begin with was a pony, which he traded off, and thus gradually secured money with which to buy his first twenty acres of land. He was successful in farming and trading, and as he obtained command of more money invested it in land. He is now the owner of one of the best stocked farms in Macoupin county, composed of three hundred and twenty-one acres, and having an attractive location in Bunker Hill township. This land he bought in several different pieces, and he has for it nine different deeds. His present residence is the town of Bunker Hill, where, since August 1st, 1878, he has been engaged in the livery business, as proprietor of the Monument House stables. His farm is carried on by his oldest son. He has four children : Sandford K. Payne, Thomas Payne, Emma Payne, and Lizzie Payne. All his life he has been a member of the democratic party, although his father was a whig. He is a man who is well known in the southern part of the county. He is one of those substan- tial citizens who began at the lowest round of the ladder, and have worked their way to a position of comfortable independence by a life of industry and economy, and have commanded the respect of the community by the practice of strict honesty, the prompt payment of their obligations, and the exercise of a genial good nature.

AARON F. CARTER,-(DECEASED),

A FORMER resident of Bunker Hill, was born at Madison, Morris county, New Jersey, September 20th, 1808; he was raised in New Jersey. April 29th, 1832, he married Sarah B. Smalley, who was born near Plainfield, New Jersey, December 7th, 1810. In 1840 he and his wife emigrated to Illinois, reaching Jerseyville the spring of that year, and the next fall settling in Bunker Hill township, Macoupin county. He improved several farms in the neighborhood of Bunker Hill and Woodburn ; at one time was post-master at Woodburn ; moved to the town of Bunker Hill about 1856, and in 1859 to the location where he died, and where his widow now resides, east of Bunker Hill. He died October 25th, 1870. He was a man of con- siderable energy and great industry, and did much to improve the country, having brought into cultivation a number of farms. He experienced religion in 1843, and was an active and zealous member of the Methodist church. He was superintendent of Sunday-schools at Jerseyville, Woodburn, and Bunker Hill, and was an exhorter and class-leader. He was always willing to do what he could to advance the cause of Christianity, and frequently addressed large assemblies at revival meetings and other religious occasions. An illustration of his former residence is shown on another page.

JACKSON SISSON

WAS born in Culpepper county, Virginia, Oct. 17th, 1817, and has lived in Macoupin county since 1837. His father's name was Abner Sisson. The family were among the early settlers of Virginia, and lived there before the Revolutionary war. His father and grandfather were large farmers, and men of substantial means. His grandfather embarked largely in specula- tion and lost a portion of his wealth. The finances of the country were in a disordered condition after the Revolutionary war, and fortunes were easily lost. Mr. Sisson has heard his uncle say that after the Revolution was ended, he paid as much as sixty thousand dollars in the depreciated cur- reney of the times to buy a bushel of salt. When the subject of this bio- graphy was about four years old his father moved with the family to Jeffer- son county, Kentucky, and settled on Pennsylvania run, a few miles from Louisville. His father died about a year after going to Kentucky. Mr. Sisson was principally raised in Kentucky. In those days children attended school about three months, in the winter, and then forgot all they knew the next summer. In 1837 the family came to Illinois, arriving in Macoupin county November 1st, and settling on the farm, on which has since been built the principal part of the town of Gillespie. They bought 640 acres of unimproved land at two dollars and a half an acre. Mr. Sisson was then twenty years old. He and his brother, John Sisson, was living in Jersey

county, and went to work to improve this land. He was married February 1st, 1849, to Mrs. Nannie C. Dorsey, widow of Basil H. Dorsey. Her maiden name was Nannie C. Payne; she was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, two miles from Ashland, the birth-place of Henry Clay, July 28th, 1824, and was the daughter of Sandford K. Payne. She first came to Illinois in 1844, when nineteen years old. Mr. Sisson was farming in Gillespie town- ship till the fall of 1849, and then moved on his present farm in section ten of Bunker Hill township, a mile and a half north-west of Bunker Hill. When he moved on this farm, which now consists of 150 acres, only eighteen acres were improved. He has been living there from that time to the pre- sent. He has six children now living. Their names are as follows : Ed- ward A. ; Fannie C. now the wife of William Roberts; T. Abner, Monroe G., John W. and Silas B. Mr. Sisson was first a whig in politics, and an admirer of Henry Clay, as were most persons who lived in Kentucky. He first voted for Harrison in 1840. When the whig organization went to pieces he became a democrat, and votes with that party. He is one of the old citizens of the southern part of Macoupin county, and a man of quiet and unassuming disposition, who is content with being a farmer, and has never aspired to fill a public office.

WILLIAM O. JENCKS.

WILLIAM O. JENCKS, who has been a resident of Bunker Hill for the last quarter of a century, was born in Providence county, Rhode Island, Sep- tember 19th, 1824. His forefathers had been living in Rhode Island from the first settling of that country. His ancestry is traced back to Joseph Jencks, who was governor of Rhode Island under the British crown. His grandfather, Samuel Jencks, and his maternal grandfather, James Tyler, were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, and served faithfully in the memora- ble struggle of the colonies for their independence. His grandfather, Tyler, was one of the party who disguised themselves as Indians and threw over- board the tea in Boston harbor. His father's name was Joseph Jencks, and his mother's maiden name Esther Tyler. His father was the founder of the Smithville seminary at Scituate, Rhode Island. When he started this school it was called the Pond Factory academy, and has since grown to be a large and flourishing institution. His father was principal of it till his death, on the 3d of August, 1827. William O. Jencks was the youngest of ten children. He has one brother and three sisters living, all residing within a short distance of their early home. He was nearly three years old when his father died. He obtained a good education in the common schools and at the Smithville seminary. He mastered the trade of a carriage maker in all its branches. In early life he suffered much from weakness and deli- cacy of constitution. He lived in Windham county, Connecticut, from 1845 to 1847. The latter year he came west. From Chicago he went to St. Louis, and there took a boat up the Mississippi to St. Paul, in Minnesota territory. All that country was then wild and unsettled. At St. Paul he put up the second store ever built in that town, and sold ready-made cloth- ing for the Boston and Iowa Trading company, of which he was one of the members. Not finding much improvement in his health while in that busi- ness, he determined to try what life among the Indians would do for his benefit. He had learned the Indian language with the Sioux about St. Paul, and in the spring of 1849 went off with Big Six and his band to the plains, on a buffalo hunt. He was absent all summer, and returned to St. Paul the following October. The succeeding winter was also spent in hunt- ing and camping with the Indians. He learned the Indian language com- pletely and spoke it almost as fluently as the savages themselves. He kept on good terms with the Indians, and managed to spend a few months as pleasantly as could be expected of a civilized man. He returned to St. Louis Christmas eve, 1849. His health had become better and his consti- tution stronger. He found employment in a carriage shop in St. Louis, where, with the exception of a few months spent in traveling in Kansas and Texas, he worked till 1854. In October, 1854, he came to Woodburn, and the following Christmas, went to Bunker Hill, where he has since lived. January 8th, 1857, he was married to Martha Lewellen, daughter of Green Lewellen. She was born in Bedford county, Virginia. After he was mar- ried he erected a shop in Bunker Hill and has carried on the carriage mak- ing business ever since. In 1870 he also engaged in the livery business. He has been a man of considerable enterprise and energy, and has been suc- cessful in business. On the incorporation of Bunker Hill he was appointed the first collector and constable. For four years, from 1869 to 1873, he

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THE FARM RESIDENCE OF JAMES T. PENNINGTON , SEC. 9. BUNKER HILL TP., MACOUPIN CO., ILL.

THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. S. B. CARTER , SEC .13. BUNKER HILL TP., MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILL.

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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

filled the office of justice of the peace. He was elected magistrate three times, but only qualified once. He was once a democrat in politics, but be- came dissatisfied with the cause of the party in regard to the admission into the Union of Kansas and Nebraska. He was opposed to the extension of slavery in the territories, and became a republican, and in 1856 voted for Gen. Fremont for president. When the rebellion broke out he volunteered and enlisted in company F seventh Illinois regiment. He was first lieuten- ant of his company. Since 1868 he has been a member of the Bunker Hill Methodist church, and has been one of the leading members of that denomi- nation in Bunker Hill, serving as class leader and trustee and holding other official positions. He has four children living and four dead. He has been actively interested in the order of Odd Fellows, and for nine years has been representative in the grand lodge of Illinois.

JAMES T. PENNINGTON

WAS born at Liberty Corner, Somerset county, New Jersey, May 26th, 1818. The Pennington family has descended from two brothers, who emigrated from Scotland to New Jersey. His grandfather, John Pennington, was a lieutenant in one of the New Jersey regiments during the revolutionary war. His father was Elijah Pennington, and his mother, Martha Todd. When seventeen, he became an apprentice at the carpenter's trade. He came to Illinois in the spring of 1839. After working at Brighton, Alton, and in Jersey county, in 1841 he settled on his present farm. August, 1841, he married Cynthia Bullman, also a native of Somerset county, New Jersey. He has been a democrat in politics. Soon after coming to the county he was elected justice of the peace; but after holding the office a year, he resigned. In 1860 he was elected representative in the legislature, and was a member of that body during the exciting period of the opening of the war of the rebellion. All the different measures for the raising of troops and the furnishing of supplies received his hearty support, as did all other mea- sures looking to the suppression of the rebellion. In 1871 he was chosen the first member of the Board of Supervisors from Bunker Hill township.

He was elected sheriff of Macoupin county in 1872, and was re-elected in 1874. He has five children living, and two who died in infancy. He is well-known throughout the county, and his genial and social manners have made him hosts of friends.

J. G. BENNER.

MR. BENNER, one of the enterprising farmers of Bunker Hill township, was born near Marburgh, Hesse Cassel, Germany, March 29th, 1836; son of John Benner and Mary Urbach. In the spring of 1848, his father emi- grated with the family from Germany to America. Crossing the Atlantic, they landed at New Orleans, and came up the Mississippi and Ohio to Louis- ville, Kentucky. After living in that city one year, the family moved to New Albany, Indiana, and two years afterward back to Louisville. Mr. Benner was the third of a family of five children. He was twelve years old when he came to this country. He had gone to school quite regularly in Germany, but in America attended an English school less than two months in the city of Louisville. While in Louisville, he learned the trade of a butcher with his brother. He moved to Utica, Indiana, in 1853, and was employed in a mill and lime-kiln till 1856, when he embarked in the butch- ering business on his own account. May 19th, 1857, he married Charlotte W. Bartels, who is a native of Germany, and came to America in 1852. He commenced business with but little capital, having just enough money with which to purchase a single cow. By industry and economy, he managed to succeed, and having accumulated sufficient money, determined to buy & farm and go to farming. He came to Macoupin county in December, 1864, and bought the farm which he now owns, in sections twenty and twenty-two, Bunker Hill township. He owns three hundred and twenty acres of land. His children are: Mary W., Charles C., S. Theodore, Ellen, Lydia, Emma, William J., and Annie. He was a democrat till during the war of the rebellion, when he became a republican. He has been an enterprising farmer, and a man who won success by his own industry. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church at Fostersburg, in Madison county.

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History of Macoupin County, Illinois, Part 48

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 440

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 440