History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 57

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1424

USA > Illinois > Mercer County > History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc > Part 57
USA > Illinois > Henderson County > History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc > Part 57

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child to the Willits. In that house court was held when New Boston was the county seat and there the court and jury were boarded and lodged. The beds, etc., served as seats and the floors were their beds. Mrs. W. did her cooking in a cabin near by. The young cattle brought with them were slaughtered for food, a scarce article that year. A small stock of goods had been brought with them, such as groceries, paints, medicines, liquors, etc. With these merchandising was begun, which grew into a very lucrative business. Win. Drury was for years Mr. Willits' partner. Soon Mr. Willits added to his home and with differ- ent additions the house became large. The frame is now owned by Henry Denison. During these early days Mrs. Willits, to aid in for- tune, did washing and ironing for the young men of that day ; also made pants, vests, etc. A man and a woman had been hired to do the baking for the trade, but they quitting, Mrs. Willits undertook it. She had an oven made, constructed of straw, shavings, mud, ete., and plastered with mud, then burned, as there were no brick. She paid for this from her own earnings. She also paid for her first cook stove by her own efforts. Mr. Willits, two years after opening his store, declared he would sell no more liquors to his neighbors, making them drunk, but would put in a supply of dry goods instead. He con- tinued in trade many years. He also became engaged in mer- chandising in Millersburg a short time. He was extensively and many years engaged in the lumber business, trading in land, buy- ing grain, packing pork, contract building, erecting a number of buildings in New Boston. It is unnecessary to speak here of his laying out the town of Aledo; of his founding, in connection with Judge John S. Thompson, a college for the Presbyterians and one for the Methodists, the foundation of the latter being laid and material ready, at his death ; of his building the Barton hotel, and various other buildings. All this will be found in the history of Aledo. No doubt his exposures to water in laying out the town at the time he did, caused, in some degree, the rheumatism that brought on his sickness. He spent much of his time in Aledo the last year or two of his life. He returned to his home in New Boston to entertain friends, and while there was taken ill. He recovered somewhat, but moving about too much, he took a relapse, had a chill on Thurs- day, and on the following Tuesday died of inflamatory rheumatism, March 2, 1858. On the following Friday evening a large concourse of people gathered at the court-house in Aledo and passed resolutions of respect for him and admiration of his character. He was not a church member, yet was considered a good man. His house was always open to ministers and christians generally. The evening before his death

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he called for a glass of water and holding it up, beautifully remarked : "Before to-morrow morning I shall be drinking purer water than that." He died before morning. He was always interested in the educational and general good of the people. In politics he had been a wliig. but was a republican before he died. Five children had preceded him to the grave, all he had. One child of James Thompson, at its mother's death, had been taken to raise. It had died. Four children of Har- riet Willits had also found a father and mother in the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Levi Willits. One died in her fourteenth year. The others were well educated and provided for in his will. Mr. Willits' good works live after him, but not as they would had he been spared to fur- ther prosecute his designs. Disease deprived the people of a noble mind, warm heart and willing hands. His works cannot be individu- alized in the space allotted here.

JOHN GEIGER. The frosts of sixty-eight winters have whitened the hair of Mr. Geiger, but in mind and body he is still vigorous and capa- ble. His maternal grandparents were German. His father's people were of South Carolina, but of German extraction. His father, John Geiger, was born and raised in Martinsburg, Virginia, but became a resident of Maryland. He became a soldier in the war of 1812. Shortly after the war closed he removed to the southern part of Bed- ford county, Pennsylvania. Exposure and hardships incident to army life brought on pleurisy, progressing with consumption, and terminat- ing in death about 1825 or 1826. He was not a strong man at any time. His wife, Elizabeth Kable, sons and daughters, after remaining in Hancock, Maryland, a few years, settled in Marion county, Ohio, where she, her sons (but John) and one daughter, have since died. John Geiger was born in Williamsport, Maryland, January 15, 1814, while his father was yet fighting the British. He was quite young when his parents moved to Bedford county. There, on the Little Licking river, under the shadow of one of the high eastern ridges of the Allegheny mountains, he passed his youth till seventeen years of age. He says, in speaking of his school days : "Naturally studious and of a somewhat retentive memory, I led my friends and teachers to think me precocious. So I was unmercifully pushed deep into the intricate parts of arithmetic before twelve years old. But by the im- perfect methods of teaching that prevailed at that time, I understood nothing of consequence beyond the operations of the ground rules." He further says: "Aided by some adverse circumstances, I escaped further attendance at school until nineteen years of age." In 1831, young Geiger, in company with his oldest sister and her husband, Daniel Linn, crossed the Allegheny mountains via the national turn-

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pike road to Ohio, assisting at times in caring for the team or driving. At that time the northwest and much of the interior of the state was wild and thinly settled. A new country presented dreary prospects to a lad seventeen years old, with naught of wealth to assist. But the love and good counsel of his mother were free. He began to plan and do for himself. He worked at whatever might offer, farming principally, although alternated with work in the stone quarry. Means of transportation were meager, oxen furnishing the larger part of the motive power. Wages were low, so that money making was tedious. His love for study continued unabated. He attended school part of two or three terms, near Caledonia, Ohio, finishing arithmetic and gaining a fair knowledge of grammar and geography. His study of school-books was interspersed with perusal of such works as natural philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, Goldsmith's Greece and Rome, Wal- son's Institutes, Playfair's Euclid, Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Good's Book of Nature, Butler's Analogue, Watts on the Mind, and other solid reading. In 1836, after five years' labor and economy, he had saved $200 in silver. This he expended in a quarter section of heavily timbered congress land, in Whitley county, Indiana. During the ensuing winter he taught school in Huntington, remaining » in the county one year, making improvements on his purchase. Land speculation at the date of his buying was at its height, but the crash of 1837 depreciated values leaving much land nearly worthless. After keeping his farm thirteen years and expending much labor on it, he sold just before the rise in prices caused by the railroad excitement. Mr. Geiger still made his home in Ohio, where he was much em- ployed as an accountant in auditors' offices for a series of years, and in some four different counties. Feeling the necessity, from experi- ence, of some tables for computing taxes, he, in 1847, compiled and printed a small book of tables. This was sold almost exclusively in Ohio. In 1854 he prepared a much fuller work. This being too expensive for his limited means he memorialized the Ohio legislature, obtaining an appropriation of $3,500, to enable him to publish his work with dispatch, the state taking 300 copies in consideration of the appropriation. The edition of 800 copies was sold mostly in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan and Minnesota. Mr. Geiger's other literary work has embraced a few lectures, essays, poems, etc., some of which have appeared in the columns of the press. In politics he has been an unfaltering democrat through life. His first political activity was corresponding for Sam. Medary's "Ohio Statesman," in 1840, when he had the opportunity of seeing and hearing some of the greatest platform orators known to the public. In 1850 he became

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editor-in-charge of the "Mount Gilead Messenger," continuing a short time during the compromise session of congress of 1849 and 1850, and the canvass for the Ohio constitution of 1850. Prosperity crowned the efforts of the industrious, so that in 1852 Mr. Geiger was able to purchase 1,000 acres of land in Mercer county, Illinois, buying in a body in Greene and Preemption townships, to which several hundred acres were added in 1853. In 1854 he planted five or six miles of osage orange fence, built plank fences, tenant houses, and made other improvements looking to its occupation as a grain and stock farm. May 27, 1858, he was married at Wabash, Indiana, to Mrs. Martha P. Arthur, widowed daughter of the late Judge Parish, of Columbus, Ohio, a union that has ever been happy. With his wife and her two children, O. P. Arthur and the present Mrs. James H. Connell, he moved to his Illinois farm in October of the same year. He carried on the grain and stock business till 1858, when he settled in Aledo. He still owns part of his farm. Since his residence in Aledo he has been successfully conducting the Aledo "Banner" and the Aledo "Democrat," some account of which appears in the history of Aledo. He also superintends his farm. Officially he has occupied a few local positions, but has more frequently declined than accepted opportunities as candidate for such honors. Without intending any special laudation it is but proper to say that Mr. Geiger's life has been one of success, and may teach to poor boys the lesson so often repeated, that even though poverty may be their lot in youth, they may, if willing to try, rise and become useful citizens.

THE GILMORE FAMILY .- Among the few white families who consti- tuted the first permanent settlers of Mercer county, and who have taken prominent and active parts in its history and development, is that of which Judge Ephraim Gilmore is a member. He and his father, Col. Robert Gilmore, arrived in Warren county as early as 1833, and the following year the judge moved into that part afterward set off as Mercer county. Mr. Gilmore was born February 7, 1810, hence was in full manhood when his career became blended with that of Mercer county. After a residence of two years in New Boston he settled at a point about half way between Aledo and New Boston, on a farm subsequently owned by the Hon. John McGinnis. Here he lived and labored from 1837 to 1871, when he changed his residence to Aledo and embarked in the banking business. November 4, 1834, he married Miss Julia Ann Denison, daughter of William and Rachel Denison, who were the first white settlers of the county. Miss Den- ison was the only single white lady of the county at the time of this marriage. Seven sons and two daughters have been born to them :

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William, Robert N., John A., James E., Edwin, Erastus E., Lyman C., Annie E., and Mary. William and Mary are dead, Robert is a resident of Johnson county, Missouri, and Annie E. (now Mrs. James Kiddoo) is of Rice county, Kansas. John A. enlisted August 6, 1861, in company E, 9th reg. Ill. Vol., and served three years and one month. His regiment was mostly recruited from St. Clair county, and was commanded by Col. Paine. John A. as a soldier was engaged at the first battle of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth. He then became a mounted infantryman, and accompanied Sherman to Atlanta, but in the meantime aided in guarding the Memphis and Charleston railroad. He was mustered ous at Springfield. March 22, 1865, he was married to Miss Allie Pryme. She died June 28, 1866, leaving one child (Charlie). He was next married February 17, 1870, to Miss Sarah McGinnis, whose parents (John T. and Margaret McGinnis) are prom- inent in Mercer county history. John A. has spent many years on the farm, but is now in the bank. Robert N., James E. and Edwin were in company K, 102d reg. Ill. Vol., which regiment is so fully noticed in the history. Robert was discharged on account of ill-health incurred in Buell's famous forced march. James and Edwin served through the war. Judge Gilmore's history is so intimate with that of the county that a review of the one includes that of the other. He was the first postmaster of New Boston, first circuit clerk and first surveyor of Mercer county, once probate judge, once county treas- urer, and twice a member of the state legislature. During his official career his conduct was marked by a courtesy of manner, an honesty of action and a purity and patriotism of motive to such a degree that there is not now in the county a single man to be found who does not honor and feel proud of his record and relations with his people. The Gilmore family are of Scotch-Irish descent. The ancestry came to the United States when they were dependent colonies, and were during the revolutionary war active patriots, Mr. Gilmore's grandfather, Ephraim Gilmore, being a continental soldier, who, after the close of the war, continued to reside in Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, where he raised four sons : Robert, Ephraim, John and Thomas. Robert afterward served as captain in the war of 1812. He was twice married, first to Miss Elizabeth Collins and then to Miss Maria Pil- grim. By his first wife he raised Ephraim (the subject of this sketch), John, Arabella, Ann, and Joseph; and by his second wife, James, Thomas, Elizabeth Rachel, Lawrence H., Benjamin F., and Robert C. The first marriage took place in Jefferson county, Ohio, and the second in the city of Columbus, he being at that time a member of the legis- lature of. Ohio from the same county. Immediately after coming to

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Warren county, Illinois, he was elected one of the commissioners for this county, which position he held two or thieee terms. He died about 1856, and was buried at Monmouth. He was 75 years old and was a man of strong force of character. He died in the fellowship of the Presbyterian church.

NICHOLAS EDWARDS, farmer and lumber merchant, Aledo, is a native of Crawford county, Indiana, where he was born October 23, 1816. His father, Isaac Edwards, died of small-pox, before he can remember, and his mother, whose maiden name was Rachel Rice, married again. Mr. Edwards lived on the old homestead till 1834, when he engaged in flat-boating to New Orleans, working at first for $15 per month. In 1838 he quit the river, came to Illinois, and in the spring of 1839 settled at Henderson, Knox county, and merchandised there until 1843. In September, 1839, he attended the land sales at Galena, but being obliged by previons engagement to return before he made his purchase, he left his money with friends who bid off for him the tracts he had selected, the same being the S. W. } Sec. 18 and the N. W. ¿ Sec. 19, T. 14, R. 3, which land he still owns. Arriving home he celebrated his marriage with Miss Lydia Ann Edwards, of Hamilton county, Ohio, on the 6th of October. In 1843 he settled at the mouth of the Edwards river, below New Boston, where he ran a saw-mill in connection with William Willit, now of Keithsburg, and Isaiah Brown, who died in California. He was elected the same year to the office of justice of the peace. At that time there was no voting precinct at Keithsburg, and elections were held at what is at present known as Glancey's mills. The death of his wife in 1850 broke up his family; and the next to the oldest child, Sydnie Elizabeth, and the next to the youngest, Isaac Edward, were taken and raised by their uncle, William Edwards, of Hamilton county, Ohio. They still live in that state. The other children were Emily Frances, Rachel Elvira, John W., Mary Eliza, and Nancy Jane, both of which died in infancy. Immediately following this change in his domestic affairs, he went to trading on the river between Cincinnati and New Orleans, and was thus engaged for five years. In 1856 he returned to Mercer county, and from 1857 to 1860 lived in Aledo. Between the last date and 1869 his home was in Keithsburg and Oquawka, and the rest of the time until now in Aledo, where he has been carrying on trade in lumber. In politics Mr. Edwards is a republican. He was formerly a whig, and relates as an incident of the early political history of Keithsburg township that his party once held a primary meeting to elect delegates to the county convention, and that himself, William Willett and John McH. Wilson composed the attendants. Willett presided, .Edwards

O , EN Since

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acted as secretary, and Wilson made the motions. The meeting was decidedly harmonious. Mr. Edwards has for many years been a warm advocate of the temperance cause, and is at present directing his efforts and influence to assist in bringing about an entire prohibition of the manufacture and sale of spirituous, vinous and malt liquors.

ALEXANDER MCARTHUR, cirenit clerk, Aledo, only child of Alexan- der and Ann (McGregor) McArthur, was born in Perthshire, Scotland, February 4, 1850. He came with his widowed mother to this coun- try, landing at New York July 4, 1856. The following spring they came to Aledo, where he has since resided. Mrs. McArthur, to whom our subject acknowledges with true filial gratitude that he owes all he is or may ever be, supported herself and her son until 1860, when he began to work out. From this date till 1870 he worked as a farm hand, improving the winters by attending district school. In 1871, he obtained employment in the store of Mckinney & Lorimer, as book- keeper and salesman. In the autumn of 1874, his old employer, Mr. Lorimer, being circuit clerk, he was taken into his office as deputy. In January, 1876, the clerk resigned, and Mr. McArthur was appointed by the judge of the circuit court to fill the unexpired term of eleven months. In the fall of 1876, he was elected by the republicans to oc- cupy the office, and in 1880, was re-elected. Ile is a member of Aledo Lodge, No. 252, A.F. A. M., of Keithsburg Chapter, No. 17, and Everts Commandery, No. 18, of Rock Island.

ISAAC N. DUNLAP, of the firm of Richey & Dunlap, Aledo, was born in Pennsylvania, May 12, 1836. His parents were Andrew and Jemima (Roby) Dunlap. In 1857, he came to Illinois, and after living one year in Knox county he made permanent settlement in Mercer. In June, 1861, he volunteered in Co. I, 17th Ill. Inf., and fought his only battle at Fort Donelson where he lost his left leg by a six pound shell. The missile took off two men's heads before it lodged in his thigh. He was left six days in an old house on the battle-field after his leg was amputated, without care, in expectation that he would die. He recovered and was discharged in April, 1862. The shell is pre- served in the museum of relics of the war in Washington, and this case is cited in the medical history of the rebellion. Mr. Dunlap was elected county treasurer in 1865, by the republican party, of which he is a staunch and zealous member, and discharged the duties of that position with credit and satisfaction six years. On January 23, 1866, he celebrated his marriage with Miss Tirza A. Pinkerton. They are both communicants in the Methodist church. In 1874, Mr. Dunlap engaged in selling groceries with John W. Dilley. Afterward he was alone in the same trade ; and next was out of business two years. In

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1877 he began dealing in boots and shoes in company with William Day ; the latter died the next year, and he closed out soon after. In September, 1879, he formed his present partnership with C. S. Richey, Esq., in general merchandising.

BENJAMIN F. TOWNSLEY, brick and tile manufacturer, Aledo, was born in England in 1850, and in 1852 was brought by his parents, John and Anna (Stockdale) Townsley, to Toronto, Canada. In 1867 he came to Mercer county, and during the first five or six years worked at blacksmithing, afterward he engaged in the brick and tile business. He was manufacturing brick in New Boston in company with his brother James ; in 1876 they sold out and started again at Aledo. His brother died the next year, and he has since managed the work with- out a partner. In 1874 they began making drain tile on a small scale, and now Mr. Townsley has extended the business to include a brick yard at Joy. In the manufacture of tile Mr. Townsley uses Tiffany's centennial brick and tile machine for molding, and the square, down- draft kilns invented by the same patentee for burning. This business represents an industry of increasing importance that is destined to exert an incalcuable influence on the productive wealth of the country. The advantages of tile draining are thoroughly proven and becoming well understood, and the amount of land tiled each year is immensely large. Mr Townsley is an Odd-Fellow, and a member of Aledo Lodge No. 136, I.O.G.T.

WILLIAM A. LORIMER, merchant, Aledo, born in Perth, Scotland, in 1840, emigrated with his parents in 1848 and lived first in Pennsyl- vania, then a short time in Ohio, and in 1853 came to Keithsburg. He was taken from school when twelve years of age and put to work in the Hudson (Ohio) "Observer " printing office. On arriving at Keithsburg he went to clerking, and continued to be so employed until the breaking out of the war. He promptly enlisted in April, 1861, in Co. I, 17th Ill. Inf., and was fighting the battles of his country a little over three years. The most prominent actions in which he was engaged were Fredericktown, Missouri, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicks- burg. To this list of great battles should be added the usual amount of small fighting. He went out as sergeant of his company and was first promoted to second lieutenant, and next to captain, which latter rank he held when mustered out at Springfield in June, 1864. After returning to civil life he spent the first year in Chicago ; then coming back to Keithsburg he clerked for C. S. Orth, after which, in 1868, he was selected circuit clerk by the republicans of the county. This office he filled two terms of four years each. He was trading in dry goods in company with John McKinney Jr., a part of the time during his

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incumbency as an officeholder, and since his retirement from public business has occupied his present stand on the southwest corner of Seventh street and College avenue. Mr. Lorimer was married in 1868 to Miss Orpha J. Calhoun. They have had five children, three of which are dead.

MORDECAI L. MARSII, justice of the peace, Aledo, was born in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1813. His parents were Solomon and Fanny (Brown) Marsh, whose Quaker ancestors came to America in the latter part of the seventeenth century, to escape the English prosecution of their sect. In New York Mr. Marsh learned the cabinet and piano trade. In 1834 he settled in Buffalo and embarked in land specula- . tions. When the crash of 1837 came he was caught, like the rest of men, at a disadvantage, and lost about all his property. In the same year he emigrated to Ohio, and lived there till 1852, when he came to Illinois and located his family in Millersburg township, this county, and made farming his occupation until Christmas, 1857. He then moved to Aledo, having since resided here, and continuously held the office of justice of the peace, his first election having been in the spring of 1861. He has been treasurer of Mercer township several years. In 1832 he was united in marriage with Miss Eliza Gregory. She has been an unfortunate invalid forty-eight years. Both were at first members of the Baptist church, Mr. Marsh joining in 1835 ; but about 1855 they became enrolled in the Presbyterian church, to which they now belong, and in which our subject has been a deacon nearly twenty- five years. These parents have one son, William. Mr. Marsh was a whig until that party disappeared as a political organization ; since then he has been a republican.

JOHN G. McGUFFIN, grocer, Aledo, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1829. He taught school seven years in Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, and Illinois. In 1855 he arrived in the latter state and settled in Warren county; in 1857 he came to Aledo and began clerk- ing for Dr. Isaac Edwards, and remained in his service until hre went into the army. He volunteered in August, 1862, in company K, 102d reg. Ill. Vol. Inf., and on the organization of the company was elected orderly sergeant. He remained with his regiment through all its earlier and disciplinary service, and finally when it left Lavergne, Tennessee, for the front, in February, 1864, he was sent back to Nash- ville, unfit for duty, and in October following was honorably discharged on account of disability. On his return home he took charge of Luvin's store, in that gentleman's absence on a visit to the old country ; then he clerked for Poage & Senter four years. He was next a member of the dry goods firm of Richey Bros. & McGuffin for four years, and

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History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 57

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co. Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1424