History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 108

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084

USA > Illinois > Sangamon County > History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 108

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

John W. Chenery, Springfield, Illinois, was born in West Boyalston, Massachusetts, July 28, 1826; son of William D. and Abigall (Part- ridge) Chenery, who emigrated to Illinois in 1831, and located in Morgan county, near Jack- sonville; the following winter, returned to Massa- chusetts on horseback, via Indiana, when the snow commenced falling, and he, in company with three other gentlemen, going east, made jumpers, and in them made their way home. The following summer he started for his home in the west with his family, traveling in wagons to Albany, thence to Buffalo by canal, crossing the lake to Cleveland, then overland to the Ohio river, thence by boat to Naples, and finally to Jacksonville. Shortly after arriving there he rented the Western Hotel for eight years. In 1852, he came to Springfield, where he rented the old American IIouse, one of the principal hotels of the State at that time, and was the headquarters of all the principal politicians of the State; here they remained until 1855; when the Chenery House was built they entered that, and remained in it until 1881. Mr. Chenery died in October, 1873; his mother died in Octo- ber, 1880. Mr. C. was widely known, being identified with the hotel business over forty years in the State. The subject of this sketch

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

married Miss Eleanor M. Holihan, and they had five children, four of whom are living, namely: William D., John L., Thadius F., and James E.

George W. Chatterton, Jr., dealer in watches, jewelry, musical merchandise and optical goods, South Fifth street, west side of square, repre- sents the oldest music house, probably, in Illi- nois. It was established by George W. Chatter- ton, Sr., in June, 1838. About nine years ago, the son and present proprietor succeeded to the control of the business. His leading pianos are the Knabe, Chickering and McCammon; and the George Woods and Loring & Blake are his leading organs. He also handles the best makes of violins, accordeons, and a complete assort- ment of sheet music. The jewelry, watch and optical instrument feature is a prominent branch of his business. A practical, skilled optician is kept constantly employed by the house. Two stories of the building, twenty by one hundred and forty feet, are occupied by his stock of $25,- 000, which his large and growing trade demands.

Mr. Chatterton is a Springfield boy, born in the house where he now resides, in 1853. He was educated in the city schools, and early turned his attention to the branch of the busi- ness in which he is now engaged. In April, 1879, he purchased the Opera House, and that season rebuilt it in elegant style, making it the finest in the State, outside of Chicago. It is heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and has a seating capacity of one thousand three hundred. Chatterton's Opera House is a credit to the Capital City of Illinois.

George W. Chatterton, Sr., is a native of Ithica, New York, served an apprenticeship to the jewelry trade in New York City; came to Springfield, Illinois, in 1838; has been identified with that business here until 1873; then went to New York and engaged in the manufacturing and wholesaling of jewelry till 1880, when he returned to Springfield.

Henry E. Cochran, grocer, 517, East Monroe street, is a native of Brown county, Ohio, in 1846. He became an assistant in his brother's grocery in Ripley, Ohio, at eight years of age. Five years later he succeeded his brother in business, and at thirteen was sole proprietor of a prosperous retail grocery. Since that time Mr. Cochran has given that business his undivided attention, and says he has never been absent from his store five days during all these years, and always opens in the morning and closes it in the evening. In March, 1868, he sold his business in Ripley, Ohio, and came to Spring- field, Illinois, arriving on Friday, March 17, be-

ing an entire stranger in the city, and having little idea where or in what business he should locate. He bought a stock of goods on Sixth street, in what was known as the American House block, and took charge of the business on the following Monday. He conducted the trade in that store fourteen years, and five days, dur- ing which time he paid over $11,000 in rent. In March, 1881, he sold out and opened business with a new stock in his present location. Mr. Cochran does a heavy retail trade, and in the season handles a large amount of fruits and pro- duce at wholesale. The volume of business in 1880 amounted to $36,000, and will be consid- erably larger in 1881.

In 1867, Mr. Cochran married Rachel Mitch- ell, in Aberdeen, Brown county, Ohio. They have only one child, Florence, twelve years of age. Mr. Cochran's parents, William and Mary (Flaugher) Cochran, reside in Ripley, Ohio. Of their family of four sons, three are in mercan- tile pursuits and one is a farmer.

William H. Conway, of the firm of Conway & Co., hat merchants and gentlemen's furnishings and furs, No. 104, east side square, is a native of Springfield, Illinois, and is twenty-three years of age. After completing a course in the City High School, he learned the carpenter trade with his father, who is a carpenter and builder. He also studied designing and architecture; drew the plans for the block in which the store is situated, and a number of dwellings in and about the city; still doing such work in that line as will not interfere with his mercantile business. The firm opened the hat and furnishing store in February, 1880. They make a special feature of substantial, well-made goods; carry a complete assortment of head gear and gentlemen's fur- nishings and furs for the retail trade, and handle the business with such ability and energy as assures success. The house sold nearly $20,000 in ten months of 1880, and the monthly sales of 1881 show a large increase over last year. Good articles, one price, plain figures, and moderate profits is their motto.

William B. Courgill, dealer in real estate, has been actively engaged in buying and selling real property, for himself and others, in and about Springfield, since 1865, and has been longer in the business than any real estate dealer in the city. During the past year and a half he has sold two hundred and fifty unimproved city lots, besides a number of pieces of improved property. Mr. Cowgill was born in Springfield, Illinois, in a two-story frame building, where J. W.Bunn's wholesale grocery now stands, in 1833.

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

His father, William M. Cowgill, was a native of Warren county, Ohio; married Clementine Sayer, also a native of that State. They came to Springfield on their wedding trip, in 1832, and settled here. Mr. Cowgill was engaged many years in the mercantile business in the Capital City, a portion of the time as a member of the firm of S. M. Tinsley & Co., then one of the heaviest firms in Springfield. He died in Pe- tersburg, Menard county, in 1862, to which place he had moved some years previous. William was brought up in the counting-room, and pur- sued the business of book-keeping before en- gaging in the traffic in real estate. Except a few years spent in Petersburg, Springfield has always been his home. He married Margaret D., a daughter of John C. Sprigg, born in Effing- ham county, Illinois, in May, 1855. Three sons constitute their posterity. William C., their eldest, is a clerk in the General Freight Office of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad, at Chicago ; John A. is book-keeper in the hardware house of Hudson & Co., Spring- field ; Duncan S. is attending school. Mr. Cowgill has passed through the chairs of the local lodge of Odd Fellows, and has served as representative to the Grand Lodge.

John S. Condell, of the firm of C. M. Smith & Co., merchants, corner of Adams and Sixth streets, was born in Ireland in 1818; came to America when six years of age, remained in Philadelphia until 1833, then came to Carrolton, Greene county, Illinois, and in 1840 settled in Springfield, where he has been engaged in the mercantile business ever since. Prior to the foundation of the present partnership with Clark M. Smith in 1864, he was for twenty-one years in business on the northwest corner of Wash- ington and Fifth streets, chiefly as a member of the firm of Condell, Jones & Co. Selling out there he was two years in the First National Bank before engaging in his present relation. Mr. Condell married Arabella Rice in Spring- field in 1844. She is a native of Maryland. Their family consists of two sons and three daughters living, one deceased. Mr. C. has voted for ten Whig and Republican Presidential can- didates. He was forty years an official member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Runsom F. and Marion I. Day, comprising the firm of Day Brothers, farmers and flour and feed merchants, 404 Washington street, were born in St. Lawrence county, New York, . and are aged thirty-five and thirty-three years, respectively. They are the only sons in a fam- ily of six children of Ira Day and Electa Wil-

son. Mr. Day having died some twenty years ago, the family moved to Sangamon county, Illi- nois, in March, 1869; bought two farms, one a half mile, and the other two miles east of Spring- field, and settled on the latter. Two of the sisters have since married. The brothers, other two sisters, and mother reside together. The brothers farm, of their own and leased lands, eight hundred acres, on which they harvested in 1881 between seven hundred and eight hundred tons of hay, between two thousand and three thousand bushels of oats, and cultivated two hundred end twenty acres of corn, besides other crops. They opened the mercantile branch of their business in the city in the fall of 1879, and have built up a trade of $3,000 a month. The two brothers own their property and con- duet their business in common, keeping no per- sonal accounts, and making no division of profits. Miss Jessie Day is cashier and book-keeper at the store, for which her practical common sense and broad business ideas admirably adapt her, and render her thoroughly mistress of the situ- ation. Their mother is an active, well-preserved woman of sixty-two years.

George W. Davis, M. D., Springfield, Ill., was born in Macoupin county, Illinois, June 25, 1842; was reared on a farm and received what schooling the county afforded at that time. His father was a pioneer in Macoupin county, coming as early as 1820, and was by profession a physi- cian. He traveled extensively over the west as a Magnetic Healer, and followed it until his death, which occurred in 1876. George W. studied with his father for several years pre- vious to his death, and since that time has taken his father's practice; he makes a specialty of rheumatism, torpid liver, fevers and all accute diseases.

Kenyon B. Davis, M. D., Dentist, Springfield, Illinois, was born in this State January 15, 1836. Practiced medicine five years and then turned his attention to dentistry, and has since practiced this special department of medicine. He came to this city as the successor of Dr. C. Stoddard Smith in May, 1876. The Doctor is a member of the American Dental Association of the Illi- nois State Society, and an honorary member of the Indiana State Dental Society. He was Vice President of the State Society in 1876, and President in 1877. The Doctor has always been a zealous member of the State Dental Society, and has read many essays at its annual meetings. In 1876 he had the honor of reading an essay before the Iowa State Dental Society, and also one in 1877.

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

William Hope Davis, M. D., Springfield, Illi- nois, was born in Genesee county, New York, September 1, 1835; son of David and Harriet (Wilder) Davis. His father's ancestors emi- grated from Ireland, and were noted, for gener- ations, as Protestants and Free-Thinkers. His mother was from the well known family of Wilders, of Massachusetts. When five years old, his parents removed to Michigan, then a vast wilderness. His father worked at the car- penter's trade, and William, as soon as old enough, was engaged with him during the sum- mer, and attending school in the winter, occa- sionally. It became necessary for him to depend upon himself early in life, and at the age of seventeen, he left home to spend a summer in his native State, and from there he went to Mem- phis, Tennessee, where he soon became ac- quainted with many of the best families of the city. In 1854 he commenced the study of medi- cine under the instruction of Professor Gabbett, who had held a prominent position in the Wor- cester Eclectic Medical College, of Massachu- setts. In the winter of 1854-5, he attended a course of lectures in the Memphis College of Medicine, after which he pursued his studies in Barbus Academy until the spring of 1857, when he removed to Paris, Texas, and there commenced the practice of his profession; remained about two years. During the summer of 1858, he crossed the plains to California by way of Mex- ico, traveling the whole distance on horseback, and returning in autumn of the same year. In August, 1859, he left Paris, on a Texan pony, for Memphis, some four hundred and seventy- five miles, three hundred miles being through a dense and almost trackless wilderness. Dispos- ing of his faithful pony at Memphis, he pro- ceeded to Hillsboro, Ohio, which place he reached September 7, and on the tenth day of the same month was united in marriage to Miss Rachael Ann Davis, who, although of the same name, was not a relative. In the spring of 1860, he bought a book store in Leesburg, Ohio, but sold it in a month, and returned with his wife to Memphis. Soon after the war broke out, and he returned to Cincinnati, Ohio, and thence to Goodrich, Michigan, where he successfully prac- ticed medicine, and at the same time conducted a drug store, accumulating several thousand dol- lars, but greatly impairing his health by exten- sive night practice. Needing rest and a change, it was decided best for him to spend the winter in Cincinnati; meanwhile, he attended a full course of medical lectures at the Eclectic Insti- tute, at which he graduated. Subsequently, he

re-commenced practice in Clay county, Illinois; but on account of failing health, he remained only one season, spending the next in traveling through the Eastern States. In the spring of 1867, he located permanently in Springfield, where he has been engaged in an extensive practice up to the present time. In 1869, he procured a charter and organized the Illinois Eclectic Medical Society, of which he has been Secretary for five years. He was unanimously elected editor of the journal of the society, and has acquitted himself in this responsible position with honor.

At the meeting of the National Eclectic Med- ical Association, in the city of Washington, in 1876, he was elected Secretary and has been a large contributor to periodical medical litera- ture, was one of the first movers for the laws regulating the practice of medicine and of which he has been a firm supporter. Has been a member of Springfield City Board of Health for a number of years. And is esteemed among its members as a man worthy the position. Dr. Davis is a self-made man, having suf- ered the privations incident to poverty and pioneer life. In his youthful days he has camped with the savages of Michigan, in the Indian Territory, and in Texas; is familiar with the Spaniards of Mexico, and Chinamen of California. He has crossed the plains four times, twice on horseback, and twice on the cars. He is generous to a fault, industrious from principle, believing it is better to labor without remunera- tion than to be idle; is always ready to attend the worthy poor without hope of reward.

John De Cump, Springfield, Illinois, was born in Monroe county, Virginia, December 22, 1800; son of Zachariah and Elizabeth (Kinder) De- Camp; father of French descent, and mother of German. His father was a farmer, and John was reared upon a farm, working summers and attending school winters. He remained on the farm until he was twenty-seven years of age, then came to Springfield, where he has resided since; at the time he came, there was not a frame building; he has plowed corn where the city now stands. After coming here, immediately commenced making brick, and has continued in the business most of the time since. Ile mar- ried Miss Malinda Orr, daughter of Robert and Sarah Orr, who were natives of Virginia, and came to the State in 1824. Mr. and Mrs. De- Camp have had seventeen children, nine of whom are still living, viz: Sarah Ann, now Mrs. Will- iam DeCamp; Helen, now Mrs. James H. Bark- ley; Armanda, now Mrs. N. Wagner; Zachariah;

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Vagninia, now Mrs. Edward Wardhaus; Elnora, now Mrs. Matthew Jelly; Albert, Giles W. and John G.

John Baptiste Deligny, machinist and en- gineer, Springfield, Illinois, was born in the north of France, April 23, 1809. When twenty- four years old he came to the United States with a colony, who settled at Nauvoo, Hancock county, Illinois, after the Mormons had left. He remained there but a short time, when he went to St. Louis and worked at his trade, building steamboats. From there he went to Warsaw, then to Springfield, where he has resided since, accumulating a fine home and property. At the time he came there was but one brick house in the city. For his first wife, he married Miss Elizabeth Cassia, who was born in France, and died in April 1881. Mr. D. is again married, to Mrs. Dockson, a native of New York, whose husband took a prominent part in the rebellion, and was also a prominent member of the Ma- sonic fraternity; he figured extensively in poli- tics; she had nine children, eight of whom are living. Mr. Dockson died in 1871.

Joseph HI. Delaney, proprietor of the "Side Board" saloon, north corner of Fourth and Washington streets, was born in New York State, December 13, 1859. When three years of age he came with his parents to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he attended school and clerked until 1880, when he came to Springfield, Illi- nois, and took charge of Dual's French Restau- rant, formerly known as Blood's Restaurant, he is manager of this restaurant, and he owns and runs the Side Board saloon. His father, William Delaney was born in Dublin, Ireland, and came to the United States and settled in Jacksonville, Illinois, where he still resides; he is a black- smith by trade. His wife, Mary Dowling, born also in Ireland, she and husband are both men- bers of the Catholic Church, and have a family of seven children, viz: Jerry E. Delaney, mar- ried Miss Katy O'Hara, they reside in Fargo, Dakota; Joseph II., the subject of this sketch, John, also residing at Fargo, Dakota; Katy, Dora, and Billy, residing with their parents, at Jacksonville, Illinois. Mr. Joseph H. Delaney is a member of the Catholic Church in Spring- field, and is a member of the Y. M. B. C. So- ciety, at Jacksonville. In politics he is a Denio- crat, and cast his first vote for Hancock for President.

David A. De Vares, grocer, corner of Ninth and Reynolds streets, started in that branch of business in Springfield, in 1872, locating on the corner of Tenth and Mason streets. Two years

after he erected the building he now occupies, and putting in a new stock of groceries, has carried on a fine local trade since. In January, 1878, he formed a partnership with Joseph De Frates. Their stock consisted of a general line of family groceries, country produce, and flour and feed, and they buy all goods for cash.

Mr. De Vares was born on the Atlantic Ocean while his parents were on the voyage to the United States, in September, 1848. They settled in Jacksonville, Morgan county, Illinois, which was his home until he came to Springfield, in 1870. He learned the trade in the office of B. A. Richards, and subsequently worked as a press- man in the Journal office uniil 1864, when he enlisted in Company B., Tenth Illinois Infantry, and served with the regiment till the war closed, accompanying General Sherman on his "cam- paign to the sea." On returning home he re- sumed the printing business nearly seven years before embarking in the grocery trade. In October, 1868, he married Mary Nunes, of Jack- sonville, Illinois. Two children, one of each sex, have been born to them. Mr. De Vares is a member of Knights of Pythias, Capital Lodge, No. 14, and of the Second Presbyterian Church

Mr. Henry Dickerman was born November 19, 1835, in Hamden, Connecticut, being the fifth in a family of nine children. His father was a well-to-do farmer; both of his parents were of the staunchest New England Puritan type; he received a good common school educa- tion, and spent one year in Williston Seminary, Massachusetts, after which he taught school in Massachusetts and Connecticut for three terms, and started West on the last day of March, 1857, expecting to become a Western farmer, but cir- cumstances did not seem to favor this, so in the fall of that year he secured a school in Morgan county, teaching one term, and returned East in the spring of 1858, expecting to remain, but the little fields were too small after having seen the great West, and in abont a month he retraced his steps, but did very little during that summer. He had become acquainted with the father of his present partner, and one evening, on returning to Springfield from the country, was sent for by the old gentleman, upon whom, it seems, the Yankee boy had made a favorable impression. He responded to the call, being ready to do any- thing to help pay his expenses and being a good book-keeper, he was sent to the mill to post the books, which, owing to the sickness of the clerk, were several weeks behind. The following night the clerk died. Being faithful and industrious, young Dickerman was hired for the remainder

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

of the year, and then from year to year until he became a partner, as before stated. Mr. Dicker- man has been strictly a private citizen, though interested in all public enterprises, having at- tended strictly to his own business, and meddling very little with outside matters. He was twice elected to represent his ward in the City Coun- cil, which he did acceptably, and has been earn- estly solicited to run several times since, but positively declined, feeling that he had done his part by serving two terms. He was one of the original members of the First Congregational Church of this city, organized in 1867, having been a member of the Second Presbyterian Church since he first came to the city up to that time, and has since been one of its most active members and officers, having been elected deacon several terms, and serves in that capacity at present, as well as being treasurer for the past six years, during which time he has labored with untiring zeal to rescue the church from a debt which, though not large, hung as an incubus over it, and during the last year succeeded in paying off the last dollar. April 25, 1876, Mr. D. was married to Miss Sarah A. Holmes, of Morgan county, this State. To them have been born five sons: Edward T., H. Holmes, Henry S. Jr., and John Stewart, (the latter dying at the age of two years) and Ralph V. The family home is on the corner of Fourth and Scarret streets, and it is there, in the bosom of his fam- ily, that the subject of this sketch enjoys his sweetest hours in the society of his loving wife and sons, whom he hopes will grow up to be no less an honor to the city than their father has been.

Henry D. Dement, Secretary of State of Illi- nois, was born in Galena, Illinois, October 10, 1840, is the son of John and Mary L. Dement, of Dixon, (natives of Tennessee and Missouri, re- spectively) and grandson of Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin. Mr. Dement began his education in the common schools in Dixon, Illinois, which was preparatory to his collegiate education at Rock River Seminary, Mount Morris, Illinois; and a Catholic College at Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin, and a Presbyterian College at Dixon, Illinois. The breaking out of the late war, at which time Mr. Dement was attending the last named College, was the cause of his not com- pleting his collegiate course, as he enlisted in the Union army and took an active part, as Is shown by the service he rendered his country during the war. Mr. Dement enlisted in the United States army in 1861, and received his commission of Second Lieutenant of Company

A., Thirteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, April 20, 1861, and the following day was commis- sioned First Lieutenant. Lieutenant Dement received a complimentary commission as Cap- tain, February 3, 1863, for gallantry at Arkansas Post and Vicksburg, which rank he held to the close of the war. He served with Generals Fre- mont and Curtis throughout all their campaigns west of the Mississippi, was with General Sher- man in his defeat at Chickasaw Bayou; with General Grant when he marched to the rear of Vicksburg, and present in all the assaults upon the works of that stronghold; was with General Sherman's corps, in both engagements, in the capture of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Captain Dement served until August, 1863, and subsequently, after his returning home, was elected to the Lower House of the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth General Assemblies, and as Senator in the Thirtieth and Thirty-first General Assemblies from the Twelfth Senatorial District, composed of Lee and Ogle counties. Was elected Secretary of State at the election of 1880, which position he fills at present. Secre- tary Dement was engaged in the manufactory of plows from 1864-1870, with the firm known as Todd & Dement. In the year 1870 he engaged in the manufactory of flax bagging for covering cotton bales, in which he is still engaged. The factory is located in Dixon, Illinois, and does a flourishing business. Secretary Dement was married in Dixon, Illinois, October 20, 1864, to Miss Mary F. Williams, of Castine, Maine, who is the daughter of Hon. Hezekiah and Eliza (Patterson) Williams, natives of Vermont and Maine, respectively. Mr. and Mrs. Dement had five children, of whom three daughters are liv- ing, Gertrude May, Lucia W., and Nonie E. Mr. and Mrs. Dement are members of the Pres- byterian Church, and their residence is in Dixon, Illinois.

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History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 108

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company Number of Pages: 1084

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084