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 110

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 110

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).

Zimri A. Enos, civil engineer, Springfield, Illinois, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, Septem- ber 29, 1821. He is a son of Pascal P., and Salome (Paddock) Enos, natives of Connecticut and Vermont, respectively. Mr. E. was two years old when his parents came to Sangamon connty, Illinois, and located on the present site of Springfield. His early education was re- ceived in the old-fashion log school house and later enjoyed better school privileges. Has been a student in the Springfield Academy, the Jesnit University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Illi- nois University in Jacksonville. After this course of instruction, he became a student in law and studied under Colonel Baker and Albert T. Bledsoe, in Springfield, Illinois, and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1845. Mr. Enos entered into the practice of his legal profession in Spring- field, during which time he was associated with James H. Matheny and Vincent Ridgely. After giving up the profession, he became a commis- sion merchant in Springfield and continued as such for three years. Turning his attention to the original purpose of his education, viz .: civil

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engineering and surveying. He entered this field of labor in 1854, and ever since has given it his attention. Mr. Enos has been elected twice County Surveyor; is a member of the Ma- sonic Order, Central Lodge, No 71, in Spring- field, and associated with the following degrees of the order, viz .: Chapter, Counsel, and Con- sistory. Mr. Enos was married in Springfield June 10, 1846, to Agnes D. Trotter, born Feb- ruary 15, 1825, in New York City. By this union were born six children in Sangamon county, viz .: Pascal P., George T., William P., Catharine I., Allen Z., and Louisa I. who are all living.

Orlistus R. Baker, was born in Prebble county, Ohio, June 30, 1832, and is the son of John Baker, native of Rockingham county, Virginia, born June 23, 1810. He moved with his parents to Prebble county, Ohio, in 1818, when but seven years of age. He married Mary A. Freemen, who was also a native of that county and daughter of Henry and Polly (Campbell) Free- man. The Bakers sprang from German ances- tors, and were farmers. John Baker removed from Ohio to Sangamon county, November 22, 1837, where he remained until 1871. He then moved to Bates county, Missouri, where he died, September 12, 1880. His first wife's death oc- curred in Prebble county, Ohio. Orlistus R. Baker is the eldest of eight children; was reared on a farm, and educated in the schools of Sangamon county. He followed farming until 1869, when he was elected to the office of County Treasurer of Sangamon county, which office he held for two successive terms, and previous to that, being a member of the Board of Super- visors for eight years. May 29, 1854, Mr. Baker married Polly Ann Duncan, a native of this county, born August 1, 1835. She is the daughter of William T. H. Duncan, of Salisbury town- ship, who was one of Sangamon county's early pioneers. Her mother's name was Eve Miller Duncan. Their family consists of eight chil- dren, Ann Louise, Charles B., Harriet M., John W., Carrie N., Minnie A., Eva B. and Orlistus R., who are living at the present time. In 1874, after retiring from the office of County Treas- urer, he returned to his farm, where he remained until January, 1881, when he removed to the city of Springfield, where he engaged in the grocery business with his son-in-law, H. W. Sheiry, on the corner of Fifth and Wright streets, where they are doing a prosperous busi- ness.

Louis H. Coleman, Springfield, Illinois, was born in Hopkinsville, Christian county, Ken-

tucky, September 2, 1842; is the son of H. HI. and Barbra A. Coleman, natives of the State of Kentucky. At the age of six, Mr. Coleman came to Warren county, Illinois, on a v sit to his grandfather, William Hopper, who emancipated his slaves in Kentucky over fifty years ago, and moved to a free soil State and became an early and earnest champion of the great principles upon which the great National Republican party was afterwards founded. During this visit of eighteen months, he became very much attached to a farm life, and upon his return to Kentucky, entreated his parents to permit him to return. In 1853 he carried his point, and returned to the farm in Warren, to remain four years, during which time he farmed in summer and attended school in winter. After attending school in Ab- ington, Illinois, during the college years of 1856- 57, he returned to Kentucky, entered school in his native town, and continued until the summer of 1860, when he entered Bethany College, Vir- ginia, with the intention of taking a thorough collegiate course. This institution, being largely patronized by Southern boys, the opening up of hostilities between the North and the South, made the students very nervous and anxious to return home. The school being virtually broken up for a time, Mr. Coleman returned home, in the summer of 1861, and resolved to give up a professional for that of a commercial life. So, in 1862, he entered the dry goods house of E H. Hopper, and app'ied himself closely to the study of the trade. After remaining in this house four years, and filling the most responsible position in it, he determined to return to Illinois and make it his permanent home. Arriving in Bloom- ington in the spring of 1866, he bought an in- terest in a dry goods house, and supposed him- self a fixture of the place. But on the fourth of October, of the same year, he was married to Jenny B. Logan, of Springfield, Illinois, (dangh- ter of the late IIon. Stephen T. Logan and America Logan,) and at the earnest solicitation of the Judge, he sold out his interest and moved to Springfield. Their children are Logan, Chris- topher B., Mary Logan, and Louis Garfield. In the spring of 1868, Mr. Coleman and G. M. Brown bought out the store of W. II. Johnson & Co., on the east side of the square, in Spring- field, and commenced business under the style of Brown & Coleman. This co-partnership lasted two years. Mr. Coleman then bought out Mr. Brown's interest, and continued the business in his own name until May, 1881. Being an en- tire stranger to his trade, he was compelled to apply himself very closely and study diligently

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the best means of building up a good and profit- able business. During the thirteen years he was in the trade, he had strong competition from old and well established houses, and he never could have built up the trade he had, and secured the class of customers that patronized him, had he no attended to his business closely, treated his customers courteously and served them honestly. His business grew on his hands every year, and having acquired the habit of continually looking after all the details, personally serving many of his customers, he discovered that he was wearing ont too fast, so decided to sell out and quit the business entirely. This he did in May, 1881, and in returning his thanks to his many friends and customers, he said he retired from the trade with many regrets, for he had the largest trade and the best class of customers of any house in the city.

Sullivan Conant was born February 26, 1801, at Oakham, Massachusetts, and was married at Shutesburry, Massachusetts, September 10, 1822, and in November, 1830, they built a raft and started west, and floated to Pittsburg. There they took a steamboat down the Ohio, and up the Mississippi river to Chester, Ran- dolph county, Illinois, where the youngest child died. In January, 1831, Mr. Conant started with his family, in a sleigh, to visit some old friends near Carrolton, Greene county, Illinois, going by Illinoistown. now East St. Louis. They continued their journey by Jacksonville to Springfield, arriving February 18, 1831. When they left Chester the snow was about six inches deep, but when they arrived in Spring- field it was on four feet of snow, being the height of the " deep snow." Mr. Conant is yet a citizen of Springfield.

James Fairchild was born in London, Eng- land, May 9, 1834. At the age of eleven years, he left school, and was put with a jeweler and gilder, to see how he would like that trade, as lie cared little for school, and was desirous of going out to work. At fourteen years of age, he was apprenticed for seven years, to learn watch gilding. At twenty-one years of age, hav- ing served his apprenticeship, and trade being dull, he obtained a clerkship with Thomas Sinythe, Esq., barrister, in Lincoln's Inn, with whom he remained two years. September 14, 1856, he was married to Miss Mary Ann Rob- bins, daughter of Thomas and Mary Robbins. They had attended Sunday school together from childhood, and were both members of City Road Wesleyan Chapel.

Thomas Smythe, Esq., having retired from business, Mr. Fairchild got a situation with Messrs Biron & Cary, barristers, Lincoln's Inn. Soon after, they dissolved partnership, and he went with Mr. Biron, who removed to the Temple, and Mr. George Hunter Cary soon after this was appointed Attorney General of British Colum- bia.

In August, 1859, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild emi- grated to Canada. After visiting the principal cities of Canada, and spending a month with friends at Adolphustown, on the Bay of Quintie, they came to the United States. At New York City, he was engaged at silver-plating. Here he remained seven months, then removing to Waltham, Massachusetts, where he worked at his trade, watch gilding. After working here for twelve months, the war having broken out, and work being scarce, he sought and obtained a situation at Nashua, New Hampshire, where a new watch factory was started, remaining here about a year and a half, when the American Watch Company, of Waltham, bought out the Nashua factory, the said company removing the tools and hiring the hands. Mr. Fairchild re- turned to Waltham, and remained about a year, till the National Watch Company, of Elgin, was started. Here he remained five years. In 1870, the Springfield Watch Company, on their organ- ization, engaged his service for five years, by written contract, visiting Springfield, and then

with his wife and adopted son James, making a trip to the home of his boyhood, visiting his aged father, and spending two months with his old friends. Returning, he took his position as foreman of the gilding department, in which position he is now engaged.

April 3, 1879, Mr. F. lost his wife, who died of cancer. She was an earnest Christian, and beloved by all who knew her.

May 1, 1880, Mr. Fairchild was married in Brooklyn, New York, to Miss Mary Parkes, of that place, daughter of Thomas and Esther Parkes.

On March 22, 1881, they had a daughter born to them, Marian P. Fairchild.

Mr. Fairchild is the son of Ilenry Donville Fairchild, who was a city missionary in London for twenty-three years. He was born in London, and educated at the Christ Church Blue Coat school. He died in 1873, his wife, Mary A. Bridges, having died in 1863. She was born in Bury street, Edmonds, Suffolk, England. She, with her husband, were members of the Wes- leyan Methodist church. She was the mother of twelve children, eight only living at one time.

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

Mr. James Fairchild is a Mason; was made such in Rising Sun Lodge, Nashua, New Hamp- shire; now a member of Monitor Lodge, Elgin. He is an active Christian worker, having organ- ized several Sunday schools, and built a church in Riverton, in this county. He received a license as an Exhorter, in the Methodist Episco- pal Church, in Waltham, in 1860, and then licensed as Local Preacher in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 1861, which license has been re- newed every year since that time. He is also an ardent temperance worker, having been Chair- man of the Executive Committee of the Reform Club in the City of Springfield for the last four years, and also Lodge Deputy of the Good Templars of the above city.

Mr. Fairchild is acknowledged to be the best gilder in America.

Andrew L Fawcett, foreman of the Ætna Foundry, has filled that position since January, 1857. He was born in Ireland, and is forty- five years of age. He emigrated to America with his parents, in childhood. They settled in Connecticut, and from there moved to Spring- field, Illinois, in 1856, his father coming as an employe of the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railroad Company. Andrew learned the trade of iron molding in New Haven, Connecticut, where he worked two years at the business as a journeyman, before coming West. The Ætna works have grown from infancy during his con- nection with them. He has from thirty to fifty men under his supervision in the molding de- partment.

Mr. Fawcett married in Springfield in 1867, to Mary A. Delaney, who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and was brought by her parents to Springfield, Illinois, when two years of age. Their family consists of four daughters and a son.

Hypolite Fayart, manufacturer of and dealer in boots and shoes, and also dealer in leather and findings, 416 Adams street settled in Springfield in 1853, and began the manufacture of foot gear in a small way. The business rapidly grew until he employed at one time six- teen mechanics; now works five. In 1862, he put in a stock of ready-made goods, in which he soon secured a very heavy trade. In 1860 he erected the front part of the building he now oc- pies, and subsequently built two extensions, making his store and shop twenty by one hun- dred and fifty-seven feet. In 1879, Mr. Fayart added a stock of leather and findings, of which he keeps a general supply for the market. During 1880, the sales in the boot and shoe de-

partment aggregated $24,000. Mr. Fayart is a native of France, and is forty-nine years of age; came to the United States in 1849, and with a French colony settled in Nauvoo, after the de- parture of the Mormons. In 1854, he married Engiene Fayart, a cousin, who emigrated with the colony when he came over. They have three sons and an adopted daughter. The eldest son, Eugene, is twenty-four; Joseph, twenty ; and Jules, sixteen years of age, all of them salesmen in the store. They lost their first son, and the youngest child, a daughter. Mr. Fayart was elected to the City Council in April, 1881, from the Sixth Ward. He is a Mason, and has passed through the degrees to Knight Templar.

Fred R. Feitshans, Superintendent of the Springfield Schools, and Principal of the High School, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1846. His parents were both natives of Germany. After attending the common and High Schools, gradu- ated from Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, in the class of 1869, with the degree of B. A., and three years later, received the degree of M. A. He studed theology under Dr. Henry E. Jacobs, Professor of Latin Literature in Pensyl- vania College, and completed the course, but did not enter the ministry. He taught in the country schools two years before graduating; and after leaving college, taught a year in the classical school, at Rochester, Pennsylvania, as Professor of Mathematics. He came from there to Spring- field, in the fall of 1870, and took charge, for three years, of St. Paul's College-the old Illi- nois State University. In September. 1873, Mr. Feitshans entered the Springfield High School as Assistant Principal; was promoted to Princi- pal the same fall, and has filled that position until the present time. In the summer of 1881, he was elected Superintendent of City Schools in addition to the Principalship. In 1872, Pro- fessor Feitshans was elected to the Chair of Mathematics, in Wisconsin University; in 1873, he was elected to the Chair of Greek, in Carthage College, Carthage, Illinois; was elected Professor of English Literature in Thiel College, Pennsyl- vania, in 1874; and the following year was ten- dered the principalship of the Newark Acad- emy, Newark, New Jersey. He declined all of these proffered honors, preferring the broad, un- trammeled field of labor afforded in the public school work. Mr. Feitshans is a gentleman of broad culture and progressive ideas and methods as an instructor. In September, 1876, he united in marriage with Miss Mary E. Flanders, then Assistant Principal of the Bloomington High

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

School and teacher of the German language and astronomy. She is a native of Marengo, Mc- Henry county, Illinois; was educated in Lake Erie Seminary, graduated in 1865, and spent three years in Europe, studying the German and French languages. She tanght two years in Lake Erie Seminary, and two in Cleveland Semi- nary. Two children, one of each sex, have been born to them.

Benjamin H. Ferguson, Cashier of the Marine Insurance Bank, Springfield, is a native of San- gamon county, Illinois; was born in December, 1.35. His father, Benjamin Ferguson, was born in Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, where he married Sarah Irwin, also of that State. They moved to Sangamon county, Illinois, in 1834. Eight years afterwards Mr. Ferguson died, leaving a widow and four children, all alive but the eldest son. The subject of this sketch passed about ten years in the grocery of his brother-in-law, Mr. Jacob Bunn, and in August, 1862, recruited Company B, of the One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Infantry, was elected its Captain, in which capacity he served two years; participated in the siege of Vicks- burg, at Jackson, and other minor engagements. Retiring from the army, Captain Ferguson en- tered the bank, in the fall of 1864; the following spring he became, and has since been, its cashier. In 1868, he established a glassware and crockery store, on the corner of Monroe and Sixth streets, which he still owns, and which is one of the largest and most prosperous houses of its class in Central Illinois, doing a business of $60,000 to $75,000 a year. Mr. Ferguson married Miss Alice, daughter of Judge B. S. Edwards, in 1865. She is a native of the city of Springfield. Both Mr. and Mrs. F. are members of the First Presbyterian Church of the city.

Stephen D. Fisher was born in Charlotte, Vermont, March 7, 1822. When a year old his parents moved to Essex, New York, where he attended school, he also attended the West Point Academy. He left Essex, New York, for Springfield, Illinois September 1844, and taught school one quarter in the Baker District and at Rochester one year, and in May, 1846, returned to Essex, New York, where he was engaged in teaching until the spring of 1850, when he re- turned to Rochester, Illinois, and taught during the winters of 1851 and '52, and October 19, 1852, was married to Miss Marion J. St. Clair, at Rochester; she was born in Essex, New York, September 18, 1828, and died in 1867; she was a daughter of L. H. St. Clair, born in Vermont, May 6, 1800; he was a farmer and a cloth-dresser

by trade, and died April 14, 1866; his wife, Miss Lurenda Spaulding, born in Vermont October 31, 1799, died in Rochester, Illinois, February 21, 1853. They had eight children, were both members of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Springfield. After Mr. S. D. Fisher was married, in 1852, he settled in Waynesville, Illinois, where he was book-keeper in a store of general merchandise, two years, when he went with the same firm to Atlanta, where he was book-keeper until 1875, when he came to Springfield, Illinois, and was elected Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, a position he has faithfully filled and still retains. He was elected a member of the Illinois State Board of Equalization in 1872, served three years, when he resigned on account of his duties as Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, he was a member of this board four years before he was appointed secretary: He was married to his present wife, Miss Elzina M. Benton, October 20, 1868. She was born in Ohio, November 30, 1844; she was a daughter of Francis A. Benton, who was born in Lenox, Massachusetts April 30, 1816. He was a gradu- ate and followed teaching as a profession, he died in Lincoln, Illinois, November 10, 1866; his wife, Elizabeth A. Ketcham was born in Connecti- cut, April 1823; they were married in Berkshire, Ohio, November 9, 1842. They had four chil- dren, three living, Eliznia M., Moretta A., and Frank J. Benton. Asa Fisher, father of S. D. Fisher, was born in Vermont, April 25, 1781, he died in Troy, New York, in 1832, he was married to Lavisa D. Smith, in Vermont, January 1, 1807, she was born in Vermont, January 2, 1792, and died at Whallonsburg, New York, May 25, 1838.

Abraham H. Fisher, Jeweler and dealer in musical instruments, 504 south side of square, located in business at his present number eight years ago. Ile occupies two floors of the build- ing twenty by ninety-six. The store is beauti- fully fitted up and furnished with several ample burglar proof safes, which serve as depositories for his elegant stock of diamonds and fine jewelry, aggregating $35,000 in value. The second floor is devoted to musical merchandise where may be seen constantly in stock many of the best standard instruments, among them the Steinway, Weber, Steck, and Fisher pianos, and the Esty, Burdett, New England and Taylor and Farley organs, for all of which Mr. Fisher has the agency in this part of Illinois. He keeps three traveling salesmen on the road in the interest of his music trade. He is also a part- ner in the music house of Fisher & Judkins,

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

established in August, 1881, on north Sixth street, which carries on a wholesale and retail business in the same class of pianos and organs, handling all kinds of small instruments and sheet music besides. Mr. Fisher is a Pennsyl- vanian by birth, and is thirty-seven years old. He came to Springfield, Illinois, in April, 1869, and has been identified with this branch of mer- cantile business ever since. His parents and family came to the city with him. His father, John Fisher died here in 1876, and the widow and five sons and two daughters are residents of Springfield. The subject of this article remains unmarried.

John M. Forden, grocer, 112 North Fifth street and 523 East Monroe street, has been in the grocery business in Springfield since 1863. He first started on the south side of Washington street, two doors west of the square, and moved to his present store in 1875. He erected his building on Monroe street in 1880, and opened with a fresh stock of goods in January, 1881. The Fifth street store is 20x110 feet in area; and the Monroe street store 20x80 feet. They are both stocked with an extensive assortment of staple and fancy groceries, and each has a large retail trade.

Mr. Forden was born in Bourbon county, Ken- tucky, in January, 1831; is the son of John For- den and Evaline Sydner, who married in Ken- tucky, and moved to Sangamon county, Illinois, when the subject of this sketch was three months old, settling on Round Prairie, four iniles east of Springfield, where they passed the rest of their lives. His mother died nearly forty- five years ago, father in 1850. Mr. Forden im- proved a farm of one hundred and ninety acres in that neighborhood, and tilled it eight years before entering into his present business. In 1855 he married Eliza J. Wright, a native of Sangamon county, Illinois. They have but one child alive, Alice, fourteen years of age.

Frank Fleury, druggist, 505 Washington street, north side of the square, established the business at this number in August, 1876. He has a fine store, carries a large stock of drugs and toilet goods, and has an extensive trade. Ilis prescription business, a special feature of this house, is exceptionally large. The Fleury Medicine Company, of which he is chief pro- prietor, manufactures several valuable medic- inal remedies of tried and acknowledged merit. Among them are, "Indian Herbs of Joy," a remedy for diseases arising from impurities of the blood, of which more than four thousand bottles have been sold in Springfield in the past

year; and Fleury's Tasteless Cascarina, a new remedy for billiousness, headache and torpid liver. Of this over one thousand five hundred packages have been sold in Springfield in the past eight months. Mr. Fleury has also manu- factured DuFay's Magic Fluids for about tive years, and has sold over ten thousand bottles of them in that time.

Mr. Fleury was born in Meadville, Pennsylva- nia, September 28, 1841; served three years at the drug business with Carter & Brother, in Erie, Pennsylvania; and declining an offer from the firm of $50 per month, he came West, landing in Illinois in 1858. After spending a short time in Alton and Chicago, he located in Bloomington; from there came to Springfield in June, 1865; was elected City Clerk on the Democratie ticket in 1868, and served till 1872, four consecutive years. Previous to opening his present store he had been clerking in the drug business. He married Annie M., the eldest daughter of William HI. Herndon, June 26, 1863. She was born April 9, 1843, in Spring- field, Illinois. One child has been born of their union, Annie May Fleury.

John Foster, proprietor of Foster's livery, Washington street, near Ninth, established the business at that location in March, 1872. In July, 1876, he added the undertaking business, and has since carried on both, employing a capi- tal of about $12,000. His stock comprises about forty horses and a corresponding number of vehicles. He owns a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres, three and a half miles south of the city, which he also cultivates. Mr. Fos- ter is a native of Ireland, born March 19, 1840; came to America with parents, in 1847, landing in Philadelphia in January. The family lived for a time in New York and Pennsylvania; came to Illinois in 1852, and lived a number of years in Lee and Whiteside counties. In October, 1862, the subject of this memoir came to Spring- field, and was employed as a hand in the lumber business about eight years. At the end of that time he started in the business of teaming, which he carried on about five years before engaging in livery. Mr. Foster married in Springfield, in 1863, to Mary Grady, also born in Ireland, and came to the city about the same time he did. They have seven children and one adopted child. Mr. F. was elected Alderman of the First Ward in the spring of 1881; is a member of the West- ern Catholic Union, and of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

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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 110

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