Portrait and biographical album of DeKalb County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, Part 16

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Bros.
Number of Pages: 888

USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > Portrait and biographical album of DeKalb County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county > Part 16

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The subject of this sketch, whose portrait ap- pears on the opposite page, lived in his native county until he was 26 years of age, on the farm with his father, in the meantime obtaining a common- school education. He then came to Squaw Grove Township, this county, and worked as a common laborer by the day and month the first season. The next year he took a farm, and rented farms for five years, when he went out upon the "raw " prairie, which he has improved and since made his home. He first built a log house upon the place and moved into it in 1844. Fifteen years afterward he built a frame house, east of where he is now living.

Mr. H. has held the office of Constable in Squaw. Grove, Road Commissioner for several terms and

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School Director a number of years. In politics he is a Republican, and in religious matters he was for- merly a Methodist.

He was married Dec. 6, 1836, to Fannie Larkin, who was born May 1, 1815, in Green Co., N. Y., and died May 7, 1873, on the old homestead in this county. She was a Baptist. The second marriage of Mr. Hopkins occurred July 3, 1877, in Blackberry, Kane Co., Ill., to Mary J. Gandy, daughter of George W. and Mary (Meacham) Gandy. Her mother was born Aug. 13, 1800, in Woodstock, Ct., and died April 4, 1876, in this township; and her father was born Feb. 3, 1804, in New Jersey, and is deceased. By his first wife Mr. Hopkins had eight children, as follows: Cyrus E., born Oct. 11, 1837, and [was married Feb. 22,1863 ; Charles H. was born Aug. 6, 1839, and married Dec. 7, 1871; William J., born Nov. 29, 1840, died Dec. 27 following; John E., born June 11, 1842, married June 14, 1870, and died Aug. 1, 1884; Sarah J., born Aug. 6, 1844, was mar- ried July 4, 1869; Albert J., born Aug. 15, 1846, was married Sept. 3, 1873; Phebe A., born Aug. 14, 1848, was married Dec. 6, 1870; Fanny A., born Dec. 27, 1850, was married Oct. 11, 1870; and Mel- vin M., born Oct. 3, 1853, was married Feb. 25, 1879. By his second marriage Mr. H. has had three children, as follows: Pearl, born July 20, 1880, died Aug. 14 following; Ross, born July 9, 1882, died Nov. 3 following; and Daisy I., born Jan. 3, 1884:

captain Henry C. Whittemore, senior member of the firm of Whittemore, Cham- berlain & Co., dealers in hardware, stoves, agricultural implements, wagons and carriages at Sycamore, was born Oct. 31, 1841, at Au- burn, N. Y. He was seven years of age when his parents, Lorenzo and Hannah (Kelsey) Whitte- more, removed their family to Sycamore. His father was born March 11, 1807, in Leicester, Mass., and is still a resident of Sycamore, where he operated as a mechanic nearly a quarter of a century. The Cap- tain's mother was born Dec. 25, 1805, in Ulster Co., N. Y., and died in March, 1879. They had two

children. Floyd K., the younger, is a banker in Springfield, Ill.

Captain Whittemore passed his boyhood and youth in the acquisition of his education, and about the age of 18 years secured the position of Deputy Circuit Clerk, in which he was occupied until the era of 1861, which tried the mettle of every man and boy within the Federal Union. The stuff of which Cap- tain Whittemore is made was proven early in that memorable year by his enlistment as a private soldier in Company G, 'Second Illinois Light Artillery. He was transferred, a few weeks later, to Company H, which was detailed for service in the Ordnance De- partment of the Army of the Tennessee, the office being established at Cairo, during the winter of 1861-2, and also at Columbus, Ky.

In the spring of 1863 the command was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. In December, 1861, young Whittemore was made Lieutenant, and he held that rank until July, 1863, when .he was commissioned Captain of Battery H. He performed the duties of the position until February, 1865, when he was detailed as Assistant Adjutant General on the staff of Gen. L. H. Rousseau, and served until the termination of the war.

Captain Whittemore was mustered out of the military service of the United States July 29, 1865, and entered the postal service of the Government, operating in South Carolina. In the spring of 1867 he returned to Sycamore, and embarked in the busi- ness of tanning, in which he was interested about two years; at the expiration of that time turning his attention to insurance, and later, entering the office of the County Clerk as a Deputy. In 1873 he formed a partnership with John B. Harkness and his brother F. K. Whittemore, and founded the business in which he has since operated. The members of the present firm are Captain Whittemore, W. G. Cham- berlain and A. W. Brower. Their trade and business relations in their line of traffic is the leading one in the county, their invested capital being about $15,000.

· Captain Whittemore is a member of the Masonic fraternity and belongs to Lodge No. 134, at Syca- more. He is a Republican in political convictions, and has served his township several years as Super- visor. In the fall of. 1884 he was elected to the State Legislature, receiving a gratifying majority of 2,400 votes.

His marriage to Amelia E. Martin occurred at

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Sycamore, March 14, 1864. Mrs. Whittemore was born April 19, 1841, in the place where she has always lived, and she is the daughter of Harry and Jane Martin. Four of five children born to Captain and Mrs. Whittemore are living. They were born as follows: Charles F., Aug. 24, 1865, died Oct. 20, 1871; Mary, Sept. 20, 1867; Harry, Sept. 25, 1869 ; Cora, Jan. 19, 1872; Floyd, Dec. 8, 1874.

ames M. Elliott, farmer, having 132 acres on sections 1 and 2, Cortland Township, was born in Springfield, Clark Co., Ohio, March 27, 1820. His father moved to. Union Co., that State, whence he, when 16 years of age, in company with a half brother, John, came with a four-horse team to this county, arriving Oct. 8, 1835. John entered a claim east of Mr. E.'s present place, but the climate aggravating his rheumatism, he returned to Union Co., Ohio, where he now lives.

The subject of this sketch made his home with his half brother and worked around by the month until his marriage, Jan. 4, 1839, to Miss Dilla Perry, who was born Sept. 21, 1822, in Yates Co., N. Y., in Potter Township, and was 13 years old when her parents emigrated to Illinois, coming all the way by team and being six weeks on the road. Her father, Matthew H. Perry, was born in Berkshire Co., Mass., in August, 1796, of American ancestry, and is now residing temporarily in Iowa, while his home is in Burlington Township, Kane Co., Ill. Her mother, Pamelia, nee Briggs, was born in Providence, R. I., in April, 1801, of American parentage. Her grand- father on her mother's side, Caleb Briggs, was a Revolutionary soldier. Mr. and Mrs. Perry moved to Ottawa, Ill., in the fall of 1835, and the next spring to Big Rock Township, whence, in the fall of 1837, they removed to Burlington Township, Kane County, where they have since lived, although Mr. P. resided a short time in this (Cortland) township, while he was building a house on his farm.

Mr. Elliott's father, Alexander Elliott, was born in Chenango Co., Pa., and died in 1829, in Union Co.,

Ohio, of milk-sickness, while he was building a house upon a tract of land he had purchased there, and while his residence was in Clark Co., that State. He had been married three times. He first married Jane Chatfield, and she died, leaving four children. His second wife was the mother of the subject of this sketch, who left three children, all sons, James being the youngest. His third wife was Sarah Moore, nee Custer. Two years after his father's death the re- mainder of the family moved to their new home in Union County. The mother of the subject of this sketch, Polly, nee Sweet, was a native of Tennessee and died in Clark Co., Ohio, in 1821, when he was but a year old.

Mr. and Mrs. Elliott have three children, viz .: Henry M., born Sept. 18, 1840; Morris M., Aug. 12, 1842; and Clarence, Jan. 4, 1850,-the first two in Kane County and the last in this township.

Mr. Elliott is a Republican in his political views, and has held the office of School Director. Mr. E. had five brothers in the army during the last war. Two, Hale and Samuel, died of disease in the hospi- tal, and one-Oliver H. Perry-lost an arm at Savan- nah, Ga., when Sherman captured the city.

lexander H. Durham, farmer, section 10, Genoa Township, has been a resident of that municipality most of the time since his birth within its borders, which event oc- curred Aug. 26, 1841. Henry and Jane (Wager) Durham, his parents, were natives of the State of New York. They were pioneers in Genoa Township and residents of the village of that name, where they died. Their deaths occurred respectively in 1854 and in 1855. They were the parents of 10 children, five of whom are still living : Sarah, Sabrina, Ursula, Ethan A. and Alexander H.

Mr. Durham received a common-school education, and when he was 14 years of age his mother died. Being then wholly orphaned, he became an inmate of the family of his brother-in-law, Julius Chipman, of Kingston Township. Eighteen months later he re- turned to the place of his nativity and lived about a year and a half with one of his brothers. On the

Mrs J. J. Glidden

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death of the latter he engaged as a farm assistant with his brother-in-law, James Merriman, for whom he worked two years. During that time he married and located on a farm nearly half a mile east of the village of Genoa, to whose ownership he succeeded by the provisions of his father's will. He occupied the place seven successive years, when he sold it and bought 80 acres, where he established his per- manent homestead. He already having 160 acres on section 15, adjoining that which was left him by the death of his father, he now owns 260 acres in all, 170 acres under tillage, and 20 acres of timber on section 31. Mr. Durham is in sympathy with the Democrat element in political sentiment.

His marriage to Jennie Farr took place in Spring Township, Boone Co., Ill., Jan. 1, 1862, and they are now the parents of four children,-Elmer E., born Oct. 2, 1863; Leonard P., born May 18, 1868; Amber S., born March 2, 1870; and Roy H., born Dec. 30, 1883. Mrs. Durham is the fourth daughter and child of Oliver and Roxana Farr, and was born Jan. 27, 1843, in Pennsylvania. Her brothers and sisters were named Nancy, Mary, Armina, William, Millard, Martha and Maynard.

oseph F. Glidden, patentee of the Glidden barb-wire fence, residing at De Kalb, was born Jan. 18, 1813, in Charleston, Sullivan Co., N. H. He is the son of David and Polly (Hurd) Glidden, both of whom were natives of the Granite State and were there married. About the year 1814 they removed their family and interests to Orleans Co., N. Y., and were there resi- dent until 1844, when they came to Illinois. They made a brief stay in Ogle County, removing thence to the home of their eldest son, then a farmer in De Kalb Township, and were inmates of his house- hold through the closing years of their lives. They had six children,-Joseph F., Betsey, Eunice, Wil- lard J., Abigail and Stephen H.

Mr. Glidden was in the second year of his life

when his parents settled in Clarendon, Orleans Co., N. Y., and entered upon agricultural pursuits. He was brought up on the farm, acquired a thorough and practical knowledge of its details, and interspersed the seasons of labor by attendance at school. Pri- marily, he was a pupil in the ordinary educational institutions of the township, and later became a stu- dent at the Middlebury Academy in Genesee County he afterwards attended a seminary at Lima, Living- ston County, in the same State.' He formed educa- tional plans with reference to a collegiate course, and taught some months ; but, being of a practical turn of mind, the field for immediate action, to which he was accustomed by training, possessed an almost irre- sistible attraction, and he engaged as a renter of farms for some years, that being the common mode of operation adopted by those who had their way to make from the beginning. The figure at which the acres of the Empire State were held precluded almost the slightest promise of the advancement of a laborer to a proprietorship, and Mr. Glidden began to con- sider the feasibility of making his way westward.

In the fall of 1842 he proceeded to Detroit, with two threshing-machines, of the primitive construction, then in use, and spent 30 days in Michigan on the wheat farms of that State, operating his threshers, assisted by his brother Willard and two other men. Finally reaching St. Joseph, on the east side of Lake Michigan, he shipped the machines to Chicago and proceeded to De Kalb County, where he passed two years in the same avenue of business. During the winter of 1842-3 he bought 600 acres of land located on section 22, De Kalb Township, of his cousin, Russell Huntley, and which he still owns. He resi- ded two years in Ogle County, not taking possession of his property until 1845.

Mr. Glidden's first marriage took place in Claren- don, Orleans Co., N. Y., in 1837, when he formed a matrimonial union with Clarissa Foster. He left his wife and two children behind him when he started for the West with his machines, and before his wife joined him in Illinois the children had passed to the spirit world. She came to Ogle County in June, 1843, and died the next year in childbirth. The lit- tle daughter, for whom her own life was given, died in early infancy. The children of this marriage were named Virgil, Homer and Clarissa.

The second marriage of Mr. Glidden, to Lucinda

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Warne, took place in Kane County, in October, 185 1, and they have one child-Elva F .- now the wife of W. H. Bush, a merchant of Chicago.

In 1845 Mr. Glidden took possession of his farm, remaining its resident proprietor until 1877, adding to its extent and increasing it to more than 800 acres. It is a fine sample of the perfection of attractions and value to which a prairie farm may be brought. In the year named Mr. Glidden relinquished the per- sonal management of his farm and removed to the city of De Kalb, where he became an inmate of the Glidden House, which he had built a few years before.

"The summary of the triumphs of American inven- tive genius present a splendid array. Their relative importance has developed a saying, which, perhaps, in general significance, cannot be gainsaid,-that " those who add to the material wealth of nations are greater than those that contribute to the comfort or convenience of mankind." But analysis and time must weaken the force of the statement. The man who " made two blades of grass grow where one grew before " may be a benefactor, but the beneficence of his achievement becomes a question if the extra blade is superfluous. It has become trite that the "inven- tion of the cotton-gin advanced the South 50 years," and the progress of the North consequent upon the invention of the reaping-machine is similarly estima- ted. But for 40 years the question of fencing the. broad, beautiful acres of the prairie section of the United States remained unanswered, and hampered the farmers in all their projects; and there seemed for years no remedy for the existent condition but in legislation,-a forlorn hope in view of the fate com- mon to legal provisions in the hands of sagacious and interested interpreters of the statutes. Stone walls were utterly impracticable; the raids of the agents selling Osage orange and willow cuttings, which should produce self-perpetuating fences with the celerity of Aladdin's lamp, were profitable to none but their companies. With every tree that fell be- neath the woodman's devastating ax, receded farther and farther the hopes for fencing material.

Mr. Glidden solved the problem which had been a standing perplexity of increasing proportions for almost half a century, and by his invention of the barb-wire fence placed his name on the list of en- during fame with those of Whitney, Arkwright, Howe

and McCormick and a long catalogue of others, who will move through the records and traditions of the future as the benefactors of the world. The history of the invention is interesting and belongs to the per- sonal biography of Mr. Glidden and to the lasting records of De Kalb County. The earliest patents for barb-wire fencing were issued in 1867, but the material lacked practical merit and attracted com- paratively little notice. Mr. Glidden interested him- self in it, and, recognizing the utility and profit of a successful method of constructing wire fence, pushed a course of experiments as he found opportunity. He cut barbs by hand and extemporized a process by which they could be twisted about the wire. A piece 30 feet long [was armed with the spiteful ap- pearing prongs and twisted with a piece of smooth wire by attaching the two to the axle of a grindstone, the twist being obtained by turning the crank. The fence was stretched in the barn-yard of Mr. Glidden and proved a success. The result of the experiment is still a fixture and feature of the barn-yard where it was originally placed, and is demonstrating the prac- tical utility of the device as thoroughly as at first. The gratified inventor applied in October, 1873, for. letters patent, which he received in the spring of 1874.

Meanwhile, Isaac L. Ellwood, a hardware mer- chant of De Kalb, had expended considerable time and money in experimenting with various kinds of fencing, and Mr. Glidden laid before him the results of his experiments, and they formed an association for the purposes of manufacture. They rented a small building and employed a corps of laborers, consisting chiefly of boys; but the speedy increase of their business necessitated their removal to more extensive and centrally located quarters, and in the winter of 1874-5 they took possession of their factory at De Kalb. In the spring they opened business with a working force of 30. men. Changes were made from time to time, which were protected by ad- ditional patents, and the manufacture of barb-wire fence was continued by Messrs. Glidden & Ellwood until March, 1876. At that date, the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company, of Worcester, Mass., purchased the half interest of Mr. Glidden and the present firm of I. L. Ellwood & Co. was established.

Mr. Glidden received $60,000 and a guarantee of 25 cents on every 100 pounds of fencing material

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constructed., The latter rate has been reduced to five cents per hundred weight, the enormous produc- tion of the barb-wire fence yielding even at the roy- alty of one-fifth the original stipulation a generous income to the inventor.

Since 1876 Mr. Glidden has devoted his attention to his first love-farming-and superintends the management of his extensive tracts of farming land in De Kalb County, comprising an extent of 1,500 acres. He is also engaged to a considerable extent in stock-raising, and, associated with H. B. Sanborn, is the owner of a cattle ranch in the portion of coun- try known as the Panhandle of Texas, where they are herding about 16,000 head of cattle. They own 280 sections of land, constituting 280 square miles of territory, and requiring 150 miles of fencing, which was erected at a cost of $40,000. Mr. Glidden owns also a half-interest in a flour-mill at De Kalb.

He has also been active in the duties of his citi- zenship in De Kalb County and Township, and in 1852 was elected Sheriff. He possesses the distinc- tion of being the last Democratic official of the county. He has served his townsmen as Supervisor several terms, and performed the duties of other local offices of minor importance. Mr. Glidden is a mem- ber of the Masonic fraternity.

Of his character and prominence a reliable esti- mate may be formed by the sketch given. He is essentially a member of the class descended from the "grand old gardener," and he has remained true to his lineage, which may be regarded as closely akin to dignity itself. The farmer comes of a descent whose antitype was molded in the freshness of God's plan of man, and found fitting to inhabit Paradise. The man who spends his life in tilling the ground proves his birthright in the inheritance of a redeemed world. Mr. Glidden has found no allurement in the career of a capitalist, nor availed himself of the op- portunity afforded by his sudden accession to wealth, which has since flowed with a lavish tide into his coffers, to grasp by the throat men of less fortunate hap and turn their disasters to his own profit. He remembers his days of toil and struggle, and takes justifiable pride in the spreading beneficence of his invention and in the well earned title of a farmer of De Kalb County, pure and simple.

The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Glidden are pre-

sented on other pages. Their value to the biograph- ical records of De Kalb County is manifest without elaboration of statement. ;

ames P. Seaman, farmer on section 15, Cortland Township, has land also on sec- tions 14 and 16,-120 acres in all. He was born in the town of Bovina, Delaware Co., N. Y., Aug. 21, 1830. His parents were Ephraim and Naomi (Carman) Seaman, both of whom have long since deceased. His father, who was born in 1805, was killed Dec. 21, 1847, in the township of Preston, Chenango Co., N. Y. While cutting down a tree for a sick neighbor, it broke in two about 16 feet up, and in chopping it down from this awkward position it fell upon his neck and broke it! He was thus found by James P., the subject of this sketch, and by a man who after- ward became his brother-in-law. The senior Seaman was also a native of Bovina Township.

When the subject of this sketch was 11 years old, his parents emigrated with him to Chenango Co., N. Y., where he lived until 1854. He then came to Cortland Township, this county, and worked in company with Amos Rogers three years, when his mother purchased the present homestead. At her death it was divided among the three children of her first marriage, James being the administrator. Her second marriage was to Robert Clark, a sea captain. She was born Feb. 19, 1810, in the town of Bovina, N. Y. Both her parents were of Yankee ancestry. A great-great-grandfather was a seaman in the Rev- olutionary War, a Major, and on that account re- ceived a large tract of land, which he sold at six cents per acre, it being in the Southern States.

Mr. Seaman was married Nov. 15, 1857, in Oxford, Chenango Co., N. Y., to Miss Mary A., daughter of Levi B. and Caroline E. (Olds) Jackson. Her father was born Feb. 24, 1808, was a shoemaker by vocation, and died Sept. 2, 1876, in Oxford, N. Y. Her mother was born Feb. 24, 1810, in Oxford N. Y. Mrs. S., the second child in the above family, was born Dec. 28, 1837, in Erie Co., N. Y., and was a yearold when her parents moved to Oxford. Of the six children

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in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Seaman, three are de- ceased. The record stands : Carrie L., born July Io, 1860, in this (Cortland) Township; Arthur C., July 8, 1865, in this township, and died March 16, 1876, and is buried in Ohio Grove Cemetery; Nonie C., born Feb. 11, 1868, and died in Cortland, Jan. 16, 1881; Frankie, born July 12, 1870, died Aug. 25, following, and is also buried in Ohio Grove Cem- etery ; May L., Aug. 4, 1871; and Lizzie H., Aug. 28, 1875 .- the last two born also in Cortland. Mr. Seaman is a Republican in his political views, and both himself and wife are members of the Free- will-Baptist Church.

enry N. Olmstead, farmer, section 16, Genoa Township, is a native of the place where he has passed his entire life to the present date. He was born March 4, 1851, and is the son of Caleb and Samantha (Wager) Olmstead, natives of the State of New York. (See sketch of Caleb Olmstead.)

Mr. Olmstead obtained a fair common-school edu- cation, which he completed by attendance at the High School at Sycamore. When he was 22 years of age he embarked in his career of independent man- hood, and in 1884 purchased the family homestead, which included 160 acres of valuable land, nearly all being under cultivation.

Mr. Olmstead has been identified throughout his career in political matters with the Republican party, and has officiated in the discharge of the duties per- taining to several local offices.

His marriage to Jane Wright took place at Genoa, March 4, 1877. They have had four children, viz .: Caleb, born Oct. 23, 1878; Olin H., June 22, 1879; Nellie and Jay G. The two youngest are not living. Mrs. Olmstead was born Aug. 9, 1857, in Sycamore, and is the daughter of Royal and Mary (Siglin) Wright, the former a native of New York, the latter born in Pennsylvania. Her parents located at Syca- more soon after marriage, and her father there en- gaged in farming. He died March 1, 1872. Her

mother lives in Iowa. Mrs. Olmstead is the eldest of eight children. Her brothers and sisters were named Frank, Asa, Charles, Amos, Jacob, Flora and Hiram.

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Portrait and biographical album of DeKalb County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, Part 16

Author: Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Bros. Number of Pages: 888

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Bros.
Number of Pages: 888