Portrait and biographical album of Henry County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, Part 94

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 850

USA > Illinois > Henry County > Portrait and biographical album of Henry County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county > Part 94

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yman J. Wilkinson, an influential citizen of Munson Township, was born in Tioga County, Pa., Aug. 17, 1833, and was the second son of George and Julia (Manton) Wil- kinson, natives of Rhode Island and, on the father's side, of English descent. The latter removed to Illinois at an early day, with an emigrant wagon and a span of horses, cooking and camping out by the way. Mr. W. had previously visited this State and made a claim at Four-Mile Grove, in La- Salle County. There he built a log house and cov- ered the roof with clapboards which he rived him- self. This farm he sold in 1840, and he moved to Troy Grove, lived there two years and then moved to Concord Township, Bureau County, where he had purchased a tract of land, erected a house and im- proved the place, residing there until 1874, when he came to this county, settling in Munson Township and where he finally died. Mrs. W. is still living, making her home with her children.

Mr. Lyman J. Wilkinson, whose name heads this sketch, was reared to manhood mainly in Bureau County, at farm life and with the usual attendance at the public schools. He was united in the bonds of

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matrimony on the 31st of March, 1853, to Miss Em- eline Stevens, a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Smith) Stevens, the parents being both natives of New Hampshire. Mrs. W. was born near Canter- bury, that State. In his youth and early manhood Mr. Wilkinson learned the trade of carpenter and joiner, and he settled in Tiskilwa, that county, where he followed his trade until 1862. In August of the latter year he enlisted for his country's salvation in Co. E, 93d Ill. Vol. Inf., as First Lieutenant, and he served faithfully until August, 1863, when he was honorably discharged on account of disability. He participated in the battles of Champion Hill, Jack- son, Miss., siege and capture of Vicksburg and in numerous smaller engagements.

On the closing of his military service he returned to Tiskilwa, residing there until 1872, serving two years and three months as Superintendent of the Bu- reau County Infirmary. In 1872 he was engaged as Superintendent of the Infirmary of this county, since which time he has been a resident here and in charge of that institution, where he has always given the best of satisfaction in the discharge of his public duties.

Mr. Wilkinson has three children living, namely : George T., Willis L. and Burt H. George T. mar- ried Jennie Goshorn, of Geneseo, Oct. 23, 1856.

In his political views he was formerly a Democrat, but is now a Republican.

kermann Hirschberger, engaged in the hardware business at Annawan, this county, was born in Brunswick, Germany, Aug. 22, 1839. He emigrated to this, the land of possi- bilities, when he was 15 years old, landing at New York city in July, 1854. From the latter place he removed to Milwaukee, Wis., where, for three years, he was engaged in gardening. At the expiration of this time he went to Kewaunee Co., Wis., and was there engaged in a saw-mill.

Remaining in the latter State until May, 1861, Mr. Hirschberger came to Annawan, Henry County, where he learned the tinsmith's trade, and at which he worked until Aug. 12, 1862. At this period in his life's history he enlisted in the war for the Union, joining Co. A, 112th Ill. Vol. Inf .. and was mustered into the service at Peoria, Ill., Sept. 27, 1862, under

Col. T. J. Henderson. The regiment proceeded to Lexington, Ky. At Danville, in 1863, he was taken prisoner while on picket duty, but in a few days was paroled. and was at Columbus, Ohio, and at St. Louis, Mo., until September of that year, when he was exchanged, and ordered to Knoxville, Tenn., where he was assigned to the 23d Army Corps under Gen. Scofield. He was all through the East Ten- nessee and Georgia campaign, and joined Sherman at Goldsboro, N. C. He was never wounded in battle, and was mustered out June 20, 1865, at Greensboro, N. C., receiving his final discharge at Chicago, July 7, 1865.

The marriage of Mr. Hirschberger to Miss Kate Seyller took place Sept. 16, 1862. She was born in Alsace, Germany, March 10, 1845, and of their union six children have been born, namely : Josephus O., Emma K., Eleanora, Charlie, Kate and Clara. Mr. Herschberger is at present is at present engaged in the hardware business at Annawan, and keeps a general stock of stoves, tinware, etc., and is doing a good and increasing business. He has a good, plain business house, 64 × 22 feet in dimensions, two stories high, and another building 16 x 24 feet. So- cially, he is a member of the G. A. R., Post 290, at Annawan, and at present is Quartermaster-Sergeant of that Order. In politics, he affiliates with the Re- publican party.

ycurgus Cole. One of the prominent young farmers of Annawan Township, re- siding on section 33, is Lycurgus Cole. He has long been identified with the history of Henry County, but has laid the foundation for an excellent record in the future, and gives promise of being at no distant day one of the leading and representative men of his community.

He was born in Jefferson Co., Ohio, July 14, 1856. He remained with his parents, working on the farm and attending the district schools, until 1876. Dur- ing the latter year Mr. Cole came to this State and located in Stark County, where for two years he worked out by the month. He then rented a farm of 142 acres of Mrs. Barbara McClelland, of Stark County, and for four years occupied his time in its cultivation. In March, 1884, he came to Annawan

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Township and bought 240 acres of improved land, on which he located with his family and entered vigorously and energetically upon the task of its cul- tivation and improvement, determining to make it a permanent home for himself and family. He has a splendid farm, with a good two-story residence, 36 by 48 feet in dimensions, and a good cellar. He has a fine grove of timber in his front yard and on his place there are two barns, one 48 x 48 feet, and the other 32 x 60 feet in dimensions.

Mr. Cole formed a matrimonial alliance, Dec. 24, 1881, with Miss Mary Cole, the ceremony being per- formed by Rev. Keene, of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Kewanee. Miss Cole was born Nov. 8, 1861, in Stark Co., Ill., and is the daughter of Joshua Cole, born in 1837, in Athens Co., Ohio, and who married Miss Susan Habbock in 1860. Mrs. Joshua Cole was born in 1838, and bore her husband eight children, namely : Joseph, Mary (the wife of the subject of this notice), Elton, Martha, William, Wes- ley, Otis and Ernest.

The father of the subject of this sketch, William Cole, was born in Ohio in 1822, and married Miss Achsah Cole, in 1845. She was born in 1823, and bore her husband eight children, whose names are: Alexander, Izina, Byron, Lycurgus, Nesbit, Viola, Delmer and Etta. The venerable couple are still residents of Ohio, and the father yet takes pleasure in casting his vote, as he has done for years, with the Republican party.

apt. Sullivan Howard, a pioneer, in fact, the founder, or more nearly so than any other one man, of the village of Kewanee, was born at Temple, Hillsboro' Co., N. H .; June 30, 1806. From the old farm Sullivan Howard at the age of about 18 went to An- dover, Mass., where he learned to be a " house- wright." When nearly 21 years of age, he went to Boston and from there to Mason village, where he resided until the spring of 1836, and in the fall fol- lowing landed at Wethersfield, Henry County, as a stockholder of the Wethersfield Colony. In 1844-5 Capt. Howard, as contractor, erected Henry County's first court house, and in 1854, when this village was to be laid out, he and Henry G. Little, Nelson Lay and Ralph Tenney, in company, purchased the

nothwest quarter of section 33, township 15 north, range 5 east, from Dwight Needham, who traded for the land, having John Potter deed to those gentle- men as a company, and hereon they proceeded to lay out the town of Kewanee as it now stands.

So soon as the town was started, Capt. Howard entered into the lumber business, and in 1856, tak- ing Mr. N. Lay into partnership, engaged also in the grain business, a traffic he followed up to 1863, Mr. Lay entering probably in 1860. Since 1863 he has dealt in stock, looking after his farming interests, etc., up to 1882, when he disposed of his last farm and retired from active business.

avid B. Barge, a settler of Phoenix Town- ship of 1847, and at present one of the successful farmers as well as large land owners of that township, was born in Arm- strong Co., Pa., May 3, 1827. He is a son of John and Jane (Elliott) Barge, natives of Penn- sylvania. When Mr. Barge, of this sketch, was seven years of age, his parents moved to Ohio, and stopped for a while in Richland County for two years, when they removed to Wayne County, that State. In the latter county, David attended the common schools, worked on the farm and developed into manhood.

In 1847, Mr. Barge left the parental household and went forth to do for himself. He started for Wisconsin via the Lakes, but the boat could not land in that State, on account of lack of steam, and landed at Chicago. From that city, Mr. Barge came by canal to La Salle, and then took a stage to Prince- ton, from which latter place he came on foot to this county. On arriving here he engaged in threshing and followed that occupation until late in the fall of that year, when he came to Grant Co., Wis., for the purpose of mining, but on reaching there could not procure a job at that work and engaged in chopping cord-wood, and continued at that work during the winter. On the 4th of March following, he started for Illinois via stage to Galena, then on foot to Al- bany, from which place he took a stage for Geneseo, but on account of bad roads was compelled to foot it the greater part of the way. On arriving there he purchased six land warrants, and in May following went to Dixon on foot and entered 160 acres of land

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on section 28, Phoenix Township. He was a single man at that time and continued to work in the neigh- borhood for two years.

He made his first improvements upon his land in 1850, at which time he erected a plank house 16 x 20 feet in dimensions and one-story. Since that time he has erected a fine frame house on his place, to- gether with a good barn, and by energetic labor and economy has added to his landed interests in Phenix Township until he is at present the proprietor of 540 acres of good land, all of which with the exception of 20 acres of timber is under an advanced state of cul- tivation. Coming to this county with nothing but strong arms and a determination to get on in the world, and acquiring the splendid property that he owns to-day through his own exertions, he certainly deserves great credit.

Mr. Barge was united in marriage, April 6, 185 1, with Eliza M. Aldrich, daughter of C. C. and Sophia Aldrich, pioneers of this county. Mrs. Barge was born in Pickaway Co., Ohio, and has borne her hus- band two children,-Alvin W. and Alice C. Alvin is married and resides in Phenix Township, and is the father of two children. Alice is the wife of Thomas Lauderbaugh, and resides with him in Phe- nix Township.

ohn P. Foster, a farmer residing upon sec- tion 5, Cornwall Township, is a son of Thomas Foster, a native of Harrison Co., Ky. The father came to Sangamon County, this State, in the fall of 1832, and was there en- gaged in agricultural pursuits until his death, which occurred two years later, in 1834, of cholera.

John P. Foster was born May 11, 1815, in Ken- tucky, and came with his father in 1833 to Sanga- mon County, this State. His mother died in Ken- tucky when he, John, was quite small. Her parents were Christopher and Mary Musselman. Mr. Foster of this notice was united in marriage with Miss Har- riet Browning, Jan. 25, 1844, Rev. Philip Hanna of- ficiating. Joshua Browning, her father, was a native of Georgia, having been born in that State April 25, 1805, and died Dec. 14, 1851, in this county. He was one of the first settlers of Henry County and en- dured all the privations incident to the settlement of a new country. His marriage to Miss Fannie Hall took place in November, 1839. She was born March 18, 18II.

Mr. and Mrs. Foster are the parents of nine chil- dren, their record being as follows : Julia E., born Nov. 23, 1844; Henry, Sept. 6, 1846; Roena, Aug. 15, 1848; Franklin, Jan. 18, 1851 ; Mary F., Oct. 9, 1853; William P., Oct. 4, 1857 ; Leona, Sept. 5, 1860 ; John, May 16, 1863; and Nellie R., D'ec. 9, 1865.

Mr. Foster has resided on section 5, Cornwall Township, for the last 20 years. His farm of 120 acres located thereon is well improved, with a good residence, 26 x 52 feet, with an addition, and in the vocation of his life he is meeting with that success which energy and perseverence always bring. In politics he is a believer in and a supporter of the principles of the Republican party.

HISTORICAL®

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HENRY COUNTY.

INTRODUCTORY.

HAT is history? A simple enough question to ask, and one that all men with- out a thought suppose even the smallest school children fully understand. A historian commences the in- MW) vestigation of a country for the purpose of writing its history, and what does he find ? A vast aggregation, perhaps, of people, moving along the great highway of life, a fixed and strong government of law and police power, social and community life, vast public and private institutions of schools, of medicine, law and theology, great cathedrals, churches and public buildings, and hovels and fine residences and great old baronial castles ; vast industries upon the farms, in the fac- tories and everywhere. Railroads, hospitals for the sick and deceased, penal institutions ; the flaming forges and the flying spindles ; happiness and joy, pain and suffering; bubbling laughter and heart- breaking sobs, and thus the active, busy world is like a vast bedlam of confused roaring-the eternal strug- gle between life and death. These are some of the superficies that every great community of people present to the most casual looker-on. But beneath all this is the deep and more subtle cause-the silent thoughts of men that have been the real power in molding and fashioning this wonderful and com- plex problem of aggregated human life. And to the

philosophic historian there lies still beneath this mental power of man in this human-building, the yet more powerful and equal subtile forces of nature, of soil, climate and atmosphere that enter so largely into giving definite shapes and fixed laws to all these wonders that grow into our civilization. A large growth of civilized people, the cause and the effects, is the most intricate subject of philosophic study in the world. They are all a development and growth, exactly as is everything in this world, or in the uni- verse. The acorn falling into its proper soil, and then sprouting into life and watered by the rains and shaped by the winds, grows to the great oak. But how many conditions are in that acorn upon which it depends before making the great tree? and exactly as those conditions-those resistless, physical laws -- are completely filled, just in that ratio is the life and growth and greatness of the tree assured. And so it is of every people in the world's history. The physical laws about them, their environment, is the destiny that shapes their ends. It is not the peculiar religion that they start in the race with that controls their destiny, but it is their physical surroundings, their soil, climate and the amount of dampness in the air that fashions even their minds, their religion, their schools and their highest social and civil life. In everything in the mental and physical world there is cause and effect-nothing more and nothing less. Hence, a people, in their good and bad, their wisdom and ignorance, their degree of civilization and their brutish barbarism, are but results flowing

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from antecedent causes; and to understand these causes, to partially see and comprehend and explain them is genuine history. This accounts for the physi- cal and the mental growth, existence and powers of men's minds and bodies.

Says a great historian and philosopher (and any true history of a people is the highest type of philos- ophy): "Genuine history is brought into existence only when the historian begins to unravel, across the lapse of time, the living man, toiling, impassioned, entrenched in his customs, with his voice and fea- tures, his gestures and dress, distinct and complete as he from whom we have just parted on the street." The history of a people who have passed away is the ef- fort to make the past the present; to revivify the dead and present every phase of actual life as it once existed, with all its bad and good, its ,blessings and its sufferings, the home life and on the public highways, in the streets and the fields-men and women privately, collectively and publicly, at work and at play, socially and morally, in love and anger, at prayer and at war, approaching the good and re- lapsing to man's worst estate.

The fullest details of What and How, and then the still greater question of Why, are some of the difficult problems that present themselves to the real historian. He well under- stands that the law, social life, religion and the schools are simply results of causes going before ; they are products that result from causes that are forever working like the law of gravitation which cannot change, cannot be controlled, but which en- ables us to walk upright, to build tall houses, to exist

in short. Newton's falling apple and the consequent slight knowledge of the law of gravitation were a won- derful revelation to the world, and we are yet ignor- ant of what law it was that placed the apple where it could fall. We can only infer that every natural great law of matter is, like electricity, composed of a positive and negative inherent force, and it is perhaps these two wonderful qualities of matter that produce every form and quality of life.

The fundamental facts of all real history are the easiest to trace in the annals of a pioneer people. Cause and effect here present themselves in their simplest forms. Hence, of all books that come from the press, the history of these nation-builders is the most easily instructed, and possessed of the deepest interest; and if it was all written as it deserves to be, it will furnish every fireside in the county for the young and the old, and for the generations yet un- born, the most enduring pleasure and the most profit- able instruction.

For such a purpose is this book written. 'And if any reader rises from the perusal of these pages, and can lay his hand upon his heart and say that he has gathered no pleasure nor profit therefrom, that his time and his money have been wasted; that he has had no pleasure, no quickening of thought, no sooth- ing, broadening suggestions to the mind, no extension and strengthening of the views of the great highway of human life, then the writer of these lines would exclaim in humility and shame that what he sup- posed was the very best of his life and work is after all but a miserable delusion and a sham.

HENRY COUNTY.

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EARLY

SETTLERS

HERE is incontestible evi- dence that different races of men, each distinct from the others, have been here, strutted their brief hour upon the world's great stage and passed away. How many distinct races preceded the coming of the red man, we cannot tell. We find the remains of their monuments, their great cities, their battle-grounds, mounds and occa- sional fossil remains, and from these busy archeologists are gaining many facts of historical interest. Those who were here and built great walled cities are designated as one of these races, the cliff-dwellers as another, and the mound-builders as yet another race. And still there is a supposition that there were distinct races of mound-builders from the distinct varieties of these curious human monuments that are found. The crumbled walls, fallen columns, the debris of pyramids and great temples and possibly palaces, that cumber the ground in profusion, in places, for a mile in circumference, gives evidence which cannot be mistaken, of great and splendid cities, “ whose lights are fled, whose garlands were dead " ages be- fore were laid the first foundation stones of Baalbec or Memphis.

But others, and with possibly better resources, hold that the mounds are the oldest obtainable records of extinct nations, and therefore these remarkable antiq-

uities are intensely interesting. Within the limits of the United States are the great majority of them, and so varied and widely scattered are they over the continent that they may well be considered of chief interest to the students of history.

These mounds and other works of the mound- builders consist of remains of what were appar- ently towns, altars, temples, pleasure grounds, forts, possibly buried mounds, idols, battle-fields, etc. And they enable us to tell something of the lives and habits of a people, every vestige of whose physical forms have long since dissolved into their original ele- ments.

Indians.

HE world's greatest races of wild savages were found upon this continent. Fierce and powerful tribes were in possession of all this country when the white man came. The New World was a land of wonders to the peoples of the East, and the supreme obstacle to the first waves of civilized men in gaining a foot- hold in this land, was the half-naked savages that roamed all over the country, as migratory as the buffalo, and whose only industry was warfare and the extermination of neighboring tribes.

There is no chapter in history that equals in un- qualified horrors the first hundred years that tell of the struggle for existence of civilized man for a per- manent foothold upon this fair land. There was

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death in its multiple forms from diseases, their own inexperience of the strange new world, the isolation and lonely despair of the oppressive solitudes, the dangerous wild beasts, where the thrilling human cry of the soft-footed panther oft wake in terror the sleep of the cradle; the reptiles, spotted with deadly beauty, noiselessly gliding in their mission of death upon their victims, and in bewildering and exuber- ance of vegetable growth often that appalled man's efforts to overcome them. But far beyond and above all these combined obstacles were the Indians.

The Sacs and Foxes and the Winnebagoes dwelt in this portion of Illinois, coming, it seems, after the destruction of the Iroquois. The French had pos- sessed the country, and held sway over it by right of discovery a hundred years, without serious con- tention, before it passed to the hands of the Ameri- cans. At the conclusion of the Revolution, when Washington was President, and the present race of men were commencing that flow of immigration that has never ceased, the Indians of the Mississppi Val- ley confederated together, and determined to contest the right of the " white dogs " to come among them. They asserted that the Ohio River was the extreme northwestern boundary line, and that all the North- west to the Pacific Ocean was granted to them "as long as water runs and grass grows." First Pontiac, then Tecumseh, and last Black Hawk, in 1832, were the respective leaders in these wars to drive back the hated white man. The defeat of Black Hawk at Bad Axe, in 1832, was the last of the Indian strug- gle, east of the Mississippi, that has come in the form of war.

One of the noted characters among the Indians of that day was White Cloud, the prophet of the Win- nebagoes, who lived at what is now Prophetstown, Whiteside County. His portrait is given on page 656.

Political Descent.

F the question was put to any teachers' institute, What is the genealogy of the county in which the meeting is held? how often could it be at all correctly answered. The titles to all our farins and lands are de- rived from the Government, and the knowledge how the title came to the Government is merely

completing the " abstract,"-an evidence of title that every prudent land-buyer fortifies his title to his lands with.

What is now Henry County was once New France, and was one of the French colonies or provinces. France gained her title by right of discovery and possession. More than 200 years ago Marquette and then La Salle had navigated the waters of the Illinois River, and a fort had been established on Starved Rock.

From 1732 to 1759 we were under the control, or rather belonged to, the Company of the Indies. M. Penier was Governor-General, and M. D'Artaguette was Local Governor of Illinois. This brave and chivalrous man was killed in the Chickasaw War, where he had been called to assist the people of Louisiana. Illinois at this time was a part of Louisi- ana and a province of Canada. The Company of the Indies failing, the French Government again as- sumed the control and title to the country.

When the Canadas were ceded to Great Britain, in 1776, by the " Quebec Bill," then all this portion of the Upper Mississippi Valley became a British province, and was placed under the care and gov- ernment of Canada. Had any of us been pioneers here then we would have been Canadians. The treaty of Paris was in 1763. Thomas Gage was Commander-in-chief of the British troops in North America; he issued a proclamation in 1764, permit- ting the Catholics in Illinois to exercise their worship in the same manner the Catholics did in Canada, and to " travel wherever they pleased, even to go to New Orleans."

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Portrait and biographical album of Henry County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county, Part 94

Author: Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 850

Author:
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 850