Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 2

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 952

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The fourth and fifth sons of Mr. George Wells were named Willie George and Frank Harrison, and were born respectively December 4, 1873, and June 21, 1875. Both died in infaney. The sixth son was Charles Lawrence, born January 19, 1883, and elsewhere referred to in this publication. The only daughter of the family was Harriet Evans, born July 28, 1884. She had a twin brother, who lived only a few months. Harriet is now the wife of Lafayette D. Musselman of Quiney.

CHARLES LAWRENCE WELLS, sixth son of Mr. and Mrs. George Wells and a grandson of the late Edward Wells of Quiney, is one of the most prominent younger men of the city, a leading spirit in all publie movements and a eon- structive factor in all that makes for advancement in this section of the state. He inherits much of the enterprise and vigor of his grandfather, but has di- rected them largely to eivie interests.

He was born at Quiney January 19, 1883, and like his older brothers was educated chiefly in the East. He attended the noted Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, also the Phillips Academy at Exeter, New Hampshire, and in the fall of 1903 entered Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1907. After his return to Quiney he became identified with his father's business, and is still eonneeted with the firm Wells & Adams, Mortgage Bankers.

In June, 1910, he was appointed by the mayor to the City Board of Local Improvements, and was one of its executive committee until 1912. During that time the board effected a great deal of permanent improvement in the eity, especially in construeting new streets, sidewalks and sewers and doing probably more in this line of improvement than Quincy has ever had at any similar period before or sinee. In 1912 Mr. Wells was appointed a member of the Boulevard and Park Association and is a member of the executive committee of that organization.

He has served as secretary of the Civie League, and through this organization has done some of his best work for the eity. Mr. Wells sinee May, 1916, has been president of the Woodlawn Cemetery Association, having succeeded his father, who had been president for many years. This is the oldest and finest cemetery in the city. It is owned by the city, but is eared for by the Cemetery Association, which was organized thirty-six years ago.

Mr. Wells is one of the most enthusiastie Masons in Western Illinois. He has been junior deaeon of his lodge, illustrious master of Quiney Council No. 15, Royal and Select Masters, high priest of the Royal Arch Chapter, active in the Knight Templar Commandery No. 77, and a member of the Quiney Consistory of Scottish Rite. During the winter of 1918 Mr. Wells served as chairman of the local fuel administration under John E. Williams of Chicago, state chair- man. Mr. Wells is independent in politics, and is a member of the Unitarian Church.

In November. 1915, he married Miss Lois D. Benton, who was born in Quiney, daughter of Joel Benton. Mrs. Wells is a highly eultured woman, was edneated in the Quiney High School, at Davenport, Iowa, and finished her education in the Mason School at Tarrytown, New York.

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JOHN ROBERT LAUGHLIN is one of Mendon Township's oldest native citizens, has been a leading and prominent stockman for half a century, and the esteem in which he is generally held is well expressed by his fellow citizens in their reference to him as "Bob" Laughlin, and when Bob Laughlin's opinion is expressed on some matter of farming or stock raising or community affairs it receives all the consideration and respect which is its proper dne.

The Laughlins as a family have been well known in northern Adams County since pioneer times. John Robert Laughlin was born on a farm four miles northwest of Mendon January 15, 1841. The old house in which he was born is still standing. His parents were Benjamin and Sarah (Robinson) Laughlin. Benjamin Laughlin was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in 1806, a son of John Laughlin, who came to America from Ireland.

In 1831, when Quiney contained only three houses, John Laughlin and his four sons, William, Wilson, Benjamin and Johnson, rode into this region on horseback and prospected over the surrounding country until they had satisfied themselves with some choice tracts of land, which then could be obtained by merely entering at the land office and paying the stated fee of a dollar and a quarter per acre. In the same fall Benjamin Laughlin began the erection of a double log house in which his son John Robert was born some ten years later. However, after their tour of inspection the Laughlins returned to Kentucky, and there busied themselves with the contriving of a flatboat on which they brought their household goods and their people to St. Louis, and from there up the river by steamboat to Adams County. Besides the four brothers mentioned there were two unmarried sisters. Sarah, one of these, afterwards married James Rankin and lived near Breckenridge in Hancock County, Illinois. Violet, the other daughter, married Matt Forsythe, and lived in Hancock County near the Adams County line.

John Laughlin, the father of the four brothers, bought land near Ursa, and this land was occupied by his son Johnson, who died there at the age of sixty years. This Ursa Township farm was about five or six miles distant from the place of settlement of the Laughlin family in Mendon Township. John, the grandfather, lived with his sons until his death when about eighty-seven or eighty-eight years of age. His second wife survived him some years and his first wife and the mother of his children died in Kentucky. Three brothers, William, Benjamin and Wilson, all settled adjoining farms in Mendon Town- ship. Wilson married Ellen Hightower, and he died on his farm at the age of sixty-five and his widow subsequently lived in Quincy but died at Mendon. This farm has since been sold. It adjoined the place of Bob Laughlin on the east. William Laughlin's farm lay east of that of his brother Wilson. William Laughlin was honored with many township offices, and died in Mendon at the age of seventy-five. None of his children remain in Adams County. A daughter of Wilson Laughlin is the widow of Charles Miller, of Mendon. Johnson Laugh- lin also left no survivors.

Benjamin Laughlin spent his life on his father's farm, and also bought the 160 acres adjoining on the north and at his father's death acquired his tract of two hundred twenty acres. He also owned a farm of two hundred sixty acres in Ursa Township which had been previously operated by his brother Johnson. With all this land under his control he carried on farming operations in proportion, and was one of the leading cattle raisers and feeders in the county. He was permitted a long life and died at the age of eighty-six. He is buried in the Franklin Cemetery. He had laid out this cemetery on some of his own land, and named it Franklin for his own middle name. This cemetery was at the Free Will Baptist Church, an organization that has since been dis- banded, though the old church is still standing. Benjamin's wife, Sarah Robin- son Laughlin, died in 1916, at the age of eighty-six. Their family consisted of five sons and two daughters, four of whom reached maturity: William, who left Mendon a number of years ago and moved to Chariton County, Missouri, '

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where he died and where his widow and sons still live; the second in age is John Robert ; Benjamin, a farmer in this vicinity, died at Mareelline, one of the inland villages of Adams County, about two miles west of the Laughlin farm, in 1910, at the age of sixty-three, leaving a widow and two children; and Dud- ley, also a farmer at Mareelline.

It is generally true that the American farmer who has made the best success at his business is the one who has remained longest on the job. Boh Laughlin has not only lived all his life on a farm but has been content to acknowledge no other important interests away from farming, though he has rendered such service as he could to his community, helping forward projects that were worthy and cooperating with his fellow citizens when his cooperation was needed. At the age of twenty-one his father gave him a farm, and later he bought out the other interests and now owns the 220 acres which was originally taken up by his grandfather. Later he bought 100 acres on the west, giving him a complete half section in one farm, and since then has added another eighty acres nearby and recently bought fifteen aeres. One improve- ment has followed another, and twenty years ago he built the comfortable resi- denee which now houses the family. In 1881 he erected a. barn that was one of the best in the county at the time, being of the familiar bank constrnetion, 40 by 60 feet in ground dimensions and with 20-foot posts. For forty years Mr. Laughlin specialized in horses and jaeks, and has had as many as sixty-five head of these animals at one time. He has also been unusually successful in growing wheat, and has raised some splendid crops of that cereal. His farm now comprises as fine a body of land as is found anywhere in the county and with as good improvements. He has hired labor as well as worked hard him- self, and has given every detail of the farm his personal supervision. In politics he is a democrat, as was his father before him, but in local issues is strictly inde- pendent, and has never allowed his name to be presented as a candidate for offiee.

At the age of. twenty-four Mr. Laughlin married Eliza Ann Randolph. She was left an orphan when a small girl and was reared in the family of a cousin. Mrs. Laughlin died in 1903, after they had been married forty years. There were two children, George and Sarah Elizabeth. The latter is now Mrs. John Austin and lives at Brookfield, Missouri. George Laughlin, the only son, died at the age of forty-eight years. He was a farmer and was also in the automobile business at Quiney. Ile married Sarah Shepherd, who is still living and makes her home with Mr. Laughlin, and her two children have praetieally grown up in the home of their grandfather. The children are Ruth and Hazel, the former the wife of Chester Miller, and the latter the wife of George Sauble. Chester Miller and George Sauble are now operating the Laughlin farm. Mr. and Mrs. Miller have one son, Robert Lee Miller.

THEODORE C. POLING. With practically every phase of Quiney's develop- ment in financial power, business resources, and the enrichment of its com- munity and institutional life, Theodore C. Poling has been identified during the past forty years. His name in connection with any enterprise has at once given it dignity and has brought to it the sustaining confidenee of the best people. No man deserves a more grateful memory and is more worthy of a record for what he has done and what he has stood for in this eity.

He was born at Middletown, New Jersey, January 10, 1840, and has been a resident of Quiney sinee 1870. In Quincy and elsewhere he taught school, and educational work was his chief oeeupation until he was admitted to the bar in Quiney in 1871. From 1861 to 1864 he was a student of Knox College at Galesburg, and enlisted from there for two periods in the Civil war. He was first a member of Company E of the Seventy-first Illinois Infantry for four months and later re-enlisted in Company C of the One Hundred and Thirty- Seventh Regiment under the command of Governor John Woods, the founder of

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Quincy. Altogether he was in the army for nine months. His brother James K. was killed in battle at Memphis, Tennessee, and another brother. George W., died at home from disease contracted in the swamps before Vieksburg.

One of Mr. Poling's earliest acquaintances at Quiney and for a number of years his partner in law practice was Hope S. Davis. He studied law in Mr. Davis' office and at the same time taught school. One of the schools he taught occupied the site of the present courthouse and the following year he taught in the building now known as the Powers Building.

Ilis first law partnership was with Judge Philo A. Goodwin and the Hon. Hope S. Davis, under the firm name of Goodwin, Davis & Poling. Judge Goodwin died two years later and the firm of Davis & Poling continued until 1885. From that date until the mortgage banking firm of T. C. Poling & Com- pany was organized, Mr. Poling gradually withdrew from the routine work of the legal profession and gave his time and attention to the work of building up a strictly financial business, to which the firm has devoted all its energies for many years.

Mr. Poling is now the oldest mortgage banker in Quiney, and is the head of one of the oldest investment companies doing buisness in the states of Illinois and Missouri. That this company has invested many millions of dollars without the loss of a single dollar on any loan it ever made is evidence of the skill and eare of its founder. The company's offices are in the Blackstone Building, of which Mr. Poling is one of the owners and builders. It was creeted in the '80s. His business in farm loans extends over a large territory around Quiney in both Illinois and Missouri. Since 1905 his aetive associate has been his son Theodore Chester Poling, Jr. At the present time their annual volume of busi- ness is over $1,500,000 in loans now outstanding.

Mr. Poling has been responsible for the development of some of Quiney's best known residence and business additions. One of them was the ninety-six aeres subdivided and now known as the Poling & Cruttenden Addition.

This eity is largely indebted to Mr. Poling for the beautiful Lawndale Addition, where his own handsome home is located. Another property in which he is actively concerned is the Walton Heights Manufacturing Section, of which he and the late John S. Cruttenden, were joint trustees until the latter's death left Mr. Poling as sole trustee. Mr. Poling's labors and financial assistance aided materially in securing additions to Quiney's splendid boulevard and park system.

Of all his business activities Mr. Poling will doubtless be best remembered for his leadership in movements having to do with the most complete and best known expression of Quincy's community spirit. He has managed the financial affairs of many wealthy citizens and has been entrusted with the settlement of a large number of estates as executor and trustee. It is said that more than $400,000 devoted to charitable purposes passed through his hands as executor or trustee, and this fact is indicated by the county records. IIe helped raise the money and was the first treasurer of the Building Committee of the local Young Men's Christian Association. He took a similarly prominent part in the Public Library movement many years earlier. The building and lot on which the library was ereeted were secured largely through the joint labors and solicitations of Mr. Poling and Mr. J. N. Sprigg. Mr. Poling served as one of the early directors of the library. It was through the earnest appeal made by Mr. Poling and his associates that the handsome Quiney Library of today was built. As financial adviser and as executor of the estates of Charles Brown, Jr., and Anna Brown, he carried to completion their plans to found what is now the Anna Brown Home for the Aged, and has been responsible, in a large measure, for the snecess of that institution.

Mr. Poling is a trustee of the Blessing Hospital, was many years a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and a willing worker for and contributor to many other publie enterprises. Seldom has an appeal for assistance in worthy ehar-

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ities been presented to him in vain. He was a director and treasurer of the original Quiney Gas, Light and Coke Company, and has served as treasurer of the Adams County Memorial Association and the Quincy Cemetery Associa- tion. He is active as a senior deacon in the Congregational church. He is also a member of John Wood Post No. 96, Grand Army of the Republic.

Mr. Poling married Miss Ella A. Wharton, a native of Philadelphia, but reared and eduacted in Payson, Illinois. She was born March 8, 1848. Their oldest child, Florence Poling Nielson, born March 4, 1869, died February 9, 1911. She was the wife of James Nielson. Otho Curtis Poling, the second child. was born June 20, 1871, and is now a resident of Arizona and is the father of two children. Eugene Edwin Poling, born March 23, 1873, died September 28, 1880. Theodore Chester Poling, born January 31, 1885, is his father's business associate, and is married. Mr. Poling has four grandchildren : Eleanor Poling Nielson; James Poling Nielson, now serving in the United States Navy ; Frances E. Poling; and Howard O. Poling.

CAPT. GREENLEAF H. DAVIS. Many times the name and carcer of Captain Davis have been made subjects of articles in the general press and other publi- cations. He is a most interesting character not only in Quincy but in all the Middle West. Not nearly so much romance surrounds the building of railroads in modern times as it did when Captain Davis was a pioneer in pushing along some of the old railway systems. He is about the last survivor of that group of railroad builders who constructed the old Illinois Central and some of the main branches of what is now the great Burlington System.

Captain Davis was born in Stafford County, New Hampshire, March 16, 1834. He is of old New England stock. His grandfather, Nathaniel Davis, spent his life as a New Hampshire farmer. Captain Davis' parents were natives of the same state and were also farmers there during their lives.

Captain Davis was educated in New Hampshire, and lived there until about eighteen years old, when he came west to Chicago. In 1851 he did his first work as a pioneer railroad builder with the old Illinois Central road while it was being constructed from Chicago to Kankakee, Illinois. He was at first in the track laying department, and subsequently was assigned to charge of the supply department at Muddy Creek. Such was his ability that he was able to reduce his working force to half and increase the efficiency of the department. After getting the department in working order he was assigned to superintendent of the track laying force, and his wages were more than doubled. He carried the tracks of the Illinois Central on as far as Centralia, Illinois, and about that time was offered the position of roadmaster. He declined because of a previous contract he had made to assist in laying the rails of the old Northern Cross Railway, now that part of the Burlington between Galesburg and Quincy.

Captain Davis began track laying for the Northern Cross Railway in 1855, and had the work completed between Galesburg and Quiney by about the first of January, 1856. He then accepted the responsibility of laying the track on the old Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway, a distance of 206 miles across the northern half of Missouri. He was three years in building this pioncer linc, and when it was completed he was offered and accepted the position of railroad stock agent at St. Joseph. Later he was made stock agent for the entire road between Chicago and St. Joseph. He has seen practically all the changes in management and extension of these carly railway lines until they now com- pose part of one of the biggest systems in the United States. Captain Davis continued for thirty-six years in the service of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. For a time he was under General Superintendent J. T. K. Hay- wood, later for a short time under C. W. Meade, and also served under General Superintendent W. C. Brown, John C. Carsons and other men whose names are household words in railroad affairs. In 1898 Captain Davis became claim agent for the road and filled that office for ten years with headquarters at St. Joseph.

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During that time Judge O .. M. Spencer was general solicitor of the Burlington System.

Captain Davis finally retired after more than half a century of railroad work in July, 1908, and has since lived quietly at his old home at 425 North 5th Street in Quincy. Fifty years ago he built a part of this residence, and it was subsequently enlarged and remodeled in 1876.

If the experiences of Captain Davis were written out in detail it could easily be enlarged to a book, and would be a fairly complete history of railroad building and extension and operation through the Middle West. One incident that may properly be recalled even in this brief sketch is that it was under his orders that the first railroad engine was loaded on the boat Denver at St. Joseph, Missouri, to be used by General Manager H. B. Hoxey on the Union Pacific Railroad when that great transcontinental system was in course of con- struction.

On September 2, 1862, he was commissioned captain of Company H of the Thirty-Eighth Missouri Regiment, but as his duties were already of a military character he was a captain with special detail and detached service, giving his time chiefly to duties as roadmaster. His commission as captain bears date of July 27, 1864.

At Galesburg, Illinois, in September, 1855, Captain Davis married Miss Emily Hilton. She was born in New York State, daughter of Richard Hilton, of an old family of that name in New York State. Her father was for many years a farmer at Galesburg, Illinois, and later located in Washington County, Kansas, where he died. His widow, Caroline, survived him and died at the home of Captain and Mrs. Davis in Quincy at the age of seventy-five. Both are now at rest in the cemetery at Galesburg, Illinois. Mrs. Davis died at Quincy in 1900. They had one daughter, Carrie L., who was born and reared and educated in Quincy and is now the widow of Morris F. Murphy, who died in one of the western states several years ago. Mrs. Murphy has a daughter, Anna L., who is a graduate of the Quincy High School and attended college at Galesburg. She and her mother live with Captain Davis.

Captain Davis among other property interests owns 540 acres of land in Caldwell County, Missouri, a well improved farm. For over sixty years Cap- tain Davis has been a Mason, and is one of the oldest members of that order in the state. He took his first degrees in 1857 in a lodge in Macon County, Missouri. For over half a century his membership has been with Bodly Lodge No. 1, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Quincy. He entered that lodge when John Sylvester was its master. Captain Davis is also a Royal Arch Mason.

E. W. CHARLES KAEMPEN is president of the Buerkin & Kaempen firm, planing mills, lumber dealers and general contractors, a business that grew from individual services as carpenters forty years or more ago until now it consitutes an immense and well appointed plant and with facilities unexcelled by any similar business in Western Illinois.

The present business is the outgrowth of several partnerships between carpenters and contractors of an earlier time. In 1879 Joseph Buerkin and James Shanahan joined their respective abilities as good carpenters to estab- lish on a small scale a lumber yard and do general contracting work. Mr. Buer- kin for a number of years had been a Quincy carpenter, and was a highly expert, and technical man in all branches of the business. The firm had its first location in a small alley shop back of the Tenk hardware store on Maine Street, between Fifth and Sixth streets.

From this first partnership Mr. Buerkin withdrew in 1881 and formed a new arrangement with Mr. Gottlieb Burge, a prominent contractor and builder of that day, then already established on Vermont Street, and continued to prosper until 1888. It was in the latter year that E. W. Charles Kaempen, who for fifteen or twenty years had been a carpenter in Quincy, bought the interests

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of Mr. Burge, and thus established the alliance between the Buerkins and Kaempens which has continued uninterruptedly and with increasing prosperity and growth to the present time. Both men were thorough and practical mechanics and builders, and in a short time they introduced milling machinery, establishing a planing mill and offering their services as contractors.

In 1891 they bought a quarter block at the corner of State and Sixth streets. It was very low and practically waste ground and after filling up a big hollow they erected a. mill the same year. In 1894 the mill was enlarged more than double its size. During the past twenty years the plant has been remodeled and increased several times, and they now own and occupy a whole half block. The firm now has a big planing mill, other facilities for manufacture of lumber products, a large yard for lumber storage, and unexcelled facilities for con- tracting in all classes of buildings from private homes to the largest public structures. In 1909 the business was incorporated, with Mr. Buerkin its first president and Mr. Kaempen secretary and treasurer. Two of Mr. Kaempen's sons, Emil and Arthur L., and Mrs. Buerkin's son, Edwin C., were admitted to the business as directors in the company. In October, 1909, Mr. Joseph Buerkin died, after having been active in business affairs at Quincy for over forty years. He was born at Baden, Germany, in 1848.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 2

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 952

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 952