Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 37

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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his brother Frank, and soon acquired his brother's interest. The land when they took possession did not have a single cross fence, but is all now divided into twenty acre fields with most substantial fences, and is an efficiently arranged stock and grain farm. Mr. Rutledge has marketed between 150 and 200 hogs per year, and frequently turns out a carload of cattle. Gradually he has turned over the heavier responsibilities to younger men, and for the past eight years the farm has been operated either by his son or his son-in-law or both.

Mr. Rutledge lost his good wife June 11, 1905, after they had been married nearly forty years. She was the mother of eight children: Zilla, wife of Samuel Martin, of Columbus; Clara, wife of William Gibbs, living near Men- don ; Frank Henry, now at Smithfield, Kansas; Lizzie, who died in May, 1917, in Houston Township, the wife of F. S. Finley; Nellie, wife of Thomas John- son, of Keene Township ; Lula, wife of Floyd Tilton, Mr. Tilton having had the active management of the Rutledge farm for six years; Iva, wife of John C. Hocamp, of Liberty Township; and William A., of Columbus Township. Mr. and Mrs. Tilton are the parents of three children, Ruth, Grace and Loretta.

In addition to his achievement in acquiring and paying for a farm Mr. Rut- ledge has been liberal of his time and efforts in behalf of community improve- ment. He served nine years as road commissioner and was treasurer of the board all that time, handling about $2,000 or $2,500 annually. It was during his official membership on the board that the first real efforts toward permanent road making were achieved. Mr. Rutledge served two years as township clerk and was elected and re-elected assessors for eighteen years and is now serving in that office. He is a democrat, but locally independent in politics, and he has been identified with the Christian Church at Columbus for forty years. It was also the place of worship for his parents. His father was identified with the building of the old church. Mr. Rutledge acknowledges as his chief outdoor sport fishing. and he is a skillful disciple of Izaak Walton. He and O. P. Lawless and Ben Wilhite are a trio with a great reputation as fishermen.

GORHAM J. COTTRELL, whose death occurred in January, 1906, was for many years identified with Quincy business affairs as a hardware merchant. He was successful, prosperous, energetic, and his memory is one that is treas- ured by his many friends and former associates. His widow, Mrs. Cottrell, is still living in a fine home at 1801 Maine Street.

The Cottrell family is of English ancestry. Lemuel Cottrell, father of Gorham J., was a native of Chautauqua County, New York, and spent his life there. He was twice married and by his first wife had four sons, including Gorham J. as the second. The latter's brothers were Norman, Charles and Nahum. Nahum is still living at Aurora, Illinois.

Gorham J. Cottrell was born in 1830 in Chautauqua County, grew up there, and came to Illinois for the purpose of recovering his health. Later he went back to Chautauqua County and married there Sarah Cole. She was a native of that county. After his marriage he again came to Illinois, locating at Ma- comb, where he had previously entered business with his brother Charles. They were associated for some years, and then dissolved partnership about the close of the Civil war, Charles keeping the business at Macomb, while Gorham J. moved to Quincy and entered the hardware trade with his brother-in-law, Mr. Havens. That business association was continued until 1877.

Mrs. Sarah Cottrell died in Quincy, and some years later Mr. Cottrell mar- ried for his second wife Mrs. Lavina (Cole) Havens, sister of his first wife and widow of his former business associate, Hiram T. Havens. Mr. Havens had first entered business as a hardware merchant in Chautauqua County, where his father had been in a similar line for a number of years.

Mrs. Cottrell by her first husband had one daughter, Sarah Cole Ilavens. She was born in Chautauqua County, New York, and was two years old when Vol. II-15

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her parents moved to Macomb, Illinois. She received most of her education in Quincy. In 1877 her father and mother moved to Texas and lived in Fort Worth, where her father died fifteen years later, in 1892. Mr. Havens was laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery in Quincy. Mrs. Havens then moved to Quincy.

Mrs. Cottrell's daughter was married at Fort Worth, Texas, to George H. Dashwood. He was born in England and was brought to the United States at the age of six years. He lived in Kentucky and took up the business of phar- macist. He was in that business at Fort Worth, Texas, and some years ago returned to Quiney, where he continued the drug business until eight years ago, when he sold out and has since been one of the live real estate men of this city. Mrs. Cottrell and her family attend the Congregational Church.

ORSON H. CRANDALL, M. D. One of the oldest men in the medical fraternity in the State of Illinois is Doctor Crandall of Quincy, now retired, and who is still bright, vigorous and active, occasionally looking after some patient who will have the serviees of no other doctor. Doctor Crandall is ninety-two years old, and has lived in Quincy nearly half a century.

He was born in Onondaga County, New York, son of Beman and Mary (Tuttle) Crandall. His father was a native of the same state and his mother of Ohio and both were of English ancestry. They married in New York State and were farmers there. When Doctor Crandall was four years old, in 1830, his parents came to the western wilderness and settled on the prairie thirty- eight miles northwest of old Fort Dearborn, the incipient Village of Chicago. Their home was near Crystal Lake, Illinois. They put up with the primitive circumstances of that time and place, lived without immediate neighbors for some years, traveled miles to get their grain ground into flour, and as years passed they saw the country develop and grow into one of the richest farming districts of Illinois. Doctor Crandall's parents both died when old, and they had long been identified with the progressive and enlightened citizenship of their community.

It was in this now rich agricultural seetion of Illinois that Doctor Cran- dall grew to manhood. He had all the experiences of the old border times in Illinois, and began life with only such advantages as were afforded by the common schools of seventy or eighty years ago. In 1851 he received his lieense to practice and for several years was located at Crystal Lake and subsequently at Elgin. He received his first diploma from the Eclectic School of Medicine at Cincinnati, but finally took up homeopathy, and has practiced aceording to that school of medicine for a great many years. He became known as one of the most progressive medical men in his part of the state. Recently he re- ceived a certificate of membership in the American Association of Progressive Medicine, and has certificates from various schools and medical societies.

At the outbreak of the war Doctor Crandall enlisted in the Twenty-Fourth Illinois Infantry, and served as a surgeon. During Banks' expedition he was captured in April, 1863, and was held within the Confederate lines until ex- changed on the 13th of August in the same year. During that time his diet as a prisoner of war was chiefly raw and sour corn meal. On being exchanged he reported to General Butler at New Orleans and was placed in a regiment under the command of Gen. A. J. Smith, with whom he remained until hon- orably discharged in the summer of 1865.

Immediately after the war Doctor Crandall was assigned to the duty of incorporating and organizing at Milwaukee the first soldiers orphans home in the country. From there he came to Quincy, and practiced here steadily until he was eighty-five years of age.

Doetor Crandall has been happily married sinee 1880, when Mrs. Ruth A. Curtis became his wife. Her maiden name was Patchin and she was born in Steuben County, New York, October 10, 1842, and was reared and educated there. Her father was Warren Patchin, Jr., and her grandfather, Warren

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Patehin, Sr., both of whom were prominent farmers and millers in Steuben County. Iler grandfather at one time was known as the richest man in the county, and died when past ninety-two years of age, while her father was seventy-one when he died. Mrs. Crandall's mother bore the maiden name of Jane Crawford, and she also spent her life in Steuben County. Her parents were members of the Methodist Church. By her first marriage to Albert D. Curtis, a Union soldier, who died soon after the war, Mrs. Crandall has one son, Grant D. Curtis. He is editor of the well known Poultry Journal published at Quiney. Grant Curtis is married and has four sons, Norman and Warren, both of whom are now in France with the American Expeditionary Forces ; and Donald and William at home. Doetor Crandall was for many years asso- eiated with the Masonic order but has given up his membership.

WILLIAM J. HIRTHI was for a quarter of a century active in business affairs at Quiney, but for the past half dozen years has been prosperously and pleas- antly engaged in the management of a fine farm in Ellington Township. Mr. Hirth represents one of the sterling German-American families of Adams County, and personally represents the undiluted Americanism which has given this county such an enviable record in support of all war measures and financial contributions.

He was born in this county September 15, 1858, son of Jaeob and Catherine (Mause) Hirth. His parents were both natives of Germany and his father for many years occupied a farm in seetion 18 of Ellington Township. Mr. Hirth is third in a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. Four of these are still living, all residents of Adams County.

Prior to taking up an active business career Mr. Hirth had a liberal edu- cation in the publie schools and the Gem City Business College. Many will reeall his activity as a hardware merchant. For thirteen years he was in busi- ness at 528 Maine Street in Quiney. After leaving that he was loeal repre- sentative of the Adams Express Company for thirteen years. In 1912 Mr. Hirth bought his present farm of 100 aeres, situated two and a half miles from the city limits of Quincy on the extension of Twelfth Street. It constitutes a property valuable for its produetive energies and also is a splendid home, pro- vided with all the comforts that make life worth living.

Mr. Hirth began life with limited capital and his success has been a mat- ter of gradual accumulation on the part of himself and his worthy wife. May 28, 1890, he married Miss Amanda Pfanschmidt. They have a son and two daughters. The oldest is Laura E., who has distinguished herself for her scholarship. From the publie schools she entered the Illinois State University at Champaign, where she is a graduate. She is now head of the household seienee department at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois. She is a mem- ber of her college sorority and of the Baptist Church. Mildred O., the second daughter, is now in the sophomore year of the Illinois State University. She is also aetive in college social cireles and a member of the Baptist Church. The son is Delmar H., a graduate of the Quincy High School and now associated with his father on the farm.

Mrs. Hirth was born in Adams County, September 20, 1857, and was reared and edneated here. Her parents, Herman C. and Charlotte (Meise) Pfan- schmidt, were both born in Germany and are now deceased.

Mr. Hirth is a republican, having east his first vote for President James A. Garfield. Office holding has not been in his line and he has kept away from polities and given all his time to his business affairs. Fraternally he is af- filiated with Camp No. 219, Modern Woodmen of America, at Quincy. Mrs. Hirth is active in sharing the duties and responsibilities of membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. and Mrs. Hirth still retain a eity prop- erty at 621 Vine Street. They have been industrious workers and have tried to live as they went along, a fact which is in much evidenee at their home.

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In 1903 they took a vacation and visited the Pacific coast, including such cities as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Denver and Salt Lake City.

CHARLES C. OSBORN. One of the oldest names of the commercial life of Quincy is that of Osborn. The Osborn family came here over seventy years ago and they have been successively identified with milling, the coal business, and other extensive affairs.

The founder of the family was the late Henry S. Osborn, who was born in London, England, in 1814. He settled in Rochester, New York, in 1834, moved in 1837 to Pike County, Ohio, where he was in the milling business, aud in 1846 came to Quincy and erected the Eagle Mills. He came to Quincy by way of canal and river. His partner in the Eagle Mills was John Wheeler. Their first plant was at the foot of Broadway on Front Street. When the Burlington Railroad was built to Quincy they moved their property to Second Street and Broadway. The mill was burned about 1855, and soon afterwards the railway acquired the property for their present freight house. About that time Mr. Wheeler retired from the business. Henry S. Osborn then became interested in the coal business about 1859, and for many years was president of the Quincy Coal Company, a wholesale and retail and mining business. The com- pany had extensive mines at Colchester, Illinois, where they sunk and drained thirty-one coal shafts. The product from these mines was widely distributed at Quincy and for many of the river boats then plying up and down the Mississippi. The mines were continued until they were exhausted in 1912. For many years the Quincy Coal Company has had its offices at the foot of Broadway. Henry S. Osborn continued the active management of the business until his death in 1895, and he was then succceded by his son Charles C. Osborn, who finally sold his interests to Mr. M. E. White.

Henry S. Osborn married Sarah A. Carter. Henry S. Osborn was a re- publican and served a number of years as alderman from the First Ward. He and his wife had two sons, William H., born in 1840 and Charles C., born in 1842.

After selling his interest in the coal business Charles C. Osborn retired, and is now spending his declining years in a comfortable home at 816 Spring Street. He has always been one of the good aud stanch citizens of Quincy, and has con- tributed largely to the hospitals and other worthy causes. His brother William was for a number of years a Mississippi River boatman and was clerk on the old "Divernon" running between St. Louis and Keokuk. He died in 1877, leaving a widow and two sons.

On April 14, 1864, Charles C. Osborn married at Quincy Miss Mary Arthur, who was born in St. Louis June 30, 1841. They lived together a happy period of half a century and on April 14, 1914, were privileged to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. Mrs. Osborn died a few months later, in November of the same year. She was reared and educated in St. Louis. Her parents were natives of Ireland but were members of the Methodist Church. Mr. and Mrs. Osborn had their church home in the Vermont Street Church for many years. Mrs. Oshorn was a teacher of the primary department of the Sunday school for twenty years. For over a dozen years Mr. Osborn served as trustee of the church. When his wife died the church presented him and his children with a splendid testimonial as to her long continued and faithful membership.

Mr. Osborn's oldest child is Charles A., born January 19, 1865. He is a resident of Quincy and married Olive Smith. Frank W., the second son, was born August 24, 1867, and is now in the real estate and loan business at Kansas City under the firm name of Lemley and Osborn. He married Jennie Hull and they have a son, Arthur, born in 1900. Alice Osborn, born May 24, 1872, is the widow of Mr. Hedges, and she and her daughter Mary E. Hedges, now a student in the Quincy High School, reside with her father. Mary Ann, the youngest child, born November 24, 1876, is the wife of William R. Lemley,

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of the firm Lemley & Osborn at Kansas City. Mr. and Mrs. Lemley have two sons, Frank and Robert, both students in the Kansas City High School.

SAMUEL SMITH NESBITT, M. D. In the eightieth year of a long and well spent life Samuel Smith Nesbitt is enjoying a well earned retirement at Payson. He was a physician, a man of high standing in his profession for many years, but finally gave that up to go to farming, and the modern generation knows him almost entirely as a farmer.

Mr. Nesbitt was born at Orangeville, Wyoming County, New York, Feb- ruary 10, 1839. His father, Henry Nesbitt, came from County Cavan, Ireland, when a young man and married in New York State Eleanor Smith, a native of that state. Henry Nesbitt died in 18SS, at the age of eighty years.

Samuel Smith Nesbitt at the age of twenty, in the fall of 1859, came to Illinois with his older brother George. George was already a successful physi- cian, having located at Sycamore in DeKalb County several years before. Hc was one of the first practitioners to practice medicine there, and died an hon- ored and respected member of the community when about sixty years of age.

Dr. Samuel S. Nesbitt had been reared on a dairy farm, and his first work in Illinois during the winter of 1859 was teaching a term of country school. The custom still prevailed of the teacher boarding around with the parents of his pupils, and every week he had to change boarding places. The following spring he went to Knox County, Missouri, and taught near Novelty until the spring of 1862. At that time war conditions made it almost impossible to collect taxes and he therefore returned to Illinois and found a school in Burton Township of Adams County. This was the Tandy School. He taught there during the winter of 1862 and also taught a school at Payson. In the mean- time he had studied medicine and during 1863-64 he attended a course of medi- cal lectures in the medical department of the University of Michigan. In the interval he taught another term at the Tandy School, and then entered Buffalo University, from which he was graduated M. D. with the class of 1866. Doctor Nesbitt did his first practice at Virginia in Cass County, Illinois. The county had become so filled with tenant farmers that collections were almost impossible and he finally decided to abandon medicine and take up farming.

In the spring of 1867 Doctor Nesbitt married Miss Emily Wheeler. She had been a pupil of his while he was a teacher in the Tandy School. Her parents were William B. and Matilda Wheeler. The old Wheeler home was a half mile west of the Tandy Schoolhouse, and Mrs. Nesbitt was born there. She was one of nine children, only four of whom reached maturity. George Wheeler lived and died on the old farm in Burton Township and was only twenty when his life was terminated. Elizabeth married George Morris, of LaGrange, Mis- souri, and died at the age of thirty-five. Of her children William and Thomas are in Quincy, the latter a street railway man, while Will is connected with the Herald. Another brother, Jacob, is a carpenter at Hannibal. Emily Wheeler Nesbitt is the only survivor of her parents' children. Scott died at the age of eighteen on the old farm.

In 1870 Doctor Nesbitt and wife returned to the old Wheeler farm of 214 acres. The land of the old Wheeler home was pre-empted by Mrs. Nesbitt's grandfather in early days, and the old house built about 1842 was constructed of brick burned on the land. Mr. Nesbitt's son Harry E. now occupies this old farm. Mr. Nesbitt himself retired from the farm in 1911, after having managed its resources steadily since 1880. He was a general farmer and gave particular attention to the raising of hogs.

Doctor Nesbitt served as assessor of Burton Township and for six years was supervisor of that township. He was also a director of the old Tandy School District and is now president of the Board of Education of Payson Village. The new high school building was erected during his administration. He has always been a democrat in politics and attended as a delegate many county and state conventions. In 1863 he was made a Mason in Payson Lodge,

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while a teacher in the local schools. He is the oldest member of that lodge to receive his degrees there. He and his wife have always supported the Christian Church.

Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt had five children: Walter S. is a harnessmaker at Payson ; Lemuel V. is in the grocery and feed business at Sixth and Kentucky streets in Quiney; Lillie May married Henry Scehorn, in the railway mail service but living in Fall Creek Township; Harry E. is on the old Wheeler farm; Leona Ada is the wife of Henry Eugene Barry, a railway mail clerk living at Quincy.

JACOB YOUNG. For fifty years Jacob Young has been a farm worker and farmer in Adams County, and after many years of thrifty co-operation with the soil has earned the competency that now enables him to enjoy life and leisure in his attractive home in Quincy.

Practically all his farming was done in Melrose Township. In 1872 he made his first purchase of land, a small tract in section 25 of Melrose Township. Later he increased it to eighty acres and kept constantly adding to its value by the addition of good buildings, fences and other improvements. He built a house, a barn 32 by 40 feet, and had practically all of it in cultivation. The land is well drained, and has for many years produced abundant crops. In 1900 he sold this farm to his son William H. Young, who is still its proprietor. In 1881 Mr. Young had also bought eighty acres in the South Quincy drainage district, a greater part of which is tillable. He continued his farming career until 1900, when he built a six room brick house at 1112 South Ninth Street, and has made that his home and has been largely retired or has merely devoted his time to his private affairs.

Mr. Young was born in Bavaria, Germany, April 17, 1851, and received part of his education in the old country. His father, Ludwig Young, also a native of Bavaria and a farmer there, died in 1861, at the age of fifty-seven, when his son Jacob was ten years old. He had married Catherine Wagner, and she was left with six children : Henrietta Catherine, who is married and still living in Bavaria; Ludwig, Jr., who married in Adams County, but died in Missouri, leaving one child ; Louisa, who married at Quincy, died in 1876 and left a son and daughter, her husband being Lawrence Ludwig; Jacob is the next in the family; Adams is a cigar maker at LaSalle, Illinois, and has two daughters; and Minnie died in 1876, at the age of eighteen.

After the death of the father the children gradually broke away from home towns in Germany and all but one eame to America. In 1869 Mrs. Catherine Young, her son Jacob and her daughter Minnie set out from Hamburg on the - steamship "Simbria" and made the voyage from Hamburg to New York and thenee eame direct to Quincy, where the daughter Louisa had already located. The mother spent the rest of her years in Adams County and died in 1891, at the age of seventy-two. She had reared her family in the faith of the Evan- gelical Lutheran Church.

Jacob Young came to manhood in this county, was a farm laborer for some years, and when about twenty-one years of age bought his first land, as above noted.

He married in Melrose Township Mrs. Mary Boelling. She was born in Westphalia, Germany, March 1, 1841, and came to this country with her sister Anna in 1867. They sailed from Bremen and were nine weeks in crossing the ocean to New Orleans. They came up the Mississippi River and in the fall of 1867 reached Adams County, where Mrs. Young has now lived for over half a century. Her sister Anna married Herman Boelling, and they are now retired farmers in Sumner County, Kansas, and have six living children, all married and all with families of their own.

Mrs. Young first married in Quincy Philip Merker, a native of this country of German parentage. He was a farmer and died in Melrose Township in the prime of life. His only child, Fred Merker, is now living in the South. He

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also had a daughter, Emma, that died in 1876, when four or five years old. Mr. and Mrs. Young have a son, Ludwig, now a farmer in Arkansas, and is married. Wilhelmina, who was educated in the public schools and is the wife of George Schauffnit and lives on a farm in Melrose Township. Their children are Clara, Freda, Arthur, Flora, Henry and Esther. William H. Young above mentioned is proprietor of the old homestead, married Tillie Kappner, and has three children, Albion, Walter and Elsa. Anna M., the youngest of the chil- dren, is the wife of Harry Spelker, a machinist at Quiney. They have a daugh- ter, Ella M. and an infant son. The family are members of the Salem Evan- gelieal Lutheran Church at Quincy. Mr. Young and sons are demoerats in politics.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 37

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