USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II > Part 6
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November 9, 1864, John J. Metzger married Miss Elizabeth Kuter who was born in Quincy July 19, 1844. and has spent practically all her life at her present home on York and Sixth streets. Mrs. Metzger is well known to an intimate circle of friends and relatives as one of the most devoted wives and mothers, and has been constant in her duties to her church and all the organized activities of St. Boniface parish since early girlhood. She is a daughter of John G. and Angeles (Vos) J. Kuter, both of whom were natives of Germany, where they married. On coming to America they lived two years in St. Louis and from there came to Quincy, where they were among the first pioneers. The Kuters secured land that is now practically covered over by the growing City of Quincy. Her father died here at the age of eighty-five and her mother when eighty-one. They were named among the organizers of St. Boniface Church.
To Mr. and Mrs. Metzger were born nine children. five of whom are still living. These are Matilda, Carrie A., Crescence A., Anna C. and Arthur O. Among the deceased children George Metzger was educated in St. Francis Vol. II-3
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College and the Gem City Business School, and for some years was in the hard- ware business with Tenks and Cotrell. Later he was a grocery merchant and his death occurred June 25, 1913, when in the prime of life. He was active in the Catholic Benevolent Society and the Western Catholic Union. He married Mollie Gardner, now a resident of Decatur, Illinois. They had four children, Marina and Raymond J. and two who died when young. Marina is married and lives in Decatur. Raymond J. makes his home with his mother.
Matilda, the oldest of the living children of Mrs. Metzger, married Henry J. Rummenie, of St. Louis, and her children are Clifford J., Alvara E., Clarence A., Margaret and Virginia. The other three daughters are still at home and all of them have been well educated in St. Mary's Academy. The only living son Arthur O., who completed his education in St. Francis College, is now in the grocery and confectionery business.
CHARLES H. ALTENHEIN, one of the prosperous farmers of Ellington town- ship has lived on the one farm and in one location for over fifty years, since early childhood. The farm is in section 17 and he has condueted its fields and the general business of the farm since 1890 on his own account. The farm comprises eighty acres of land and is devoted to general agriculture and stock raising. He has made a snecess of his enterprise, and has a good property for his purpose, being well drained soil and with excellent buildings. The livestock which he favors are Poland China hogs and Hereford cattle. Mr. Altenhein has owned this old homestead since 1907.
He was born in Melrose Township of this county, in section 20, May 11, 1864. Ile was three years old when he came to his present farm and grew up and attended the Center School in Ellington Township. Mr. Altenhein is a son of Frederick and Christina (Rhode) Altenhein, and some other particulars regarding the family will be found on other pages. Frederick Altenhein was born in Hanover, Germany, Angst 10, 1826, and his wife was born in Hesse Darmstadt June 15, 1827. He served three years in the regular army. Ile then joined his sweetheart and at once set out for the United States. They traveled by sailing vessel to New Orleans, were married in that eity, and a year later arrived in Quincy. On reaching here they had only a dollar in cash and in order to get a start he seeured employment as a wood chopper and his wife as a domestic. In 1857 they made their first purehase of land, a small farm in Melrose Township. Then, in 1868, they moved to Ellington Township, where their son Charles H. now lives. The father in addition to this homestead subsequently acquired two more farms, and was one of the most prosperous cit- izens of the township. He and his wife lived together many years after celebrat- ing their golden wedding anniversary, though his wife was an invalid for several years. After they had been married nearly sixty years their companionship was broken by her death January 5, 1911. The father survived only until December 6, 1912. Both were well known, good hearted and generous people, and were charter members of St. John's Lutheran Church at Quiney. Frederick Alten- hein was one of the builders and one of the chief supporters of the church, and nearly always held some church office. He was a demoerat in politics.
The oldest child was Frederick Altenhein, Jr., to whom a separate sketch is dedicated on other pages. Mary, who died in 1910, left four children. John died two years after his marriage and left a widow and two small children.
Charles H. Altenhein married at Quiney, February 22, 1899, Miss Eva Feigenspan. She was born in Quiney in 1872 and was reared and educated there. Her parents came from Germany. Mrs. Altenhein is the mother of one danghter, Margaret, born December 2, 1900, and a graduate of the Quincy High School in 1918.
CHARLES HENRY FOSGATE is remembered by Quincy people and hosts of travelers who were entertained by him as the man who had the ability and resources of a hotel manager to give the Neweomb Hotel of Quincy its real
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place among the fine hotels along the Mississippi River. After his death he was succeeded in the management by his capable wife, Mrs. M. L. Fosgate, who has even improved upon the standards of management set up by her hus- band.
The late Mr. Fosgate had all the natural qualifications as well as experience to assist him in his hotel work. He was born at Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1872, and died at Rochester, New York, at the Whitcomb Hotel, of which he was owner, December 17, 1910. He received his education at Ripon, and at the age of eighteen began clerking in the Corning Hotel at Portage, Wisconsin, for his uncle. For a time he conducted the Union Hotel at Galesburg, Illinois, and at the age of twenty-three was proprietor of the Fosgate Hotel at Elgin. At the age of twenty-seven he came to Quincy and took over the Newcomb, and was the first to make that hotel, with its splendid equipment of buildings and other facilities, really successful from the point of view of good management. Be- sides his local hotel interests Mr. Fosgate was interested in the management of the Mark Twain Hotel and the Whitcomb Hotel at Rochester, New York. At one time with his brother L. R. Fosgate he conducted the Pacific Hotel at Jacksonville, Illinois.
He was a prominent member and at one time president of the Illinois State Hotel Men's Association, and also belonged to the Hotel Men's Mutual Benefit Association. He was made a Mason in Wisconsin, and during his last years was affiliated with the order at Quincy. He was also an Elk and active in the Quincy Chamber of Commerce.
Three years before his death he married at New York City, Miss Maida Lee. Mrs. Fosgate was born in North Carolina, but was reared and educated in New York City and attended the Staten Island Academy. Her father was captain of a company in the Sixty-Ninth Massachusetts Infantry early in the Civil war, and was in service until the close of that great struggle. He was at Lookout Mountain and with Sherman on the campaign to the sea, and on one of the battlefields was promoted to colonel of his regiment. After the war he went back to Boston, but later returned south to North Carolina and bought several plantations around Raleigh. While in North Carolina he married Venetia Blanche Harris whose father was a colonel in the Confederate army. Mr. Fosgate is survived by his widow and one child, Elaine Reade Fosgate, born April 11, 1909.
FLOYD W. MUNROE was admitted to the bar October 5, 1904, after success- fully passing the examination at Chicago before the bar committee headed by James R. Ricks, then judge of the Supreme Court. Since that date Mr. Munroe has been achieving the better distinctions and rewards of the capable lawyer, and has his share of the best and most important practice at Quincy. Mr. Mun- roe is one of the men whom Judge Lyman MeCarl has trained for the legal profession. He was a student under Judge MeCarl for three years. Mr. Mun- roe is a member of the Adams County and State Bar Associations, and his practice has frequently taken him before the Supreme Court and the Federal Court. A lawyer's first case is sometimes regarded as significant of the future, but any predictions based upon that in the case of Mr. Munroe would have been a gratuitous assumption not justified by subsequent facts. Before he was ad- mitted to practice he was employed to handle a piece of litigation tried before a country justice, and he failed to carry his point. Mr. Munroe has developed a large business in chancery and probate work.
He represents one of the oldest of American families, and traces his descent back to William Munroe, who was born in Scotland in 1625 and was member of the famous Clan of Munroe. He came to America in 1652, a prisoner of war taken by Cromwell at the battle of Worcester, and sold in service to an American proprietor. After working out his time William Munroe acquired property at what is now Lexington, Massachusetts, and thereafter was very prominent in
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that historic community and was founder of the numerous Munroes not only in Lexington but elsewhere in America.
A large number of Munroes still live at Lexington. The ancestor died January 27, 1717, the father of thirteen children by two wives. The names of his sons were John, William, George, Daniel, David, Joseph and Benjamin. It was from these sons that the various branches of the family now found are descended.
History recalls the fact that more than twenty Munroes took part in the first battle of the Revolution at Lexington. Some of them had been soldiers in the earlier colonial wars, and some of them saw active service during other phases of the war for independence.
One of these men who withstood the advance of the red eoats at Lexington in 1775 was Nathan Munroe, who with a number of his kinsmen was in Captain Parker's Company of Minute Men. Nathan Munroe had ten children, one of whom was Thaddeus Munroe, the pioneer of this family at Quincy.
Thaddeus Munroe, who was born at Lexington, Massachusetts, September 14, 1790, was the grandfather of Floyd W. Munroe. Thaddeus was a cabinet maker by trade, and settled in Quincy in 1835. He spent the rest of his long and use- ful life in the city and died at a very advanced age.
Floyd W. Munroe was born at Mendon in Adams County in 1879, a son of Warren T. and Mary A. (Higbie) Munroe, both of whom were natives of Adams County. Warren T. Munroe was born in 1837 and learned the trade of harness making. He established a business at Mendon, where he married. During the Civil war he was a soldier for three years and three months in Company I of the Ninety-First Illinois Infantry. Early in his service he was captured in Kentucky by John Morgan, but after thirty days was paroled and subsequently joined his regiment in time to participate in the Mobile campaign. IIe saw much hard fighting, but was never wounded. He was made sergeant of his company and at the close of the war was brevetted second lieutenant. When the war was over he resumed the harness business and finally located in 1883, at Beverly, where he conducted a general store for some years. In 1901 he retired and removed to Quincy, where he died February 1, 1915, when in his seventy-eighth year. He was a republican, while his father, Thaddeus was a demoerat. His wife was born September 27, 1849, and is still living at the age of sixty-nine. They had a family of five children, three sons and two daughters, all of whom are living, married, and two of them have children.
Floyd W. Munroe married at Palmyra, Missouri, in 1908, Miss Eula Moss. She was born at Palmyra October 29, 1886, and was reared and cdncated there. She is a daughter of Joseph and Eula (Leggett) Moss, both of whom are still living. The maternal grandparents arc John B. and Anna Leggett, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Palmyra, Missouri. John B. Leggett is now eighty-one years of age and his wife seventy-six, and on March 31, 1918, they celebrated their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. Mr. and Mrs. Munroe have one daughter, Eulalie, born November 30, 1909, and now in the third grade of the public schools.
Mr. Munroe is affiliated with Bodley Lodge No. 1 of the Masonie Order at Quincy. His grandfather Thaddeus, was a charter member and the first junior warden of that lodge when it was organized in 1840. Warren T. Munroe was also an active member of the same order. The family is now represented in the Lodge by Floyd W. and his brother Eugene. Mrs. Munroc is a member of the Episcopal church.
FRED C. ALTENHEIN. Time and change have dealt kindly with Fred C. Altenhein, though only in accordance with his deserts. Mr. Altenhein for forty vears has been a successful farmer on the southeast quarter of section 5 in Ellington Township. Ile has worked hard and industriously for all that he has, and his prosperity is represented by a farm of nearly 100 acres, most of
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it thoroughly cultivated and well improved. His home is an eight-room modern steam heated house, and the farm buildings are most substantial, including a barn 40 by 44 feet and other facilities. Mr. Altenhein is one of the leading fruit growers of that section, having twenty-five acres in fruits of different kinds. His regular fields are cultivated to the staple crops, chiefly wheat. He also owns eighty acres in the Indian Drainage District.
Mr. Altenhein was born on Kentucky and Fifth streets in Quincy, January 24, 1854, and received his early education in the schools of Melrose in Elling- ton Township. He and his good wife have been married for thirty-eight years and in that time they have worked hand in hand and their splendid prosperity must be credited to them jointly.
Mr. Altenhein is a son of Fred and Christina Rhoda Altenhein, the former a native of Waldeck and the latter of Hesse Darmstadt. They were married in Germany, and soon afterward came to America and were farmers in Adams County for many years. The father died at the home of his son Fred in Elling- ton Township, December 6, 1912, when past eighty-six, and his wife on January 5, 1911, aged eighty-six. Both were members of the Lutheran Church.
Fred C. Altenhein married in Ellington Township Miss Anna Henhoff. She was born in Riverside Township of this county February 1, 1859, and received a good education in the Quincy schools. Her parents, Fred and Anna (Tappe) Hlenhoff, were also natives of Germany, coming from Bielfeld and marrying after they reached Adams County. They were also farmers and her father died as the result of an accidental fall from a wagon when about fifty years of age. Her mother died six years earlier. Both were Lutherans in religion.
Mr. and Mrs. Altenhein had five children, one of whom died in infancy and a son, Albert, at the age of twenty-five, unmarried. William F., the only living son, manages the home farm, and by his marriage to Ella M. HIoelscher, who died April 17, 1918, at the age of thirty-one, has two children, Harold and Emmett. Lenora Altenhein is the wife of Ernest Weiseman, a grocery merchant at Quincy, and has a son, Alfred A. Laura N. Altenhein was reared and edu- cated in Ellington Township and is the wife of Otis W. Glemmore, now principal of schools at Hammond, Indiana. Mrs. Glemmore is a talented musician. She is the mother of one son, Otis.
Mr. and Mrs. Altenhein are members of the Seventh Street Lutheran Church at Quincy. He has filled all the township offices, served as justice of the peace nine years, township clerk and assessor for some years, school trustee two terms, and is a free trade democrat.
HENRY MOELLRING. One of the many energetic and progressive men actively engaged in cultivating the rich and fertile soil of Adams County, Henry Moellring has brought to his calling an excellent knowledge of agriculture, sound judgment and good business methods, and is meeting with well deserved success in his labors. His farm is the old Moellring homestead where he has spent practically all the days of his life, situated in Gilmer Township a half mile south of Paloma. He has a fine body of land in one of the best sections of the county, and many of its choice improvements represent his own individual contributions, including barn and house. Mr. Moellring is a fine, intelligent citizen, publie spirited. and makes his presence count for good in the community.
His father. the late Henry Moellring, Sr., was born December 18, 1818, in the City of Hanover, Germany. His was a long and industrious career before coming to an honored close November 2, 1900, in his eighty-second year. When he was about thirty years of age he came to the United States and made his way to old acquaintances in the Schurmann family at Quincy. About the first work that employed him in this county was cutting wood and farm labor at six dollars a month. Thus his experiences continued for about five years. At Quincy he married Henrietta Rueter, who was born in Prussia and had come with friends to America at the age of eighteen. At Quincy she worked in several
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homes until her marriage. At the time of his marriage Henry Moellring had saved enough to buy a yoke of oxen, a plow and wagon, and with this equipment he and his bride rented some land near Fowler. One of the places they rented in that vicinity is now the home of their daughter Mrs. George Steinagel. The old homestead on which Henry, Jr., now resides was bought by the parents in 1869. Henry, Sr., paid forty dollars an acre for the eighty acres of land. It was all in cultivation, but its buildings consisted only of a small stable and a two-room house. The house continued to be the nucleus of his home, though with various additions and improvements. Later he bought thirty acres a mile from the homestead, and was successfully identified with the management of this farm the rest of his life. ITis good wife died July 5, 1899, at the age of sixty-seven. Their children were: Anna, Mrs. J. H. Kollmeyer; Emma, who died at the age of eighteen; Lena, Mrs. George Steinagel; Louise, Mrs. William Steinagel; and Henry.
Henry Moellring, Jr., was born February 28, 1871, on the farm where he now lives. When his father died it was at the latter's special wish and desire that the son succeeded to the ownership of the homestead, after paying the interests of the other heirs. Besides the home farm he has acquired another sixty acres and operates the two places as a general farm and stock raising proposition. Mr. Moellring built his present comfortable home in 1911 and three years previously had erected his good barn. All the crops he raises he feeds on the place, and his chief money making stock is Poland China hogs, mar- keting about 125 every year. Mr. Moelling is now serving as director of the home schools.
February 10, 1892, he married Minnie Fischer, daughter of Henry Fischer, a well known old resident of Melrose Township, now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Moellring have five children : Inez, wife of Zelma Morton, a farmer near Camp Point ; Walter H., who is now taking most of the responsibilities and manage- ment of the home farm from his father; and Lydia, Esther and Roy, who are the younger people in the Moellring home circle.
HENRY H. THYSON. A farm home quickly reveals the character and tastes of its owner. In section 5 of Ellington Township is a farm which at once indi- cates the thoroughly systematic and efficient methods that prevailed among the family. Everything is spiek and span and in its place, and the Thysons have the character and reputation of being quiet, domestic and harmonious people, well worthy of all the esteem they enjoy in that community.
Mr. Thyson has been a farmer at his present home for the past fifteen years. He has done much to improve both the land and the buildings. He has a barn 32 by 44 feet and an S-room modern house. He is a general farmer and stock breeder, and has spent all his life in Adams County.
Mr. Thyson was born in Mendon Township December 19, 1868, and as a boy attended the public schools. He is a son of Herman and Caroline (Schlipman) Thyson, both natives of Germany. They came with their respective parents to Adams County by way of sailing vessel to New York, were reared and married in Adams County, and then went on the farm in Mendon Township. They spent their last years there, where the father died at the age of fifty-eight and the mother at forty-five. He was a republican and both were active members of the Lutheran church. Their five sons and four daughters are all living, all married, all but two have children, and they occupy homes in Adams County.
Henry H. Thyson married in Ursa Township Miss Edith E. Brennecke. She was born in Kentucky Street in Quincy, July 20, 1875, and as a girl attended the public and Lutheran parochial schools. Mrs. Thyson is a daughter of Charles and Charlotte (Henrichs) Brennecke, her father a native of Brunswick and her mother of Westphalia, Germany. Her father came alone to America when seventeen years old. Her mother was ten years old when her parents came to this country by way of New Orleans. Charles Brennecke was a shoemaker
9. E. Whitlock In .D.
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by trade, married in Quincy, and after some years bought land in Ursa Town- ship, where he lived as a farmer until his death November 27, 1911, at the age of sixty-six. His widow is still living in Ursa Township, aged seventy-two. She is a member of the Ursa Lutheran church.
Mr. and Mrs. Thyson have three children. Edgar C., born August 8, 1898, was educated in the Standard School near the old home in Ellington Town- ship, and is now associated with his father in the management of the farm. Charlotte Ethel, born April 3, 1900, also received her education in the Standard School; Margaret B., born March 30, 1905, is still in school. The family are members of the Ursa Lutheran church. Mr. Thyson is a republican and is now serving as a school director.
GREENBURY ELLIOTT WHITLOCK, M. D. The residence and the scene of activities of Doctor Whitlock has been in and around the old village of Colum- bus more than sixty years. Doctor Whitlock retired from the active practice of medicine some years ago and resides on his farm two miles west of Colum- bus in Gilmer Township and fourteen miles northeast of Quincy. Farming has been an interest with him for many years, though he leaves most of the work and responsibilities to his sons.
Many hundreds of families in the eastern part of Adams County appre- ciate the quiet and effective services rendered by Doctor Whitlock in that com- munity. In his individual career he has lived up to some very excellent family traditions.
The record of the Whitlock family in America goes back nearly three cen- turies. Including Doctor Whitlock's sons there have been eight generations of the family in this country.
The founder was Thomas Whitlock, who was born in Devonshire, England, in 1620, and immigrated to Massachusetts in 1640. His first settlement was at Salem, later, in 1645. he moved to Gravesend, Long Island, and in 1667 to Mon- month County, New Jersey. He died in 1703 at Shoal Harbor, New Jersey. A brief record of the subsequent generations in this branch is as follows: 2. John, who died at Middletown, New Jersey. 3, Thomas and John, sons of John, and the latter also lived and died in Monmouth County. 4, James. 5, John Whitlock, son of James and Jane (Cruiser) Whitlock, served as a private in the Revolutionary Army, and four of his cousins were also repre- sented in the same struggle. 6, John, born in 1775, married Lydia Howell, and from Sussex County, New Jersey, they moved by wagon and team over the trackless wastes of the Middle West and settled in Butler County, Ohio. John Whitlock died in that county. 7, Derrick Whitlock was an old and prom- inent character in Adams County, Illinois, and was the father of Doctor Whit- lock.
Derrick Whitlock was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, April 2, 1817, and a few months later was taken by his parents to Butler County, Ohio, where he grew to manhood. December 18, 1839, he married Miss Rachel Elliott, who was born in Butler County March 13, 1818. Derrick Whitlock during his early life followed the trade of tailor. In 1853 he brought his family West to Adams County, and established his home at Columbus. Two of his brothers-in-law, Samuel Elliott and D. L. Hair, had located in the same community of Adams County two years before. John Elliott came at the same time as his sister and Derrick Whitlock. John Elliott was at one time in business at Quincy, later was a hotel man at St. Louis, and finally moved out to California, where he died. Samuel Elliott settled in Hancock County, Illinois. Another of the Elliott brothers, William, located in Northeast Township of this county, and for a number of years served as superintendent of the county farm. His son, William B. Elliott, is now representative of the International Harvester Com- pany at Helena, Montana. A daughter of William Elliott lives near Canton, Missouri.
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