Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 61

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

USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II > Part 61

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While his political record is brief, Mr. Buttz has an especially enviable distinction in one respect. He is notary public, and received his first com- mission in January. 1865. from the war governor, Richard Yates. He has been notary public under every governor since that time, and there is probably not another notary publie in Illinois whose official authority runs back further and more continuously. Mr. Buttz has been called upon by his friends and neigh- bors to prepare and draw up most of the legal documents in his part of the county. Legal papers with his seal and signature have entered into the records

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of the United States Government and in the records of every state and even in many foreign countries. Not one of them has ever been abrogated by any court. A Quincy attorney says that Mr. Buttz' name as notary public occurs twenty-five times in the transfer of one piece of property.

Ile has always been a republican, though independent in local matters. His name was several times placed on the county ticket, and he was elected a justice of the peace in a democratic township. Mr. Buttz has been a member of the Masonic Order since December, 1864, and is the oldest living member of Liberty Lodge, No. 380. He took his first degrees in that lodge and has been representative to the Grand Lodge several times. He is a Royal Arch Mason at Clayton. As a member and official of Liberty Lodge he has been present at the initiation of every member during the past fifty-five years. Mr. Buttz united with the Christian Church under Elder H. R. Trickett fifty years ago, and is a faithful and loyal member of that denomination.

Mr. Buttz lost his first wife in March, 1879. She was the mother of three children. They were Clarence G., Ada and Lewis. The last named died in infancy. Ada, born March 12, 1874, was a very talented and proficient musician. She had attended high school and normal school and at one time taught school. Her death was a tragedy to her family and cut short a brilliant career. She had gone to the assistance of her landlady who was filling a reservoir with gas- oline. The gasoline took fire and she was burned to death. She died April 22, 1899.

Clarence G. Buttz, only living child of Mr. Buttz, now lives in the old home at Liberty. Besides his success in material affairs he is a very competent mu- sician, a cornetist, had been a band leader and is master of several instruments, including the piano. Clarence G. Buttz married in 1890 Bertha Hunsacker. Their son, Albert D. Buttz, grandson of Mr. Buttz, is one of the young men on Adams County's roll of honor in the great war. When he was drafted he waived exemption, and was in the second lot of men sent from the county to Fort Dodge. He had married in 1916 Miss Gertie Daniels. Before the war broke out he was a rural mail carrier, and when granted leave of absence from that service to enlist his father took his place and has been distributing the mail along his route. Mrs. Albert D. Buttz during the absence of her husband in the army has been teaching near East St. Louis.

Albert D. Buttz was sent to France in May. 1918, and almost immediately was put at the front along the River Marne. He was a member of the One Hun- dred and Fortieth Regiment, composed of Missouri National Guard troops. This regiment was part of the Thirty-Fifth Division, whose record stands out so conspicuously in the great turning battle which marked the fortunes of the allied troops in the summer of 1918. Young Buttz was subsequently trans- ferred to the band as a musician, but the transfer was not effective, owing to the demand for fighters at the front. and at last report he had never joined the band. For thirty days at one time he was in the trenches, and he was one of the American boys who participated in the real fighting which drove the Germans back.

On March 23, 1882, Mr. A. H. D. Buttz married Fannie B. Jones. She was reared in Quincy, but after ten years of age her home was in Liberty Township. Mrs. Buttz died January 23, 1912.

CHARLES HENRY CLARK is owner of the old Clark homestead in Liberty Town- ship, known as the Dividing Ridge Farm. The farm is a valuable business proposition, conducted in a business like manner by its proprietor, and has many associations with the interests and the people of that community.

In the present house on the old farm Charles Henry Clark was born Feb- ruary 6, 1863. He is a son of Robert J. and Eliza (Fuqua) Clark. His mother was born in Kentucky, but as a child was taken to Missouri by her parents. and she grew up and lived until marriage in Pike County. Robert J. Clark was

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born near Richmond, Virginia, on the James River, and as a youth he worked as an overseer on a Virginia plantation. He also went when young .with his parents to Pike County, Missouri, locating near Frankford. The grandparents all died in Pike County. About 1848 Robert J. Clark with his two sons, the oldest only two or three years old, came to Adams County. His wife's brother. James Fuqua, and her three sisters were already living in the county. The three sisters were: Sallie, Mrs. Arthur Scott, who spent the rest of her life in Adams County ; Lucy, then Mrs. Robert Bailey, later Mrs. T. Carter, and still later Mrs. George Cutforth, also died in this county; and Patsy, who was at that time Mrs. T. Carter, and she also died in the county. James Fuqua after- ward moved to Missouri.

On coming to Adams County Robert J. Clark acquired a part of the present home farm. It was in timber, not more than twenty acres being in cultivation. He spent the rest of his life on that 110 acres and also had forty acres a short dis- tance away. Part of the present house was already there, a structure of hewed frame timbers. He rebuilt it, and also built a horse barn. He was a hard work- ing and prosperous farmer, a man of intelligence who read widely and kept in close touch with local affairs. He had been reared a democrat, but through his admiration for Abraham Lincoln changed parties. He was a member of the Liberty Christian Church. His death occurred February 2, 1898, in his sev- enty-ninth year. His wife died June 12, 1885, at the age of sixty. Of their eleven children ten reached maturity : Julian Kenyon, who spent his life on a farm and died at the age of fifty years, his widow still surviving and having married again ; James Richard, a farmer on part of the old Clark estate; Sarah Ann, Mrs. Mark Kinder, of Alaska, Missouri; Mary Ann, twin sister of Sarah Ann, who has never married and has spent her life at the old home; Lucy Jane, who married Tom Cochran, of Pike County, Illinois, and died there when young: Martha Elizabeth, widow of Izri Mayfield, of Beverly, Adams County; Nancy Ellen, who married William Carson and died in Liberty Township : Charles Henry ; Lura Frances, Mrs. Ive Cutforth, of Burton Township; and Susan Lovina, who was the first wife of Ive Cutforth.

Charles Henry Clark has always been a farmer since he was old enough to handle the tools and instruments of farming. He took charge of the old home- stead after his mother's death. He has increased his holdings from 110 acres to 200 acres, all in a body and well improved and most of it in cultivation. A cattle barn has been added under his ownership. He keeps high grade stock, and every season markets a bunch of good hogs.

September 26, 1895, he married Miss Mary S. Heberlein, a sister of August Heberlein. She was born October 28, 1866, at the Heberlein homestead, now occupied by her brother August. She is a danghter of August and Louise (Koeller) Heberlein, both of whom came from Lippe-Detmold, Germany. They brought with them to this country one child, and also a child of the mother's first marriage. August Heberlein, Sr., was a butcher by trade. He did farm work, rented for a time in Pike County, and finally located on the home farm in 1866. He took a tract of raw timber land and converted it into a well cul- tivated property. Ile had 150 acres in the home farm and altogether owned about 340 acres in Liberty Township along Camp Creek. The present home on that farm was built by him. About 1888 he retired from the farm and spent his last years at Quincy. Mrs. Clark ws reared on the farm and in Quincy, and lived there until she became the wife of Mr. Clark, with whom she had been a child- hood playmate. Mr. and Mrs. Clark have two children, Mabel Lovina and Iven Ellis, both at home.

Mr. Clark is a democratic voter, is a member of the Woodmen's Camp at Liberty and of the Pleasant View Baptist Church. A number of well known business and professional men of Quincy know the Clark home because of the keen interest of its proprietor in fox hunting. Mr. Clark has a bunch of fox hounds, and takes the keenest interest in that old English sport.

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COMMODORE PERRY JOHNSON, now living retired at Liberty Village, is an example of a man who made his real success in life after passing middle age. For many years he struggled along as a renter, making a living for his family. but only about twenty years ago did he acquire his first land. Since then he has developed a large and well improved farm in Liberty Township, and has seen most of his children well established in homes of their own.

Mr. Johnson was born near Toledo, Ohio, June 8, 1849. His parents were Joel and Christina (Blubach) Johnson, both of Pennsylvania. A few months after the birth of the son Commodore the parents moved to the vicinity of Philadelphia, Marion County, Missouri. There Joel Johnson died when his son was five or six years old. The mother afterward married Joshua Pyles. Mr. Pyles was a republican, and when the Civil war came on he was informed that his presence was no longer desired in that section of Missouri. They therefore went aeross the Mississippi to Adams County and settled a mile and a half north of Coatsburg, where they rented a small farm. Later Mr. Pyles bought a place in Columbus Township, and lived there until his death, at the age of seventy- five. His widow was a well preserved woman even to the end, passing away in her eighty-eighth year. Her children by her first marriage comprised three who died in infancy, two losing their lives by being burned in Ohio. Elijah, Jerry and Joel were all soldiers in the Civil war, Elijah serving throughout the war and now living in Arkansas. Jerry and Joel were members of the same company and both died of measles at Nashville. The next in age is Commodore P. Amanda died in childhood and Richard is a resident of Columbus Township. Rebecca Pyles, of her mother's second marriage, married Bruee Carr, and died in Adams County ; Samson Pyles is a railroad engineer living in Milan, Missouri.

Commodore P. Johnson was about fourteen years old when he came to Adams County. He grew up here and at the age of nineteen married Mary Ellen Rowsey, who was then twenty years of age. She was born in Liberty Township, daughter of John and Sarah (Lierle) Rowsey. Her father was a native of Virginia, moved west to Ohio and later to Illinois, and married in Columbus Township of this county. Mrs. Johnson's mother was of the pioneer Lierle family so frequently mentioned in these pages. There were ten children in the Rowsey family, and six are still living: Samuel W., a bachelor, living with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson ; William Seaton, of Montana ; Sarah, Mrs. Thomas Viar, of Fowler, Adams County; Lucinda, wife of Lewis Phillips, of Columbus Town- ship ; John Henry, of Quincy; and Mrs. Johnson.

At the time of his marriage Mr. Johnson rented a farm and for nearly thirty years was a renter in Columbus and Liberty townships. There were many things that held them baek on the road to prosperity. There were periods of finaneial distress, low prices for everything raised, and Mrs. Johnson frequently sold eggs as low as three eents a dozen. There was mueh hard work, and through it all was the strenuous necessity of economy. Their first purchase of land was twenty aeres of brush in Columbus Township. Later they bought seventy acres of partly eleared land in Liberty Township. Mr. Johnson went in debt for this land, and lived in a log house. He sold his first purchase and bought a farm of 148 acres in Columbus Township. After improving that he sold and bought 228 acres in Liberty Township and later another eighty aeres adjoining. Mueh of this was covered with brush, but its has been developed as a good farm of 30S aeres. He has greatly improved the place, and the house, now a modern residenee, comprises an original log house sturdily constructed of solid timbers that seem likely to last for several generations. The plates of this building were hauled to Quiney twenty miles away to have holes bored in order to attach tim- bers for a porch roof. Mr. Johnson continued active on the farm until 1913. still owns it, but since then has lived in the Village of Liberty. He has never sought publie office, is a demoeratie voter, and is a member of the Church of the Brethren.

The record of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's children is as follows: Emma Edith, wife of John Clary, of Liberty Township; Lovina, wife of William Baker, of

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Kansas; Sarah Christina, wife of Kel Akers, of Payson Township: Joshua Mar- ion, of Oklahoma : Mary Rosilla, Mrs. Ira Akers, of Liberty Township ; Minnie Alice, who married John Sheffeldecker, of Haneoek County, Illinois; Olive May, wife of Norman Blentlinger, of Liberty Township; Roy E., of Columbus Township ; Commodore Perry, Jr., of Quincy; and Harry Ralph, of Liberty Village.

JACOB SCHRADER. While his home for a number of years has been in the Village of Liberty, Mr. Schrader has been well known in several of the farming communities of Adams County, and in early life was one of the proprietors of a threshing outfit which went all over the country distriets of the county.

Mr. Sehrader was born in Melrose Township December 25, 1855. His father. Theodore Schrader, was born in Germany and when a young man came to Adams County with his two brothers. All of them located in Melrose Township and spent the rest of their years in that loeality. Theodore Sehrader married Barbara Wolf, danghter of Jacob Wolf. Her brother, William Wolf, is the father of Martin Wolf, who is still a well known resident of Melrose Township. Barbara was the youngest of the Wolf children. She was born in Kentneky and was brought to Adams County by her parents at the age of three years. The Wolf family settled on Mill Creek, and the old homestead was near the Stone Bridge on the Qniney-Payson road. Mrs. Barbara Schrader inherited a portion of the Wolf estate, and this was involved in an interesting chancery proceed- ings. Mrs. Sehrader's children did not realize their respective shares in their mother's portion of the Wolf estate for abont thirty-five years, and then each of them got only the amount of the original share withont subsequent aeere- cions or earnings.

Theodore Sehrader after his marriage settled on the Wolf farm and finally bought it. He died there when about forty years of age. He and his wife had four children: Frederick, Jacob, Henry and Sophia. Frederick is a farmer in Liberty Township, Henry is in the same township, and Sophia is the wife of Philip Hoehne, of Chicago. About twelve or fourteen years after her hus- band's death Barbara Selirader married William Manigold. They and her children then moved to Liberty Township, where they had a rented farm, and afterwards lived in Richfield and Payson townships. Mr. and Mrs. Manigold spent their last days in Liberty Village, where both died when about seventy- four years of age. Barbara Schrader by her second marriage had the following children : William Manigold, of Liberty Township ; John, a farmer in Richfield Township: Lonis, of Quiney ; Lonisa, Mrs. George Zander, of Qniney; and Lot- tie, Mrs. Levi Lawrence, of Payson.

Jacob Schrader lived at home with his mother until he was abont twenty- six years of age. In the meantime he had been associated with his brother Fred and his stepfather in operating a threshing ontfit. Fred Sehrader was in this business for a number of years, eontinning it after Jacob retired. At the age of twenty-six Jacob Sehrader married Lydia Michel, of Richfield Township, danghter of Henry Michel. Mrs. Sehrader was born near Plainville in Payson Township and was twenty years of age at the time of her marriage. Having sold his interests in the threshing outfit Mr. Sehrader had a small amount of eash with which to begin married life. For ten years he rented in the town- ships of Liberty, Richfield and Burton, and then bought fifty aeres a half mile sonth and east of Liberty. He paid $2,400 for this farm, assuming a debt of abont $600. He bought forty acres adjoining for $800 and another thirty aeres adjoining on the west for $1,400. This gave him approximately 115 aeres. which he made into a first elass farm, remodeling and rebuilding the houses and introducing other improvements from time to time. In 1908 Mr. Schrader sold this farm for $7,000. Since then his home has been in the Village of Lib- erty, where he has a neat home with a number of improvements. For several years he followed teaming, taking goods to Qniney and returning with mer-

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chandise for the local business. For the past six years, however, he has lived retired.

He is a demoerat, and a member of the Zion Lutheran Church at Liberty. He and his wife have two children: Edward William, who lived on the home farm to the age of twenty-one, and is now a dealer in electrical supplies at El Paso, Texas. Dora Caroline is Mrs. Arthur Goertz of Camp Point.

JOHN M. LEAPLEY. The Leapley family have been residents of Adams County sinee pioneer days, contain a number of interesting personalities, and are people who have always earned their share of community esteem by their straightforward eharaeter and worthy achievements.

Now living retired at Liberty Village, John M. Leapley was born at Keller- ville, MeKee Township of Adams County, February 21, 1865. His parents were Henry C. and Clarissa (Hughes) Leapley. Henry C. Leapley was born in Ohio in January, 1829, and died in July, 1911, in his eighty-third year. His parents were John and Elizabeth Leapley. They came to Adams County in 1841, first locating in Concord Township, and in 1865 moving to MeKee Town- ship. The Leapley family is a large and prominent one back in Ohio, and there are family reunions every year at Sidney in that state. This branch of the family lost connection with the Ohio branch until a few years ago. A brother of John M. Leapley, George William, while living in Nebraska met an old lady from Ohio who knew members of the Ohio braneh. In 1915 John M. Leapley attended a family reunion at Sidney and met and ate with sixty-five of his relatives.

When John Leapley, Sr., came to Adams County he settled a mile north of Kellerville, where he cleared up a farm. He died there about 1875. He had served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and his widow, who survived him for some years, received a pension for those services. Henry C. Leapley was about twelve years of age when he was brought to Adams County. In 1850 he mar- ried Miss Clarissa Hughes. She was born in Liberty Township October 16, 1830, daughter of John Hughes. The old Hughes home was a mile east of Liberty. Mrs. Clarissa Leapley died October 11, 1903.

At the time of his marriage Henry C. Leapley began farming on eighty acres in Liberty Township, but soon removed to MeKee Township, where his son John M. was born. There he eleared up a tract of wooded land and sold large quantities of railroad ties. He lived there until old age and then spent his last days with his son John. He never held a publie office but was a republican voter. He was laid to rest in the Grady Cemetery in McKee Township. He and his wife had nine children, one of whom died in childhood. The others were: Thomas O., a farmer at Mount Pulaski, Illinois; Albert T., a retired farmer in Nebraska; Frances E., Mrs. James Conrad, of Williamsville, Illi- nois; Mary Jane, who died in Missouri in middle life, the wife of John Cald- well ; George William, a Nebraska farmer: Laura, who died at the age of six- teen ; John M .; and Vina, wife of George Hocker, of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

John M. Leapley has spent practically all his life on a farm in MeGee, Lib- erty Township. At the age of twenty-two he married Miss Anna Groves of MeKee Township. She was then twenty years of age. At the time of their marriage they moved to Trenton, Missouri, where Mrs. Leapley died three months later. He then returned to Illinois and two years later married Lizzie Dennis, of Brown County, Illinois, and she was twenty-two at her marriage and died eleven years later, the mother of three children, Lena, Jessie and Henry. Lena was ten years of age at the time of her mother's death. Mr. Leapley had a housekeeper for his children for four years, after which the whole responsibility for the rearing of the younger children devolved upon the dangh- ter Lena, who deserves the greatest eredit for her noble efforts in their behalf. She was for eight years a successful teacher in the rural schools of Adams County, and completed her own education in the Macomb Normal.

On December 29, 1908, Mr. Leapley married for his present wife Mand

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(Honse) Johnson, also of Brown County, Illinois. Her maiden name was Cole- man, but she and her only brother when small children were placed in a home, and she was finally adopted by J. B. Honse. She lost all trace of her brother. At the age of thirteen Mrs. Leapley eame to Siloam with her adopted father, who was a Methodist minister and who eondueted a hotel at Siloam some years. He finally died at Godfrey, Illinois, where he had a church. Mrs. Leapley by her previons marriage to Mr. Johnson had four children : Faye, William, Clara and Helen. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Leapley are Esther, Russell, George and Herbert. In 1911 Mr. Leapley sold the old farm and the following year bonght a large place of 235 aeres a half mile north and a half mile east of Lib- erty Village. This is the old Frank Williams farm. Mr. Leapley paid $17,000 for it, a price that indicates its thoroughly improved and modernized condi- tion. Mr. Leapley was engaged in farming there until abont two years ago and has sinee lived retired in Liberty. Ile is a republican in polities and was twiee a candidate for office, being defeated by a small majority. Onee he was eandi- date for assessor and the other time for supervisor. He has been a party com- mitteeman and has attended a number of party conventions. He is affiliated with Liberty Lodge of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America and still enjoys outdoor sports, sneh as fishing and hunting.

JOHN KEIL. Anyone at all familiar with Adams County's history reeog- nizes Keil as one of the oldest and best known family names, partienlarly in the southwestern part of the county. One of this substantial family is John Keil, owner of a large and valnable farm in Fall Creek Township, ten miles southeast of Quiney on the Quiney-Hannibal road.

Mr. Keil has always been of a family of land owners and agricnlturists. Ile bought his present farm in 1912, and has beenpied it sinee 1913. It is the old Wishon farm of 320 aeres. Abont 200 acres are bottom land. Mr. Keil paid $131 an aere for the land. The main buildings were already there, but since he bought it he has ereeted other snitable ontbuildings, and has the entire property now in fine condition and regarded as one of the most productive farms in Fall Creek Township.

Mr. Keil was born December 30, 1866. He remained at home to the age of twenty-one, and in the meantime had rented some land. His share of his father's estate amounted to $6,600, and he took in lieu of the cash 110 aeres of the old homestead. This he still owns, and it is located about a mile and a half north of his present farm. Mr. Keil farmed this 110 aere place until he bought his present farm, and the two places make him one of the most exten- sive farmers in the county. He raises large crops of wheat and eorn, having fifty acres of corn and ninety-five aeres in wheat in 1918. He feeds and fattens from 60 to 100 head of hogs. Mr. Keil is now carrying forward his building improvements, ereeting a large hay barn and eowshed. He is a democratic voter but has never been inclined to bother with an office.

February 12, 1893, at the age of twenty-six, he married Miss Barbara Schmidt, of Burton Township, daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth (Loos) Schmidt. Mr. and Mrs. Keil have four children, all of whom are still at home, named Dora, Lillie, Edna and Elmer. Their oldest child, named Freddie, died at the age of nineteen. Mr. and Mrs. Keil are members of Bluff Hall Congrega- tional Church, of which he is a trustee.

Frederiek Schmidt, father of Mrs. Keil, was born in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, and came to the United States at the age of fourteen, loeating in Quiney. His brother William also eame to this eonntry and their sisters were Minnie, who married Henry Wolfmeier; Louise, who married August Kluese- meyer and lives at LaGrange, Missouri; and Caroline, who married Herman Wolfmeier, a brother of Henry, and lives at LaGrange, Missouri.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 61

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