Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 7

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 7

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After coming to Adams County Derrick Whitlock was a general merchant at Columbus for fourteen years, from 1857 to 1871. At that time Columbus was a flourishing inland village and lost its original prosperity largely through the competition of towns situated on the railroad. Derrick Whitlock also served as postmaster at Columbus during the Civil war, and from 1860 to 1887 was a justice of the peace. He lived retired in the village of Columbus until his death in 1892. He was a loyal democrat and adherent of Stephen A. Douglas until the close of the Civil war, when he became affiliated as a republican. He was very active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, a Sunday school worker, and a strong temperance man. He was also affiliated with the Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

The Whitlock family has furnished many notable men to the ministry of the Methodist Church and various professions. Derrick Whitlock was a nephew of Rev. Dr. Elias Whitlock, whose son, Brand Whitlock, has for a number of years been one of the America's foremost leaders of public opinion and pro- moters of American ideals of democracy, and as United States Minister to Belgium has attained international fame. Another nephew of Derrick Whit- lock was William Francis Whitlock, for many years prominent as a professor in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware.

The wife of Derrick Whitlock died in 1896. Of their four children only two came to mature years, Louisa, who married Dr. N. H. MeNeall, and of her family further mention is made on other pages of this publication; and Dr. Greenbury Elliott.

Dr. Greenbury Elliott Whitlock was born in Butler County, Ohio, October 12, 1850, and was three years of age when brought to Illinois. He attended the common schools, also the Abingdon College in Illinois, and graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan University with the class of 1874. Among his classmates at Ohio Wesleyan was N. Luccock, who for many years has been prominent in the Methodist Episcopal Church and since 1912 has been a bishop of that church. Doctor Whitlock began his medical studies under a physician at Dela- ware, Ohio, also studied a year with Doctor Henry at Columbus, Illinois, and finished his course in the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, where he was graduated in 1876, and in the fall of the same year began practice in the village of Columbus. It was only after thirty-eight years of continuous work in the profession that he retired in 1914. Doctor Whitlock practiced over all the country around Columbus, riding and driving without thought of hard- ship or other inconvenience. When he began practice he had to carry most of his medicines with him and as he went on with his work he adapted himself from year to year not only with the new and enlarged scope of medical science, . but also to such improvements and aids to the medical practitioner as tele- phone, automobile and modern highways. He was always active in medical societies, serving as president of the county society, and adhered closely to the regular school of medicine. During the first ten years he gave undivided attention to his professional duties, and in 1885 bought his farm in Gilmer Township where he now resides and to which he has given some portion of his time and energies for many years. For four years during the '90s he was also proprietor of a general store at Columbus. Doctor Whitlock is now serving his twenty-fourth year as justice of the peace, having first been elected to that office in 1892. In politics he cast his first ballot as a republican and became a democrat on the silver question. Doctor Whitlock has given his serv- ice as a member of the Exemption Board of Adams County, and is one of the men whose personal character and activities constitute them natural leaders of public opinion. He has filled all the chairs in the local lodge of Odd Fellows, has been representative to the Grand Lodge, and has the rank of Past Noble Grand.

December 4, 1877, Doctor Whitlock married Mary Frances Booth, who was born in Adams County March 4, 1854, and died September 29, 1909. She was

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born in Gilmer Township and was a daughter of William A. Booth of that township. Doctor Whitlock has two sons, Derrick B. and Halford B. These sons handle the operations of the home farm. Derrick is married, his wife being Alta Tilton. They have two children, Derrick and Grace.

RICHARD R. HARNESS. To mention the name Harness is to recall the earliest family identified with the permanent settlement of Lima Township. To record the time of that settlement it is necessary to go back ninety years, to the year 1828, when Joseph Harness, a native of St. Clair County, Illinois, invaded this section of the wilderness and erected the first house, about two miles northwest of where the Town of Lima now stands. The maiden name of his wife was Nancy Worley. Their daughter Julia was the first white child born in the township. Joseph Harness, who was of German ancestry, was a man of very distinctive character and many stories are told of his personality. The only picture he ever had taken shows a man of strength both physically and mentally. His ability brought him large possessions and at one time he owned 800 acres, partly in Adams and partly in Hancock counties. This land he distributed among his children, and some of it is still owned by them. He was one of the pioneer raisers of cattle and mules, and his name was also identified with the early history of fruit growing in the county. About 1835 he established a nursery and sold much of the stoek which supplied the early orchards of this part of the state. It is said he was the first man to graft and bud trees, a custom which is now the vital feature of fruit growing. At one time he was probably the largest apple grower in the county. He was also a noted hunter. In this sport, which he pursued largely as a means of supplying his table with meat, he relied upon the old fashioned muzzle loading rifle. He was an expert in its use, and it is said that he killed sixteen deer in seventeen successive shots. He also was fond of telling a story of killing five deer with one bullet. His reputation for veracity and uprightness was greater than that for a keen sense of humor, and few strangers on hearing the story would have disputed it. His son Richard R., however, who was about ten years old when he first heard the tale, was disposed to question its truthfulness and showed an attitude of doubt until the matter was explained. His father satisfied him with the expla- nation that it was one bullet but five different shots that did the execution. Each time he recovered the bullet from the deer and used it over and over again until the one missile had slain five animals. Joseph Harness was a democrat, but had no fondness for local offices, and so far as known never held any. He died on the old farm in 1881, in his ninetieth year, and he and his wife had enjoyed their marriage companionship for sixty years. She survived him three years and passed away at the age of ninety. Joseph Harness was a member of the Masonic Order at Lima, and was representative two years in the Grand Lodge, and he also belonged to Mendon Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, the Knight Templar Commandery at Quincy, and the Medina Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Chicago. Among other characteristics Joseph Harness had a voice of wonderful strength and carrying power. From his farm to the Mississippi River a distance of seven or eight miles intervened, but old rivermen frequently claimed that they could distinctly hear him calling his stock. One night a prowling wolf came into his yard, and was attacked by his dogs. Thinking that the dogs were getting the worst of it Mr. Harness jumped up out of bed and barefooted and bare-legged, with only his hunting knife, started out and got elose enough to make one stab at the wolf, but missed and then started in pursuit. He and the dogs kept up the chase for fully three quarters of a mile, until the wolf made its escape. He then realized that other dangers were present and made his way back home very carefully, fearing that every step would expose him to the bite of a rattlesnake.

Joseph Harness and wife's three living children are: Julia Ann, widow of

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Jason Strickland, of Liberty, Missouri; Nancy, widow of James Ellis, living in California; and Richard R.

The old Harness home in Lima Township, 21% miles northwest of Lima and on the Hancock County line, is now owned by Richard R. Harness, and he was born on that farm February 28, 1841. Practically all his life has been spent in that one community, and he now owns about half of the land formerly held by his father. The Harness home is in Adams County, while his barn is over the county line in Hancock. They are twenty-eight miles from Carthage and twenty-two miles from Quincy. Mr. Harness is a capable and progressive farmer and one of the leading grain and stock raisers in his vicinity. In polities he is a democrat.

At the age of twenty-three he married Miss Rilla Ann Crenshaw, daughter of Paschal Crenshaw of Hancock County. The Crenshaws located in that community in the spring of 1827. Rilla Crenshaw was twenty years of age when she married My. Harness. She died at the age of sixty-five. Mr. Harness has three sons and two daughters: George M., the oldest, lives in the same com- munity with his father and married Lizzie Vinson. Charles C., who farms part of his father's place in Hancock County, is the second in age. Callie Gertrude is the wife of Elmer Miller, and they live on part of the farm. Jasper, who is operating the home place, married Verna Nicholson, of Ursa Township, and their children are Hugh Carlton, Wilma Emaline, Richard Lafayette, Russell Paul and Lco Elizabeth. Effie, the youngest of the family, is the wife of Doctor Parker, formerly of Lima but now of Clayton.

LOUIS HENERHOFF. Adams County has its fair share of the fertile soil of Illinois, and taking the farms as a whole they measure up to the best standards of cultivation and management found in other prosperous sections of the state. But there is a wide difference between individual farms, and this difference is largely a reflection of the owner and manager and the methods employed. It is largely this personal element which accentuates the character of the Hen- erhoff farm, a mile south of Lima. On the road from Lima to Quincy it would be difficult to find a farm more skillfully kept and managed than this place. The farm is a monument to the industry and abilities of Louis Henerhoff, who is an eminently practical farmer, but began life poor and without special resources except those contained within his own work and character.

Mr. Henerhoff was born three miles east of Lima in that township March 13, 1861, a son of William Henerhoff. William Henerhoff came to this country from Germany, and he and his wife brought with them four children. Three children were born in Illinois. The family settled here about 1859, and had previously lived in Ellington Township. Lonis Henerhoff was only two years old when his mother died, and when he was five years old his father died at Tioga in Hancock County. Louis is one of three sons and four daughters, being the youngest son. His brothers, August and Fred, are farmers in Lima Township. The four daughters are: Hannah, widow of H. Honer, of Lima; Rika, who died in 1895, the wife of Casper Elderbrook; Gusta, who lives in Hancock County, the widow of Henry Dix; and Minnie, who is the wife of Herman Elleman, and lives ten miles east of Quincy.

At the time of his father's death, which made him an orphan, Louis Hen- erhoff went to live with his sister Mrs. Elderbrook, and her home was the only one he could claim until he was twenty-eight years of age. With only a meager education in the common schools he began work at the age of fourteen, and for many years worked out with farmers at wages from $10 to $20 a month. He was thrifty as well as industrious, and managed to accumulate something each year in the way of savings. For four years he farmed in Hancock County with his brother Fred.

At the age of twenty-eight he established a home of his own by his marriage to Hannah Holtman, daughter of Fred and Hannah Holtman. The Holtman

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home was a half mile east of Marcellinc. Mrs. Henerhoff was born in Quiney, where her father was a prominent carpenter and builder until she was sixteen years of age, when they moved to the farm. Mrs. Henerhoff was twenty years old when she married.

After their marriage they rented the George Earhart farm of 240 acres in Lima Township for seven years, and there got their real start. From their savings and earnings they then bought their present place of a hundred acres, known as the Conner Reager farm. For that land he paid sixty-five dollars an acre. Mr. Henerhoff at onee erected the comfortable house which still adorns the place and has also put up a barn and made many other improve- ments. Besides this homestead he owns a farm of seventy-six acres across the road, improved with a set of buildings, and has another forty aeres elsewhere. He paid as high as seventy-five dollars an acre for some of his land, but consid- ering the present range of prices it was all acquired at a very reasonable figure. Mr. Henerhoff found the land when he acquired it drained of its best resources by many years of successive cropping, and one of his best achievements has been in restoring the soil fertility. He has practiced rotation of erops and has always used fertilizer generously. He keeps a bunch of cattle, horses and hogs that furnish much fertility for the farm, and he has also bought fertilizer. For a few years he was a cattle feeder, but would now be classed as a general farmer.

Mr. Henerhoff is a trustee of the German Evangelical Church at Ursa. He and his wife have four children. Selma is the wife of Elmer Grimmer, and they live on her father's seventy-six acre farm above mentioned. Edith is the wife of Guy Conover, and their home is two miles west of Lima. Emil, who now has the active management of the homestead, married Ella Baker. The youngest, Alma, is still in the home eirele.

CHARLES C. CROOKS is secretary of the Crooks Brothers Millinery Company, the exclusive wholesale and retail millinery house in Quiney, and an institu- tion which has been built up and developed by the Crooks Brothers during the last thirteen years to a point where it now enjoys a commanding position in the millinery trade over several states.

The business was incorporated November 20, 1905. The first president of the corporation was the late Frank Cox, who died in 1907. Sinee then his position has been filled by R. Edward Crooks, while Thomas A. Crooks is treas- urer. Mr. Charles C. Crooks has been secretary of the business since it was established. These three brothers have equal partnership interests.

The house is located at 514 Maine Street, where they have a beautifully equipped store occupying three floors and basement, and all devoted to the different departments of the business. This firm has been the medium for the importation and distribution over the Middle West of many of the most exchi- sive French modes, and as wholesalers their field of distribution covers Illinois, Missouri and Iowa and even other western states. They keep from six to eight traveling representatives on the road, while in the local retail department they employ from twenty-five to thirty milliners. They also maintain a staff of trimmers numbering about fifty, who each season carry the ideas of the Crooks Brothers Millinery Company to the various retail establishments of the firm throughout the trade territory.

The Crooks Brothers came to Quincy from Keokuk, Iowa, where they re- ceived part of their school education and early business training. They are all thoroughly familiar with the millinery business, and each has developed special proficiency along different lines. They were born in Kentucky, and spent part of their youth near Louisville. Their father Rev. John C. Crooks, was a native of Kentucky and a Methodist minister. He died in 1875, in the prime of life. His wife, Virginia Montague, was also a Kentuekian by birth, and some years

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ago came to Quiney and is now enjoying the comforts of a fine home, sur- rounded by her children, who still consider their mother's residence their own home. She is now seventy-eight years of age and very vigorous for her years.

She was the mother of four sons and one daughter: John W., who is married and still lives in Kentucky; Mrs. Charles A. Cox of Quincy; R. Edward, a bachelor; Charles C., who married Ada B. Willson, of Quincy, and has two children, Charles C., Jr., and Robert E .; and Thomas A. Crooks, who married Emily Wagner, of Keokuk, lowa, and their two children, Thomas A., Jr., and Robert Wagner, are both in the city schools.

The three brothers are members of the Masonic order. Their firm is repre- sented in the Quincy Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Charles C. Crooks is a member and a director of the Quincy Rotary Club.

HENRY MIDDENDORF. There is great worth to a community in the estab- lishment and development of sound, well financed and honorably conducted business enterprises, and of these Quincy has a number and among the most important may be mentioned the lumber and building material firm of Mid- dendorf Brothers & Company, of which Henry Middendorf is vice president.

Henry Middendorf is a member of an old family here and was born at Quincy July 6, 1854, the second son in a family of eight children born to Bernhard H. and Elizabeth (Jelsing) Middendorf, as follows: Elizabeth, who is the widow of William Schlagheck, of Quincy; Catherine, who died in child- hood: William M., who is president of the Broadway Bank of Quincy and a member of the firm of Middendorf Brothers & Company; Henry; Mary and Frank, both of whom are deceased ; Theodore, who is a member also of the above firm : and Joseph, who is a Franciscan monk, connected with St. Joseph's Col- lege, Teutopolis. Both parents were born in Germany and both died at Quiney, Illinois, the father in 1885 and the mother in 1905, having been residents here since 1849.

Henry Middendorf attended the parochial school until he was thirteen years old and then began to work in a factory, his task there being the painting of chairs, and afterward he served in a bakery long enough to gain a fair knowl- edge of that business. An opportunity came just then for work on a farm and for three years he maintained familiar relations with hoe, harrow and plow, and then spent two years learning the cooper's trade. The youth therefore had made excellent use of his time before he ever entered the lumber business, but since then has made no change and spent thirty years in lumber yards and sawmills prior to 1912, when he bought an interest in the firm of Middendorf Brothers & Company, of which his eldest brother, William M., is president and he is vice president. This house, with its well established reputation for busi- ness integrity, does an immense business at Quincy and up and down the river, and it may be classed as one of the city's most prosperous business enterprises.

Henry Middendorf was united in marriage with Miss Bertha Rees, who is a daughter of Casper and Barbara (Durley) Rees, old residents of Quincy. To this marriage the following children were born: George, who is in busi- ness at Quincy ; Ida, who is the wife of Walter Bernsen, of Quincy; Raymond, in the United States Army now serving his country in France : Henry, also in the United States Army; and Helen and Arthur, both of whom live at home.

In politics Mr. Middendorf has always been a sound democrat, giving hearty support to his party's candidates but never being willing to accept any political favors. He is a faithful member of St. Francis Catholic church and his children have been carefully reared in the faith. He is a member of the Western Catholie Union and frequently has served on church and civic committees, mainly of a charitable nature, on which his good judgment and practical ideas have made him very useful.

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WILLIAM H. ANCK. Among the many enterprising and trustworthy men that are prominently identified with the mercantile affairs of Quincy is William H. Anck, a son of the late John Anck, who became interested in the meat trade of the city nearly three decades ago, establishing a business that is now being successfully conducted by his sons, who have a large and well-kept meat market at the corner of Broadway and Eleventh Street. A native of Adams County, Illinois, he was born October 15, 1884, not far from Columbus.

Locating in Quincy in 1889, John Anek built up a fine business as a pork packer, and conducted it with excellent results until his death. The maiden name of his wife was Isabel Neista. She, too, has passed to the life beyond. Of their large family of children but six are living, as follows: Josephine, wife of Henry Hedrick, of Rock Island, Illinois; Marie, wife of Charles Schmidt, of Chicago; Casper, born August 15, 1875, a member of the firm of Anck Brothers; John, of Quincy; William, the subject of this brief sketch; and Edward, engaged in the meat business in Quincy.

But five years old when his parents removed to Quincy, William H. Anck obtained his early education in the city schools. Soon after attaining his majority, following in the footsteps of his father, he embarked in the meat business, with his brothers Casper and John opening a meat market. Suc- cessful in their operations, this enterprising firm assumed possession of the building it now occupies and owns in 1911, and has since continued in busi- ness with the same good success, having by straightforward, upright dealing won the confidence of the community and built up an extensive and lucrative tradc.

William H. Anck married, July 14, 1913, Lillian Mitchell. John Anck, who sold his interest in the meat market to his brothers in 1915, married, October 4, 1904, Florence Lyle King, and they have one child, Marie, born February 5, 1906. Politically all of the Anck brothers are earnest supporters of the principles of the democratic party.

FATHER DIDACUS, O. F. M., has been rector of St. Francis Solanus Church and School, a complete account of which noble Catholic institution is published in the general history section of this work.

Father Didacus was at the head of St. Francis Solanus for six years, till August, 1918, when he became a missionary. His assistant was Father Francis Werhand, O. F. M., who graduated from St. Joseph's College, Teutopolis, Illinois, in 1903. In 1915 he came from Santa Barbara, California, to Quiney, and has since then been assistant.

Father Didacus was born in Germany, but was reared from childhood in Chicago, where his parents lived and where his brother Charles still has his home. He was educated in St. Augustine's parochial school and took his philosophical and theological courses in the Franciscan Monastery, St. Louis, Missouri. He was admitted to the order of St. Francis in 1900 and in 1907 was ordained by Archbishop Glennon of St. Louis. He then did pastoral work at Montrose, Illinois, at Island Grove in Jasper County of this state, and for a time was in Wien, Chariton County, Missouri. From there he came to Quiney, where his work as a constructive leader received the grateful apprecia- tion of the people and his church superiors. He was the successor of Father Columban, who was here for two years. Probably the most noteworthy material additions to the church property during Father Didacus' administration were made when $7,000 were expended improving the school and a fine pipe organ was installed at a cost of $7,000.

ARTHUR H. HEIDEMANN. One of the old business concerns of Quincy, one that has been carried on continuously for a half century or more, is the retail lumber house of which Arthur H. Heidemann is manager. This business was founded by Mr. Heidmann's maternal grandfather, Herman H. Merten.

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Arthur H. Heidemann was born at Quincy, Illinois, July 4, 1874. His parents were John William and Juliana (Morten) Heidemann. The father was born in Germany and the mother in St. Louis, Missouri. The families eame to Quiney about 1853, where the paternal grandfather, Herman Heidemann, established himself as a tailor, and the maternal grandfather embarked in the lumber business. John William Heidemann was a bookbinder by trade but later he went into his father-in-law's lumber business, succeeding to the same and continued to be interested until the time of his death, June 1, 1906. Ilis first wife died September 27, 1881. They had two children, Orlinda Anna and Arthur H. In August, 1883, John William Heidemann was married to Matilda Meyer, who is now deceased. The children of that marriage were: Walter, who died in childhood, Meta C., Emma C., and Matilda M.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 7

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