Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 92

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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On October 31, 1867, Mr. Herr married Miss Gertrude C. ITills, of Clinton County, Pennsylvania. In the meantime Mr. Herr had visited Adams County. IIis cousin was Mrs. John P. Cadogan, wife of the former proprietor of the Quincy Herald. While here Mr. Herr had arranged for the purchase of forty aeres in Melrose Township. Ile and his wife arrived at Quincy September 15, 1868, direct from Clinton County, Pennsylvania. The land he bought was nearly all in timber, only a few acres were cleared and the house was brand new. It cost him $1.40 per acre and mueh remained to do before it could be utilized for production. Mr. llerr worked steadily to elear it up and eon- vert it into a farm. He has sinee inereased his holdings there to seventy aeres. practically all of it in cultivation. He also owns another traet of forty-four acres a half mile away, and the two places constitute a well proportioned and pro- ductive farm. Owing to his convenient situation with respect to Quincy Mr. Herr made a profitable business of dairving many years. He milked as high as forty-three eows. At one time he distributed milk with two wagons. For years he supplied the Newcomb Hotel in Quiney. In later years he has separated the milk and converted the cream into butter. At one time he manufactured as high as 100 pounds a week, but now makes scarce more than a quarter that amount. Besides dairying and milk production he carries on his farm as a general agricultural proposition and has a good deal of small fruit.

Mrs. Herr has been active in the Eighth Street Methodist Episcopal Church and is also a working member of the Red Cross. Mr. Herr is a republican, but has never sought public position. A brief record of his children indicates justifiable ground for pride on his part : George M., a merchant at Roundup, Montana ; Harry P., a miner at the same place in Montana: Arthur B., con- nected with the Standard Oil Company's works at Wood River, Illinois: Walter S., a manufacturer of extracts at Wichita. Kansas: Eugene E., a car- penter in Chicago; Emma, wife of Walter Pfannschmidt, of Gilmer Township, and the mother of two children, Marian and Ruth; Pearl, wife of Harry Nes- bitt and the mother of Emily, Ruth and Samuel ; Philip S., who is superintendent of the Knollenburg Milling Company at Quiney, married Florence Knollenburg and has two children. Robert and Jeanne; Charles, who in 1918 was in the army, stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia: Chester, who is a farmer on the home place; Herbert, a soldier at Camp Sheridan. Alabama. The sons Philip and Chester are both active members of Lambert Lodge of Masons at Quincy. Mr. Herr for forty years has been affiliated with John Woods Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

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R. FRANK STOWE, of Columbus Township, represents one of the pioneer fami- lies of Hancock County, but for the past fourteen years has been numbered among the most successful farmers of Adams County. Mr. Stowe with the aid and co-operation of a loyal wife has aceumulated much prosperity, owns a fine home and farm, has earned a commendable place in community esteem, and their only son and heir is now fighting to make the world safe for democracy.

Mr. Stowe's farm comprises 320 acres in the east half of section 18 and within half a mile of the Village of Columbus. It is excellent land, rolling and with natural drainage, and under Mr. Stowe's direction it has been utilized on the strict rotation principle of cultivation and is the home of some high grade livestock. Mr. Stowe pastures about 100 head of sheep every year, about the same number of hogs, raises black cattle and from twenty to thirty head of mules and horses. His main barn is 40 by 50 feet, besides tool and wagon sheds and other equipment. The home is a nine room house.

Mr. Stowe bought this farm on coming to the county from Burnside in Hancock County, where he had previously been a successful farmer. He was born in Hancock County February 10, 1869, and attended school at Burnside. The Stowe family located in Hancock County, two miles west of Burnside, when that region was largely a wilderness, filled with wild game of all kinds. In fact in the early days his father and mother depended upon the game for most of the meat upon their table. There was only one house between the Stowe home and the Mormon settlement at Nauvoo. Mr. Stowe's parents were Solomon and Matilda (Jones) Stowe. Both were natives of Middle Tennessee of southern ancestry. Soon after their marriage they joined a party of several families from that part of Tennessee, and all of them journeyed overland with wagons and teams to Haneoek County, Illinois. Mr. Stowe's maternal grandfather, Thomas Jones, was an old school Baptist minister and was the first preacher to this little colony of Tennesseeans in Hancock County, nearly all the mem- bers of which were of the same faith. Solomon Stowe secured a traet of Gov- ernment land and then made a good farm and home in that vicinity. He died there fifteen years ago, at the age of seventy-one, and his wife passed away some years previously in her sixties. Both had lived retired for several years at the Village of Burnside. On their old farm they reared eleven children, four sons and seven daughters, seven of whom are still living and all married. The parents were striet members of the Primitive Baptist Church and Solomon served in various church offices. He was equally zealous in his support of the democratic party.

R. Frank Stowe married at Burnside in 1890 Miss Hannah Minerva Huff. She was born in MeDonough County, Illinois, in a log cabin, July 16, 1868. She was a child when her parents, William M. and Mary A. (Twaddle) Huff, moved to Hancock County and located near Burnside. Her father was a native of Illinois, born near Rushville, and her mother was born in Ohio. They were married in MeDonough County, and they spent most of their active careers in Haneoek County. Her father is still living there at the Village of Burnside, and celebrates his eightieth birthday February 4, 1819. Mrs. Stowe's mother died in 1892, when about fifty years of age. Both were members of the Christian Church and her father was a democrat until past thirty years of age, when he became one of the pioneer advocates of prohibition principles and party affiliation. In all ways he has been an excellent citizen and is widely known over Hancock County. Mrs. Stowe was one of five children, all daughters, three of whom are living, are married and have children of their own.

The son of Mr. and Mrs. Stowe is Robert Harlan Stowe, born May 8, 1896. He grew up on the home farm, was well educated, and graduated with honors from the Maplewood High School at Camp Point in 1914. He received his early military training in a local home guard company, and on July 6, 1918, entered the Great Lakes Training Station at Chicago. Mr. Stowe and family are members of the Christain Church and in politics he is a stanch democrat.

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BENTON SHUPE. There have been members of the Shupe family in Adams County for fully three quarters of a century. For the most part they have been industrious and capable farmers, have eleared many aeres of wild land, have cropped the soil here for several generations, and all of them have performed a worthy part in loeal citizenship.

Mr. Benton Shupe, whose home is in Honey Creek Township, 11% miles north of Paloma, is a son of Christopher Shupe, who was born in Franklin Township, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1818, and eame to Adams County in 1841. In 1840 he married Mary Shultz, who was born in Somerset County, Pennsyl- vania, June 29, 1818. Christopher Shupe on coming to Adams County bought land at $1.25 per aere in Mendon Township, and the old homestead which he developed there is now oeenpied by his son Charles. He aequired 320 aeres in one body and ereeted the old home in 1857. His last years he lived retired and died February 16, 1892, at the age of seventy-six. His wife passed away January 1, 1903. Their family consisted of the following children: Catherine, who married Andy Remp and both are now deceased, Catherine dying at the age of sixty-three; David William, who served as a soldier in the Civil war, afterward went to Mendon, Missouri, and died there soon afterward at the age of forty ; Edward Michael, who died at Mendon, Missouri, at the age of sixty- six; John, who lived a bachelor at the old home and died at fifty-nine; Louis, whose home is in California; Mary, who died in infancy ; George W., who went out to Kansas as a young man and is now living at San Antonio, Texas; Benton ; and Charles, who was born January 10, 1860, and has spent all his life on the old homestead and has had aetive charge of it since reaching the age of twenty- three. Charles Shupe married in 1892 Anna Isabel Pauls, of St. Louis County, Missouri. They have two children : George P. and Frederick Dewey.

Benton Shupe was born on the old homestead February 20, 1858. He grew up there and received his education in the local schools. When he was quite young his father gave him an adjoining farm, but he soon sold that and eame to his present place in Honey Creek Township. Here he bought eighty aeres, at $50 an aere, going in debt for a portion of the purchase price, but has paid it out, has made a good living from the land, and is now owner of 200 aeres in a body and has it thoroughly well improved. He is a general farmer and stoek man, and feeds and markets about fifty hogs a year. His land has cost him all the way from $50 to $75 an aere. Portions of it were originally eovered with heavy timber, and some of this timber has been worked up sinee he became owner. For some years Mr. Shupe served as school director and was also road commissioner two years. He is a demoerat, as was his father before him, and the only member of the family to break away from that party allegiance is his brother George. Mr. Shupe is a stoekholder in the Paloma Elevator Company.

At the age of twenty-seven he married Miss Anna Beachy. She died leaving four children, and two of them are still living, Lester C. and Chester. Lester is now operating the home farm for his father, and by his marriage to Eva Morton has two children, Berniee and Fannie. The son Chester, who is over- seer of a large raneh in North Dakota, married Sadie Johns, of Adams County, and they have a daughter, Wilma. For his second wife Mr. Shupe married Miss Susie Jeffry. They have one ehild, Oleen, who is attending sehool.

Mr. Shupe was reared as a Lutheran but is now a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Paloma.

WALTER PHILIP BEILSTEIN enjoys an enviable place among the farmers of Melrose Township, having a fine farm in one of the best agricultural sections of the county, ten miles southeast of Quiney. He is operating the fields and managing a property that has been in the ownership of the Beilstein family for three generations.

On the farm where he now resides he was born February 6, 1879. His grandfather, George T. Beilstein, was born in Germany August 15, 1805, and in early life was a great traveler, seeing mueh of Europe, Palestine and the Holy

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Land. At the age of twenty-one he entered the German army and served six years and seven months. In 1831 he came to America, settling at Carlisle in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. There in the same year he married Miss Elizabeth Klingland, also a native of Germany. They lived in Pennsyl- vania twelve years and in 1843 came to Adams County and settled on land in section 21 of Melrose Township. He became one of the prosperous farmers and land owners of the county and lived there until his death, when past eighty years of age. He was a democrat, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and deserves to be remembered among the early settlers of the county. His wife died in August, 1867.

The parents of Walter Philip Beilstein were George and Louise (Dickman) Beilstein. His father was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1834, and was about eight or nine years of age when his parents came to Adams County. He remained in the old homestead until his marriage, at the age of twenty-eight. He rented the old farm and secured the place now owned by his son Walter about 1868. This land he improved with good buildings, in- cluding house and barn, and kept it until about 1912, when he sold it to his son. He also owned 200 acres in Freeport, Kansas, property that has since been sold, and also business property in Quincy. George Beilstein died Janu- ary 19, 1918, while living with his daughter at Payson. His wife had passed away November 2, 1907. He was a democrat and a member of the Congrega- tional Church. In his family were eight children: Charles, who died in child- hood; Lizzie, who married Henry Peter and died in 1900; Pauline, unmarried and living at Payson; Anna, Mrs. Fred Gilhouse, of Payson Township; George, who died in December, 1901, at the age of thirty; John, who died August 28, 1901. at the age of twenty-eight; William, of Frankfort, Missouri; and Walter Philip.

Walter Philip Beilstein has spent all his life on the old farm, and com- pleted his education in the Payson High School. He has continued the im- provements where his father left off and has kept the land in a maximum degree of productive usefulness. He has not found time to seek public honors or office, is a democrat and a member of the Congregational Church of Payson.

February 25, 1908, he married Miss Susie Lundberg, who was born at Monroe City, Missouri, in 1884. Mr. and Mrs. Beilstein have seven children, named Russell Walter, Louise, Helen, George A., Charles W., Dorothy and Marion.

JOHN JACOB SCHNELLBECHER is a member of that very enterprising family to whom other references are made in these pages. He is a practical farmer, a thorough mechanic, and has long been identified with the Schnellbecher brothers, threshermen, whose operations have taken them over practically all of Adams County. Mr. Schnellbecher owns a good farm adjoining that of his brothers George and Fred ten miles southeast of Quincy in Melrose Township, Payson being his postoffice.

Mr. Schnellbecher was born February 12, 1859, near Bluff Hall in Fall Creek Township. The historical facts concerning his parents are published on other pages. He was reared a farmer and a number of years ago began threshing with his brother William, continued with his brother Henry for some years, and at one time four of the Schnellbecher brothers were engaged in this industry.

March 11, 1903, Mr. Schnellbecher married Miss Mary Keil, a sister of George Keil, and member of a family whose part in Adams County history is described elsewhere. Mrs. Schnellbecher was eighteen years of age at the time of her marriage. Her children are Margaret, Elizabeth, and Harvey, all at home.

Mr. Schnellbecher has continued farming for many years on a part of the old Schnellbecher homestead tract. He has built barns and given much of the equipment to the farm. He is active in community matters, especially in

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keeping up the local schools. He was a director of his school district for four years. Mr. Schnellbecher is a democrat and a member of Congregational Church at Payson.

STEVEN G. LAWLESS. It is an opinion based not on assertion but on sub- stantial evidence that Steven G. Lawless has done more than any other local citizen to rejuvenate the Village of Liberty and put it on the map as one of the progressive smaller towns of Adams County. Mr. Lawless has a spirit of co-ordinated policy which is typical of so many young American business men, and with broad plans and ideals as to what his community needs he has pro- eeeded steadily and undeterred by criticism toward securing their fulfillment. The people of the county in general know him for his effeetive work and un- selfish labors during the war as secretary of the County Exemption Board.

Mr. Lawless, who is cashier of the Farmers Bank of Liberty, was born in Gilmer Township October 14, 1885. His father is James S. Lawless, concern- ing whom more is written on other pages of this publication. Steven remained at home to the age of twenty-one, in the meantime attending the district schools and completing his education at Quincy in the Gem City Business College. He went to St. Louis to get a metropolitan experience in business, acting as salesman in the sporting goods department of the Simmons Hardware Company. He remained there until he was unexpectedly called to take his present position as cashier of the Farmers Bank of Liberty.

This bank was started in 1903. Its organizers were George R. Stewart, of Quincy ; Hez G. Henry, of Quincy; and George D. Mercer, of Liberty. Mr. Mercer was the original cashier. It was organized under a state charter, but in the following year was made a private bank. The stockholders were all local men. It has a capital of $18,000, surplus of $2,000, and its deposits in 1918 average $350,000. The bank building, erected in 1914, is a credit to the town, and on the second floor is the fine opera house, about 36 by 76 feet, with seating capacity for 400 and with modern stage. MI. W. Callahan is president. Mr. Callahan lived in Columbus, Kansas. Alvin Hartshorn and George C. Dean are the vice presidents. Mr. Lawless became eashier Oetober 4, 1907, sneeeeding Mr. Mercer. In 1916 they organized a braneh bank at Beverly, known as the Beverly Bank. This bank is now being organized as a state bank.

Soon after locating in Liberty Mr. Lawless with another associate put an addition to Liberty on the market, giving about as much more ground for the development of the town, and he individually built several residences therc. For six years he has been a member of the school board, and is an active re- publican in polities. The governor selected him as elerk of the County Exemp- tion Board, the other two members being J. A. Osmus, of Loraine, and Dr. A. B. Bates, of Camp Point. During the first year of the war the chief office of the exemption board was in the bank at Liberty, and the first 100 men to leave the county were inducted into serviee in that building.

Mr. Lawless promoted the electric light plant, organizing the stock company for that purpose. This plant now supplies the town, having about 120 cus- tomers. He is manager of the plant. Mr. Lawless is affiliated with the Masonic Lodge at Liberty and also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has taken much interest in these fraternities. He is a member of the Pleasant Grove Methodist Episcopal Church. October 14, 1909, he married Miss Anna Schmiedeskamp, of Camp Point. They have one child, James S., born in 1915.

FREDERICK FRANK GILHOUSE is not only a man of importance in the farming and civie affairs of Payson Township, but also represents a family long notable in the industrial affairs of that locality. The Gilhonse home is sixteen miles southeast of Quincy and three miles south of the Village of Payson.

The family was established in this county by Ernest Gilhouse, who is still living at the old home in Payson Township and is a man of advanced years and long and successful experience. He was born in Lippe Detmold, Germany.

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In 1851 he came to the United States and located in Adams County, accom- panied by his brother August and also his mother. Ernest was then twenty- one years of age. In Germany he had worked in a brick yard but on coming to Adams County he found employment as a farm hand. He had only $65 on reaching Quincy. In Burton Township his employer was Mr. Bliven. Though paid very small wages, corresponding to the standard of wages of that time, Ernest Gilhouse managed to save enough and by strict economy purchased the tract of timber land on Liberty Road two miles from Burton Village. He and his brother August were together in this purchase, and they continued partners in working it for eight or nine years. On dividing their interests Ernest Gil- . house took eighty acres of wild land on the south line of Payson Township, four miles south of Payson Village. He cleared it up, and it is in that locality and amid the scene of his early endeavors that he is still living. IIis mother died in the county at the advanced age of ninety-two. His brother August spent his life on the Burton Township farm and died when about seventy. Charles, a son of August, is still living in Payson Township.

Ernest Gilhouse has been greatly prospered in his business affairs. He invested steadily his extra profits and savings in more land, and now has 622 acres in one body, though divided into four farms. The home farm comprises 185 acres. In his land buying he has paid as high as $125 an acre for improved farms. For several years the task of running these farms and cultivating the fields has been left almost entirely to his sons.

Ernest Gilhouse married in Adams County Minnie Kampmeier, also a native of Germany. Their family of six children is briefly referred to as follows : Mary, Mrs. Geisel, of Burton Township; William, at home; Lizzie, wife of Edward Orr, of Pike County, Illinois; Frederick Frank, mentioned below ; Edward P., of whom more is said on other pages; and Amanda, still a member of the home circle.

Besides the 622 acres constituting the home estate Mr. Ernest Gilhouse has two bottom tracts, one of eighty and the other of 180 acres. This land is operated by tenants. Mr. Gilhouse has had no public service, is a democrat, has attended strictly to his own affairs, and has rendered a service to the county hardly to be measured by any of the ordinary offices and participation in public affairs. He is still well preserved at the age of eighty-nine and has led a sane and wholesome life. He has never returned to Germany, and is hostile to any movement which would seek to reproduce in America the same conditions which he sought to escape when he left the Fatherland.

Frederick Frank Gilhouse was born on his father's farm a half mile south of his present place August 27, 1866. He has occupied his present farm for thirty years, and has remained steadily in one locality, doing an effective work as a farmer and good citizen. On April 16, 1889, he married Miss Anna Beilstein, sister of Walter Beilstein, elsewhere mentioned. Mrs. Gilhouse was nineteen years of age at the time of her marriage. They have two children, Loren and Hilda. The latter was born in 1906 and is attending the public schools in Payson. Loren is a graduate of the Payson High School and the Gem City Business College and is now head bookkeeper and credit man with the Halbach-Schroeder Mercantile Company of Quincy. He married Elizabeth Heidloff and has one son, Robert.

Mr. Frederick F. Gilhouse has served as road commissioner, was deputy sheriff under Joseph Lipps and John Coombs, and in politics is a stanch democrat. He is at present precinct chairman of his party. His son is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. Mrs. Gilhouse is a member of the Con- gregational Church of Payson.

HENRY A. STEIGHORST. The career of the late Henry A. Steighorst of Melrose Township is notable not because he held any conspicuous offices in Government but for the self denial, sacrificing efforts, toil and steadfast fidelity

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with which he pursued his private affairs and as a result of which he reared and provided well for his family. Two of his capable sons now handle the home farm in that township, and the family name is one that has always been identi- fied with the good citizenship of Adams County.

Henry A. Steighorst was born in Kreis Hertford, Germany, February 28, 1836. He was fifteen years of age when he came to the United States with his parents. His father, Bernhard Steighorst, first located at St. Louis and soon afterward went to Quincy. Henry Steighorst on arriving in this county went to work on a farm at wages of $8 to $10 a month in Melrose Township. At Quincy he learned the cooper's trade with the Hokamp farm, and worked at that occupation until after his marriage.

August 25, 1864, he married Miss Hannah Hempelmann. She was born in Germany April 3, 1846, and was eighteen years of age at the time of her marriage. When she was six years old she was brought to the United States by her parents, Ernst and Hannah (Behring) Hempelmann, who located in St. Louis for one year and then moved to Quincy. Her father was a tailor by trade. The Hempelmann family arrived in Quincy in 1853. Ernst Hempel- mann died there when past seventy years of age, having survived his wife some years. Hannah Steighorst has a brother, William Hempelmann, at Quincy, a cabinet maker, and a sister living in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Henry A. Steighorst continued to work at his trade until 1877, when he rented a farm in Melrose Township for six years. In 1883 he bought the present farm now owned by his son. This comprised 141 acres, and he paid about $40 an acre for it. It was partly cleared but had no buildings, and during the next ten or fifteen years he was constantly busy, paying the in- terest and principal on his debt, clearing off the rough land, erecting good buildings, and gradually converting it into the farm which it is today. The Steighorst farm is on the Payson road, eleven miles southeast of Quincy. Mr. Steighorst had so much to do in meeting his obligations and in the work of making a farm that he had no time for politics and never held any office. He was a democratic voter. He continued active until a year or two before his death, which occurred September 6, 1913.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 92

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