The Biographical record of Kane County, Illinois, Part 5

Author: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 798

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"A precious one from us·has gone; A voice we loved is stilled; A place is vacant in our home Which never can be filled.

God, in His wisdom, has recalled The boon His love had given; And though the body slumbers here, The soul is safe in Heaven."

Mr. Seymour still makes his home in Elgin, and occupies his residence, at No. 165 North Gifford street, which he erected twenty-five years ago. It is still one of the best homes of the city, and its hospitable doors are ever open for the reception of his many friends.

ILAS BALDWIN, who, after a long S and useful life in which toil. was the principal ingredient, is now living retired in the village of Hampshire, Illinois, is a native of Verniont, born in Dorset, Benning- ton county, May 15, 1823. He attended the district school at Dorset Hollow, and

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worked on neighboring farms by the month until twenty-six years old, when he had saved enough by his economy to buy a fifty- acre farm, which he cultivated for four years. The farm was almost covered with maple trees, from which he made maple sugar, selling the same through New York. The chance for advancement in life was thought by him to be very slim, and while, like Stephen A. Donglas, he considered Vermont a good place to be born in, he believed the West a better place in which to grow. In 1853 he sold his farm and came west; went first to Iowa, but not liking that country as well, came to Kane county, Illinois, where he bought eighty acres on sections 26 and 27, Hampshire town- ship, which he improved, and on which he resided until March, 1890, when he retired from active life, visited one year with rela- tives in the east, and in 1891 purchased a comfortable home in the village of Hamp- shire, where he is now taking life easy.

Thomas Baldwin, the father of our sub- ject, was born April 4,' 1774, and died July 4, 1854. He was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Baldwin, the former dying January 9, 1808, at the age of seventy-nine years, and the latter dying March 13, 1808, at the age of sixty years. Thomas Baldwin was a blacksmith by trade and an expert tool- maker. When regular work was slack, he made fine tools for carpenters and others, and traveled through the country selling them. He was of thrifty Yankee stock, and moved from Connecticut to Vermont about 1817. A man of strong vitality, full of energy and ingenuity, he could not help succeeding in life. On the 19th of April, 1817, he married Polly Lamphor, born at Mansfield, Connecticut, in 1788, and dying in 1862. She was the daughter of John and

Mary Lamphor, the latter of whom died in 1813.

The subject of this sketch was the last born in a family of seven children born to Thomas and Polly Baldwin. He has two brothers living in Vermont and a sister liv- ing in California. Silas Baldwin was first married in Vermont, near Dorset, to Miriam Mumpsted, born January 5, 1819, and who died in Hampshire township November 4, 1878. Of the four children born to them, one died in Vermont and two in Hampshire township. The living one is Elizabeth Ann, who married Burdette C. DeWitt, by whom she has six children, as follows: Lillian M., who married J. William Webster, of Cresco, Iowa, by whom she has one son, DeWitt; Benjamin C .; Charles; Miriam E. ; Roxie L. and Hazel M.

Mr. Baldwin's second marriage .was at Tecumseh, Michigan, where he married Mrs. Louisa Norton, widow of James T. Norton, born at Poultney, Rutland county, Vermont, and a daughter of Abijah Will- iams, Jr., a native of Massachusetts, born April 28, 1785, and who died at Poultney, Vermont, June 27, 1845, at the age of sixty years. Abijah Williams, Sr., was the son of John Williams, who married Asenath Hodge. John Williams was one of three brothers who came from England in colonial days. Abijah Williams, Jr., married Lu- cinda Hill, born in Hartford, Connecticut, and a daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Davis) Hill, her father being a soldier in the Revolutionary war.

Politically Mr. Baldwin was formerly an abolitionist, casting his first presidential vote for James G. Birney. On the organi- zation of the Republican party, he became an advocate of its principles and with that party has continued to act until the present

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time. For twenty-five years he served as school director, supervisor three years, and has served as road commissioner, school trustee and village trustee, and was super- intendent of Sunday-schools in an early day for a number of years. He is of that self reliant New England stock, a well-known figure in the village thoroughfares, and is highly respected for his just and upright life.

D UNCAN FORBES is one of the repre- sentative citizens of Kane county, whose birth occurred in "bonnie " Scotland, but who for forty years has been a resident of this country. He is now enjoying a well- earned rest in the village of Dundee, where he has resided since 1894. He was born August 12, 1834, in Perthshire, Scotland, and there grew to manhood. After attend- ing the common schoois for a time he was apprenticed to learn the cabinetmaker's and joiner's trade, serving à four-years' term. After completing his trade he worked as a journeyman for a time, but, believing the new world afforded better opportunities for advancement, he came to America in 1858, locating first in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where he worked as a journeyman two years. In March, 1861, he located in Chi- cago and went to work at ship carpentering. In July of the same year he commenced contracting, and built a house in Barring- ton township and one in Dundee.

Up to this time Mr. Forbes was a single man, but on the 12th of December, 1862, he was united in marriage, in Dundee town- ship, with Miss Jeannette Cochran, a native of Scotland, who came to the United States when a child of nine years. Her father, Malcolm Cochran, was also a native of Scotland, who came to Dundee township,

Kane county, in 1849, where he engaged in farming, following that occupation through- out life. After their marriage Mr. Forbes moved to Chicago and engaged in the fur- niture trade for nine years, building up in that time a most satisfactory trade. In Oc- tober, 1871, he returned to Kane county, and located in Dundee township on the old Cochran homestead, where he and his brother-in-law, John Cochran, engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1894. He further improved and developed the place, and had one of the best farms in Dundee township. For twenty-three years he continued to give personal attention to the farm, and then rented the place and moved to Dundee, pur- chased a lot and built a large and substan- tial residence, one of the best in the village, and is now living a retired life.

Mr. Forbes politically is a stanch Re- publican, and cast his first presidential bal- lot for General U. S. Grant. He has sup- ported the nominees of that party from that time to the present, casting his last vote for William McKinley in 1896. A friend of education and the public schools, he served some years as a member of the school board. He also served as township trustee for some fifteen years, but never desired or sought public office. Mr. and Mrs. Forbes were reared in the Presbyterian faith, but of late years have attended and supported the Con- gregational church.

Mr. Forbes has been a resident of Illi- nois for thirty-seven years, and Mrs. Forbes for forty-nine years. They have witnessed much of the growth and development of Kane county and northern Illinois, and are numbered among the esteemed old settlers. He is known in Dundee and Kane county as a man of exemplary habits, of tried integ- rity and worth, and he and his estimable

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wife are held in the highest esteem by all who know them. Commencing life a poor man, with nothing but willing hands and a stout heart, with the assistance of his good wife he has accumulated a good property, and they can well afford to spend the rest of their lives in ease and retirement.

John Cochran, the brother of Mrs. Forbes, came with his parents to this country a lad of twelve years. He here grew to manhood and continued to work upon the farm until his death, which occurred July 14, 1894. For two years he and his sister conducted the home farm, and also for a time were partners in the furniture trade. He was a man of sterling character, and one of the honest yeomen of the county.

A BEL D. GIFFORD, a retired farmer and pioneer of 1837, now resides in a beautiful home at No. 254 Villa street, El- gin. He is a native of Chenango county, New York, born in Sherburne, August 9, 1818, and is a son of Asa and Dinah (Tal- cott) Gifford, natives of Massachusetts, who at a very early day settled in Chenango county, New York, removing from there to Oneida county, where their last days were spent, the latter dying in November, 1822, at the age of about fifty-seven years, and the former in May, 1837, in his seventieth year. They were the parents of eleven children, five sons and six daughters, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood- Ruth, Experience, James T., Peleg, Sarah, Susan, Asa, Hezekiah and Harriet. Of this number, Peleg died when about a year old, and Saralı, died at the age of twenty- two.

All of the children then living came west and located in Kane county, in 1835, ex-

cept Abel D., who remained at home to care for his parents. Both parents were members of the Baptist church, of which the father was a deacon for many years. By trade he was a carpenter, at which oc- . cupation he spent his early life. Later he engaged in merchandising, but the last years of his life were spent in agricultural pursuits. He was a good reader, a close observer, and a very prominent man in his community. For one term he served as sheriff of his county, was county judge and a justice of the peace for some years.

The paternal grandfather of our subject, who was of English descent, died in Massa- chusetts in middle life. The maternal grandfather Talcott was a judge in Herkimer county, New York, and at one time was very wealthy, but lost his money and prop- erty in unfortunate law-suits. He was about seventy-eight years old when he died.

Abel D. Gifford, of whom we now write, was reared upon a farm in Chenango coun- ty, New York, and was early in life inured to hard labor. His education was received in the public schools of his native county, supplemented by a few terms in Vernon Academy. Soon after the death of his father he came to Illinois and located on a farm two miles east of the then city limits of Elgin, but which now adjoins the city. This was six years before the government survey. His first purchase was two hundred and sixty acres, which he finely improved and which yet remains in his possession. Since 1889 he has lived in Elgin, his son, Charles A., operating the home farm, where he is also engaged in dairying, having be- tween seventy and eighty cows. During the season, his son also operates a thresh- ing machine.

On the 20th of February, 1838, Mr.

A. D. GIFFORD.

LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF IL. VIHS.

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Gifford was united in marriage with Miss Harriet M. Root, a daughter of Dr. An- son Root, a pioneer physician of Kane county. By this union there was one child, Frank A., who died at the age of nine months. Eighteen days later the little one's mother gave up her life. Religiously she was a Baptist. The second union of Mr. Gifford was on the 9th of August, 1855, when he married Miss Julia E. Chappell, daughter of Harvey M. and Mary Chappell. For a number of years prior to her mar- riage Mrs. Gifford taught school in Kane county. By this union there were two chil- dren, Carrie L. and Charles A. The for- mer married Charles Holden, and they have two children, Hazel H. and Gifford Merrell. Charles A. married Miss Florence D. Stick- ney, who died in March, 1897. They had four children, Frank A., Stanley, Walter and Florence.

The second wife of Mr. Gifford died July 10, 1893, in her sixty-ninth year. Re- ligiously she was also a Baptist, and in the work of the church took a deep and com- mendable interest. For his third wife Mr. Gifford chose Mrs. Clara F. Whitten, widow of Dr. Parker Whitten and daughter of David and Harriet (Cain) Flood. Their wedding ceremony took place December 1 5, 1896. For some years the present Mrs. Gifford was a successful teacher in Rich- mond, Virginia, and Atlanta, Georgia, where she gave instruction to several hundred col- ored children. By her first marriage Mrs. Gifford had two children- Parker Merritt, who was killed by a kick from a horse when one year old; and Manfred Pitt, who is studying medicine at the Vermont State University.

Mrs. Gifford's parents were natives of the state of Maine. In early life her father 3

was a farmer, and later a trader. He died in Lewiston, Maine, in 1865, at the age of forty-five years. His widow is still living, and makes her home at Woodsville, New Hampshire, The father was a consistent member of the Baptist church, while the mother holds membership with the Chris- tian church. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Gifford, John Flood, was a native of Maine, of supposedly Irish descent. In the war of 1812 he served his country faithfully and well. Her maternal grandfather, Moses Cain, was also for a time, in the military service. By occupation he was a farmer and a minister of the gospel."

The Gifford family are well known in Kane county. James T. Gifford, a brother of our subject, laid out the city of Elgin, naming it after the title of a piece of inusic that he fancied. As stated, the entire fam- ily, save the parents, came to Kane county and settled in the vicinity of Elgin in pioneer days. All were highly honored citizens, whose names and memories are cherished by their many friends and acquaintances.

Abel D. Gifford has now been a resident of this vicinity for more than sixty years, and has been identified with its growth and prosperity. The country was then wild in- deed, and the thriving cities now in northern Illinois existed but in name. Chicago then gave no evidence of its present prosperity and magnificent proportions.

Since his thirteenth year Mr. Gifford has been a member of the Baptist church, and and is the only surviving charter member of the First Baptist church of Elgin, which was organized in 1838, and of which he has been trustee since its organization and deacon for about fifty years. In the service of his Master he has always taken special delight, and has done much to advance the

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cause in the place which has so long been his home. Mrs. Gifford is also a member of the Baptist church.

Politically, Mr. Gifford is a Republican, with which party he has been connected since its organization. A strong believer in liberty, he naturally allied himself with the Republicans and labored for the success of the party. In the discharge of his duties as a citizen he has served in several local offices, being road commissioner of Hanover township for several years and also town- ship assessor. On coming to Elgin he built his present beautiful home in 1889. On the premises he makes his own gas for light -· ing purposes, although he uses in connec- tion electricity. The house is heated by steam and is handsomely furnished and most home like.

In all his life Mr. Gifford never drank intoxicating liquors of any kind, never chewed tobacco, and never smoked but a few times. His life has been indeed a tem- perate one, and no man stands higher in the estimation of the people. All esteem him for his many excellent qualities of head and heart. .

DIN MANN, a well-known surveyor, A civil engineer and prominent citizen of Elgin, residing at No. 112 Porter street, was born in Oxford, New Hampshire, Oc- tober 14, 1816, and his parents, Aaron and Sarah (Ingraham) Mann, were natives of the same state. Of their seven children, six sons and one daughter, only two are now living, Adin, and Monroe, a resident of Montana.

The father, a farmer by occupation, came to Illinois in 1838 with his family and settled on a "claim " in the western part of Elgin township, Kane county, that our

subject had taken up the year previous. Overwork and change of climate broke down his health the first season and he turned over the active operations of the farm to the boys, and cultivated only his garden which he always kept in prime con- dition till his death in 1852, when sev- enty-seven years of age. His faithful wife. survived him only three weeks, dying at the age of sixty-three. Both were earnest members of the Congregational church. He served as captain of a militia company in the war of 1812.

John Mann, our subject's paternal grand- father, was of English and Welsh descent, and born in Hebron, Connecticut, and was the youngest of twelve sons. His father was joint proprietor of a township on the Connecticut river, in the northerly part of New Hampshire, having surveyed the lands under the Crown and obtaining title to one- half of the territory surveyed.

These lands he offered to each of his several sons as they became of age, if they would go up and settle on it, but they all refused till it came to John, the youngest. He said "Yes, I will go," and with his young bride, a little woman of one hundred pounds weight, he started for the northern wilds, to find his promised land, and pur- sued his journey to the end of all roads or means of conveyance.' Here he engaged a man with a " dugout " to take his little worldly effects and row up the river, while he hired a horse from a frontier settler, and mounting, took his little wife on the " pil- lion " behind himn, and pushed on through the tangled forest sixty miles further, and dismounting they stood there alone on an October in 1765 in the solitude of the wil- derness. The man who had navigated the " dugout " took back the horse to its owner.

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They found and took possession of a log shanty that some daring adventurer had built and abandoned after felling two acres of the surrounding dense timber. Thus John Mann, with a small stock of provi- sions, an axe, jack-knife and drawing-knife, and the wife with a bed, a six-quart iron · kettle and a three-pint tin dish, started out, at the coming on of winter, to commence the battle of life and carve out for them- selves a home and fortune in the wilderness, and they succeeded. Being a cooper, with his axe, jack-knife and drawing-knife, he soon made a pail and tub for the wife, and learning that a settlement some distance up the river had raised some corn and impro- vised a crude mill to grind it into meal, he made a dozen more pails in the same crude way, and a hand-sled, going fifteen miles over into Vermont to his nearest neighbor to borrow a small augur for the purpose, and, when the river froze over, took his wares on the sled and hauled them up to the Haverhill settlement, traded them for corn, which he brought back in the shape of meal. In the spring he burned off the brush and limbs on the two acres of fallen timber, and planted corn among the logs and raised one hundred and fifty bushels. Thereafter his granary was never empty, and he became known the country round as the Joseph of Egypt, where all who needed could find a supply of grain. His little wife presented him with twelve sons and three daughters, all who lived to marry but one, and, dying at the age of eighty-four, John Mann left one hundred and fifty-six living descendants.

Our subject's maternal grandfather was also of English descent and spent his entire life in the old Granite state, where he en- gaged in agricultural pursuits. His daugh-

ter, Mrs. Mann, was one of the heirs to the lands on which the city of Sheffield, England, the great steel manufacturing cen- tre is builded, by will to the children of the fourth generation of the testator, of whom Mrs. Mann was one, but the loss of certain papers has hitherto defeated a successful prosecution of the claim. On the old home- stead in New Hampshire, which was a part of the John Mann tract, where he first opened his eyes to the light of day, Adin Mann remained till he attained his majority, during the last three years of which he worked on the farm in summer, taught school in the winter and attended the Kim- ble Union Academy at the spring and fall terms, where he acquired a good .practical education. In the summer of 1837 he came to Illinois and " took up a claim " on the as yet unsurveyed government lands in the west part of Elgin township, anticipating a future home for his father's ·family, and had some land broken up. Later in the season he returned to the old home, and in the spring of 1838 the whole family with two or three others, in all thirty persons, in wagons, started for Illinois, where they safely landed the latter part of June, after a tedious jour- ney of nearly six weeks. A frame house was soon erected and the work of improve- ment began in earnest; shade trees and orchards were soon planted and in a short time the wild prairie assumed the aspect of a thrifty New England home. Later, when the public lands came into market, the claim was divided between the three older sons, one part becoming the property of our subject, who devoted the summer seasons to the farm and taught school in Elgin in the winter, being among the first teachers in this section of the state. In 1841 Mr. Mann returned to the old eastern home for

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"the girl he left behind him," and on the 30th of May married Miss Lydia P. Wright, daughter of Wincol F. and Mary (Worces- ter) Wright, and to them were born six sons and two daughters - Henry P., Eugene, Frank W., George W., Howard, Mary W., Hattie M. and Charles E. In 1843 Mr. Mann was elected justice of the peace and county surveyor, and moved from the farm into Elgin, but at the end of two years, on account of ill health, resigned the office of justice of the peace and returned to the farm, retaining, however, the surveyor's office, to which position in after years he was several times elected. He was notary public for many years, and also township assessor. He also served as county treas- urer in 1860 and 1861, when, on the break- ing out of the war, the currency which he received at par depreciated to less than fifty cents on the dollar, and he was one of forty- two county treasurers who went under in the crash. The question might, perhaps, have been properly raised whether he and his sureties should be the sufferers, or whether the community at large, from whom he had received the currency in good faith, should have made good the losses. He turned over every species of property he possessed to make good the losses, except a cow, two pigs and a few bushels of wheat, leaving still a deficiency of $5,000, which his bail promptly paid. He then, broken in spirit, but patriotic to the core, procured authority from the governor to raise a com- pany for the army, and in six days had one hundred brave boys enlisted, mustered into the United States service, and with his company and third son hastened to the ren- dezvous at Camp Butler, where he became captain of Company B, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment Illinois Volunteer

Infantry. The two older sons had entered the service the year previous, and the fourth followed as soon as he could carry a gun. The father and four sons put in fourteen years of hard service, always at the front, and were one hundred and twenty-five days under battle and siege, and, what is quite remarkable, neither received a wound. He participated in quite a number of important battles, including the engagements at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, which General Grant declared to be the most important battle of the war, also at Yazoo and Bentonville, and in an exposed position and under fire through the siege of Vicks- burg, where he had command of the left wing of the charging party at the blowing up of Fort Hill. Later he was appointed chief engineer of the Vicksburg district, . which position he filled with marked ability and efficiency till mustered out of the serv- ice, August 14, 1865, with the rank of lieu- tenant-colonel. When Lee surrendered, the headquarters of the department of the Mis- sissippi was moved from Vicksburg to Jack- son, with thirty thousand troops at that and other points in the interior. Mr. Mann was ordered to examine and report the condition of railroad communication between the two points, and found the whole line from the Big Black river to Jackson (thirty-five miles) in a condition of utter wreck, over one hun- dred bridges and culverts burned out, four- teen miles of the rails torn up and bent, ties burned and other material destroyed or car- ried away.

This he was ordered to rebuild at once, to furnish the timber, ties and other needed material, straighten the bent and twisted rails and put the road in running order, and was given seven regiments of colored troops to do it with, and in the meantime to fur-

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nish transportation and forward all supplies for the troops at Jackson and interior until the railroad could be rebuilt, and he was obliged to put on a transportation train of nine hundred mules for that purpose.

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The Biographical record of Kane County, Illinois, Part 5

Author: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 798

Author: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 798