The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 101

Author: Robson, Charles, ed
Publication date: 1875
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy
Number of Pages: 770

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operations, receiving in the meantime, also, a fair eommon school education. While in his twenticth year he set out to sell goods on his own account at Patten's Mills, in Kings- bury, New York. His venture was successful, and within cight months he sold out his entire interest in his country store, at a profit of $834. With this capital he moved in 1839 to the West, visiting Chicago, Milwaukee, and other prominent points. While stopping at the Lake House hc received a proposition from Ebenezer Broughton to return to Fort Ann and form a partnership with him in a mercan- tile business. The offer was accepted, the needful funds procured, and the copartnership formed. At the expiration of five years the association was dissolved, and he found himself in possession of the sum of $5000. He then again turned to the West, and selected the lumbering business as his future field of operations; but while arranging his plans an unexpected turn in money matters rendered it difficult for him to obtain the additional funds needed, and holding his project in abeyance for a time, he went to New York, purchased a stock of goods, and opened a store in Kenosha, now Southport, Wisconsin. In 1848 he disposed of his business to good advantage, and November 9th, 1849, set out with his wife and child, on the steamboat " Lexington," for the Pensaukee river, on the western shore of Green bay, Wisconsin. This place was then literally a wilderness. He had bought all the land entered on the Pensaukee, with the exception of thirty-seven acres, and workmen had been sent forward with materials for the construction of a steam saw-mill, and to make temporary arrangements for the shelter of themselves and their employer and his family. The first day after his arrival found the mechanics at work upon the foundation of the mill, but to his great disappoint- ment no lime was procurable; it had been accidentally left by the freight vessel at Racine, and it was now too late to return and have the material forwarded. It was known that limestone was attainable across the bay ; a sailing scow, accordingly, was by the aid of a favoring breeze landed at the point at which they wished to touch. They there found in an old kiln a quantity of air-slaked lime, purchased the desired quantity for a barrel of flour, and returned. The work of construction then went rapidly forward, and the necessary machinery, after reaching Kenosha by rail and steamer, and being carried thence to Green bay, was finally transported to its ultimate rcsting-plaee ; and May 9th, 1850, the machinery being put in its place, the mill was opened- the second steam saw-mill erected upon the coast of Green bay. For a time he had a lumber yard in Kenosha, but in the spring of 1852, removing to Chicago, he opened a large lumber yard in that city, a business which rapidly increased up to 1857. On the eastern shore of the bay, at a point called Little Sturgeon, he erected another steam saw-mill, and built two fine vessels to convey the lumber from the mills to the market. This mill was afterward burned, involving a loss of $25,000, and had been scarcely

ARDNER, FREELAND B., Lumber Merchant, was born in Elbridge, Onondaga county, New York, July 30th, 1817, and was the youngest in a family of ninc children. When nine years of age he went to live with his brother-in-law, Coloncl John Hillibut, then residing in Fort Ann, Wash- ington county, New York, in whose store he found employ- ment and secured a knowledge of business details and rebuilt when the memorable financial crash of 1857 oc-

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curred. Ile was then mastered by circumstances beyond his control, and was obliged to suspend. Eventually, how . ever, as business revived and prices advanced, his financial condition improved ; one debt after another was met until his obligations were all fully discharged and his splendid property relieved of all incumbrances. He is now in the full tide of business prosperity, his mills have become cen- tres of considerable settlements, and his stores in connection with them command a large trade from persons who reside along the coast. He manufactured the first year two mil- lion feet of lumber, while his annual manufacture is now fifteen million feet, and employs about one hundred and fifty men. He owns on the Pensaukee river thirty thousand acres of timber land, a property which is joined to Chicago by telegraph. In addition to the three sail vessels which he has built for his own accommodation, he has been an important agent in furnishing steam communication with the shores of Green bay. He was married in 1841 to Fanny Copeland, and has one son and two daughters.

OORE, JESSE HI., Clergyman and ex-Congress- man, was born near Lebanon, St. Clair county, Illinois, April 22d, 1817. His grandfather was at the battle of Yorktown, and was an eye- witness of the surrender of Cornwallis to Wash- ington. ITis father and all his brothers and brothers-in-law participated in the war of 1812. The son of a farmer, he grew to manhood in his native county, and in 1837 entered McKendree College, at Lebanon, where he graduated in 1842. Then he began life as a teacher. He was soon after elected Principal of the Georgetown Sem- inary, where he remained four years, and was subsequently Principal of the Paris Seminary, and still later, President of Quincy College, making in all thirteen years in the pursuit of his profession. He had studied law and was admitted to the bar, but never practised. Having entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he served as Pastor of several important churches in the Illinois Annual Confer- ence. In the summer of 1862 he was earnestly solicited by many who were enlisting in the service of the country to declare his willingness to lead a regiment of volunteers into the field. In the face of many obstacles he consented, and raised the 115th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was organized at Camp Butler, Illinois, August 26th, 1 862. He was duly commissioned Colonel of the regiment, and was ordered to the field the following October. On reaching Covington, Kentucky, the regiment was attached to the 2d Brigade, 2d Division, Army of Kentucky. He was in command of the post at Richmond, Kentucky, dur- ing the months of November and December. From there he, together with his regiment, marched to Nashville to reinforce the Army of the Cumberland. From March Ist to June Ist, 1863, he was stationed at Franklin, Tennessee,

and subsequently moved with the Army of the Cumberland on Shelbyville and Tullahoma, where he was in command of the post during a part of the months of July and August. On the 19th and 20th of September he participated in the battle of Chickamauga. His regiment bore a conspicuous part in nearly all the operations which resulted in the defeat of Bragg and Longstreet at Chattanooga, Lookout Moun- tain, and Mission Ridge. He led the charge on Tunnel Hill, skirmished several days with the enemy at Rocky Face and at Buzzard's Roost, in front of Dalton, and bore a conspicuous part in the battle of Resaca. During the last year of the war he commanded the 2d Brigade, Ist Division, 4th Army Corps, of the Department of the Cumberland. He was in command of the post at Resaca, which at that time had become the base of supplies for the army then operating in Georgia, under General Sherman. While he remained in that important position, guarding communica- tions, he had almost daily skirmishes with raiding parties of the enemy. On the 15th and 16th of December, 1864, he, with his command, borc a gallant and conspicuous part in the engagements with Hood's forces in front of Nash- ville. Immediately after the battle, in command of his brigade, he marched with the 4th Army Corps in pursuit of Hood's forces to within twenty-five miles of Florence, Alabama, and thence to Huntsville, where he remained in camp until the 14th of March, 1865. Thence he set out for Richmond, Virginia, but halted at Greenville, Tennes- see, on hearing of the occupation of the rebel capital by the Army of the Potomac. He remained in camp a few weeks, when, with the 4th Army Corps, he was ordered to Nash- ville, preparatory to moving into Texas. Meanwhile, however, the Confederacy having gone to pieces more sud- denly than was expected, the troops whose term of service would expire prior to September 20th, 1865, were ordered to be mustered out, and Colonel Moore, who had, in April, 1865, been made a Brigadier-General by brevet, retired to civil life. After the close of the war he resumed his duties as minister of the gospel, and was Presiding Elder of Decatur District Illinois Conference, when he was elected on the Republican ticket a Representative from Illinois to the Forty-first Congress. IIe took a prominent part in the proceedings, and was honored by a re-election to the Forty- second Congress.

"REWS, REV. HOOPER, was born under Pruett's Knob, Bowen county, Kentucky, April 17th, 1807. While in his sixth year his father died suddenly, leaving an estate so encumbered by debt that little remained for the widow and chil- dren. His earlier education, acquired in a desul- tory manner, was the fruit of observation rather than of application to text-books. In August, 1826, he made a profession of religion and united with the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and immediately engaged in all the duties

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of his new relation, the church licensing him as an exhorter, in which capacity he began his labors in cabins and school- houses. He had been detailed for that work by Rev. Jon- athan Stamper, then presiding elder, who desired an assistant on the Bowling Green Circuit. In September, 1829, he was licensed to preach and admitted into the Kentucky Conference, being appointed to the Salt River Circuit, where he remained two years. Hc then received Deacon's orders, and was appointed to the Greensburg Cir- cuit. Two years later he received Elder's orders, and was stationed in Russellville. In 1834 he removed to southern Illinois, where he met Bishop Roberts, who requested him to go to Galena and take charge of a small mission district as Presiding Elder, and also to serve the Galena Mission as Pastor. After an hour's consideration he acceded to the request, and the next morning rode out of the village of Mount Carmel, on the Wabash, turning northward with his horse, five hundred miles lying between him and his pur- posed destination. At the present time there are in Illinois alone four great conferences, with fragments of two others ; then the old Illinois Conference embraced all the white settlements in the State, and all north and west, with the Indian Missions, both white and Indian. In this territory there were forty-three Methodist ministers, scattered from the southern and eastern lines of the State to Burlington and Dubuque, and north to Green bay. "A more happy, checr- ful company of men has never been seen than scattered from that conference to hard and rugged fields of labor. Settlements were comparatively few and were often widely separated ; we had an extensive frontier line ; we had few highways and scarcely any bridges." He was appointed to Springfield in 1835, but before occupying his pulpit re- turned to Russellville, where he was married. After passing two years in the former place he was appointed Presiding Elder of Danville District, " from Iroquois county on the north, to White county on the south, embracing all the timber on the east side of the prairie." In 1840 the Rock River Conference was set off from the Illinois, and he was assigned within it and stationed in Chicago. Starting from Danville he arrived in Chicago October 17th. The next morning he attended the quarterly love-feast in the church -- an unpainted wooden structure twenty-two feet by sixty, fronting on Washington street-the roll of members being one hundred and fifty. By special act the State then per- mitted each denomination to select a lot of the canal lands, and a deed was given limiting the property to church uses, and thus was secured the lot on the corner of Clark and ing exhibition. The latter advised him to go to Mrs.

Washington streets. The parsonage was removed from Adams street and placed on the south line of the lot, front- ing on Clark street. From that date he has been prom- inently identified with the religious interests of northern Illinois, particularly with Chicago, though not residing continuously in the city, where he has officiated as Pastor and as Presiding Elder. He was early noted for his zeal in the cause of temperance and moral reform, and has been

a constant friend and adviser of the Garrett Biblical Insti- tute, a religious training school, and has almost uninter- ruptedly acted as one of its Trustees. When the Northern University, at Evanston, was originated, he gave his hearty co-operation, and has rarely been absent from the meetings of its trustees. At the outbreak of the rebellion he served one year as Chaplain of the 114th Regiment Illinois Volun- teers, resigning only when compelled to do so by failing health. He was married in 1835 to Mary Frances Smith. IIis son won promotion to a Captaincy by gallantry on the field, and is now a Lieutenant in the regular army. Ile has also two daughters, one of whom resides in Bowling Green, Kentucky; the other being still at home.

EALY, GEORGE P. A., Artist, was born in Bos- ton, Massachusetts, July 15th, 1813, and is the eldest son of Captain William Ilealy and Mary Healy. His father led an active life in his pro- fession as captain in the merchant service. In the war of 1812 his vessel and cargo, in which his entire fortune was embarked, were captured by a British privateer, and he was detained six months on the island of Antigua as a prisoner of war. On his return he married Mary Hicks, then but fourteen years of age. From his mother George P. Hcaly probably inherited his talent for painting, of which, however, he gave no indication until, in his sixteenth year, it was developed apparently by his efforts in drawing maps for his schoolmates. Two years later Thomas Sully visited Boston, commissioned by the Athencum of that city to paint a full-length portrait of the late Colonel Thomas HI. Perkins, when he secured through Jane Stuart, daughter of Gilbert Stuart, a presentation to the famous painter, who requested him to make a study from nature and copy a head by Stuart. When completed and shown it called forth the following advice : " By all means, Mr. Healy, make painting your profession." In 1831 he took a painting room on Federal street, in a house belong- ing to the late Richard Tucker, where he paid his first quarter's rent by painting the portraits of Charles Tucker and John Henry Gray. These-the first portraits exhibited by him-were seen at the Athenaeum in 1832. In the fol- lowing spring, while one day painting Lieutenant Van Brunt, of the navy, he expressed a wish to find some beau- tiful woman whose picture he might place in the approach- Harrison Otis. Acting immediately on the suggestion, he succeeded finally in securing her consent to sit. The proceeds of this work enabled him to go to Europe, in the spring of 1834, with $1000 in his pocket. He studied two years in Paris, drawing from life and also copying a number of pictures in the Louvre. Late in the following autumn he started for Italy by the way of Mount Cenis. While resting in the first town on the plains of Italy, where the

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diligence halted, he became acquainted with Sir Arthur man and Monsieur Guizot." On a subsequent occasion the Faulkner and Lady Faulkner, with whom he then travelled king said to him : " Mr. Healy, I want a whole-length por- trait of General Washington for my historical gallery at Versailles, and I wish it from your pencil." The artist suggested that he should make a copy of the full-length portrait in Faneuil Hall, Boston. Louis said : "I wish, rather, for a copy of that which Mrs. Bingham ordered Stuart to paint, and which I saw in its progress in the artist's studio, for that is in his black velvet, as President, and not as General. That picture is now in London. M. Le Compte St. Auler, our Ambassador, shall be instructed to obtain permission for you to copy it, and I will send for you in a week." The king was true to his word, and on the next meeting said : " Mr. Healy, the portrait in question has gone to St. Petersburg, where I may not send you. I now leave this matter in your hands. Procced to the United States, and do as well as you can from the one in the Presidential Mansion, which was saved by Mistress Madison when the British took Washington." Returning to Boston after an absence of eight years, he lost no time in cxecuting the work confided to him, and was received most kindly by Washington Allston, to whom he delivered a message from the Duke of Sutherland in regard to the pic- ture ordered for him by his brother-in-law, Lord Morpeth. That painter's reply was : " I informed his lordship that I could not complete that work until my great picture, on which I have been occupied for twenty-five years, is fin- ished." Afterward, while in London, he was informed that West's picture of Washington was stored in Silbury's warehouse, where he obtained from the executors of John D. Lewis permission to finish his copy from the original, which copy now hangs at Versailles. The former came into the hands of John D. Lewis in the following manner : the Marquis of Lansdowne, having quarrelled with his heirs, sold the library and pictures. The portrait was purchased by Moon, Boys & Graves, the famous print-sellers, who endeavored to dispose of it to the English government. The Duke of Wellington and other members of the cabinet went to see it; but although admiring the work and the character of the original, decided that they could not hang the portrait of a traitor to England in the National Gallery. The firm then disposed of it by lottery, which brought it into the hands of the gentleman referred to. On his return to Paris, M. Guizot, after a cabinet meeting, was invited to see the picture, when Louis Philippe remarked : " I wish you to see what my American painter has done for me." In the previous year the Americans resident in Paris, desir- ing to testify to the Prime Minister their admiration of his pamphlet on Washington, and his other writings, ordered him to paint a full-length portrait of that statesman, to be placed in Washington, subject to the disposition of Presi- dent Tyler. It now occupies a place in the Smithsonian Institute. In 1844 the king commissioned him to make copies of the portraits of the royal personages from Eliza- through the country and visited the principal picture gal- leries. While in Florence he copied the "Venus" of Titians and other important works. On his return to Paris, having stopped en route two months at Geneva, where he painted Mrs. Otis and family, besides many English people, he made several copies in the Louvre, painting in the even- ings from life. In the spring of 1836 he visited London for the first time, and saw the last exhibition ever held in Somerset House, and painted also a portrait of Francis Place, the friend of Bentham and Burdett. In the autumn of that year Joseph IIume, referring to the portrait of Place, wrote a note saying that he would be glad to sit if he could obtain so good a likeness. This note reaching him while on a sketching tour, during which expedition he made a journey of three hundred leagues on foot, in company with two French artists, he returned in order to comply with the request of the historian. He subsequently received from Sir Arthur Brookfaulkner a commission to paint His Royal Highness, the Duke of Sussex, and himself. With this handsome opening he progressed successfully until the summer of 1833, when the American Minister, Andrew Stevenson, gave him a commission to paint a portrait of Marshal Soult, saying : " You must arrange with General Cass, our minister in Paris, in regard to the sittings." Cass's reply reached him while making studies in Belgium, saying : " Come to Paris and I will do what I can to induce the marshal to sit for you; in the meantime I wish you to paint myself and family, for, although young in years, your fame has reached me." The marshal, however, was unable to sit at that time. During the sittings of General Cass that gentleman said : " How would you like to paint a portrait of Louis Philippe?" at which the artist smiled, as if that was impossible; eventually, however, his majesty, at the instance of General Cass, said : " Inform your young friend that when he visits Paris again it will be a pleasure for me to sit to him." Shortly after, accordingly, he returned to Paris, and, accompanied by General Cass, went to the king for the first sitting. When permission was asked to take the measure of his face, the reply was: "Do as you are accustomed, Mr. Healy, so as not to lose time." With this permission the ascent of two or three steps took him to where his majesty was sitting. The new dividers in his hand looked not unlike a poignard, and one of the aides rushed forward to seize his arm, when Louis Philippe observed : " Monsicur le General, Mr. Healy is a republican from the United States and there is no danger." During this year he painted also the portrait of Mrs. Cass, which in the exhibition at the Louvre, in the spring of 1840, obtained for him his first gold medal. During one of the sittings of Louis Philippe, in 1842, his majesty observed : " I was seen in good company last night, at the grand ball given by General Cass to commemorate the birth of General Wash- ington, hanging, as I did, between the portraits of that great | beth down to William IV., together with those of the more

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eminent statesmen. While still executing these orders he | and connected himself with a leading commercial house in was instructed to proceed immediately to paint a portrait of General Jackson, and several of the presidents and states- men of our country. These being finished, he obtained per- mission from his majesty to return to the United States, to make the studies for his great picture of " Webster replying to Hayne," the studies for and the execution of which work occupied him seven years. It was purchased by the city of Boston, and is now in Faneuil Hall. Before it was com- pleted Louis Philippe was dethroned. On his return to Europe, he visited his patron and family at Claremont, where he met with a cordial reception. His next impor- tant work represents Franklin, Lee and Dcan negotiating a treaty of alliance between France and the struggling colo- nies, which obtained for him his second gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1855, the year in which he came to Chicago, his family following him the year after. In 1856 the family returned to Paris, where he joined them in the summer of 1867.

OWEN, COL. JAMES H., Merchant, was born in Manheim, Herkimer county, New York, March 7th, 1822, and is the eldest son of a family of eight children. His parents were of New Eng- land Puritanic stock, exemplary Christians, and bestowed careful attention on the education and moral training of their children. Until fourteen years of age he assisted his father in his business as carpenter, joiner and cabinet-maker, in Manheim, attending at intervals the common school. May 6th, 1836, he became engaged as clerk in a store and post-office near his home, at a salary of thirty dollars per year, where he tended the counter, kept books, drove team, and made himself generally useful. Three years later he transferred his place to a younger brother, and took another situation, at Little Falls, New York, commencing with a salary of one hundred dollars, board and washing, per year. He was subsequently placed in direction of one of the largest houses in that section of the country. Three years afterward, while still a minor, he became the Secretary and Treasurer of the Wool Growers' Manufacturing Company, located at Little Falls, the head of his business firm being the agent of the mill, which em- ployed 160 hands, and consumed 1000 pounds of wool daily. While thus employed he acted also as the first Agent of the American Express Company at that place. From 1842 to 1846 he was occupied incessantly in the exhaustive labors attached to his office, and in the latter year, his health becoming enfeebled, he felt that it was necessary to make a change. July Ist, 1846, accordingly, he removed to Jeffer- son county, New York, where he engaged in the general merchandising business, filling at the same time the posi- ; of his staff, with the rank of Colonel, and in this capacity tions of Postmaster and Assistant United States Marshal, contributed valuable aid on various important occasions. On retiring from active business in January, 1867, he devoted much of his time to forwarding the interests of Illinois and and taking an active part in the public affairs of this portion of the State. In May, 1853, he closed his business there,

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The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 101

Author: Robson, Charles, ed Publication date: 1875 Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy Number of Pages: 770

Author: Robson, Charles, ed
Publication date: 1875
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy
Number of Pages: 770