The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 117

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

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AKER, EDWARD DICKINSON, Soldier and United States Senator, was born in London, England, on February 24th, ISII. His family came to the United States about the year 1815 and settled in Philadelphia. Ten years later, that is, in 1825, they removed to Illinois. Ed- ward Dickinson studied law, after completing a fair pre- liminary education, and was admitted to the bar in Greene county, Illinois. Shortly thereafter he changed his resi- dence to Springfield, in the same State. From the outset of his career he took a prominent part in the discussion of public affairs, and acquired considerable reputation as a public man. This led to his election to the lower branch of the Legislature in 1837, and to his being chosen as Statc Senator from 1840 to 1844. Subsequently he was honored with election to Congress. On the breaking out of the Mexican war, however, he resigned his seat and became a Colonel of Illinois Volunteers. In this capacity he partici- pated in the siege of Vera Cruz, and subsequently com- manded with great gallantry a brigade at Cerro Gordo, and in all the succeeding conflicts. After the war was over he removed to Galena, and rendered material aid in bringing about the nomination of General Taylor to the Presidency. In 1848 and 1849 he was again a member of Congress, but becoming connected with the Panama Railroad Company he declined a renomination, and in 1852 settled in suc- cessful practice of the law in California. He joined the Republican party, and was immediately accorded a high place in its councils. When Senator Broderic was killed in a duel, in 1859, he delivered the funeral oration over the body of his friend in the public square of San Francisco. Soon after he removed to Oregon, where he rapidly ac- quired prominence in political circles, and in 1860, by a coalition between the Republicans and Douglas Democrats

CCLUN, JOHN EDWARD, Judge of the County Court, was born, February 19th, 1812, in Fred- erick county, Virginia, his paternal ancestors having been members of the Society of Friends. His maternal grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution, and died in the Colonial service. His father died when he was seven years of age, leaving his family poor. From this age until his eighteenth year he had little opportunity to attend school, his time and labor being needed for the support of the household. When eighteen he enjoyed a winter's schooling, and in the ensuing spring and summer resumed farming, receiving seven dollars a month. He returned to his studies in schcol during the fall, and in this brief period of applica- tion made such substantial progress that for the following three years he was engaged in the capacity of teacher. Upon the expiration of this period he came West, travelling in company with his mother in a small two-horse wagon. This journey was undertaken in October, 1835. Spring- field, Illinois, was reached in December. The population of the State then was scarcely 250,000, and Chicago was then an insignificant village, composed mainly of shanties, and not very many of them at best. The houses of the wealthier classes consisted usually of one room. Judge McClun's first winter in the new State was not encouraging in its incidents and experiences. His first winter was spent in vain in seeking for employment, and his storc of money was soon exhausted. When the prospect was the bleakest he formed the acquaintance of a young man who had con- tracted for a stock of goods which were to be transferred to him upon his giving property security to guarantee their payment. Penniless as he was, young McClun was ac- cepted as his new friend's bail, and the goods were for- warded. The pledge of payment by the two was promptly fulfilled, the goods having been sold at a fair profit. In June, 1836, Mr. McClun removed to McLean county, ac- cepting a clerkship in the store of David Duncan, in Waynesville. Dry goods and groceries were sold in con- siderable quantities, but tobacco and whiskey were in far greater demand. Saturdays were the weekly periods for

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the centralization of the surrounding population at the | receiving his preliminary education in various schools, Phil- " corners" to trade, to discuss politics, to enjoy athletic ander became a student of Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1796. A severe injury to one of his limbs prevented his becoming a farmer. Having determincd to enter the sacred ministry, he took a course of divinity, and was ordained Deacon, May 10th, 1798, and Priest, Novem- ber Ioth, 1799. For several years he was zealously engaged in missionary labors in western New York. In 1805 he went to New Orleans and took an active part in the or- ganization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in that city. Ile returned to the North in ISII, and until IS17 officiated as Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. On February 11th, 1819, he was consecrated Bishop of Ohio, to which position he had been elected, and in 1823 proceeded to England for the purpose of soliciting aid for Kenyon Col- lege and Theological Seminary in his diocese, great success attending his visit. Difficulties having arisen with some of his clergy in regard to the disposal of funds he had col- lected, and other matters, he resigned the jurisdiction of his diocese on September 9th, 1831, and removed to Michigan. On March 8th, 1835, he was made Bishop of Illinois, and shortly thereafter made a second visit to England in behalf of education in the West. In 1838 he returned with suf- ficient funds to lay the foundation of Jubilee College, at Robin's Nest, Peoria, Illinois. Although a large and cor- pulent man, Bishop Chase was exceedingly active and labo- rious. Though not especially distinguished by learning, he possessed great diplomatic talents, intuitive knowledge of human nature and great shrewdness, qualities which enabled him to accomplish an amount of good ten-fold greater than many incomparably his superior in scholastic knowledge. Ile published in two volumes, octavo, "Reminiscences " of his life and labors ; " Plea for the West " in IS26; " Star of Kenyon College " in 1828; " Defence of Kenyon Col- lege " in 1831. A serious injury, caused by being thrown from his carriage, hastened his decease, which occurred a few days after the accident, on September 20th, 1852. sports and to wind up generally with a serious bout of fisticuffs. It was generally considered a very dull and un- interesting meeting that ended without the climax of a fight. From 1842 to 1846 Mr. McClun had all the con- tracts for the delivery of mails coming into Bloomington, or passing through it. These were the halcyon days of cheap- ness, when oats were only ten cents per bushel, and other products in proportion. In 1849 he was elected County Judge of MeLean county, and retained that office until IS52, when impaired health compelled his resignation from the bench. During this year he was elected to the State Legislature, and upon the expiration of his term re-elected. Ilc served until the end of the session of 1357, and acted for four years during his legislative career on the State Board of Agriculture. IIe has always cvinced great activity in religious affairs, and is a prominent Sunday-school worker, having for years bcen a superintendent of a flourishing school. The Illinois Wesleyan University, now one of the finest educational institutions in the country, and certainly onc of the leading ones in the West, is very largely indebted to his energy for its origin and progress. He has given it his wisc counsel and valuable support from its in- fancy to its present vigorous condition. He was in politics at first an old-line Whig, but became, with the origin of the Republican party, prominently identified with it. During the last campaign, however, he acted with the Democrats and Liberals. He was an early emancipationist, and as such exerted no little influence. He is a man of much public spirit, actively countenancing all movements for the material and moral advancement of the city of Blooming- ton, its county and the State, and is looked up to as a citizen of progressive ideas and of the most irreproachable character. His business relations are conducted with the strictest integrity, and in his intercourse he is affable, making, through his winning manners, friends of all who approach him. For twenty years he has superintended the progress of the Methodist Sabbath-school, and is generally esteemed as a conscientious churchman, a thorough business man and a valuable citizen. In January, IS39, he was married to Hannah Harkins, by whom he has had eleven children, five of whom are living.

HASE, PIIILANDER, D.D., Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Illinois from 1835 to his death in 1852, was born at Cornish, New Hampshire, on Deceni- ber 14th, 1775. He sprang from the early colo- nists of America, his ancestor, Aquila Chase, who came from Cornwall, England, in 1640, and law. He here made the acquaintance of Miss P. A. Shel- settled at Newbury. The grandson of Aquila, the bishop's father, removed to a township above Fort No. 4 on the Con- necticut river, and founded the town of Cornish. After

ORTON, HON. JESSE O., son of Colonel Martin Norton, a patriot soldier of the last war with Great Britain, was born at Bennington, Vermont, December 25th, IS12. As a youth he was in- dustrious, studious and ambitious. Accordingly he was a diligent student at Williams College in 1831, where he graduated with honor in 1835. Being de- , pendent upon his own efforts, he first went to Whceling, Vir- ginia, and for a short time taught a classical school. From thence he went to Potosi, Missouri, where he also filled a similar position, and at the same time began the study of don, who was engaged, through the patronage of Governor Dunklin and other gentlemen, in teaching a seleet school for ladies in the same locality. This acquaintance ripened

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into affection, and on his twenty-fifth birthday, December 25th, 1837, they were married at the residence of the Gov- ernor. About a year later they removed to Illinois, and a year after that settled in Joliet, in that State. He was soon admitted to the bar, and entered the practice of law, in which he rose rapidly, his genial manners at the same time giving him personal popularity. The first office to which he was elected was that of City Attorncy, which was followed in 1845 by that of County Judge. To this he was re-elected, and in IS48 he was chosen member of the State Constitu- tional Convention. In 1850 he was elected member of the Legislature ; and in 1852, in the last campaign of the Whig party, he was elected a member of Congress on that ticket. During the second session of Congress came the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. IIe resisted that measure with all his eloquence and power, insisting upon it that there could properly be no compromise with wrong, and that no further countenance could be given in legislation to the infamous traffic in human beings without outraging civiliza- tion. Ilis course was approved by his constituency, and he was re-elected to Congress in 1854 on the Republican ticket. Ile served in Congress with ability until March 4th, 1857. In that year he was elected Circuit Judge; the dutics of which office he discharged with industry, promptness, courtesy and ability. After the beginning of the war in 1862 he was again elected to Congress, and served with honor during that trying period until March 5th, 1865. Ile stcadily maintained that the Union of the States was not broken by rebellion; that the Constitution was still the supreme law, and binding upon Congress as well as upon the States; and that, therefore, Congress had no more power to expel States from the Union than the States had power to withdraw. It was a logic which com- manded the reason, but it could not control the passions of the times. But it is no part of the object of this sketch to say more than to state the ground on which the Republican party, with its new and radical ideas, was severed from him. In 1866 he was appointed by President Johnson United States District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Ile discharged the duties of that office until April, 1869, with singular ability, with honor to himself and justice to all. After his retirement from that office he became asso- ciated with Judge J. R. Doolittle in the practice of law in Chicago. He remained in this partnership until the fire of IS71, by which their office and library were destroyed. He then continued the practice of his profession alone, a portion of the time as Corporation Counsel of the city of Chicago, until at last he was confined to his residence by the illness which resulted in his death, August 3d, IS75. There was in him a genial and affectionate nature, refined and exalted by a true Christian life. In his hospitable home, where he was almost idolized, as husband, father and friend, these virtues stood forth in great distinctness, and made a beauty of character which no wealth can purchase and no intel- lectual greatness can supply.

AGOUN, JOHN, was born June 14th, 1806, in Pembroke, Plymouth county, Massachusetts, twelve miles from the old Plymouth Rock, and four miles from the farm of Daniel Webster, in Marshfield. The house in which he was born is still standing, and is one hundred and fifty years old, and has always been in the Magoun family. The first of the name of which we have any account was John Magoun, who lived and was a freeholder in Massachusetts in 1666. The name of John seems to have been a favorite one in this family, and has flourished in every generation of the Magouns since that period. The father of the John Magoun of whom we are writing was Elias Magoun, and his mother's name before her marriage was Esther Samp- son. They had five sons. Elias, the eldest, was for many years Cashier of the Hope Bank of Warren, Rhode Island, and dicd in that place. William graduated at Brown University, and died at Turin, in Italy, in 1871. Calvin, who lived at Marshfield, Massachusetts, died in 1866; and Luther, the youngest and only surviving brother of John, the subject of this memoir, lives near to the old homestcad of the Magoun family. These five sons were all brought up on the old farm in habits of industry, honesty, and economy. John was seventeen years of age when his father, coming in one day from the toils of the farm, and with a presentiment that his end was nigh, said, "I have come home to die," which prophecy was soon realized, and the excellent and Christian father of John Magoun sleeps in the old Pembroke cemetery. After this sad event John went to Boston and for several summers worked at the mason's trade, teaching school during the winter time. While in Boston he saw Lafayette while on his visit to America, heard Daniel Webster's great eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, and saw the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument laid. In his attendance upon church he often heard Dr. Channing, Dr. Lyman Beecher, and Father Tay- lor, and other distinguished divines of that day. On the 30th of September, 1835, John Magoun, Calvin C. Samp- son, and S. P. Cox left Boston for New Orleans. These three young men thus started out in life to seek their for- tunes. After a stormy voyage of twenty-one days they arrived at their destination ; Sampson, who was a cousin of Magoun's, staying in New Orleans, where he made a for- tune in the furniture business, and Cox and Magoun making their way to Illinois. Mr. Magoun first stopped at St. Louis, then containing a population of only eight thousand souls, and from there he came to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he joined a colony then forming in that place, and which subsequently settled and entered a large tract of land ten miles north of Bloomington, in the county of McLean. It is a curious coincidence that after a separation of thirty- three years John Magoun and Calvin C. Sampson met again in Massachusetts at the home of their childhood, where both had gone on a visit, and where Sampson sickened and dicd of typhoid fever in August, 1868. Mr. Magoun came to

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Bloomington early enough in 1836 to work on the old [ took his place by his bedside, which he never left till he brick court-house which was built in that year, and which closed his eyes in death. The parting scene between the dying man and his wife and child, in the dead of night, is described by Mr. Magoun as heartrending in the extreme. " Farewell," said he to these dear ones. " Farewell; we shall meet again in heaven," which they have doubtless done, as the mother and child have both long since passed over the river to that brighter land above. It is to the credit of Abram Brokau and Goodinan Ferre that they aided Mr. Magoun at the death and burial of poor Samp- son. Mr. Magoun was always anti-slavery in his senti- ments, and heartily approved the proclamation of emanci- pation by Abraham Lincoln, and rejoiced that the result of the war was the freedom of the slave. He is a strictly temperate man in all respects, and has been favorable to all the temperance reforms and associations calculated to redeem the poor inebriate, and also to dry up those sinks of iniquity strangely authorized by law to make drunkards and paupers and scatter death and misery all around. He is also opposed to the use of tobacco in all its forms, and has spent his money liberally in aiding the printing and dis- semination of tracts and documents against " the filthy and disgusting habit of chewing and smoking." Mr. Magoun is very fond of children, and greatly enjoys the society of the ladies, and has always been a great favorite of the gentler sex. He has never married, and regards this as one of the mistakes of his life, and advises young men not to follow his example in this respect. Mr. Magoun is about five feet nine inchcs high, has dark hair, blue eyes, and weighs one hundred and sixty pounds, and though sixty-seven years of age would not be taken by a stranger for more than fifty. Few gray hairs are to be seen upon his temples ; his carriage is erect and his step elastic, and he looks in every respect as if his lease of life was good for many years to come. Few men have ever lived who have been more distinguished for kindness of heart, for charity and for the purity of his life than he. For nearly forty years he has lived in Bloomington, and per- haps no man is better known throughout the country, and yet no man or woman could be found who would dare to say aught against the character of John Magoun. Though gen- erous and liberal, almost to a fault, he has accumulated a large fortune, which he manages with prudence and ability, thus verifying in his own history the truth of the Scripturc, which says: " There is that which scattereth yet increaseth." No college has been built, no church erected, nor any benev- olent or useful institution of any kind organized in the com- munity but has been aided by the munificence of John Ma- goun. Large, however, as have been his donations to aid the great enterprises of the day, Mr. Magoun has chiefly de- lighted in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the afflicted, and in every respect alleviating the sufferings of humanity so far as lay within his power. His heart and hand are always open to the wants of the poor. Numbers of the distressed and destitute daily wait upon him, and the was a few years ago removed to give place to the present magnificent structure. In December of this year, after the summer work was donc, Mr. Magoun determined to return to his old Massachusetts home and look again upon the face of his dear old mother before she left the shores of time for the brighter land beyond the river, and so he started on foot with Joseph Bedell and Chester Foster, walking upon an average twenty-two miles per day through the new and thinly settled States of Illinois and In- diana. In Ohio they bought a horse and jumper, and travelled in that way to Morristown, New Jersey, from which place they made their way home by stage and other kinds of conveyance. Shortly after Mr. Magoun got home his mother died, and just before her decease she said : " John, I have greatly desired to see you once more, and that desire is now gratified and I am ready and willing to depart." And thus died and went home to heaven the mother of John Magoun, whom he so tenderly loved, and to whom, under God, he was indebted for most of the vir- tues which have adorned his life. Soon after the death of his mother Mr. Magoun returned to Bloomington, Illinois, and industriously engaged himself at his trade of bricklaying and plastering, and many are the well-plastered houses and well-built chimneys still standing to attest the skill and faithfulness of his profession. While on a subsequent visit to the home of his childhood Mr. Magoun engaged again in the masonry trade in Boston, and was employed with others in the building of the great chimney of the Roxbury Chemical Works, and when at an elevation of one hundred and seventy-six feet from the ground the scaffold gave way and precipitated the workmen to the bottom of the chimney, killing one and almost killing another, while Mr. Magoun escaped with but little injury. The poor fellow who was killed was an Irishman, and the moment before the scaffold broke he said, as he looked eastward over Boston harbor : " I must have one more look towards my dear old Ireland." The early emigrants to Illinois were mostly poor, and Mr. Magoun was one of the few who brought money with him at that early day. He was at one time engaged with James Miller in the mercantile business in Clinton, Illinois, and subsequently with John E. McClun and others at Bloom- ington. He is now and has been for many years a partner in the Home Bank of Bloomington, Illinois. Mr. Magoun has always been distinguished for his sympathy, generosity, and unselfishness, and in the summer of 1849 he had an opportunity to perform a deed in that respect well worthy a place in this brief sketch of his life. A man by the name of Sampson, a merchant of Bloomington, had been to Chicago and came home sick with the cholera, and evi- dently to die in a few hours. The inhabitants of the then little town were not only alarmed but paralyzed with terror. No man could be hired for love or money to attend upon the dying man, when Mr. Magoun volunteered his services, Inecdy and worthy applicant is never turned empty away. It

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may be truly said of him, as of onc of old, that he has delivered | the poor that have cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessings of those who were ready to perish are bestowed upon him ; and he has caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. Eyes has he been to the blind, and feet to the lame. He has been a father to the fatherless, and the cause which he knew not he searched out. Such has been the life of John Magoun. He has sought neither honor nor position in the world, but has striven only to do good and to make all who come in contact with him happier and better.

course, in 1855, became a member of the bar. Since that period he has practised his profession, save when called away from home on public service. On the outbreak of the Mexican war he entered the army as a private and served with gallantry. Again he gave his services to the country in the late war, raising and commanding the 49th Illinois Regiment. Previous and subsequent to his military carecr he held many positions in the State by election. He was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court of Monroe county in 1852, and resigned the office in 1854, in order to become candi- date for the State Legislature, in which he served by con- tinuous re-election until 1860, officiating as Speaker of the House during the last two years of that period. He was the nominee of the Democratic party for the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses. Again hc was elected in 1870 to the State Legislature, and received the vote of the Democratic members for Speaker. He was elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and also to the Forty-third, as a Democrat, recciv- ing on the latter occasion the votes of the Liberal Republi- cans. So well pleased were his constituents with his long and faithful service that he was again returned to his seat

ORRISON, HON. WILLIAM R., Lawyer and Member of Congress from the Seventeenth Dis- trict of Illinois, was born in Monroe county, Illinois, on September 14th, 1825. He received a common school education, and afterward bc- came a student in McKendree College, Illinois. He was brought up on a farm, and began the active dutics of life thereon. Being attracted to the profession of law he in the national legislature as a member of the Forty-fourth commenced study with a view to admission, and in due Congress.

INDEX.

Abend, Edward.

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| Biroth, Henry.

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The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 117

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