The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 19

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

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north. At that time the State of Illinois was attracting much attention, as various lines of railways were being constantly opened, especially the Illinois Central and the Chicago & Alton Railroads; and as the city of Bloomington was most advantageously located, being not only at the intersection of these two important lines, but also on account of its central position, its natural beauty, etc., and of its promising future, he, having kinsmen in the town, determined to locate there, and to make it his future residence. Ile reached this place, June 9th, 1856, with his wife and two children ; and at this point he has since resided. He immediately resumed the practice of his profession, where he soon found friends and clients to appreciate him. He has ever since labored with a steady, earnest purpose, and as a result, the firm of which he is a member are doing a very large and lucrative business. His practice in the Supreme Court of the State is a very extensive one, and for the past five years he has appeared before that tribunal in a greater number of cases than any other attorney in the State, he being the counsel and adviser of most of the railroads passing through his home circuit. In political faith he has ever been a Demo- crat, and in the presidential campaign of 1868 he was, on account of his legal attainments, unanimously nominated, without solicitation on his part, by the State Democratic Convention, as its candidate for Attorney-General of Illinois. At the election, held in November, 1868, the vote for him was far in excess of that cast for any of his associates on the Democratic ticket, but was not enough to secure his election by the people, as the Republican ticket was success- ful by over 50,000 majority. Since that year, he has avoided politics, and has been laboring with as much indus- try as he ever has done since he first engaged in the contests and triumphs of the bar. He is the embodiment of that steady assiduity which, in the long run, achieves a more lasting success than even genius can hope to attain. Ile is pre-eminently a lawyer, not an orator; for there is no grace of ornament or floridity of embellishment about his style of speaking. But he is a lawyer who displays in every argu- ment, either to court or jury, a thorough knowledge of the law of the case on trial, and that law is presented with clearness and force. As an old and successful lawyer, he has for years past been requested to receive into his office numbers of students, who were ever able to study there, pro- vided they were willing to work as well as study. In short, at the present day, a very large proportion of those who practice at the same bar as himself have graduated from his office. He is known everywhere, not only as a successful advocate in an eminent degree, but as an honest one. He is a large-hearted, true man in every respect, and is popular with the masses. He was married, 1851, to a daughter of James N. Smith, of De Witt county, Texas, who was then, and from the organization of that county until the end of the great rebellion, the Clerk of the County Court, the most lucrative position in the county.

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

AGLEY, MARCUS E., was born, August ISth, [ question was the uppermost issue in this country, and IS28, in East Durham, Greene county, New York, and is a son of Thomas and Mary Bagley, of Scotch-Irish descent. His parents are yet living on the old homestead in Greene county, where they have resided for the past fifty years, his father having attained the venerable age of eighty-five years, and his mother being ten years younger. He was educated in the public schools of his native county, and aided his father in the work of the farm until he attained his majority. IIe left home in the autumn of 1849, and passed the winter in the city of New York. In the fall of 1850 he went to Jerseyville, Illinois, where he engaged in the mercantile business with A. W. Howe, under the firm-name of Howe & Bagley, being the successors of Colonel Edward M. Daley, an uncle of Marcus E. Bagley, who was one of the original proprietors of the town, now city of Jerseyville; Colonel Daley having, with his partner, John W. Lott, laid out and located said town in October, I834. He continued in the mercantile business until the spring of 1859. He was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court of Jersey county in 1860, and was re-elected in 1864, 1868, and 1872, being four terms of four years each. No former clerk had ever held the office for so long a term of years. He was appointed, in 1865, Master in Chancery of said county, by Hon. David M. Woodson, Judge of the Jersey county Circuit Court, and has held that office con- tinuously for the past ten years. In the spring of 1867 he was elected the first Mayor of the city of Jerseyville, and held the office for one year. In the spring of 1873 he was elected a member of the Board of Education for the city, the term of office being three years; he has since been chosen President of the Board. His political views were at first old-line Whig; since the disorganization of that party he has been a consistent Democrat. He is a gentle- man of very high social attainments and culture, with genial and courteous manners towards all.

OSSACK, JOHN, JR., Merchant, was born in Athens, Cook county, Illinois, September 13th, 1840, descending from prominent Scotch ancestry. His father left Scotland when twelve years of age, and is still living to contemplate a career which has been remarkable for its incidents and vicissitudes. He was one of the pioneers of Illinois, and was foremost in the development of its resources and in the enlargement and extension of its business enterprises. For several years he was wholly engaged in the construction of important public works, and was the contractor under whose supervision, and in pursuance of whose plans the canal was built which connects Chicago with the Mississippi river. Active in politics at a time when the anti-slavery

firmly grounded in his opinion of the gigantic injustice which was then inflicted upon millions of blacks, he as- sumed at once an open hostility to the pro-slavery element which in no small degree then permeated the North, and took occasion to improve every opportunity for the em- phatic expression of his sentiments that presented itself. He thus obtained notoriety, and was the object of special resentment from those who opposed his views. He was one of the most zealous conductors of what has now passed into history as the " Underground Railroad." He led a mob that wrested from the hands of the officers a fagitive negro, who by judicial decree had been relegated to the horrors of slavery. For this he was tried, fined, and im- prisoned. In this ordeal he conducted his defence with ability, though not a lawyer, and startled the court, if he did not convince it of its error, when he said : " It is true, sir, I am a foreigner. I first saw the light among the rugged and free hills of Scotland-a land, sir, that never was conquered, and where a slave never breathed. Let a slave set foot on that shore and his chains fall off forever, and he becomes what God made him-a man!" The education of his son was limited to the common schools, and his attendance was irregular; but he inherited his father's activity and industry, which spurred him on in self-instruction. In 1863 he removed to Odell, Livingston county, Illinois, and embarked in the grain business, for which he soon developed rare tact. To this he subse- quently added traffic in live stock, purchasing in the in- terior of the State and shipping direct to Chicago. In all these transactions he was successful, and within a very short period, by enterprise guided by prudence, and indus- try characterized by economy, soon acquired a handsome fortune. He subsequently engaged extensively in the pur- chase and sale of real estate in the vicinity of Odell, and these transactions have been usually on a large scale in- dividually, and profitable. His enterprise has raised him to a position of prominence in his county, in all the inter- nal improvements of which he takes a deep interest. His shipments of grain have aggregated more than a million bushels annually for the past few years. He is a gentleman noted alike for his rare business and social qualities.

ONFIELD, THOMAS P., Lawyer, was born in Canton, Ohio, April 24th, 1827. His father, Dr. Thomas S. Bonfield, was a well-known practitioner of that place and formerly of Balti- morc, Maryland; his mother, Sarah (Troup) Bonfield, was a Pennsylvanian. His preliminary education was obtained in his native town, and in Canton also he completed a thorough course of academical studies. At the expiration of his term of scholarship, he decided to embrace the legal profession, and in 1847 commenced the

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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

study of law under the able guidance of Judge George W. Belden-a brother-in-law of his father, and a compeer and valued intimate friend of the late statesman Edwin M. Stanton-who at that date was a resident of Steubenville. Upon the completion of the usual course of judicial studies he passed his examination, and at Springfield, Ohio, in 1849, was admitted to the bar of that State. He subsequently practised in Canton until 1853, and then emigrated to Kan- kakee, at this period a region sparsely settled, and scareely reelaimed from its primitive condition. Being the first lawyer to establish himself in that section, now so flourish- ing, he rapidly met with merited success, and down to the present time has been unremittingly engaged in attending to the wants of an extensive and increasing elientage. He is well read in all the various branches of law; is an able pleader, and as an equity lawyer is unsurpassed. He was married in 1856 to Maria Eastman, from Aurora, Illinois.

AY, JOSEPH HI., M. D., was born in Yates county, New York, October 10th, 1823. Ilis parents were Joshua Way and Sarah (Chase) Way. He was educated at the Prattsburg Academy, New York, and in 1841, under the able supervision of Dr. Addison Niles, commenced in Steuben county, New York, the study of medicine. He then became a re- eipient of the regular course at the Geneva Medical Col- lege, which he entered in the winter of 1843 and 1844. At the expiration of his allotted term of probation, he grad- uated from that institution, and immediately began the active practice of his profession in Livingston county, New York. After remaining in that locality for a period ex- tending over ten years, he removed to Illinois in 1854, and established himself at Kankakee, Illinois, where he has since permanently resided in the possession of an extensive and constantly increasing practice. A skilful and an ex- perienced physician, he has won the esteem and unbounded confidenee of a large cirele of friends and acquaintances, and is often called beyond the limits of his usual professional rounds, in order to give his attention to cases of a peculiar or aggravated nature. He was married in 1848 to Abbie I. Weed, formerly a resident of Livingston county, New York.

GOODING, WILLIAM, Civil Engineer, was born in Bristol, Ontario county, New York, in 1803, his early life being spent upon a farm there and in teaching school. In 1826 he commenced ser- viee as a eivil engineer on the Welland Canal, in Canada, during its first construction, when it was of limited capacity and the structures entirely of wood. Under the chief engineership of Alfred Barrett he continued on this work until 1829, when he left to undertake a mer-

cantile business in Lockport, New York, which proving un- congenial to his tastes, he again resumed his engineering profession in the State of Ohio, where he remained in charge of canal construction until the division upon which he was engaged in the valley of the Scioto was completed. In the spring of 1832 he was married in Troy, New York, and an interesting reminiscence of this journey from thence west- ward is his travelling over the only piece of passenger rail- road then completed in the United States. This extended from Albany to Schenectady, and consisted of an imperfect light strap rail laid upon parallel stringers, and the train consisted of three cars resembling eommon stage coaches, drawn by a singe horse. The breaking out of the so- called Black Hawk war in 1832 prevented him from ful- filling his intention of moving to Illinois in the summer of that year, and he turned aside, sojourning at Roscoe, Ohio, where his first child, William A., late General Supcrin- tendent of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, was born. At length, on May Ist, 1833, he reached Chicago, then con- taining not more than a hundred people outside of the gar- rison. The West was innocent of railroads, and indeed of improvements of any extent, and he arrived with his wife and child at the Garden City, via Niles, Michigan, as the first passengers booked through from Detroit. Their conveyance from Niles was a light open wagon, with a span of French ponies, and they were delayed there two days in expectation of additional fares. He settled upon open land, which he subsequently purchased, at Gooding's Grove, then in Cook county, now in Will county, whence his father and brothers had preceded him the previous year, and had given the name to the location ; but next year he accepted an invitation to engage in the service of the Canal Commissioners of In- diana in making preliminary surveys for a proposed system of eanals in that State, and extending the location of the Wabash & Erie Canal, then in course of construction, from the " old treaty ground," now the town of Wabash, to La- fayette. While actively engaged in these duties, in 1834 and 1835, his reputation had beeome so established that when at Indianapolis he received notice of his appointment as Chief Engineer of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, ae- companied by a request to return at once and commence operations. Again he journeyed in primitive style along a route sparsely settled, a hoosier wagon forming no very comfortable protection from an intensely eold prairie winter. From February, 1836, he acted as Engineer-in-Chief of this important canal ; first under the Canal Commissioners and subsequently under the Canal Trustees, until it was opened for navigation in the spring of 1848. This erowning effort of his skill as an engineer was acknowledged by his being appointed Secretary and Assistant Treasurer of the Board of Trustees, and he continued to aet in these capacities until 1871, when, with its debt fully paid, the eanal was surren- dered by the trustees to the State. In addition to these onerous duties, he was employed for a time on special ser- viee as United States Civil Engineer, and also as one of the

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA.

special commissioners of the Board of Public Works of the | partnership continued until his election as Judge in I857. city of Chicago, whilst the summit division of the canal was being deepened for a more effectual drainage of that city. Mr. Gooding spends his well-earned leisure at his pleasant residence at Lockport, Illinois, varied occasionally by extended tours, in which he must specially realize the difference of comfort between the Pullman car of the pre- sent and the hoosier wagon of his youth, when he con- tended with nature to give the State those magnificent canals

which formed the highways of civilization in their day, and were fit precursors of the railroads. George H. Woodruff, of Joliet, in his " Early History of Will County," speaks thus of William Gooding : " In closing the brief history of the (Illinois & Michigan) canal, I wish to pay a tribute to its Chief Engineer, William Gooding, who was its firm friend from first to last, its efficient director, and against whom no suspicions of jobbery were ever entertained. Fully a master of his profession, prepared for all emergencies, urbane in his intercourse with all, he is entitled to the grateful remem- brance of every citizen of this State, to the prosperity of which he has been so largely instrumental."

ILLER, HION. ANSON S., LL. D., Lawyer and Judge, was born, September 24th, ISIo, in the town of Western, now Lee, Oneida county, New York. Ile is of New England parentage, his father, Luther Miller, a native of Massachusetts, having removed to Oneida county-a pioneer at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York-towards the close of the last century. ITis early years werc passed at the country school and on his father's farm. Inheriting a vigorous con- stitution and imbued with a love of nature, he engaged with rare fondness and efficiency in agricultural pursuits, for the promotion of which he has in his maturer years labored so successfully. When but a youth he had acquired a thorough English education, and he taught school for a number of terms in his native town and elsewhere, sustaining the repu- tation of a skilful and successful instructor. IIc subsequently was prepared for college at Grosvenor's High School, Rome, and entered Hamilton College shortly before attaining his majority. He remained there four years, graduating in the summer of 1835, and receiving a number of honors. Im- mediately after taking his degree he commenced the study of law, which he pursucd at Rome, and at Delta, in his native county. Having completed his legal studies, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of New York, at Utica, in 1838, and in the autumn of that year removed to the West. He first located temporarily at Terre Haute, In- diana, where he formed a law partnership with William W. Heaton, also from Oneida county, New York. In 1840 he proceeded farther west, and settled at Rockford, Illinois, where he has since resided in the practice of his profession, being associated with his brother, Cyrus F. Miller, which

In 1844, upon the agitation of the State debt question, he consented to represent Winnebago county in the Legisla- ture ; and upon his election to the House of Representatives he took an active part on the Judiciary Committee in re- vising the statutes, and also upon the Canal Committee in making provision to pay the interest upon the internal im- provement debt and restoring the credit of the State. IIe also, at this session of 1844-45, introduced the first bill to repeal the " black laws," and supported the measure in an eloquent and powerful speech, which was reported in the press of the capital and circulated throughout the State. In 1865 he had the satisfaction of seeing those laws swept from the statutes. In 1845-46 he travelled through portions of northern Illinois with Hons. William B. Ogden and J. Voung Scammon, for the purpose of awakening an interest in the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, then projected, and securing its construction. In 1846 he was elected to the Senate, and took a prominent part in the measures of that important period of the State history. In 1857 he was chosen orator of the Alumni Association of Hamilton Col- lege, and at the following annual commencement of that institution, in 1858, delivered an oration on " Self-Culture," which was extensively published and greatly admired at the time, and which must continue to be regarded as a model. In 1860 various Republican papers proposed him for the gubernatorial chair of Illinois, but he promptly declined the candidacy, and gave his influence and efficient support to Richard Yates. During the war of the rebellion he labored devotedly and successfully in the raising of Union troops, and providing for their wants in the field, for which he will long be gratefully remembered, especially by the soldiers. In 1864 his Alma Mater, Hamilton College, conferred on him the degrec of Doctor of Laws, an honor of which his natural endowments, high attainments and character ren- clered him eminently worthy. During the same year he was nominated by the Republican State Convention as the Presi- dential Elector of his Congressional district for the re-election of President Lincoln, and he was occupied during the autumn preceding the election in canvassing and speaking in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. ITis was the banner district of the State and nation, and he was chosen Messenger of the Electoral College of Illinois to bear its vote to Washington. In the course of the canvass President Lincoln tendered him a United States Judgeship, which honor he declined, as it would necessitate the removal of his family. In 1865 he was appointed Postmaster of Rockford by President Lincoln, and although he was twice superseded by President Johnson (to whose " policy " he was opposed), no change was made, as the Senate did not confirm the President's nominations. He held this position until the close of his second term. In 1866 he accepted the invitation of the New York State Agricultural Society to deliver the annual address at the Saratoga Fair, and his effort on that occasion was applauded as being an oration of great originality and

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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

power. Republican papers in various parts of the State | of the Western Christian Advocate, published at Cincinnati, in 1868 proposed Judge Miller for the next Governor of Illinois, and delegates to the State Convention were in- structed to vote for his nomination, but he declined the use of his name so long as that of General Palmer was before the Convention. Among the self-made men of the West there is no nobler representative than he of its spirit of pro- gress, freedom of thought, and independence of speech. Prominent in his profession, his mind is well versed in legal lore, and stored with useful learning and sound knowledge, embracing the whole circle of science and literature. IIe has a noble and commanding presence, combined with a high moral and intellectual character. Before courts, juries, and popular assemblies, he is clear, logical, and per- suasive. IIis arguments are characterized by strength and solidity, and often by finished elegance, yet no force of ex- pression is sacrificed for the mere beauty of diction. His style as a speaker and writer is concise, compact, and vigor- ous. When speaking, his usual manner is earnest, candid, and deliberate, sometimes vehement, and when aroused, he is often eloquent. He is a bold and independent thinker, and never shrinks from exposing the abuses of government or the evils of the age. His manners are polished, digni- fied, and courteous, and respect for the feelings and opinions of others is a marked characteristic. He has recently been preparing a " History of Illinois," though it is yet incom- plete. Shortly after the great fire in Chicago, 1871, in con- nection with his brother, Cyrus F. Miller, Esq., and Senator R. L. Williamson, he established a law office in that city, the firm known as Miller, Williamson & Miller. He was married, in 1838, to Alvera S., daughter of Jabez F. Rudd, an old and prominent citizen of Western, Oneida county, New York, and has a family of two sons and one daughter. Yet in the enjoyment of unbroken health, he has the strength and activity of carly manhood.

Ohio. His widow survived him but a short time, and Franklin found himself, in his ninth year, an orphan. IIe then became an inmate of an uncle's household, in Paris, Indiana, where he remained for about three and one-half years. While residing there he laid the foundation of an education in the old style of teaching; not very far ad- vanced, it is true, but very thorough. He returned to Cin- cinnati in the summer of 1840, and was an interested looker on in the famous Harrison campaign of that memor- able year, which culminated in that city. Ile shortly after entered the then Woodward College, now the Woodward High School, of which Dr. B. P. Aydelotte was President and Dr. Joseph Ray, Professor of Mathematics. Ile left college without graduating; and in order to prepare him- self for active life, served an apprenticeship with G. W. Townley & Brother, house carpenters. Having made about this time a profession of religion, his mind was directed towards the ministry, and he engaged in a course of reading in order to qualify himself for that work. In the autumn of 1848, although not quite twenty-one years of age, he was received into the ministry, in connection with the Kentucky Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, south. In this ministry he was actively employed for eight years, two of these in the mountains of Kentucky, which were very arduous ones on account of the hard labor, exposure, and indifferent accommodations. A disease of the throat, developed in consequence of these privations and hard- ships, compelled him to relinquish his labors in 1856, and locate. Having studied medicine, he attended the lectures in the Kentucky School of Medicine, at Louisville; and he subsequently engaged in the practice of physic, first at Livermore on Green river, and afterwards in Todd county, near the Tennessee line, where he established a good busi- ness. He was residing there when the war of the rebel- lion broke out, and he endured the trials and vicissitudes of a Southern loyalist almost until the close of the war, when, as the guerillas became rather pressing in their attentions, manifesting too great a partiality for his goods, of which he did by no means approve, he removed to Illinois for safety, and to avoid farther loss. He had been in 1860 a supporter of the Bell and Everctt ticket, but with the advent of the war his political preferences turned in favor of the Union, as administered by the Republican party, and on the occasion of the Presidential election, in 1864, he rode six miles through the rain and gave Abraham Lincoln a viva voce vote. IIe went to Illinois in Decem- ber, 1864, intending to practice medicine, but finding no fair opening, and as his health had been sufficiently re- stored, he ventured to resume his ministerial labors in con- nection with the Illinois Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church. He passed two years in Mattoon, four years in Jacksonville, three in Springfield, and one year in the Danville district. In June, 1874, he was elected Superin-

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The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 19

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