The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 89

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

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OURTELLOTTE, F. W., Lawyer, was born in Windham county, Connecticut, and is about thirty eight years of age. He is a descendant of the old French Huguenot stock, his ancestors having been driven from their native country to America in the seventeenth century by reason of religious persecution and intolerance. He received a thorough classical and scientific education in the best schools of his native State and also of Massachusetts. He graduated subsequently, with high honors, at the Albany Law University, and soon after, in 1857, removed to Joliet, Illinois, and there entered on the practice of his profession. In the following year he removed to Chicago and formed a law partnership with General H. N. Eldridge, where he has since remained in active practice, having succeeded in

OCKWOOD, HON. SAMUEL DRAKE, Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, was born in Poundridge, Westchester county, New York, on August 2d, 1789. When he was ten years old his father died, and his mother was left with three young children and with but slender means for their support. By this event his plans for a liberal edu- cation were broken up and he was thrown very much upon his own resources. In 1803 he went to Waterford, New York, to live with his uncle, Francis Drake, a lawyer, and remained in his family as assistant and law student until February, 1811, when he was licensed to practise law, and opened an office in Batavia, New York. Next year he re- moved to Auburn, and continued in practice until the fall of 1818, holding during a part of that time the office of Master in Chancery. His constitution, never very strong, seemed now so broken by disease and the exhaustion of in- cessant application to business that his physician advised him to abandon his profession for the present and engage in some out-door employment. This advice, together with the glowing accounts of the great " far West " then preva- lent, induced him to seek his future home in the new State of Illinois, and on October 19th, 1818, in company with the late William H. Brown and others, he started on his western trip, finally settling at Carmi, Illinois, deeming it a favorable point for the practice of his profession. At the second session of the Illinois Legislature, which was held at Vandalia in 1821, he was elected Attorney-General of the State, and his acceptance of this office rendering another change of residence necessary he selected Edwardsville. In 1823 he was, very unexpectedly to himself, nominated by Governor Cole Secretary of State, but soon afterwards

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he was greatly surprised by receiving from President manded the esteem and respect of all good men for the purity of their conduct and their probity in official station." In 1826-27, with Judge Smith as coadjutor, he presented a revision of a considerable portion of the State laws to the Legislature then in session, prepared in accordance with the instructions of their predecessors, and these laws have been received as standard in every revision since. Judge Lockwood was an excellent lawyer, a man of sound judg- ment, and his face indicated uncommon purity, modesty and intellect, together with energy and determination, and formed the true index of his character. Any account of his services to the State which would fail to notice his con- nection with its educational, benevolent and religious in- terests would fall far short of doing him justice. As early as his residence in Auburn (1812-18) he was so identified with the religious interest there as to be appointed one of the Trustees of the Presbyterian Church. In 1815 was formed the Cayuga County Bible Society, the first organ- ized in the State of New York, two years before the Ameri- can Bible Society, and Judge Lockwood's name appears as one of the originators and directors, of whom he was the last survivor. The stand he took, as these incidents indi- cate, he maintained through life. His influence and liber- ality were extended toward promoting the scheme which resulted in the establishment of the Illinois College, and he secured its location at Jacksonville, where are also three other State institutions which he took an active part in Monroe a commission appointing him Receiver of Public Moneys at the land office in Edwardsville. This commis- sion was, in itself, as unexpected as it was unsought, and the salary of Secretary being small while that of Receiver was liberal, and had attached to it a percentage on re- ceipts. These considerations induced him to resign the former office and accept the latter. At the next session of the State Legislature, 1824-25, he was elected Judge of the Supreme Court of the State; and, although he was nomi- nated against his expressed wishes, he accepted the position and held it until the State Constitution of 1848 came into operation, under which new judges were elected by the people. In 1826 he was married to Mary Virginia Nash, of St. Louis county, Missouri, the amiable and excellent wife who now mourns for him, and whom he so long loved and admired. In 1829 he removed to Jacksonville, and in 1853 from thence to Batavia, Kane county, where he died. He was sent from Morgan county as delegate to the Con- stitutional Convention of 1848, in which he was Chairman of the Committee on the Executive. In 1851 he was ap- pointed by the Legislature Trustee of the Land Depart- ment of the Illinois Central Railroad, and as such he acted until his death. The place he occupied in the history of Illinois is indicated by the numerous offices of high position and trust which have been conferred upon him and held by him for over half a century, despite his distaste for every- thing like office-seeking, and never putting himself forward organizing-the Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind and the Insane-and was on the first board of trustees of each, besides being President of the Board of College Trustees. In every place where he resided in the State his influence has been indeed a strong, steady, and reliable power for good, always on the side of freedom, temperance, morality, and the main-spring of them all-Christianity. For the last twenty-one years of his life Judge Lockwood resided in Batavia, in honored old age enjoying his quiet home on the pleasant banks of the Fox river, and rejoicing in everything tending to advance the material or moral prosperity of the State he had loved so long and served so faithfully. On the 23d of April, 1874, he passed away in death as quiet and peaceful as his life had been. for any official post. In the anti-slavery controversy over the question of a State convention in 1823 he took an active part, and contributed materially to the support and editorial efficiency of the Edwardsville Spectator, one of the two papers that took decided ground for freedom in the State of Illinois. Though never an active partisan, he was fully identified with the Whig party till 1855, when he with the majority of that section in politics helped to form the Republican party. It is to be specially noted that many of the offices he held werc conferred upon him by administrations with whom he was not in political sym- pathy. In Governor Ford's "History of Illinois," the following appears in reference to Judge Lockwood: " In 1820 was fought the first and last duel in Illinois. One of the parties fell mortally wounded; the other was tried and convicted of murder, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law by hanging. Judge Lockwood was then State OORE, DAVID N., M. D., was born in Waterloo, Monroe county, Illinois, March Ist, 1827. His father, Enoch Moore, a native of Illinois, was born near Waterloo, in 1783, and was the first male child born in the Territory. His mother was born near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1788, and in 1793 emigrated with her father, Colonel William Whiteside, to Illinois. They were married at Whiteside Station, Illinois, in 1803. Enoch Moore was a member of the first Constitutional Convention convened in that State, Attorney and prosecuted the case. To his talents and success as a prosecutor the people are indebted for this early precedent and example, which did more than is generally known to prevent the barbarous practice of duel- ing from being introduced into the State." Also in the chapter on a somewhat bitter controversy that occurred between the executive and the judicial departments of the State, in 1840, Governor Ford says : " It is due to truth to say that Judges Wilson and Lockwood were in every respect amiable and accomplished gentlemen, and com- and was also a member of the first Legislature. For a

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great many years he was Probate Judge, and for a long | made Demonstrator of Anatomy and given entire control time Circuit Clerk. He died, June 20th, 1848. David N. acquired his education in a school at Waterloo, then con- ducted by Professor Scarritt. At the age of eighteen he left that institution and became engaged in farming, an avocation at which he continued until 1849. He then moved to California, where he resided during the ensuing four years. On his return from the Pacific coast he entered the St. Louis Medical College, where he graduated. In 1854 he began the practice of his profession in Carlyle, Illinois, which place has since been his home. In Febru- ary, 1862, he entered the service of the United States as Surgeon of the 30th Regiment of Illinois Infantry, and served with this command for two years. He was a par- ticipant at the battles of Forts Henry and Donelson, and at Shiloh. He took part also in the siege of Corinth, and in the march through Mississippi with General U. S. Grant, in 1862. He went from there to Memphis and to Lake Providence, returning ultimately to Corinth and Memphis. He was afterward transferred to the Department of the Arkansas, and stationed in Helena until the winter of 1864, when he was again transferred to Little Rock. Prior to this, however, in the fall of the preceding year, he was ap- pointed Medical Director, and served in that capacity during one year at Helena. He remained at Little Rock until mustered out of the service. At the close of the war he returned to his home and resumed the practice of medi- cine, in which he is now successfully engaged. He is one of the leading citizens of Carlyle, is identified with its prosperity and development, and has filled a number of town offices. He was married in November, 1856, to Mathilda I. Scott, the only daughter of the late Captain Henry Scott, of Carlyle, Illinois.

NDREWS, EDMUND, Surgeon, was born on April 22d, IS24, in Putney, Windham county, Vermont. His father was a clergyman, but his voice failed him and he turned his attention to agriculture, removing to central New York while his son was yet a boy, and Edmund divided his time between labor and study, giving much attention to geology and botany. When seventeen years old he re- moved to the interior of Michigan and spent three years in the backwoods there, preparing himself meanwhile for college. Then he entered the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and went through the course of study in a thoroughly ereditable manner, receiving the degree of A. B. in 1349. Shortly after leaving college he entered the office of Professor Z. Pitcher, at Detroit, then the most eminent physician and surgeon in the State. In 1850 he com- meneed attending leetures in the medieal department of the University of Michigan, and at the end of the first year, although he had not yet graduated in medicine, he was

of the dissecting room. In the following year he finished his medical course and received the degree of M. D., con- tinuing to hold the office of Demonstrator, and adding to his previous duties lectures to the students on Comparative Anatomy. Three years after receiving the degree of A. B. he received that of A. M., and in the year 1854 received the appointment of Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the University. In the year 1853 he married Eliza Taylor, of Detroit. The same year he founded the Michigan State Medical Society, and in connection with it published a new medical periodical entitled the Peninsular Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences. In 1855 he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in Rush Medical College, in Chicago, and removed to that city. At the end of a year he resigned the position and devoted himself to practice, giving his attention especially to surgery. In this early part of his Chicago experience lie, in connection with Robert Kennicott, founded the Chicago Academy of Sci- ences. After much exertion, in connection with a few more earnest men, $60,000 was raised to place the academy on a permanent basis, and he was unanimously elected its Presi- dent. He also assisted in founding the Charity Dispensary. In 1859 he joined with a number of other eminent medical men in establishing the Chicago Medical College, in which he received the appointment of Professor of Surgery. When the war broke out he entered the military service, and was first put on duty as Post Surgeon at Camp Douglas, Chicago. Subsequently he was ordered to the field as Surgeon of the Ist Regiment of Illinois Light Artillery, and joined the army under Generals Grant and Sherman. Although repeatedly urged by General Sherman to accept a promotion to the rank of Brigade Surgeon, he steadily refused, as such promotion would in a great measure remove him from what he chiefly desired, field- practice. After he had been a ycar in the army the pro- fessors of the Chicago Medical College felt the necessity for his presence with them, and petitioned the government to allow him to resign. Their petition was granted, his resignation accepted and he returned to his college duties and private practice. He has made several important improvements in surgical practice, and has been specially successful in the cure of deformities.

AGENSELLER, SAMUEL, M. D., of Pekin, Illi- nois, was born in Montgomery county, Pennsylva- nia, in tlie year 1824, and after receiving his ednea- tion, in the Mifflinburg University, emigrated to Illinois in 1850. He entered Pennsylvania Col- lege to prepare for the medical profession, from which he graduated in the spring of 1854, and has since then been residing in Pekin, having an extensive practice. In 1859 he married Isabella Runkin, of Illinois.

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ILL, EDWARD J., Lawyer, was born in New York, and is now about forty-five years of age. He graduated from the University of Vermont in the class of 1843. He then began the study of law, but turned his attention to banking, then to general merchandise, forwarding and shipping, by which means he speedily acquired a thorough under- standing of commercial matters. His practice as a lawyer did not begin until about 1859 or 1860, when he opened an office at Milwaukee. His efforts were then crowned with success, and he soon acquired an enviable reputation as an able and persistent lawyer. In 1869 he established his office in Chicago. Of late years he has departed from the usual track, the practice in the courts, and turned his attention to theoretical law. He has already published three volumes, which competent judges pronounce the most thorough and practical works ever produced on this side of the Atlantic. They constitute a complete set of practice works adapted to the law of procedure in this State. No other State has ad- hered more closely to English practice than Illinois; the practice here is, therefore, of great practical value, since, resting on English precedent, it involves the entire seope and history of English jurisprudence.

was a line of not more than eighty miles, indifferently built and poorly equipped ; to-day it is one of the most prosperous of the great trunk lines of the country. In October, 1858, he was made General Superintendent of the line, a position which he has since held. Up to that time the road had been completed to Janesville, ninety miles from Chicago, and from Minnesota Junction to Oshkosh, leaving a gap be- tween the two sections of fifty-seven miles. During the following year this gap was filled, the section of fifty-seven miles being built and equipped in less than ninety days, and completed railway communication from one of the richest agricultural regions of Wisconsin to Chicago, destined to become the great shipping-point of the Northwest. Under the supervision of Mr. Dunlap the Chicago & Northwestern Company extended its branches in all sections, and brought under its control many other subsidiary lines. In the short period of eleven years, from 1856 to 1867, it grew from a simple line of eighty miles to a corporation embracing in its control over twelve hundred miles of road, splendidly built and as splendidly equipped. In all this time Mr. Dunlap's administration was characterized by vigorous enterprises, and by prudent and able executive management, adding day by day such improvements as were necessary not only to meet but to anticipate the demands of increasing business. In person Mr. Dunlap is tall and well-proportioned; and in manner he is graceful and affable. He is a man of generous impulses, and of liberal views. His taste for the mechanie arts is marked, and his practical knowledge of the details of the vast business which he controls has mainly contributed to the success which has crowned his management of the road. He constructed for his own use a miniature locomo- tive, which is a fine specimen of his mechanical ingenuity and skill. It is large enough for road service, and his tours of supervision over the lines are made by him upon it. In 1875 he was appointed City Marshal, but he accepted it only temporarily and soon resigned. In 1853 he married Ellen Pond, of Boston.

UNLAP, GEORGE L., General Superintendent of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, was born in Brunswick, Maine, October 25th, 1828, and was early in life left an orphan. He was adopted into the family of Mr. Belknap, of Port- land, a prominent railroad contractor and con- structor, and from this gentleman he early acquired a taste for railroad engineering and superintendence, which was destined to shape his after life. He studied civil engineer- ing, and often obtained permission to join surveying parties, from whom he received much practical instruction. His industry and aptitude attracted the attention of Charles Minot, General Superintendent of the Boston & Maine Railroad Company, who installed him in the Boston office, RICKER, JONATHAN, M. D., was born in Lan- easter county, Pennsylvania, January 12th, 1813. His parents were natives of Pennsylvania, and his ancestors, well-known pioneers of this State, were among the earlier settlers who reclaimed the country from its savage inhabitants. He was edu- cated in the High School of Lebanon, and at the comple- tion of his preliminary studies began the study of medicine under the guidance of his older brother, whose assistant he became after three years of study, attending subsequently the Jefferson Medical College, at Philadelphia. He then began the practice of his profession at Lebanon, where he resided until 1843, removing afterward to Mansfield, Ohio, resuming here his professional labors. For a period of four years, while his family remained in Mansfield, he practised when but twenty years of age, as confidential clerk. Here he remained four years, and so satisfactorily performed his duties that upon the appointment of Mr. Minot as Superin- tendent of the Erie Railway in 1852 he secured to Mr. Dunlap the responsible position of General Ticket Agent of the same road, a position which he filled with ability and integrity. After four years of honorable service in this office he resigned his portfolio to accept promotion in the West, and in 1856 entered upon his duties as Assistant Engineer and General Superintendent of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, with his head-quarters in Chicago, and from that time to the present he has been closely identified with the history of that city and the progress of railway enterprise in the Northwest, growing with the rapid growth of the great corporation with which he became connected. Then it | medicine in California, principally at Sacramento, whence

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he moved to Fort Wayne. Later, failing health prompted a removal to the South, but the outbreak of the civil war compelled him to abandon this idea, and upon the repre- sentations of a friend hc established his office at Carbondale, Illinois, which is now his home and the scene of his suc- cessful labors. In all the places visited by him he has in- variably secured the good-will and respect of the inhabitants, and his standing in the profession has always been an honor- able one. He is now in his old age assisted ably by his son, Dr. William Bricker, who, apart from his father's prac- tice, has an extensive business of his own. He has always been a zealous Mason, and his position in the order is prom- inent and influential. He was married in 1836 to Henrietta Elizabeth Mercer, of Pennsylvania.

NOWHOOK, WILLIAM B., Lawyer, was born in Ireland in 1817, and when but eight years of age came to New York without the aid of rela- tives or friends. He commenced reading law at an early date, constantly carrying on at the same time, however, some other business. While in the East he was a contractor, and subsequently pursued the same business in connection with William B. Ogden and others on the Lake Michigan Canal. IIe has also been in the commission business and various other pursuits, but never failed to apply himself to his legal studics. Under Po'k and Pierce he was Collector of Customs, and has held other public offices of trust and consequence. In 1857 he was admitted to the bar, and subsequently spent two years in the law department of the Chicago University, an institu- tion from which he graduated with honor. At the present time he is an able, respected and successful practitioner.

HEATON, JESSE C., Merchant, was born in Pom- fret, Windham county, Connecticut, March 27th, 1813. He is the son of James Wheaton and Nancy (Lyon) Wheaton, who were married in 1806, and settled subsequently in Pomfret. His father was a soldier in the war of 1812, his grand- father a veteran of the struggle for independence. In 1833 he learned the trade of a carpenter and joiner, and then went to Worcester, where he worked at his trade during the succeeding two years. At the expiration of this period he removed to Illinois, locating near Warrenville, Du Page county, where, in addition to working at his trade, he en- gaged in farming. He afterward made his home on the spot known now as the Du Page County Fair Grounds, having in ready cash about three hundred dollars, which he employed in pre-empting one hundred and sixty acres of land. The town of Wheaton, now the county-seat of Du Page county, was laid off by the Wheaton brothers, and

named by J. B. Turner in honor of them. The direct source of the present prosperity of the town as a business place, as also of its fine educational development, may be justly at- tributed to the labors and beneficial influence of the Wheaton family. He was mainly instrumental in 1852 in securing the establishment here of the Wesleyan Methodist College, now known as the Wheaton College, and became one of the heaviest subscribers to the construction fund of that in- stitute. As a political partisan he has been prominently identified with the Whig, Free Soil and Republican parties, and in 1836 voted for the Whig Presidential candidate; in 1840 for James G. Birney, the abolitionist Presidential can- didate, who received but four votes in Du Page county. For casting his vote for the latter he received many taunts and reproaches, but time and experience has since vindi- cated and made popular the judgment of those four voters of Du Page county, who, foreseeing the impending trouble, deemed it best to precipitate an inevitable issue. From 1862 to 1870 he was Assistant Assessor, and for twelve years officiated as a School Director. IIe was married, March 26th, 1839, to Orinda Gary, daughter of William Gary, and by her has had the following children : Lora A., born December 24th, 1839, a graduate of Weaton College, and now Principal of the Abingdon College, Knox county, Illinois; Maria N., born March 13th, 1841, now the wife of R. A. Morrison, of Kankakee, Illinois; Jesse C., Jr., born August 30th, 1842, now engaged in farming and agricul- tural pursuits near Wheaton; Ellen F., born August 13th, 1844, died June 23d, 1854; Mary E., born October 16th, 1846, now the wife of Henry Hewes, of Crete, Will county, Illinois ; James M., born August 17th, 1848, now attending Evanston College; Washington, born August 17th, 1850, now a student at the Wheaton College; Franklin E., born July 12th, 1852, now teaching school in Lisle township; Frankie E., born July 28th, 1854, now attending Wheaton College.

AN ARMAN, JOHN, Lawyer, was born in Platts- burg, New York, in about 1818. Ile removed thence to Marshall, Michigan, and there com- menced the practice of his profession. He first obtained prominence several years ago in Michi- gan at the time of the notorious conspiracy against the Michigan Central Railroad, when he was employed by the company to work up the case and to assist in its prose- cution. On this occasion he secured the confidence of the leaders of the movement, joined the organization, and thus came to a knowledge of all the secrets of the conspirators. At the time of trial he assisted in the prosecution of the case, and alternated his duties in this direction by taking the stand as a witness for the State. Since his residence in Chicago he has won a prominent and leading position as a criminal lawyer. His notable characteristics are industry, patience and indefatigable energy. Quick to adapt himself

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The biographical encyclopedia of Illinois of the nineteenth century, Part 89

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