" ^o' ^°-nJ.. '.' .'^'"^ %^f.^:'c,^" V'^^^V "<.*-^^".c.^ -^^^^J^'.V^ %;':f.^"^V.^ ^--^.^^ •_c«SS^,a'.. ^ -_.V ^'.^52^!,^ ■'-^t..^- oV'^Ma'- '»bv.-^' :'^^'' "-^-^0^' "^''^K-. -^bv^ >'''^*, "^-j ^.^;^.'^ ^. -^^s ^^mi^^^, "-^^o<- °''^^'-. "^ov^' :^^.* ""-^^o^' oV^i^'- '-^-^^-^^ * .0 ^°''<^. . ' .0 • v*-/ .j^-.x^^^' .^.•. %-••••>... ..\^x. ..%•-••••■/ 1 V'^^ tl." ■ * T^ .^^-^ . « \. -^*- ^;^'% ^''vVA-oX 4.-^^^;^'% ^"►iVA-oX r/ ^^'% °-^^./\.'- *^o^ 0' % *•" «f° . ■> V • ' • " " " .^ .v-^ THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY PORTRAIT GALLERY Eminent and Self-made } ILLINOIS VOLUME. CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: AMERICAN BIOGRAPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co., PRorRiETORS. 1883. T-' PREFACE. IN 1876, the American Biographical Publishing Company issued the first volume of the United States Biographical Dictionary for the state of Illinois. The success which attended that work, and the universal satisfaction which it gave, together with the rapid material devel- opment of our s.tate, and the large class of her successful, self-made men, who had grown up, decided the publishers in undertaking the preparation of a second volume. That the decision was a wise one, the result of their labors, they have reason to believe, has abundantly proved. While engaged in the preparation and publication of this volume, a constant and strong incentive has been the belief that theirs was a praiseworthy work, the fruits of which could not but supply a pressing need and command public commendation. Had it been otherwise, and had the only motive for their risk of capital and enormous expenditure of time and labor been the hope of pecuniary profit, they certainly could not have felt themselves justified in the undertaking. In some instances, sketches which appeared in the former volume, have been reproduced in this, with certain changes, but the great bulk of the present work comprises the biographies of men who have attained to prominence or success, that have not heretofore appeared in any state work. Until within a comparatively recent period, recording and preserving biographies has been confined to the few, the great or noted, while the history of that vast army of workers, whose life- struggles, whose defeats and whose successes have contributed so largely to our national growth, and become so intimately identified with our institutions, has been passed over without comment, unnoticed and unsung. That such should have been the case was but natural, as the outgrowth of that spirit of hero-worship, which in times past has so universally prevailed ; that spirit which could sacrifice the multitude in the elevation and adoration of the few. But ours is a practical age, an age in which every man, nerved by independence and inspired by freedom, may be a hero, and as a natural sequence, we find on every hand those, who, meeting the varied phases of life, struggling against adversity, or rejoicing in the calm repose of prosperity, have developed in themselves independent, sturdy manhood ; and to preserve a record of their lives, both that they may be kept in remembrance, and that others may be profited and inspired by their example, is paying them only a just and merited tribute. In selecting the men that are represented in this work, the publishers have carefully avoided confining them to any class, and endeavored to fairly represent the various professions and call- iv PREFACE. ings, without favoritism. Their aim has been to avoid proHxity, and abridge the sketches to a plain recital of tlie leading facts and characteristics in the lives of those whose biographies are recorded ; and while they have earnestly sought to bestow merited compliments, they have as scrupulously endeavored to eliminate all fulsome praise. The facts contained in the various sketches have been obtained by personally interviewing the parties, and by consulting records, and in order to secure correctness, each sketch has been sub- mitted for approval before publication. The portraits a.ve /ai- similes of approved photographs of the subjects, wrought in the highest style of the engraver's art. Every effort has been made by the publishers to render the work as perfect and complete as possible, and while they would not delude themselves with the thought that it is faultless, they yet have reason to hope for the com- mendation of their patrons, and feel content to abide by the impartial judgment of a reasonable and generous public. THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY ILLINOIS VOLUME. HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. THE ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, is traced back to Samuel Lincoln, a native of Hingham, Norfolk county, England, he coming to this country in 1637, and settling in Hingham, Massachusetts. From this hardy New England stock came the great statesman who was to rule more than thirty millions of people, and finally die the death of a martyr in the cause of the federal union. Abraham Lincoln was a son of Thomas and Nancy (Hanks) Lincoln, and was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. When he was eight years of age, the family moved to Spencer county, Indiana, near the present town of Gentryville, and where the mother died two years afterward, a loss to our subject which he could not then fully realize. He was soon placed under the care of a step-mother. Before he had entered upon his teens he became quite helpful on his father's farm, and with alacrity addressed himself to any task assigned him. At the same time he began to exhibit a fondness for reading, and to this fact he owed his final and great exaltation in public life. At eighteen years of age he built a flat-boat, and made his first trip to a down-river market, and the next year he took a flat-boat to the New Orleans market, narrowly escaping death at the hand of men "whom his proclamation years afterward liberated from slavery." In March, 1830, the family moved to Macon county, Illinois, where Abraham earned his living for a short time by splitting rails and other farm labor. There his father died in January, 1831. In 1832 he was the captain of a company in the Black Hawk war. Subsequently he was a merchant's clerk, a merchant and postmaster of Salem, a village now extinct, two miles from Petersburgh, Menard county. This latter village he replatted, and did other surveying in that vicinity. While at Salem he served two or three terms in the legislature, which met at Vandalia, and he walked a hundred miles to attend each session. The man who kept the postoffice for Mr. Lincoln while the latter was taking his first lessons in the school of legislation is now a shoemaker at Petersburgh, and the writer of this sketch had an interview with him in the spring of 1883. This humble cordwainer, with whom Mr. Lincoln also boarded at one time, bears unqualified testimony to the lionesty, frankness and whole-souled cordiality of "Old Abe," although he did not expect, forty-five years ago, to ever see him reach the White House. In the legislature Mr, Lincoln met Mr. Douglas, the one a whig, the other a democrat, and they eventually became rivals for the United States senate and chief magistracy of the nation. During these years Mr. Lincoln gave more or less attention to the study of law, and in April, 1837, moved to Springfield, and began practice with Hon. John T. Stewart. His career as a law- yer the world knows by heart. In 1838 he was again sent to the legislature, and took a very prominent part in the debates. He was returned to the same body in 1840. 2 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. In 1842 he married Mary Todd, of Lexington, Kentucl ™='^'= ^^^atterea along the fu. nation in the world. Soon after the «"r ndetin the triur h '"f \ ''™^^''^ '"^ '"'''""• ^^''' "'^ "°^' P"""" Constitution was adopted, the confederZn o 't e av ^ a^ltTursh^r^ f'", ^'""'"" f^'''^ ''^ ^"'°"^' the efficiency of a national government. ^' '"" '"'^""■" "^ P""" "^^"''^' '° For centuries human slaverv, with all its horrors had pvUto.i ;„ 1 . lioi :::3^= ";:::::-;r^re:"Th":::::::7.;f ^^°^^" " ■r-r-" '- '^-^ -"-- - ^--^ -■- in the valley of the Mississioni Am ^ ^ h k government had forsaken the sea coast, and was seated of ourhisti; th:ct:::r:as ^:^i^:;iz:^^Tr'-^ -1°"^'- "'^"'°^"^- ^''''-'---' years of war and devastation with horror. Th^tTon paLed thr^.^th T V'" 7"- '"' '°''' '''^' "P"" "^°^^ at great cost of treasure and blood -treasure and b"od whfch reor s ^'^ H^^ ■ "^'"'^'"■^'^ "^ '"''^^"'y' '"-8^ bondage four miHions of human souls, and to ^^t:^::^:^:^:!^:-^'^^::::^'^ '^ ''"''' "°'" which has left the count'ry in an e.xcited cond.t r": ing L th unpreceZtd'c'r^'' ' T\ T' ''T"°" °"""^' ;=;: -t: t^r'""^ ^t"^ '- '" -'— --- ofT :::^r::-^r [h:'^ :^ ;:^i:^: .led by reason and not by violence. The people of the nation mTst IL^ Z ^ ce of" hi ::i7"s; f L^t ,^1 ^ UNITED STATES- BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 2 J can people in another war. One attempt has been made to destroy this country and dissolve the Union, by a portion of the people when they were dissatisfied with the result as declared at the polls. That struggle cost the country ten thousand millions of dollars in property and labor, and a million men in battle, a fearful price for refusal to abide the decision of the ballot. As citizens of the state of Illinois, we claim the right to hold our elections in our own way; giving all our people a fair and equal chance to cast their votes. We claim the right to prescribe the manner in which our polls shall be purged of fraudulent votes, and how and by whom the result of our elections shall be ascertained and announced. All these things we regulate by the laws made by our state legislature, and when the result is so ascertained and announced we expect it to be respected, as well by our own citizens as by others. While we claim these rights for our own state, we concede the same to every other state in the Union; and insist that when the people of any state have held an elec- tion, and the result has been ascertained and announced by the persons and in the manner provided by the laws of such state, that result shall be respected everywhere as the will of the people of that state. The people, without regard to party, owe it to themselves and the country to purify the ballot box, and protect it from fraud; the people owe it to themselves, in the interest of good government, to favor all lawful means, the object of which is to secure a free and honest ballot and the protection of the citizen in his right to cast it. Fraudulent voting is worse than no voting, and unless a man is allowed to vote his sentiments his vote is a falsehood and a fraud. All the messages of the Governor show that he has a vigilant eye to the wants and welfare of the great state, at the head of which he stands, and that he possesses in a large measure, the pro- gressive spirit of the age. He seems to fully understand that the stability of our free institutions rests upon the intelligence of the people; hence, in public addresses made on more than one occa- sion, he has strongly advocated the system of compulsory education. These views he is fearless in expressing, and in them no doubt has the sympathy of the larger class of right-minded, reflect- ing citizens of the state. What is now being done for the cause of education, may be inferred from a fact stated by the governor, in an address made at the State Dairy Association, in December, 1881. The last legis- lature, he said, appropriated $6,140,272 for the fiscal years 1881 and 1882. "At the very outset," added the governor, "$2,175,000 of the 6,000,000, go to the support of the common and normal schools of the state." Happy is the commonwealth that can expend that sum in free schools without feeling it. Illinois can do it, and add another hundred thousand if necessary, to estab- lish and enforce the system of compulsory education. I noticed, a few days ago, that our worthy commissioners of internal revenue report that Illinois pays an internal revenue tax of nearly twenty-six millions of dollars for 1S81, which is six and a half millions more than is paid by any other state, and which is one-fifth of the whole amount collected in the United States, while our population is only about one-sixteenth. The industries of any country, in order to be profitable, must be diversified, and in our state thev are becoming more and more so. The time is coming soon when our state will not be so distinctively an agricultural state in contrast with other interests. It will not be long before it will be a great manufacturing state. Our soil is rich almost beyond comparison, and because we have the soil and can produce the food in abundance, your towns will become manufacturing towns, and your beautiful streams in this portion of the state will be utilized, and great mechani- cal industries will spring up all over this country, and you will have a market at your doors fcr your products, and your lands will, in a short time, be doubled in value. The farmers' interests are closely identified with all the great business interests of the country. The people of this great country cannot all engage in the same business and expect to prosper. They cannot all raise corn or make butter and find a market for either. The world is made up of all sorts of people, and they must carry forward all sorts of honest business if they would prosper and be happy, and the man engaged in any one kind of business is, in some degree, interested in every other. We have in this country the cotton, the wool, t'le iron, the copper and lead, and, in fact, all the raw material in the greatest abundance, out of which to manufacture every article of use known to human life, and it is the policy of this country to encourage our own home industries. By so doing we develop our own resources, and create a home market for our surplus products. Protection to American industry does not mean protection to the mechanic and artisan alone, or to the capitalist engaged in manufacturing, but it means protection to the common laborer, in fair wages, and to the agriculturist by giving him a home demand for his products. But diver- sified labor and pursuits will not enable us to reach our highest possible plane of prosperity unless our facilities for transportation and the extension of our commercial relations are also perfected. It is now a conceded fact, in the dis- cussion of the transportation question, that water navigation, in a measure, regulates and controls the rates for carry- ing freights, and therefore, it is our duty to protect and improve our rivers, lakes and canals. They are of late claiming the attention of our best business men and ablest statesmen. 28 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Governor Cullom is an impassioned speaker, and when the occasion and the cause demand it, can be decidedly eloquent. We have before us a speech of his made at Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 1868, at a reunion of soldiers of Illinois, who had participated in any of the struggles in which the state or the nation had been engaged. After referring to the soldiers of the revolution whose honored forms are seen no more, he thus alluded to the soldiers of 1812, and the later Indian campaigns: Of another class, a few scattered and honored remnants still remain among us, and I am glad to see a few repre- sentatives here to-day. I mean the soldiers of the war of 1S12. They, too, are passing away; but the memory of the deeds which they performed in resisting the encroachments of an arrogant foreign power, will never pass away. They are a part of history, and have left their stamp indelibly impressed upon the memory and in the gratitude of the nation. As they go down the declivity of life, their evening sun shines upon them with renewed splendor, while the bow of promise, reflected from the dark clouds of civil war that so recently spanned all our heavens, overarches their honored heads. In larger numbers and in more vigorous presence we meet, face to face, with those who participated in the Winne. bago campaign of 1827, and in the three Black Hawk campaigns of 1831-2. But death has thinned your ranks during these latter years. Whereare Duncan and VVhitesides, Reynolds, Mills, DeWitt, Fry, Thomas, Casey, Anderson, Breese. Ford and others? All gone to that " undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." There, too, was that grand figure, now grown to be the grandest in modern history, who with ever youthful spirit, shared to the utmost the dangers, excitements and amusements of the frontier camp, the genial friend, the popular and high-minded citizen, the persuasive and convincing orator, the earnest and incorruptible statesman, the man who took upon his shoulders the burdens of a nation in the most perilous period of its history, the martyred president, Abraham Lincoln. In January, 1883, Governor Cullom was elected to the United States senate, and is about to enter upon a new field of intellectual labor, where his statesmanship will have a fine opportunity to test its powers. The parents of Senator Cullom were members of the Methodist Episcopal church, to which he is strongly attached, but with his family he attends the Presbyterian church, of which his wife is a member. He has been twice married: first, December 12, 1855, to Miss Hannah Fisher, by whom he has two daughters; and the second time. May 5, 1863, to Julia Fisher; they have had two chil- dren, neither of whom is now living. JAMES B. WALLER. CHICAGO. THE Waller family of Virginia were descended from, the English family of that name, of which Sir William Waller, the distinguished parliamentary general in the time of Crom- well, and the poet, Edmund Waller, were members. A member of the English family immigrated to America about the time of the restoration, and settled in Spottsylvania county, Virginia. Two of his descendants, John and William Edmund Waller, became eminent in that county as Baptist preachers. John was a man of great eloquence, and during the persecution of Dissenters by the Church of England in the latter part of the last century, he was imprisoned by reason of the excitement produced by his efforts. This did not silence him, however. He persisted in his holy work, and preached through prison bars to large and enthusiastic crowds, so that his persecutors found it best to release him. His younger brother, William Edmund, remained in the ministry over fifty years, and was very highly esteemed. He was the father of five sons, two of whom were also Baptist ministers, and all of whom resided in Kentucky. One of them, named Richard, was the father of C. S. Waller, who was assistant auditor of Kentucky for a number of years, and recently a commis- sioner of public works for Chicago, an office he is well known to have filled with distinguished ability and success. The youngest son, William S. Waller, was cashier of the Bank of Kentucky, at Frankfort, and at Lexington, for upwards of forty years, and died in 1855. His four sons removed many years ago to Chicago. One of them, William, died in 1880, and the others, Henry, James B. and /. (Ji--'V->-T-<--#' ^ ^ouJ/^ UNITED STATES BIOGRA PIllCA I. DIC J lONARY. . 31 Edward Waller, are still residents of this city. The latter, the youngest, was from 1853 to 1866 an active member of the late firm of Lees and Waller, of New York, who ranked high among the first merchants of that city, and who acted there as agents of the Bank of California, when it was most successful and prosperous. The second son of William S. Waller was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 20, 181 7. His boyhood was spent in that city, and on his father's farm in the suburbs. His early edu- cation was under the personal supervision of his mother, by whom he was taught the English branches. At the age of eleven he entered the classical school at Frankfort of Keen O'Harra, a teacher of large reputation in Kentucky and adjoining states, and afterward, in 1830, entered the preparatory department of Center College, at Danville, Kentucky, where he remained until 1834. In 1835 he entered the junior class of Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, where he graduated in the fall of 1836, at the age of nineteen. His parents having designed him for the law, upon his return from Oxford he entered at once upon its study in the law department of Transylvania University, in Lexington, and received his diploma from that institution in 1838. He was admitted to the bar the same year, and began the practice of the law at Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he remained for several years, in partnership with Warner L. Underwood, who became a member of congress from that district, and whose brother, Judge Underwood, was for many years a mem- ber of the United States senate from Kentucky. In 1842, while in successful practice at Bowling Green, he received a proposal from Hon. Thomas F. Marshall, then in congress as a representa- tive from the Ashland District, of a law partnership at Lexington. He accepted the offer, and for about two years they practiced together at the same bar with Hon. Henry Clay, Chief -Justice Robertson, and other distinguished lawyers. Thomas F. Marshall was at that time the most brilliant member of the Kentucky bar, and one of the most celebrated orators of America, and the influence of his brilliant genius over his young law partner was marked, and did much to fashion and develop his natural gifts as a public speaker. A personal acquaintance also with Henry Clay, and an enthusiastic admiration of the genius of that great man, was not without its formative influence upon him. With the natural gifts with which nature had endowed him, heightened by the favorable associations of his early life, and developed by a thorough education, Mr. Waller was prepared for a brilliant career in his chosen profession. He was, however, of a retiring disposition, domestic in his tastes, and studious in his habits, added to which he lacked the inspiration which is born of poverty and necessity. Hence he became eminent as a counsel- or rather than brilliant as an advocate, and for twenty years he stood high in his native state as an attorney and counselor at law. But at length an event took place which, by adding largely to his fortune, and also demanding the larger portion of his time, curbed his ambition for forensic or political honors, and finally caused his entire withdrawal from the bar. This was the sudden death of his brother-in-law, R. S. C. A. Alexander, a gentleman of great wealth, owner of the celebrated farm of Woodburn, Kentucky, and the fine old estate of Airdrie, Scotland. Mr. Waller became united in marriage in February, 1847, to Miss Lucy Alexander, the daugh- ter of Robert Alexander, formerly in the private office of Benjamin Franklin at the court of France, and for many years subsequently president of the Bank of Kentucky at Frankfort, Ken- tucky, of which Mr. Waller's father was for over forty years cashier. He was a man of fine lite- rary attainments, and very elevated character, and the union of the two families by this marriage was looked upon as a very fortunate and happy event. Upon the death of his brother-in-law, which occurred in December, 1867, Mr. Waller and a brother of his wife, A. J. Alexander, entered as executors upon the administration of his immense estate in trust for the heirs. Mr. Alexander died a bachelor, and his property was left by will to his brother John and his two sis- ters and their children. To the management of this estate the later years of Mr. Waller's life have been mainly devoted. Withdrawing entirely from the practice of his profession, he spent the time unused in the care of his estate, in the rearing and education of his large family of chil- dren, in the congenial pursuit of learning, and the pleasing pastime of literary effort. In 1849 Mr. Waller visited Chicago for the first time, bringing with him a considerable sum of 4 ^2 . UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. money for investment in real estate. This lie did so satisfactorily that his own fortune is quite competent for any probable strain upon it. He brought with him letters of introduction from Henry Clay and other prominent Kentuckians, which insured him a most flattering reception among the foremost men of the city, and gave him the " inside track " in his intended invest- ments. He did not, however, settle here at that time, but returned again to Kentucky and to the practice of his profession. In 1851 and 1852, with his family, he visited Airdrie, Scotland, making the tour of England, also, and spending some time at the home of Mrs. Waller's uncle, in London, Thomson Han- key, the then governor of the Bank of England. On his return he again resumed his practice, and it was not till six years later, in 1858, that he removed to Chicago with his family. After becoming finally settled here, he entered into a copartnership with his brother Edward, and brother-in-law, James Lees, who were commission merchants in New York city, to open a general commission business, under the firm name in Chicago of Waller and Company, and of Lees and Waller in New York. This firm continued in business for several years, during which the partners had made money, and Mr. Waller's fortune was considerably increased. But it was thought prudent during the dark days of the war in 1863 to dissolve, and avoid the immense risk of the future. Mr. Waller accordingly withdrew from the firm. , Mr. Waller was reared in the Presbyterian faith, and has always been prominent in its coun- cils and a foremost man in Bible and Sunday-school work. His present church connection is with the Fullerton Avenue Church, Rev. H. N. Collison, past'^^^^ "^ ''■^^' aid of instruction, for at that Um'e none -to'bhal wU^: r^' T'' ''" '^' ^^^''"" '''' means to e.xpend on traveling and tuitio He M u "^ '^"'^"'^"- ^"^ ^^ ^^^ "° by slow degLs acquired cofsrderab .Tp ofict. Tn tl^t^' ^^^ ''^T '' '^ '''"'' ^"'^ for about five years as an artist. Within this time he found "^ "^""^ ''" ''^'' many of the most intelligent people and had n ^h f • oPP°>-tun.ty to be in the society of time he turned his atteuLn to study"' law think ■;" '^iT''- °"""^ "^^ '""^'" P^" °^ 'h^ P.ine his mind, but with no thoug fof fv^r prac tcinfl' J" F J' '^ '■'' '"""'^^"'^^ ^"^ ^•^'^'- he read law with John W. Cotton and fin dlv tn T^^ ^^^ ^"^ '"' ''''^' '"'° ^°""' V*^™""' ted to the bar. ' '"• ' '" ''^5, ^vhen twenty-four years old, he was admit- Mr. North practiced a short time at Mount Vernon- came f„Tir ■■ o year in Peoria, and then settled in Princeton r °" ' ^'^'"'^ '" ^"'"^'s ,n 1847 ; resided nearly a several local offices. In i860 he moved tK "'" T""'"'' ''''''''' '" '"^ '«"- P'^^^ ^e held for a do.en or more years, h was quTt uct^^ult; Ts )'' '''"'' "^^^^ '''' '''-'' ^"^ -'--' " North's Probate Practic;," the first work of thU ^^ P^-^^^^^-"- Here, in 1874, he completed Illinois. °'^ "^ '^' '^'"d having any value adapted to the laws of Mr. North never subordinates the man tr^ tu 1 his neighbors for the sake of businesT He s a n7" \ ""'"' ''"^^'' '° '"' "P ^'"^^ ^-°"g litigation, and thinks the lawyer should .'' ^.P^^'^7^'^^'' "'here justice can be done without yer Should honor his profession rather than the profession honor UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTION/IKY. 43 him. He is of a judicial turn of mind, and considers justice the true aim rather than successful advocacy. In the autumn of 1870 he was elected to the lower house of the general assembly, and during the next two vears he represented Henry county in that body. It was a very important period in the legislative history of the state, it being necessary to adapt the statutes to the new constitution, and make many important changes in other respects, and to call an extra session on account of the Chicago fire, October, 187 i. The consequence was that Mr. North had to attend the regular session, an adjourned session, and two extra sessions, and his legislative labors kept him from attending courts a year and a half. He is one of the few who held that no one could honestly accept an office whose duties he was unwilling, even at a sacrifice, to perform. The best work of Mr. North in the legislature was done in the bill establishing the house of correction in Chicago, and the penitentiary bill, he being one of the penitentiary committee and one of the foremost members in defeating " ring " measures. In 1867 the Buckmaster and Casey crowd refused to proceed any further under former arrangements with them for maintaining the penitentiary, so at an extra session, a law was passed establishing a system of working the convicts under the supervision and for the benefit of the state. At no former time had the penitentiary been self- supporting, and great brutality had been practiced upon the prisoners. The new plan was humane, but was run at great loss to the state. Politicians were, therefore, growing uneasy about republican extravagance. The present plan was devised by the joint committee of the two houses, and at once passed by the senate; but party lines were drawn in the house, and other schemes were presented, two of which were embodied in the Hough and the Buckmaster bills which were substantially alike. Each was intended to catch a few republican votes and all the opposition support. And it was discovered that the authors of these plans had agreed that which- ever plan, if either, was adopted, they were to be partners in the job. Mr. North figured the probable expense of the 1,439 prisoners, with probable increase, at Joliet, would not be less than $58,000 each year, and would probably reach $75,000 if either of these two bills were adopted. The friends of the respective measures were active, and nearly equal in numbers. The time came for the house committee to report. Two republicans had gone over to the opposition, and two were attending sick families at home, and the opposition had the majority, and were determined to report Buckmaster's bill. And here Mr. North and his fellow republican members of the com- mittee refused to go into committee for several days, notwithstanding the house ordered a report. At last, after much censure, he made a statement showing the facts, and the matter was laid over till the other members arrived, and the senate bill was reported, and at an extra session passed by three majority. The saving to the state in ten years he estimated at $1,000,000. He also led suc- cessfully in the fight against proposed high salaries, about twenty per cent above the present for state officers. His speech on that occasion gave him a large influence with those in favor of mod- erate but just expenditures. He zealously advocated the law requiring saloon keepers to give bonds to pay damages caused by selling or giving away intoxicating liquors, and making them liable to wives, children, etc., of persons made drunk by them, for all injuries to persons, property or means of support. He also caused an amendment to be made in the statute relating to testamen- tary guardians, providing that wills of fathers creating such guardians could not operate to deprive the mother during her life of the custody and tuition of their children, without her consent. Mr. North was originally a democrat; joined the liberty party in 1843; voted for James G. Birney in 1844, and was a free soiler in 1848 and 1854, and has been a republican since there was such a party. While in Ohio he sometimes took the stump, and did valiant service for the cause of the downtrodden slave, but of late years has resorted to the press through which to express his political sentiments. Mr. North is a firm republican, yet independent enough to refuse to vote for an unworthy nominee of his party. He is an independent thinker on all subjects, and asks no man to furnish him with opinions. He is a member of no social organization or sect, and will not be responsible for the acts of others, nor allow others to dictate his conduct. The first wife of Mr. North was Miss Laura Johnson, of Monroe county, Ohio, to whom he , , UNITED STATES BrOGRAPIlICAL DICTIONARV. was married September i8, 1848. She died in 1S52. By her he had one daughter, now the wife of Datican L. Murchison, of Wethersfield. He married his second wife, whose maiden name was Charlotte C. Strong, in 1853. They have had four sons, all now living but the eldest, Milo, who died at twenty-four years of age. Foster and Arthur Tappan are students in the Illinois Indus- trial University, Champaign, and Charles Kelsey is at home. HON. THOMPSON W. McNEELY. PETERSBURGH. THOMPSON WARE McNEELY, a prominent member of the bar in central Illinois, is a son of Robert T. McNeely, a native of Kentucky, and Ann Maria (Ware) McNeely, of the same state. The progenitor of the McNeely family in this country was from the North of Ireland, and was of Scotch-Irish blood. The Wares were of English descent. Thompson was born in Jack- sonville, Illinois, October 5, 1835. He lost his mother in 1839, and soon afterward the family came to Menard county. Robert McNeely was a carpenter in early life, and afterward a mer- chant. He is still living, being in his seventy-eighth year, and is a substantia], much-respected citizen, living with his son in the city of Petersburgh. The subject of this sketch spent one year at Jubilee College, Peoria ; four years at Lombard University, Galesburgh ; was graduated with the degree of bachelor of arts in 1856, and received the degree of master of arts three years later. He studied law in Petersburgh ; was admitted to the bar in 1857, teaching school one term while studying his profession ; attended the law depart- ment of the University of Kentucky, Louisville, and was graduated in March, 1859. He soon rose to the front rank at the county bar, and has been steadily growing for more than a score of years. He has a great deal of criminal practice, in which he has been quite successful. In 1861 Mr. McNeely represented Menard and Cass counties in the constitutional convention, and although then a young man, he took an honorable position among the legal minds in that body. In 1868 his democratic constituents in the old ninth district, composed of Menard, Cass, Mason, Fulton, McDonough, Schuyler, Brown and Pike counties, sent him to the national house of rep- resentatives, and returned him in 1870, he serving from March 4, 1869 to March 4, 1873. He was on the committees on education, labor and weights and measures. In 1879 he was chairman of the democratic state central commit'.ee. HON. GEORGE H. LOCEY. LA SALLE. GEORGE HARVEY LOCEY, lawyer and ex-judge of the city court of La Salle, is a native of Tioga county, New York, and was born in the town of Candor, June 29, 1834. His parents are Isaac V. Locey, farmer and bank director, and Susan (Hart) Locey, both still living in Tioga county. George was educated mainly at Lima, New York, where he prepared for and went through Genesee College, being a graduate of the class of 1856. While pursuing his college course, he taught some in the Wesleyan Seminary, an older institution than the college; and on receiving the degree of bachelor of arts, he went to Tennessee, and taught in the literary department of the University of Nashville. A year or two later he became principal of the male and female academy at Goodletsville, same state, holding that position when the civil war began. In 186 1 he returned to the North. While teaching in Tennessee he gave his leisure time to the study of the law, and was admitted to practice at Nashville in i860. On reaching Illinois, he opened an office at Dixon, where he practiced between one and two years, and in 1863 settled in La Salle, continu- ing the practice of his profession. He was elected judge of the city court; held that office about two years, and then resigned. Latterly he has given considerable attention to mining, having United statRs biographical dictionarw 45 a mine of his own on the Rock Island road, ten miles west of La Salle, with which his office is connected by telephone, by which medium of communication he works the mine. His legal busi- ness is limited to office work, and is largely consultation. Mr. Locey is a well read and sound lawyer, and while in full practice, made a success in his profession; but as in La Salle more money can be made by mining than in the law, and as Mr. Locey is very much like the rest of mankind, he gives the most attention to that calling which yields the largest returns in mint drops, as one of Dickens' characters calls the yellow boys. Our subject is not so fully absorbed in money making as not to leave any time to devote to the interests of his adopted home. At one period he served for three years as president of the board of education, and did all he could to raise the standard of the public schools. He is a man of culture, and of a progressive disposition, and if he was backed up in his efforts to elevate the tone of education, he must have been successful. He has also been mayor of the city, and is one of the leading men. Mr. Locey is a Knight Templar, and held at one time the office of high priest of St. John's Chapter. He was joined in marriage, September i, 1859, with Miss Jennie Ogden, daughter of General Isaac B. Ogden, of Tioga county, New York, and they have one son, Edmund T., aged seventeen years. He is being educated mainly under the eye of his father. T HON. THOMAS B. CABEEN. KEITHSBURG. HOMAS BOYD CABEEN, banker and land owner, is a grandson of Thomas Cabeen. of Ireland, who had seven sons and two daughters, all of whom came to America, and settled in different states. One of these sons was Samuel Cabeen, the father of our subject, who was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1788; crossed the ocean in 1808; was a clerk for an older brother in Bristol, Pennsylvania; married, February 14, 1815, Elizabeth P. Wright, a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania; moved that year to Muskingum county, Ohio; immigrated to Mercer county, Illi- nois, in 1836, and lived in Ohio Grove township until his death, in 1S56, His widow died in 1874, aged eighty-four years. Thomas B. Cabeen was born in Union township, Muskingum county, Ohio, December 15, 1815; received an ordinary English education in Ohio, mainly in private schools; came with the family to Mercer county; learned the carpenter's trade, and worked at it for several years, doing some of the first work of the kind in Keithsburg, in 1845. The first court house in Mercer county was built in 1839, by Mr. Cabeen and Abram B. Sheriff, they receiving $1,400 for the job. It was located at Millersburgh, then the county seat. During this period our subject was also opening, in Ohio Grove township, a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which he sold in 1858 to his uncle, Richard Cabeen, who still owns it. Since 1845 our subject has been a resident of Keithsburg, and a year or two later became a clerk for Noble and Gayle, general merchants, and was holding that post when, in 1848, he was elected clerk of the circuit court, an office which he held until 1856. In 1862 his constituents in Mercer and Henderson counties elected him to the legislature, where he served one term, being chairman of the committee on miscellaneous business, and a member of two or three other com- mittees. For a long period Mr. Cabeen has been largely interested in real estate, and wild as well as improved lands, of which he has between three thousand and four thousand acres, situ- ated in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. He is one of the most reliable, straightforward and success- ful business men in the village. He helped to organize the Farmers' National Bank of Keithsburg, in the spring of 1871, and from that date has held the office of vice president. Since January i, 1880, when the bank surrendered its charter, it has been a private corporation. It is a stanch institution, with a capital of $100,000. Its president is William Drury, who has a sketch in this book. It is now called the Farmers' Bank of Keithsburg. 46 IKVrTED STATES BrOGRAPHICAl DICTIONARY. Mr. Cabeen has alwavs voted the democratic ticket; is a Universalist in religious belief, and is a member of Robert Burns Lodge, Number 113, of the Illinois Chapter, Number 17, and of the Galesburgh Commandery, Number 8. His wife was Miss Lucy Wilson, daughter of William and Sarah (McHerron) Wilson, she being a native of Danville, Pennsylvania. They were married June 26, 1849, and have had three children: William S., merchant, married to Miss Lou Demp- ster; Sarah E., wife of Tom A. Marshall, druggist, Keithsburgh, and Boyd W., who died in infancy. MAURICE J. CHASE, M.D. GALESBURGH. MAURICE JAMES CHASE, thirty-two years a medical practitioner, belongs to the old New Hampshire family of Chases. The town of Cornish, where he was born, March 4, 1826, was ceded to his great-great-grandfather some time during the first half of the eighteenth cen- tury, when what is now Sullivan county was little more than a wilderness, inhabited by Indians and wild beasts. Benjamin C. Chase, the father of our subject, was a second cousin of the late Salmon P. Chase, chief-justice of the supreme court of" the United States, and a native of Cornish. Benjamin C. Chase married Eliza Royce, a native of Claremont, New Hampshire, and Maurice was the fourth child in a family of five children. He was educated at Kimball Union Academy, Plainville, New Hampshire; studied medicine at Franklin, same state, with Doctor L. M. Knight; attended two courses of lectures at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, one course at Woodstock, Vermont, and received his diploma from the latter institution in 1850. Doctor Chase practiced the allopathic system one year in Boston, Massachusetts, two years in Truro, same state, and one year at Newport, Indiana, and then changed to the homoeopathic method of treatment. He practiced one year in Muncie, Indiana, three years in Macomb, Illinois, and in 1859 settled in Galesburgh, where he is meeting with marked success. He loves his profession, is thoroughly wedded to it, and ignores everything likely to distract the attention or absorb valuable time. He has nothing to do with politics except to vote, being a republican; accepts no civil offices, and connects himself with no secret societies. Being of a studious turn of mind, he gives his leisure time to fresh medical works and periodicals. He uses neither tea nor coffee, and in his practice makes no use of alcoholic liquors. His manners are those of a polished gentleman. Doctor Chase was married March 15, 1849, to Miss Lucy F. Crocker, of Falmouth, Massachu- setts, and they buried two children in infancy, one being killed by a fall, and have two living. Ella is the wife of Arthur Conger, post trader at Fort Union, New Mexico, and Henry M. is a clerk for his brother-in-law. Doctor and Mrs. Chase are members of the First Church of Christ (Congregational), and prominent factors in Galesburgh social circles. SAMUEL W, RAYMOND. OTTAWA. O AMUEL WARD RAYMOND, treasurer of La Salle county, and a resident here for fifty-five O years, was born in Woodstock, Vermont, May 8, 1815, his parents being Barnabas and Mary (Mayo) Raymond. His father, a carpenter by trade, and a soldier in the second war with the mother country, was born in Middleborough, Massachusetts, and his grandfather, John Raymond, a soldier in the French and Indian war, was of Huguenot blood, the family fleeing from France to England, and thence to the United States. The Mayos are of Welsh lineage. Young Raymond was educated in the district schools of his native town; was on a farm until fifteen years of age, and subsequently spent seven years in a store at Morrisville, Vermont. He came into this county June i, 1837, making his home at first in Peru, and for two years was engaged with an engineering party on different roads under the old internal improvement svstem. UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 47 Afterward he ran a ferry part of the time, and was keeping a hotel in 1847 when he was elected recorder of the county, and moved from Peru to Ottawa. He held that office two years (1847 to 1849), and was then county clerk for eight years. After being out four years he was elected to the same county office, holding it four years more, when he retired and went into the grain business. In 1 87 1 he was elected county treasurer, and has held that office for twelve years. No safer, better man could be trusted with the finances of the county, and for aught we know Mr. Raymond may die in that office. During the forty-five years that he has been in the county he has been in public life more than half of them, and has discharged the duties of the several offices which he has held to the satisfaction of his constituents. He is a democrat, of independent proclivities, and very popular, as his history would indicate, with all parties, La Salle being of late years a republican county. Mr. Raymond is an Odd-Fellow, past noble grand, and was at one time chief patriarch of the encampment. July 24, 1849, Mr. Raymond married, at Peru, Miss Floretta Lewis, a native of Dryden, Tompkins county. New York, and they have eleven children, having never had a death in the family. William, the eldest son, is married and living in Ottawa; Frances is the wife of A. M. Hoffman, Ottawa; Susan E. is the wife of John A. Carton, banker, Ackley, Iowa, and Eliza C. is the wife of Samuel A. Reed, attorney-at-law, Eldora, Iowa. The others, Mary H., Charles H., Emma, Samuel W., Jr., Floretta, Carrie and Walter, are at home or living in Ottawa. Mr. Ray- mond, as is here seen, has reared a large family, and he has given all his children a fair education, two or three of the youngest still pursuing their studies. He has stock in the First National Bank of Ottawa, and is in comfortable circumstances, his accumulations being the result of his own industry. The rectitude of his public life, his social qualities and his neighborly kindnesses have greatly endeared him to the citizens of Ottawa and tu the people generally of La Salle county. JOHN I. SMITH, M.D. SHANNON. JOHN ISAAC SMITH, son of Rev. John Smith, and Margaret (Blackburn) Smith, was born near Chatham, county of Kent, Canada West, now Ontario, June 29, 1843. His father and mother were also natives of that province. When he was two years old the family came to Illinois, and settled in Stephenson county, where the mother died in 1859. His father died in October, 1879, after having been a Methodist preacher between thirty and forty years. John was taught to read and write by a younger sister, and was kept on his father's farm until nineteen years of age, when, in August, 1862, he enlisted as a private in the 92d regiment, Illinois infantry, and served three years. He was shot in the left elbow at the capture of Atlanta, Georgia, leaving him with an anchylosed joint. While laid up he read medicine, and as soon as he could be of service, he was placed in charge of three wards of the Mound City, Illinois, Hospital, remaining there until mustered out in the autumn of 1865. The next year he entered the college at Fulton, Whiteside county, and studied for two years; subsequently read medicine with Doctor F. W. Byers, of Lena, Stephenson county; attended lec- tures at Rush Medical College, Chicago; lost his little library and his apparatus in the great fire of October, 187 1, and received his diploma from Rush in January, 1872. Early in the following month he settled at Shannon, Carroll county; entered at once upon a liberal practice, and has made a brilliant success in his profession, his rides not unfrequently extending from fifteen to twenty miles, and sometimes even thirty from his home, and that too, in a thickly settled country, with half a dozen villages and small cities within twelve or fourteen miles of Shannon. The doc- tor has an unusually choice medical library, of which he makes the best of use, and consequently is a growing man. He pays a great deal of attention to the study of surgery, of which he seems to be very fond and in which he excels, although he makes a specialty of no one branch of medi- .g UNITED STATES RIOGRArHICAL DICTIONARY. cal science. He has repeatedly operated with complete success in strangulated hernia, hare lip, talipes, tracheotomy, lithotomy, and other ditficult cases of surgery, and his uniform success has extended his reputation over a wide district. The doctor has more business than any one man should think of attending to, and will be obliged, at no distant day, to lessen his rides or they will lessen his days. He never has less than five horses, and usually keeps from seven to nine. Doctor Smith married in June, 1877, Miss Wealthy Ann Taber, daughter of Oliver P. Taber, of Lanark, Illinois, and we believe they have no issue. EDWIN C. ALLEN. OTTAWA. EDWIN CUTLER ALLEN, banker, and mayor of the city of Ottawa, is a son of Asa K. and Lucy (Cutler) Allen, and was born in the city of Rochester, New York, in November, 1820. His grandfather, Philip Allen, a revolutionary soldier, was a native of Vermont. The Cutlers were a Massachusetts family. Edwin received a high school or academic education in his native city; came thence as far west as Ypsilanti, Michigan, where he was a clerk in a bank. From Michigan he pushed westward into Wisconsin, and was in mercantile life at Allen's Grove (named for his father and uncles) until 1852, when he came into La Salle county, and was cashier of a bank at Peru for three or four years. In 1856 Mr. Allen settled in Ottawa and commenced the banking business in the firm of Eames, Allen and Company. In 1865 the National City Bank of Ottawa was organized and opened, and he is the vice president and principal manager of that stanch institution. He is one of the best financiers of the city. Mr. Allen was city treasurer for several years, and is now (18S2) at the head of the municipal- ity, making a public-spirited and efficient chief magistrate. He is a republican, and a man of a good deal of influence in his party. Many years ago he was an active and prominent Odd-Fellow, but since coming to Ottawa has rarely attended a meeting of the order. The wife of Mayor Allen was Mary C. Champion, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, their marriage bearing date July 20, 1845. They have four children, Katie, Edith C, Emma and Edwin C, Jr. The family attend the Conj'regational Church, of which the parents are members and liberal supporters. HON. REUBEN ELLWOOD. SYCAMORE. THE subject of this biographical notice is one of the most enterprising citizens of Sycamore, and was born in Minden, Montgomery county, New York, February 17, 182 1, his parents being Abraham and Sarah Ellwood. Reuben finished his education at the Cherry Valley Acad- emy, and in early life engaged extensively in raising broom corn and in the manufacture of brooms at Glenville, Schenectady county, where he remained for eight or nine years. In 1857 Mr. Ellwood came to Illinois, and settled at Sycamore, De Kalb county, engaging in the hardware trade, dealing also, at the same time, in real estate. About 1S70 he engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements, believing that such industries would aid in the devel- opment of the city of Sycamore as well as arerue to his own pecuniary interests. In 1S75 he commenced to build what is now known as the factory of the R. Ellwood Manufacturing Com- pany, in which he invested $50,000, and which was completed in October, 1875, and gives employ- ment to about one hundred and twenty workmen. Mr. Ellwood was a prominent politician of the republican stripe while a resident of the Empire State, being a member of the board of supervisors while living at Glenville, a member of the legislature in 1851, and a presidential elector in 1856 on the Fremont and Dayton ticket. Since UNITED STATES BIOGKATinCAL DICTIONARY. 5 I coming to this state tie has been equally as active as a politician, and his republican friends in De Kalb county have not been slow to recognize his fitness for high official positions, he being in 1868 their unanimous choice for representative to congress. In 1882 he was nominated for that office and carried every county in his district by a large majority. He is a practical business man and will make a valuable member of congress. He was appointed United States assessor in 1866, and held that post till the office was abol- ished. He was the first mayor of Sycamore, and has been a foremost citizen in various public works and projects for the advancemajit of the city. Says a writer who has long known Mr. Ellwood: " He is a man of great enterprise, of positive traits of character, indomitable energy, strict integrity and liberal views, thoroughly identified in feelings and acts with the growth and pros- perity ot the town, county and state." The wife of Mr. Ellwood was Miss Eleanor Vedder, of Schenectady county, New York, they being married August 8, 1850. They have had six children, three sons and three daughters. D. HENRY SHELDON. CHICAGO. D HENRY SHELDON'S forefathers were stanch Puritans, and mostly settled about Massa- . chusetts Bay before 1634, but holding Baptist sentiments. They, with others, were ban- ished, and followed Roger Williams. Among the earliest proprietors, settlers and civil officials of Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and contiguous Rhode Island, were Governor Brenton, Shear- man, James, Rogers and Sheldon, ancestors of the subject of this sketch. It is remarkable that Mr. Sheldon's family claims direct descent from John Rogers, the first English martyr, who was burned in 1555, and kindred with the last one, John James, a Baptist clergyman, who was hanged in 1660. It is not surprising that the descendants of such stock should push into the Canaan of which their forefathers were defrauded. On leaving Leyden, the Pilgrims purposed to pass the colony at Manhattan, sail up the Hudson, beyond the Dutch authority, and locate around and beyond that outmost trading post, since called Albany; but not wishing a distinct- ively English colony in a country which they hoped to control, the Dutch bribed the pilot to land his precious charge on a distant, inhospitable shore. A hundred years later, the progenitors of our subject spied out the promised land, and in 1767 the Rhode Island Baptists raised the stand- ard of the Gospel on the Bottenkill, New York. In 1777 Samuel Sheldon's ample homestead on the Hudson was sheltered by the cannon of Fort Saratoga, which, from an eminence in the rear, aided the American troops on the opposite bank to force the surrender of Burgoyne. In those revolutionary struggles both the grandfathers of our subject were officially engaged. That was more than a hundred years ago. Fort Sara- toga, or Fort Clinton, as it was also called, has long since disappeared. The family still occupy the estate on which the old proprietor, though an extensive landholder, was among the first to free his slaves, and to refuse intoxicating drinks to those in his employ. Here the grandparents of our subject, Samuel Sheldon and Tabitha Rogers, his wife, reared a thrifty family. One of the sons, Caleb, married Mary, daughter of David Tefft and Ruhamah James, and our subject is their youngest child. John, a major of artillerv, married Jane, daughter of General DeRydder of the old Dutch colony. The sons occupy not only the Sheldon but the adjoining estate, which has been in the DeRydder family since 1685. The old Dutch and Eng- lish blood are merged and forgotten. Elizabeth married Moses Cowan, and their sons are mer- chants in New York city and Chicago. Susan became the wife of Doctor Hiram Corliss, a Nestor in the profession. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Rev. Sabin McKinney. Their son. Rev. Albert H. Corliss, is father of Sheldon Corliss, a distinguished lawyer. William and George are inventors, and enjoy a more than national reputation. When the latter, George H. Corliss, of 6 -2 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Providence, had placed the gigantic motive power in the centennial machinery hall, at Philadel- phia, 1876, he affirmed, " that engine shall not move on the Lord's day." Of Mr. Sheldon's family are Henry A. Tefft, justice of the supreme court of California; Charles R. Ingalls, justice of the supreme court of New York; Lieutenant-Colonel E. F. Norton, killed in the battle of Chancellorsville; Lieutenant H. S. Taber, of the engineer corps. United States military academy, at West Point; Rev. J. A. Tefft, missionary to Africa, etc. D. Henry Sheldon was born March 12, 1830. An accident in boyhood rendered his father almost totally deaf; yet, despite the misfortune, he acquy-ed a competency. But his kind heart could never refuse a favor. He became surety for several friends; the financial crisis of 1837 followed, and other men's debts swept away a fortune he could never restore. The loss of his wife proved a crowning calamity. The church in Union village, New York, was one of the oldest in the state. Its historian says: "Bottskill Baptist Church has never shrunk from the performance of a disagreeable duty. Here Rev. Nathaniel Colver, D.D., led to advanced ground on the questions of slavery and temperance. Rev. William Arthur, D,D., followed, and was greatly blessed. In March, 1844, he led a rejoicing band through the broken ice, and, without stopping, baptized more than sixty persons in the warmer flood beneath." Among them was the lad of whom we write. At fifteen he undertook to support and educate himself. He resided with his uncle. Doctor Corliss; collected accounts, looked after help, rose from bed at midnight to care for the physician's horses, and otherwise provided for board, clothing, tuition and books, while attending the academy in Union village. Among his school fellows was his pastor's brilliant, genial, true-hearted son, Chester A. Arthur, since President of the United States. Through a kinsman who had been a professor there, Henr\- hoped to obtain a place in the military academy at West Point; but the needs of home compelled him to abandon the project, and aid in the care of and marketing for a large farm. At seventeen he accepted a position with a gentleman whose extensive business included a general store. Soon becoming disgusted with the petty routine of the counter, he was transferred to outside duties. Discovering how most of the profits were made, at the end of his trial month he threw up his situation, and commenced some independent operations, which were successful from the first. That success w-as his misfor- tune, for it developed a taste for speculation. The year 1849 found him on the shores of Lake Michigan, where he selected and developed land with good returns, and on the death of his father he turned over his accumulations for the use of others, and again commenced empty-handed. From this time he began a new life, under the influence of one of the truest and noblest of Christian characters, of rare attainments and culture. March 12, 1854. he married Augusta, daughter of Rev. David Searle and granddaughter of Hon. James McCall, all of New York state. In a few months Mr. Sheldon passed an examination and entered the sophomore class of the Uni- versity of Rochester, and thus came under President M. B. Anderson, LL.D., so renowned for his marvelous power to draw out a young man's better self, and arouse him to earnest endeavor. Mr. Sheldon loved him as a father, spending three years in the institution, and graduating in 1S57 with the degree of bachelor of science. Having prepared himself for a civil engineer, our subject went upon the Saint Paul, Minnesota and Pacific railroad survey, under Colonel Dale, member of congress for Delaware. The only vacant position on the corps, when he reached Saint Paul, was axeman, which Mr. Sheldon accepted, and soon rose through five grades to a position next to the colonel's. The panic of 1857 stopped the work, and when two years later, it was resumed, Mr. Sheldon was tendered his previous position, but declined, as he had become a real-estate dealer in Saint Louis. While in Rochester Mr. Sheldon discovered much of the workings of the beneficiary system, l)uth in the university and the theological seminary. One painful incident suggested a future course. In the university was a brilliant, high-spirited, consecrated young man from the West, with great self reliance and perseverance, but no available friends. His funds being exhausted, through over e.xertion and privations nature gave way, and he crept back to die. A timely loan, to be paid back in after years, would have saved a man of great promise. UNITED STATES B/OGRAPff/CAL DICTIOXARY. 53 This painful incident led Mr. Sheldon to consider whether he could not be of slight service tc this class of persons, and having some funds at his command, he lent them to empty-pursed promising young men. As soon as the money was returned by one, it went to another. The loans were at a small per cent, and without security, yet not a dollar of principal or interest was ever lost. Most of those thus aided are now very prominent as clergymen and educators. While a resident of Saint Louis, Mr. Sheldon was pressed to become interested in a neighbor- ing university, to which a small theological class was attached. He appreciated the need of a well equipped school for ministers in the Mississippi Valley, but felt that for many reasons a more northern locality would be desirable, and, though intending to remain in Saint Louis, in 1859 he made a will bequeathing $10,000 to a Baptist theological seminary for the Northwest, probably to be located in Chicago; and at that time, if any others entertained such a project he was not aware of it. At the breaking out. of the war, in 1861, he removed to this city. He became interested in the Baptist Theological Seminary, located at Chicago, which was chartered in 1865, and has been a member of the board of trustees and executive committee to the present time. Rev. Nathaniel Colyer, D.D., his father's old friend and pastor, who had done able service in Philadelphia and Boston, gathered, and, assisted by Professor J, C, C. Clarke, for two years instructed the first classes of this theological seminary. Mr. Sheldon executed his own will by paying over his bequest, largely augmented, and also his loan fund, to the infant institution. In 1867 he made his home among the groves of Kenwood, south of Chicago, a location very retired then, but now having all the advantages and convenien- ces of the citv, besides being surrounded by over a thousand acres of parks and boulevards. Mr. Sheldon's business has been mainly real estate. His only child, Verna Evangeline, is in Wellesley College, Massachusetts. JO.SEPH STOUT, M.D. OTTAWA. ONE of the oldest and most reputable physicians and surgeons in La .Salle county, is Joseph Stout, a native of Morris county, New Jersey. He was born on Suckasunny Plains, January 30, r8i8, being a son of Charles and Margaret (McCord) Stout. Both parents were also born in that state, his mother on the same plains. The Stouts were originally from Holland. Joseph fitted for college at Springfield, Ohio, and is a graduate of Miami University, Oxford, that state, class of 1842. He studied medicine at Springfield, with Doctor Rodgers, and at Cincinnati with Professor Mussey; attended the Medical College of Ohio, Cincinnati; received the degree of doc- tor of medicine in 1845; came directly to Ottawa, and has been in regular practice here thirty- seven years. Physicians were few and far between in those early days, and Doctor Stout had all the surgical cases in this part of the state, and all the medical practice any young man, however ambitious and however robust, could reasonably desire, his rides in some directions often extend- ing fifteen and twenty, and sometimes thirty miles. He had an excellent opportunity to study the geography of this part of the valley of the Illinois, and to fathom the depths of most of its quagmires, being obliged on three occasions to lie out over night. There are very few old settlers of La Salle county, living within twenty miles of the seat of justice, that do not know Doctor Stout, know him and esteem him for his arduous and self-sacrificing labors in behalf of the sick or the disabled. Most physicians ought to retire from any but consulting practice by the time they are sixty or sixty-five years old, and no doubt our subject would be glad to, but he has too many old patrons, who will call nobody else, to completely abandon the field. His practice, how- ever, is mostly in and near the city of Ottawa, except in cases of consultation, when he is some- times called out of the county, which is the largest in the state. Doctor Stout was for years a member of the American Medical Association, and met with that :^^ UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIOXARY. body a few times, forming a pleasant acquaintance with some of the leading members of the fra- ternity in the country, but latterly has enjoyed no such privilege. He has written a few articles for medical periodicals, reporting cases of especial interest to the medical brotherhood. The-doctor was a county coroner, and a member of the city council a period of four years each, and has held the office of school director, he being willing to bear such a share of that class of burdens as would be consistent with the exacting character of his professional duties. His political views were alwaA's anti-slavery, and in 1859, when a slave was taken to Ottawa under a habeas corpus, and Judge Caton decided that the fugitive must be sent back to his master, Doctor Stout aided in running him off. For that act he was arrested and imprisoned in jail at Chicago. At the end of the five months he was tried and sentenced to pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and confined ten days more. He went to jail January i, i860, and during that winter, while the Chicago Medical College was in session, he had permission to attend lectures during the day, returning nightly to durance vile, so doing until the close of the session of the college in March. He was an active Odd-Fellow years ago, and passed all the chairs. He is a warden of Christ Episcopal Church, and a man of unblemished record in all the spheres of life. The doctor has a third wife. The first was Catharine Fowler, married in 1847, and dying in child-bed in 1848. The second, was Adelia E. Fowler, married in 185 1, and dying of cholera in 1853, leaving one son, [ohn Stout, now a physician in Peoria, this state, and his present wife was Mrs. Mary E. (Bacon) Cotton, married in 1858. By her he has had three children, losing one of them, Mary, the first- born. The living are Josephine and Margaret. COLONEL BENJAMIN. F. SHEETS. OREGON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHEETS, a leading merchant of the town, was born in Wattsburgh, Erie county, Pennsylvania, October, 6, 1832, his parents being David F. and Lucy (Macom- ber) Sheets. His father was born in Dansville, Livingston county. New York, and his grand- father, Jacob Sheets, in Germany. David Sheets moved to Pennsylvania in early life, and was engaged in tanning, and running a boot and shoe factory at Wattsburgh for many years. Our subject came to Illinois in 1844, and settled at first at Blackberry, Kane county, where he was engaged in farming until 1852, when he went to Mount Morris, Ogle county, and took a course of studies in the Rock River Seminary, being graduated in 1855, the valedictorian of his class. During that period he taught a public school a short time, and also in the seminary while a student. He then became a merchant and miller at that "place, remaining there until January 1, 1861, when he removed to Oregon, the county seat, to serve as deputy circuit clerk. He filled that post until Ma\^, 1862, when he was elected sheriff of the county. In the summer of that year the demands of his country were too urgent for him to think of remaining at home. When the call for six hundred thousand men was made, he promptly enlisted, and was mustered in as lieutenant- colonel of the 92d Illinois infantry, September 4. His regiment was in General Thomas' corps. Colonel Sheets resigned April 21, 1864, and was brevetted brigadier-general. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and colonel and aide on the staff of the commander in-chief of the Illinois national guard. In December, 1872, General Sheets was appointed postmaster at Oregon, which office he still holds. In 1881 he built a brick block forty-four by eighty feet, and two stories above the base- ment, and moved the postoffice to his new quarters, corner Main and Fourth streets. He occu- pies three fronts, carries the largest stock of merchandise in town, consisting of hardware, hollow ware, agricultural implements, etc., and is one of the most active and enterprising business men in Ogle county. UNrriiD STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 55 General Sheets is a member and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has been superintendent of the Sunday school for twenty-one consecutive years. He is, and has long been quite active in the temperance reform, and is a man of ths most humane and noble impulses. He has been twice married, first at Mount Morris, June 25, 1855, to Alice V. Hill, daughter of Mrs. F. G. Petrie, she dying December 8, 1870, leaving two children, Frank D. and Frederick H.; the second time, at Oregon, April 16, 1872, to Kate Gale, daughter of Lewis Hormell, she being a native of Dayton, Ohio. He has had b\' her five children: George Benjamin, Carrie Maud, Kate Alice (now dead), and Horace and Homer. At the time that this sketch is prepared (May, 1882), the name of Mr. Sheets is prominently before the public as a nominee for congress, and a republican paper in Oregon thus speaks of him; "The people of this community, we believe, heartily indorse him as a man well qualified for the position, and as their choice as a congressman to represent this district. He is a man of more than average education and unexceptionable habits. For years he has identified himself with every good work. Possessing fine business abilities, he is at the same time an eloquent speaker. We think he possesses all the needed qualifications for the position. Colonel Sheets has always been an earnest and active republican. He has done good service in every campaign since the organization of the party, and tiie position would be but a fair reward to him for his past services." A democratic paper, also published in Ogle county, thus honorably speaks of General Sheets as a possible nominee: "The newspapers of this county are engaged in a heated discussion over the congressional question. The office of course is almost certain to be filled by a republican, and we do not see why Ogle county should not be entitled to the position, having quietly acceded to the claims of other counties for a long term of years. Several names have been suggested, but none possess more real merit 'for the position than Colonel B. F. Sheets, of Oregon. A gentleman of scholarly attainments and an eloquent speaker, we are sure that he would carry more ability into our con- gressional halls than has been the case since the days of Baker, Turner or Campbell. As one of the most aggressive republicans of our county, every voter in his party should enlist himself in a hearty demand for his nomination. This is a democratic suggestion which republicans will do well to profit by, and is offered only with a knowledge of the almost hopeless minority in which as democrats we find ourselves in this district." HON. JAMES H. STEWART. MONMOUTH. TAMES HARVEY STEWART, judge of Warren county, and one of the oldest lawyers in this .' part of the state, dates his birth at Elkton, Kentucky, January 5, tSiS, his parents being Rev. William K. Stewart, a Presbyterian minister, and Lucretia (Moore) Stewart. His father was born in Rowan county. North Carolina, and his mother in South Carolina. Her father, William Moore, was a revolutionary soldier. When James was twelve years old the family moved into this state, settling at Vandalia, then the capital, where his mother died many years ago. His father died at Macomb, after preaching more than forty years. Our subject was educated at Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana, taking a partial course, and taught schools in Illinois and Kentucky. He read law at Macomb, in this state, with Cyrus Walker, and was admitted to the bar January i, 1840. Mr. Stewart practiced one year at Lewistown, Fulton county; four years at Millersburgh, Mercer county; fifteen at (Jquawka, Henderson county; between one and two years at Knoxville, Knox county, and in 1861 settled in Monmouth. While at Oquawka he held the office of state's attorney for one term, for the 15th circuit, and at Knoxville and Monmouth was for eight years state's attorney for the loth circuit. He was elected to his present office of county judge in 1881. As a lawyer Judge Stewart has stood for many years among the prominent men in this part of Illinois, and has preserved an untarnished record, both professional and personal. As a judge he r5 UNfTED STATES BfOGRA PHICAL DICTrONARY. is very retjular at his post of duty, and attends faithfully to probate and other matters pertaining to his office. His politics are democratic, and he usually takes much interest in pending elections. He was a delegate in 1880 to the Cincinnati convention, which nominated Hancock and English as candidates for president and vice president. Judge Stewart was married in 1842 to Miss Isabella C. McKarney, of McDonough county, this state, and of ten children, the fruit of this union, only three are living. William R. is an attor- ney-at-law in partnership with his father. Isabella S. is the wife of D. M. Hammack, lawyer, Burlino-ton, Iowa, and Mary M. is at home. The family attend the Presbyterian Church, of which most of them are members. JOHN W. SWANBROUGH. IVA UKEGAN. THE sheriff of Lake county, whose name heads this sketch, was a brave young soldier during the civil war, and is. making a good record as a county officer, and merits mention in a work like this. He dates his birth at Ithaca, New York, November 13, 1843, being a son of Henry and Ann (Brewster) Swanbrough, both natives of the Empire State. The family immigrated to this state in 1855, and settled on a farm in Lake county, both parents still living. The son received an academic education in Waukegan, and at eighteen years of age, August, 1862, enlisted as a private in company G, 96th Illinois infantry, being soon afterward appointed color sergeant. He carried the colors at Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain, and was slightly wounded in both battles; was also in several other engagements in the Atlanta campaign, and shortly afterward was promoted to second lieutenant; was subsequently in the battle of Nashville, where he re- ceived his third wound, and was mustered out with his regiment in July, 1865. An officer under whom our subject fought, states that he was the only color bearer out of nine who did not come out of the battle at Lookout Mountain either killed or severely wounded, and that he was one of the bravest members of the regiment, always at his post, and ready for duty. Mr. Swanbrough farmed for a few years after coming out of the army, and has been for some years engaged in speculating and breeding line horses at Waukegan, and in 1876 was elected to his present county office. He was reelected in 1878 and again in 1880, and was reelected again in 1882 for a term of four years, and is discharging the duties of his office to the satisfaction of all parties except criminals. He is a republican and a third-degree Mason. The subject of this notice married, in 1866, Mary, daughter of J. L. Williams, at that time a resident and prominent lawyer in Waukegan, and they have had three children, losing two of them. REV. CHESTER COVELL. BUDA. THE gentleman whose name heads this sketch is pastor of the Union Church at Buda, and in early life was a teacher in western New York, and later in Marshall county, this state. H is largely self-educated in the sciences, and wholly in theology, and is a man of a good deal of mental culture and social refinement. He was born in the town of Ogden, west of Rochester, New York, June 18, 1817, being a son of Edward' and Polly (Gilman) Cov'ell, members of the farming community. He lost his mother when he was only five years old. His father is still liv- ing in western New York, being in his ninety-third year' Most of the school drill which our subject received was at the Middlebury Academy and Whitesboro Manual Labor School, one of the oldest schools of the kind in the country. The means of attending these institutions were earned by Mr. Covell in teaching. Ten years of his life at different periods were devoted to this work, and while thus engaged he took a course of studies in theology, being his own tutor, and was ordained in Orleans county in 1842. Among the places where he taught and preached was e UNITED STATES BIOGKAPIUCAL DICTIONARY. 57 Freehold, Greene county, where he filled the pulpit for five years. In 185 1 he was married to Miss Harriet Morrison, daughter of Rev. A. C. Morrison, of western New York, she being a grad- uate of the Le Roy Seminary. In 1852 he came to this state, opened a select school at Henry, Marshall county, and con- ducted it for one year, being assisted by his wife, preaching at the same time in the Christian Church. While there, during part of the time he was also city superintendent of schools. In 1855, Mr. Covell moved to Mineral township, in Bureau county, where he spent two years in farm- ing, preaching at the same time, every other Sunday, at Buda. In the autumn of 1857 he was persuaded to return to Henry, where he and his wife taught a few more terms, and in 1859 he settled in Buda as pastor of the Union Church, which he organized, and which now numbers about fifty families in its society. It is entirely independent of all ecclesiastical bodies, Unitarian in faith, and is having a healthy growth. Mr. Covell has also a charge at Sheffield, to which he preaches regularly on Sunday afternoons. It is almost needless to say that he is a busy man on Sundays, and a hard student the rest of the week. Since becoming a resident of Buda, our sub- ject has served his community as a member of the board of supervisors, as school director, and as county school superintendent. Latterly his time has been given exclusively to his calling as a minister. He has a good deal of power in the pulpit and out of it; gives his whole time to the enlightenment and* social and moral elevation of the people, and he and his accomplished wife are very important factors in Buda society. HON. GEORGE VV. ARMSTRONG. SENECA, GEORGE WASHINGTON ARMSTRONG, a prominent farmer, is a son of Joseph and Elsie (Strawn) Armstrong, and dates his birth in McKane township. Licking county, Ohio, December 11, 1813. His grandfather, John Armstrong, came from Fermanagh county, Ireland, with his family, in 1789, and settled in Somerset county, Pennsylvania. Before coming to this country he was a flax and linen dealer, and in this country a merchant and general business man. Joseph Armstrong was a farmer, merchant and woolen manufacturer, and at a very early age George was put to splicing rolls and winding bobbins in the factory, having no schooling after that age until he had reached his majority, and then only one month. He went through all the rooms in the factory but the spinning, and became an expert weaver, thoroughly mastering the trade. In April, 1S31, Mr. Armstrong came to Putnam, now Marshall county, this state, and in the following July settled in La Salle county, where he has lived since that date. He was the second son in the family, which accompanied him, all but the father, who remained behind to adjust business. The oldest son soon went back, and our subject had charge of the family, the father dying not long afterward, before leaving Ohio. The family settled in the township of South Otta- wa, where the widowed motherlived until 1851. She moved to Ottawa and died in Morris, June, 1871. In 1832, Mr. Armstrong shouldered his musket, and had a little taste of the Black Hawk war. In the autumn of 1833 he bought a claim in congress lands, in Brookfield township, and in November of that year commenced building a log house. He was in the woods with two work- men early in the morning of the 13th of that month, when the stars commenced falling, and the two hired men were very much frightened But Mr. Armstrong had read Humboldt's travels, and having learned that most of stars were very much fixed, and that the capers of other heavenly bodies were innocent and usually harmless, was more calm. In December, 1834, Mr. Armstrong attended a canal meeting at Ottawa, acted as its secretary, carried its proceedings to Vandalia, then the seat of government, and spent the winter there, aid- ing to get a canal bill through the legislature, having his newly formed friend, Stephen A Douglas, to assist him. Before returning to La Salle county, Mr. Armstrong spent a short month at school • rg UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. in Jacksonville, paying most special devotions to Pike's arithmetic. He was also, about that period, paying his devotions to Miss Anna Green, whom he married at that place, March 15, 1835, and they went to housekeeping at Brookfield. In 1836 Mr. Armstrong built a saw mill in the eastern part of the county, and in 1837 took a contract on the Illinois and Michigan canal at Utica, La Salle county, and moved thither. There he remained until 1S41, when he returned to his home, and resumed farming. Mr. Armstrong has always been a politician, and was of the Douglas school while that great statesman and his life-long friend was on the stage of action; was elected to the legislature in 1844, and to the convention for the revision of the constitution in 1847, and was the Douglas democratic candidate for congress in 1S58, and received more than 15,000 votes, there being also a Buchanan democrat on the course. Hon. Owen Lovejoy, the republican nominee, distanced both. Mr. Armstrong was a nominee, with Judge Caton, to revise the constitution in 1870, but was defeated. He was a member of the 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th general assemblies, serving eight consecutive years, and was an eminently useful member of that body. He has served as a member of the county board of supervisors for twenty-two years, and was its chairman for fourteen of them. He is now (summer of 1882) chairman of the La Salle county court house and jail building committee, and the people of the county have most implicit confi- dence in his judgment in such matters. Mr. Armstrong was one of the five directors who built the Kankakee and Seneca railroad, a track forty-three miles in length, built on a capital stock of $10,000, requiring the expending of over $500,000, without a mortgage or lien on anything. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have raised a family of nine children, and given them a good educa- tion, and all but two are married and settled in life. John Green, the eldest son, is a journalist in Ottawa; William was a captain in the army, a provost marshal under General Sherman on the march to the sea, and is now in Colorado; Julius C. was also a soldier, carrying his Greek and Latin grammar in his knapsack, pursuing his studies when not pursuing the enemy, and is now a Congregational minister at Western Springs, Cook county, near Chicago; Elisa P. is the wife of William Crotty, a large cattle dealer in Kansas; Marshall Ney is an attorney-at-law, Ottawa; Joseph is at home; Susan Ida is the wife of L. B. Laughlin, farmer, Grundy county, this state; James E. is a graduate of the Industrial University, Champaign, and a teacher in that institution, and Charles G. is a graduate of the same school, and a druggist in Ottawa. w HON. WILLIAM ALDRICH. CHICAGO. ILLIAM ALDRICH, representative to congress from the first Illinois district, is a native of Saratoga county, New York, dating his birth at Greenfield, January 19, 1820. His parents were William and Mercy (Farnum) Aldrich, both families being from Rhode Island, and were Quakers or Friends. Mr. Aldrich received a public-school education, supplemented with one term with a private tutor, devoted to the higher mathematics, including surveying, and one term at the Aurora Academy, Erie county, New York. He was reared on his father's farm, at Greenfield; taught district schools during the winter season for six years; came west as far as Jackson, Michigan, in 1846, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1851 he pushed on to Two Rivers, Manitowoc county, Wisconsin, and there to merchandising added the manufacturing of lumber, furniture and wooden ware. While a resident of Wisconsin he held several offices, such as superintendent of schools for three years, chairman of the countv board of supervisors one year, and a member of the legislature one term (1859). It is a loss to any state to lose such a man. In 1861 Mr. Aldrich settled in Chicago, and for fifteen years was engaged in the wholesale grocery business. For the last three or four years he has filled the office of president of the Chi- cago Lmseed Oil Company, whose manufactory is at Grand Crossing, Illinois, and their office at No. I Wabash avenue. Mr. Aldrich is a painstaking, shrewd business man, careful in his man- agement, and has been eminently successful in most of his ventures. UNITED STATES BIOGRA PHICA I. DICTIONARY. 6l He was chosen alderman of the third ward of Chicago in the spring of 1876, and the next autumn was elected to congress for the first Illinois district, and was reelected in 1878 and 1880, each time by a majority which indicated that he was very popular with his party. His district includes the first six wards in Chicago, thirteen townships of Cook county, and all of Du Page county, and is one of the wealthiest districts in the state. It is represented by a practical, thor- oughgoing business man, and he is giving great satisfaction to his constituents. He belongs to that class who wear well, and whose usefulness increases with their experience. Mr. Aldrich is more of a worker than talker in congress; but when he does get the floor he always speaks right to the point. As a specimen of his style we give a short extract from his speech, made May 2, 1878, on the revision of the tariff. Wood's bill then being before the house. In the bill it was proposed to increase the tax on foreign sugars, Mr. Wood hoping by that means to please the Louisiana sugar manufacturers and catch southern votes for his bill. On this point Mr. Aldrich spoke as follows: "With pepper and salt, sugar is the universal element of every meal of the rich and the poor. Poverty may separate its victim from tea and coffee, but from sugar never while starvation is kept at bay. Every increase of tax upon this article means exaction universal upon one of the neces- saries of life. It invades the almshouse and the hovel, and the exaction is more nearly in pro- portion to the mouths to be filled than upon any other article that can be mentioned. Now, why, in the name of revenue reform and reduction of taxation, this new exaction upon sugar, while silks and velvets, at once the badges of wealth and costumes solely of the rich, are relieved of a large part of the tax which they now pay? "Judas professed and kissed." The advocates of this measure, alive with professions of relief for the poor laborer from his burdens, further tax his sugar to relieve the silk, the velvet, the lace, that are flaunted before his eyes, but gladden not the sight of his wife or daughter. "If this increased tax upon sugar is made necessary, or is designed to protect the Louisiana planter, now that he no longer owns but hires labor, let us have the fact, not any false pretense. If it is true that the sugar planters really require the $6,000,000 or $10,000,000 additional exaction to enable them to pay wages to their late slaves and to prosecute and uphold this industry, the patriotism of the people, laborer and all, will bear it. They will want the fact openly stated; they will require that you convince their understanding. In the light of the other provisions of the bill, it looks as if the real purpose of the increased sugar tax is to relieve silks, velvets, laces, broadcloths and other articles solely enjoyed and consumed by the wealthy and pretentious, and saddle the burden upon the necessaries of life. "If the purpose of this proposed law is not to shift the burdens of taxation from the shoulders of the rich to those of the poor and the comparatively poor, nor to benefit those who design both to defraud the government of its dues and monopolize the trade in sugar, but is designed to secure revenue to the government, and at the same time afford unprecedented protection to our sugar producers, then, in the name of honesty and fair dealing, give us some plain and simple specific rate of duties which shall raise the desired revenue, and treat the producers, the refiners, the distributers, and the consumers with fairness. "A duty of two and a half cents per pound on all sugar not above No. 16 Dutch standard in color, and of three and a half or even four cents per pound on all above No. 16 Dutch standard in color, would accomplish the object. Under such a traffic the revenue would be collected at a nominal expense by simply weighing the importations, and the trade freed from deception and fraud." Mr. Aldrich was originally a whig, and with most of the Wisconsin members of that party, together with the free-soil democrats, aided in forming the republican party, one of the earli- est movements in that direction anywhere in the United States being made at Ripon, in that state. Our subject is a Reformed Episcopalian, and senior warden of Christ Church (Rev. Dr. Cheney, rector), and a man whose Christian character has always stood far above reproach. He was mar- ried at Aurora, Erie county, in 1846, to Anna M. Howard, a refined and accomplished woman, 7 52 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAI- D/CTlONAJiY. and they have had four children, three of them, all sons, yet living. William Howard, the eldest, is at the head of a large steam bakery; James Franklin is secretary and manager of the Linseed Oil Company, already mentioned, and Frederick C, the youngest, is a manufacturer. The two oldest are married. Their other child, "Charlie," who left them when a little more than five years old, was a bright and promising child, the memory of whom does not dim with the lapse of years. He is not "lost," but simply "gone before." Mr. Aldrich is living a life of great usefulness, as well as of much honor, and has the warmest esteem of people who have known him the longest. He is cordial and unaffected in manners, and has the bearing of a perfect gentleman — a gentleman who has inherited all the best moral ele- ments and social amenities of the Quaker school of society. JULIUS P. ANTHONY. M.D. STERLING. JULIUS PHELPS ANTHONY, with one exception the oldest physician and surgeon in prac- tice in Whiteside county, was born at Cambridge, Washington county, New York, September i6 1822. His father, Isaac Anthony, a farmer, was born in Rhode Island, and is a second or third cousin of Senator Anthony, of that state. His grandfather, Giles Anthony, was a lad eight or nine years old when the British invaded Rhode Island. Seth Anthony, the father of Giles, being a Quaker, took no part in the long struggle to free the country from the British )-oke. The mother of Julius was Permelia Phelps, a native of the state of New York. He took a full academic course of study at Homer, Cortland county, New York, and was pre- pared, excepting in Greek, to enter the sophomore year in college ; read medicine in New York and Pennsylvariia ; attended lectures at the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and was there graduated in 1848. Doctor Anthony practiced a short time at Ralston, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania; orte year in Jackson county, West Virginia, and in March, 1850, married, at Jerseytown, Columbia county, Pennsylvania, Miss Martha Jane Park, and moved the same spring to Camanche, Clinton county, Ipwa. In March, 185 1, he settled in Sterling, where he has been in general and extensive practice for thirty-one years, except three years spent in the civil war. When he first came here the village was quite small, and there was only one other physi- cian in the place. Doctor Benton, who died a few years ago at Fulton City, this county. The country was, comparatively speaking, sparsely settled, and his rides were often very extensive. The roads too, in those early days, in his practice in Whiteside county, were very poor, and hence his labors were hard and fatiguing. But the doctor has always been a man of prudence, and of excellent habits, and is seemingly good for another decade of field as well as office work. The old families, whose physician he has been for thirty years, or more, would be very loth to call anybody else. In cases of consultation he still often goes a great distance. The doctor has held one or two local offices only, and has left such honors to parties more ambitious in that direction, and whose professional duties are less exacting. He was mustered into the army in September, 1862, as assistant surgeon of the 127th regiment Illinois infantry; was promoted to surgeon of the 6ist regiment at the end of a year, and was mustered out in October, 1865, never being off duty for a single day. During the last six months he was post surgeon at Franklin, Tennessee, and had charge of the confederate wounded lying there, as well as our own sick and disabled. Doctor Anthony had taken the second degree in Masonry when he went into the army, and has gone no higher. In his younger years he was a Good Templar, and an active worker in the temperance cause. His instincts and sympathies are still with every movement tending to benefit society. Doctor an,d Mrs. Anthony have five children, having never lost any. Permelia, the oldest daughter, is a graduate of the Rockford Seminary, and has been teaching for seven or eight years in the Sterling public schools. Darwin was at one time assistant librarian of the UNITED STATES BIOCRArillCA I. DICTIONARY. 63 Chicago Public Library, and is now in the mining regions of Colorado. Martha L. is at home. Mary L. is married to Henry C. Ward, of Sterling, and Frank is a graduate of Rush Medical Col- lege, Chicago, and in practice with his father. Doctor Anthony is a member of the Whiteside county Medical Society, and of the Union Medical Society, which embraces that county and Clinton county, Iowa. He has not written much for medical periodicals, but occasionally scribbles for the local press, always with a sharp pen, and for some laudable purpose. JAMES B. BROWN. GALENA. JAMES BARTON BROWN, postmaster at Galena, and proprietor of the Galena " Gazette," dates his birth in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, September i, 1833. His parents were Jonathan and Mary Ann (Clough) Brown. His grandfather was James Brown, who was born at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. The family is of English extraction. Jonathan Brown was one of the selectmen of Gilmanton for seven or eight years, and represented his district in the legislature for two terms, being one of the leading men of .that town for many years, and is still living at Gil- manton, being in his eighty-second year. James was educated at the Gilmanton Academy, and contemplated becoming a physician. With that profession in view he studied one year under Doctor Nahum Wight, the celebrated anatomist, and then discontinued his medical studies. In 1857 Mr. Brown came to Illinois, settled at Dunleith, Jo Daviess county, where he accepted the principalship of the public school, holding that post until 1861, when he was elected county superintendent of schools. That office he held for three years, and did a good work in creating fresh interest in the cause of education throughout Jo Daviess county. In November, 1863, he purchased the Galena " Gazette," daily, triweekly and weekly, and removed to this city, and did, and is still doing valiant service for the republican party, of which he has always been a member. On the death of W. W. Huntington, postmaster of Galena, in December, 1880, Mr. Brown was appointed by President Hayes to fill the vacancy. He took this office early in January following, and is performing its duties to the general satisfaction of the public. Mr. Brown is a Knight Templar in the Masonic order. In September, 1858, he married Miss Elizabeth Shannon, of his native town, and they have one daughter, Abbie M., who is a student in the old and well known academy at Bradford, Essex county, Massachusetts. The family attend the South Presbyterian Church, West Galena, of which Mrs. Brown and daughter are members. The writer of this sketch has long had a pleasant acquaintance with Mr. Brown, who is a gen- tleman of a kindly and obliging disposition, of unaffected and easy manners, and calculated to make and retain friends. HON. GEORGE S. ROBINSON. 5 YCAMORE. GEORGE STEWART ROBINSON, judge of De Kalb county, is a native of Orleans county, Vermont, being born in the town of Derby, June 24, 1824. His father, George Robinson, a farmer, was born in Connecticut, and took part in the second war with England, and his grand- father, Eber Robinson, commanded a company in the first war against the mother country. The last was an early settler in northern Vermont. He was of Scotch descent. George Robinson married Harriet Stewart, a native of Vermont, and a daughter of Major Rufus Stewart, an officer in the war of 181 2 and 1814. Our subject was educated at Derby Atademy, being fitted for col- lege, but ill health prevented him from matriculating. He taught school in his native state, read- ing law at the same time, first with Hon. Stoddard B, Colby, of Derby, afterward register of the 64 U.yirED STATES HlOGRATinCAl. DICT/O.VA R V. United States treasury, Washington, District of Columbia, and subsequently with Hon. Lucius B. Peck, member of congress, of Montpelier; was admitted to the bar in Vermont in 1846; went south on account of his health, and taught three years; commenced the practice of his profession at Cuthbert, Georgia, in 1852, and remained there until 1866, when he returned to the North, and settled at Sycamore, He was elected county judge in autumn of 1877, and is filling that office with decided ability and great acceptance to his constituents. He is a well read, clear headed lawyer, a judicious and candid adviser, a graceful and polished speaker, and has great influence and success with a jury. The people of De Kalb county have unbounded confidence in his integ- rity, and he will no doubt hold the office of county judge as long as he will consent to retain it. Prior to being elected county judge, Mr. Robinson was master in chancery for several years, and was an alderman for two terms, immediately after Sycamore received its city charter. He was acting city attorney at that time, and had much to do with the framing of the ordinances. He is a director of the Sycamore, Cortland and Chicago railroad, and secretary of the R. Ell- wood Manufacturing Company, Sycamore, and takes a great deal of interest in public enterprises tendintr to improve the home of his adoption. He has been for a long time a member of the State Board of Public Charities, and is, and has been for years, the president of that board. Judge Robinson is a Royal Arch Mason, was for some years master of a lodge at the South, and was High Priest of the Sycamore Chapter for three years. The politics of Judge Robinson are repub- lican, but he is not a bitter partisan or an office seeker. He will work harder to elevate his friends into public positions than for himself. He married at Derby, Vermont, October 13, 1853, Olive A., daughter of Nehemiah Colby, and sister of Hon. Stoddard B. Colby, and they have lost one son, and have two daughters living: Hattie M., wife of Champion I>. Buchan, of Sycamore, and Nellie C, who is at home. AUGUSTINE B. CHILDS. A'EITNSBURGJ/. THE young men who came into Illinois at an early day, when land was cheap, made a prompt purchase, opened a farm and worked it faithfully, were as a general rule, prosperous. The subject of this sketch is no exception to the rule, save that he has worked unusually hard, and has been unusually prosperous, as a brief notice of his life will show. Augustine Barker Childs is a son of Horace and Lucy M. (Barker) Childs, and was born in Whitestown, Oneida county. New York, October 31, 1816. His father, who was born in the same state, laid out the town of Borodino on Skaneateles Lake, and was a merchant there for many years, also served in the war of 1812-14. His paternal ancestors were from Wales, coming over prior to the strife with England, when the colonists struck for independence. Timothy Childs, the grandfather of our subject, went into the army at seventeen years of age. Augustine received a common EngHsh education in a country school, adding to it by private study, and farming has been his leading occupation, commencing in Connecticut, where he remained until his sixteenth year. He learned the blacksmith's trade in Jordan and Rochester, New York, and at sixty-two and a half cents a day earned the money to make his first purchase of prairie land, bringing with him one of Van Buren's treasury notes, which he drew, with four dollars' interest, at Galena, Illinois, after coming west. He came to Mercer county, his present home, in 1838,'and settled in Eliza township. The historian states that Mr. Childs came into this county on a borrowed horse. On his return eastward in 1839 he took the horse to the owner, walked most of the way from the Mississippi to Indianapolis, Indiana, and at Mooresville, Morgan county, Indiana, worked till he had money enough to purchase a horse, which he rode to Sandusky, Ohio. Mr. Childs settled on a farm in Eliza township, commencing with eighty acres', for which he had previously earned the money in the manner already indicated, and enlarging from time to time, until at one period he was the owner of thirteen hundred acres, much of it as good land as UNITED STATES HIUGK AI'H ICA I. DICIIO.VAR Y. 65 Mercer county can show. During the first few years, particularly in the winter season, he worked at his trade, rising as early as four o'clock, and shoeing horses by candle light. He made his horses nails while his neighbors were asleep, and for some years had to split his own iron. June 28, 1840, he married in Morgan county, Indiana, Miss Catharine Reynolds, who shared with him the hardships and struggles of a new home in prairie land. When Mercer county was organized in 1835, Millersburgh became the county seat, which was not long afterward moved to Keithsburgh and thence to Aledo, and Mr. Childs was a grand jury- man at the first sitting of the court at the last named place. Among all the early settlers in Eliza, no one has been more successful than Mr. Childs, and this is owing not only to his indus- try, but to his prudent management and his temperate and economical habits. He has had as high as one hundred and fifty head of cattle and horses, and equally as many hogs ; has sold as high as six thousand dollars worth of stock in a single year, and one year sold four thousand dollars worth of hogs alone of his own raising. The first wife of our subject died, June 5, 1878, leaving eight children, two having preceded her to the other world, one of them in infancy and one after she had become a wife and mother. The eight living children are married and doing well. His present wife was Miss Lucy E. Wil- lits, daughter of Isaiah Willits, of Keithsburgh, and he has by her one son. Since 1880 Mr. Childs has resided in Keithsburgh, and has disposed of some of his land. He has the home farm of four hundred and forty-four acres in Eliza township, and one of one hun- dred and si.xty-five acres in Abington township, and some other land, in all about seven hundred acres in his own name, and his farming is now done largely by proxy. Like a man of sense he is inclined to let the world do its own fretting. Although a so-called home-body, he has seen a little of his own country, the Pacific coast and the Gulf states, including Florida, where he once planted an orange grove, and then sold it, concluding to lessen rather than increase his cares and responsibilities. HON. JAMES A. CONNOLLY. SPRINGFIELD. JAMES AUSTIN CONNOLLY, United States district attorney for the southern district of Illinois, and a prominent lawyer in Coles county, is a son of William and Margaret (McGuire) Connolly, and was born in Newark, New Jersey, March 8, 1838. Both parents were natives, of Ireland. John Connolly, the grandfather of James, participated in the revolution of 1798, and had his property confiscated, and was a fugitive till his death, which occurred in the old countrv. William Connolly, a tanner and currier by trade, came to this country in 1824, and died at Mans- field, Ohio, in 1881. Our subject was educated at the Chesterville, Ohio, Academy; taught school three consecu- tive winter terms ; studied law at Mount Gilead, with Judge A. K. Dunn, and while a law student was elected second assistant clerk of the Ohio state senate, and held that post two years. He was admitted to the bar at Mount Gilead in September, 1859, and practiced there a little more than one year, in company with his preceptor. Judge Dunn. During the presidential campaign of i860 Mr. Connolly was a member of the democratic state central committee of Ohio, and at the close of that campaign went to the South, intending at the time to locate in that part of the country. But in December of that year he hurried northward in order to save his life, coming back a full-grown republican, and settled at Charleston, Illinois, which is still his home. In August, 1862, he was appointed major of the 123d regiment Illinois infantry, which was assigned to the army of the Cumberland, and in which he served for three years. After the battle of Chicairiauga, Major Connolly was assigned to staff duty, and was with General Sherman in his march to the sea. He happened to be in New York city at the time of the funeral of President Lincoln, and was detailed by General Dix to serve as a member of the guard of honor, the only volunteer officer of an Illinois regiment who happened to serve on that guard 56 UNITED STATES BIOCRA TlirCA I. DICTIOXAKY. in that city. Our subject went into the army and came out holding the rank of major, there being no promotions among the field officers of his regiment during the whole three years of service. In the spring of 1865 he was breveted lieutenant-colonel of volunteers for meritorious services in the field. At the close of his military career Major Connolly returned to Charleston, and resumed the practice of his profession, which soon became quite large and lucrative. He is a closely read and able lawyer, a ready, fluent and eloquent speaker, and a very successful practitioner, having great influence with a jury. While the civil war was in progress, 1863, he married Miss Mary Dunn, a sister of Judge Dunn, and they have no children. Major Connolly was elected to the state legislature in 1872, and reelected in 1874, representing the thirty-second district. In the first session (1873) when his party was in power, he was chairman of the committee on public library, and a member of the judiciary and railroad committees. These last two at that particu- lar time were especially important committees as the former had in charge the revision of the statutes, and the latter the origination of the railroad legislation now in force in the state. Our subject was on the judiciary committee all the time that he was in the legislature. His present office of United States district attorney he received at the hands of President Grant in 1876, and he is temporarily residing at the capital of the state, attending to the duties of his office with promptness and marked ability. HON. REUBEN M. BENJAMIN. RLOOMIXGTON. REUBEN MOORE BENJAMIN, judge of McLean county, is a son of Darius and Martha (Rogers) Benjamin, and was born at Chatham Centre, Columbia county, New York, June 29, 1833. His father was a soldier in the second war with the mother country, dying at Chatham Centre in 1850, and his grandfather, Ebenezer Benjamin, was a captain in the first war. The latter moved from Norwich, Connecticut, to the town of Chatham, and there died in 1789. The Benjamins and Rogerses were of English descent, the latter being early settlers in Rhode Island, moving thence to Connecticut. The maternal grandmother of Reuben was Sarah (Moore) Rog- ers, of Welsh extraction. Mr. Benjamin prepared for college at Kinderhook Academy, New York; entered Amherst College, Massachusetts, in January, 1850, and was graduated in 1853, receiving the third honor of his class. He was principal of Hopkins Academ)', at Hadley, near Amherst, in 1853-54; a student in the law school of Harvard University, 1854-55; and tutor in Amherst College, 1855-56. In April of the latter year he came to Bloomington, which has since been his home, and in Sep- tember of that year was licensed to practice law, his examination papers being signed by Abra- ham Lincoln. Mr. Benjamin was a partner of General A. Gridley and Colonel J. H. Wickizer until the former retired from practice, and the latter went into the army. In 1863 he formed a partnership with Judge Thomas F. Tipton, and since then, at different times, has had as partners Captain J. H. Rowell and Hon. Lawrence Weldon, who have, like himself, a high standing at the Illinois bar. Mr. Benjamin is thoroughly read in his profession, and his services have long been in great demand as an office lawyer and counselor. He was chosen a member of the constitutional convention in 1869, and in that body during the following year did a good deal of valuable work. He served on the committees on bill of rights, municipal corporations, state institutions, accounts and expenditures, and schedule; was one of the most active and efficient members of the convention, and during the sessions and after their close was the recipient of highly complimentary remarks, made by his colaborers in that body and by the press. Our subject was one of the counsel for the people in the celebrated Lexington case against the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company, a case involving the question of the right of railroad UNITED STATES filOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 6/ corporations to charge more for a less than for a greater distance, and was subsequently employed as special counsel for the railroad and warehouse commission, and assisted in the prosecution of the Munn and Scott case, which was taken to the supreme court of the United States, and being there affirmed, finally established the constitutional right of the legislature to regulate warehouse charges. Mr. Benjamin was elected to the bench in 1873, and reelected in 1877, and also in 1882. We learn from " Good Old Times in McLean County " that he has won the admiration of the bar and of the people, on account of the rapidity and accuracy with which he dispatches business. In personal appearance " he bears the impress of the student. His demeanor, language and pose are those of a delver in the mines of knowledge." He retains all the polish of mind and man- ners of his New England culture. Judge Benjamin was appointed dean of the law department of the Illinois Wesleyan Univer- sity in 1874, and still holds that position, his chair being " real property." In 1879 he published a work entitled "Student's Guide to Elementary Law." He married at Chatham, New York, September 15, 1856, Miss Laura E. Woodin, daughter of David G. Woodin. HON. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. CHIC A GO. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, general manager of the Associated Press, and late collector of the port of Chicago, was born in the Green River Valley, Columbia county, New York, December i, 1833. His father, William De Forest Smith, grandson of a revolutionary soldier, was a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and belonged to the farming community. The mother of our subject was Almira Gott, whose father. Story Gott, was a lieutenant in the conti- nental army, and a descendant of a family which came from Scotland and settled in Connecticut prior to 1690. The Gotts were driven out of Holland at the time of religious persecution, two or three centuries ago, and fled to Scotland for refuge. The late Hon. Daniel Gott, for many years a judge of the court of appeals. New York, and at one time a member of congress from that state, was an uncle of Mrs. Smith. Mr. Smith was educated at the Quaker college. Green Mount, Richmond, Indiana, being graduated in 1853. He had some experience in teaching school before entering college, was tutor a few terms while in college and taught one year after his graduation. In 1854 we find Mr. Smith at Cincinnati, engaged in editing books and a weekly paper, enti- tled "The Type of the Times," which was devoted to literature and independent politics. Mr. Smith early became interested in the great free-soil movement, and commenced writing for newspapers on political subjects before he was of age. About 1857 he became a correspondent of the "Cincinnati Commercial," and a little later went on the editorial staff of the "Daily Gazette," of the same city. While thus engaged, in 1863 he became the private secretary of the great war governor of Ohio, Hon. John Brough. He was holding that position in 1864, when nominated by the republican party for the office of secretary of state. Success attended the can- vass, as he received the largest majority, over fifty-six thousand, ever cast for the head of a republican ticket in that state, except in the case of John Brough. He was reelected in 1866. He resigned in January, 186S, after the inauguration of Governor Hayes, to return to journalism, for which he seems to have always had great fondness and peculiar adaptation, he being a read)-, vigorous and trenchant writer. Mr. Smith aided in establishing the "Cincinnati Chronicle," (1868) which was afterward merged into the "Times," and in 1870 he was proffered, and accepted the position which he now holds, that of general manager of the Western Associated Press, the largest news organization in the world, a position which he is filling with a good deal of execu- tive ability, and to the general satisfaction of all parties concerned. Mr. Smith has long been an intimate friend of General Rutherford B. Hayes, and while the 58 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPinCAL DICTIONARY. one was gallantly fighting for the Union cause in the field, the other was doing a similar work with the pen at home, and when General Hayes became president, he appointed Mr. Smith to the office of collector of customs for the port of Chicago, which he held from September 14, 1877, to January 9, 1882. In the last named 3-ear was published, from the pen of Mr. Smith, "The Life and Public Services of General Arthur Saint Clair," a work in two large volumes, abounding in original matter, and prepared with great care. So interesting and popular is this work that a second edition was called for at the end of the first six months. It covers Saint Clair's services in the French-English Canadian war, the American revolution, as president of the continental congress, and as the governor and real founder of the five great states in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. The first title of the book is "The Saint Clair Papers." Our subject has been connected with the newspaper press so long, and has become so wedded to its interests, that he finds it difficult to let his pen remain idle. He still writes essays and editorials for different dailies, and takes up no topic which he does not treat with decided ability, and in a most readable manner. He was married, in 1855, to Miss Emma Reynolds, a member of a Quaker family, and they have a son and daughter. Mr. Smith's religious associations are with the Presbyterian church, to which he is much attached. Since the above sketch was written, the daily journals have announced that a union has been formed between the Western Associated Press and the New York Associated Press, the original organization which established agencies in all of the great cities of the world, and inaugurated that system which is essential to the success of any first-class daily newspaper. Mr. Smith is the general manager of the Consolidated Associated Press, with headquarters in Chicago and New York. AARON H. COLE. MOUNT CARROLL. AARON HUTCHINSON COLE, deceased, was a son of Thomas and Sarah (Davis) Cole, and L was born in Stanstead, Lower Canada (now the Province of Quebec), November 23, 1823. His father was a farmer, and the family was from Saint Johnsbury, Vermont. Aaron was the fourth son of seven brothers, of whom two, Philo B. and John S., live in Mount Carroll, two in Iowa, and two are dead. Mr. Cole received an ordinary English education, and when about twenty-five years old left Canada, and made a trip to California, going by way of Cape Horn, starting in 1849, when the gold fever in reference to that country first broke out, and being six months on the voyage. His brother, Philo, went with him. He had very good success in the mines, and on his return came to Carroll county, and settled at first in Salem township, where he was engaged in farming and stock raising. Four or five years later (1859) he moved to Mount Carroll, where he lived till his death, which occurred July 7, 1880, his disease being pulmonary consumption. He left a widow and one child. He married in April, 1854, Miss Lovisa Elmira Shurtleff, a native of Stanstead, and an acquaintance of his youth. Her father was Lothrop Shurtleff, also a native of Canada, and a descendant of a New England family, noted for its benevolence. One of them. Doctor Shurtleff, of Boston, Massachusetts, partially endowed Shurtleff College, a Baptist institution at Upper Alton, Illinois. Mrs. Cole is the mother of two children, both sons, Wilbert Aaron, who died in infancy, and Flavius Shurtleff, who was born in 1862, and who is nobly trying to fill his father's place in taking care of the farms and other property, of which his father left a great amount, and whollv unin- cumbered. Much of it is in real estate in Iowa. Mr. Cole was one of the best financiers in Carroll county. We learn from the Carroll county "Herald" of July 9, 1880, that the Coles are relatives of Roger Sherman, of revolutionary fame, Mr. Cole's grandmother being a Sherman. He was also related to Hon. John Sherman, now United States senator from Ohio, for whom John S. Cole was named. The mother of our subject survived him just three months. UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 7 1 Mr. Cole was baptized by a Freewill Baptist minister when nineteen years of age, but was not, we understand, in full accord with that branch of the great Baptist family, and did not con- nect himself with any church. His wife was and is a member of the Baptist church in Mount Carroll, which he attended quite regularly when at home, and to the support of which he contrib- uted. He lived a strictly moral, unblemished life; often expressed to his wife a hope in Christ; on his death-bed was perfectly resigned to his lot, and urged his son to "remember his Creator in the days of his youth," and identify himself with the church. The writer of this sketch was acquainted with Mr. Cole, and has shared in his social cheer and hospitality. He was a not a man of a superfluity of words, and did not covet a large circle of confidential friends. He minded his own business, and succeeded in his business by putting mind into it. He was strictly honest himself, and despised anything to the contrary in others; established a good reputation for integrity, and left to his son an unblemished record, — a bright example to follow, — as well as a good deal of land and other property. The widow, also, he placed in perfectly independent circumstances; but no amount of worldly goods can compensate for his absence from the little domestic circle, which he himself so much enjoyed. Others beside her miss him. Several of the best class of men in Mount Carroll have passed away during the last lustrum, and the vacancy is painfully felt. REV. NATHANIEL S. SAGE, LL.D. AURORA. NATHANIEI> S. SAGE comes of good patriotic and fighting stock, both grandsires partici- pating in the struggle for the independence of the colonies. He was born in Huntington, Lorain county, Ohio, May 7, 1838, and is a son of Rev. Harlow Parson Sage and Susan (Malroy) Sage. His father is a well-known Universalist minister. He is still living at his old home in Lorain county, being in his eighty-fifth year. He is a cousin of Henry Sage and Russell Sage, of New York city. The Sages are of Scandinavian extraction, the original name being Saga, mean- ing chief of the tribe. The first emigrants from the old world settled in Connecticut, from which state Joseph Sage, father of Harlow P., took up arms against King George the Third, enlisting at eighteen years of age. The Malroys are of Irish descent, and Susan Malroy Sage was a cousin of General Malroy, of Indiana, well known as the "War Eagle" of that state. She died at Hunt- ington in 1872. The education of our subject, preparatory to entering college, was largely due to his father, who is a graduate of Yale College, and who was very thorough in his drill of the son. The latter attended the Liberal Institute, at Marietta, two or three terms, and then entered Oberlin College, where he remained until 1857. Prior to his entering college, his father had met with reverses of fortune, and the son was thrown upon his own resources, two industrious hands and a resolute heart. He sawed wood, set type, taught school, did anything, in short, by which he could earn a few dollars, and meet his pecuniary obligations. We doubt if he ever had any boyhood, or knew by experience anything about the sports of youth. With him work and study monopolized his ' younger years. On leaving college, Mr. Sage taught school most of the time for nine years, mainly in his native town, preaching at the same time. He was ordained at eighteen years of age, and com- menced preaching two years earlier, the father being unwell at times, and the son taking his place. In the autumn of i860 our subject went to Minnesota, and spent the winter in Fillmore county. On the breaking out of civil war, he enlisted at Preston, that count}', as a private in company A, 2d Minnesota infantry; was slightly wounded at the capture of Ford Donelson, and was soon afterward mustered out of service. Returning to Ohio, he again enlisted, and not being accepted as a soldier, he was elected chaplain (^f the iS2d regiment, and served in that capacity till the close of the war. 8 VXITED STATES BIOCRA PlIICAL DICTIONARY. Mr. Sage was pastor of the Universalist church at New Philadelphia. Ohio, three years; preached at Logansport, Indiana, eight years, and in February, 1876, came to this state, preach- ing at Sycamore until April, 1881, when he settled in Aurora, where the Universalists have a strong and influential church. He received the honorary degree of doctor of laws from the Saint Louis University in 1874. As a speaker he is very fluent, as a reasoner clear, logical and strong, and as a denouncer of wrong, powerful in invective. He is very studious, and shows in in his discourses and public address the freshness uf his reading, as well as the breadth of his thinking. Mr. Sage is not much of a stickler for denominational lines; is, in fact, quite independent in his theological views, and has a thoroughly brotherly feeling for everybody who is trying to do right. He has a good deal of literary taste, as well as mental culture, and often addresses teach- ers' institutes, college societies, and literary associations, and his efforts on such occasions are usually marked by fine scholarship and a good deal of oratorical power. He also writes more or less for the newspapers and magazines of his denomination, and sometimes for the "Quarterly Review," and some of his articles have attracted a good deal of attention. At the time this sketch is written our subject holds the office of grand chaplain of the Odd-Fellows of Illinois, and he is also a prominent Mason. He married, in 1857, Miss Margaret Wagoner, of Medina county, Ohio, and she died June 20, 1878, leaving four sons and one daughter, one son having preceded her to the spirit world. Cora, the oldest daughter, is married to Harris W. Sabin, of Freeport, Illinois; Wallace Irving is city editor of the Aurora " Daily Post," and James Ashley, Arthur Dixon and Harry Renan are pur- suing their studies. LAWRENCE W. CLAYPOOL. MORRIS. LAWRENCE WILSON CLAYPOOL comes of a family which originated about the time of Oliver Cromwell. Its first representatives in this country were two young men, brothers, who emigrated from England about 1650, and settled in Virginia. One of them subsequently removed to Philadelphia and became attached to William Penn. The family embraced his Quaker faith, and became prominent in the affairs of that colony. One of them, James Claypole, appears as a witness to Penn's charter, and his descendants to this day spell their names Claypole. Will- iam Claypool was a son of the Virginia brother, born in about 1690, had three sons, and lived to the great age of one hundred and two years. One son, James, also had three sons whom he reverently named Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was Washington's chief of commissary for eastern Virginia, and furnished the revolutionary heroes with beef when he could get it. Abraham, his eldest son, was the father of a baker's dozen, thirteen, of whom eleven, six sons and five daughters, reached maturity. The Claypools were all people of consequence in the Old Do- minion, and owned plantations and slaves. Nevertheless, like all of the original old \Mrginia set- tlers, they were opposed to the continuance of the accursed system, and when Abraham removed with his large family to Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1799, he took with him his two slaves for the express purpose of giving them that liberty which by the ordinance of 1 787 was eternally pledged to all who should settle in the great Northwestern territory. In his new home Abraham prospered exceed- ingly, and enjoyed the confidence of his fellow citizens, and bore all the honors they were able to confer on him, till the day of his death. He aided in the formation of the first state govern- ment in Ohio, was a member of its first senate, and occupied a seat in its halls as long as he would consent to do so. Jacob, his second son, had two children only, Perry Amos and Lawrence Wilson, the subject of this sketch. He first settled in Brown county, Ohio, but in 1822 removed to and helped to found the new city of Indianapolis, Indiana. It will be remembered that the ague and fever was so abundant in that region about that time, that it is said the early inhabitants cut it up and I UNITED STATES B /OCT.t P/r/CA L DICTIONARY. 73 Stored it away like cordwood for winter's use. At any rate they were never without a full sup- ply, winter or summer, and Jacob, fortunately having a farm still in Ohio, returned to it, and left his share of the principal Indiana crop for others to harvest. In 1812 Jacob Claypool served his country in the war with Great Britain. He was a member of the ist regiment of Ohio infantry. Colonel McArthur (afterward governor) commanding. His regiment served under Gen- eral Hull, and was a part of the force surrendered by him to the British at Detroit. He kept a diary from the time he left home till he returned, and claims in it that Hull did not surrender till the British had crossed 1,000 soldiers below the fort and collected 1500 howling savages in its rear. In 1834 Jacob Claypool finally set his face toward the setting sun, and removed to Grundy county, Illinois. The Pottawatomie Indian chief, Waupansee, had his camp at that time in what is now the township of Waupansee, south of the river, and the hardy pioneer and his family, who had been familiar with the Indians and their ways all their lives, had no hesitation in settling close to them on the ten mile tract, which the government had before bought of them. He secured for himself and his sons and their families a large tract of this rich prairie soil, became rich in conse- quence, and a prominent and powerful man in the state. He filled many important offices in the county, as the first county commissioner, probate judge, etc., and died in 1876, at the age of eighty-eight years. He was a true pioneer, a man of great strength and courage, and a natural leader and commander among men. His sons were both true sons of their sire. The subject of this paper was born June 4, 1819, at Perry township. Brown county, Ohio. His mother's name was Nancy Ballard. His schooling in boyhood was confined within the limits of .about eleven months, in a little log school house in Ohio, but like all strong minds his life has been a long and valuable school. In 1841 when not yet twenty-two years old, he was elected recorder of deeds for Grundy county, and served till 1847. He was the first postmaster in the town of Morris, and served from 1842 to 1845. In 1848 he received an appointment as assistant agent of the canal lands, and served in that capacity till the lands were all finally sold in i860. E. S. Prescott and Mr. Clay- pool had the duty and responsibility of reexamining, managing and assisting to sell this vast body of land, which they did to the perfect satisfaction of all parties, and much credit to them- selves. He was also town supervisor, member of school board, etc., for many years. During the war he was a very active and prominent worker in the important business of rais- ing volunteers and providing sanitary supplies. As treasurer of the sanitary commission in Grundy county, he at one time sent $2,000 to the Chicago Christian and sanitary commissions. It goes without saying it that Mr. Claypool was an old-line whig, an abolitionist, then a free- soiler, an anti-Nebraska man, and finally when all these elements crystallized into the republican party he made a tolerably large and solid crystal. He was of age at the time of the presidential canvass of 1840, and voted for old Tippecanoe During the campaign he was at Cincinnati at one time when the General made a speech, and stood within a few feet of the old hero, and heard him reply to the charge of being an abolitionist. " I am accused," said he, "of being an abolitionist," pausing and raising his eyes and stretching his long arm at full length toward heaven, " I would to God that yonder sun might never again shine upon a slave." November 15, 1849, Mr. Claypool was married to Miss Caroline B. Palmer, the daughter of John Palmer, of Ottawa, who with his family settled in that place in 1834. Eight children have been born to them, two only of whom survive to the present tirrie, Henry Clay, the eldest, now thirty, and Lawrence Wilson, a lad of sixteen years. Mr. Claypool is one of a type of men who have, under God, made this country what it is to- day. Tall and straight as an arrow; lithe and active as a greyhound, with sinews of steel and heart of oak; of undaunted courage and self reliance, of incorruptible integrity, to whom it is impossible to teach the crooked ways of self-seeking men; earnest, industrious, faithful, ever ready for any labor or sacrifice for the cause of freedom and the rights of man; simple and childHke in manners, with heart as tender as a woman's, and stern only in the face of wrong; these are the men wl^ose characters have been moulded after the pattern of the heroes of the -1 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICA I. DICTIONARY. I 4- Bible; who have been reared in intimate companionship with nature, and with nature's God; who are the unspoiled children of nature, and have received the indelible impress of her nobility and purity. Alas ! when they and their influences shall have passed away, and the nation shall be left to the guidance of the artificial and godless philosophy of a pleasure-seeking and self-wor- shiping geration of men! HON. WILLIAM E. SHUTT. SPRINGFIELD. WILLIAM EDWARD SHUTT, state senator, and member of the law firm of Palmers, Robinson and Shutt, was born in Waterford, London county, Virginia, May 5, 1840, his parents being Jacob and Caroline (Leslie) Shutt. His paternal grandparents were natives of Strasburg, in the province of Alsace, and his maternal grandparents were from Scotland. Jacob Shutt was a soldier in the war of 1812-14, and participated in the battle at Bladensburg, near Washington. He moved his family from Virginia to the city of Springfield, in November, 1842, when William was in his third yedr, and here died in 1866, his wife having died a year earlier. Our subject was educated in the local schools ; read law with Hon. James H. Matheny, now judge of Sangamon county, and was admitted to practice in May 1862. Two years afterward he was elected cit)' attorney, and held that office one year. He was mayor of the city in 1868. In 1874 he was elected to the state senate for the thirty-fifth district, and was reelected in 1878, his second term expiring with the present year (1883). He has always been a staunch democrat, and during the session that the coalition of democrats and grangers held the balance of power in the legislature, he was chairman of the committees of public buildings and grounds, and expenses of the general assembly, and has always been on the judiciary committee, his talents and peculiar fitness for a place on that committee being recognized by all parties. He has repeatedly served as chairman of the democratic senate caucus. Mr. Shutt is the author of more than twenty bills, which passed and became laws, some of them being quite important. He was formerly of the law firm of Robinson, Knapp and Shutt, which was formed July i, 1869, and which consisted of Hon. James C. Robinson, Hon. Anthony L. Knapp and himself, and which continued unchanged until the demise of Mr. Knapp in May 1881. Soon after that date the two surviving members formed a partnership with Hon. John M. Palmer and J. Mayo Palmer, under the firm name of Palmers, Robinson and Shutt. He is a man of great physical and men- tal power; prepares his cases for trial with adroitness and skill, and favorably impresses a jury with his candor and sincerity, as well as logic. The wife of Mr. Shutt was Ella V. Collins, of New Orleans, Louisiana, their marriage being dated January 11, 1866. They have two children, a daughter, Maggie T., aged fifteen, and a son, William E., aged twelve years. EDMUND STEVENS. D.D.S. BLOOMINGTON. THE subject of this sketch, a hotel keeper, and the leading dentist in Bloomington, is a native of Talbot county, Maryland, dating his birth February 19, 1832. His father, Charles R. Stevens, and his grandfather, were also born in that state. The great-grandfather of Edmund was from England, and fought for the independence of the colonies. An uncle of Edmund was in the war of 1812-4. Charles R. Stevens married his cousin, Julia A. Stevens, who had five children, all sons, Edmund being the fourth. He received a common English education in his native state; was apprenticed to a silversmith, Thomas J. Brown, of Baltimore, who still resides there; remained with him two years; finished learning his trade in Philadelphia, with George K. Childs, who held a prominent office in the United States mint, and after completing his apprenticeship studied dentistry. He attended a course of lectures in the medical department of the Pennsylvania Col- UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 75 lege, Philadelphia, and was graduated at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1857. Before receiving his degree he practiced his profession for a year or two in Philadelphia, and sub- sequently for a few months in Camden, New Jersey. In the autumn of 1857 Doctor Stevens came to Bloomington, and was in successful practice here until 1878, doing the largest business in the city. In the summer of that year he moved to Kansas City, Missouri; there opened the Stevens' House on Main street, near Seventh, Which hotel is still conducted in his name. While there he also had a dental office, and did a fair business in both branches. On account of ill health, Doctor Stevens returned to his old home in Bloomington in February, 1881; opened the Stevens (formerly the St. Nicholas) House, remodeled and refurnished it, fitted it up in good style, and it is neat and cleanly. It is the second hotel in size in Bloomington, and is usually full. Often persons seeking lodgings there are compelled to be turned away. Doctor Stevens has also a dental office. His old patrons have nearly all returned to him, together with many new ones, and between the two branches of business he is one of the busiest men in the city. There is no dental surgeon in central Illinois that has a better professional education than the doctor. He has been a member of the Odd-Fellows' fraternity for thirty years, and is past grand in that order. In i860 Doctor Stevens married Mary B. Smith, only daughter of James R. and Eliza H. Smith, of Mechanicsburgh, Sangamon county, Illinois, and they lost their first-born child in infancy, and have three daughters and three sons living: Carrie J., Herbert, Harry Smith,_ Grace, Charles and Mamie Parker. HON. WILLIAM BROWN. ROCKFORD. THE subject of this biographical sketch, judge of the thirteenth judicial circuit, is a native of Cumberland county, England, a son of Thomas and Mary (Morton) Brown, and was born June I, 1819. When he was eight years old the family emigrated to the United States, and after spending two or three years in the vicinity of Hudson, Columbia county. New York, settled on a farm at Western, Oneida county, same state. William remained on the farm, attending school during the winters, until seventeen years old, when he commenced teaching during the winter season, and was not much at home after that age. As far as we can ascertain, he seems to have relied upon his own hands and scholarship for support after the date mentioned, for he continued to teach a writing school for three or four seasons before leaving the East. He studied law at Utica and Rome, and on his way westward, in the autumn of 1845, he halted at Rochester, was examined before the supreme court of New York, and licensed to practice. He reached Rock- ford, his present home, in November of that year; taught a district school a few miles out of town during the following winter, and early in the spring of 1846 opened an office, and was ready for legal business. Rockford was then a very small village. The chief end of the new comers was to enter land, and litigants were scarce. It is doubtful if he was electrified with visions of wealth during the first twelve months that his shingle swung lazily in the wind. In 1847 he was elected to the office of justice of the peace, and he held it till 1852. It brought him business, and business brought him comfort, and how much better can any office, however exalted, do for a man ? Since that honorable office of magistrate was given him, our subject has been kept almost constantly in some official position. He was one of the trustees of Rockford before the city was incorporated; was state's attorney from 1852 to 1856; was master in chancery for six years prior to that period; was a member of the legislature in 1865-66, and mayor of the city of Rockford in 1857. We may fail to enumerate all the blushing honors thrust upon our subject during his first quarter of a century's residence in this place, but that will not grieve him. Office has sought him; not he office. In 1870 he was placed upon the bench of the circuit court, in accordance with the general wish of the bar of the circuit, and by the spontaneous and strong vote of the -,6 UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICITONARY. people, his majority being very heavy where he was best known. By repeated reelections he still retains his seat on the bench. Both as a lawyer and judge he is noted for being thoroughly con- scientious and honest. He is very painstaking, and looks up a case to his complete satisfaction before making a decision. His decisions are about as often sustained as those of any circuit judge of the state. His candor and good judgment, and his efforts to deal justly with all men, make him popular among the people. Judge Brown is a republican in politics, a member of the Methodist church, and a man of unblemished life. He has his share of pride in fostering local industries and institutions, and in aiding to build up the beautiful home of his adoption. He is a stockholder in the Rockford Watch P'actory Company, a director of the People's Bank, and president of the Nelson Knitting Company. He has other interests in other parts of the country. Judge Brown married, in 1850, Miss Caroline H. Miller, of Winnebago county, Illinois, and they have three children here and three in the spirit world. AARON LEWIS, M.D. WAUKEGAX. ONE of the oldest phj'sicians still in practice in northeastern Illinois is the gentleman whose name we have placed at the head of this sketch. He was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, February 12, 1818, being a son of Jehu Lewis, a farmer, and Eleanor (Cadwallader) Lewis, both also natives of Virginia His paternal grandfather was a surveyor, and was employed by the government to survey some of th'e wild lands of the Old Dominion. The family were Quakers, and hence took no part in the war for independence. Jehu Lewis, who moved to the Big Miami valley, Ohio, when Aaron was young, had a large family, and being in moderate circumstances, found it difficult to give his children anything more than a slight knowledge of the elementary branches of learning; but at seventeen years of age Aaron resolved to have a professional educa- tion, although there was no one to assist him even to the amount of one dollar. After attending a Quaker high school in the aggregate about two years, he read medicine twelve months with Doctor Isaac Wright, of Highland county, Ohio, followed by a period of two years with Doctor Daniel Meeker, of La Porte, Indiana. In order to secure his medical education, he built, with his own hands, a little cabin out of refuse lumber, with a mud chimney, and there lived for eighteen months, isolated from the world, living on the cheapest of food, and seeing his preceptor once in two weeks. He was examined by a medical board, passed without any difficulty, and received his license. He began practice at McHenry, McHenry county, Illinois, in 1840. About that time he married Isabella T. Randall, of Pleasant Grove, near Marengo, and of three children, the fruit of this union, only one daughter is now living. In the spring of 1843 Doctor Lewis moved to Libertyville. then the seat of justice in Lake county, and its leading town, and the next year went back to La Porte, and took his degree of doctor of medicine. In 1846 he removed to Little Fort, now Waukegan, and the Mexican war breaking out, he received the appointment of examining surgeon, and went to Shawneetown, on the Ohio river, where he remained one year, and then, the war being over, returned to Wau- kegan. About four years later, at the urgent solicitation of some prominent lumbermen in Mich- igan, he crossed the lake, and spent two years at Muskegon Lake, at the end of which time we find him once more among his friends at Waukegan. Soon after the civil war broke out. Doctor Lewis was appointed provost marshal surgeon for his congressional district, and he examined most of the soldiers for six counties, with his head- quarters at Marengo. That position he held until the close of the rebellion. With the exception of four months, spent with his wife at the Hot Springs, Arkansas, quite as much for a respite from hard work as for the benefit of his health, and short periods at medical colleges in Chicago and Saint Louis, Doctor Lewis has been confined very closely to his profes- UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 1 I sional duties in Waukegan and vicinity. Although at an age when most medical men begin to curtail their rides, he finds it extremely difficult to do so. Old friends are unwilling to change their family physician, and his kindly heart cannot say no to their pressing appeals for his skillful hand in their hour of sickness. During his long professional career and his life of exposure the doctor has taken the best of care of himself, and is well preserved, and as active, seemingly, as he was twenty years ago. During the war the post which he held brought him in contact with a great many people, and he is one of the best known medical men in this part of the state. He is well known among the Masonic as well as medical fraternity, being a Royal Arch Mason. The doctor is a Quaker by birthright, and he has never, we believe, withdrawn from that society, but he is an out-and-out spiritualist, and frequently conducts funeral services, and lec- tures in public on his favorite religious topic, always to full houses. He is a man of great candor and sincerity; couples principle with his Christian as well as medical profession, and has the wdrm esteem of a very extensive circle of acquaintances. CORNELIUS G. BRADSHAW. BLOOMINGTON. CORNELIUS GARRISON BRADSHAW, attorney-at-law, son of Thomas and Lucretia (Gar- rison) Bradshaw, was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, May 26, 1839. His father was a farmer, and born in Virginia, where the family settled at a very early day in the history of the colonies, their home being near Jamestown, on land granted by the Crown. Thomas Bradshaw, the grand- father of Cornelius, was a captain in the first war with the mother country, and a lineal descend- ant of John Bradshaw, who was at one time president of the house of commons, and also of the court which decreed the beheading of Charles the First. Lucretia Garrison was of Greek extrac- tion, her family, who belonged to the Greek church, coming to this country from Russia. Cornelius was educated at Asbury College, Greencastle, Indiana, leaving in the senior year (1857), and is a graduate of the law department of the University of Michigan, class '59. He practiced a short time at Camargo, Douglas county, Illinois; taught two or three years, and was president of Marshall College when civil war was raging in the country. In 1S62 he went into the army as chaplain of the 79th regiment Illinois infantry, and for meritorious conduct on the field of battle at Stone River, was promoted from the rank of captain to that of colonel. He remained in the army until after the battles in and around Cliattanooga, when he resigned on account of physical disability. Returning to Illinois, our subject became pastor of the Methodist Church at Havana, and at the close of the year was presented with an elegant gold watch by his friends in that place. He then became connected with the female college at Jacksonville, Illinois, and in 1866 came to Bloomington, and had charge of the Methodist Church at Normal one year. Mr. Bradshaw returned to his original profession in 1867, and has practiced it since that time with marked suc- cess. A writer in the Bloomington " Leader" of July, 1878, gives an account of his success in his profession, enumerating two or three of the noted cases in which he had been engaged. The first case of any note in which he figured, says the " Leader," was a suit at Charleston, Coles county, Illinois, which was a prosecution brought under the old fugitive slave law against a colored woman, named Mary Brown. He was counsel for the defendant, and succeeded in securing his client's acquittal. When the war broke out Mr. Bradshaw was president of Marshall College, but resigned his duties as an instructor, to become a soldier. He experienced active service as a cap- tain of cavalry, and several times received honorable mention in the reports. His position as senior counsel in the celebrated Roach case was a responsible one. It was in the defense of the notorious desperado Rande, however, that Mr. Bradshaw's great originality was brought conspicuously into play. He made one of the most learned, striking and original 78 t'N/TED STATES BTOGRAPinCAI. DICTIONARY. appeals that was ever addressed to any jury. Extracts from this effort were telegraphed to all the leading papers of the country. The case of Professor Jefferson, tried for murder at Kansas City in the August term of 1881, is truly noteworthy. The accused was one-eighth colored, and up to that date the courts of Missouri had violated the constitution of the United States by prohibiting colored people from acting as jurors. Mr. Bradshaw secured them their rights on that occasion. He defended the Storer brothers at Dallas, Texas, accused of robbery and murder, and secured their acquittal, which was regarded as a great legal victory. Since that time he has been called to different and remote parts of the country, Connecticut, Iowa, Tennessee, etc. As a lawyer, he is diplomatic, managerial, planning, fertile of invention, ready to conceive and quick to execute. He will turn up the most unexpected cards upon the shortest notice, and will gain a point while most men are looking for the means. The " Leader " thus speaks of the personal appearance of Mr. Bradshaw : " He is of rather a striking figure, being tall, somewhat slender, but graceful in motion, and wears long hair, in which the silver may be traced, and has deep-set, cold gray eyes. In manners he is suave and entertain- ing. His likes and dislikes are very pronounced. As a friend he is tireless in advancing one's interests, and as an enemy he is like Nemesis on one's track." Mr. Bradshaw is a republican in politics, and a Royal Arch Mason. He married in March, i860. Sarah Ann, daughter of Snowden Sargent, of Douglas county, a prominent man in that part of the state, and they have three children. o ROBERT K. SWAN. MOLINE. NE of the most straightforward, energetic and successful business men who ever lived in Moline, was the late Robert Kerr Swan, a native of Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania. He was born July 19, 1825; was reared on a farm, and received an ordinary English education. When he was fourteen years old the family moved to Preble county, Ohio, where our subject remained until March, 1852, when he came to Moline. He brought empty pockets, but a large stock of pluck and perseverance, sound sense, and industrious habits. He commenced work here for Alonzo Nourse, as traveling salesman for fanning mills, meeting with success from the start, and making many valuable acquaintances. In 1854 he formed a partnership with Henry W. Candee, and they commenced the manufac- ture of chain pumps, and hay rakes, and Mr. Swan went on the road as salesman. He met with unexpected and very great success, and the firm found themselves on the road to fortune. Andrew Friberg joined them in 1865, and the firm of Candee, Swan and Company, soon became broadly and favorably known. In 1866 Mr. Swan suggested to his partners the propriety of starting a shop for the manufacture of steel plows and cultivators. His associates, including George Ste- phens, who had joined the firm, seconded his plans, and in a short time the great manufactory, corner of Maine street and Rodman avenue, was erected, and ready for use. The establishment has since been enlarged three or four times, and the Moline Plow Company, which name the firm took in 1870, has had wonderful success. Mr. Swan was chosen president of the company, and held that position at the time of his death. May 25, 1878, his disease being erysipelas. No funeral that has ever occurred in Moline drew out such a multitude of mourners. All the business houses were closed, and the whole city turned out to bewail their great loss. At the time of his demise a Rock Island paper thus spoke of him: '' Mr. Swan was known all over the Northwest, from the source of the Ohio River to the mouth of the Columbia, and could count his friends by the thousand. As an indication of the esteem in which he was held, and of the interest that was taken in his case during his illness, it may be stated that telegrams, inquiring about his condition, were received in every quarter of the North- ^^t^n^^x^i [•.vrrr.n st.itf.s RiocKAPincAr D/cr/o.v.iRV. 8i west, and many a man on his way east or west stopped over a few hours in Moline to learn some- thing- of the condition of Mr. Swan. His life was full of incidents of great actions, in which he was the principal. The soldier boys who fell wounded on the field after the battle of Stone River will never forget his kindness to them. He was sent from Moline by the people to look after the dead and wounded who had gone from our midst to fight the battles of freedom. He arrived at the enemy's lines, and was told that he could go no farther, and probably there were few men in the country who would have attempted to disobey, but Mr. Swan went through the lines and cared for the wounded Moline boys wjjo were lying on the battle-field waiting for death at the hands of a brutal rebel soldiery. He provided for their wants, and saw that they had as good treatment as could be obtained, and when he returned to Moline he brought home with him the body of Lieutenant Wellington Wood, one of Moline's favorite sons, who fell at Stone River. There was nothing too hard for Mr. Swan to undertake, or too difficult for him to execute. He was one of those men who knew no such word as fail, and all his deeds were characterized by Christian virtue. He was for many years, and at the time of his death, a member of the Congre- gational church, and gave liberally of his means to the Lord's cause. In politics he was a ref)ub- lican, of the staunchest kind, whose faith and allegiance never wavered. In Mr. Swan's death, Moline has been deprived of one of its best, most useful and public spirited citizens, and the Northwest has lost one of the most energetic business men it ever knew. The rich and poor alike will mourn his loss, for he was beloved by men of every walk in life." Mr. Swan left a wife, whose maiden name was Mercy Parsons, and whom he married at Wood- stock, Illinois, December 17, 1856, and four children, whose names are Lillie E., Robert E., Clara B., and Edith L. In addition to a competency, he left his family the legacy of a good name which is better than silver and yfold. SAMUEL P. CRAWFORD. ROCh'FOA'D. SAMITEL PRESTON CRAWFORD, mayor of the city "f R.ickford, and one of its enterpris- ing manufacturers, was born in l^nion, Tolland county, Connecticut, May 16, 1820, his parents lieing Charles and Polly (Preston) Crawford, both of New England stock. The Cravvfords are an I lid Connecticut family, and the grandfather of our subject, Samuel Crawford, was one of those brave sons of liberty who took up arms against the mother country, and aided in gaining the independence of the colonies. Mr. Crawford received an academic education principally at Dudley, Massachusetts, and for a few years was engaged in farming with his father, and lumbering in his native state, marrying Miss Philena Leonard Chamberlain, of Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1845. In 1S48 he went to Springfield, Massachusetts, and was a merchant there for two years; returned to his native state in 1850, and was engaged in merchandising until May, 1852, when he came to Illinois and selected Rockford as his future home. The writer of this sketch first saw this city, then a village, in the summer of that. year, and was smitten with its natural beauties, and conscious of its bright future, because of its superior water power. The whole Rock River, then but slightly utilized, was at the command of capital and industry, and thirty years ago it required but little of the gift of the seer, to see a city gradually arising where Rockford, the loveliest, if not the liveliest Illinois city of the younger class, now stands. When Mr. Crawford settled here, he engaged in the grain and general produce business, rail- road communication being opened with Chicago in that year, and that line of traffic he followed for several years, afterward engaging extensively in farming operations. But manufacturing has become the leading industry of the place, and a few vears ago he made a change, and is now run- ning a planing mill, and manufacturing sash, door, blinds, etc., on an extensive scale, he being the senior member of the firm of Crawford and Upton. He is a stockholder in the Winnebago National Bank. From the time that Mr. Crawford settled in Rockford, he has identified the city's 9 g2 UNITED STATES BfOGRA I'll ICAI. DICTIONARY. interests with his own, and showed in more ways than one, his public spirit and his desire to aid in advancing its prosperity. He was for ten consecutive years alderman of the 7th ward, and so faithfully did he serve his constituents, and so zealously worked for the welfare of the city, that at the end of that period (1881) the citizens placed him at the head of its municipality. He makes a good executive, being a practical, as well as an efficient business man, and as he has energetic backers and co-workers in the council, the people have the satisfaction of knowing that the city is under a progressive as well as safe administration. Rockford is a very strong republican citv, and has n«t for many years had a mayor of any other school of politics. Mayor Crawford is a deacon of the First Baptist Church, and a man of solid character and good impulses. In him the poor find a true friend. HON. ISAAC RICE, M.D. MOUNT M OH HIS. ONE of the most thoroughly self-made citizens of Ogle county, is the subject of this sketch who came here in early youth, and was soon thrown upon his own resources. It was before the advent of school houses in the farming districts in this part of the county, and for a few years he had to pick up knowledge at a great disadvantage, as cattle sometimes browse upon trees when they can do no better. Isaac Rice is a son of Jacob and Mary (Rowland) Rice, both natives of the state of Maryland, and was born in Washington county, that state, October 28, 1826. He seems to have had no ambition to trace the family tree to its original trunk, and knows very little of his. ancestors, ■ except that on the paternal side they were probably German. If that is the case the name may have been spelt Reis a hundred years ago. But Isaac was satisfied to follow his honest father in his orthography, and whatever history he has made is under the plain English name of Rice. In July, 1837, in his eleventh year he came with the family, consisting of the parents and twelve children, (Isaac being the eleventh) to Ogle county, and they settled on land three miles north of Mount Morris. Here he was reared, and early inured to hard farm work. That was long before anybody in these parts had to look out for the engine while the bell rung, and Chicago, a hun- dred miles away, was the market town. Isaac has still a distinct recollection of the length oi the road leading to that town. On one occasion he drove a four ox team with a covered wagon to Chicago, carrying fifty bushels of wheat, for which he received thirty cents a bushel, the entire load bringing the round sum of fifteen dollars. He carried his own provisions with him, and slept in his wagon, in order to lessen traveling expenses. The oxen fed on the wayside grass. Such experiences as this were common forty and fifty years ago with younger, and older per- sons, living fifty and a hundred miles from Chicago. Jacob Rice was a pioneer settler in this part of Ogle county, preceding the church as well as the school house. But he was a thoughtful man, and soon built a house in which young ideas could be taught to shoot on week days, and ministers could talk on Sundays. In that humble log structure Isaac had a little mental drill when there was no work for him to do on the farm. A little later, having a strong thirst for knowledge, he alternated between teaching school and attending the Rock River Seminary in the village of Mount Morris, with a little episode now and then in the harvest field. He was endowed by nature with a strong constitution, which he con- tinued to improve from year to year and which he still enjoys, having never done anything to injure it. After securing a fair English education, Mr. Rice concluded to study medicine. He read with Doctor Francis A. McNill, of Mount Morris, attended two courses of lectures at Rush Medical College, Chicago, receiving the degree of doctor of medicine in February 1855. He did a little prescribing, but soon abandoned drugs and resumed agricultural pursuits. He has two good farms near Mount Morris, and very likely may have other lands of which we have no knowledge. Since 1878 he has been in the banking business, and is of the firm of Newcomer and Rice, Mount Morris, and is president of the First National Bank of Oregon. UNITED STAIES BIOGKA PlIICA]. DICTIONARY. 83 Doctor Rice was a member of the lower house of the state legislature in 1873 and 1876, and is now in the upper house, and chairman of the committee on banlcs and banking. He introduced into the senate what is known as the Hind's bill, which gave women a voice in saying who should and who should not be licensed to sell intoxicating drinks. He also introduced the first resolution for the submission to the people of the question in regard to the manufacture of dis- tilled spirits in the state. Both measures failed, but Doctor Rice is a hopeful man, and never aban- dons a good cause. He is an indomitable worker for temperance, and for every reform designed to benefit the people. No truer heart than his beats in Mount Morris. He is a member of the Methodist church, has held the post of superintendent of the Sunday school and is president of the count}' Sunday-school convention. He has also held various civil offices of a local character, such as road master, school director, school trustee, etc., making himself useful in many ways to the community. Doctor Rice was married, January 11, 1S57, to Miss Sarah Hiestand, a native of Washington county, Maryland, and they have buried two children, Rowland and Anna, and have one son, Joseph T., living. Jacob Rice died at Mount Morris in April, 1870, in his eighty-sixth year, and his wife in December 1840. They were members of the so-called River Brethren, a branch of the Baptist family, much like the Dunkards. HON. GEORC.E RYON. M.D. AM BOY. THE gentleman whose name we have placed at the head of this sketch is a son of James and Sarah (Place) Ryon, and was born at Elkland, Tioga county, Pennsylvania, June 5, 1827. His father was born in Luzerne county, same state. His paternal grandfather, John Ryon, enlisted as a private in the revolutionary war, and served for seven years, coming out as orderly sergeant of his company. His great-grandfather was from Ireland. James Ryon came to Illinois with his family in 1838, and halted in Long Grove, Kendall county, where George finished his literary education at the academy, working more or less on his father's farm until seventeen years old. He lost his mother in Kendall county in 1851, and his father at Streator, Illinois, in 1872. Our subject taught school one winter before studying medicine; read at first with Doctor Isaac Ives, of Pavilion, Kendall county; finished with Doctors Wheeler and Holden, of the same county; attended lectures two terms at Rush Medical College, when his funds gave out, and to replenish them he taught school another winter term, and commenced the practice of his profession at Paw Paw Grove, Lee county, in 1850. Subsequently he attended lectures at Rush, and received his medical degree. After practicing for six or seven years, and building up an extensive business, he was seized with a violent passion for the law, and turned to Coke and Biackstone. He was admitted to the bar at Dixon in 1858, and while engaged in legal practice in Lee county he was drawn into politics, and in i860 was elected to the legislature, representing Lee and Whiteside counties. In August, 1862, he raised a company of volunteers for the 7Sth Illinois infantry, and at its organization was elected colonel. After serving a short time his health failed, and he resigned, and resumed the practice of medicine at Paw Paw. In 1866 he was again elected to the legisla- ture, this time to represent Lee county alone. He also served for several years as a member of the board of supervisors. In 1869 Colonel Ryon removed from Paw Paw to Amboy, started a private bank, and continued it until the spring of 1873, when he went to Streator, and with two brothers, Hiram N. and Francis M. Ryon, sunk a shaft, and organized the Streator Coal Com- pany, which is still doing well. In 1876 Doctor Ryon moved to Chicago, and practiced medicine in that city in company with Doctor Franklin B. Ives until the autumn of 1879, when he settled in Amboy, and has since built up a prosperous business. Notwithstanding the episodes in his life, diverting his attention for g. UNITED STATES BlOGRAP/f/CA L DICTTONARY. the time being from ttie medical profession, he has kept well read up, and is very skillful in the healing. His mind is active, quick and grasping, and he packs away knowledge with great speed. He has written occasionally for medical periodicals, reporting such cases as came under his notice, and were deemed of importance enough to interest the fraternity. The doctor is a thoroughgoing republican, and at times is quite active in the interests of the party, being a man of more than ordinary influence and magnetic power. Doctor Ryon was mar- ried in November, 185 1, to Miss Ruth A. Ives, daughter of Doctor Isaac Ives, of Pavilion, Illinois, and they have one daughter, Carrie S., a graduate of the University of Chicago, class of 1880. Mrs. Ryon is a member of the Baptist church. lp:wls .steward. PLANO. IF any person in the state of Illinois is deserving of the title of a self-made man, tliat person was the granger-democratic candidate for governor in 1876. He was carved out of solid material, and some of the roughness still remains, but the material is sound, and it is seldom that more true manhood is found in an equal number of pounds avoirdupois weight. Levs^is Steward made his appearance in this world in Wayne county, Pennsylvania, about November 20, 1824, his parents being Marcus and Ursula (HoUister) Steward. His father was born in New London, Connecticut, and belonged to a family of educators and agriculturists, the father, grandfather and great-grandfather of Marcus being school teachers. The Hollisters were among the first families who settled in Connecticut. The maternal grandmother of Lewis was a Rogers, a descendant of Rev. John Rogers, the martyr, and she had his copy of the Bible. Marcus Steward was a farmer, and belonged to that class of men who regard it as a sin to rear a family in idleness, and if Lewis was afflicted with laziness it was early worked out of him. His father emigrated from Pennsylvania to this state in the spring of 1834, when our subject was thir- teen years old, and settled in land now partly covered by the site of the village of Piano, and here the son aided in breaking land and opening the farm, with scanty opportunities in youth for self- improvement. Tradition affirms that Lewis picked up his letters, one by one, at a very early age, his mother assisting him, being much encouraged by his precocity. Whether she saw smart- ness enough in him to lead her to predict his early death, we know not. What we do know is, that he is still alive, and able to do a man's work. Furthermore, the fruits of his industry are seen, in part, in his accumulation of real estate, he having nearly five thousand acres of land, all of the best quality, all under e.xcellent cultivation, and three-fifths of it within two miles of Piano. At an early day, long prior to going into farming so extensively, Mr. Steward had a leaning toward the legal profession. His early friend. Judge Helm, put this notion in his head, lent him books, and Lewis read law while farming and running a saw mill. Some years afterward he was admitted to the bar, but for some reason had but little to do with the briefs. He seems to have learned just enough of the law to know how to keep out of it, having never had a suit. Mr. Steward early saw the importance of a railroad in developing the country and furnishing the means of conveying produce to the market, and it was largely through his influence that the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad came to Piano. Surveys for that road had been first made both north and south of that village. Nor was he slow in discovering that if Piano ever reached a point much beyond a "four corners," she must have manufactories, and here, in i860, he began to assist in the manufacture of the then unknown but now famous Marsh harvester, turning out twenty-five of these machines the first year, and also the second, he being at first of the firm of Marsh Brothers and Steward. In five years four hundred and fifty of these machines were turned out annually; in ten, three thousand, and three or four years later, no less than five thousand, giving employment to four hundred workmen, the firm name meanwhile being changed several times. UNITED STATES BIOGRA rillCA L DICTIONARY. 85 The shops were also enlarged from year to year, until they are seven hundred and sixty feet long, five hundred and forty feet being two stories high and the rest one story. The buildings are now owned by the Piano Steam Power Company, which was organized in 1881, and of which Mr. Steward is president. Soon afterward the Piano Manufacturing Company was organized, with a capital of $100,000, with W. H. Jones president, our subject having an interest in both of the organizations,' the one company furnishing steam for the other. In June, 1882, the capital stock of the steam power company was doubled, bringing it up to $200,000. The machines now manufactured by the company are the Piano harvester and binder and mowers, in all about five thousand a year. And here it may not be oiit of place to state that no longer ago than 1S75, Mr. Steward started with Mr. Gordon, in Texas, the first automatic binder that ever went through a harvest with a farmer alone, that farmer managing the machine himself and cutting two hundred and fifty acres. That was only eight years ago, and now most farmers are using the automatic binder. Mr. Steward is interested in nearly every branch of husbandry, and has at times paid a good deal of attention to blooded stock. Some of the best horses the writer has ever seen in northern Illinois were owned by him. He took much interest in the granger movement of 1873-6, and when the delegates of that party met at Decatur, in February, 1876, to nominate a candidate for governor, to his great sur- prise, he was the choice of the convention. A few months later the democrats held their state convention at Springfield, indorsed his nomination, and he came so near succeeding that a change of one-half of one per cent of the votes would have elected him. He survived the shock, and is to-day one of the livest men in the state. Mr. Steward was first married in 1848 to Miss Cornelia Gale, who died in 1854, leaving one son, who has since died, in Vienna, Europe; and the second time in 1866 to Miss Mary Hunt, by whom he has had eight children, six of them, all sons, yet living. GEORGE STEPHENS. MOI.INE. THE subject of this sketch, a pioneer settler in Moline, and one of its prominent manufactur- ers, was born in Fairfield, Ligonier township, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1819. His father, Randall Stephens, a soldier in the war of 1812-4, was born in the same state. An older brother of his father was captured by the Indians, and never heard of afterward. Randall Stephens married Martha Boggs, a native of Clearfield county, Pennsylvania, and they had ten children, of whom George was the ninth child. His school privileges were quite limited, but he succeeded, by private study, in securing a fair business education. He learned his father's trade, that of millwright, and worked at it in Pennsylvania until 1843, when he came to Moline, there being only three houses there then, and to-day there are more than a thousand private resi- dences. Mr. Stephens built the first saw mill ever put up in Davenport, Iowa. The winter of 1843-4 he spent at the East; in the following spring returned to Moline, and made a permanent settlement here, and for several years gave his time to building mills in Illinois and Iowa. Subsequently he was engaged in the mariufacture of lumber and furniture on the island of Rock Island, in company with Jonathan Herntoon, until the United States government took pos- session of the property. In the summer of 1861 Mr. Stephens went to the Rock}- Mountains and built a quartz mill for a St. Louis man, at Lincoln Gulch, Colorado. In 1866 the Moline Plow Company was formed, and Mr. Stephens linked his interests with Candel, Swan and Friberg in the manufacture of steel plows, commencing by turning out above one thousand a year. The premises and force were enlarged from time to time; the busi- ness grew rapidly, and in 1882 the Moline Plow Company turned out no less than sixty thousand plows. Mr. Swan, of the original firm, died in 1878, and in 1881 other changes were made, the 86 UNITED STATES BfOCR.ir/nCAL DICTIONARY. proprietors now being George Stephens, Andrew Friberg and S. W. Wheelock. Mr. Wheelock is president and Mr. Stephens vice-president, a position which he has held from the start. The company employs about three hundred workmen, and turns out a steel plow second in quality to nothing of the kind made in the West. Mr. Stephens is a skillful mechanic, and has always given his entire time to supervising certain departments of the work. He has lived a very industrious life, and in a pecuniary sense has been generously rewarded for the time and strength expended. The wife of Mr. Stephens was Miss Mary Ann Gardner, of Rock Island county, married in 1S46. They have buried two children, and have six living: George A. and Charles Randall are at Carmi, White county, they being mill owners; Mary L. is married to George Herntoon, of Moline; Minnie Florence, to Frank Allen, of Aurora, Illinois, and Ada A. and Nellie May are at home. HON. IRA. V. RANDALL. DE KALB. IRA \^\IL RANDALL, the oldest lawyer in practice at De Kalb, and one of the leading citi- zens of that city, was born in Mount Holly, Rutland county, Vermont, March 2, 1820, his father, Isaac Randall, being a native of the same county. The grandfather of Ira was Snow Randall, who came from England after the colonies had gained their independence. Isaac Ran- dall married Gallana Chandler, whose grandfather was a millionaire, and settled in Chester, Rut- land county, Vermont, and is reported to have owned, at an early day, that entire town. He kept for years a public house, or more properly, a house for the public, in which his hospitalities were dispensed with an entirely gratuitous, as well as liberal, hand. He married a sea captain's daugh- ter, and tradition states that at the wedding he (the landlord) measured out half a bushel of gold coin, uncounted, as a present to his wife. He was a leading politician in his day, and held vari- ous official positions. Our subject prepared for college at West Poultney, in his native state, and was intending to take a full college course, but the state of his health deterred him from matriculating. He' taught school for thirteen winters, commencing in his seventeenth year, studying law at the same period. He commenced reading with Hon. Sewell Fullam, .State's Attorney Ludlow, and finished with Hon. Solomon Foot, of Rutland, where he was admitted to the bar in 1847. In April of the year before he had married Miss Susan L. Earle, of Mount Holly, daughter of Lawson Earle, an extensive farmer and dairyman. Mr. Randall practiced his profession for three years at Barnard, Windsor county, and during that period he visited the West, and spent three months in Illinois, lecturing in advocacy of the Maine law, an episode in his life on which no doubt he still looks back with pleasure. December 27, 1856, he landed in the embryotic village of De Kalb, with his family, con- sisting of his wife and one daughter, Emma A., now the wife of Lawrence Hulser, of De Kalb. Here, for more than a quarter of a century, Mr. Randall has been practicing law, doing business in all the state and federal courts, and making a success in his profession. He has the reputation of being a well read lawyer, faithful to his client, clinging to that client's interests with bull-dog tenacity, and being on the whole quite successful in his profession, the state of his health being his only drawback. Mr. Randall was postmaster at Mount Holly, and held the same office at an earlv day in De Kalb. He was a member of the Illinois state legislature in 1865-6, and has held one or two municipal offices in this city, serving at one period as a member of the school board. He has always taken a lively interest in the cause of education, and not unlikely still regrets that poor health prevented him. from going through college. He was originally a whig, an unterrified Vermont whig, and left that state two years after that party had begun to moulder in the ground with the remains of John Brown. Since 1855 he has been an enthusiastic republican, and up to a recent date was an active, earnest worker in UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTlONAIiV. 87 its interests, attending judicial, congressional and state conventions as a delegate from his county, and doing at times manly work on the stump. He is still a zealous advocate of temperance, in behalf of which cause he has pleaded in half a dozen states besides Illinois, including Vermont, Massachu- setts, New York, Michigan, New Hampshire. Mr. Randall also lectures on various other sub- jects, such as the enfranchisement of women, pre-Adamite man, etc. He is well posted on the various questions agitating the public mind to-day, and is a fascinating talker, a keen logician, and a splendid debater. His first wife died in 1861, and in 1868 he married Mrs. Mardula D. (Bent) Boeyton, by whom he has no issue. Mr. Randall has a compact build, is five feet ten inches tall, and weighs one hundred and eighty-five pounds. His eyes are blue, but his disposition is not. He is rather jovial, laughs easily and heartily, and is a good factor of a social circle. H HENRY REED, M.D. HOCHELI.E. ENRV REED, for thirty years a medical practitioner in the State of Illinois, and one of the best known men in Ogle county, is a native of Oneida county. New York, dating his birth January 10, 181 7. His father, Henry Reed Sr., in early life a mechanic, and in later years a far- mer, was born in Connecticut. This branch of the Reed family was from Massachusetts. The wife of Henry Reed, Sr., was Sarah Moore, a native of Connecticut. Our subject was reared in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, attending school in the winter term, and farming the rest of the year, until eighteen or twenty years of age; studied medicine at Meadville, Pennsylvania, with Doctors Woodruff and Bemus; attended lectures at Cincinnati; practiced in Pennsylvania four or five years; came to Illinois in 1852, and practiced five years at Shabbona Grove, and in April, 1855, settled in Rochelle, then called Lane. Twenty-five and thirty years ago this part of the state was somewhat thinly settled, and the doctor had very extensive rides, extending into Lee as well as De Kalb and Ogle counties, and in various parts of these several counties his face was as familiar as that of almost any man of any profession in this section of Illinois. He has been successful in a pecuniary as well. as a professional sense, and could have retired years ago with a competency, but is too much wedded to his calling, and has too many friends pleading for his professional aid, to lay aside the gallipots. Doctor Reed once held the office of coroner, but has never sought official positions of any kind Originally a whig, he became a republican on the demise of the former party, and is very firm in his political tenets. In religious belief he is an Adventist, and as far as we can ascertain he has lived an unblemished life. Doctor Reed married August 6, 1839, Miss Diantha C. Bly, of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and they have seven children, all settled in life but the youngest. LUCIAN L. LEEDS, M.D. LINCOLX. LUCIAN LAVASSA LEEDS, a son of Peter T. Leeds, M.D., and Jane (Harden) Leeds, was ^ born in Clermont, Ohio, April 23, 1831. Both parents were natives of New Jersey. His paternal great-grandfather was from Leeds, England, and his grandfather was a soldier in the American revolution. Lucian received an academic education in Batavia, Ohio, including the classics; studied medicine with his father, commenced practice at Mechanicsburgh, Sangamon county, Illinois, in 1852; located in Lincoln in 1854; attended lectures at Rush Medical College, Chicago, receiving the degree of doctor of medicine from that institution in 1856, and has been in practice at Lincoln for twenty-eight years, ignoring all side issues, including politics. Doc- gg UMITED STATES lUOCRA PlflCA I. DtCTIONARY. tor Leeds has attended exclusively and very closely to his business, and made it a marked success. His practice has been general, and he has had a liberal share of surgery, obstetrics, etc. His skill in every branch of the medical profession is undoubted, and his reputation vi^ide-spread. The doctor is a member of the Brainard District Medical Society, and of the State Medical Society, and is well known among the medical fraternity. He is also well known among the Freemasons and Odd-Fellows, being high up in both orders; in the York rite up to the Comman- dery; in the Scottish rite up to the Consistory, and a member of the subordinate lodge and encampment in Odd-Fellowship. In both orders he has held the highest offices in all but the Consistory. In his religious views he is quite liberal, with a leaning toward Swedenborgianism. Doctor Leeds served four years on the local board of education, two of them as chairman of the board, and did some good work in that noble cause, in which he takes a great deal of interest. Although very busy usually in a professional line, he finds time occasionally to use the pen, and employs it in reporting cases and preparing essays for medical periodicals. Doctor Leeds has been twice married, first in 1852 to Miss Susan Shoup of Logan county, Illi- nois, she dving in 1853, leaving one daughter, now married to Edward Spillman, Lincoln; and the second time in 1856 to Miss Hannah Wilson, of Lincoln, having by her three daughters, all at home. WESTEL W. SEDGWICK. SANDWICH. HE subject of this sketch was born of a highly respectable family, June 7, 1S27, at West- T moreland, Oneida county. New York. His father, Samuel Sedgwick, was a physician. His mother was Ruhamah P. Knights. When he was ten years old his parents removed to Hartford, Ohio, where he attended the common school until he had reached the age of fourteen. He then spent a year as clerk in a store at East Union. At the age of sixteen he began to learn the sad- dler's trade, and worked at it two years, when, with his parents, he removed to Little Rock, Kendall county, Illinois. Here he took a clerkship in a store for a time, but in 1845 went to Bloomingdale, Uu Page county, and began the study of medicine. Not having sufficient means to pay his expenses, he divided his time between study and farm work for two years, except dur- ing the winters, when he taught, receiving twelve dollars per month. In 1847 he entered his father's office, at Little Rock, as assistant, and after his father's death, which occurred in March of that year, he continued his practice. In the autumn of 1847 he entered Rush Medical College, Chicago, and was graduated in 1848. He followed his profession for six years at Little Rock, when his health began to fail from over- work, and he was obliged to relinquish his practice. In 1854 he opened a store of general mer- chandise at Little Rock, and continued the business till 1857, in which year he removed to Sandwich, his present home. He at once purchased a large tract of land, and laid out what is known as Sedgwick's addition to Sandwich. In 1858 in partnership with Mr. Hendee, he opened a drug store, which he conducted till i860, when he began the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1862, at Ottawa, Illinois, and at once began practicing at Sandwich. In 1862 he was elected to the legislature of Illinois from the fifty-first district. He was president of the board of trustees of Sandwich in 1865, and the two following years. For nine years he was a member of the board of supervisors, during six of which he was chairman. In 1869 he was a member of the constitutional convention, and was appointed by Governor Beveridge a trustee of the Insane Asylum at Jacksonville. He was also a director and vice- president of the Sandwich Manufacturing Company, and three years president and several years director of the Sandwich Enterprise Company, and of the Sandwich Cheese Company. He has held the office of justice of the peace since i860, and was elected mayor of Sandwich two terms, in 1873 and 1874, and is the city attorney of Sandwich at the present'time. In all these positions y ^^^^^^--^-C^i^<^^) UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 9I his course has been upright and honorable, and no better evidence of his skill and good manage- ment can be given than is shown by the success that has attended him. He is an elder of the Presbyterian church, and superintendent of the Sunday school and an active Christian worker. He has been republican in his political opinions since the organization of that party. Mr. Sedgwick married, June 7, 1848, Miss Sarah A. Toombs, of Little Rock, and she has had ten children, losing five of them. In the summer of 1881 he started for the old world, and visited Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, the Holy Land, Egypt, the Valley of the Nile as far up as ancient Memphis, through the Suez Canal to Port Said, etc. He was absent six months, and during that time wrote more than thirty letters, which were pub- lished in the Sandwich " Free Press," and very eagerly read by its patrons. JOANIS O. HARRIS, M.D. OTTA IV A. JOANIS ORLANDO HARRIS, son of Orris and Lucinda K. (Calley) Harris, was born in Liv- erpool, Onondaga county, New York, September 13, 1828. His father, a native of Long Island, was captain of the first packet that ever ran on the Syracuse and Oswego canal, and was a soldier in the second war with England. Both grandfathers, Harris and Calley, were in the first war ' with the mother country. Our subject received his literary and medical education at Baldwinsville, and Geneva, New York. He read medicine with Doctor J. E. Todd, Baldwinsville; attended lectures at Geneva, where he received the degree of doctor of medicine in 185 1, and the next year he settled in Ottawa, his present home where he was in steady and extensive practice about twenty years, when, finding that the night work of the profession did not agree with his health, he nearly withdrew from the practice. He made an excellent record as medical practitioner, and not unlikely worked too hard in his early years in the profession. Latterly he has done little more than make out a prescription occasionally for some intimate friend, or for some old family whose only physician he was perhaps for a score of years. Doctor Harris went into the army in 1862, as assistant surgeon of the 53d Illinois infantry, and held that position a little more than one year, resigning because of seriously impaired health; was surgeon in charge of a hundred-day regiment, while it was in camp at Ottawa; was post surgeon at La Grange, and at Bolivar, Tennessee, and also belonged to the Illinois corps of volunteer sur- geons, after leaving the service. He was recommended by General Grant for brevet surgeon, with rank of major. Since retiring from the practice of medicine and surgery, the doctor has been engaged in real estate, being the leading man in that business in La Salle county. He deals not only in local property, city and county, but is land agent for railroad companies in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas. We have known Doctor Harris for more than a quarter of a cen- tury, and take pleasure in bearing testimony to his integrity and high sense of honor in all busi- ness transactions. To real estate he has added fire and life insurance, in which he is also doing a good business. The doctor is public-spirited, and identifies himself with every local enterprise calculated to benefit the public. He was secretary of the La Salle County Agricultural Society for five or six years, and has held the same office for some years, of the Ottawa Manufacturing Company, and the Ottawa Building Association, the first in Illinois, and organized solely through his efforts. He was one of the organizers of the Ottawa Business Men's Association, of which he was secretary for several years, doing a great deal of hard work to build it up. No other man here has done so much in that line. He is a Master Mason, and was Grand Patriarch of the Grand Encampment of Illinois Odd- Fellows in 1868, and a member of the Grand Lodge of the United States in 1869 and 1870, the last being a very high post of honor. In politics he is a democrat, and in religion an Episcopa- te Q, UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Han, and was for years clerk of the vestry, and warden of Christ Church. The purity of his life is unquestioned. The doctor has been married since November i, 1855, the maiden name of his wife being Mary Alice Merwin, daughter of Sheldon and Emily H. Merwin, of Ontario county, New York. They have five children, Alice Gertrude, Vernon Clarence, Washington Irving, Leon Louis and Marion Maud. Doctor Harris is an inventor, having procured no less than four patents, including one of the first two-horse corn plows ever patented. He is also a fluent writer, and has contributed to various newspapers and magazines, and has published an invaluable work for the use of insurance agents, and several books for the use of Odd-Fellows, all of which are in extensive use, and very much prized. The doctor is a very industrious man, making himself useful in many ways, and as a neighbor and fellow-citizen is held, together with his wife, in very high esteem. The two eldest sons are with him in his business office, and are steady and efficient young men. HON. ELIJAH W. BLAISDELL. ROCKFORD. THE Blaisdells, from whom Elijah Whittier Blaisdell, the subject of this sketch, is descended, went from Denmark to North Wales after the Danes had been subdued by Alfred the Great and his successors, and, descendants of those daring seafarers, came thence to this country. In Wales many of them were forgemen and iron workers. Sir Ralph Blaisdell was a noble knight, and several of the name were members of the British parliament. On the coat of arms, which is in the possession of our subject, and which is as old as the crusades, the name was spelt Blasdell, and was so spelt in this country until 1808, when, on the certificate of Hon. Daniel Blaisdell, representative to congress from New Hampshire, it was spelt as we have just written it, and has been so written from that date. Enoch, Abner and Elijah Blaisdell, brothers and sons of Enoch Blaisdell, came from the north- eastern part of Wales, and landed in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Enoch settled in Maine, Abner in western New York, and Elijah in Amesbury, Massachusetts. From these three brothers a very large number of the Blaisdells, now found in all the northern and western states, are descended. A Sergeant Blaisdell, who came over in the Mayflower, is thought to have been one of the same family. The subject of this sketch is a descendant of Elijah Blaisdell, the youngest of the three br(ithers, being from him the sixth generation. The grandfather of our subject was Parrit Blais- dell, son of Elijah, born in Amesbury. He lived in different towns in New Hampshire; moved to Montpelier, Vermont, and finally died at Fort Covington, New York, in 1836. He was a brave and resolute patriot, taking part in both wars with the mother country, and in the latter war on one occasion took four men prisoners alone, and marched them into camp. He had two sons and seven daughters, the sons being Parrit Blaisdell and Elijah Whittier Blaisdell, Senior. The latter, father of our subject, was born in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1800; married Ann Maria Deacon, and was a printer and newspaper publisher for many years, dying at Rockford in 1876. E. W. Blaisdell, Junior, was born in Montpelier, July 18, 1826; was partially educated in a classical school at Vergennes, Vermont, but still more in his father's printing office, and at seven- teen years of age was installed as editor of the Vergennes " Vermonter," which was established by the late Rufus Wilmot Griswold. The "Vermonter" was a whig paper, and when "Old Zack" became President of the United States Mr. Blaisdell was appointed postmaster at Ver- gennes, and held that office for the term of four years. In the autumn of 1853 he came to Rockford, purchased the " Republican," and conducted it for nine years. Meantime, he was elected to the legislature, and served one term, 1860-1, declin- ing to be renominated. While devoting himself to journalism Mr. Blaisdell gave more or less UNITED S7\4TES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, 93 time to the reading of law, and in 1862 was admitted to the bar. Since that date he has been in practice in Rocl