David A. Silver is one of the men who claim Champaign County as their birthplace and the scene of their substantial activities. Mr. Silver has found in farming both a congenial and profitable occupation. The management of well tilled fields, the care and superintendence of good stock, the task of winning a living and at the same time increasing and improving the value of his farm, and the duties of good citizenship, have occupied him for many years. His home and farm are in Philo Township in section 3, and his mail is delivered on Rural Route No. 11 out of Urbana.
Mr. Silver was born in Philo Township, September 22, 1867, and is a son of Wallace and Mary D. (Karr) Silver. His father was born in Warren County, Ohio, and his mother in New Jersey. Wallace Silver arrived in Champaign County October 23, 1854. He had come overland from Ohio, bringing household goods, and cattle. Locating in Philo Township, he bought in 1855 eighty acres in section 3, and proceeded forthwith to its development and improvement and followed farming successfully there until the last twelve years of his life, which he spent retired in Urbana. He died June 10, 1914, and his widow is still living in Urbana. The only child of his parents, David A. Silver grew up on the home farm, attended the local schools, and at the age of twenty rented a tract of land for his own purposes. In 1891 he bought eighty acres in section 10 of Philo Township, and in 1902 increased his farm by the purchase of eighty acres more in section 3. This land he has devoted to general farming and stock raising.
A Republican in politics, Mr. Silver served as township assessor five years and for nineteen years was a member of the school board. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Masons, and he and his family are Presbyterians.
On March 7, 1893. he married Miss Mae Wells, a native of Champaign County. Their five children, one of whom is deceased and the others are at home, are named as follows: Wallace E., born November 26, 1895; Hazel M., born November 17, 1896; Mary V., born March 7, 1898; Frank W., born October 1, 1899; and Robert M., born November 3, 1900, died September 15, 1910.
Mrs. Silver is a daughter of Francis and Cordelia Jane (Evans) Wells. Both were born in Ohio and came to Champaign County about 1854, locating in Urbana Township, and from there moving to Philo Township. Her mother died May 27, 1908, and her father is now living with his children at Blackwell in Kay County, Oklahoma. Besides farming he took an active interest in local affairs in Philo Township and served as supervisor and assessor. During the Civil War he was a private and a member of Colonel Busey’s Seventy-sixth Regiment. Mrs. Silver is the oldest of her father’s eleven children. Thomas W. lives at Urbana; Ada is the wife of George Flewelling of Jackson, Minnesota; Elias Herbert resides at Lincoln, Nebraska; Elmer, at Pomeroy, Iowa; Arthur, at Los Angeles, California; and all the others at Blackwell, Oklahoma. Grace is the wife of Albert Lientz, Charlotte the wife of John Root, Chester M. and Irvin are the two youngest sons, and Nellie, the youngest of the family, is the wife of V. A. Gordon.