David H. Lloyde is one of Champaign’s oldest and most widely known business men. In fact, his business is practically as old as the University of Illinois, which, as is generally known, is one of the greatest educational institutions of its kind in the entire world. The Lloyde business was originally established for and has always been distinctively supported by the student body of the state university. Mr. Lloyde is also president of the recently organized First University Bank, located at 606 East Green Street, in the very heart of the student district. The chief business with which his many years of industrial activity have been identified are two extensive music, book and stationery stores, one at 7 Main Street and the other at 606 East Green Street, in the same brick structure which houses the Lloyde bank.
As a merchant he has for forty-three years supplied the needs of the students and others in the way of books and supplies, music, stationery, toys, photographic supplies, drawing instruments, pianos, organs, violins and small musical instruments, sewing machines, typewriters, talking machines and sporting goods, and is headquarters for novelties for holiday and other season’s events. Mr. Lloyde has been a continuous resident of Champaign since 1874. His name and his stores are landmarks, institutions familiar to every resident of Champaign County, the Twin Cities, and those formerly here as students. His success has not only been the means of his own prosperity but has also contributed to the prosperity and substantial upbuilding of the entire community.
David H. Lloyde was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, June 11, 1835, but has lived in Illinois nearly all his life, enjoying his experiences from the period of the wild prairies to these days of live modern conditions. His father, Captain David Lloyde, also a native of Springfield, Massachusetts, was a mechanic, and at twenty-two years of age, after completing his three years’ term of service required as a mechanic, received a gold medal as a reward, and for his temperance principles during the learning of his trade, given by the Hamden Mechanical Association of Springfield, Massachusetts, with the inscription, “Omnia Laboribus Sustinenda,” but he afterward took up contracting and building. He married Eliza Seaver of Somerset, Massachusetts. They were the parents of five children: David H.; Mrs. Jennie Lees of Attica, Kansas; James H., who as a Union soldier participated among other engagements in the battle of Shiloh, and subsequently became a merchant and station agent at Milo, Missouri, where he died; Lucy, who married Frank Herrick, is living at Princeton, Illinois, where her husband is city editor of the Bureau County Republican and an ex-soldier of the Civil War; and George O., who was in the Civil War, is a contractor and builder at Bloomington, Illinois.
In 1838 Captain David Lloyde, Sr., brought his family to Illinois and established a home in what was then an unsettled and unplatted district of northern Illinois, Clarion Township in Bureau County, and was instrumental in establishing the Lloyde schoolhouse, the first one on the prairie. Because of his priority of settlement and the strength of his personal character, he was long recognized as a leader. For a number of years he taught school at LaMoille, one of the principal towns of Bureau County, and served as supervisor and justice of the peace. He established and conducted the first ‘hotel at LaMoille. That was in the days when LaMoille was on one of the principal overland thoroughfares from Chicago to south-western points, and the stages regularly stopped at his old wayside tavern. He did much to promote public improvement. He helped to bring about the construction of the present courthouse, jail and several business blocks and residences, one for William Cullen Bryant, the noted poet, also John Bryant, resident in Princeton. As he was a leader in civic affairs, so he became a rallying force for the volunteers at the beginning of the Civil War. He organized Company K of the Ninety-third Illinois Infantry, was commissioned captain, and his life was given as a sacrifice to the Union. Congressman Owen Lovejoy gave him valuable assistance in organizing Company K of the Ninety-third Regiment. During the siege of Vicksburg, on May 16, 1863, he was shot through the heart. The old veterans of Bureau County have frequently recalled and testified to the esteem in which they held their gallant leader and comrade. His widow survived him until a ripe old age and was ninety-three when she died at Attica, Missouri, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Jennie Lees.
David H. Lloyde remained in the pioneer home of his parents in Bureau County until the age of twenty-two. His education was acquired in the district schools and he later attended Judson College at La Salle and Illinois College at Jacksonville. During his early youth he took up contracting and building, the same business followed by his father, also conducting grain and stock raising farms. In the year 1874 he moved to Champaign and engaged in conducting the present music, stationery and book store, which was established in 1867, at the opening of the University of Illinois. That was the beginning of his long and active business associations with the university of the state. His store has kept pace with the development of the university, and his place on Main Street was enlarged to a three-story building with concrete basement and more recently he erected a two-story brick building at 606 East Green, near the corner of Green and Sixth streets, at the center of the university section. The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening 6f the Lloyde Book and Music Stores is now being celebrated (June 21, 1917). The First University Bank was organized in September, 1915, in order to furnish banking facilities for this special district and for the accommodation of students who keep their accounts there. Mr. Lloyde is a stockholder in the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank and owner of farm land in Nebraska. He also owns some residences and other real estate and investments, mostly in Champaign.
He married, February 26, 1857, Miss Ellen P. Angier. Her father was a Baptist minister and brought his family from Vermont in 1855 and located at LaMoille in Bureau County. In Vermont he had married Eliza Luther, and in that state Mrs. Lloyde was born. She had a brother, Frank L. Angier, who died at Beardstown, Illinois, in 1908. He was also a veteran of the Civil War and three of his sons, active railroad men, are still living at Beardstown.
Mr. and Mrs. Lloyde have three sons. F. H. Lloyde was actively associated with his father for twenty years in the store, as D. H. Lloyde & Son, on Main Street. He moved in 1904 to Venice, California, engaging in the real estate business. Clarence A. is auditor, manager of photograph, mimeograph, camera, typewriter and advertising departments of the stores, while Clifford L. is book and stock buyer, manager of the university store and vice president of the First University Bank. The various departments employ thirty or more salespeople. Through the professors, students and alumni of the state university the influence and reputation of the Lloyde stores are world wide. They have been helpful to the blessing of mental training and educational work for humanity at all times. The Lloyde slogan, “Books and Music,” means the foundation of all usefulness in the world.
All of Mr. Lloyde’s children were students of the University of Illinois. Robert K. Lloyde, son of C. A. Lloyde and grandson of David H. Lloyde, was a student at the University of Illinois and is a graduate of Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. He is now assistant horticulturist at the Mississippi State Agricultural A. M. College, Starkville, Mississippi.
Mr. Lloyde is a member of the Baptist Church. He has become widely known for his benevolences and has given liberally of his means to all worthy institutions, regardless of denomination. The activities of the family in Christian work have been continuous since his marriage in 1857, and the three sons and wives are equally earnest in the training of young people in church and Bible school influences. The Lloyde family gave several hundred dollars to the Baptist Church at LaMoille in Bureau County when the present church edifice was erected in 1858, and the present family contributed several thousands toward the First Baptist Church of Champaign in 1899. Both money and individual effort have proceeded from the Lloyde family in behalf of such organizations as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League, a cause in which they are especially interested, and for the establishment and upkeep of home and foreign missions. Among individual institutions or movements the Lloydes have donated to the Aged Ministers’ Home and the Old People’s Home. They were among the first to support the organization of the University of Chicago, Shurtleff College, and the academy for colored young people at Jacksonville, Florida, and for over twenty years contributed regularly to the boys’ home on the Glenwood farm near Chicago. They helped organize the Y. M. C. A. at Champaign in 1889, and aided the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. at the university by liberal donations. The University Students’ Baptist Church, the Wesley Foundation Building, the Irvington and other orphanages in Illinois, also Liberty Bond and Red Cross work, are some of the worthy objects of their interest and Christian zeal a notable record of practical Christianity for one family.
Mr. Lloyde was a member of the Union League, organized during the Civil War, the only secret organization to help save the United States of America. He became one of the charter members of the present Sons of Veterans camp when it was organized in Champaign, encouraging the boys in many ways.
Mr. D. H. Lloyde has also quite an interesting musical career, given in the history of Baptist hymn and song writers, and other sources, and this has been a valuable asset and help to him in the sale of all kinds of musical instruments.
As a boy he evinced decided musical talent and early received instruction from his father, who was a music teacher. When eleven years old he sang alto in the old-time gallery church choir and later became a leader of singing in church and Sunday school, teaching music during winters in the schoolhouses near his home in Bureau County, using his violin as a handy instrument to carry. As he became more interested in music he made the acquaintance of P. P. Bliss, H. R. Palmer, H. S. Perkins and others, from whom he received instruction, inspiration and encouragement, and for several years devoted himself to the study and teaching of vocal music. Later he enjoyed conducting institutes, conventions and classes. Among his musical activities he was engaged in Sunday school work, was also in touch with Ira D. Sankey, D. L. Moody and K. A. Burnell in Y. M. C. A. work as singer and leader of Christian song services at state and other mass meetings.
At this time he gave special thought and attention to writing words and music of his own composition, published in “River of Life,” “Royal Sons,” “Songs of Faith,” “Shining River” and other Sunday school song books. His love for music made the family at home musical, Mrs. Lloyde teaching the boys piano, the three sons and father forming a male quartet and an orchestra, playing violin, cornet, flute and clarinet, making use of the same in Sunday school and church work and citizens’ orchestra for several years.
Mr. Lloyde has also had large juvenile and advanced classes in the Twin Cities, having introduced teaching of music in the schools, through Professors J. W. Hays and Lansing, then superintendent of the schools, always insisting that music be taught the same as any other branch of education, which practice has now come to stay.
Mr. Lloyde in 1874-75 filled a vacancy in the vocal music department at the University of Illinois, training the choir and individuals in preparation for commencement, anniversary and other events. He won success as a conductor, inspired others and gave suitable instruction with pleasing results in conventions and large mass meetings of singing people.
These facts state briefly some of the things that have made the life of the subject of this sketch a busy and useful one, and the variety of vocations has given him interesting and enjoyable occasions in the different realms of the world’s activities.