Hancock County IL

Biographical Sketch of Noble L. Prentis

Noble L. Prentis, a leading Kansas editor for twenty-one years, and for the last decade of his life identified with the Kansas City Star, was born on April 8, 1839, in a log cabin three miles from Mount Sterling, Brown County, Illinois. His parents were natives of Vermont, descended from English settlers, and on both sides of the family came of brave Revolutionary stock. His parents died at Warsaw, Illinois, of cholera during the epidemic of 1849, leaving him an orphan at the age of ten years. He went to live with an uncle in Vermont and remained there until … Read more

Biography of Joseph Camp Thorn

Joseph Camp Thorn, residing four miles east of San Bernardino on the Base Line, is one of the pioneers of this county. He was born in New York, January 2, 1839, the son of Joseph and Lorana (Camp) Thorn. When the subject of this sketch was three years of age his father moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. The next year he removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the following year he moved to Salt Lake. Our subject was then eight years old and he drove an ox team all the way from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake. Mr. Thorn lived at … Read more

Biography of John Davis

John Davis, of Jonesburg, familiarly known as “Uncle John,” is the oldest son of the late Thomas Davis, of Shenandoah Co., Va. John was born October 30, 1791, in Shenandoah County, and is now nearly 85 years of age. When he was about sixteen his parents removed to Bourbon Co., Ky., and when the war of 1812 began, he enlisted in the army and served under Generals Winchester and Payne. He was stationed at Forts Wayne and Laramie, in Ohio, for some time. In 1820 he came to Missouri, and stopped a short time in St. Louis, which then had … Read more

Biography of Albert D. Bauer

Albert D. Bauer. One of the veterans of the printing trade and an old time publisher in Kansas, Albert D. Bauer acquired his first experience in “the art preservative of all arts” in a Topeka print shop. That was nearly forty years ago, and for the past twenty-three years he has lived continuously in Topeka. Mr. Bauer was born in the historic old seat of the Mormons in the Middle West, Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, March 6, 1863. His grandfather John Bauer Sr. was born in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, coming to America in 1820 and locating as a pioneer in … Read more

Ensminger, Jacob H. – Obituary

Jacob H. Ensminger Haines Pioneer Dead Resident of Baker County For 64 Years Passes Jacob Henry Ensminger, a resident of Baker county for the past 64 years, died at 3 a.m. Thursday morning, exactly a week to the hour after he was stricken with paralysis. Funeral services will be held from the residence at 1 o’clock Saturday with Rev. R.C. Lee of Union officiating. Mr. Ensminger was born March 19, 1847 in Hancock County, Ill., and was nearing his 81st birthday. He crossed the plains in 1863 locating in this community. He was married in 1871 to Miss Johanna Loennig … Read more

Biography of Danford Atwood

Danford Atwood was born in Connecticut in 1823. His parents were Mormons and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, at an early day, and from thence to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where in 1850 Mr. Atwood married Miss Jane Garner, of Hancock County, Illinois. She was the daughter of George and Elizabeth (Hedrick) Garner, natives respectively of North Carolina and Indiana. They had six children. Mrs. Garner died in Illinois at the age of thirty-two, and Mr. Garner married Lydia Hill. In 1836 he went to Council Bluffs, where he remained nearly two years, and then came to California, in 1852, by ox … Read more

Biography of L. B. Hastings

L.B. HASTINGS. – Under the bluffs on the sandbank at the old place that the Frenchmen called La Dalles, in the autumn days of 1847, a company of wayworn immigrants was lying along the river side, the women at the tents, the children playing with the dogs and romping on the shore, and the ponies and cattle feeding upon the mountain. The men were at work day after day a whole month, with their axes and hammers, in making a flatboat from the pines that they cut form the hills. This company of sixty wagons had just come out of … Read more

Biography of Fred Leslie Ervay

Fred Leslie Ervay, M. D. The medical fraternity of Wilson County had as one of its highly skilled and thoroughly trained members Dr. Fred Leslie Ervay, who had been engaged in a general practice at Fredonia since 1908. While Doctor Ervay had not carried on his profession as long as some of his fellow practitioners, he had risen to a prominent place in his calling, and the confidence in which he is held is evidenced by the size and importance of his clientele. He was born at Elk Point, South Dakota, June 14, 1880, and is a son of H. … Read more

Biography of Joseph Thorn

Joseph Thorn, deceased, was a pioneer of 1854. He was born in New York State, December 22, 1811. His parents were Richard and Mary Ann (Armstrong) Thorn, the former a native of New York, the latter of England. Mr. Thorn was a blacksmith by trade. He was married at Niles, New York, June 19, 1836, to Lorana Camp, daughter of Jonah and Barbara (Keith) Camp, from near New Haven, Connecticut. About seven years after his marriage he moved with his wife and four children to Hancock County, Illinois, where he lived five years. He then moved to Council Bluffs and … Read more