BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES
*F.& A. M.--The charter was granted Oct. 3, A. L. 5855, A. D. 1855, to Moawequa Lodge, No. 180. Charter members: Joseph Lane, E. J. Rice, Thomas L. Catherwood and others. Present officers:B. Scarlette, W. M. ; B F. Riblin, S. W.; Judson Combs, J. W
.; J. M. Friedley, T.; J. H. Kirkman, sec.; J. W. Smith, S. D.; S.F. Pease, J. W.; J. W. Hughes, chap.; S. D. West, S. S.; Thomas Smith, J. S.; B. F. Nugent, tyler. Present membership, forty-eight.
* Data furnished by Secretary
** Odd Fellows.--Shelby Lodge No. 274 I. O. O. F., Moawequa, was instituted on the 8th day of June, 1858, with the following named persons as charter members: Geo. T. Williams, Thomas L. Catherwood, C. B. Gailord, Wm. I. Usry and J. E. Hoagland. Th
e present officers are: James R. Smith, N. G.; W. R. Smith, V. G.; James H. Elsum, Sec.; Wm. M. Smith, Treas; James G. Stewart, P. S.; H. F. Day, Rep.; W. F. Elledge, Conductor; W. F. Day, I. G.; Judson Combs, 0 G.; B. F. Nugent, R. S. N. G.; G. W. Bacon,
L. S. N. G.; Geo. P. Shepard, R. S. V. G.; D. N.
** For the data of the Societies we are indebted to the Secretaries of the same.
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McCluskey, L. S. V. S., Charles Beudsley, R. S. S.; F. Armstrong, L. S. S.; T. T. Snyder, Chaplain; J M. Friedley, Host; John W. Smith. Present members forty.
Knights of Honor.--Moawequa Lodge No. 1013, was instituted April 3, 1878, by J. P. Drish, with the following persons vs charter members: Chas. W. March, H. F. Day, W. R. Oliver, A. P. Hoxsey, Chas. F. Hardy, James H. Kirkman, James H. Elsum, A. M.
Phillipson, W. M. Smith, F. Armstrong, E. E. Pennypacker, Geo. W. Bacon, D. N. McCluskey.
Officers for term ending December 31, 1880: Dictator, F. G. Penn; Vice Dictator, Geo. M. Keiser; Assistant Dictator, James H. Elsum; Guide, Sidney Stocking; Reporter, Chas. W. March; Financial Reporter, H. F. Day; Chaplain, James G. Stewart; Treasurer, Ja
mes H. Kirkman; Guardian, F. Armstrong; Sentinel, Geo. W. Bacon; Sitting Past Dictator, Robert A. Patton. The Past Dictators are: C. W. March, H. F. Day, James H. Kirklan, James G. Stewart. Representative to Grand Lodge, H. F. Day. Number of members Septe
mber 1, 1880, nineteen.
Independent Order of Foresters.--Instituted February 14, 1880. Charter members, the present Officers: Francis Armstrong, Chief Ranger; James R. Smith, Vice Chief Ranger; Henry F. Day, Ree. Sec.; James W. Gregory, Gen. Sec.; D. Shepherd, Senior Wood
man; Silas Mitchell, Junior Woodman; John W. Smith, Senior Beadle; Frank Ayers, Junior Beadle; James H. Elsum, James G. Stewart, Henry F. Day, T. Weekly, Past Chief Rangers; Dr. A. P. Hoxsey, Medical-Examiner. Meets in Day's Hall 2d and 4th Mondays of eac
h month.
Royal Templars of Temperance.--Organized August 27, 1879. Present Officers: Select Councilor, Geo. P. Shepherd; Past Councilor, Dr. W. H. Sparling; Vice Councilor, S. D. West; Chaplain, C. H. Bridges; Sec., J. T. Haslam; Treas., S. G. Travis; Heral
d, Miss Jennie West; Guard, John P. Millington; Sentinel, W. M. Smith. Number of members twenty-seven.
When the township was first settled, deer were plentiful, and wolves more than plentiful. The citizens were forced, in order to save their pigs, to pen them up at night, at the end of the house. Turkeys were thick, and many persons could imitate the call
to perfection, and hence the were very successful in hunting them. All the soil of Moawequa is susceptible of cultivation. You have but to "tickle it with a hoe and it will laugh with a harvest." Five times her population may draw sustenance from her boso
m. There is no need for young men to journey toward the setting sun in quest of homes; let them look around them in Shelby county -- which is a fair land -- and they may find good homesteads, which can be purchased at cheap rates, and which need only reso
lute purposes and strong muscle to convert them into fields of yellow grain. The citizens of this township will compare favorably in integrity, morality, education and religion with those of any other section of the county. Vice and gross immorality are a
lmost unknown. They believe in schools; they have churches in their midst, to which they resort to hear of that other country to which all men are hastening. A bright future is before her; her population is increasing, and improvements are going on rapidl
y on all sides. Commodious and substantial farm-houses are being multiplied, and many most excellent farms appear where a little more than a half-century ago the savage roamed at will. The staple produ6ts of this township are corn and wheat. The soil is
not surpassed in depth and richness by any portion of the township.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
JOHN M. FRIEDLEY
AMONG the men who have been closely identified with the business interests of Shelby county, is John M. Friedley, of Moawequa. On his father's side he is decended from a family of German origin. His ancestors emigrated from Germany and settled in P
ennsylvania at a period previous to the Revolutionary war. His grandfather Friedley was born in Pennsylvania and served in the war of the Revolution. Ludwick Friedley, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Sugar valley, near Bellefonte, Ce
ntre county, Pennsylvania, and was raised in the same locality. He was married in Beaver (now Snyder) county, Pennsylvania, to Rebecca Middlesworth, daughter of John Middlesworth, a resident of New Jersey, and a soldier under Washington in the seven years
struggle of the thirteen colonies for independence. Mr. Friedley's mother was born in New Jersey, and was a girl three years old when her family moved to Pennsylvania. After their marriage one child was born to Ludwick and Rebecca Friedley in Pennsylvani
a, and they then moved to Seneca county, New York, where the birth of John M. Friedley, the next to the oldest child, took place. The date of the settlement of the family in Seneca county, New York, was about 1820, and they resided there till the fall of
1838. Eight children were born in New York. His father then moved with the family to Seneca county, Ohio, where the youngest of the ten children was born. Five are now living. With the exception of John M. Friedley they reside in Seneca county, Ohio.
Mr. Friedley first saw the light of day on the 12th of January, 1821. His birth-place was six miles south of Seneca falls, in Seneca county, New York. His boyhood was spent in the same neighborhood. At that time free schools had not been established. Only
subscription or pay schools were in existance, but these, in that part of the state, were well organized, and afforded good educational advantages. He had opportunity for going to school only in the winter. His early education has been supplemented by mu
ch practical
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experience with business affairs, and by information which he has acquired by habits of keen observation. From an early age he was accustomed to work on the farm, and learned those habits of industry which have contributed not a little to his success in l
ife. On the 15th of October, 1838, the family left their home in New York to find a new location in Ohio. They settled in Seneca county, in the midst of a new and heavily timbered country. His father purchased one hundred and thirty-six acres of land cove
red with heavy timber, and it required a vast amount of hard labor to bring a farm under cultivation. Of this work Mr. Friedley did his full share. His father lived on this farm till his death, in 1872. at the age of seventy-eight. He had accumulated cons
iderable property, and died in good circumstances. His mother died in the same neighborhood in 1875.
The subject of this sketch lived at home till he was about twenty-four years of age. He was of an enterprising and energetic turn of mind, and finally concluded that he could obtain a better start in the world by coming to Illinois. He had lived part of o
ne summer with an uncle, Abraham Middlesworth, who then resided in Fairfield county, Ohio, but who afterward emigrated to Shelby County, in this state. From the time his uncle left Ohio, he felt a great desire to come to Illinois, and in September, 1845,
in company with his next younger brother, Ner D. Friedley, he proceeded to carry out his long cherished undertaking. Taking a boat at Huron, Ohio, he came by way of the lakes to Chicago. While it was his intention to come to Shelby county, he wished firs
t to take advantage of the rapid means of making money which were then supposed to exist in the lead mines of north-western Illinois. These mines in those days were a popular resort for energetic young men anxious to get possession of a little capital. Fr
om Chicago, in company with some teamsters, he made his way westward in the direction of Galena. He found it was too early in the fall to find profitable work at the mines, and in traveling through Winnebago county, he stopped at Twelve Mile Grove, about
half way between Rockford and Freeport, and for about six weeks was employed at a stage stand. This was during the months of September and October, 1845, and this was the first work Mr. Friedley ever did in Illinois. He then went on to Galena, and was emp
loyed in the mines during the winter of 1845-6. His brother left in March and came to Shelbyville but Mr. Friedley remained till the approach of warm weather made it impossible to work in the mines, and he then obtained a situation to drive a team for a p
edler -- the most remunerative employment he could find at the time -- till the weather became cold enough to permit of his going to work again at mining. The money he had earned by his first winter's work in the mines he had given to his brother, who on
coming to Shelby county had bought, for $320, one hundred and sixty acres of land in Holland township, in which Mr. Friedley owned a half interest. He was employed in the mines during the winter of 1846-7, and the next spring came to Shelby county, reachi
ng Shelbyville the latter part of March, 1847, the first time he had ever been in this part of the state. Here he met his brother, who had spent the summer of 1846 in Ohio, and had returned to Shelby county in the fall.
During the summer of 1847 the brothers raised a crop together, having twenty-two acres in oats, and forty-five in corn. In the fall of 1847 his brother determined to return to the mines. Toward the spring he was taken sick, and in May, 1848, died, finding
a grave in Wisconsin, eight miles from Galena. During the winter of 1847-8 and the next summer, he carried out a contract to cut the rails and fence three sides of a half-section of land. Every two hundred rails paid for an acre of ground; and in that wa
y part of the debt incurred in the purchase of the one hundred and sixty acres was liquidated. To his brother's interest in this land Mr. Friedley fell heir, and he soon had it free from encumbrance. This was the first land ever owned by him in Shelby cou
nty, though hundreds of acres of valuable land have since passed through his hands. After finishing the contract to fence the land, during the remaining part of the summer of 1848 he worked by the month at herding cattle, and the next winter was employed
on a farm in Windsor township. He was married on the 18th of January, 1849, to Miss Julia P. Stuart, who was born in Robertson county, Tennessee, on the 9th of October, 1829. Her parents, Dempsey Stuart and Mary Folis, were both natives of South Carolina.
Her ancestors were of Scotch descent. Her father moved with the family to Shelby county in 1842, and settled seven miles east of Shelbyville, in Windsor township. Both her father and mother died in this county. During the winter he was married Mr. Friedl
ey was receiving only eight dollars a month wages. This was not a heavy capital on which to embark in matrimony, but he and his wife were both hopeful and willing to make the best of circumstances. At that time there was comparatively little wealth in the
country. His highest expectations then were to own a tract of forty acres of good land, in some favored part of the county, with a little convenient timber, and a comfortable house in which to live.
After his marriage till the fall of 1854 he was engaged in farming on rented land in Windsor and Richland townships. He still owned the original one hundred and sixty acres in Holland township, to which he had added twenty-eight acres of timber, and in th
e fall of 185 4 he moved on this land, built a round log house and other buildings, dug a well, and settled down on his own possessions with the purpose of improving a farm. In the summer of 1855 he planted twenty-three acres in corn, but the chinch bugs,
which that season put in an appearance for the first time in Shelby county, ate up his entire crop. The next year he was more fortunate. He raised a good crop of corn, and in the fall had an opportunity of selling his farm to a good advantage. He was gla
d to get it off his hands. He was naturally endowed with the facility of distinguishing on sight, good land from bad, and when he first came to Shelby county and his eye rested on the quarter section in which his brother had invested his first earnings, h
is feeling was one of great disappointment. It was his ambition to own a farm on Robinson creek, where he had a cousin living, and where he considered the soil to be greatly superior to that of his own farm. So he gladly accepted a chance to sell his Holl
and township farm for $2,100. But passing by, after all, the land on Robinson creek, which was held at high prices, he came to the north-western part of the county and selected a quarter section three miles east of Moawequa, for which, with ten acres of g
ood timber, and twenty of brush, he paid $2,000. The improvements consisted of a house about sixteen feet square built of round logs, and about thirty-six acres which had been placed in cultivation. Four thousand rails were also on the place. With charact
eristic energy he commenced the work of improvement, and during the next four or five years performed about as much hard labor as is usually gone through with by any one man in a like period. In 1859 the old log house, in which his family had found somewh
at uncomfortable quarters since the spring of 1856, gave place to a new frame residence, twenty-eight feet square, which now stands on the property. This is the farm now owned by James G. Stewart an illustration of which appears elsewhere.
He soon reached a position where he was able to increase his means rapidly. After the war of the rebellion began, land dropped in value, and in 1862 he bought another quarter section cornering with the other, the cheapest land he ever purchased in Shelby
county. In 1864 he purchased eighty acres adjoining his farm
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on the south, which he still owns. The period of speculation and high prices during the latter part of the rebellion, and after its close, gave ample opportunity for making money to men of enterprise, capital, and good business judgment. In the spring of
1866 he formed a partnership with John Hudson to deal in stock. During the three or four years the partnership lasted, the business was carried on very successfully, and he made money more rapidly than at any other period of his life. He was wise enough,
too, to abandon it when it proved no longer profitable. In the year 1870, he was engaged in the grain business at Moawequa in partnership with E. W. Stevens. On account of the poor state of his wife's health he had rented his farm, and moved to Moawequa i
n the spring of 1867. In July, 1874, with Valentine Snyder and George A. Kautz as his partners, he established the bank at Moawequa -- the first institution of the kind ever started in the town. He attended to all the outside business connected with the b
ank and contributed to make it a prosperous and successful institution, and to give it a reputation for sound financial standing second to no bank in this part of the state. He closed his connection with the bank in July, 1880. He is now the owner of five
hundred and forty-eight acres of land in Shelby county and fifty in Christian county. These farms are among the best to be found in this part of the state. In the spring of 1877 he moved to his present residence, which he has since improved, and a view o
f which is shown in this work. It is one of the choicest pieces of residence property in Moawequa.
Martha Elizabeth, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Friedley, was born on the 1st of March, 1850. She was educated at the seminary at Shelbyville, and qualified herself as a teacher though she never attended but one term of school. On the 5th of November, 18
68, she was married to James G. Stewart. After her marriage, she and her husband went to live on the farm in Moawequa township, the former residence of Mr. Friedley, of which they afterwards became the owners. A violent cold brought on the consumption, an
d everything possible was done for her restoration to health. She was taken to Florida by her husband in the fall of 1876, and, after spending the winter there returned to Moawequa the last of May. After an illness of about eighteen months, she died on th
e 12th of August, 1877. She was the mother of three children. John A., the oldest child, died at the age of fourteen months, and another died in infancy. Jessie May is the only child living. She and her father have their home with Mr. and Mrs. Friedley.
In the days when the political sentiment of the county was divided between the Whig and Democratic parties, Mr. Friedley was a Whig. He cast his first vote for President in the exciting campaign of 1844, for Henry Clay, the great champion of the principle
s of the Whig organization. From early boyhood he was opposed to slavery, and believed in the inherent right of freedom which every man possesses. When the great fight began over the question of extending slavery into the Territories, and the Republican p
arty sprang into existence, he was one of the first to connect himself with the new organization, and he has been a warm Republican from that day to the present. He has taken an active and influential part in politics, and has been one of the leaders of t
he Republican organization in Shelby county. For eight years he represented Moawequa township in the board of supervisors. The Republican party made him its candidate for sheriff of Shelby county; but of course it was impossible to overcome the customary
heavy democratic majority. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as is also Mrs. Friedley. He has been a temperance man all his life, and has never given a vote in favor of the licensed sale of intoxicating drinks. He is a member of Shelby L
odge No. 274 of the order of Odd Fellows, and of Moawequa Lodge of Masons. No. 280.
His success in life has depended much on his own energy and his natural qualifications as a good business man. His accumulations are the result of perseverance and industry; he possesses a mind keen enough to judge accurately of the character of business
investments, and has managed to take good care of the results of the industry of his earlier years. Besides his own business, he has been called on to transact considerable business for others, and has been engaged in the settlement of several estates. In
connection with one estate of which he was administrator, he acted as guardian of the seven minor children; and in other ways the confidence of the people in his business ability has been frequently expressed; he is a good type of the self-made man. He c
ame to Illinois with a resolute heart and willing hands as his only aids in the quest for fortune. But while his own resources were all he had on which to rely, he remembered with gratitude the friends of the early part of his career in this county, who g
ave him their confidence, extended to him credit, and assisted him in many material ways. He considers also that he has been fortunate in associating himself in business with capable and reliable men. His partners who at different times he has had in vari
ous enterprises have invariably been men in whose integrity and ability he has had entire confidence. Although he has been active in the accumulation of wealth, still he has used it with a liberal hand. He had surrounded his family with the comforts of li
fe, and his means have always been open to the appeals of charity and the demands of benevolence. He is known as a public-spirited citizens and has been among the foremost in all enterprises calculated to benefit the community of which he is a member. In
all his business transactions, extending over a long series of years, there rests against him no imputation which could affect his character as a gentleman, as a straightforward and honorable business man. His name deserves a place in this work as a man w
ho has been intimately connected with the development and growth of the material resources of Shelby county.
VALENTINE SNYDER
NOW engaged in the banking business at Moawequa, is a native of Christian county, and was born in Prairieton township near the Shelby county line, half a mile west of Moawequa, on the 28th of October, 1844. His parents, Michael Snyder and Margaret
Kautz, were among the early settlers of that part of Christian county. The subject of this sketch was the fifth of a family of eight children. He was raised in the neighborhood where he was born. He attended school as he had opportunity in the log schoolh
ouses in the Flat Branch Timber. The nearest school was three miles distant. He afterward attended two terms in a seminary at Mt. Zion in Macon county. During the winter of 1866-7 he was a student at Eastman's Commercial College at Chicago. In the fall of
1867, in partnership with George Kautz he began the mercantile business at Moawequa under the firm name of Snyder & Kautz. Business was carried on in that manner for four years and a half. For one year he carried on the store on his own accord and then f
ormed a partnership with his brother, William J. Snyder. He continued the mercantile business till 1873. In 1874 with George A. Kautz and J. M. Friedley as his partners he engaged in the banking business at Moawequa under the name of V. Snyder & Co. This
was the first bank ever established at Moawequa, and the business has
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been carried on uninterruptedly from that time to the present. Mr. Friedley retired from the firm in July, 1880.
Mr. Snyder was married on the 14th of September, 1870, to Miss Lillian Snow, a native of Green county, Illinois, daughter of Thomas Snow. He has five children by this marriage, Clarence Elmer, Karl Roscoe, Ralph Waldo, Lillian Irene, and Mattie May. In hi
s political opinions he has always been in sympathy with the Republican party. His first vote for President was cast for General Grant in 1868. He has always been a staunch supporter of the Republican organization, although in local elections he believes
in supporting the best man for the office irrespective of political affiliations. He is one of the energetic and enterprising business men of Moawequa. Since 1867 he has been closely identified with the business interests of the place, and is well known a
s a gentleman of high personal character and an honorable and capable business man.
E. M. DOYLE
IS of Irish and English descent. His grandfather, Martin Doyle, emigrated from the north of Ireland to America with two brothers about 1750. At Braddock's defeat in western Pennsylvania, he became separated from his brothers and never heard of them
afterward. He settled in Virginia and married a woman named Webb. He was a soldier in the revolutionary war, afterwards moved to Tennessee, and thence to Kentucky, settling there soon after the time of Daniel Boone, when the country was yet full of the I
ndians. He died in Logan county, Kentucky. John Doyle, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in the Blue Ridge part of Virginia, about 1783. His early life was spent in Tennessee, where he was in the employment of Andrew Jackson. He was one of th
e body of troops raised in Tennessee to reinforce Jackson during the war of 1812-14, and took part in the battle of New Orleans. He was married in Lincoln county, Kentucky, to Cassandra Harvey, a native of Kentucky. John Doyle lived four miles west of Rus
sellville, Logan county, Kentucky, till his death, which occurred three or four years ago, at the age of ninety-three. He was an old Whig, and during the rebellion a strong union man. The rebel forces several times during the war tried to compel him to ta
ke the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, but the old man bravely refused, preferring even death to renouncing his loyalty to his country.
Ewing M. Doyle was the fourth of nine children. He was born near Russellville, Logan county, Kentucky, September fifteenth, 1815. He went to school but little, never more than three weeks at a time. There were then no free schools; schooling cost eight do
llars a quarter; his father had a large family, and wanted the assistance of all his children, able to work, to relieve him from an embarrassed financial situation, and consequently he had to get his learning at home. He learned to read and spell at night
by the flickering light of a brushwood fire, an older brother generally being his teacher. In the year 1831, then in his sixteenth year, he came to Illinois, and for one year worked for an older brother, who had settled in Fayette county. He was in the v
incinity of Vandalia till the fall of 1835. Vandalia was then the capital of the state, and among the members of the legislature was Abraham Lincoln, who boarded with Dr. Stapp, now living in Decatur, by whom Mr. Doyle was employed, and he and Lincoln cho
pped wood together many an evening after the legislature had adjourned its sessions. For about three years succeeding the fall of 1835, he was employed in driving stage near St. Louis. His first route was between St. Louis and Marine, east of Edwardsville
, and then afterwards on the St. Louis and Springfield line, between Edwardsville and Carlinville. At that time there were no railroads. Al the travel was carried on by stage and the driver of a stage was quite an important personage.
On the twenty-ninth of May, 1836, he married Mary Dickens, who was born in Wilson county, Tennessee, and was then living in Madison county. He quit the stage business about 1838, and was in the employment afterwards of Samuel Sanner, who then lived north
of Edwardsville, and of Dr. Lathey at Alton. In 1839 he began farming north of Edwardsville, and in 1840 moved to a farm in Macoupin county, four miles and a half south of Bunker Hill, on which he lived three years, and then bought sixty acres of land in
the same neighborhood, on which he resided a number of years. It required all his capital to get possession of these sixty acres. He traded off everything excepting an axe and a hoe. There was no other improvement on the place except a cabin. Some of the
rails with which to fence it he carried a quarter of a mile on his back. He owed a hundred dollars on the land. To add to his other troubles, he was sick a great part of the time with chills and bilious fever. He finally succeeded in getting the place in
cultivation, paid off the indebtedness, erected a good house and barn, and entered eighty acres adjoining. In 1859 he sold this farm, and moved on a farm of two hundred and ten acres four miles north of Bunker Hill. He there became involved in the paymen
t of some security debts, and had made himself liable for a considerable sum of money for building the Methodist church at Bunker Hill, and he finally concluded to move to a new country. He came to this county in 1863. His capital consisted of thirteen hu
ndred dollars, two teams, and three cows. He bought four hundred and twenty acres, only a small portion improved. He now owns a farm of two hundred and forty acres free from all incumbrance, a picture of which is shown elsewhere. His first wife died in 18
59. His present wife, Helen Brewer, was born at Upper Alton, September fifth 1838, daughter of William Brewer, who came from Virginia to Illinois, and settled near Brighton. He has seventeen children: Elizabeth, wife of Lewis Hail, of Kansas ; Benjamin F.
, of Moawequa township; Alexander P. H., of Kansas; John L., of Flat Branch township; Isabel A., wife of William Whitworth, of Moawequa township; Julia and Ewing M., who are deceased; James C. T., George R., and Charles W., of Moawequa township; Mary H.an
d William A. residing at home; Coloma C., deceased; and Martin Reuben who resides with his father; Cora E. Camilla, and Edith are deceased. The last seven names are those of children by his present marriage. Benjamin, A. P. H., and John served in the war
of the rebellion, enlisting in 1863. The two first were in the Forty first Illinois, and were in Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea. John was in a Missouri regiment.
Mr. Doyle was first a democrat and voted for Van Buren in 1836. He became a strong republican, and in 1856 voted for Fremont. He joined the Presbyterian church when a boy in Kentucky, and united with the Methodists on coming to this state. His influence h
as been cast on the side of morality and virtue. He has been a warm temperance man. He began life with no capital, having only thirty-seven and a half cents when he started out for himself in Vandalia. His accumulations have been the result of hard work.
He has followed farming, and has traded considerably in stock, and has succeeded in every occupation he has undertaken. His personal honesty has never been placed in question. He can now look back, with satisfaction over a life which, though laborious, ha
s been profitably spent.
