Notizen zu dieser Person
Portrait and biographical album of Livingston County, Ill. (1888)
page 727
THOMAS G. McDOWELL, one of the oldest and most highly esteemed citizens of Livingston County, is the subject of this sketch, and is now acitizen of the town of Fairbury. He was born on the 1st of February, 1806, in Scioto County, Ohio, and was reared on his father's farm,obtaining his education in log school houses, the only kind of educational edifices the country afforded in those days. His parents wereJames and Sarah (Gorrel) McDowell. James was a native of Scotland, and came to America with his parents when a child. The father was a farmer by occupation, and his parents located in Pennsylvania, where James was married to Sarah Gorrel in the year 1789, after five, or sixyears service in the Revolutionary War. About 1795 the father went to Kentucky with the veritable Simon Kenton, which was the first visitthat famous frontiersman made to Kentucky. He and Kenton pre- empteda large tract of land, which was called Mason, and afterward Woodford County. The father moved from Kentucky to Ohio in 1804, and locatedin Scioto County, where he entered land and cleared a large farm, and remained until his death. The father was born in 1742 and died in1809. Theyhad a family of nine children, the subject of this sketch being the youngest and now the only survivor. The names of the children were as follows: Mary married Thomas Phillips; William married Sarah Dever; Betsey was unmarried; John married Elizabeth Price; James married Sophia Hall; Woodford G. married Catherine Bennett;
Martha married Henry Crull;
Hiram married Elizabeth Sawders. Thomas McDowell was married, on the1st of January, 1835, to Elizabeth C. Keeney, who was born in Virginia in 1807, and is the daughter of Moses and Frances (Harris) Keeney,both natives of Virginia, and life-long members of the MethodistEpiscopal Church. At the age of eighteen years Mr. McDowell concluded todepend upon his own resources for a living, and he made a visit to the Kanawha Salt Works in West Virginia, where he secured employment at making salt and worked from 1824 to 1836 at that place. On the 1stof October, 1836, he loaded all his worldly goods into a three-horsewagon, and with his wife started for the West. They stopped in Montgomery County, Ind., where he had purchased land some years previous to that time, and moved into a hewed log house 16x18 feet in dimensions, which he had erected the winter before. His land proved to be of excellent quality and very productive, and he remained on this farm of 120 acres until 1848, and then sold out and started farther west. Arriving in Livingston County he purchased 120 acres of school and State lands, on which he built a house and then began farming. This farm was one mile from timber, and was thought to be almost out of the world. In 1867 he sold his lands and moved into Fairbury, where he hassince resided, living in one of the pleasant residences of the town, which he has surrounded with many comforts. Mr. McDowell's family consists of seven children: Ann Eliza, living with her parents; Franklin C. married Laura Morgan; Moses K. married Miss Morgan; Sarah F. married M. J. Zook; Mary B. married William Morgan: Martha E. marriedThomas Brownlee, and Carrie E. married James Handy.
728
Since 1836 Mr. McDowell and his family have been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and during that long period he and his wife have been regular in their attendance and sincere in their profession.Mr. McDowell has always been a straight out Republican, and his devotion and loyalty to the party have never diminished the least since the day he joined it in 1856.
http://www.archive.org/details/portraitbiograph00chic
Portrait and biographical album of Livingston County, Ill. : containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county : together with portraits and biographies of all the governors of Illinois, and of the presidents of the United States (1888)
Subject: Governors; Presidents Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Bros. Language: English Call number: 1829146. Digitizing sponsor: University ofIllinois Urbana-Champaign Book contributor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Collection: americana
Hans Jürgen
Krull
