* Michigan
- Oakland County History
Portrait and biographical album of Oakland County, Michigan – 1891
Robert Callow, a popular salesman of Pontiac, was born in the city of Pontiac, April 30, 1848. His parents were Charles and Elizabeth (Moth) Callow, the father being a retired blacksmith and farmer. He was born in the parish of Cape Pine (Andreas), Isle of Man, June 4, 1808, and is the seventh of ten children of John and Catherine (Cormode) Callow. The grandfather of our subject was a merchant.
Charles Callow received a limited education and learned the blacksmith's trade in his native place. He removed to Newburg, N.Y., and then to Buffalo, where he worked at his trade. From the latter place he went to Elyria, Ohio where he carried on blacksmithing on his own account for four years. In the spring of 1830 (1834), he came to Pontiac, Michigan, and after awhile started a blacksmith shop which he carried on a term of years. He bought eighty acres of land, from which he chopped off the timber at the same time that he carried on his blacksmithing and farming. He erected a good house and barn and furnished his farm abundantly with outbuildings. He resides just within the east limit of the city.
The parents of our subject were united in marriage April 27, 1838. The mother was a native of England where she was born August 6, 1813, her death occurring April 3, 1891. Eight children blessed their union: Catherine, who died in Pontiac; Charles M., died in 1876; Walter T., who died in infancy; William, deceased; Eliza J., who died at the age of seventeen years; Robert K.; Annie, deceased; and James, who married Nellie Adams of Pontiac. Charles Callow served one term as Alderman of the third ward. He is a staunch Democrat in his political views and he cast his first presidential vote for Gen. Jackson, and his last for Grover Cleveland.
The subject of this sketch was reared and educated in Pontiac, receiving his education in the city schools. At the age of sixteen he entered the store of John Pound and Alexander Collins. He remained with them as clerk for one year and then clerked in the grocery store of Thomas Turk. After several years in this store he went to Grand Rapids for a portion of a year, being in the employ there of J.E. Moroney. Returning to Pontiac he clerked for M. Moutier for a year. In September, 1883, he entered the employ of Bird & Hamlin, dealers in clothing and gents' furnishing goods, with whom he still continues. His marriage took place in March, 1872 (1874). He was then united with Libby (Elizabeth) M., daughter of Francis and Margaret (Usher) Locklin (Lochlien), of Pontiac. Mr. and Mrs. Callow have six children - Annie, Guy, Irene, Robert, Daisy and Lela. Mr. Callow is rather conservative in politics but generally votes the Democratic ticket. He is a member of Oakland County Lodge No. 183, I.O.O.F. and the National Union. He has also served two terms as Alderman from the Fourth ward.
- Tuscola County Pioneers
1892 Portrait & Biographical Album of Genesee, Lapeer & Tuscola Counties, Chapman Bros.
JOHN VALENTINE. In the agricultural circles of Watertown Township, Tuscola County, their are none who stand higher than those families who migrated too this country from the agricultural districts of England, and who had their training on those marvelous farms, which are so thoroughly cultivated and so richly productive.
The Valentine family is representative of this class and John Valentine is one who stands high among his neighbors both as a man and as a farmer. He was born in England in 1834, and their grew too manhood and married Susannah Gill who is also of English birth. To this marriage were born three sons and four daughters and every member of this family except one daughter is in America. Mr. Valentine has been a farmer all through his life.
Our subject came too America in 1881 and at once settled in Watertown Township, where he now resides and where he owns forty acres of good land, which he has in a thorough state of cultivation. The religious belief of Mr. and Mrs. Valentine brings them into hearty sympathy and service with the Methodist Church too which they belong. The father of John is Henry Valentine, andhe is now living in England, having passed the boundary of four-score years. His wife was Ann Whalley, and they were the parents of three children, two of whom are now living.
The paternal grandparents of our subject were John and rachel (Birchall) Valentine, who reared a family of eight sons and five daughters and carried on agricultural pursuits. The father of Mrs. John Valentine was Joseph Gill and his wife's maiden name was Ann Berry. Both were English by birth and became the parents of four sons and four daughters. Mr. Gill pursued farming throughout his whole live and he was a son of Thomas and Ellen (Tunstall) Gill, who had a family of four sons and two daughters. Joseph Gill died at the age of eighty-three and his wife passed away after reaching four-score years.
* Illinois
- Wheaton College Professors
Russell, J. B. (John Benjamin)
Wheaton College Alumnus, John Benjamin Russell, was born in Henry County, Illinois, prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, on February 25, 1860, the child of Samuel and Matilda Russell. Russell's siblings were Frank Horace and Eva May. Russell would later marry Isabel Gunn of Wheaton, Illinois (December 23, 1885). Together they raised their children Edna L., born September 1886, and Everett Russell, born August 1889.
Russell attended and graduated from Wheaton College with high honors in 1885. He also attended and graduated from the University of Chicago (1894-1896).
J. B. Russell, upon his graduation from Wheaton College, became the principal of Glen Ellyn High School, a post he held for one year. Afterwards, Russell became principal of Kewanee High School, a post he held for five years. Concurrent to his last year at Kewanee, Russell was County Superintendent of Public Instruction for Henry County, the county of his birth. Russell held this position until 1893 at which time he became Professor of Natural Science at Wheaton College. Russell continued in that capacity until 1895. In 1896 Russell became the Superintendent of Public Schools of Wheaton. He died on January 26, 1930.
- The Biographical Record of Henry County, Illinois – 1901 (Clarke)
(page 327)
SAMUEL RUSSELL
Samuel Russell, who is practically living a retired life in the city of Kewanee, Illinois, was born in Wilmington, Clinton county, Ohio, on the 6th of October, 1834, but was only seven years old when he removed to Delaware county, Indiana, with his parents, John and Susanna (Wickersham) Russell, the former also a native of the Buckeye state, and the latter of Virginia, although she was only three years old when she became a resident of Ohio. Our subject’s paternal grandfather, James Russell, was born in Ireland, and was a lad of thirteen years when he came with his parents to the United States, the family being among the early settlers of Ohio, where he grew to manhood and spent the greater part of his life. His death occurred in Delaware county, Indiana. In his family were eleven children, of whom nine reached years of maturity.
John Russell, the eldest of this family and the father of our subject, received but a limited education, learning to read, write and cipher after he attained his majority. He was only able to attend school a short time during the winter and then had to wade three miles to the school house. His early life was devoted to agricultural pursuits, and at the age of nineteen years he learned the plasterer’s and brick mason’s trades, at which he worked for about twenty years. In 1841 he removed to Delaware county, Indiana, where he purchased eighty acres of land, and was engaged in farming throughout the remainder of his life. Politically he was first a Whig and an abolitionist and later a Republican, and religiously was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he served as class leader and steward for a number of years. He died in 1857 at about the age of fifty two years, and his wife, who long survived him, passed away in 1881. She had made her home in Henry county, Illinois, from 1859. They were the parents of four children namely: James who died at the age of four years: Samuel, our subject: Miriam, wife of Jeremiah Bickford, a retired citizen of Kewanee: and Caroline, wife of James Stafford, a retired citizen of Albany, Delaware county, Indiana.
When the family located in Delaware county, Indiana, that region was very wild, and on starting his children to school the father blazed the trees through the heavy forest that they might find their way home. There was scarcely a frame house in the county, outside of Muncie, the county seat, where there were a few. The dwellings were nearly all built of logs, with one door and one window, with large fireplace built of rough stone and mud, the chimnies being of split sticks and mud. Nails were not known, with the exception of a few made by the blacksmith. Wooden pins were used instead of nails, an auger or a gimlet being used to make the hole, in which the wooden pin was inserted and driven in solidly. The school houses were also built of logs, with seats made of small logs split in two parts, wooden pins being inserted on the round side for legs, thus giving a flat surface on which to sit. There was neither back or cushion to the seats. The roofs of the houses were made of split boards about two and a half or three feet long called clapboards, which were laid on timbers called ribs, and held there by poles laid on them, one pole being used to a tier of clapboards. The floors were made of puncheons, that is slabs split out of large timber from three to four inches thick, while a board placed on pins formed a desk on which the scholars practiced writing about ten or fifteen minutes a day, that being all the teacher though necessary to devote to that accomplishment. Amid such primitive surroundings, young Russell acquired his education, walking a mile and a quarter to school each morning and returning home at night. He was only permitted to attend in the winter, and never longer than thirty-five days in one year. At the age of eighteen his education was completed, so far as his school life was concerned, and he then devoted his entire time to work. He remained at home until his removal to Illinois in 1859, with the exception of a few months spent in Minnesota and Illinois.
On the 31st of March, 1859, Mr. Russell married Matilda Zehner, who was born in Wayne county, Indiana and is the third in order of birth in a family of nine children, whose parents were Benjamin and Hester Zehner, natives of Pennsylvania, and early settlers of Wayne county, Indiana, from which they later removed to Delaware county, the same state. Of the six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Russell, Francis died at the age of two years, Cora at the age of three, and Mary at the age of fourteen. John B., a graduate of Wheaton College and now superintendent of the public schools of Wheaton, Illinois, married Isabel Gunn, and they have two children, Edna L., and Everett C. Frank H. is a physician, now connected with the Presbyterian hospital of Chicago. He is also a graduate of Wheaton College, Rush Medical College and the Theological Seminary of the Congregational Church of Chicago. Eva M. is a graduate of the Kewanee high school, and is now taking the literary course at the Chicago University.
In 1859 Mr. Russell and his family came to Henry County, Illinois, and located on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres which he had purchased in 1856 in Clover township, at that time all wild and unimproved. He erected thereon a house, fourteen by twenty feet, in which he lived while breaking his land and placing it under cultivation. On disposing of that property in 1865 he a partially improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Wethersfield township, where he made his home until his removal to Kewanee on the first of January, 1891. During his youth he learned the brick mason’s and plasterer’s trade with his father, but has not followed that occupation for forty years. While engaged in farming he gave considerable attention to the raising and feeding of stock, generally keeping about one hundred hogs and twenty head of cattle. He still oversees the management of his farm, though he has retired from active labor. He is an active member and steward of the Free Methodist Church. Politically he is a prohibitionist.
