Illinios:  History of Cass County, Illinois, ed. William 
Henry Perrin.  O. L. Baskin & Co. Historical Publishers, 
Chicago, 1882.  Cass County

DAVID M. IRWIN, real estate and insurance, Beardstown; was 
born in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 6, 1814; son of John and 
Elizabeth (Muhlenburg) Irwin; he, a shipping merchant of 
Philadelphia, Pa.; she, a daughter of Frederick Augustus 
Muhlenburg, first Speaker of the House of Representatives.  
David M. was educated in private schools in his native 
city, and at the age of thirteen became a clerk in a 
wholesale dry goods store, and afterward bookkeeper in an 
importing and shipping house.  In 1841, he came to 
Springfield, Ills., engaged in mercantile business there, 
four years, and afterward in St. Louis, Mo., four years.  
In 1848 he came to Virginia, this county, where he kept a 
general store till 1853, then entered a tract of prairie 
and timber land in Hickory Precinct, part of which he still 
owns.  In 1853, he opened a general store in Beardstown, 
and remained there till 1865 then moved to Peoria, Ills., 
where he carried on business three years.  He returned to 
Beardstown in 1868, and has since been engaged in the real 
estate, loan and insurance business there, and has devoted 
his means largely to improving and building upon his lots.  
In Chester, Pa., in 1839, he married Sibylla Birchell, who 
died in 1841, leaving one son, John H., one of the 
inventors of the Bell Telephone, and holding previous 
claims to Bell's, by which, on compromise, he receives an 
annual stipend of $10,000.  Mr. Irwin married in 
Springfield, Ills., in 1842, Virginia G. Payne, and from 
this second marriage there has been one daughter, Ellen.  
He is a Republican.

Irwin Muhlenburg Birchell Payne
=
PA MO