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 OHN HILDRETH, who for the past ten
years has been identified with the farming
interests of Charleston Township, occupies a
good homestead located on section 6. He
is the owner of 400 broad acres, under a fine state
of cultivation, stocked with excellent grades of domestic animals and supplied with good buildings
and all the other appurtenances of a first-class country estate. The early years of our subject were spent in Suffolk County, L. I., where his birth took place Jan. 19, 1823. His paternal grandfather, John Hildreth, was a sea captain, and his father, Nathan Hildreth, also followed a seafaring life, being commander of a whaling-vessel for many years. The mother of our subject, who in her girlhood was Miss Katura Payne, was also born in Suffolk County, and by her marriage with Nathan Hildreth became the mother of six children: Maria, the wife of Watson Payne; Henry is living in Wisconsin: Phebe, deceased ; John, of our sketch, was the fourth child: Albert, a sea captain, died in the Sandwich Islands; Ann is also deceased. The parents of John Hildreth died when he was but a boy and he was left dependent upon his own resources. He possessed much of his father’s love of the water and when sixteen years of age embarked as a sailor and for five years crossed to and fro over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on merchant and whaling vessels, visiting the ports of Japan and many islands in the Pacific Ocean. After attaining his majority he quit the sea and joined some of his brothers and sisters who had married and located in Wayne County, N. Y. He was afterward engaged at farm labor for a time, and finally going into Onondaga County, learned the trade of a carpenter, which he followed several years, when he again resumed agricultural pursuits. In 1872 he went up into Green Lake County, Wis., where he remained most of the time until 1877. In the meantime he had also staid considerably with friends in this county, and in 1877 settled here permanently upon a part of the land which he now occupies. His first purchase consisted of 185 acres, and he industriously cultivated the soil, adding such improvements as his means would allow and invested his surplus capital in more land. Of late years he has been remarkably prosperous, and is numbered among the wealthy and influential agriculturists of Central Illinois. The wife of our subject, who has been his close counselor and friend for more than thirty years, was in her girlhood Mi*s Cordelia Amidon, a native of Onondaga, N. Y.. and the daughter of Cheny and Polly (Rouels) Amidon. Their wedding took place in the spring of 1854, and they went to housekeeping on the farm in New York. The household was in due time enlarged by the birth of six children, two of whom died in childhood and four are now living. The latter are: Lura, the wife of Charles Gramsly; Albert; Fannie, the wife of John Snyder, and Henry. Mr. Hildreth is Republican in politics and in all respects is fulfilling the obligations of a good citizen, forming one of the most important factors in the agricultural interests of his township. |
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