Hood, Sidney J. MAGA © 2000-2014
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BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF CASS, SCHUYLER and BROWN COUNTIES, Illinois - 1892

Chicago: Biographical Review Publishing Co.

Page 271

SIDNEY J. HOOD, of the firm of Allard & Hood, publishers and editors of The Evening Star and The Star of the West of Beardstown, was born in Spring Green, Sauk county, Wisconsin, October 10, 1864. He was reared and educated at that place and acquired a knowledge of the carpenter and mason trades, but later went into the newspaper business. His father, Captain Thomas R. Hood, came from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin when a small child with his parents, Moses and Sarah Hood, natives of Pennsylvania, but who died in Wisconsin. Thomas R. Hood grew up as a farmer and carpenter, and when the war broke out he enlisted in the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment Light Artillery as a volunteer and served three and one half years, and was honorably discharged as Captain of his company. He had led his men through the battles of Corinth, Shiloh and other active engagements, and was much beloved by the members of his company. He had married Eliza A. Seiders, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Keifer) Seiders. They had come West at a very early day, settling in Sauk county on Government land, and the same on which Joseph Seiders and wife lived and where Mr. Seiders died, a very old man, in the spring of 1888. His wife, who is yet living, at the age of eighty, is yet very active and interested in her surroundings. She and her husband were members of the United Brethren Church.

Our subject is the second of three children, and since his thirteenth year he has supported himself. At the age of seventeen years he began work at his native home at Spring Green on a paper known as the Weekly Home News. He has always regarded these early days in Spring Green as the palmy days of his life as well as of his newspaper work. In 1889 he came to Arenzville, Cass County, Illinois, and started the Arenzville Argus, and at the same time the Chapin Boomerang, and ran the papers for about sixteen months, when he sold out and came to Beardstown, where he has since lived. For some time, also, he was a worker on the Laramie (Wyoming) Sentinel, Bill Nye's old "first love." The first issue of the Daily Star took place March 7, 1892; present firm was started February 24, 1892. Both the daily and weekly papers are very prosperous. Mr. Hood is a very energetic man, and being a practical printer understands thoroughly the management of a newspaper.

Mr. Hood is still unmarried. He is an ardent Republican.


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