The facts concerning the subject of this sketch were furnished me by his son, Charles I. Haskell, deputy sheriff of Cass County, Illinois. J. N. G.

John E. Haskell was born in Thomaston, in the state of Maine, on the 1st day of February, in the year 1812.

The town of Princeton, Morgan county, was laid out on the 19th day of February, 1833, by John G. Bergen who was a cousin of Jacob F. Bergen, a former well known resident of Cass county. This town was located on the east half of the southeast quarter of Sec. 36 T17 R10 now in Cass county.

Harvey Beggs and Charles Brady in 1834 advertised in a newspaper of Boston, Massachusetts, for a foreman to operate a woolen mill in Princeton, Illinois. This notice chanced to meet the eye of John E. Haskell, and after a brief correspondence with Beggs and Brady, Mr. Haskell, then a young man of 22 years old came from the far away old Pine Tree State to the Illinois wilds and began work in the Princeton woolen mill. This was in the spring of 1835, and the following year he purchased the interest of Mr. Beggs in the business and returned to Maine to get the necessary money.

He returned to Illinois in the spring of 1837, traveling all the long distance on a pony with a faithful Newfoundland dog as his companion, and this animal continued to live with his young master for a period of twelve years thereafter.

In 1840, John E. Haskell removed this woolen mill from the town of Princeton to the town of Virginia then four years of age purchasing of its proprietor, Dr. Henry H. Hall, lot 117 of said town which lot is 180 feet square being the lot on which the ice house of William Clifford is now located.

The building constructed upon this lot was forty-four feet square, two stories high; the tread wheel with arms twenty and a half feet long being located on the ground floor, the upper space being used for storage. Horses, steers and cows were used as motive power to turn the wheel, and the business, under the excellent management of Mr. Haskell proved to be a decided success, as a financial enterprise.

When he first came to the town of Virginia, he became a boarder in the home of Charles Brady who lived on lot 108, afterward the L. S. Allard property, and now owned by Mrs. S. C. Gatto. In 1842, Mr. Haskell bought the interest of Chas. Brady in the woolen mill and in the month of September of the same year he married his daughter, Emmeline Brady, when he was thirty years of age. They began their housekeeping in the house on lot 53 in Virginia, which has since been rebuilt and now owned by the Cosner heirs. In this house in September, 1845, their oldest living child, Charles I. Haskell, was born. A short time afterward, the family moved to a house on lots 70 and 71 in this town, now owned by Lee Skiles, then owned by John E. Haskell, and in the year 1855, he purchased the Samuels property, lots 1 and 2 in the Public Ground addition, which was built by John and Mark Buckley for Samuels in 1838 where the family continued to make their home until the death of Mr. Haskell.

In 1851, he started back to Maine to visit his friends and relatives, accompanied by his wife and son Charles.

The only railroad these travelers passed over in making this long journey was from Jacksonville to the Illinois river, constructed by nailing strap iron on stringers of wood, the cars being propelled by horses or mules, and in some places oxen were used for switching cars. Boats and stage coaches were the ordinary means of transportation in those days.

On May 1, 1847, Dr. Hall sold and conveyed to John E. Haskell eleven acres of land then adjoining the Town Plat on the south extending from Morgan street on the west to Main street on the east for $80. Mr. Haskell had the good sense to hold on to this land so long as he lived, and after his death it was platted into the Haskell Addition to the town by his heirs and is now covered with neat and comfortable homes. Charles I. Haskell owning one of them.

Politically the subject of this sketch was a Whig up to 1858, when he became a Douglas Democrat and remained a staunch adherent to democracy until his death. He filled the office of Justice of the Peace for some thirty years, and was known far and wide as one of the best of the county; he frequently boasted that he never made a decision, which was afterward reversed by a higher court. He died at his home in this city on Sept. 30, 1876, at the age of 64 years and 8 months. There were born to him seven children, four of them dying in infancy; his wife and the remaining three survived him. His widow died at the residence of her brother, John T. Brady, in Pomona, California, in 1903, and her remains were returned here to Walnut Ridge cemetery where they lie by her husband and infant children. The daughter, Mrs. Adelia M. Duffield, resides in Springfield, Illinois, and William Haskell lives in Kansas.

Charles I. Haskell, Robert Hall and Eliza (Murray) Jacobs are now the oldest native born residents of this city. The first named has seen wild deer standing on the spot the court house now occupies; he remembers when the lands immediately east of here, now worth a hundred and thirty dollars per acre were worthless frog ponds knee deep in mud and water in the spring time. He remembers when the only occupied farms between here and Springfield, were those of Job, Walker, Harrison, Peter Cartwright and Bone. The first settler in this section was Archibald Job, who lived and died on his farm three or four miles east of this city - now owned by Oswell Skiles.

In the year 1785, the mother of John E. Haskell emigrated to America, bringing with her a gold watch, which she willed to her son at her death; this valuable heirloom has been passed down the line and is now in possession of John, the son of Charles I. Haskell, and still keeps a faithful record of time the "Tomb Builder."