GEORGE B. DANFORTH, who is occupying the position of bookkeeper with the firm of David Culbertson & Son, is descended from a family of English lineage. He traces his ancestry back to General Danforth, who was an officer of the Revolutionary war and the first white settler at Onondaga Hollow, now Syracuse, New York. Asa Danforth, his great-grandfather, was the first to engage in the manufacture of salt in Syracuse.
Cyrus Danforth, the grandfather of our subject, came to Illinois from Syracuse, New York, and he secured a claim from the government, the tract of land upon which the town of Friendsville, Illinois, was built. He contributed in large measure to the early development and improvement of that section of the state, erecting the first church in the town and assisting materially in the upbuilding of the place. He married Mary, or Polly, Winter and his death occurred in 1852, when he was seventy-nine years of age, while his wife passed away at the age of eighty-four years.
George Danforth, father of our subject, was born in Syracuse, New York, July 9, 1811, and was brought by his parents to Illinois in 1818, being at that time but six years of age. Here he was reared amid pioneer conditions and environments, sharing with the family in all the hardships and trials of frontier life. He served in the Black Hawk war as first lieutenant in 1832. For many years he followed farming, spending much of his life at Friendsville, and he also operated a woolen factory for a time. He married Miss Emily R. Browne, a daughter of Francis and Ruth (Burnham) Browne, who were of English descent. Mrs. Danforth was born July 20, 1812, and died May 9, 1903, while George Danforth passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Charlotte Winslow, in Iowa. Their marriage was contracted in 1833 and they became the parents of ten children, three of whom died in early life, while five are yet living. Francis, the eldest, died at the age of two years; Ella, the youngest, died at the age of three years, and Franklin died in infancy. Harriet and Emma lived to be married but are now deceased. The others are Mary, Cyrus, George, Charlotte and James W., all of whom are married with the exception of James.
George B. Danforth was born at Friendsville, Illinois, November 15, 1844, and there acquired his education. He was a young man of twenty years when in response to his country's call for troops he enlisted on the 13th of February, 1865, as a member of Company E, One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Illinois Infantry. He was mustered in as second lieutenant and thus served until the close of the war. When hostilities were over he went to St. Louis, Missouri, and was employed as a traveling salesman by H. & R. B. Whittemore & Company, wholesale dealers in hats and caps. He remained upon the road during the greater part of the time until 1870, in which year he came to White Hall and opened a general mercantile establishment, which he conducted with good success for a quarter of a century or until 1895. For seven months he was with the White Hall Stoneware Company and in 1902 he accepted the position of bookkeeper for David Culbertson & Son, manufacturers of stoneware. He has also been financially interested in the pottery business in White Hall and at one time went on the road, traveling through Kansas in the interest of his ware.
On the 12th of June, 1872, occurred the marriage of George B. Danforth and Miss Kate Worcester, a daughter of Marcus Worcester, who died in 1871. They have two children, Ada and Grace. The former married C. E. Potts, a son of one of the most prominent families of Greene county, and they now have one child, Danforth E. Potts. Grace is the wife of H. A. Chapin, M. D., and they have a daughter Florence. They are prominent socially in White Hall and enjoy the hospitality of the best homes in the city.
Mr. Danforth is a Republican, unfaltering in his allegiance to the party, and in matters of citizenship he is progressive, manifesting the same loyalty to his community and to his country that he displayed when he enlisted as a defender of the Union cause in the Civil war.