Honored and respected by all, there is no man in Greene county, who has occupied a more enviable position in business or financial circles that has Captain Horace W. Starkey, not alone on account of the success he has achieved, but also by reason of the honorable, straightforward methods he has ever followed. He for many years ranked high as a banker, one of irreproachable business integrity and progressive spirit, and now he is living retired, having accumulated a handsome competence.

He was born September 20, 1835, in Essex, Connecticut, and is a representative of one of the old families of New England. His paternal great-grandfather, Charles Starkey, was also a native of Essex, born June 20, 1782, and his death occurred October 21, 1818. The grandfather, Charles Starkey, was a ship carpenter and was killed from falling on a stage plank on the side of a ship. He married Sybil Chapman, who was born March 26, 1781, and died January 9, 1849. The father, Charles F. Starkey, was born in Connecticut, November 21, 1810, and also became a ship carpenter, following that business while making his home at Essex, Middlesex county, Connecticut. He, too, met his death by accident, being injured by falling from a building and dying from the effects. He passed away February 3, 1875. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Frances M. Congdon, was born April 5, 1811, and died August 15, 1862. She was a daughter of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Congdon, the former born in 1776, and the latter in August, 1777. Mr. Congdon departed this life in 1842 and his wife died April 30, 1837.

In the common schools of his native town Captain Starkey acquired his education and in early life he learned the machinist's trade, which he followed for three years at New Haven, Connecticut, and for one year at Urbana, Ohio. He remained under instruction until the age of twenty-one years. On one occasion he made a three months voyage, which was under a captain who was a friend of his father. In the year 1857 he arrived in Illinois, settling at Alton, and the following year he came to White Hall, where he became boss of a gang of men working on the Alton Railroad. He began life as a poor boy, working for three dollars per week. He paid out this sum two dollars and seventy-five cents for board and washing for a year and he did his own mending. Gradually, however, he worked upward, improving every opportunity that promised advancement and winning his promotions through capable service and unfaltering integrity. After severing his connection with the railroad in Greene county he purchased an interest in a sawmill where Roodhouse now stands.

At the time of the Civil war, however, he put aside business and personal considerations, enlisting on the 3d of August, 1861, as a member of Company G, Ninth Missouri Infantry. This was a regiment organized at Carrollton, Greene county, but as the quota was full the soldiers offered their services under Captain Winters of White Hall to the governor of Missouri and were accepted. The regiment was composed, however, of Illinois men. In 1862 they were transferred to a division of Illinois troops, being mustered in as Company G of Fifty-ninth Illinois Infantry. Mr. Starkey had entered the service as a private, but was made first sergeant on the organization of the company at Carrollton in 1861. He was then successively promoted with considerable rapidity until he had served as second lieutenant, acting adjutant, first lieutenant, captain and brigade provost marshal. He served under Fremont in Missouri in 1861, was with Pope and Curtis, afterward took part in the battle of Pearidge, Arkansas, on the 1st of March, 1862, and was with the troops that re-enforced Halleck at Corinth. On the 15th of September, 1863, he received an honorable discharge at Valley Head, Alabama, on account of disability.

Captain Starkey then returned to his home in White Hall, and on the 7th of March, 1864, he was married. He soon afterward went to his native town of Essex, Connecticut, where he was engaged in merchandising for sixteen years and was also prominent in public affairs, there serving for one term in the Connecticut legislature as the representative from Essex, being elected to that office in 1883. In the same year he retired from active business there and at the end of his term in the general assembly he again came to White Hall, Illinois, and purchased with others the business of the White Hall Bankers Association in 1885. He became its cashier and acted in that capacity for twelve years. On account of illness in the family, however, he retired from the active management of the bank in 1897, spending his time with his wife, daughter and son-in-law in Florida, Arizona and California. When he resigned the position of cashier he was made president in 1897 and acted in that capacity for four years or until 1901. On the organization of the bank into a national bank on the 1st of January, 1904, he was made a director, but has largely retired from business cares, although he is still financially interested in other enterprises. He spends his winters with his wife and grandchild in the milder climate of Florida and California.

On the 7th of March, 1864, Captain Starkey was united in marriage to Miss Ann Reamer, and they had one child, Frances Ann, who became the wife of Charles H. Pierce at Pheonix, Arizona, and died at Fitzgerald, Georgia, on the 3d of March, 1900, at the age of thirty-two years, leaving one child, Anne Starkey Pierce, born October 3, 1898. Charles H. Pierce died April 27, 1900, at the age of twenty-nine years. After losing his first wife Captain Starkey was married on the 31st of October, 1901, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Antoinette R. Wells. His first wife had seemingly been of very strong constitution and in excellent health, but she contracted a cold on a trip to Arizona, which developed into consumption.

Captain Starkey has been a life-long Republican, unfaltering in his allegiance to the party. He is a member of the Presbyterian church at White Hall. He belongs to the Bankers' Life Association and to the Ancient Order of United Workmen and is interested in the various fraternities which inculcate honorable principles among men. He is himself a man of fine personal appearance with keen black eyes full of intellectuality, vigor and honesty. He feels to some extent the weight of years, but he has amassed a fortune which enables him to spend his declining years in the enjoyment of all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. He is affable, upright and always courteous and in the community where he has so long made his home he is spoken of as a model husband and father, as a high type of good citizenship and of Christian spirit. The friends who have known him longest entertain for him the highest regard, a fact that indicates that his has been an upright and honorable career. Young and old, rich and poor respect him and he enjoys the distinction of being one of the leading and influential men of Greene county.