GERSHAM JAYNE LITTLE. Gersham J. Little, representing one of the oldest pioneer families of Sangamon county, is one of the representative business men of Springfield, where he has important interests involving the investment of large capital and demanding marked enterprise and discernment in their successful control. He is the vice-president of the Springfield Paving Brick Company; is treasurer of the Springfield Homestead Association, which position he has held for the past twenty years; and is senior partner of the extensive livery business conducted under the firm name of S. N. Little & Sons.

Mr. Little was born February 19, 1847, near Springfield. His paternal grandfather, Samuel Little, was a native of Virginia, born in 1776, and in 1797 he was married in Fleming county, Kentucky, to Miss Mary Newcomb. They had nine children who were born in Kentucky but after their removal to St. Clair county, Illinois, two of their children died. Later Mr. Little, with his family, settled in what has since been included within the limits of Sangamon county, arriving in this portion of the state in 1819. He settled two and a half miles southwest of the present site of the Illinois capital and there he carried on agricultural pursuits amid pioneer surroundings and aided in laying broad and deep the foundation for the present development and prosperity of this portion of the state. His wife passed away in July, 1823, and Samuel Little, long surviving her, departed this life January 1, 1848, both dying on the old homestead near Springfield, Illinois. Six of his children married and reared families of their own.

The last surviving representative of that family in that generation was Samuel N. Little, the father of our subject. He was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, March 1, 1814, and died in June, 1885. He became the owner of the old homestead property, on which his father had located in 1819, receiving the title from the United States government soon after the land was put on the market in 1823. He made that place his home for many years and in addition to the conduct of agricultural interests he engaged in the livery business in Springfield with his two sons, Gersham J. and Sanford H., under the firm name of S. N. Little & Sons. He was married in Sangamon county, Illinois, January 29, 1843, to Miss Eliza M. Morgan, a daughter of Daniel Morgan, one of the honored pioneer residents of central Illinois. Her father was a most loyal son of the republic. He fought under General Jackson in the war of 1812 and subsequently under General Harrison. His last vote was cast in his eighty-second year for Abraham Lincoln, of whom he was a warm personal friend and admirer. He was so anxious to vote for the illustrious leader he was carried on a feather bed in a spring wagon to the polls, where for the last time he exercised his right of franchise. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Little, September 6, 1866, and was a firm patriot to the last. Mrs. Morgan, his wife, lived to the venerable age of ninety years and seven months and retained all her faculties to the last, passing away January 2, 1878.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Little were born six children: William H., born March 16, 1845, was married October 31, 1872, to Cordelia Perkins and was killed August 16, 1873, in a railroad accident on the Chicago & Alton Railroad, at Sag Bridge, near Chicago, his remains being interred in Oak Ridge cemetery at Springfield. Gersham Jayne is the second in order of birth. Sanford H., born June 21, 1849, died June 4, 1901. Mary E. was born May 10, 1850. Harriet C., born December 12, 1852, was married February 14, 1867, to John W. Crafton, of Springfield. Minerva C. died August 1, 1857. Fannie Z., an adopted daughter, was born August 8, 1869.

Gersham J. Little acquired his literary education in the public schools of Springfield and in 1865 entered Rush Medical College of Chicago, in which he was graduated in February, 1868, winning the Doctor of Medicine degree. He began practice in what was known as Bluville, Christian county, now Edinburg, but remained there for only a short time, after which he returned to Springfield to assume an interest in the livery business which his father had established. He became connected with the enterprise March 4, 1867, and in the fall of 1868 he established his home in Springfield in order that he might devote his entire time to the building up and control of the livery business, with which he has since been identified and which has been continuously conducted under the firm name of S. N. Little & Sons. The firm now controls the largest livery business in the city under the name of the Leland Livery, on East Adams between Third and Fourth streets. Our subject's brother, Sanford H., was connected with the business up to the time of his death in 1901, and the junior member of the firm is now Glenn Davis Smith, a son-in-law of Gersham J. Little.

Mr. Little was married January 2, 1867, to Nellie A. Crafton, a daughter of Edward Crafton, one of the pioneers of Sangamon county. She died in February, 1868, and Mr. Little was again married, his second union being with Margaret E. Conner, a daughter of Edward L. Conner, who for many years was connected with the Illinois State Register. Mrs. Little was born in Springfield and has one daughter, Georgia M., who was married October 15, 1903, to Glenn Davis Smith, of Chicago. They now reside with her parents at 523 South Sixth Street, her husband having become her father's partner in business. Mrs. Smith entered St. Agatha's School in the kindergarten department, continuing her studies in that institution until her graduation, and later became a student at Monticello Seminary, at Godfrey, Illinois.