Illinois:  History of Cass County, Illinois, ed. William Henry
Perrin. O. L. Baskin & Co. Historical Publishers, Chicago, 1882. 
Cass County.

IGNATIUS SKILES, deceased, whose portrait appears in this volume,
was born in Ohio, August 10, 1827, and was a son of Harmon and
Mary (Thompson) Skiles, the former of whom was born in
Pennsylvania and the latter in Ohio.  The elder Skiles followed
farming and died in Ohio.  Our subject left home when a small
boy, and came to Indiana, where he lived with a man named
Kirkpatrick, until he was twenty-one years old, receiving as
compensation, when he became of age, a good suit of clothes, a
pony, and forty dollars in money.  With this he came to Cass
County, Ills., in 1848, and commenced the battle of life on his
own account.  He was a man of but little education; leaving home
early in life, as he did, deprived him of opportunities to attend
school, and he was compelled to make his way with what little
knowledge he could pick up at odd times.  Upon his arrival in
Cass County he began farming and stock-dealing, a business he
followed successfully, becoming one of the largest stock-dealers
in the county, and amassing considerable wealth.  At the time of
his death he was the largest stockholder in the banking house of
Petefish, Skiles & Co., a bank which is still in existence.  He
married Mary J. Thompson, in 1852, a daughter of Oswell and
Elizabeth (Henderson) Thompson, natives of Ohio, but who came to
Cass County in an early day;  he was a farmer, and died in 1864,
at the age of fifty-six years; his wife is now living in the City
of Virginia, at the age of sixty-seven years.  Both were members
of the Protestant Methodist Church.  He took an active part in
the Morman war at Nauvoo, Ills.  Mr. and Mrs. Skiles had five
children born to them, three of whom are living, viz.: Ressie A.,
wife of Wm. T. Mitchell; Hattie L., and Jessie E.; two died in
infancy.  Mr. Skiles died in 1873, and his widow afterward
married Mr. Joseph F. Black, whose sketch appears in another page
of this work.

Skiles Thompson Kirkpatrick Henderson Mitchell Black
=
PA OH IN