A. S. COIL, editor and publisher of the Beardstown Enterprise, was born in Lincoln county, Missouri, October 24, 1860. His father, Jacob Y. Coil, was a native of Kentucky, came of southern parents, who were a stout and long lived people. Jacob Y. Coil had moved into Missouri after the birth of one child, became a farmer and was thus engaged in Lincoln county until his death in 1873, aged forty-two. He was a kind man to his family, a good neighbor, a prominent Mason and a Democrat in politics. He had offered his services in 1861, but was refused on account of disabilities. Mrs. Jacob Coil's maiden name was Viola Olive Durough of Ohio, and she is yet living, in Mexico, Missouri, the mother of ten children, nine boys and one girl, of whom six are living.

Mr. Coil is the only one of his family in Illinois. His paper is a forty-eight column quarto weekly, published in the interests of the Democratic party. It was started under its present title in Meredosia by F. W. Schierbaum & Company, and in 1879 the plant was moved to Beardstown and continued under the same title. It was run as a daily and weekly. Mr. Schierbaum died in 1886 and C. H. Cummings took the paper as administrator, until Mr. Coil purchased the property in 1888. He is a practical newspaper man and has gone through all the experiences from printer's devil to his present position of editor-in-chief and publisher. He had many discouragements, but by dint of hard work he has been successful in clearing himself from debt and running the paper successfully. The same perseverance which enabled him to gain a great part of his education by lamplight has served him well in his business. His paper has a good circulation and is ably edited. He is now making it a paying investment and by his own efforts has made it the principal Democratic paper of the county.

He was married in Perry, Pike county, Illinois, to Miss Dora Brandom of Indiana, in June, 1880. She came when young to Quincy, Illinois, with her parents, and her father now resides in Beardstown. Mr. and Mrs. Coil have six bright children: Maybell M., Grace, Arthur L., Harry, Bessie L. and Ruth M., - all at home with their parents. They attend the Methodist Church. Mr. Coil has been a delegate to local conventions as he is a strong man in his party.