Slaughter, William J


HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS DESCRIPTIVE OF ITS SCENERY,
AND

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SOME OF ITS PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS.

Published by Brink, McDonough & Co., Philadelphia 1879

Page 161

WILLIAM J. SLAUGHTER was born in Greene county, Illinois, August 6th, 1840. His ancestsors were Germans who settled in Virginia previous to the Revolutionary war, in which his great-grandfather was an officer. His grandfather served in the war of 1812, and died on the Lakes. His father, John W. Slaughter, was born in Tennessee; settled in Greene county, Illinois, about 1830; married Susan Landiss; moved on a farm in section 32, Barr township in 1852; and is now merchandizing and farming at Stonington, Christian county. Mr. Slaughter attended school in Barr township and Jerseyville. He went into the photograph business when sixteen years of age, and followed it for a number of years in Greene county. He subsequently went to Kansas, and took part in the troubles which preceded the admission of that state into the union, and also spent four years with different Indian tribes. He returned to Illinois in the spring of 1863, and afterward enlisted in the 133d Illinois regiment, under Col. Phillips, raised for a hundred days' service and was stationed at Rock Island, guarding rebel prisoners. He went into the photograph and jewelry business at Greenfield, and followed carpentering and house building at the same place. In 1871 he settled where he now lives in Barr township, and in addition to farming, carries on a general blacksmith and repair shop. His first wife was Caroline Dial, whom he married in Kansas, and who died in a few months afterward. December 26th, 1867, he married Mrs. Rebecca A. Wilhite. She ws born in Fulton county, Illinois, February 8th, 1838. Her father, Dr. W. A.Dunn, was a Virginian, who settled in Fulton county in 1836. She married Charles Wilhite, September 4th, 1856, and settled in Barr township. Her husband enlisted in 1862, in the 91st Illinois regiment; was captured by rebel guerrilla, General Morgan, at Elizabethtown; was stationed at Vicksburg, and Carrollton, Louisiana; Brownsville, Texas, and took part in the operations against Mobile. While in the trenches before Spanish Fort, he was shot by a rebel sharpshooter April 6th, 1865; was removed to a hospital at New Orleans and died there April 28th. Mrs. Slaughter had four children by her first marriage; John William, who died in 1873; Martha Elizabeth, who died when an infant; Jennie L. and Charles Samuel. Mr. and Mrs. Slaughter have three children: Ada Blanche, Minnie E. and Frank Leroy. Mr. Slaughter is a republican. He possesses mechanical genius a high order, and is master of several trades.


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