time a pupil of his school, and they were married, Dec. 16, 1847. She was born in Betheny, Genesee county, New York, Dec. 16, 1825, whither her family had removed from New Hampshire. After recovering his health, Mr. Burnham came to Illinois, in the fall of 1852, and first stopped at Clinton, Illinois, and then went to Mt. Pulaski, Illinois, and finally to his present locality. Mr. Burnham's abilities and education fit him for any official position in the gift of the people. His integrity and habits have made him a conspicuous member of the community. Being averse to office, he has not been an office seeker. Our first acquaintance with him was in 1856, at which time he was a member of the county court of Mason county, a position of responsibility that his sound judgment abundantly qualified him to fill with acceptance. Like all other good citizens he has served a full share in the service of the township and school offices. In times gone by, he has been guilty of feeding and bidding Godspeed to the fugitive from slavery, with which this government was then accursed. In 1856 he was a Republican, and one, of twenty-five, who voted for Fremont, out of a poll of three hundred. Though ardently attached to the cause of the union, and ever opposed to slavery, he is now devoid of hostility to those who were our late opponents, and believes in spreading the broad mantle of charity over the short-comings and misdoings of the past.

Henry C. Burnham is fortunate beyond the common lot of humanity, in being surrounded by all that makes life pleasant. He · can traverse his own broad acres, and say:

"Earth has no gentler voice to man to give
Than, come to Nature's arms, and learn of her to live."

GEORGE A. BONNEY.

Mr. Bonney was born in the State of New York, in the year 1810. His ancestors settled in Massachusetts, during the colonial period. His grandfather was a Colonel, commanding a body of State troops, at Springfield, Mass., in an engagement there during what is popularly known as the whisky insurrection.

Col. Bonney's family consisted of nine children. Luke, the second son, was united in marriage with Eunice Hinman, and removed to the State of New York, in 1802. Their family con

sisted of five children, three boys and two girls. Luke Bonney, the father of these children, died in 1819. Poverty compelled the mother to place these boys at service as soon as their small hands could earn anything, and with hard labor did they earn the scant allowance, often grudgingly given, which barely kept them above want, and giving no opportunity for schooling. After remaining a widow for about five years, the mother married Mathew Lounsbury, some of whose descendents reside in Menard county, Illinois.

George A. Bonny was the third child, and was apprenticed to the cabinetmakers' business. He came to Illinois in 1833, with his sister, his mother and stepfather. They moved with their own wagons, as was the custom at that day, and were six weeks in making the journey.

Mr. Bonney first settled in Cass county, (then a part of Sangamon) where he soon became acquainted with and married Miss Sarah Stanard, from New Hampshire. After fifteen years of farm life, he removed to the then new county of Mason. Having been licensed to preach while quite young, he joined the Illinois Conference, and was transferred to Missouri in 1851, and was stationed in the southeastern county in the that State. Here he had an almost fatal attack of that much-dreaded scourge, Asiatic cholera, from which he apparently recovered, but exposure brought on an attack of asthma, from which he never was entirely cured. After two years

in the itineracy he located on account of poor health, and returned to his farm in Illinois. After a few years of farm life, he erected a warehouse, for the storage and shipment of grain, on the Sny Carte slough, which flowed through his farm. Just as he was beginning to reap the benefit of his arduous and protracted labors, it was fired by incendiaries. Soon after he sold his farm and removed the village of Bath, where he resided until

his death.

Mr. Bonny was a firm temperance man. This principle was a cardinal one with him from early youth, and made so by the example and experience of his employer, who died a fearful death from delirium tremens. His resolution was formed at a time when even ministers indulged in their drams before breakfast, and on their social and pastoral visits. He was extremely conscientious and scrupulous in regard to his word or his promise, and believing others would be the same, he was oftentimes defrauded of his just

dues. With childlike confidence he trusted all, only to meet with repeated losses. He seemed to think

"Better trust all and be deceived,

And weep that trust and that deceiving."

He was ever the enemy of oppression, and his strong anti-slavery views made him many enemies. He was sometime justice of the peace, a position he was well qualified to fill, but his busy life was spent in other ways than seeking office. His ministerial services were often called for; and often in the field or when egaged in his every day occupation, it was his duty to perform the last rites for some of his neighbors or for members of their families; while he has performed marriage ceremonies on all days, and in some instances at almost all hours. He always deemed it his duty (and duty was his law) to be regularly at church without regard to weather or to his condition of health.

His last sickness was long and painful. It was overtaxing his mind and body that brought him to his sick bed. His wife still survives him, and resides in Bath. Their family consisted of six children-four boys, who died in infancy, and two daughters, whose homes are also in Bath-Mrs. O. E. Juzi, whose husband died in the service of his country, and Lois, wife of B. F. Rochester, of Bath, Illinois. Mrs. Juzi, the oldest daughter, has been engaged as a teacher in the Bath schools, a position her education and abilities peculiarly qualify her to fill.

NORTHROP J. ROCKWELL.

Shortly after undertaking the present work we addressed a note to Judge Rockwell, for his early experiences, etc., in the early settlemet of Mason county, and received the following reply:

"TROY, NEW YORK, June 20, 1876.

"Dear Sir: At this distance from Havana, and without memoranda or reference, I feel quite unable to give many dates or recall events of forty years ago, even in a satisfactory manner to myself. There are others, whose residences at at or near Havana, almost, and some of them quite, date as far back as my own, who, having access to papers and records, can furnish material from which to

compile an early history of Mason county, better than myself. With its more recent history you yourself are well acquainted.

The best part of my life—that portion which should be given to active business enterprise, was spent in Havana. It was not as fruitful of desirable results as I wish it had been, for if I had the ability, which I do not assert, I certainly had not the pecuniary means to build up a new town in a new country. When at the age of twenty-six years I landed in Havana from the steamer "Aid," the last boat up the Illinois river for the season of 1835, Major Osian M. Ross, was living at Havana, a man of means and large experience, and proprietor of the town, ready and willing, to expend money, time and influence in building it up. He promised much which I have no reason to doubt he would have fulfilled had he lived, but death removed him and left more than half of Havana the property of an estate with minor heirs, nearly one-half of the town being sold to a Peoria firm (whose names do not occur to me at this moment) one of whom soon died, and their portion became also involved in the affairs of another estate, with no one connected with either trying to build up the town, but both trying to draw from it a support to live elsewhere.

Daniel Adams and Abel W. Kemp and their families landed at the same time, all of us having started, with Orin E. Foster and wife (the late Mrs. E. Low) from Demorestville, in Upper Canada, to settle somewhere in the great west, and in a warmer climate than Canada. Mr. Adams, on a return trip to Canada, on business, lost his life by a ruffianly mate on an Ohio river steamboat, near Louisville, Kentucky. You know Mr. Kemp's present residence.

You ask the place of my birth: I was born in Benson, Vermont, on the 14th day of February, 1809. Benson, Whiting and Middletown, Vermont, were respectively my home until my 18th year, when my father removed to Watertown, New York, where I was a clerk in the extensive store of L. Paddock, until my. 22d birthday. I was offered a partnership in Demorestville, Canada, with Mr. James Carpenter, who had been in business there a number of years, and was well established. I accepted, and became a member of the firm of Carpenter and Rockwell.

In 1835 I sold out my interest in the firm to my partner and lifelong friend, and took my savings and started to seek my new home in the great, and the then, far off west.

1

Of the time and the money which I spent from my slender means for years, to make Havana and Mason county desirable to live in, it does not become me to speak. Havana seems to me yet more like home than anywhere else I go or live; not because there is no other place equal to it in this part of the country, but because I lived there so long, and because there are so many much less de

sirable places.

My official positions have been few and unimportant, with perhaps the exception of County Judge, in which I tried to serve the good people of Mason county honestly and faithfully to the best of my ability, for one term. But "that was the day of small things,” when one man and one clerk, partially assisted by two others, did so much work for so little pay, and when the county court thought a prompt discharge of duty and economy in county expenses were cardinal virtues, and when taxes were but a fraction of what they are now; and yet the county had the same public buildings it now has, and county orders were as good as gold. Times have, indeed, changed.

Hoping that success may attend your efforts to publish a history of Mason county and Havana, from their earliest settlement.

In the preparation of this work there is no more pleasurable duty to perform than to record the biography of those "square built,” men who are physically, morally and intellectually described by the above term, and of which Mr. Hardin furnished a marked example. Free from all pride, show and pretense, whose sense of duty, is his law, whose word is his bond, the stay and foundation of any government is in the conscientious integrity of the masses composing "the people."

Mr. Hardin was born in Maryland, Dec. 12, 1819, and in his earlier years his education was to labor, and not in books, having received but six months schooling previous to his removal to Illinois, in 1839, and only three months after that time.