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BIOGRAPHIES
 Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois
The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co.
1912
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JOHN BAGGS, D. V. S.
Dr. John Baggs was one of Peoria's pioneer residents and for
many years was an interested witness of the growth and progress of
the city. Here he engaged in business and followed his
profession of veterinary surgery to the later years of his life,
when he retired and spent his remaining days in the enjoyment of
well earned rest. He was born in Urbana, Ohio, Jan. 13, 1837,
and passed away Mar. 23, 1909, having attained the ripe old age of
seventy-two years. His parents were Abraham and Mary Baggs,
also natives of Ohio, who removed westward to Illinois in 1838.
Peoria was then a town of but a few hundred inhabitants and the
entire countryside was largely wild and underdeveloped. The
father secured a tract of land and became a prominent pioneer
farmer, converting his place into rich and productive fields and
thus aiding greatly in the agricultural development of the
community.
Dr. Baggs was only a year old when brought by
his parents to this state. The educational advantages which
Peoria offered in that early day constituted the extent of his
education. In his youth he assisted his father on the home
farm and early became familiar with the arduous task of developing
and cultivating new land. He carefully saved his earnings and
at the age of twenty years was himself the owner of a good farm,
which he continued to cultivate successfully until 1861. At
the time of the outbreak of the Civil war, however, all business and
personal considerations were put aside that he might respond to the
country's call for aid. He enlisted in the Eighty-sixth
Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was organized and
commanded by Colonel D. D. Irons, and later by Colonel
McGee. He was on active duty until injuries sustained at
the front caused him to be honorably discharged and he returned home
with a most creditable military record.
About that time Dr. Baggs disposed of his farm
and took up his abode in the city. Here he became a veterinary
surgeon and practiced his profession successfully for many years,
his ability in that direction making his services in constant
demand. In 1905 he retired from all active business, having in
the years of his previous labor acquired a competence sufficient to
supply him with all the necessities and comforts and many of the
luxuries of life.
On the 17th of November, 1858, Dr. Baggs was
united in marriage to Lydia Meredith Gill, a daughter of
James and Elizabeth (Moss) Gill, the latter a representative of
the Moss family that figured prominently in the early history
of Virginia. Her grandfather, a member of that family, served
in the Revolutionary war. Unto Dr. and Mrs. Baggs was
born one son, William, who is now deceased.
Dr. Baggs was preeminently a home man and found
his greatest entertaining company in his own home. He also
manifested a marked fondness for music and literature and these
added greatly to the joys of his life. His political
allegiance was always given to the republican party from the time
that age conferred upon him the right of franchise. He
believed it to be the party of reform and progress and recognized
the fact that it was the defense of the Union in the dark days of
the Civil war. In manner he was quiet and unassuming but his
genuine personal worth gained him recognition and won him many
friends. He was deeply interested and closely associated with
the pioneer development of this part of the state and mention should
be made of him in a history of Peoria county's upbuilders and
promoters.
Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
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DOUGLAS H. BETHARD.
No history of Peoria and its commercial activities would be complete
without extended reference to Douglas H. Bethard, the
president of the Jobst-Bethard Company, and therefore head of
one of the most extensive wholesale grocery establishments of the
middle west. Under the title of "The Acorn and the Oak," this
house has issued an attractive little pamphlet, telling the story of
the growth of the business. The same simile may well be
applied to Mr. Bethard, whose advancement to his present
prominent position is indicative of the wise use he has made of his
time, talents and opportunities. Peoria is proud of his record
and called him to the first presidency of the Peoria Association of
Commerce. Moreover, he is widely known throughout the country
in trade circles and has been honored with the presidency for the
term of one year of the National Wholesale Grocers Association.
He was born in the village of Derbyville, Pickaway county, Ohio,
Oct. 10, 1858, a son of George W. and Eliza (Hurst) Bethard,
who during the early boyhood of their son Douglas removed
from the Buckeye state to Peoria county. the father for many
was a coal operator and general merchant at Kingston Mines in this
county. He was an active factor in the life of his community
and both directly and indirectly contributed to the development and
welfare of the county. for three terms he was mayor of Wenona,
Illinois, and resided in this place until his death which occurred
in 1910.
At the usual age Douglas H. Bethard began his
education in the public schools and during hte periods of vacation
worked in his father's store. He afterward came to Peoria,
where he spent a year's study in the high school and also a year in
Brown's Business College of Jacksonville, Illinois. When but a
lad he entered the employ of S. H. Thompson & company as
errand boy at a salary of three dollars per week and that he was
faithful, diligent and reliable is indicated by the fact that he was
continued in Mr. Thompson's employ until the latter went out
of business, when he became one of the owners of the store in which
purchase he was associated with Charles Jobst and Charles
E. Fulks. Taking over the business of S. H. Thompson
& Company, they organized what is now the Jobst-Bethard
Company. through intermediate positions Mr. Bethard has
been advanced from errand boy to department manager and was
occupying the position of sales manager when Mr. Thompson
retired. His services in the meantime had covered the
positions of shipping clerk, billing clerk, assistant bookkeeper,
bookkeeper and traveling salesman. For fifteen years he
remained upon the road and then returned to the house to accept the
position of department manager, although even then he devoted half
his time to traveling. Several years thus passed and gradually
he worked into the position of general manager for he was
practically filling that position when the firm of S. H. Thompson
& Company sold out. The business at that time was located
at Nos. 116 and 118 Main street. Their capital was small but
the partners felt this an excellent opportunity to embark in
business on their own account. W. P. Gauss and
Herbert Simpson also entered the partnership and the new firm
was originally known as Gauss, Jobst, Bethard &
Company, but a little later the first named sold his interest to
Messrs. Jobst, Bethard and Fulks, who soon also purchased
the interest of Herbert Simpson. It was in 1895 that
the interest of Mr. Gauss was taken over and in 1902 that of
Mr. Simpson, in which year the firm of Jobst-Bethard
Company was incorporated under the laws of the state, at which time
the three principals arranged to take in some of their old and
trusted employes under a mutually satisfactory working arrangement.
The experience of the men who constituted the company well qualified
them for the successful conduct of the business, and from the outset
of new enterprise prospered. Their original building was a
double store with fifty feet frontage and three stories in height,
at Nos. 114 and 116 Main street. The growth of their trade
necessitated the acquirement of another building after a year or two
and nearly every year saw an additional building until they occupied
practically the entire north half of the block on Main street
between Washington and Water streets, and also a three story
warehouse at No. 106 South Washington street. Again their
facilities were found to be entirely inadequate in 1909 and at a
meeting of the board of trustees it was decided to erect a building
of their own. The preliminary work of the architects was
approved in the spring of 1910 and about the 1st of June of that
year ground was broken and work and begun in the construction of
their present mammoth, modern, up-to-date, reinforced concrete and
strictly fireproof warehouse, which was ready for occupancy on the
1st of May 1911. The dimensions of the building are one
hundred and five by one hundred and sixty feet, six stories in
height, with basement. The floor space comprises one hundred
and fifteen thousand, one hundred and ten square feet, their private
tracks from the Peoria Railway Terminal and Chicago Burlington &
Quincy Railroad furnishing direct switch connections with the
sixteen railroads entering Peoria. In the year in which the
new building was begun the capital stock of the company was also
increased. At its incorporation in 1902 it had been
capitalized for two hundred and fifty-five thousand, and in 1910
this was increased to four hundred thousand, and in addition the
building was erected at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars.
The present officers of the company are: Douglas H.
Bethard, president; Carl Jobst, vice president; and
Charles E. Fulks and C. G. Cole are on the board of
directors. Since the organization of the present firm a high
standard has been maintained in the personnel of the house, in the
class of goods carried and in the character of service rendered to
the public. A large and efficient office force is employed and
there are between twenty and thirty traveling salesmen upon the
road. Theirs is a splendidly equipped plant with handsomely
outfitted offices and large store rooms for the various kinds of
goods handled, everything being most modern and attractive in
appearance and orderly in arrangement, while the handling of all
goods is done in a most systematic manner.
In 1887, Mr. Bethard was united in marriage
to Miss Harriet Daugherty, of this city, a daughter of
James Daugherty, an early shoe merchant of Peoria who came here
in 1840 and died in 1909, at the very venerable age of ninety-three
years. Mr. Bethard is a member of the Creve Coeur Club,
a Madison Avenue Golf Club, the Illinois Valley Yacht Club, the
Chicago Automobile Club and the Peoria Country Club, associations
which indicate much of the nature of his interests and recreation.
He is popular wherever known and is best liked where best known.
He is always approachable, genial and courteous. He is
treasurer of the Peoria Country Club and a member of its board of
governors, and also serves as a director of the Creve Coeur Club.
He was the first president of the Peoria Association of Commerce
which was organized in 1910, Mr. Bethard becoming its first
chief executive officer. He is now the chairman of the ways
and means committee of this association, on which committee are
serving two hundred and fifty of Peoria's prominent men. His
fitness for the position none questioned, as his reputation in
commercial circles is too well established. He also served as a
member of the executive committee of the Peoria Association of
Commerce. He is, further, the first president of the Illinois
Federation of Commercial Organizations and from 1903 until 1908
served as chairman of the advisory committee of the Illinois
Wholesale Grocers Association, resigning to become president of the
national body called the National Wholesale Grocers Association, of
which he was president for one year - the longest term for which a
president may hold office according to the by-laws of this
association. He has also been a member of the executive
committee since the organization of the association. In this
connection he has become known throughout the entire country.
Business is after all necessarily the principal feature in a man's
life and in the department in which he chose to concentrate his
energies and his attention Mr. Bethard has made continuous
progress, nor has he ever sacrificed to success the high ideals
which he holds as a man and citizen.
Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
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CHARLES
F. BLACK, United States marshal, to which position he was
appointed on the 1st of May, 1910, was born at Harkers Corners,
Peoria county, Nov. 6, 1859, his parents being Gain R. and Susan
Matilda (Powell) Black, both of whom were natives of Virginia.
The father comes of Scotch-Irish ancestry, while the mother was of
Scotch lineage.
Charles F. Black supplemented a common-school
course by two years' study in the Peoria County Normal and then
entered Brown's Business College, from which he was in due time
graduated. He then turned his attention to farming and
stock-raising, and also engaged successfully in shipping live-stock,
but a length abandoned private business interests in concentrate his
energies upon political duties. However, he is a director in
the Farmers' Grain & Lumber Company of Glasford. He was first
called to office when in 1887 he was made highway commissioner of
Hollis, which office he continued to fill until 1893. In the
latter year he was elected assessor and served for three years, or
until 1896. He was then made supervisor and filled that
position for six consecutive yeas, or until 1902, when he was
elected to represent his district in the state legislature. He
remained a member of the general assembly through three terms, being
reelected in 1906 and again in 1908. While connected with the
house he proved one of the active working members, connected with
much constructive legislation advocating at all times such measures
as he deemed beneficial to the commonwealth at large. On the
1st of May, 1910, he was appointed United States marshal and is now
filling that position. In politics he has always been a
republican and is a believer in high tariff on luxuries.
In St. Louis on the 16th of May, 1908, Mr. Black
was united in marriage to Miss Edith Brown, a daughter of
Quinlan Brown, of Sterling, Colorado. In 1909 Mr. Black
was called upon to mourn the loss of his wife, who died on the
16th of January. In fraternal relations Mr. Black is
well known as a high degree Mason, holding membership in the
consistory and in the Mystic Shrine. He also belongs to the
Odd Fellows society. There is in his entire life history no
esoteric phase and his position is never an equivocal one; he
openly avows his policy in regard to political affairs and is only
conservative when guarding the interests of the public, not in the
expression of his opinions concerning any point of vital
significance to the community. He has a wide acquaintance
throughout the state and enjoys the warm regard of his political
colleagues and contemporaries and of many friends whom he has met in
purely social ways.
Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
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GEORGE W. BLACK, an
able young attorney, conducting a general law practice with offices
at No. 1116 Jefferson building since Jan. 1, 1908, was born at
Oakland, Illinois, June 23, 1882. His parents were W. J.
and Melissa D. Black. The father was for many years a
grocer at Oakland. He was a veteran of the Civil war,
volunteering in 1861 when the war cloud arose, in the Fifty-fifth
Illinois Infantry, with which he served for three years. His
death occurred in November, 1904, when he was sixty-five years of
age, while the mother passed away Aug. 18, 1900, at the age of
fifty-four years. Both are buried in Rosecrans cemetery at
Oakland. On the paternal side of the family is of Scotch-Irish
origin, while the maternal ancestors for centuries lived in
Virginia, where they were plantation owners.
George W. Black is indebted for his early
education to the public schools of Oakland and was graduated from
the high school in the class of 1899. He then entered the
University of Illinois at Champaign, graduating from that
institution in 1903 with the degree of A. B. Being in need of
means with which to continue his education he had previous to this
time taught in the high school at Oakland. Following his
graduation from the University of Illinois he became principal of
the Monticello high school, a position which he filled for two years
with distinction to himself and satisfaction to the board of
education. Having conceived a well defined taste for the law,
he entered the law department of the University of Chicago, where he
pursued his studies with unremitting energy, graduating in the class
of 1908 with the degree of J. D. and also receiving the honorary
title of "Cum Laude." Immediately after his graduation he
began the practice of law in the city of Chicago, where he remained
one year. Having been offered the position of assistant
attorney for the Illinois Traction Company, he settled in Peoria and
discharged the duties that devolved upon him in that connection with
credit to himself and satisfaction to the company. In January,
1911, he resigned his position for the purpose of becoming a general
practitioner of the law and as such he has met with gratifying
success. He is a member of the Peoria Bar Association and is
active in his participation therein.
The political allegiance of Mr. Black is given
to the republican party, and in his fraternal connections he is a
blue lodge Mason and also holds membership the practice of his
profession and he is not only popular with his associates of the bar
but enjoys an excellent reputation as a lawyer and a citizen in the
city and county of Peoria, where he is a well known.
Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
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WILFORD
C. BLACK has been the secretary of the Peoria Hotel Keepers'
Association since its organization 1906. He was born in Boone,
Iowa, Feb. 9, 1872, the son of James W. and Emma Black.
The father was a well known capitalist and life-stock man there and
also served as mayor of that city. During the Civil war he
volunteered and after one year of service was mustered out on
account of a wound which he had received. During the Spirit
Lake uprising of the Indians he was one of the fifty men who were
chosen by the governor of Iowa to control that part of the country
for one year. These men were designated as "the fifty brave
men of Iowa." He passed away in 1898 at the age of sixty-six.
His wife, who preceded him by a number of years, died in 1874 at the
age of twenty-six. Both are buried in the Glendale cemetery in
the family burial ground.
Wilford C. Black received his early education in
the public schools of Boone and afterward studied at the Sacred
Heart Academy, from which institution he was graduated at the age of
eighteen. He then studied law for one year, after which he
left his native town, going to Memphis, Tennessee, then to New
Orleans and later to a number of cities in the south. Finally
he located in Oklahoma City, where he was employed in a farm
implement house as a bookkeeper and general man. He remained
in that position until 1896, when he became a traveling salesman for
the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company at Racine,
Wisconsin. During that same year he was transferred to Peoria,
where he became local manager of that firm. In 1905 he was
appointed general sales manger at Racine but resigned his position
after two months to purchase the Hotel Black, of which he is today
the proprietor. Since the organization, in 1906, of the Peoria
Hotel Keepers' Association, which has its offices located at No. 100
Chestnut street, Mr. Black has served as its secretary.
He has been very successful in hotel work and also in other business
affairs, and he has extensive holdings in this city.
At Milwaukee, on Dec. 19, 1905, Mr. Black was
married to Miss Jean Hollinghausen, a daughter of James
and Jennie Hollinghausen, who reside at Austin, Illinois.
The father was engaged in the shoe business in Chicago. In
politics Mr. Black is a republican and fraternally he is a
Mason, having attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite
and belonging also to the commandery and the shrine at Peoria.
He is likewise affiliated with the Benevolent Protective Order of
Elks and is a member of the Creve Coeur Club. He resides in
his beautiful, modern home, which was erected in 1909, at 146 West
Parkside drive. An extremely successful and enterprising
business man, Mr. Black has rendered valuable service
in advancing the interests of and in improving the hotels of this
city.
Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
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