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OTHER BIOGRAPHICAL INDEXES:
BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
The History
of
Vermilion County, Illinois
By
Jack Moore Williams
in Two Volumes
- ILLUSTRATED -
VOL. TWO
Historical Publishing Company
Topeka - Indianapolis
1930
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DONALD J. McFERREN.
- Ranking high among the prominent young men of
Hoopeston is Donald J. McFerren who is
vice president of the First National Bank and a
veteran of the World War. He was born here
Jan. 31, 1891, the son of Jacob S. and Lida
(Schultz) McFerren.
A sketch of
Jacob S. Ferren appears elsewhere in this
history.
Donald J. McFerren received his early education
in the public schools of Hoopeston and later
attended Hotchkiss School and Philips Exeter
Academy. He is a graduate of Yale
University, where he received the degree of
Bachelor of Science in 1914. Throughout
his business career he has been identified with
the First National Bank of Hoopeston, having
been elected to his present office as vice
president in 1816. He is also vice
president of the Hoopeston Canning Company.
During the World War Mr. McFerren served in the
United States Navy, aviation section, and was
stationed at Akron, Ohio, and later at
Pensacola, Florida. He was discharged from
the service in December, 1918.
In 1915 Mr. McFerren married Miss Marie
Stewart, the daughter of Charles P. and
Frances (Beech) Stewart, residents of
Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mr. Stewart
was born in Iowa and his wife is a native of New
York City. There are two children in the
McFerren family: Marie Stewart,
born in July, 1918, and Frances J.,
born in December, 1923.
Mr. McFerren is a Republican and has held the
office of Mayor of Hoopeston, being elected for
a four year term in 1925. He is a member
of Hoopeston Lodge, No. 709, Ancient Free and
Accepted Masons; Danville Consistory,
thirty-second degree; Mohammed Shrine; American
Legion; Lions Club; Hubbard Trail Country Club;
Commercial Club; Chamber of Commerce; Cloister
Club of Yale and Yale Alumni Association.
Source:
The History
of
Vermilion County, Illinois By
Jack Moore Williams - Vol. I - Publ. Historical
Publishing Company, Topeka - Indianapolis - 1930
- Page 714 |
Jacob S. McFerren |
JACOB
S. McFERREN - A man of natural forces so
constituted that from his earliest boyhood to
the end of his life he utilized time as if each
moment was a golden value, Jacob S. McFerren,
commercial, industrial, and financial leader of
Hoopeston, rose to his commanding position in
the affairs of men through strong native
ability, controlled and directed by a far
reaching foresight and a keen judgment which he
possessed in an exceptional degree. The
following paragraphs indicate in outline the
nature of his notable service to his time and
record the estimate placed by his contemporaries
upon his worth as a man of affairs and as a
citizen.
Jacob S. McFerren was born in Warren County,
Ohio, Oct. 1, 1845, the son of William M. and
Eliza (Snyder) McFerren, the father being a
merchant who was born in South Carolina and who
died in 1894. There was another son,
Pingree, and two daughters, Alvira B.
who married Edward C. Griffith, and
Mrs. Mary Huey, of Hoopeston.
Jacob S. McFerren received his early education
in the public schools of his native county and
later in Bartlett Commercial College in
Cincinnati, Ohio. He obtained his first
business experience under the direction of his
father, whom he assisted during vacation period,
and when fifteen years of age he left school and
became an equal partner in a business at Level,
Ohio, with his uncle who supplied the capital
while he managed the enterprise and shared
equally in the profits. His store was
conducted under the firm name of J. S.
McFerren and Company, his uncle two years
later entering into other business connections
and becoming a member of a grain firm. In
the meantime Mr. McFerren had built up an
extensive trade, but a heavy decline in the
grain market and other disastrous speculations
causing his uncle's firm to suspend business
with heavy liabilities, the firm of J. S.
McFerren and Company was naturally involved,
and so it was closed out and all debts paid in
full, leaving an untarnished name as asset.
This and about $300 was all that Mr. McFerren
had left of the $3,000 clear profit and he made
in this, his first mercantile venture. He
then sought employment and remained in Ohio
until 1865 when, believing that better
opportunities awaited an energetic young
man somewhere further west, he made his way to
Paxton, Illinois. He was then about twenty
years of age and his first position in this new
environment was taking charge of the books for
J. W. Scott, but he soon secured a more
lucrative position with R. Clark, one of
the oldest merchants of Paxton, whom he served
as bookkeeper until the end of the year.
At that time, owing of failing health, Mr.
Clark offered to turn over his stock and
business to his nephew, A. L. Clark and
to Mr. McFerren, loaning them all the
needed capital. This proposition was
accepted and the firm of Clark and
McFerren started its career. Success
attended the venture from the beginning and
establishing the business upon a substantial
basis their capital steadily and rapidly
increased. They enlarged their stock to
meet the growing demands of their trade, which
they fostered with integrity, activity and
honesty. Mr. McFerren's initiative
spirit, his daring and fearlessness in following
wherever opportunity beckoned soon led him to
engaged in banking and in the real estate
business, and associating himself with T. W.
Chamberlain in these ventures, they opened a
bank at Hoopeston on Aug. 1, 1872, under the
name of McFerren and Chamberlain.
Although but a new firm, they successfully
weathered the financial panic of 1873, keeping
their doors open during that trying period and
winning public confidence by the safe and
conservative methods which they followed.
In 1874, owing to ill health, Mr.
Chamberlain retired, and Mr.
McFerren assuming complete control became
president and brought this business to a point
of development that marks it today as one of the
strong national banks of the State. He was
also interested in banking circles in Danville.
Mr. McFerren's natural energy was so
great that he filled every moment of his life
with intense activity, never wasting any time,
and his thrift of this tremendous asset, time,
supported by faithfulness of purpose and never
ending effort led him into broad channels.
With his genius for organization he marshalled
and coordinated forces so that his plans, always
subjected to the test of his sound judgment,
rarely miscarried, but moved on to substantial
success. His investments, made judiciously
and with discrimination, resulted in making him
owner of several thousand acres of land in and
near Hoopeston, while in his association with
the firm of Moore, McFerren and
Seavey, from which Mr. Seavey
withdrew later, they possessed large land
interests in the South, throughout the State of
Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. Their
operations in these sections were of great
public benefit for they not only bought and sold
land but greatly improved property, established
industries thereon, and secured transportation
facilities through railroad building that have
been of inestimable value to the various
communities involved. They were the builders of
twenty miles of railroad from Luxora, Arkansas,
to Big Lake, called the Mississippi, Big Lake
and Western Railroad, and had holdings along
that line amounting to 30,000 acres of land, for
which the railroad furnished an outlet for their
lumber and also constituted a part of the trunk
line from the Mississippi River to Joplin,
Missouri. They had extensive saw mills at
Luxora, Pitman's Island, and at Woodstock,
Mississippi, besides others, all with a capacity
of from twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand
feet per day, their most extensive lumber
industry, however, being located at Memphis,
Tennessee, where they had a double band saw mill
with a capacity of fifty thousand feet per day,
the plant there having been erected at a cost of
$75,000. Their interests likewise included
a box factory at Memphis.
Hoopeston has profited largely by the efforts of Mr.
McFerren, not only in its industrial
upbuilding but also in its civic and moral
welfare. He was, on the industrial side,
one of the founders of the Union Tin Can Company
and when it merged into the American Tin Can
Company he became a stockholder in that.
He was a joint owner with A. H. Trego
of the Hoopeston Canning Company, devoted
exclusively to the canning of corn, an
enterprise that stands foremost in its class in
the country, garnering as it does the corn from
the great belt of the district. His real
estate holdings in Hoopeston included the bank
building, office building, and opera house
building, besides many business and residential
structures.
Mr. McFerren was chosen Hoopeston's first
mayor and he was reelected to that honored
office on several different occasions
thereafter. During his first term he
succeeded in suppressing all the saloons in town
and there has never been an established liquor
business in Hoopeston since that time. He
also did much for the improvement of streets,
including the paving, and wherever there was
need of reform in the upbuilding and progress of
the town he labored effectively. He was
treasurer and director of the district
agricultural society, school treasurer of
township No. 23, range No. 12, and one of the
original projectors of the Ford County
Agricultural Society. He supported
liberally church and benevolent enterprises and
all undertakings that were for the public
benefit and general good. He gave
generously to the Hoopeston Public Library and
presented to the city a public park, having
purchased for this the old fair grounds,
comprising thirty acres of land. His
public activities brought him in touch with many
of the political leaders of his early day, among
whom was Joseph G. Cannon, who was his
close friend, as well as being Illinois' well
known statesman.
Mr. McFerren married (first) April 4,
1871, Susie P. Clark, daughter of R.
Clark. Her death occurred the same
year, on July 28th. He married (second)
Lida A. Schultz, who died in 1894, leaving
two sons, William and Donald,
whose sketches appear in this volume. In
1897 Mr. McFerren married (third)
Lottie L. Schultz, a sister of his former
wife, and their residence was one of the homes
in Hoopeston noted for its warm hearted
hospitality.
A life of vigorous energy spent in the promotion and
extension of a number of important productive
industries of the country, given in the civic
service of the city of his adoption, Jacob S.
McFerren made it a study to subserve his
natural inclinations to the demands which modern
conditions of society impose upon a man in
public eye, and so well and ably did he use his
forces that at his passing he left vacant a
commanding position in the social civic and
representative business life of his community
that will long be left unfilled. His home
and family life was beautiful in its marked
simplicity and in spite of the many demands that
his active career made upon him he found time
for forming and cementing those bonds of
affection and friendship that are life's finest
reward.
Mr. McFerren died at Chandler, Arizona,
Jan. 7, 1923, and is buried in Hoopeston.
Source: The History of Vermilion
County, Illinois By Jack Moore Williams - Vol. I
- Publ. Historical Publishing Company, Topeka,
Indianapolis - 1930 - Page 864 |
| |
WILLIAM
McFERREN, president of the First National
Bank, is a prominent citizen of Hoopeston,
active in its social, fraternal and community
affairs. He was born in this city, Dec.
27, 1886, the son of Jacob S. and Lida (Schultz)
McFerren.
A complete sketch of Jacob S. McFerren appears
elsewhere in this edition.
William McFerren was educated in the
public and high schools of Hoopeston, from which
he was graduated. He then attended
Hotchkiss Preparatory School and upon completing
his schooling returned to Hoopeston, where he
entered business as local agent for the Overland
automobile. In 1912 he became identified with
the First National Bank as vice president and
director, and upon the death of his father in
1923 was elected president of the institution.
During the World War Mr. McFerren
enlisted at Washington, District of Columbia, in
the United States navy, aviation section.
He took ground school work at the Masschusetts
Institute of Technology, Boston, and was later
qualified as a balloon pilot at Akron, Ohio,
finally becoming a student officer. He was
discharged from the service December 2, 1919.
Mr. McFerren
married Miss Marjorie Welles,
the daughter of Edward M. and Marietta
(Smith) Welles, natives of Addison, New
York, now residents of Norwalk, Connecticut.
Mr. Welles is a retired paper
manufacturer. Mr. and Mrs.
McFerren are the parents of three
children: William, Jr., born March
7, 1915; Marjorie, born in 1917; and
Patricia, born in June, 1923.
Mr. McFerren holds membership in the
Universalist Church and has the following club
and lodge affiliations: Star Lodge, No. 709,
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Danville
Consistory, thirty-second degree; Mohammed
Shrine Temple; Loyal Order of Moose; Lions Club;
American Legion; Hubbard Trail Country Club;
Commercial Club; and Chamber of Commerce.
He is also identified with the Vermilion County,
Illinois, and American Bankers Associations.
He is interested in the Hoopeston Canning
Company, which was founded by his father.
Politically Mr. McFerren is a Republican.
He is president of the Hoopeston School Board.
Source: The History of Vermilion
County, Illinois By Jack Moore Williams - Vol. I
- Publ. Historical Publishing Company, Topeka,
Indianapolis - 1930 - Page 868 |
NOTES: |
