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SIPHER,
JOHN WESLEY

SIPHER, JOHN WESLEY.—The family of Sipher is
an old one in the State of New York and is represented in nearly
every section of the United States. In successive generations it
has produced men who have been leaders in public enlightenment
and material development, and who have made their mark wherever
their lots have been cast. A conspicuous representative of this
family in Warren County, Ill., is John Wesley Sipher, of
Monmouth, President of the Monmouth Brick Company, of the Monmouth
Hospital and of the Monmouth Country Club and Vice-President of
the Monmouth Business Men’s Association. John Wesley Sipher was
born at Utica, N. Y., July 1, 1844, a son of Moses and Eva
(Baldee) Sipher. His father was a native of Manheim, N. Y., his
mother of Herkimer, in the same State. Jacob Sipher, his
grandfather in the paternal line, was born at Manheim, and
married Katharine Windecker, who was also a native of the same
place. His grandfather in the maternal line was Henry Baldee,
who was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, and married
Margaret Rasbach, of Kerkimer, N. Y. Mr. Sipher was educated at
his native place and married Caroline Wood at Sempronius, N. Y.,
February 13, 1867, and has two daughters, Mrs. Eva (Sipher)
Diffenbaugh and Mrs. Carrie (Sipher) Meeker. In 1869, he came with
his wife and their six months old baby to Monmouth, Warren
County, Ill., where they arrived April 25. Soon afterward he
began dealing in lumber and coal on the site of the plant of the
present Sipher Lumber and Coal Company, now No. 617 South Second
Street. He added the ice business to his original enterprise in
1875. He was elected Alderman for the Fifth Ward of Monmouth in
1873, and Alderman of the First Ward in 1875. He has for many
years been a member of the Library Board and has been called to
other responsible positions, including those mentioned at the
beginning of this article. Mr. Sipher is a man of much public
spirit, votes with the Republican party and is liberal in his
religious views.

Bond, L.
M.; farmer and painter; Lenox Township; is an
influential and highly respected citizen, who has a more than
creditable record as a soldier in the Civil War. He was born in
Greenbush township, September 11, 1848, a son of Major William
G. and Elizabeth Henry Bond. His father was a son of Major
John C. and Mary Grimsly Bond. His father was born in Jackson
County, Ala., April 02, 1823. John C. Bond was born in Knox County,
Tenn., December 25, 1799, and married there in 1818. His wife born
him children as follows: Susanna, Mrs. Johnson; William G.; Jesse
W,; Ruby, who married A. J. Clayton, of Swan Creek, and Anna. He
removed from Tennessee to Alabama and thence tin 1826 to Morgan
County, Ill., where his wife soon died. In 1829, he married Mary
Singleton, of Morgan County, who bore him a son, Fielding who was
School Commissioner of that county about 1861 and died April 19,
1962. Mrs. Bond died September, 1842, and in, 1844, Mr. bond
married Mrs. Nancy Terry, who born him tow children: Cansada S.,
wife of Mathew Campbell, of Stella, Neb, and Cordelia, who married
Henry Staat, of Berwick Township, and who died in Greeenbush
Township, May 20, 1882. Major John C. Bond removed to Warren
County, in 1834, filled the office of County Commissioner in 1849,
and with Samuel Hallam and Robert Gilmore, surveyed the county into
townships in 1853. William G. Bond
remained on his father's farm until August 26, 1862, when he was made Captain of
Company H, Eighty-third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and
went to the seat of war. February, 1963, he was promoted
to be Major of his regiment of which he was in command from July,
1863, until January, 1865, when he was mustered-out of the service
at Nashville, Tenn. He took part in the battle at Garrettsburg,
Ky., in the captions against the Confederate General Wheeler along the
line of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. He received two
wounds and, after the war, was employed in the Quartermaster's
Department until 1868, when he entered the revenue department and
was storekeeper on the Cumberland River two years, then went to the
United States secret service, in which he was employed, with headquarters at Clarksville,
Tenn., until 1873. He returned to Monmouth, January, 1874 and December following, was appointed
Deputy Sheriff, in which capacity he served two years; between
1876-1882 he served three terms as Sheriff of Warren County. Reared
in the Democratic faith, he became a Republican before the war, and
affiliated with that party until his death. He was twice married;
first, in 1845, in Jo Daviess County, Ill., to Elizabeth Henry, who
died in 1863, and later to Mrs. Mary E. Taylor Moore. By his first
wife he had children as follows: Clarissa Ann, Mrs. Farris; L. M.,
Jesse W., of Swan Township; George C., L. M. Bond was reared and
educated in Warren County, and in
September, 1862, he enlisted in Company H, Eighty-third Regiment
Illinois Volunteer Infantry. After service in the army of the West
in Kentucky, he was honorably discharged February, 1863. March 28,
1864, he enlisted in Company H, Second Regiment Illinois Volunteer
Cavalry and stationed at Fort Blakely, served as scout
and spy until he received his final honorable discharged from the
service in 1865, at Springfield, Ill. He then returned to Warren
County and gave his attention to farming. In 1876, he located in
Lenox Township, where he has since been engaged in farming and
painting. He is a member of A. C. Harding
Post, Grand Army of the Republic, at Roseville, and is locally
influential as a Republican.  In Warren County, in
1870 he married Mary Melissa Smith, who was borne in Fulton County, Ill., a daughter of Ezekiel
and Anna Harrah Smith, who has borne him two children:
Walter and William G.,---the last mentioned of whom filled a
responsible position in connection with the Pan-American Exposition
at Buffalo, NY, in 1901, and also served with Company H, Sixth
Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the Spanish-American war in Porto
Rico. At an early day Ezekiel Smith brought his family from Ohio
to Fulton Co, where he died. His widow married J. W. Bond, of Lenox
Township.

Capps, T. L., farmer, Lenox Township,
Warren county, Ill., Monmouth rural deliver route No 5, is a
representative of several honored Southern families, and his
father, a Kentuckian, was a pioneer in Illinois. He was born in
Roseville Township, June 6, 1843, a son of Asa and Mary A. Brooks
Capps.

Shelton, James Mason; farmer and
stock-raiser; Floyd Township, post-office, Cameron; is a
representative of old families which have long been prominent in
Virginia and Kentucky. Samuel Shelton, his great-grandfather,
was born in Louisa County, Va., November 03, 1758, and died May 28,
1833. He married Jane Henderson, who was born at Hanover, Va.,
March 19, 1758, and died September 11, 1841. David R. Shelton, his
grandfather, was born December 23, 1792, and died in Kentucky,
March 16, 1847. He married Patsey Haley, who was born June 12,
1795, and died November 30, 1833. Samuel T. Shelton his father was
born in Barren County, Ky., in 1821, and died in 1893. Eliza Moore,
who married Samuel T. Shelton and became the mother of the subject
of this sketch, was born in Virginia, in 1824. Mr. and Mrs.
Shelton were married in Warren county, June 16, 1846, and their
son, James Mason, was born in Floyd Township, February 2, 1852,
educated in common schools near his home, early taught the science
of farming and stock-raising, instructed in the creed of the
Methodist Church and taught the principles of the Republican party,
with which he has acted politically since he attained his majority.
David R. Shelton fought in the War
of 1812, his father, Samuel Shelton, in the War of the Revolution.
The former arrived in Illinois, November 24, 1837,
bringing his family of twelve person and their portable belongings'
in a big Kentucky wagon drawn by an oxen team led by a span of
horses. "We crossed the river at Beardstown," wrote one of the
party, "the weather being rainy, turned to snow, making travel
tedious. We finally reached a log-cabin that had been vacated for
us. It was called 'Ketch'em all," and measured about sixteen feet
by sixteen, and was primitive in the extreme. We lived in it two
years, then settled in Floyd Township." Samuel T. Shelton was
for thirty-five years, a Christian minister and married
eighty-seven couples. He served many years as Justice of the Peace
and was several times elected to the State Legislature. James
Mason Shelton remained on the homestead until he was twenty-one
years old, when he settled on a farm near Utah, whence he removed
to his present farm in Section 9, Floyd Township. He has achieved
success as a farmer and stock-raiser, has been School Director and
has several times been elected constable. His first wife was Julia
A. Sales, who was born in Canada in 1857. His present wife, whom he
married in Danville, Iowa, August 01, 18676, a daughter of William
and Sarah Daimoth Kelly. He has had born to him children as
follows: Laura M., Clark C., Clarence A., Samuel t., Mary Edna,
Beulah Grace and Jessie M.  Samuel T. is dead. Most of
these Shelton's are buried in the Silent Home Cemetery, Floyd
Twp., Warren Co., IL.

Wilcox, O. D.; stone contractor;
Monmouth; is a veteran of the civil war and , as a Democrat, takes
an active interest in local affairs. In 1899 and 1900 he
represented the Third Ward in the City Council, and was a member of
the Fire Committee, the Electric Light Committee and the Committee
on Public Buildings and Grounds, being Chairman of the first named.
He has been for twenty-one years a member of the Monmouth Fire
Department, and , in 1899, was elected President of the Illinois
Firemen's Association. He was Deputy Sheriff, 1870-72, and City
Marshal, 1874-75 and 1880-83. He is one of the four children of
Charles and Eliza Lee Wilcox, the following facts concerning
whom will be of interest: Charles, who
lives in North Dakota, served three years in the civil war as a
member of Company H, seventy-fifth Regiment New York Volunteer
Infantry; Theodore lives at Monmouth; Melissa married
Joseph Grier, of Monmouth, O. D. Wilcox
was reared and educated in New York, and came to Canton, Ill, in
1861. In 1864, in Fulton County, he enlisted for one hundred days
in the One Hundred and Thirty second Regiment Illinois Volunteer
Infantry. He was mustered in the service at Chicago as a member of
Company E., and was stationed at Paducah, Ky., Until October 27,
1864, when he was honorably discharged from the service and
returned to Fulton County. In 1866 he came to Monmouth
and learned the stone mason's trade, and for many years has been
one of the leading contractors in his line, doing much notable work
and employing many workmen. He married in Monmouth, in 1868, to
Sarah Frances Hayes, who was born in Iowa, a daughter of Anson and
Ann Hayes, who were respectively of Scotch-Irish and English
ancestry, and who settled early at Monmouth and died there.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox have had six children: Joseph T., Harry, O. D.,
John and Mary. Mr. Wilcox is a member of the Modern Woodmen of
America and the Masonic order. He was Worshipful Master of the
local Lodge of A. F. & A. M., and affiliates with the Chicago
Consistory of the Scottish Rite Masons. His parents, Charles and
Eliza Lee Wilcox, were born in Massachusetts and eventually settled
in Onondaga County, N. Y., where Mr. Wilcox was born, April 17,
1846. They removed with their children to Fulton County, Ill, in
1861, and came from there to Monmouth in 1870. Charles Wilcox died
in 1883; his wife in 1880.

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