This biography is based on text written in 1967 by Florence Horner Moll, a granddaughter of Benjamin Horner, for publication in “Carroll County, A Goodly Heritage,” which was edited by E. George Thiem and published in 1968 by Kable Printing Company, Mt. Morris, Illinois. I have added new information and the photographs, all of which come from my collection unless stated otherwise. I am a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Horner. Kenneth Moll, son of Florence Horner Moll, also contributed to this biography
It’s very possible that Benjamin Horner never lived in Carroll County. Or if he did, probably only between 1865 - 1869. But two of his three children lived there more than half of their lives, and their families were (and are) prominent people there. Benjamin Horner, patriarch of this Carroll County family, was born April 29, 1842 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania and one of seven children. His parents were Michael Horner (1813-1848) and Catherine Forney (1813-1895), both of whom were also born in Somerset County. He was the oldest of seven children; the others were
Peter, Henry, Jonathan, Susannah, Abraham, and Fred.
Benjamin’s military service record is also sketchy. Florence Horner Moll believed he served in the Civil War, and his tombstone in the Los Angeles National Cemetery is inscribed US Navy
Chris: Put in a link to the tombstone picture at the end, which I don’t want here in the early part of the biography.
However, I have found no record of his Civil War service anywhere. Other Benjamin Horners served but none of them in the Navy. If he kept mementos of the war, none of his children had them. My father, H. Reid Horner, always told me he’d served in the Spanish American War, but that is very unlikely since he’d have been 56 years old, and the Navy wouldn’t have taken someone that old, especially someone without prior military experience. There is also no record of a Benjamin Horner serving in the Spanish American War, although there are fewer records available for that war. So presuming he fought in the Civil War, perhaps he volunteered in Pennsylvania and then came to Illinois after he mustered out. He must have been in Carroll County at least by 1867, because he married Elizabeth Morris there on March 20, 1868.
By the 1870 US Federal Census, Richard and Sarah Ann Morris had moved with at least three of their nine children to Putnam, Delaware County, Iowa. They lived in Delaware County the rest of their lives, Richard dying January 26, 1894 and Sarah Ann on March 5, 1900.
Benjamin and Elizabeth (by then calling herself Lizzie) Horner moved to Abilene, Kansas early in 1870, after the December 9, 1869 birth of their first child, Morris Edward Horner, in Lanark. The family appears on the 1870 US Federal Census for Grant Township, Dickinson County, Kansas; this census was taken July 27, 1870. The census gives Benjamin Horner’s occupation as “teamster.” Perhaps that occupation was an indication that they’d just arrived there. If he’d driven a team of horses or oxen from Illinois, he certainly was a teamster.
He’d apparently followed his brother Abraham to the west. According to “The Elder John Forney Family History” by John H. Judy published February 6, 1945 in the edition of the Falls City, Nebraska Journal, Abraham Horner was part of the advance party for a historic wagon train from Carroll County to Falls City, Nebraska in the spring of 1869. Formed by Church of the Brethren Elder John Forney, who was a brother of Catherine Forney Horner, Abraham and Benjamin Horner’s mother, the advance party went overland from Carroll County to Falls City, Nebraska (Richardson County) in the spring of 1868 and bought 1000 acres of land. Elder John Forney left the advance party there to build houses for their families, and returned to Illinois to form the caravan.
The caravan left Carroll County and at more than a mile and a half long. It was the largest covered wagon train ever to cross the Missouri River between Kansas City and Omaha. Nearly all the members of the caravan were related by marriage. Benjamin’s sister Susannah and her husband Francis Shaffer were on it and they all appear on the same 1870 US Federal Census page for Township M2, Range 16 of Richardson County, Nebraska, the census taken June 14, 1870. John H. Judy’s account doesn’t state when the caravan left Carroll County, but it arrived at the ferry crossing March 1, 1869. It took 10 days to cross the Missouri River by ferry, which could only accommodate one team and wagon at a time. John H. Judy’s account never names Benjamin as being part of the advance party, but implies there were two “Horner boys” in it. If Benjamin was in it, he must have returned to Carroll County with John Forney. Even if he wasn’t part of it, he certainly must have been part of the planning.
Benjamin’s mother Catherine apparently stayed in Illinois for the time being; she’s living with Peter Horner and his family in Lanark when the census there was taken on August 1, 1870. She moved to Nebraska later though; she died in Falls City, Nebraska on May 24, 1895.
Benjamin and Elizabeth (Morris) Horner had two more children, both born near Abilene, Kansas: Emma on April 13, 1872 and Harry Huber Horner on September 27, 1875. They bought land in Newbern Township, Dickinson County, Kansas south of Abilene, before June 28, 1880 when the census was taken, and farmed it for over 20 years. They belonged to the Brethren Church in Abilene and Benjamin was a deacon. I’m under the impression they were in close contact with their relatives in Falls City, Nebraska. Their closest friends in Abilene were the Landis family, possibly headed by Otis Landis, who may have been distant relatives on the Horner side
Elizabeth Morris was born in Wales on October 9, 1842, a daughter of Richard and Sarah Ann (unknown original surname) Morris. Both were born in Wales; Richard in 1816 and Sarah Ann in 1820. They immigrated November 13, 1851 and are shown as living in Squaw Grove Township, DeKalb County, Illinois on the 1860 US Federal Census. I don’t know whether they moved to DeKalb County immediately after arriving in the United States. I have next to no information about this family and because the censuses were taken only every 10 years, I don’t know when they moved to Carroll County, or even if they did. Elizabeth Morris could have met Benjamin Horner without having lived in Carroll County herself, but I think it unlikely.
Elizabeth Morris (standing) with her sister, probably about 1868.
By all accounts, pioneer farming in Kansas was a pretty hard life. After the eldest son, Morris Horner, graduated from Dickinson County High School in Chapman, Kansas, he began farming with his father. He decided to attend the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, taking the train back and buying a handsome trunk for the journey. Once he was back in Illinois and visited his Horner relatives in Lanark, Illinois he decided never to live again in Kansas. He stayed in Carroll County and began doing farm labor.
Morris Horner met Mary Fredrica Hanse at that time, although it’s uncertain if she was using the Hanse surname then. Her parents, Henry Hanse and Sarah Mueller Hanse were from East Friesland (a northern German state) and immigrated with Mary and her three sisters (Catherine Dena, Mattie Annie, and Ida Anna) in 1868. They may have been using the Hense surname when they first immigrated, or possibly Henza or Henz. Mary’s name reads Hanse on their marriage license but it is written in such a way that it appears to be House and the Illinois Marriage Records show it as House, a surname I’m fairly sure no one in the family ever used. My parents claimed to know very little about this family.
I have only in the last two weeks (April 2006) found a family which appears to have been them on the 1870 US Federal Census for Brookville, Ogle County. It shows the family as all being from Hanover (another German State), Henry being 41 and a day laborer, and Seica being his wife and 46 years old. Sarah is not a German name and she could well have changed her name later to Sarah. The census shows the daughters as Katrina, Minnie, Mary, and Ida. The name Minnie is entirely wrong, but the ages of the 4 daughters listed in the census are comparable to those of the Hanse daughters. If the census is correct, Henry was born about 1829 and Seica/Sarah about 1824. I know the girls to be born as follows: Catherine Dena on August 10, 1858; Mattie Annie on July 24, 1861; Mary Fredrica on March 6, 1865; and Ida Anna on September 11, 1867.
The tragedy of this family is that the father, Henry Hanse, died in July 1870, less than 2 years after their arrival in the United States. Since the 1870 census for Brookville was taken July 21, 1870 he must have died shortly afterwards. My father believed him to be buried in a cemetery “10 miles south of Freeport, Illinois” but I’ve never found his grave. Because of his sudden death, all of the girls had to stop attending school and they and their mother became servants. Their mother, Sarah Mueller Hanse, may have remarried. My father said she married Harm Evers of Forreston, Ogle County, but my extensive research could never prove it. I have only recently found an Evert C. Evers and a Suki Evers on the 1880 Ogle County Census for Mount Morris. Suki isn’t that different from Seica. But this couple’s marriage doesn’t show in Illinois Marriages 1763-1900, so since they were both from Germany, they could have married in Germany, and Suki may not have been Sarah Mueller Hanse.
Adjacent to it is a much larger grave monument of Elizabeth Evers, who was the mother of Sarah Mueller Hanse Evers’ husband (according to a note by my mother, Florence L. Downing Horner).
And to further add to the mystery, I have an old album of unmarked photos that my mother noted were probably of the Mueller or Hanse family. My recent research indicates Rosalie Mueller Cotta, whose husband had a nursery and tree business south of Lanark in the 1880s, might have been a sister of Sarah Mueller Hanse. I would dearly love to fill in these gaps.
I do know that Sarah Mueller Hanse died April 1886 and is buried in a grave with a small unmarked gravestone in the West Grove Cemetery, near Forreston.
Among other places, Mary Fredrica Hanse worked as a servant in the home of H. Reid Staley, a dentist in Lanark, and was probably working there when she met Morris Horner. He was farming south of Lanark, probably at one of John Morris’ farms in Section 33 of Rock Creek Township, in the area near the old Honberger School. (John Morris and his family were not related to Elizabeth Morris and her family, but the families were close friends all their lives.) Mary Fredrica Hanse and Morris Horner married on December 23, 1897 in Lanark. These pictures were probably taken at the time of their wedding.
Etta and Reid went to the Rowland School, which was on this property, along what is now Maple Grove Road. (The rusted pump from the schoolyard well was laying along the fence when I drove by it in 2001.) They also went to the Cloverdale School and Honberger School; all were 1-room country schools.
Photo at left - Etta Horner and Reid Horner somewhere in Lanark, possibly on East Pearl Street near the turn to the Lanark Cemetery.
Possibly as early as 1913, Morris Horner and his family moved to a farm south of Lanark, in Section 28, Rock Creek Township, along the east side of what is now Benson Road. The farmhouse is long gone but most of the farm buildings are still there, including a round pump house built in the Dutch style. (I don’t know if the Horners built it.) This farm was probably owned by C. S. Dame.
Sometime before Reid was a child of four or five years old, he and his family moved south of Shannon to a farm owned by David Rowland in the southeast corner of Section 35, Cherry Grove Township, at what is now the corner of Maple Grove Road and Straddle Creek Road. The original house and farm buildings there have been gone more than 50 years.
Etta Horner graduated from Lanark High School in 1917. Although a person at that time without a college education could teach school by merely passing a test, Etta Horner went to what was then called State Teachers College at DeKalb, Illinois, later called Northern Illinois University. The teachers’ program was a 2-year degree program and Etta Horner graduated in 1920. She began teaching in 1921, first teaching in 1-room country schools in Carroll County, but by 1928 and probably before she was teaching 5th grade in the Lanark school. She taught there until June 1944.
H. Reid Horner graduated from Lanark High School in 1920. In 1921 he taught school at Libertyville School, near his home. He then farmed his father’s farm until about 1925, when he moved to Freeport, Stephenson County, Illinois and began going to Brown’s Business College. It was located on the third floor of the Blust Building at 10 East Main Street in Freeport, above where Luecke Jewelry has been for decades. He lived at the time at Sword’s Rooming House in Freeport, at 427 West Stephenson Street, where the Christian Science Church is now. It was a big Victorian rooming house run by George and May (Werntz) Sword, who were from Lanark. Many of the people who roomed at Sword’s were young men like my father, working at their first jobs, and they all had a splendid time living there. Upon graduating from Brown’s, Reid Horner began working in 1928 at
Henney Motor Company in Freeport, a company which manufactured hearses and ambulances, soon becoming director of personnel.
On June 15, 1929 he married Florence Luella Downing of Mt. Carroll Township, Carroll County, Illinois.
