HOLLENBECK, William T.

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To an even greater extent than do his contemporaries, an impartial future must accord William T. Hollenbeck a foremost, if not the first place, among the firm, impartial, conservative and capable Judges of Clark County. It is doubtful if any man of more substantial, usable knowledge has ever graced the bench or bar of this part of Illinois, and this notwithstanding the fact that he has passed only forty-five mile posts of his life, and now is entering upon the seventeenth year of his professional career. Certain it is that he has had a larger experience in legal affairs and a larger clientage in probate and chancery practice than any man ever elevated to the Judgeship of this county. He also is a man of great business capacity, and has studied both government and business in many parts of this country and Europe.

Judge Hollenbeck was born October 18, 1861, In York Township, Clark County, Ill., and whereas he was ushered into life among conditions comparatively modern, his father, John Milton Hollenbeck, was born in the same county and township in a rude log cabin, May 18, 1838. The father, whose biographical record appears elsewhere In this volume, was as useful In his way as the son in his, and both, to an extent, were the products of their environment. The son was educated primarily in the public schools and later attended the Southern Illinois State Normal, at Carbondale, Ill., and Indiana State Normal, at Terre Haute, Md. and the law department at the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, from which he was graduated in the class of 1891. Locating in Marshall. Mr. Hollenbeck engaged in a general practice of law, but gradually specialized in probate, chancery and real estate law, in an of which he has had few equals, either from the stand point of skill or experience, in his native county.

Early In life Mr. Hollenbeck espoused the Republican cause, and he has risen to high esteem in the councils of the party. He was elected County Judge in 1894, and served until 1898, and during that time gave evidence of that energy, conviction and unusual force of character which has brought victory out of al most every undertaking of his life. He proved markedly correct in his rulings and decisions, and rarely were his decisions appealed. At the present time he is Chairman of the Republican County Committee, and is an influential factor in the judicial, congressional and senatorial districts of Clark County and middle eastern Illinois. Judge Hollenbeck received additional proof of the esteem in which he is held through his election in 1906 to the Forty-fifth General Assembly of Illinois, representing Clark, Coles and Douglas Counties.

In no sense is Judge Hollenbeck a dreamer, but rather his energies always take an intense- 17 practical and useful direction. He never follows the line of least resistance, and admires unstintingly people who have the courage to ignore or rise above the obstacles in their way. Proof of his own possession of these valuable assets is forthcoming in Judge Hollenbeck’s reclamation of a wet and practically useless fever-breeding swamp section, at Aurora Bend, on the Wabash River, In Darwin Township, at

a cost of nearly five thousand dollars. One can best understand this undertaking by direct quotation from an article by H. C. Bell, in the “Clark County Herald,” October 18, 189

“After having put in an immense flood gate of solid iron, flanked and buttressed by abutments of concrete, at the opening of the slough that leads to and out of his valuable farm of some six hundred acres of fine lands, he has now supplemented this much-needed and imperative control of the waters of the slough by the completion of nearly a mile of levee, running north and west from the flood gate and the bluff at the southeast to the hills at the northwest of his lands. William Hillibert has had the immediate control and management of this grading, and no better man for the work could have been found. The levee is a fine piece of grading and will soon be green with the timothy and red top with which it has been liberally sown. This flood gate and levee will protect not only the lands of Mr. Hollenbeck, but also some twelve hundred acres of the lands of other parties, from practically all high waters of the Wabash. Genuine public spirit this, that is willing to expend five thousand dollars, not only to protect from overflow his own lands, but also the lands of others, who, thus far, it seems, have not contributed to the cost of these much-needed Improvements. When Mr. Hollenbeck bought these lands a large portion of them consisted of willow brush, slash lands, and fish and duck ponds, and the skeptics and ‘doubting Thomases’ were wont to smile in derision at the efforts of Mr. Hollenbeck to make a farm out of these frog ponds, as they called them, but he stuck to his work, and now has one of the largest and best single farms in the county, and that it will continue to grow more valuable every year goes without saying. Mr. Hollenbeck now has a force of men at work still under the supervision of Mr. Hillibert, cutting a ditch through the cut-off east of Aurora Bend, which will, before long, change the course of the Wabash, thus straightening the river and shortening it nearly two miles, and deflecting the rapid and destructive cur rent of the river in high water times, from the Illinois shore at Aurora Bend, which, as It is now, is constantly cutting away the west bank of the river and destroying much valuable land.”

October 28, 1896, Mr. Hollenbeck was united in marriage to Louise M. Rackerby, daughter of M. P. and Anna Rackerby, of Hutsonville, Ill. Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck have three sons:  Neal Augustus, born August 18, 1897; John Milton, born March 19, 1899; and William Wayne, born January 24, 1905. Fraternally Mr. Hollenbeck is identified with the Blue Lodge No. 133, A. F. & A. M.; the Chapter No. 70, R.. A. M.; Launcelot Lodge No. 67, K. of P.; Seminole Tribe No. 23, Improved Order of Red Men; Modern Woodmen of America, and the Court of Honor. He finds a religious home in the Presbyterian Church. Judge Hollenbeck makes strong appeal to the intellect, conscience and public-spiritedness of Clark County. He is the personification of that repose which means power, and that restraint which can control others, because it first has controlled himself. He early found his place in the work of the world, and his purpose, once defined, no hindering influences, possibilities of self-aggrandizement, or deviations from recognized and excellent standards have deterred him from his course. He is one of the strong, substantial and dependable men of Clark County.