Miner, William bio

History of Fulton County, Illinois; together with Sketches of its Cities, Villages and Townships, Educational, Religious, Civil, Military, and Political History; Portraits of Prominent Persons and Biographies of Representative Citizens. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., Peoria, Illinois, 1879, page 664-665, Farmers' Township
William Miner, sec. 17, Farmers’ township; P. O., Table Grove; was born in Jessamine Co., Ky., Sept. 4, 1810, and is the son of John Miner, deceased, who was a native of Pa., and was born July 4, 1775. They have resided in Ky. and Tenn., and removed to Danville, Ill., in Jan., 1828, and to Canton in 1830, where they remained until 1834, when they removed to this township, settling on sec. 16. There was not a house or rail between Spoon river and Macomb when old father Miner landed in this township, except that of Mr. Barker’s. Mr. John Miner died January 20, 1838. Our subject had very limited educational advantages. The schools he attended in Kentucky were subscription schools, and his father would sometimes sign 3 scholars for 3 months, and send all his children for one month, which would exhaust the time for which he had subscribed. Mr. Miner has improved 1,050 acres of land in the West, including 260 acres in Iowa. As a farmer and stock-raiser he has been eminently successful. His fine stock took a goodly share of premiums at the county fairs; and in 1853 his farm took the premium as being under the best cultivation and management of any farm in the county. Mr. Miner was in the Black Hawk war, under Gen. Stillman, and participated in 9 different battles, or skirmishes. He was of the 10 who volunteered to search for the dispatch-carrier that had been killed by the Indians; and while making this search they were fired upon by some Indians in ambush breaking the leg of one of his comrades. Gen. Pope ordered them to advance, which they did, not leaving one Indian to tell the tale; but this came near resulting fatally to Mr. Mine; an Indian threw his tomahawk at a man in front of Miner, cutting off the “thumb piece” of his gun, and passed by Mr. Miners ear, severing two “tassels” from his cap. He received a slight wound in Stillman’s defeat the scar of which he still bears. In that battle, as all perhaps have read before, they were surrounded, and were compelled to cut their way through the Indian lines, which they did manfully. There is one more fact that we will record concerning his connection with that war. It seems that Gen. Stillman allowed the Indians to come into camp, get drunk, and sing their songs and dance, which infuriated some of the boys; and Mr. Miner leading the rest, broke guard, took their arms and routed the red-skins. Gen. Stillman ordered them to lay down their arms, but they would not do so until he gave them a promise that he would not court-martial them. Mr. Miner was married April 4, 1833, to Rachel Ward, by whom he had 9 children. Mrs. M. was born April, 4, 1813. She died April 10, 1849. He was again married Feb. 5, 1850, this time to Nancy Andrus, who was born July 30, 1819. They have 6 children,--making him the father of 15 children, viz: J. C., Aaron N. (died in army), Timothy G., John W. (fell at the battle of Stone River), Martha (wife of Dr. Bacon), Table Grove, Parkhurst R., David W., Phoebe F. and Susan H., twins, Oliver W. (dec.), Reuben A., Cyrenius (dec.), Carrie L. (dec.), Emma F. (dec.), and Olive W.