Skinner, John 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 461, Astoria Township
John Skinner, coal operator, is a native of Scotland, where he was born in 1844, and passed his childhood and youth and grew to manhood. Attaining his majority he crossed the ocean for the New World, and first set foot in New York city during March 1865. He went to Pa. and began life as a miner, then went to Cleveland, Ill., and in 1870 came to Astoria, where his practical mind grasped the fact that coal of a superior quality existed in abundance, and with uncommon energy, and he, in connection with Mr. W. H. Emerson, soon became coal shippers. In 1876 he was united in marriage to Mrs. Sarah E. Rosia, a widow of John B. Rosia.
submitted by Carla Finley