Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County,
Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of
prominent and representative citizens of the county: together with
portraits and biographies of all the presidents of the United States,
and governors of the state; Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago, IL; 1890;
page 523-524; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
Sewell Palmer Wood is a bright and talented young writer, who is
making of the Farmington Bugle a wide-awake and well managed
newspaper. He was born at Elmwood, Peoria County, February 17,
1861. His father, William H. Wood, a well-known resident of
Farmington was born in Herkimer County, N. Y., fifty-nine years
ago. He has worked at various trades, being employed at different
times as sawyer, engineer, and for seventeen years he has
superintendent of the Phelps farm at Elmwood. At present he is
superintendent of the Mound Nursery at Farmington. In early
manhood he married Hester Ann Prossor, a native of Richland County,
Ohio. He came to Farmington, December 25, 1853, when he was but
eighteen years of age. His wife had come to Elmwood Township with
her parents when she was but two years old. In young womanhood
she came to Farmington where she worked as a dressmaker and tailoress
and there met Mr. Wood and was married to him in Elmwood in 1857.
Our subject is the only living child of his parents. He is
a worthy descendant of one of the early families of the Mohawk Valley,
N. Y. His early life was spent at Elmwood, where he laid the
basis of a sound education in the public schools. At the age of
seventeen he engaged as an apprentice to R. H. Miller, editor of the
Elmwood Gazette. Thirteen months after, Mr. Miller gave up the
paper and the Gazette was given into the charge of our subject when he
was but nineteen years old, and, though so young, he displayed marked
ability in its management, and conducted it very successfully for two
and one-half years. After that he made a brief visit of one month
to Dakota, where for a short time he had charge of a paper. He
returned to Farmington in October, 1883, and then purchased the
Farmington Bugle, which had been established by Capt. J. I. Wilson in
1880. Being a young man of great energy, ability and tenacity of
purpose, our subject has made a decided success of the Bugle, having
within the past six years increased its list of subscribers from fur
hundred and eighty, to eight hundred, and has enlarged the paper to
meet the demands of the reading public. Since purchasing he has
withstood the competition of two other newspapers at Farmington, and
now has sole possession of the field.
Mr. Wood has a comfortable, wee-furnished residence in the north
part of the village. To the lady who presides over this
attractive home he was married in the month of October, 1887.
Mrs. Wood was Lura Lobaugh, and is a daughter of Dr. Lobaugh of whom
see sketch in this Biographical Album. She is a lady of marked
refinement and culture. She was born in Elmwood and laid the
foundation of her education at the Elmwood High School of which she is
a graduate, and she subsequently spent a year each in the Iowa College
at Grinnell, and at Knox College in Galesburg. She and her
husband have two children, both boys. Mr. Wood is a very
prominently identified with the I.O.O.F., as a member of Memento Lodge
No. 44, of which he is at present Secretary, and he has held various
other offices in the order ever since his connection with it. He
is also a member of the Patriarch Militant. As the editor of a
good newspaper he wields marked influence in the public and political
life of his community. He is a stanch Republican but the tenor of
the Bugle is independent as regards political matters.
