MARTIN H. ENNOR, a gentleman in good circumstances, widely and favorably known throughout Apple River Township and vicinity, has been connected with the mining industries of this county and the Lake Superior regions for the past forty-five years. He was born in Cornwall County, England, Aug. 22, 1827, and was the ninth of ten children – four sons and six daughters, the offspring of Benjamin and Ann (Harrison) Ennor, who were also natives of that county. The father was by occupation a copper and tin miner, as were also the male members of the mother’s family.

The maternal grandfather of our subject, Peter P. Harrison, was killed in the copper mines of Cornwall in middle life. Mrs. Ann Ennor, the mother of our subject, he remembers as a brunette of a little below the medium stature, very cheerful in disposition and a woman of great physical endurance, living to be ninety-two years old, which was also the age of the maternal grandmother at the time of her death. Martin, in his turn, seems to have inherited largely his mother’s constitution, and, although in the sixty-second year of his age, having been born Aug. 22, 1827 (Monday, at 10 P.M.), has scarcely seen a day’s sickness in his life, with the exception of a short siege of the typhus fever while in Australia. He has, by the way, been a great traveler, and visited several portions of the globe.

The father of our subject died in Cornwall County, England, about 1842. The education of Martin was quite limited and received in the National school of England. At an early age he began to assist his father in the mines, washing copper and tin when a boy of nine years. When fourteen years old he began to work underground, and at the age of eighteen was a full-fledged miner. At this time three of his brothers and one sister emigrated to America, the brothers locating in the mining regions of this county, near Galena. They sent home to England glowing descriptions of life in the New World, and in 1844 our subject determined to follow them. Bidding adieu to his parents and friends, he embarked at Liverpool on the sailing-vessel “Hottenger,” which landed him safely in New York City on the 1st of July following, after a six-weeks’ voyage. He spent the 4th of that month in the young and very unimportant city of Chicago, where were received his first solid impressions of the American people. The leading feature in the celebration of that day was noise.

Our subject in due time joined his brothers at Galena, engaged in mining, and was successful from the start. In 1847 he went to the copper regions of Lake Superior, where he sojourned a period of three years, returning in 1850 to Galena, and remained here one year. He then set out, in May, 1851, for Australia, going by stage to Chicago, thence by rail to New York City, and there embarked on the sailing-vessel “Tyrolinta” for Australia, via Rio Janerio, at which point they sojourned four weeks. Thence, via the Cape of Good Hope, Mr. Ennor reached Melbourne, and from there seventy miles to Castlemaine. He and others were obliged to pay at the rate of $500 per ton for having their luggage posted thither. He sojourned in Australia three years, and he and his chum, Francis Hall, have made as high as $600 a day in surface mining. During a stay of three years and four months in Castlemaine, Australia, he came in contact with all kinds of men from all parts of the globe, and gained much useful information in regard to the customs of different nationalities. He, for the most part, enjoyed good health in Tasmania, although suffering for a time from extreme exposure. Thence he returned to England to visit his mother – then a lady of eighty years – and the old home in Cornwall County. He returned to his family in Galena in the spring of 1855.

On the 10th of November, 1849, Mr. Ennor was married to Miss Alice Ennor, daughter of William Ennor, now a gentleman of eighty-three years, and who was at one time considered the wealthiest citizen of this region. Mrs. Ennor was born in Cornwall County, England, in the year 1833, and was brought by her parents to America when a child of two years. Seven years later they came to this county. Of her marriage with our subject there were born eight children, namely: William D., Grace, Martin (an infant who died), Martin H., John Albert, Joseph Franklin, Princess Alice, and Joseph Franklin 2d. Mr. Ennor after his return carried on mining, as before, one mile south of Warren. In 1881 he transferred his operations to the silver and copper Cliff Mine on the Eagle River, Michigan, and held the position of foreman for the Boston & Pittsburgh Company. During the last eight years he has made three trips to that region.

Personally, Mr. Ennor is regarded as a very excellent man, one filled with generous impulses, with the faculty not only of making warm friends, but of keeping them. He is very firm and decided in his views, and a Democrat, politically, of the first water. He notes with interest the vast improvement in mining machinery, and nothing new escapes his eye. His large experience has been of inestimable benefit, and he has improved his opportunities in all directions for the acquiring of useful knowledge. James Charlton, the present Justice of the Peace of Apple River, remarks: “He is the most exact man I ever saw; his description of countries and places he has visited are given so graphically that I have been led to look up several points in regard to them, and find that his descriptions are authentic – both historically and geographically. His chronology is particularly exact, and his ability to remember names and places is simply remarkable.”

Although Mr. Ennor has made thousands of dollars, he does not consider himself by any means a rich man, for he has reared and educated a large family, and in his dealings with men has not only been just, but generous.

Transcribed & Contributed by Carol Parrish - Portrait and Biographical Album of Jo Daviess and Carroll Counties, Illinois (1889), p. 494