
William Henry ALBRIGHT,
wbo lives on a farm of one hundred and ninety acres on section 26, and
who also owns seventy acres on section 35, in Tunnel Hill Township,
Johnson County, was born in 1850. His father, John C. Albright, was
born in East Tennessee, September 18, 1820, and was the youngest son of
Luke Albright, a Kentucky
farmer, who reared four sons and two daughters, of whom John C. was the
youngest. Luke Albright died on his own farm in Missouri at the age of
eighty-four years,
his wife having diod previously, at a great age. Their children are
also all deceased. The wife of John C. Albright was Letha Simmons,
daughter of Wiley Simmons, a Kentucky
farmer, who came to Illinois about 1835 with small means, and settled
two miles east of Vienna. His first dwelling-house, built of logs
scalped down in the wall, is still standing,
and is preserved by His son as a relic. Mrs. Albright was born in
Kentucky in 1827, and her father became a prosperous farmer in Illinois
and died on his farm, then one and a-half
miles from Vienna, at nearly eighty years of age. He left
four sons and four daughters, his widow surviving him about two years
and dying at nearly the same age as her husband.
In her profession as midwife and nurse, she was a grand and useful old
lady up to within a short time of her death. But five of her family are
now living.
John C, the father of our subject and his wife settled on Government
land two and one-half miles east of Goreville, where most of their
children were born, and there owned at one
time five hundred acres of land. William Henry is the third child and
second son of a family of ten children, of whom one son, a small child,
is dead, and four sons living: Lewis J.,
a farmer nearby; Franklin P., a farmer of Williamson County; John
Thaddeus, a farmer in Missouri; and James Marshall, unmarried and
living in Missouri, near Cape Girardeau.
The sisters are: Mary E., widow of Samuel O. McMahan, living on her
farm near Parker City; Emeline, wife of James Mohler, a farmer residing
south of Creal Springs; Letha
Jane, wife of A. H. Bass, a farmer on the old home place; and Amanda
M., wife of James Carlton, a prosperous farmer residing two and
one-half miles south of Goreville.
William Henry Albright was brought up on a farm, and was educated in
the common schools. He taught school one winter, but on account of
failing health he gave up tho profession;
at that time he weighed but one hundred and thirty-four pounds, whereas
he now weighs two hundred and ten pounds. He remained at home until he
was married, in his twenty-fourth
year in 1873, to Miss Annette Dugger, daughter of Joseph and
Elizabeth (McConnell) Dugger, from Calloway County, Ky., where she was
born. Mr. and Mrs. Albright began married
life on a forty-acre farm near the old homestead, where they lived for
less than a year, and sold out and bought one hundred and eighty-five
acres two and a half miles northeast
of Goreville. After farming there for four years he again sold out and
bought a farm of one hundred and fifty-five acres of his wife's father
in Williamson County, for which farm was paid
$3,500. Here he remained for four years, when he bought out his
father-in-law near Tunnel Hill, living there for five yea re, and then
bought his present farm of one hundred and ninety
acres, coming to this place in the fall of 1887. He also owns the one
hundred and sixty acre tract from which he moved last. He cairies on
mixed farming, and raises much good stock
of all kinds; has dealt in and shipped sheep, hogs, cattle and mules
for the past ten years. He keeps a flock of about one hundred sheep,
Cotawold and Southdown breeds, and fifteen
head of horses and mules. He always keeps a jack and a stock horse, and
ships as high as one hundred and fifty cars of stock per year, but
averages one carload per week. During the
winter of 1889 ho traveled and bought stock all winter, which was a
successful enterprise.
Mr. and Mrs. Albright have lost one son, Albert, who died when one year
old. They now have five sons and one daughter: William J., who is
fifteen years old; Claudius, thirteen;
Bertha, nine; Augustus, five; Cecil, three; and Ruel, a babe of six
months. The four eldest ones are in school, and are doing well in their
studies. Mr. Albright is a Master Mason and a
member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a Democrat in
politics, and is well known as an enterprising farmer and dealer in
stock. He started without capital,
and has become one of the most successful farmers and business men in
this part of the State.
transcribed by Nan Starjak
Source:
The Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope and Hardin
Counties
Chicago
Biographical Publishing Co., 1893
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