Biographies of Lake County Residents
Biographies of Lake County Residents
Mary I. Dye
Mrs. Mary Irene Clark DYE, , reformer, born in North Hadley, Mass., 22nd March, 1837. Her parents were Philo Clark and Irene Hibbard. Her father moved his family to Wisconsin in Mary's infancy. When she was ten years of age, the family removed to Waukegan, Ill. After removal to Illinois, she was under private tutors for two years, when she entered an academy. When she was sixteen years old, there came severe financial reverses, forcing her to abandon a plan far a full course in Mount Holyoke, Mass. At that time, persuaded by a brother in charge of the village telegraph office, Mary learned telegraphy and assumed his place, having full care of the office for two years. There were but few women operators at that early day. Mrs. Dye is the only woman member of the Old Time Telegraphers' Association. She became the wife of Byron E. Dye in 1855. Of three children born to them, two survive, a daughter, and a son recently admitted to the bar. Mrs. Dye has been a widow many years and has lived in Chicago, Ill., entering into the various lines of work which the conditions of a large city present to a benevolent and public-spirited woman. Since her children have outgrown her immediate care and concern, she has devoted her time almost exclusively to philanthropic and reformatory work. She was among the first to perceive the need of the Protective Agency for Women and Children, assisting in its establishment in 1886 and serving as secretary for the first three years, and is still an active member of its board of managers. As a charter member of the Illinois Woman's Press Association, she has great satisfaction in the work accomplished for pen-women through its efforts. She is a member of the Chicago Women's Club. With the Margaret Fuller Society, established for the study of political problems, Mrs. Dye did good work. Since the formation of the Moral Educational Society, in 1882, she has been its secretary. She was among the first of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union women to see and teach that the ballot power is an essential factor in the furtherance of temperance work. When the free kindergarten system was inaugurated, Mrs. Dye's pen did good service in the interest of that charity. The placing of matrons in police stations enlisted her sympathy, and her efforts contributed much to the granting of the demand. Her persistent work toward the establishment of the summer Saturday half-holiday is known to only two or three persons, and the same is true of that labor of love, extending over many months, creating a public sentiment that demanded seats for the shop-girls when not busy with customers. Mrs. Dye believes in individual work so far as practicable. In impromptu speeches she is fluent and forcible, and on topics connected with social purity, the obligations of marriage and parenthood she is impressively eloquent. As a speaker and writer on reform subjects she is dauntless in demanding a settlement of all questions on the platform of right and justice, manifesting the "no surrender" spirit of her ancestral relative, Ethan Allen. Religious as she is reformatory in her nature, Mrs. Dye seeks the highest estimate given to spiritual things.
("American Women", Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Volume 1, 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow.)
William James Elsbury
Mr William James Elsbury, 47, was born in 1865 in Stanmoor, near Burrow Bridge, Somerset. He was the son of James and Mary Ann Elsbury. He was the brother of Sarah, Mary Jane and John. He emigrated to Gurnee, Lake County, Illinois in 1884 where he subsequently acquired a 105 acre farm. He married an American woman called Eliza and had a family of 4 children, 3 boys (one of which was Lloyd) and a girl, Bernice. The 2 eldest boys worked with him on the farm.
On 20 November 1911 he returned to Somerset on his own, to assist his younger brother, John in the winding up of his recently deceased father's financial affairs. He was due to return to Gurnee in the March of 1912, but on hearing of the maiden voyage of Titanic he decided on the new ship as his means of returning to America. He boarded the Titanic at Southampton, travelling 3rd class. He was lost in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.
There is a memorial to James on a gravestone in the Taunton area.
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/799/
Hon. Elijah M. Haines, deceased. By the life of this worthy citizen has the county been advanced, the State honored and society blessed. Without educational advantages, or wealth or influential friends, he arose by native genius and persistent application to a place among the strong men of Illinois. He sprang from the noted Haines family, the progenitor of which was John Haines who emigrated with the Rev. Edward Hooker from Essex, England, in 1633, and became Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Three years later, he went to Connecticut, was chosen the first Governor of that Colony and served each alternate year until his Icath in IGG4. Inheriting the ability and application characteristic of the family, Elijah Middlebrook Haines added a name that has made it even more glorious. He was born April 21, 1822, in Oneida County N. Y., and in his boyhood became inured to the hardship of farm life. When he was but a child, his father died and subsequently his mother again married. In 1835, the family emigrated to Illinois and after spending about a year in Chicago and Joliet, arrived in Lake County in May, 1836. A claim was taken where Hainesville is now located and the task of making a farm begun. The death of the stepfather left young Elijah the main dependence of the family. With a manliness seldom found in one so young, he faithfully performed his part. His education had been meagre but in connection with his labors he found time for reading and private study. Thus he prepared himself for teaching, and in the winter of 1841-42, became master of the first school in Little Fort. Subsequently he turned his attention to land surveying, and in this capacity his services proved of great value in opening roads, establishing lines, etc In 1846 he platted the village of Hainesville, which still bears his name. Soon after attaining his majority, Mr. Haines was elected School Commissioner for the county and a few years later was chosen Justice of the Peace. This gave him experience in a new field. His mind, with a natural legal aptitude, grasped readily all questions of law and after reading such text books as he could obtain he was admitted to the bar in 1851. The following year he removed to Waukegan. His experience as a Justice of the Peace led him to prepare a treatise on the law and practice of these tribunals which has become standard through-out the State. His "Township Organization," a compilation of the law with practical forms and instructions for putting it in working operation, has been the guide in the administration of town affairs, not only in Illinois but in many of the surrounding states. His consummate ability as an advocate soon brought him to the first rank in his profession. A man well posted in public affairs and an active spirit in caucus and convention, Mr. Haines was soon called by the popular voice to represent the people in the State Legislature. He was first sent to the lower house of that body in 1859 and for eight terms filled the position with credit to himself and with satisfaction to his constituency. During two terms, he was honored with the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives and his intimate knowledge and skillful application of parliamentary law gave him a prominence and influence that few speakers have enjoyed. His extensive knowledge, perfected by experience, was embodied in a work on parliamentary law that is recognized as among the highest authorities. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1869 and 1870, and had much to do with shaping our present organic law.
Mr. Haines' literary labors were quite extensive. The indigenous races of North America presented a wide field of research in which he took great interest. Studying the character, language and traditions of the principal tribes, he acquired by personal research a fund of ethnological and archeological information that furnished materials for an elaborate work on '"The American Indian" that condenses in a single volume of eight hundred pages a library of valuable knowledge on this interesting subject. He founded the Lake County Patriot, a weekly newspaper that has attained the respectable age of almost half a century, and the Legal Adviser, published in Chicago, the oldest law newspaper, with a single exception, that now sees the light in the republic in the village that bears his name. Mr. Haines was married August 18, 1845, to Melinda Griswold, daughter of Amos Wright, a branch of the family that gave to the commonwealth of New York her most eminent Senator, Silas Wright. She was born in Herkimer County, February 18, 1827, and died in Waukegan June 28, 1881, leaving two children, John Charles Haines, a lawyer of Seattle, Wash., and Frances, now the wife of Andre Matteson, who continues the publishing business left by her father. On April 25, 1889, the Hon. Elijah M. Haines passed to his rest. His death was a calamity to Waukegan and to the commonwealth in whose legislative council he has served so ably and so long. Few men have left upon the record of their time a more enduring stamp of a strong individuality. Though in political opinions classed with the Dempcratic party school, Mr. Haines was more noted for personal independence than for party fealty. So great was his influence among men of all party rulors that in a strong Republican legislative district no adverse candidate of any party name was ever able to overcome his majority. A man of strong, positive and aggressive character, such was his astuteness and knowledge of men that be made himself the parliamentary commander of a legislative assembly without a party majority behind him. His phenomenal genius for parliamentary contest was equaled by few and transcended by none. In the practice of his profession he was not only just and honorable, but noble. He look more delight in seeing men settle, their difficulties without wasting their substance, in lawsuits than in securing a large fee. The cause of the poor and oppressed, he often espoused without the hope of pecuniary reward. His name will emblazon the pages of history and his memory will be enshrined in the hearts of future generations.
Source: "Portrait and Biographical Album of Lake County, IL", pub. 1891 - Transcribed by K. Torp
John D. Pope
Pope, John Dudley, educator, lawyer and statesman of Lincoln, Neb., was born Dec. 28, 1856, near Waukegan, Ill. He has been a member of the Nebraska state senate.
[Source: "Herringshaw's American Blue-Book of Biography" by Thomas William Herringshaw and American Publishers' Association, 1914 -- TK - Transcribed by FOFG]
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