Schuyler Ransom located in the township of Nelson more than a quarter of a century ago, and since that time has
worked his way up to a leading position
among its farmers and stock-raisers. Coming here
in poverty, and by his untiring labors, conducted
systematically, with business tact and forsight,
gathering together a valuable property, the possession of which makes him one of the solid moneyed men of this vicinity, he owns a quarter of
section of land that he hass transformed into one
of the finest and best appointed farms in the
State.
Mr. Ransom was born June 25, 1822, in Vienna
Township, Oneida County, N. Y., a son of Elijah
Ransom, who was a native of Washington County,
that State. His father was reared to the life of a
farmer, and when a young man went to Oneida
County, where he was married to Miss Mary
Dunton, a native of Massachussetts. She was of
Massachusetts parentage, while he was of Welsh
descent. After marriage they began life on a
small farm in that county, living for many years
in Camden township, and when elderly people
came to Illinois, settling in Ogle County, where
the wife died a few years later when a little past
fifty years old. Her husband afterwards went to
Kansas, and died there when upwards of eighty
years of age in the home of his son, Bradley V.,
who had resided in the Sunflower State since the
days of the excitement over the discovery of gold
on Pike's Peak. The parents of our subject were
strong Presbyterians in their religious faith and
members of the church.
Schuyler Ransom early became acquainted with
the pioneer life of Northern Illinois, as he left
home when twenty years old to seek fortune's
favors in what was then regarded as the "Wild
West." He was by no means a capitalist at that
time, as he did not have money enough to leave the
State. But his cousin kindly made up the deficiency by lending him some cash. He arrived in
Chicago September 26, 1842, and from there went
to Rockford with a teamster. Fifty cents was all
the money that he had left when he got there.
He, however, made his way to Byron, in Ogle
County, nothing discouraged by his lack of funds,
and there worked for a year at $10.00 a month.
He managed to get together a team of oxen, with
which he began to break raw prairie, and he turned
many hundred acres of sod, working hard to
obtain the means to get a good start as a farmer.
He also drove a team all over the northern part
of the State, his principal route being from Chicago
to Galena and to Dubuque, Iowa. He thus had a
good opportunity to see the country while much
of it was still in its primitive wildness, with but
few signs of the coming civilization, and he can
compare its past with its present condition as a
witness of the wonderful change that has been
effected by the hand of man since he first trod
these prairies. The land over which he rode when
engaged as a teamster was then wild and often
swampy, where are now smiling farms and thriving
cities. Frequently on his journeys the roads would
be so bad that he would get stuck in some mud
hole, and at times would have to work two hours
to extricate his team.
Our subject experienced all the hardships and
trials of pioneer life in a newly settled country,
hut his struggles with the adverse forces of nature
were at length crowned with success. In 1863 he
rented a farm in Nelson Township,. and by careful
economy was able, in a few years to purchase the farm that he had rented, but did not have cash enough to pay the whole price at once.
He now has nearly the whole of it under a high state of cultivation, has cleared off the encumbrance, freeing himself entirely from debt, and has made many fine improvements, including a very large barn built in 1885, and a handsome residence, erected in 1883. His farm is one of the most attractive places in this vicintiy, everything about it being kept up to a high standard showing the presence of a master mind and hand.
1892 Portrait and Biographical Record Lee Co Pg 194
