WILLIAM F. PRESTON, a pioneer settler of Harlem Township, came to this county in September, 1838, and located a claim, which was staked out by his elder brother, Alexander M., in 1835. This brother was in Dixon when the Black Hawk War closed in 1832. Mr. Preston, a native of Ohio, was born in Gallipolis, June 19, 1819. His father, William Preston, was a native of New York, and the mother, formerly a Miss Miller, and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Alexander Miller, was born in New Jersey. Her father was a gentleman of fine talents, and one of the principal writers in the compiling of Murray’s Grammar. William Preston, after marriage removed to Ohio and located in Gallipolis, where he turned his attention to surveying and was in the service of the Government there and in portions of Michigan from 1816 to 1819. The compass which he used as well as his father before him when he was a young man is now in possession of his son and held among the precious relics of the past.

Our subject’s father came to this county when a young man, settling first at a point three and one-half miles northwest of Freeport, where he engaged in farming, and, like his father before him, was occupied in surveying through different parts of the county and laying out the public highways. He lived on the farm ten years, then abandoned active labor and moved into the city of Freeport, where he resided until his death, which took place in 1875. He was elected County Clerk in 1848, and held the office until 1852. While a resident of Ohio he taught school a number of years at Gallipolis, his first duties as a pedagogue beginning when a youth of sixteen years of age. The death of the mother was the first which occurred in Harlem Township, and took place in March, 1839. The parental family included fifteen children, ten of whom lived to become men and women. Of these only six remain; three are residents of this county, two of California and one of Texas.

The subject of our sketch was the eighth child of his parents, and nineteen years of age when he came to this county. He enjoyed the advantages of the common schools, and continued on the farm until 1848. He then caught the California fever, and took a trip across the plains in company with two brothers. They started out with ox-teams, leaving Freeport on the 6th of April and arrived at the diggings Oct. 7, 1848. He engaged in mining, and the first year cleared about $5,000. He remained on the Pacific Slope until the spring of 1851, when he returned to Stephenson County, via the Isthmus of Panama and New Orleans. It is worthy of note that Mr. Preston between coming here and going to California really footed it from West Virginia to California. He has a great reputation as a walker, and walked across the continent at Panama. He now concluded to settle down upon the farm and engaged in agriculture. In 1856 he built a steam sawmill, which he operated until 1869, at which time the mill was torn down and converted into corn cribs, and he sold the boiler and other iron work, and thereafter devoted his time mainly to raising corn. He remained in the rural districts until 1886, then retired from active labor and took up his abode in the city of Freeport, where he now proposes to enjoy the competency which he has accumulated by his industry.

Mr. Preston has been twice married. His first wife was Miss Alice Housen, who became the mother of three children. Their eldest son, William C., is a resident of California. The others were named respectively, Tecumseh S., who is also in California, and Rupert, in Nebraska. Mr. Preston was subsequently, in 1874, married to Miss Amy Brigham, who for a period of seven years had been an efficient teacher in the Freeport schools. For thirteen years prior she had taught constantly in New York and Pennsylvania. She was born in Wayne County, Pa., Oct. 15, 1832, and is the daughter of Hiram W. and Mary (Sutliff) Brigham, the father a native of Montgomery County, N. Y., and the mother of New England parentage and born in Connecticut. Mr. Brigham died Nov. 16, 1873, and Mrs. Brigham Sept. 11, 1884. Mr. and Mrs. Brigham came to Stephenson County in 1868.

Mr. Preston while living in Harlem Township served as Commissioner of Highways and Town Clerk, and was otherwise identified with local affairs. Nothing pleased him better than to note the progress and growth of his adopted county. He was particularly interested in the establishment of educational and religious institutions, and took an active part in the erection of church edifices. Religiously, he is connected with the United Brethren Church. Politically, he was in former years a stanch adherent of the Democratic party until 1885, when he allied himself to the Prohibitionists. Mrs. Preston was one of the charter members in the organization of Busy Bee Lodge, of Rebekah, I. O. O. F. She is a Good Templar and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Preston, socially, is likewise an Odd Fellow. Mr. and Mrs. Preston have one child, Ethel, a bright girl of eight years.

Contributed by Carol Parrish - Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill. (1888), p. 299 - 300