Mr. Roush started out on his journeyings when a young man twenty years old, traveling first from Stephenson County, Ill., to Texas, thence to Shreveport, La., and from thence on foot to Corsicans, Tex., a distance of nearly 300 miles. There he worked for a time as a carpenter, and also engaged in training horses, to which he seemed peculiarly adapted. In the fall of the year he purchased a pair of ponies, and driving them through the Indian Territory, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, finally landed in this county, where he concluded to take up his future abode.

Our subject, who is the son of Michael Roush, of Pennsylvania, was born April 17, 1840. His grandfather, also a native of the Keystone State, was a descendant of German and French ancestry, and a tanner and gunsmith by occupation. He spent the greater part of his life in Centre County, Pa., and reared a family of sons and daughters. Michael, the father of our subject, learned the trade of a tanner when quite young, and also took up the gunsmith business, operating the two together in his native county until 1849. He then disposed of his interest in that locality, and accompanied by his wife and eight children, started overland for Illinois. They were equipped with a two-horse team, and carried with them their provisions and cooking utensils, camping by the wayside, and sleeping in the wagon at night. Their destination was this county, and they spent the first winter at Buena Vista, removing in the spring to West Point Township, where Michael Roush entered a tract of Government land, located on section 21. He established his family in one of the nearest houses in that locality, and commenced the improvement of his purchase, the same year putting up a good frame house. He did not live, however, to carry out his plans, his death taking place six years later, in December, 1855. He had laid the foundations for a comfortable home for his family, and the mother kept her children together as well as she could during the years that intervened before they were able to take care of themselves. They all lived to mature years: Amelia became the wife of Daniel Grinn, and is living in Orangeville; Cornelius died in 1887, when sixty-one years of age; Lovina married George Bordner, and lives in Freeport; Joseph is engaged in carpentering at Chanute, Kan.; Rosetta is the wife of M. L. Howard, of Lena; Mary E. died when an interesting girl of seventeen years; George S., of our sketch, was the seventh born; Samuel died when seventeen years old.

Our subject was a boy nine years of age when his parents came to this State. He remembers many incidents connected with the overland journey, and the subsequent life in a new country. He was but fifteen years old when his father died, and rallied bravely to the assistance of his mother, assuming the management of the homestead the following year. He had improved his opportunities for education, and not long after leaving school, commenced teaching in order to add to the income of the family. He was thus employed until the outbreak of the Civil War, and then decided to assist in the preservation of the Union. Not long after the first call for troops, he enlisted in Co. B, 46th Ill. Vol. Inf., and followed the fortunes of his regiment until the close of the conflict. He was present at the battles of Ft. Donnelson, Shiloh, the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg, and also at Ft. Blakesley, and met the enemy in many minor engagements. He was mustered in as private, and at the battle of Shiloh was promoted First Sergeant, then Second Lieutenant, and then First Lieutenant. In June, 1865, very much against his inclinations, he was compelled to resign on account of ill-health, and returned home. The war, however, had now practically ended, but it would have suited him much better could he have remained and marched back under the banner of victory with his comrades.

After his retirement from the army, Lieut. Roush associated himself with his brother Cornelius in the drug and grocery business in Lena until April, 1866, then started with a mule team for the Territory of Montana. After arriving at Helena, he prospected and mined in that vicinity for two and one-half years, and afterward became clerk in a general store for eighteen months. In the spring of 1870, he started homeward by stage and the Missouri River to Sioux City, and then availed himself of the railroad which brought him to Lena. We, however, soon find him in Iowa, in charge of the telegraph repair department on the line of the Illinois Central Railroad. He was thus employed until 1880, when he resigned his position, and going to Dakota, provided himself with carpenter tools, and erected the first store building which was ever put up in Chamberlain. The town of Chamberlain, which was started through his assistance and encouragement, was located fifty miles from the nearest railroad, and while his store was being built, Mr. Roush sold goods from a tent, his customers being mostly Indians. Three months of this life was sufficient, and disposing of his stock of goods, he returned to the borders of civilization, and resumed his old position with the Illinois Central. A year later he threw this up, and coming to Lena, again became the partner of his brother Cornelius, and they established the flour, feed and coal business, in which they continued together until the death of Cornelius, May 4, 1887. Mr. Roush then purchased the interest of the latter, and is now operating alone. He is a general favorite in business circles, his genial disposition and the interesting fund of information from which he often draws an incident or an anecdote, constituting him an interesting companion, whose society is often sought by those whose opportunities for seeing the world have been more limited.

Mr. Roush was married when over thirty years of age, in September, 1872, the lady of his choice being Miss Margaret Wilson, a native of Baltimore, Md. The children of this union are two daughters, Jessie and Lucy, who still remain under the home roof. Mr. Roush is a true-blue Republican, politically, and socially is one of the favorites of the William R. Goddard Post No. 258, G. A. R., being Past Commander. In the Masonic fraternity he belongs to Lena Lodge No. 174.

Contributed by Carol Parrish from Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill. (1888), p. 689