As you walk towards the town from the station, you will notice a low brick house with a hall running through, and an entrance, front and back. This was the residence of Samuel Happer, who came from Washington county, Pa., in 1841, and formed a partnership with John D. Mcllvaine, carrying on a store and doing a forwarding business for many years. Their old brick warehouse along the river bank disappeared long ago. Mr. Happer was married to Miss Sarah Curry, of Allegheny county, Pa., who was born in July, 1816. She is the oldest survivor of the Albany pioneers, and makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. E. W. Payne, in Morrison. Except a partial cleafness, Mrs. Happer is in fair health. This low brick dwelling was built in 1848, and Dean S. Efner, a mason, laid the brick.

While we are on the river bank or levee, as St. Louis would say. lot us go down the river, and take a look at what remains of the Eagle hotel built by William S. Barnes, who settled in lower Albany in 1839, and soon afterwards erected the hotel. It was a welcome hostelry for stage and river passengers, and was a commodious inn for those days. The fearful tornado of 1860 wrecked the larger part, leaving the section still standing. This is about 25 feet long with four windows upstairs, and is now a boarding house. Mr. Barnes was the first supervisor of the township, an active Mason, and held in high esteem. He was born in Woodstock, Vt., 1808, and died in 1872. The old hotel was frame.

Mcllvaine, Happer & Co. were hustlers, as the saying is, doing a large business in various lines. From an advertisement in a Sterling Times of 1854, they carry a full stock of dry goods, groceries, clothing, hardware, glass, paints, and lumber at the steam saw mill. In another paragraph appears this notice: Wanted 173,000 bushels of grain. Mcllvaine, Happer & Co., grocers, general merchants, and produce dealers. Half a mile up the river is a tall chimney stack, and rubbish near it, the ruins, as the writer was told, of a steam saw mill. It is along the railroad coming from Fulton. One is reminded of the obelisk at On, near Cairo, which also stands alone on the sand, once a center of Egyptian civilization.

In this ancient Barnes hostelry we met a grizzled veteran who with his family has made a cheerful home that belies the desolate exterior. An inviting dinner was smoking on the table at our noon call. Perry Langford born in 1835 in Fulton county, came to Albany in 1849, and enlisted in Company F, 93d Illinois infantry. He was three years in the service, was at the Grand Review in Washington in 1865, and saw Grant tip his hat, but refuse to shake hands with Halleck. He has two framed relics which he prizes. A commission to his father, Asa Langford, by Gov. John Reynolds, as captain in Black Hawk war, 1832, and one to Thomas Langford, as second lieutenant, 1833. Both signed at Vandalia, the early capital of the state.

An agreeable call upon Miss Frances D. Barnes, the oldest of the eight children of W. S. Barnes. Her brothers, Henry and Charles, were veterans, Henry in 93d Illinois, Charles in 147th Illinois. Three of the children are dead. Mr. Barnes was a schoolmate of the famous sculptor, Hiram Powers, who was three years older. In fact, they sat on the same seat. It was the Greek Slave in 1843, that gave Powers his world-wide reputation. Singular to say. they died almost in the same year, Barnes in 1872, Powers in 1873, in Florence, Italy. Mr. Barnes was an invalid six years before he died, and he remarked one day when the sculptor was on a visit to America, "If Hiram knew how sick I am, he would come to see me." Indeed, W. S. Barnes must have been more than an ordinary pioneer with qualities of mind and heart to commend him to the friendship of eminent men. He was one of Whiteside's representative citizens. When Gov. Oglesby was in Morrison, he was invited to take dinner with him. He was on intimate terms with E. B. Washburne. He was sent to Springfield when the removal of the county seat from Sterling was in consideration. Very energetic in business, he opened the first general store in Albany, and the Eagle hotel was the headquarters for travel between Chicago, Galena, Rock Island and Peoria. Those were the golden days of the Frink and Walker stage line, lightning express, four lines a day of four-horse coaches. A horse ferry was in operation across the Mississippi. When there was a strong adverse wind in March the ferry could not run. Frances Barnes says she was a schoolmate of the late Mrs. John AVhallon. formerly Martha Millikan, and a pioneer teacher. Although in her seventy-seventh year, Miss Barnes talks as fluently and correctly as a Vassar girl of twenty.

Transcribed by Christine Walters
Source: History Whiteside County IL. From Its Earliest Settlement to 1908 By William W. Davis M.A. The Pioneer Publishing Co.