Biography - Charles Deck
CHARLES S. DECK, a prominent citizen of New Burnside, Johnson County, was born at Dayton, Ohio, in 1846, to John Deck, a Pennsylvanian, and a carriage and wagon maker by trade, who came to Illinois, locating at Olney, Richland County, when Charles S. was eleven years old. He died away from home, having gone away with a drove of horses, and his widow married again and is now the wife of A. E. Banks, living near Olney. At the age of' sixteen Charles S. Deck enlisted in the Twenty-ninth Illinois Infantry, and was in Gen. Logan`s command for a time, serving through the war and being wounded twice, though not seriously.
Our subject was married to Mrs. B. R. Byrne, formerly Miss Maggie Ellsworth, a cousin of Col. Ellsworth, who was shot down at Alexandria, Va., early in the war. Mrs. Deck was born in Indiana and was left an orphan at five years of age, but was reared by Thomas DuPoyster in Illinois and Tennessee and was first married in Dyersburgh, Dyer County, Tenn., in 1852, when she was fifteen years old, to B. R. Byrne, to whom she bore ten children, nine sons and one daughter. They lived in Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky, and he died in the latter State, in Blandville, Ballard County, at the age of fifty-four years, leaving her in comfortable circumstances. She was married to her present husband, Mr. Deck, in 1875, at Ullin, Pulaski County, this State, and as a result of this union there was born one son, Charles H., who died at two years of age. Six of Mrs. Deck’s sons are still living: John P., assistant superintendent of the Oxley Stave Company, of Poplar Grove, Mo., who has a wife and five children; E. D., a young man living at Tupelo, Miss., where he is foreman in a large spoke factory; A. J., unmarried and living at Meridian, Miss., Yardmaster of a railroad; L. N., living at Thornton, Calhoun County, Ark., who is married, and is a master mechanic in a large sawmill; George B., a traveling agent for the Camden (Ark.) Stave Factory, a single man; and Joseph E., in a wholesale hardware store in Cairo, with J. B. Reed. While these men in their youth received but a limited education, yet they are bright, active and successful business men. Mrs. Deck came to New Burnside from Cairo in February, 1891.
Our subject has been greatly prospered and has bought the fine large house in which he lives, together with thirty-five acres of land under cultivation. He has been in business in the South not far from Natchez, engaged in the manufacture of lumber and shingles, and in merchandising. He is a Mason and an Odd Fellow, and a Republican of the straightest sort.
Our subject’s home has been recently visited by the Grim Messenger Death, the faithful and devoted wife departing this life January 6, 1893. She was a zealous worker with her husband in the Missionary Baptist Church, and her death is mourned by a host of friends and relatives who deeply sympathize with Mr. Deck in his bereavement.
Extracted 18 Sep 2009 by Rick Girtman from 1893 Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, page 459.
