Biography - William Albright
WILLIAM HENRY ALBRIGHT, who lives on a farm of one hundred and ninety acres on section 26, and who also owns seventy acres on section 35, in Tunnel Hill Township, Johnson County, was born in 1850. His father, John C. Albright, was born in East Tennessee, September 18, 1820, and was the youngest son of Luke Albright, a Kentucky farmer, who reared four sons and two daughters, of whom John C. was the youngest. Luke Albright died on his own farm in Missouri at the age of eighty-four years, his wife having died previously, at a great age. Their children are also all deceased. The wife of John C. Albright was Letha Simmons, daughter of Wiley Simmons, a Kentucky farmer, who came to Illinois about 1835 with small means, and settled two miles east of Vienna. His first dwelling-house, built of logs scalped down in the wall, is still standing, and is preserved by his son as a relic. Mrs. Albright was born in Kentucky in 1827, and her father became a prosperous farmer in. Illinois and died on his farm, then one and a-half miles from Vienna, at nearly eiglity years of age. He left four sons and four daughters, his widow surviving him about two years and dying at nearly the same age as her husband. In her profession as midwife and nurse, she was a grand and useful old lady up to within a short time of her death. But five of her family are now living.
John C., the father of our subject and his wife settled on Government land two and one-half miles east of Goreville, where most of their children were born, and there owned at one time five hundred acres of land. William Henry is the third child and second son of a family of ten children, of whom one son, a small child, is dead, and four sons living: Lewis J., a farmer near by; Franklin P., a farmer of Williamson County; John Thaddeus, a farmer in Missouri; and James Marshall, unmarried and living in Missouri, near Cape Girardeau. The sisters are: Mary E., widow of Samuel O. McMahan, living on her farm near Parker City; Emeline, wife of James Mohler, a farmer residing south of Creal Springs; Letha Jane, wife of A. H. Bass, a farmer on the old home place; and Amanda M., wife of James Carlton, a prosperous farmer residing two and one-half miles south of Goreville.
William Henry Albright was brought up on a farm, and was educated in the common schools. He taught school one winter, but on account of failing health he gave up the profession; at that time he weighed but one hundred and thirty-four pounds, whereas he now weighs two hundred and ten pounds. He remained at home until he was married, in his twenty-fourth year in 1873, to Miss Annette Dugger, daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (McConnell) Dugger, from Calloway County, Ky., where she was born. Mr. and Mrs. Albright began married life on a forty-acre farm near the old homestead, where they lived for less than a year, and sold out and bought one hundred and eighty-five acres twoand a-half miles northeast of Goreville. After farming there for four years he again sold out and bought a farm of one hundred and fifty-five acres of his wife's father in Williamson County, for which farm was paid $3,500. Here he remained for four 3 years, when he bought out his father-in-law near Tunnel Hill, living there for five years, and then bought his present farm of one hundred and ninety acres, coming to this place in the fall of 1887. He also owns the one hundred and sixty acre tract from which he moved last. He carries on mixed fanning, and raises much good stock of all kinds; has dealt in and shipped sheep, hogs, cattle and mules for the past ten years. He keeps a flock of about one hundred sheep, Cotswold and Southdown breeds, and fifteen head of horses and mules. He always keeps a jack and a stock horse, and ships as high as one hundred and fifty cars of stock per year, but averages one carload per week. During the winter of 1889 he traveled and bought stock all winter, which was a successful enterprise.
Mr. and Mrs. Albright have lost one son, Albert, who died when one year old. They now have five sons and one daughter: William J., who is fifteen years old; Claudius, thirteen; Bertha, nine; Augustus, five; Cecil, three; and Ruel, a babe of six months. The four eldest ones are in school, and are doing well in their studies. Mr. Albright is a Master Mason and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a Democrat in politics, and is well known as an enterprising farmer and dealer in stock. He started without capital, and has become one of the most successful farmers and business men in this part of the State.
Extracted 08 May 2002 by Rick Girtman from 1893 Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, pages 340-341
