Biography - Daniel Rendleman
DANIEL H. RENDLEMAN, who has lived upon his present farm for the past thirty-two years, which farm contains one hundred acres of land, is situated in section 24, Goreville Township, and was born in North Carolina in 1828. His father, John Rendleman, was a native of Cabarrus County, N. C., and was a son of Drake H. Rendleman, also of North Carolina and a farmer. About 1831 he went to Louisiana, leaving his wife and son, an only child, and resided there until his death, which occurred in 1888, when about eighty-three years old. His wife and child then lived with his father, Drake H. Rendleman.
Daniel H. when seventeen years old began to learn the blacksmith's trade, and worked at it for two years. On July 12, 1848, when he was nineteen years old, he was married to Elizabeth M. Peck, of the same place as himself. They began their married life on his mother's farm and his own little place of thirty-seven acres, running both the farm and the blacksmith shop, the latter being on his own land. They lived there for seven years, and in the meantime three sons and one daughter were born to them, one of whom, George H., died at the age of two years. They then removed to Davidson County, N. C., in 1855, and lived there for five years. In the year 1860 they removed to Johnson County Ill., to their present home, coming in true emigrant style, in a covered wagon drawn by a good team, and bringing with them a good tent. They were five weeks on the way, camping and cooking as they came. They reached Johnson County October 15, 1860. The family then consisted of Mr. Rendleman, his wife and their three children. When he started he had a shotgun and a dog, but the dog he lost in crossing a river. Besides these he had a crosscut saw and a fiddle, and other articles which were equally valuable. In money, he had $750, and with this he bought of H. M. Ridenhower eighty acres of land, with a log cabin upon it and five acres cleared. For this eighty acres he gave $200. The family lived in the little log house for four years, and then moved into a good hewed-log house, which has been their home ever since. This house has been weatherboarded outside and ceiled inside, and now is to all appearances a frame house, and fully as comfortable as if it were frame.
Our subject's wife died on the 25th of July, 1891, aged sixty-two years. She had borne him six sons and six daughters, of whom but two sons and three daughters are now living: Mary A., wife of Wilson Gower, of Tunnel Hill, and who has three sons and three daughters; A. P., a farmer and blacksmith nearby, who married Elida Evans, and who has four sons and four daughters; Thomas L., who is managing his father's farm, and who married Miss Pink Stone; they have one son and one daughter; Martha Jane, wife of Frank Hubbard, a farmer of Goreville Township, and who has two sons and one daughter; and Della May, twelve years old, at home. Mr. Rendleman has buried John L., who died at his father's house June 13, 1872, aged twenty-two years; Laeher Isabella, wife of James Harris, who died in February, 1888, at the age of twenty-three, leaving her husband and one son; Rufus M., who died May 7, 1889, a single man, aged nineteen; Julia Ann, wife of R. H. White, who died June 9, 1885, at the age of twenty-four, leaving her husband and two daughters; Josephine, wife of James Harris, who died in March, 1892, at the age of eighteen; and Winfield Scott, who died at Goreville, in April, 1892, aged thirty-three, leaving a wife, three sons, and three daughters.
Mr. Rendleman was married February 4, 1892, to Mrs. Benjamin Pritchett, nee McCormack, daughter of William D. and Martha (Moke) McCormack, the former of whom was from Virginia, and the latter from Tennessee. They came to Illinois in 1845, and died in this State, she in 1878, at fifty-six years of age, and he in 1889, when seventy-eight years old. Mrs. Rendleman lost her husband in 1889, and has buried three children: Martha McIntrieff, at four years of age; Ida Mclntrieff, at six and a-half years, and George W. Mclntrieff. She has five children living: Mary Ann Kimble, Jacob Mclntrieff, Samuel Mclntrieff, William T. Mclntrieff and Rosella Mclntrieff. Mr. and Mrs. Rendleman are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He has been a Republican all his life, and expects to be as long as he lives. He is a man of much more than ordinary talent and genius. Nature endowed him with rare mechanical ingenuity and skill, and he can repair and adjust the parts of a watch or clock or musical instrument readily and perfectly without having served an apprenticeship, except at the blacksmith trade. Had he been educated to some of the nobler professions he must have risen to a high rank. He is one of the men that revere God and love their fellow-men.
Extracted 21 Sep 2016 by Norma Hass from 1893 Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope, and Hardin Counties, Illinois, pages 272-275
