Biography - EDWARD JERRY CASPAR
A number of the leading farmers of the younger generation are carrying
on operations on property that has been brought to a state of cultivation
from wild swamp, prairie and timber land by members of their own family, and
take a justifiable pride in the fact, and among these may be mentioned
Edward Jerry Caspar, of Cache township, whose fine farm of one hundred and
thirty-four and one-half acres, located one and one-half miles west of
Belknap, is one of the productive tracts of this section. Mr. Caspar was
born on a farm one mile west of Belknap, March 24, 1883, a son of Jeremiah
and Elizabeth Jane (Sowers) Caspar.
Samuel Caspar, the grandfather of Edward Jerry, was born in North Carolina,
and came from that state to Johnson county, where he spent the remainder of
his life in agricultural pursuits and died at a ripe old age. His son, also
a native of the Tar Heel state, accompanied him to this locality, became an
extensive farmer of Johnson county, and died in 1895, at the age of
sixty-three years, owning several hundred acres of some of the best land in
Cache township. He and his wife were the parents of eleven children, of whom
five are now living, namely: Jesse Adam, David Calvin, Edward J., Mrs.
Minnie Pearl Kean and Mrs. Lulu Allen Lowry.
Edward J. Caspar was reared on the home farm and attended the district
schools of the neighborhood. Reared to the life of an agriculturist, at the
age of eighteen years he inherited a tract of seventy -one acres of land,
which he at once began cultivating, and subsequently added thereto tracts of
forty-seven and sixteen and one-half acres. Mr. Caspar belongs to that
school of agriculturists who believe in scientific conditions of the land,
and he has made a study of crop rotation and soil conditions, as well as
being an adherent of draining and tiling and the use of modern power farming
machinery. His buildings are large and substantially built, his fencing neat
and entirely competent to his needs, and the whole appearance of the
property denotes the presence of good management and enthusiastic industry.
Mr. Caspar's progressive ideas have made him in favor of any movement that
will tend to advance the interests of his community, and he may always be
found supporting the enterprises that have for their object the development
of the best resources of Cache township or Johnson county. His genial
personality has made him numerous friends in the vicinity of his home, and
he is very popular with the members of the Odd Fellows and the Modern
Woodmen of America, belonging to the lodges of both orders at Belknap.
On January 19, 1907, Mr. Caspar was united in marriage with Miss Milly May
Morgan, the daughter of William Morgan, a well-known agriculturist of
Johnson county, and one child has been born to this union: Wanda Jane, who
is two and one-half years old.
Extracted 07 Nov 2018 by Norma Hass from History of Southern Illinois, by George Washington Smith, published in 1912, volume 3, pages 1519-1520.
