William Benneson was a lawyer. His first partner was Stephen A. Douglas. Theirs was the first law office in Quincy. Mr. Benneson had served as clerk of the circuit court. After Mr. Douglas went on the bench, Mr. Benneson was identified with several of the leading lawyers of Illinois. When the civil war broke out he was made Colonel of the Seventy-eighth Illinois. After the war, he resumed his practice. He was made postmaster of Quincy by President Johnston. He died in 1899 at the age of eighty-one years. Like his brothers, Colonel Benneson was a man of the strictest integrity.

The Brothers, David and Dennis Higgins, came to Quincy before 1840. Both were successful contractors in railroad building and street grading and became property holders. David died several years ago at a ripe age, leaving sons and daughters. Dennis died in 1904 at the age of ninety-two, and although married he had no children. Both brothers were devout Catholics. David was a staunch Democrat and Dennis equally as staunch a Republican. They were good citizens.

James Fisher was born in 1811 near Londonderry, Ireland, and with two sisters came to Quincy in 1833. They were strict Presbyterians. Mr. Fisher was a successful dry goods merchant and died wealthy while attending to his business at his store in 1898, at the age of eighty-eight. He had three sons, who are now doing business at Kansas City and other places in the West. Mr. Fisher’s sisters never married. Both are now dead.

William B. Powers was born at Temple, New Hampshire, of Irish descent. He came to Quincy in 1838; was a brickmason and followed that trade for several years, then entered into partnership with Matthew B. Finlay in the clothing business, where he accumulated much wealth. After the death of Governor Wood, the beautiful Woodland Cemetery was neglected and commenced to run down. Mr. Powers organized the Woodland Cemetery Association, of which he was chosen president, and soon restored that sacred garden of the dead to its former position, the most beautiful cemetery in the West. He died in 1895 at the age of eighty-four years. Only one son, W. C. Powers, survived him, and he is now a retired merchant.

The Shannahan Brothers, John, William and Patrick, born in Waterford County, Ireland, came to Quincy before 1840. They were all successful railroad builders and constructed roads in all parts of the country. In 1852 they built sections of the Iron Mountain Railroad in Missouri. They constructed the Northern Cross Railroad between Quincy and Clayton. Had contracts on the Hannibal and St. Joseph road, and the Quincy, Alton and St. Louis road. John and William lived to a ripe age. Patrick survived them. He died in 1895 at the age of eighty-four years, leaving three sons, James P., Richard and William, and four daughters, all in Quincy except William, who is in California. John Shannahan had two sons, but William had none. A brother, Thomas, came from Ireland in 1851.

John Burns, Sr., was born in Maine of Irish parents and came to Quincy in 1834 with a family of several sons. He was a man of strong religious convictions and a hater of slavery. John Burns, Jr., went to California in 1849 and became a prominent man of that state. George W. Burns went with his brother, but returned after one year and engaged in the mercantile business in the town of Payson, eighteen miles south of Quincy, where his father was then residing. In 1854 he returned to Quincy, and in company with John Wood, Jr., engaged in the flour milling business. In 1862 he was appointed paymaster in the army with the rank of Major, and was captured on the Red River and held for three months. He was elected a state senator in 1874. In 1880, he went again to California, where in a gallant effort to catch a team of runaway horses attached to a carriage containing ladies, he was killed on the streets of Sacramento. Major Burns inherited a brave and generous disposition to risk his own life to save that of others, as shown by the brave conduct of his father in saving and protecting the noted Doctor Nelson, the most brilliant man among the early pioneers. Dr. David Nelson was born in Tennessee. He was a friend of Andrew Jackson and served under him as surgeon during the war of 1812. He had been an infidel, but was converted and became an ardent advocate of Christianity. He was an extensive slave holder and moved with them to Missouri, near Palmyra, eighteen miles west of Quincy. He was a kind and humane master and soon caused a bitter feeling against himself among his slave holding neighbors by persisting in teaching his negroes to read and write and giving them religious instruction in defiance of a law then existing forbidding the teaching of negroes. He attempted to found a college at Palmyra, and had books shipped to him from the East. Upon opening one of the boxes, it was found that not being quite full of books, it had been filled with anti-slavery pamphlets, by some eastern man who knew his desires to educate and uplift the blacks. The knowledge of the receipt of the pamphlets spread like wild-fire among the slave holders, who determined to take his life. The Doctor was spirited away by his friends and hid in a cave, where he wrote the first chapter of his great work on “Infidelity,” while his enemies were scouring the country for him, with all of the roads guarded and every supposable means of escape cut off. His friends implored him to come to Quincy. Making his way through a heavy forest, he arrived at midnight on the west bank of the Mississippi River opposite Quincy, where John Burns and other friends were to meet him and row him across. While waiting at the edge of the forest for his friends to appear, with the wide sweeping river before him and the lights of Quincy on the opposite shore, he composed that beautiful hymn, “The Shining Shore”:

When Burns and his friends arrived with boats, they informed him that a number of infuriated slave holders were on the other side, determined to seize him and bring him back to Missouri. To avoid them, they rowed up the river twenty miles before crossing to Illinois, then quietly brought him down, overland, to Quincy. Several efforts were afterwards made to retake Doctor Nelson to Missouri, but John Burns and his loyal friends vigilantly guarded him until the bitter feeling subsided and died out. In Quincy Doctor Nelson established one of his four institutes to educate young men for Christian Missionaries, in which he spent all of his own means besides much money raised by him in the East. He died poor, at the age of fifty-one, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery, where friends have erected a large granite monument to his memory. He left only a daughter, a Mrs. Rose Clapp, who, if living, is now in California. One of John Burns’ daughters is in Quincy, Mrs. Schermerhorn. Miss Julia Burns, long a school teacher here, is now employed in the Treasury Department at Washington.

Samuel Hopkins Emery, D. D., born at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1815, died in Taunton, Massachusetts, October fifth, 1901, was a Manx and Irish Celt. His father was John Emery, who traced back to John Emery of Newbury, Massachusetts, who, with his brother Arthur, came to America from Ramsey, Isle of Man, England, in 1635. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Welch of New Hampshire, who commanded a regiment under Washington during the war for American freedom. Doctor Emery graduated at Amherst College, a classmate of Henry Ward Beecher. He was one of the brainy Americans, who made their age and time famous for high thought and culture. He came to Quincy as pastor of the First Congregational Church in 1855, at the height of the formative thought that lifted the Republic out of the black slime of human slavery and made of it in deed, as well as name, what their fathers of 1776 meant it should be, a real land of the free and home of the brave. Doctor Emery remained in Quincy fifteen years, during which time he endeared himself to all by a kind and generous nature and an untiring interest in the public welfare. During the war there were three military hospitals in Quincy, crowded with sick and wounded soldiers brought up the river on boats from the frontier. Doctor Emery was the army chaplain in charge. He comforted and cheered as few men could, the sick and wounded, especially those on whose brows the cold hand of death was laid, because his heart was in the cause of the country for which they were suffering and dying. Early in the war, he aided in organizing two patriotic bands of Quincy women devoted to the relief and comfort of soldiers, not only in his own hospitals, but on the fields everywhere. They were known as the “Needle Pickets” and “The Good Samaritans,” among whom were Mrs. Governor Wood, Mrs. Anna McFadon, Mrs. Robert Benneson, Mrs. Anna McMahon, Miss Ella Carrott and Mrs. Finlay, the wives and daughters of Irish pioneers. Those consecrated women devoted their time and strength and means to furnish supplies for the hospitals at home and on the fields of conflict. They commenced their work early, scraping lint and rolling bandages, and remained active until the close of the war. They organized an “Old Folks” concert company that gave entertainment in cities in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. They sent nurses to the front. They held a fair in Quincy that continued two weeks and netted them $36,000. With the consent of President Lincoln, they sent Doctor Emery to visit the hospitals in the South and report on their condition. The following is a copy of his pass or authority:

“War Department, Washington, D. C., April 13, 1862.

“Ordered; That permission be given to the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery of Quincy, Ill., to pass within the lines of the United States forces to Savanna, Tennessee, and wherever the sick and wounded soldiers of the United States may be, together with any ladies and gentlemen that may be in his company, for the purpose of affording care and attendance to the sick and wounded. The quartermasters and commissaries will afford them transportation when required and all officers and persons in the service or employment of the United States will afford them courtesy, assistance and protection.

The Illinois Sanitary Fair, which was held in mammoth tents which covered Washington Park at Quincy, Illinois, attracted the attention of the nation. One of the things offered by them at auction was a book of autographs signed for the occasion by some of the most distinguished men and women of the time. The one from James Russell Lowell was accompanied by the following note and verses:

“I couldn’t send a bare signature to a state which has sent 200,000 men to fight the battles of us all and whose regiments bear on their tattered flags the names of our most glorious victories.

“Cambridge, Mass., October, 1864.”

No grave of all the millions who maintained the Union cause on or off the battlefield deserves to be more gratefully remembered and strewn with flowers each recurring Memorial Day than that which in Taunton, Massachusetts, contains the remains of the patriotic Quincy Chaplain, Dr. S. Hopkins Emery. At the time of Doctor Emery’s death, his two sons were among the most prominent business men in Quincy, S. H. Emery, Jr., was vice-president and manager of the Straw Board Paper Company; J. W. Emery is president of one of our largest stove foundries, and father of an interesting, growing family. S. H. Emery, Jr., died shortly after his venerable father, leaving only a daughter, Mrs. Ellis, surviving him.

George Brophy came from Kilkenny, Ireland. He was an assistant in the county clerk’s office for many years. In 1868 he was himself elected as clerk and by repeated elections held the office for twenty-four years. He had but one son, who died at about the age of thirty years, and two years before the death of his father. His only daughter is the wife of Duke Schroer, now one of the editors of the Quincy Journal.

John Lawless was born in Stafford County, Virginia, June 20, 1795. His father was John Lawless of Irish blood and a slave holder. He served all through the Revolutionary War and was wounded at the battle of Cowpens. His mother was a Scotch lady. She was a devout Catholic and also a doctor who practised a little. The subject of our sketch, while still a boy, moved to Kentucky with his mother’s parents, where he received a common school education. On February 24, 1820, he married Margaret Skirvin, a devout Baptist, and settled in Grant County, Kentucky, on a farm. In 1835, with a family of seven children, they came to Adams County, Illinois, and settled on a farm twelve miles northeast of Quincy, where his descendants are still living. It required four weeks to come in an ox-wagon from Kentucky to Quincy. After coming to Adams County, three more children were born to them. John Lawless was a model pioneer. He was a fine rifle shot and enjoyed the use of a gun. He was a very successful farmer; a good business man; an excellent hand to write deeds and legal documents for his friends and neighbors. He was a consistent Old School Baptist. He died May 13, 1865. All of his ten children grew to maturity. Like their father, all may well be considered western pioneers. His oldest son, Henry Harrison, died at the age of twenty-one; Mary Ann, the second child, is still living at the age of eighty-six years at Columbus, Illinois. She was married in 1846 to William Judy, who died a year later. A son, William H., was born to them. Her daughter-in-law and three children are living in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Elizabeth Jane Lawless, born December 8, 1824, was married to John P. Yeargain April 9, 1849, and died April 15, 1899. Her descendants number thirty-two. John Quincy Lawless, born December 1, 1826, was married to Elizabeth Pearce, February 26, 1863. Both are living in Columbus, Illinois. They have two sons and two daughters, all married, and five grandchildren. William Conrad Lawless was born in 1828, and was married February 1, 1855, to Mary Ann Pierce. He died February 15, 1898. Their descendants, including sons and daughters, number twenty-six. Sarah Margaret Lawless was married to John Lummis, February 26, 1852. She still lives at Paloma, Illinois, a widow. She has eight children and twenty-three grandchildren. Thomas Lawless was born March 21, 1834; died February 28, 1897. He married Annie M. Ferguson, in 1874. They have three sons, a daughter-in-law and one grandchild. Susannah Lawless, born March 18, 1836, died November 25, 1876. She married James R. McBroom October 10, 1855. Their living descendants number twenty-eight. James Sanford Lawless lives on the farm where he was born seventy-one years ago. He married Clara Ferguson in 1871. They have seven children; two of them are married. Oliver Perry, the youngest, born July 20, 1841, married Margaret Gutherie, March 10, 1864. This branch numbers twenty-one. They have all followed farming, taking up much of their lands in a wild state when of but little value. They broke out the prairie sod, fought their way through the hardships known only to the early settler, and are now turning over these farms in a high state of cultivation to their children. But, better than this, they are leaving an example in their lives, which is worthy of imitation. The third generation numbers eighty-five. The most active of all at the present time running in age from children to sixty years of age. They represent various avocations of life, but the greater part are farmers. There are seventy-nine of the fourth generation, scattered among five states, and seven of the fifth generation, a total of one hundred and eighty-four. Very few families have held together so long in residence and association; comparatively few are living outside of Adams County, and those who are keep in close touch with the rest. On the twenty-first day of August, 1909, the Lawless family held a reunion at Columbus. It was the largest gathering of this kind ever held in Adams County. The Lawless family of Adams County and its branches are the only ones known in the West. It is known prominently still in Virginia.

Oan Piggott, father of the writer, came from near Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1844, with two sons and two daughters by a first marriage and one son by a second marriage. He came via New Orleans to St. Louis, Missouri. William was the oldest son. He was a steamboat mate on the lower Mississippi and was killed in the Confederate service during the civil war, as an officer in an Arkansas regiment. Michael, the next son, learned the bricklayers’ trade in St. Louis, and at the age of twenty moved to Quincy, where he commenced business for himself as a builder. When the war commenced, he enlisted in the Union Army in Company “F,” Birge’s sharpshooters, subsequently known as the Fourteenth Missouri Infantry, and finally as the Sixty-sixth Illinois Infantry, commanded by Col. Patrick E. Burk of St. Louis, Mo. At Fort Donaldson, he was promoted as Captain of his company. In February, 1864, his company reënlisted. On the fourteenth day of the following May, he lost a leg at the battle of Resace, Georgia, where Burk was killed. The older of the two girls, Honora, entered a Catholic convent at St. Louis, and died in 1865. The younger, Mary, died in St. Louis in 1847 from cholera. James, the youngest son, a stove moulder by trade, died at Louisville, Kentucky, since the civil war. Two children by the second marriage were born in St. Louis, Richard and Sarah, both now living, Richard in St. Louis, and Sarah in Calaway County, Missouri, the wife of Christopher Connell, a prosperous farmer. Richard served with Price in the Confederate service, until captured at the battle of Iuka, Mississippi, in 1863. Oan Piggott died on a farm in Warren County, Missouri, in 1876.

The Flynn, Kirby and Larkin families are well represented by grandsons, now able managers of the J. J. Flynn Company, extensive manufacturers of carbonated waters, syrups and extracts in Quincy.

To Joseph W. Stewart, son of the pioneer William Stewart, Sr., the State of Oregon is indebted for the scientific development of its fruit interests at Medford. It is said that every fruit tree in Oregon is a monument to the memory of Joseph Stewart. His brother William is a scientific fruit grower near Quincy and resides in the city.

The grandsons of these early pioneers are now forging their way to the front in the professions and in business. In the forties, a poor widow, by the name of Wall, came to Quincy, with two children, a boy and a girl. After coming from Ireland, she and her husband located at Baltimore, Maryland, where her children were born. There with her brother, who was a Welch, her husband commenced contracting in the building of railroads, moving west with the roads. They reached Danville, Illinois, where her husband died and left her in very poor circumstances financially. She came with her children to Quincy and raised both to respectable positions in society. The boy, who was named Edmond Wall, is now nearly seventy years of age and a bookkeeper for a tobacco manufacturing company. He is the father of four sons; the oldest is John E., a member of the law firm of Wilson & Wall. He is an eloquent advocate and has the promise of a great political future. J. W. Wall, a brother, is the active manager of the Gardner Governor Company, the largest institution of its kind, perhaps, in the world, and he has two younger brothers as assistants.

A grandson of an Irishman, C. B. McCrory, is judge of our County or probate court, while Erde Beatty, also a grandson of an Irishman, is clerk of our Circuit Court, and William Smith, another grandson, is an assistant clerk in the County Court. Major George W. Green, of Chicago, is the grandson of John McDade, a soldier of 1812. Major Green is the head of a large lumber company in Chicago. He was major of the Seventy-eighth Illinois Infantry during the civil war and was severely wounded. He is a prominent member of the Loyal Legion. The grandsons of Timothy Castle are successful managers of the Comstock Castle Stove Company in Quincy, Keokuk and other cities.

Barney Corrigan, with his wife and ten children, came to Quincy in 1840 from Tyrone County, Ireland. In 1843 he settled on a farm southeast of the city, purchased from a soldier of 1812 an Irishman by the name of Constantine Clark. His children all married after coming to America, and had large families, excepting Edward, who died a few years after his arrival. The old homestead is still in the family, having passed from Barney Corrigan to his son James, who raised a family of seven sons and two daughters. James occupied the farm for fifty-three years, and at his death it passed to his son Daniel, whose brother, James B. Corrigan, has been Treasurer of Adams County for two terms of four years and deputy treasurer for several terms.

Among the steamboats running from St. Louis on the upper Mississippi between 1827 and 1836 which were owned or commanded by Irishmen were the following: The Omega, by Captain Rafferty; the Shamrock, by Captain May; the Emerald, the Gypsy and the O’Connell, by the Reynolds Brothers, and the Josephine, by Captain Clark.

Our subject has run away with us and has taken us far beyond the limits we designed when we commenced these notes. The field occupied by the Irish-American pioneers of the upper Mississippi Valley, in even the vicinity of Quincy, is not exhausted by these notes.