Charles H. Phelps Biographical Review

CHARLES H. PHELPS was born in Dutchess county, New York, January 25, 1836. He is the son of E.B. and Jane (Wright) Phelps, the former born in New Medford, Connecticut, taught school for twenty-six years, and also ran a tile factory, working at different trades. He died at the age of fifty-five, in Dutchess county, New York. His wife was born in Fishkill, New York, and died in Hancock county, aged fifty-five years. Her family were from the New England states, where they followed the occupation of farmers. Charles remained at home until he was twenty-three years of age, when he came to Illinois in 1857 and settled near Huntsville on a rented farm. He then rented in Birmingham township for five years, and two years in Hancock county. He then bought a farm in Hancock county and lived there for ten years, then sold and bought in this county, in Huntsville, 240 acres of improved land, where he lived four years, and then sold and rented a farm in Adams county, and in 1887 bought his present farm of 200 acres, partly improved, near the geographical center of the township. He has also been engaged in threshing. Until Lincoln’s second term he was a Democrat, but since that has been a stanch Republican. He has been Supervisor for four years, being first elected in 1888. He succeeded Marcus Helston. He was married February 3, 1859, to Nancy Scott, of Carroll county, Ohio, who came here with her parents when two years old. She was the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Hunter) Scott, the former a son of John Scott, of Ireland, who came with his wife and son to the United States when William was only eight years old. He rented in Carroll county, Ohio, in 1817, and came from there to Illinois in 1842, settling in Huntsville, Schuyler county. John Scott was seventy years old at his death, and his wife, Isabel, died on the old farm. Elizabeth Hunter was born in Maryland, but her father was a native of Ireland. She died on the old farm, aged sixty-five years. She and her husband had five children, four yet living. Mr. Phelps was one of fourteen children, but he himself has only nine, as follows: Sarah Alice, wife of B. Craft, and they have three children; William E., married to Nana Tyree, four children; Charles F., married to Josephine Farewell, two children; Eliza May, married to George Burnett, one child; Ervin is at home, as are also George B., John R., Bert R., and Clara Belle. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Phelps has been the Master of the Masonic lodge No. 465, of Huntsville, for eighteen years. He was once a member of the I.O.O.F. He is a Granger, and was Master and State Deputy in same, and no one has been more popular, both in the offices he has held and in the various business dealings he has had with his fellow men. He was one of the men who put John A. Logan in the United States Senate. He worked for him personally, and as long as the history of the Thirty-fourth Illinois Congressional District contest, which put J. A. Logan in the Senate, is preserved, just so long will the biography of Charles H. Phelps be on record as one of the workers, if not the hardest worker, in that cause. He knew no such word as fail, and much of the enthusiasm of that time was due to his efforts. He is a man of honor and uprightness, and is loved by everyone, regardless of party affiliations.