ELI DOUGLAS, farmer. P. O. Clear Creek Landing, is a son of Alexander Douglas, who was born in North Carolina, in 1811, and came to Union County when quite young, and with a family by the name of Yost. He attended the subscription schools of his county in his youth, and married Margaret Hinkle, of Dongola Township. She was the daughter of Henry Hinkle, also a native of North Carolina and the mother of eleven children. Of that number, subject was the fourth, and was born April 21, 1831. His father was then living in Jonesboro Precinct, and there our subject remained until he was seventeen, attending the schools of his township. He then left home, when he came to Jonesboro, where he learned the blacksmith trade under a Mr. Wingate, and then after an apprenticeship of two years and eleven months he opened a shop of his own on the home place. In January. 1855, he went to California, where he carried on his trade in one of the mining districts there. In 1859, he returned to Union County and again followed blacksmithing at Jonesboro. In 1871, he retired to the life of a farmer, and came to his present location in Alexander County, in Section 19, Township 14, Range 3 west. He first purchased 360 acres, of which about 100 were cultivated. He has since purchased eighty acres more, and now has about 125 acres improved. Mr. Douglas was married January 31, 1863, to Mary DeWitt, born October 24, 1844. She is the daughter of John, and Margaret (Cruse) DeWitt, and is the mother of two children — Fred, born February 10, 1865, and Stanley, born December 8, 1866. Subject was a soldier in the One Hundred and Ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry and in politics is a Democrat.
Extracted 29 Mar 2017 by Norma Hass from 1883 History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, page 221.
| Cape Girardeau MO |
Union | |
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Pulaski | |
| Scott MO | Mississippi MO | Ballard KY |
