JAMES S. McGAHEY, lumber dealer on corner of Twentieth street and Washington avenue, was born at Jackson, Mo., on the 7th of December, 1834. His father, Edwin McGahey, was a native of North Carolina, born in 1804, where he grew to manhood, and married Eleanor McNeely, also of same State, and born in 1803. They emigrated to Missouri in 1832, and settled at Jackson, where he for many years followed farming and dealing in merchandise. J. S. McGahey is the fourth of a family of eight children born to these parents. The father died in Murphysboro, Ill., in 1874, and the mother in Missouri in spring of 1845. Edwin C, the sixth member of this family, has for several years been in Anna, Union Co., Ill. J. S. McGahey was reared on the farm, and educated in the common schools of his native State, and married in Duquoin, Ill., September 2, 1862, to Miss Carrie E. Dyer, daughter of Dr. L Dyer, of that place, and one of the old physicians of Southern Illinois. Mrs. McGahey was born in Martinsburg, Knox Co., Ohio, on the 23d of September, 1837. Their family consists of four children, viz.: Laura, Eleanor, born in Vergennes, Jackson County, Ill., on the 18th of August, 1863; Clara D., born in Duquoin, Ill., September 19, 1865; Marcus H. , born in Pulaski County, Ill., September 29, 1869, and Ruth Lee McGahey, born in Cairo August 2, 1873. From 1862 to 1868, he engaged in the produce business at Duquoin, and from there went to Pulaski County, where he engaged in the lumber business. He came to Cairo and established a lumber trade in 1871, since which time it has been his permanent home. He is a member of the Widows' and Orphans' Mutual Aid Society, and is its present President; also a member of the American Legion of Honor. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gahey are members of the Cairo Baptist Church. Family residence on Twenty-eighth and Poplar streets. Dr. Lewis Dyer, father of Mrs. McGahey, was born in Manchester, Vt., on February 24, 1807, and reared to manhood in Vermont, and when a young man taught school to secure funds with which to qualify for his chosen profession, that of physician. He graduated from different medical institutions in the East, and while a young man came to Ohio, where for a time he was physician and surgeon for the Kenyon College in Knox County. He was married in Vermont to Miss Laura A. Purdy, a native of Vermont, on December 24, 1828. She was born at Manchester, Vt., January 21, 1810, and died in Illinois on the 27th of August, 1858. Mrs. McGahey is the fourth of a family of seven children born to these parents. The father was for three years a surgeon in the late war, entering as Regimental Surgeon of the Eighty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry, from which he was promoted to Brigade, and finally to Division Surgeon. He is still a resident of Duquoin, Ill.
Extracted 31 Mar 2017 by Norma Hass from 1883 History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part V, pages 31-32.
| Cape Girardeau MO |
Union | |
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Pulaski | |
| Scott MO | Mississippi MO | Ballard KY |
