Christian-Sangamon-DeKalb County IL Archives Biographies.....McQuigg, James August 1, 1838 - January 3, 1922
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Jerry A. "Jay" McAfee mcafee_clan@hotmail.com June 8, 2011, 6:19 pm

Source: Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume 2 (and History of Christian County)
Author: Newton Bateman, Paul Selby, Henry L. Fowkes

Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume 2 (and history of Christian County)
By Newton Bateman, Paul Selby, Henry L. Fowkes
Published 1918 by Munsell Publishing Company - Chicago


Page 941 – 943

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Page 941 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY

McQUIGG, James C., was born in the parish of Ireland Carragh. the county of 
Antrim, In the extreme north of Ireland, about three miles from the Atlantic 
ocean, on the first day of August. 1838. He is of Scotch ancestry, his great-
grandfathers, William McQuigg and John McAfee, having come from Scotland when 
they were young men. settling in Ireland Carragh parish and living there the 
remainder of their lives engaged in agricultural pursuits. William McQuigg. 
son of John and grandfather of James C. McQuigg, was born in this parish and 
died there in his seventy-fifth year. William McAfee, the maternal grandfather 
of James C. McQuigg. emigrated to the United States with his family in 1838. 
settling in Wayne County. Ohio, where he died in 1863 when aged about seventy-
six' years. The parents of James C. McQuigg were John and Sarah (McAfee) 
McQuigg, both of whom wore horn in Ireland Carragh parish, the father in May, 
1805 and the mother in July of the same year. They were married in this parish 
in September, 1831 and continued to live there until June, 1843, when they 
took passage with their children, seven in number, from Liverpool to New York, 
going from there to Wayne County, Ohio, arriving there In the month of August 
of the same year. The names of the seven children according to priority of 
birth were: William, Eliza. Martha Jane. Mary Ann. Samuel, James C. and John. 
Afterward two more children were born: Sarah and Margaret.
The father soon after coming to this country became interested in farming and 
earnestly engaged in the same with the aid of his sons, and he kept it up very 
extensively during the active years of his life. The mother, with the aid of 
their daughters, looked after the domestic affairs, and she saw that they 
secured a fairly good education, the two youngest receiving collegiate 
training. It was indeed a good and happy family. The children were taught to 
believe in the divinity of Christ and all the family became members of the 
Presbyterian Church. Both parents have long since passed to their reward, the 
father on the first day of February, 1885, In his eightieth year, and the 
mother on


Page 942 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY


February 12, 1897, in her ninety-second year.
Of the children, the five eldest have gone also to their eternal home. Four 
are still living.
With the exception of Samuel, who died in his sixty-seventh year, all the nine 
have illustrated the words of the Psalmist, “The days of their years are three 
score and ten years.” Wayne County, Ohio, continued to be the home of all with 
the exception of Eliza
Franks, who, after her marriage lived with her family in Fremont, Ohio; and 
James C.
James C. McQuigg was reared on his father’s farm and worked on the farm in the 
summer
and attended school in the winter. A part of his schooling was obtained in the 
common schools
and he also attended a school called the Peoples College, in which there was a 
great deal of interest taken in the neighborhood. Its course of instruction 
was equal to that of many academies.
In this institution he studied the sciences, together with higher mathematics 
and progressed to some extent also in Latin so that he was well started in 
that language, which, perhaps gave him a
desire to pursue a regular classical course. Hence he entered Fredericksburg 
Academy, in Wayne County and there followed the regular course of study for 
some time. After awhile he found his
capital could not take him much farther so he concluded to teach school for a 
term. He secured
the school in his father’s district for a term of seven months, with a salary 
of $33.33 per month.
This was a large school and he made his two younger sisters his assistants. 
This was in the latter part of 1860 and his term extended into the spring of 
the next year.
War excitement was running high about the time his school term expired. The 
southern states had severed their relations with the Union as they supposed. 
All over the North the young men
were enlisting in the Union army, and as many of his comrades were joining the 
army, Mr. McQuigg went to Camp Tiffin at Wooster and enlisted in Company G, 
Sixteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry forming there and he continued a soldier in 
this regiment until he was severely wounded.
A majority of the companies of this regiment were from this county and were 
drilled in this camp and the officers, excepting the field officers, were 
chosen in this camp by the soldiers. For awhile after he enlisted he did a 
great deal of drilling and when he was solicited to be a candidate for first 
lieutenant of Company G he consented but before any election was held he was 
taken down with typhoid fever, and was confined in his tent. He could not be 
with his company at the time of the election and as the outcome of his fever 
was unknown, he sent word to the company
that he would withdraw his name as a candidate for lieutenant.
His warmest friend, William Ross, was elected therefor. It was in the same 
battle in which Mr. McQuigg was later wounded that Lieutenant Ross was struck 
with a bullet in the face, from the
effects of which he died.
When the Sixteenth regiment left Ohio for the front, Mr. McQuigg went with it 
and participated in every battle and skirmish in which it was engaged until 
the time he was wounded
in the right hand in an assault on Vicksburg. In the charge he mounted an 
embankment and a piece of shell struck him in the right hand where he was 
holding his rifle, bending his gun so that
the butt end thereof and the end of the bayonet almost met. This was at the 
Siege of Vicksburg.
The guns the regiment were using were the French sabre bayonet, a very heavy 
rifle. On account
of this wound he was incapacitated and was discharged in the summer of 1863. 
His regiment
while he was with it soldiered through middle and eastern Kentucky, eastern 
and western Tennessee, West Virginia and Mississippi.
Following his return home from military service, Mr. McQuigg concluded to 
enter Vermillion
College, Ohio, and make an effort to finish his education, deciding however, 
to drop the study of
Greek as he did not think that would be an aid to him in the profession of 
law, which he intended
to take up as his life work. In this college finishing the regular course, 
with the exception of Greek but including a French course, without delay he 
entered the law office of A.S. McClure, of
Wooster, Ohio, who was one of the best lawyers in that part of the state and 
had served several terms in Congress. While reading law in this office, in the 
fall of 1865 he entered the law department of the University of Michigan at 
Ann Arbor and took the full course, being graduated in the spring of 1867 with 
the degree of Bachelor of Laws. After his graduation he went to his
parents’ home in Ohio and soon thereafter to Columbus, where he was examined 
in the district
court of that state and was admitted to the bar. Immediately he established 
himself as a resident
of Pana, Ill. , where he formed a partnership to practice law, with A.C. 
McMillen. This partnership was dissolved six months later and Mr. McQuigg 
continued alone in practice until
1898, when he formed a law partnership with E.E. Dowell, who had read law in 
his office until he was admitted to the bar. During all the time he was alone, 
Mr. McQuigg had a large practice and gave strict attention to his business, 
and since, he has been in partnership with Mr. Dowell
their business has prospered and given the best of satisfaction.
Mr. McQuigg has been married three times. His first marriage was to Miss 
Marion Patton, of
Pana, June 8, 1869, at the home of her widowed mother, Mrs. Martha Patton. Her 
father, William R. Patton, a railroad contractor, died when she was a child. 
Mrs. McQuigg was born
at Allegheny, Pa. She died January 22, 1883, a woman of fine endowments, well 
educated and highly respected by all who knew her. Two children survived her: 
Myron W., who is a traveling
contractor and resides with his family in Kansas City; and Florence M., who is 
the wife of Harry White, Jr., a banker in Indiana, Pa., where they are living 
happy and contented.
The second marriage of Mr. McQuigg took place February 12, 1887, to Mrs. Mary 
E. (McKenney) Amberson, of Allegheny, Pa. Mrs. McQuigg died April 12, 1887. 
She was a very
accomplished


Page 943 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY


lady and was greatly admired. She is survived by a daughter who was born to 
her first marriage,
who is now Mrs. Lewis Overholt, formerly of Pana but for some years residing 
in Chicago.
Both Mrs. White and Mrs. Overholt are graduates of a female seminary. The 
former is a good
public speaker, and the latter is well known in social and musical circles in 
Chicago, being highly
gifted in music. The one son of Mr. and Mrs. Overholt prefers the climate and 
environments of
Pana rather than Chicago and makes his home with Mr. and Mrs. McQuigg. On 
September 15, 1892, Mr. McQuigg was married to Miss Sadie McKenney, a sister 
of his former wife. She at
that time was a resident of Allegheny and is a daughter of William and 
Margaret McKenney, the
former of whom was concerned with iron interests at Pittsburgh for many years. 
Mrs. McQuigg
is accomplished and refined and is also home loving, and domestic in her 
tastes.
When Mr. McQuigg came to Pana to enter upon the duties of his profession, he 
was somewhat
hampered by limited means, and thus was able to purchase but a small law 
library, but he went
to work energetically, with the determination to make the law a success and to 
elevate its practice
as far as it was in his power, so that those coming in contact with it would 
see that the law is a very honorable and highly accomplished profession. He 
has accumulated one of the most valuable law libraries in the county and also 
a well selected literary library. He has always been
faithful to his clients, courteous to the court and bar, has never squandered 
his money foolishly and has always has been liberal to the poor. No one ever 
came to his office in want or stopped
at the back door of his dwelling house, if worthy, who ever went away empty-
handed. Mr. McQuigg’s investments have generally been in real estate with 
which he was well acquainted, for
he has seemed to be a good judge of that kind of property, and now, from his 
investments in real
estate, he has 1500 acres of valuable agricultural land within six miles of 
Pana.
Mr. McQuigg has never had any desire to hold office, although when he was a 
young practitioner he was elected city attorney for several terms, but in 
later years would not consent
to make the race for any municipal office. In what was known as the Tilden 
campaign in 1876,
when everything in this part of the state went Democratic, he was nominated on 
the Republican
ticket for state’s attorney, and although the county went nearly 900 
Democratic, he was only
defeated by eighty-three votes and could have been elected if he had been 
fairly treated by an
element of Republicans in the neighborhood of Taylorville. The only time 
afterward that he ran for any position was as elector on the Garfield 
Republican ticket in the presidential election of 1880, when he was elected 
with all the Republican electors in Illinois. He has been an active
member of the Republican party ever since the election of Lincoln, believing 
in the principles of
that party and has voted for every Republican presidential nominee since the 
days of the great
president, having voted for him both times he was a candidate.
As a lawyer, Mr. McQuigg has won an enviable and honorable reputation which he 
is worthy of, by the skill and ability which he has always manifested in the 
prosecution of his chosen profession. Both in public and private life he has 
been true to all that goes to make up an admirable character, and the high and 
sincere regard of many friends is freely given him. Both he
and wife are members of the Presbyterian Church and have an abiding faith in 
its doctrines.


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Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II, 1918 and History of Christian 
County by Henry L. Fowkes

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Christian Pana Illinois IL Wooster Ohio OH Civil War Veteran McAfee Wayne 
Chickasaw Bluffs Chickasaw Bayou Vicksburg



Additional Comments:
James C. McQuigg was the grandson of William W. McAfee Sr. and 
Margaret "Martha" Taggart of Sugar Creek Township, Wayne County, Ohio. James 
was raised near Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio on his parents farm.He received an 
honorable discharge from severe wounds at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs and 
Bayou which took place on December 29, 1862 (the opening battle of Vicksburg, 
Mississippi). This bio gives important information on the early ancestors of 
the McQuiggs and the McAfees of Co. Antrim, Ireland. James C. McQuigg was a 
nephew of John McAffee of Athens, Ohio. James C. McQuigg was a cousin to 
Robert James McAfee of Wadsworth, Medina Co, Ohio. James C. McQuigg was a 
nephew of all of William W. McAfee Sr. & Margaret "Martha" Taggarts other 
children in Wayne County, Ohio.
James C. McQuigg was the nephew of Martha Jane (McAfee) Orr (wife of David 
Orr) of Waterman, DeKalb County, Illinois.

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