Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Armstrong, Hon Perry A 1823 - 
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Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy, 1900

Hon. Perry A. Armstrong

The gentleman who constitutes the subject of this brief sketch was born in 
Licking county, Ohio, April 15, 1823, and came to Illinois with his mother and 
brothers in the spring of 1831.  He is the seventh son of Joseph and Elsie 
Armstrong.  His early opportunities for an education were poor, but he 
possessed an inquiring mind and retentive memory and acquired a fairly good 
but not classic education at the Granville (Illinois) Academy and Illinois 
College, paying his way by working Saturdays and teaching school and laboring 
at farm work during vacations.

The day he was twenty years old he came to Morris with the intention of making 
it his home.  Like Japheth in search of a father, he came on foot and alone 
and “across lots”, carrying all his worldly goods (which included Blackstone’s 
Commentaries) in a cotton bandana handkerchief, and two smooth Mexican 
quarters in his pocket, expecting to make law his profession; but an accident 
happened to him, from which he narrowly escaped with his life, being thrown in 
the Illinois river by a the sinking of a ferry-boat while trying to ferry a 
lot of cattle over the river at Morris, which resulted in a severe attack of 
typhoid fever.  After lying in bed at the Grundy hotel several weeks, he was 
taken overland upon a feather bed in a wagon to the home of his mother in 
LaSalle county, where he remained until able to resume study, and then 
returned to Granville Academy, Putnam county, to finish his preparation to 
enter Illinois College at Jacksonville; and in September of that year he 
matriculated in that college as a sophomore; but, his health failing, he spent 
only two years in college and then returned to Morris, in the fall of 1845, 
where he opened a general or country store and was appointed postmaster; and 
at the spring election for school trustee, 1846, he was elected one of the 
trustees of township 33, range 7, and was made president of the board.

When Governor Ford issued his proclamation of May 25, 1846, for volunteers of 
the Mexican war, Mr. Armstrong was the first to respond, and raised a company, 
which elected him captain; but, owing to our not having daily mail, the report 
of the organization, though immediately mailed, did not reach the adjutant 
general’s office at Springfield until after the report of Judge Dickey’s 
company of Ottawa, though organized one day later, had been received and his 
company accepted, which filled the quota of Illinois volunteers.  Hence the 
Morris company was disbanded, and all the military honor Captain Armstrong 
acquired was the naked commission as captain of the Grundy county militia, 
which cost him much time and money in organizing and drilling a lot of 
stalwart men, chiefly composed of canal hands.  That commission, as well as 
the title of captain, has long been lost and forgotten.

On the 21st of December, 1846, Captain Armstrong was united in marriage with 
Miss Mary J. Borbidge, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, a lady of refinement and 
education as well as a devout Christian, who ably assisted her husband and Dr. 
Hand in organizing the first Sabbath-school in Morris; and, being the best 
Biblical scholar, she took charge of the Bible class.  To them were born four 
sons:  Fidelius H., who died in infancy; Charles Dale, an elocutionist and 
ventriloquist, who was killed at Lawrence, Massachusetts, December 26, 1899; 
Elwood, who is a prominent physician and railroad surgeon at Greenleaf, 
Kansas; and William E., shipping clerk for the Plano Harvester Company.  The 
first wife died of consumption September 4, 1862, and on the 23rd of August, 
1863, the Captain was married to Mrs. Malina J. Eldredge, of Plano, Illinois, 
who still survives, and has been the mother of three sons:  Lewis W., who died 
in infancy; Frank N., a physician and surgeon of Richmond, Illinois, and Perry 
A., Jr., who is a dentist of Chicago.

In 1847 Mr. Armstrong was one of the Illinois delegates to the river and 
harbor convention, where Mr. Lincoln and he were committee-men from Illinois 
upon permanent organization.  He favored “Tom” Corwin, of Ohio, while Mr. 
Lincoln was for Edward Bates, of Missouri.  Mr. Armstrong was the first 
supervisor of the town of Morris; was elected justice of the peace in 1849; 
was a clerk in the office of the auditor of public accounts during the winter 
of 1850-51 and drew the charter of the Rock Island, LaSalle & Chicago 
Railroad, now the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, also of the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and the Illinois Central Railroad, and 
made the selections of the government land which inured to said railroad under 
the congressional act; and then went upon the survey of the Rock Island, 
LaSalle & Chicago Railroad as assistant engineer in 1851, and ran its 
experimental levels from Joliet to Ottawa and from Tiskilwa to Geneseo, and 
then went to Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and ran the level from Galesburg to 
Pond Creek, now Sheffield; but on discovering that there was not enough money 
in the treasury to pay one month’s salary he resigned and came home, and was 
appointed swamp-land commissioner of Grundy county, to select and sell the 
unsold government lands that should fall within the meaning of the swamp-land 
act of congress of September 28, 1850.  By personal surveys and inspection he 
secured the title to about three thousand acres, which he subsequently sold 
for several thousand dollars, which went into the county treasury.

At the November election, 1853, he was elected clerk of the county court and 
re-elected in 1857, and in 1862 he was elected to the constitutional 
convention from LaSalle, Livingston and Grundy counties without opposition, 
and to the legislature from Grundy and Will, in 1863, and again in 1872, from 
DeKalb, Kendall and Grundy counties, without opposition, and served on the 
judiciary, judicial department and railroad committees in the latter session; 
and was the author of our present common-law jurisdiction of county courts, 
and the law of escheats and our jury law, with many amendments to our criminal 
code, road and bridge and other laws; and was on the Seymour ticket in 1868.

Captain Armstrong was the grand master of the grand lodge of the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows of the state Illinois in 1856-57, and grand 
representative to the sovereign grand lodge of the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows of the United States for 1858 and 1859.

He was an active supporter of the government in the war of the Rebellion and 
assisted in the organization of soldiers, making war speeches all over the 
surrounding country as a war Democrat and was a personal friend of Mr. Lincoln 
and Senator Douglas, both of whom he has entertained at his home in Morris, 
and in turn he was entertained by them at their homes in Springfield, 
Illinois.  In the winter of 1851, Mr. Lincoln and he alternating, read the 
entire works of Sir Walter Scott.  In the fall of 1863 he engaged in the 
purchase of horses for the army and continued at that until the close of the 
war.  He was admitted to the bar in 1863, entering into partnership with Judge 
Benjamin Olin, now of Joliet, under the firm name of Olin & Armstrong, which 
was the leading law firm for several years.  Mr. Olin withdrew from the firm 
in 1870, locating in Joliet.  In 1876 Mr. Armstrong was appointed master in 
chancery of Grundy county, and held that office for twenty-two consecutive 
years.  He was the secretary of the school board nine years and also secretary 
of the board of trustees of the Illinois Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary for 
nine years, and president of the board of directors of the Morris Cemetery 
Association seventeen years, during which time Evergreen cemetery emerged from 
obscurity to a first class cemetery.  He is the dean of the Morris bar and the 
oldest Master Mason and Past Master, Royal Arch Mason, and past high priest, 
Knight Templar and past commander, and was deputy grand commander of the grand 
commandery of the state of Illinois in 1863 and is the oldest thirty-third 
degree Mason of this state, in date of membership.

Though he never had any pecuniary interest in a newspaper, he has conducted 
the political column of several during presidential campaigns and is the 
author of The Sauks and of Black Hawk War; and has written many poems, which 
have been published, among which are a Child’s Inquiry, What is Heaven, and a 
Funeral Dirge to General Grant, and the disappointment of Judge Carter’s 
little son Allan over his failure to grasp a ray of light, etc.  But his 
master poem is a Greeting to the Pioneers of Northern Illinois, which has not 
yet been published.  He was always an admirer of nature and an enthusiastic 
geologist, and has shipped to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington city 
within the last year over three tons of fossil botany of his own collection, 
and he has been the historian of Grundy county from its birth up to the 
present time.  For many years he personally knew every citizen in the county, 
even to his Christian name.

Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p448-451

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