Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Claypool, L. W. June 4, 1819 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com February 10, 2006, 2:34 am

Author: "History of Grundy County, Illinois", 1882

L. W. CLAYPOOL, whose portrait appears in this work, is a descendant of an old 
English family.

About 1645, Sir James CLAYPOOL, of England, married a daughter of Oliver 
CROMWELL. This is the earliest record of the family obtainable. Some years 
later, two brothers of the same family emigrated from England to America, and 
settled in Virginia. One subsequently left for Philadelphia, and joined his 
fortunes with William PENN, and he or his descendant, James C. CLAYPOOL, was a 
signing witness to Penn's charter in 1682. The other brother remained in 
Virginia, where his son, William CLAYPOOL, was born about 1690, and lived to 
the extraordinary age of one hundred and two years. William CLAYPOOL was the 
father of three sons - George, John and James, the latter born about 1730, who 
died leaving three sons - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The first, born April 21, 
1762, died in May, 1845. He had six sons and five daughters. Of these sons, 
Jacob was born August 23, 1788, in Randolph County, Va., and died August 17, 
1876. His son, Abraham C., moved from Virginia in 1799, and took up his abode 
in the Northwest Territory, where Chillicothe, Ohio, now is.

The son of Abraham C. and the father of the subject of this sketch, Jacob C., 
married Nancy BALLARD, a lady of Quaker parentage from North Carolina, and had 
two sons - Perry A., born in Brown County, Ohio, June 5, 1815, and died in 
Morris, Ill., October 15, 1846; and L. W., born in the same place June 4, 1819.
Mr. L. W. CLAYPOOL spent his early years in a new settlement, going with his 
parents to Indianapolis, where the ague assailed them with such vigor as to 
drive them back to Ohio. In March of 1834, he set out with his father to 
explore the canal lands of Illinois for a new home. He was eager to get an 
education, and, with the meager facilities afforded in frontier settlements, 
he managed to master the multiplication table and the elements of writing, and 
he still has in his possession a rudely-constructed diary with the incidents 
of this journey noted down in his boyish chirography. The story of this trip 
and the subsequent removal of the family to Wauponsee Township, in Grundy 
County, Ill., has been told elsewhere in this volume. His life here was one of 
great activity, but he managed in the meantime to get quite a knowledge of 
arithmetic by improving days too wet or cold to work out of doors, and he 
exhibits with some pride a curious record of the days or half days which he 
devoted to the study of the elements of mathematics. At the first election 
held in Grundy County, on May 24, 1841, Mr. CLAYPOOL was elected County 
Recorder, a position he held until 1847, in the meanwhile being appointed the 
first Postmaster in Morris. In 1848, he was appointed by the Canal Trustees 
Assistant Agent of the canal lands, having in charge the lands situated in La 
Salle and Grundy Counties. His duties called him to assist in laying out that 
part of Chicago in and around Bridgeport, and continued until the last of the 
land was closed out in 1860. Mr. CLAYPOOL has always taken a prominent place 
in the community in which he has lived so long. He was for years the 
Supervisor of Wauponsee Township, and is now acting in this capacity for 
Morris Village.

November 15, 1849, he contracted marriage with Caroline B., daughter of John 
PALMER, of Ottawa, a pioneer of La Salle County, who came overland from Warren 
County, N. Y., in June, 1834. Mrs. CLAYPOOL was born March 12, 1831, before 
the family left New York. Two sons of the family born of this union are 
living - H. C., born March 31, 1852, and L. W., Jr., born October 13, 1866.

[Source: "History of Grundy County, Illinois", Chicago: O. L. Baskin & Co., 
Historical Publishers, Lake Side Building, 1882]

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