Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Irons, Salem 1824 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com March 25, 2006, 4:56 pm Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy 1900 Salem Irons Some of the best blood in Illinois flows in the veins of Salem Irons, who is descended from emigrants and pioneers of the highest character and most edifying memory. He is one of Mazon townships well-to-do farmers and most highly respected citizens, and in his own life has to a degree repeated the struggles and triumphs of his ancestors. All of his American progenitors were New England colonists, and the great Roger Williams himself contributed to the life current which animates his character. The remote founders of the Irons family came from England in the Puritan emigration to Massachusetts bay in the origin of that colony. The first of the name of whom there is any record was Matthew Irons, who married Annie Brown, of Boston, Massachusetts, and died in 1661. The following is the genealogy of the family: Samuel Irons, son of Matthew, was baptized November 25, 1650, married Sarah Belcher, September 13, 1677, and died September 25, 1690. Sarah Belcher died August 26, 1693. Samuel Irons, born March 17, 1680, married Sarah Whipple May 3, 1709, and died September 30, 1720. Sarah married again and her second husband was John Warner. Samuel Irons, born October 10, 1718, married, about 1740, Hannah Waterman, a daughter of Resolved and Mercy (Williams) Waterman and a granddaughter of Roger Williams, and died November 27, 1793. Hannah died July 13, 1806. The children of Samuel and Hannah Irons were born at the following dates: Samuel, May 22, 1740; Resolved, May 17, 1743; Sarah, October 24, 1745; Mercy, April 26, 1748; Stephen, May 23, 1751; Hannah, April 22, 1754; Samuel, February 16, 1757; Lydia, May 13, 1759, and Mary July 31, 1763. Resolved married Amy Dexter and lived in Gloucester, Rhode Island. Sarah married an Aldrich. Mercy married a Warner. Stephen married Sarah Tinkham, of Gloucester, Rhode Island. Hannah married Thomas Field, of Scituate, Rhode Island. Lydia married Thomas Whipple, of Providence, same state. Mary married Asa Steere, of Providence. Samuel Irons, born February 16, 1757, married Huldah Colwell, a daughter of Joseph and Amy Colwell, and they were the grandparents of the immediate subject of this sketch. Samuel died November 2, 1815. Huldah died November 5, 1823. The children of Samuel and Huldah (Colwell) Irons were born as follows: Candice, July 20, 1782; Amasa, February 8, 1784; Amy, August 11, 1785; Lydia, October 21, 1787; Colwell, September 19, 1789; Betsy, July 25, 1791; James, July ,6, 1793; Samuel, May 25, 1795; Nathan, May 19, 1797; Paris, October 16, 1799; and Huldah, February 3, 1802. The father of these children owned and lived on a farm in the town of Gloucester, Rhode Island, which remains in the ownership of the Irons family to this day. It is a good farm of two hundred acres, with excellent improvements. Huldah, the wife of Samuel Irons, was not only the granddaughter of Roger Williams but was also descended from Joshua Windsor, who emigrated to America and settled in Providence in 1638. James Irons, the father of Salem Irons, was born July 16, 1793, at the old homestead in Gloucester. He gained an old-fashioned New England common-school education and an intimate knowledge of farming, and married Phebe Steere, born in Gloucester, a daughter of Jeremiah and Phebe Steere. The Steeres were of English ancestry and old colonial settlers of Rhode Island. Jeremiah Steere was a substantial and respected farmer of Gloucester, where he died at an advanced age; and his children were Potter, Jeremiah, Miranda, Salinda, Asenath, Betsy and Mary. James Irons, after his marriage, settled in Charlton, Worcester county, Massachusetts, on a farm of one hundred and fifty acres which he bought and on which he had a good home. Later he lived in Rhode Island. His children were William H., Salem, James, Sarah, John and Leander. In politics Mr. Irons was an original Republican, but was previously a Democrat. He was a man of excellent constitution and of good habits, and well known for his honesty and integrity of character, and he reared excellent and respected children. When about seventy years of age he came to Illinois and made his home with his son Salem until he died, November 12, 1882, aged over eighty-nine years. Salem Irons was born November 18, 1824, at Charlton, Massachusetts. He received such a common-school education as was available in his day and was reared on the farm and learned the carpenter’s trade in Rhode Island, where his father moved when Salem was about fifteen years old, and where the family lived many years. He was married in Killingly, Connecticut July 5, 1846, to Harriet Yeaw, born in Scituate, Rhode Island, October 11, 1824, a daughter of Henry and Alma (Knight) Yeaw. The Yeaws were an old colonial family. Henry Yeaw was born at Scituate, a son of David Yeaw, and was a stone and brick mason by trade, and passed all his days in Scituate. The children were Amasa, Harriet, Theophilus, Rufus, Henry, Mary A., Maria, Alma and Albert, the last mentioned of whom died young. Henry Yeaw was in moderate circumstances, industrious, hard-working, and in every sense a good citizen, whose children were an honor to the community. He lived to he fifty-two years old and died at Scituate. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Salem Irons lived three years in Providence, Rhode Island, where he followed carpentering. They then moved to Scituate, Rhode Island, and lived there one year and afterward lived a year on a farm at Gloucester. In March, 1853, they moved to Illinois, making the journey by steamer to New York city and thence by rail to Wheaton, DuPage county, Illinois, where Mr. Irons worked at carpentering for two years. They moved to Morris in 1855 and Mr. Irons did carpenter work there also. In 1857 they settled on their present farm, which then consisted of one hundred acres of fine farm land, for which Mr. Irons paid twenty-five dollars per acre, trading one hundred and sixty acres of Iowa land in the deal. The farm had but little improvement on it and Mr. Irons, by industry and thrift, gradually improved it, erecting excellent farm buildings, and now has one of the finest homesteads in this part of the county. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Irons were born and named as follows: Henry Augustus, June 14, 1850; Phebe Maria, May 4, 1855; and Clara Isabel, October 26, 1858. In politics Mr. Irons is a stanch Republican and he has voted that ticket since the organization of the party. He is a public-spirited man, who favors good roads and all useful improvements. He has held the office of road commissioner for more than twenty years and has proved an efficient and capable official. Mr. Irons had three brothers in the great civil war,— William H., John and Leander. William H. and John were in the Thirty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and were in many battles, among them those at Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge and Resaca. They were in the Atlanta campaign and took part in engagements at Buzzards’ Roost, Adairsville, New Hope Church, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, Lost Mountain and Peach Tree Creek. Leander was the commissary sergeant of his company in the Seventy-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. While in active service he was thrown from his horse and his leg was broken, and he was honorably discharged on account of this disability. Salem Irons has been a substantial citizen of this county for many years and is well known for sturdy industry, honesty of purpose and high moral character. He is entirely a self-made man, having accumulated his property by his own exertions, and, aided by his faithful wife, has reared children of which they may well be proud. Now in his declining years he enjoys the peaceful and substantial reward of well-doing and takes not a little pleasure in going, in memory, over the changing scenes of his long and busy life, which cover the period of our advancement from primitive conditions to the development of the end of the nineteenth century. Additional Comments: Source: Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy Counties Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, pages 534-537 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/grundy/bios/irons614nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 8.8 Kb