Vermilion county Illinois, JOHN J. SOUTHWORTH ==================================================================== Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives Joy Fisher ==================================================================== p. 258-259 JOHN J. SOUTHWORTH is one of the young leading and progressive business men of one of the most promising villages in 'Vermilion County, Allerton. The town lies on the line which divides Vermilion from Champaign County, and was laid out in 1887. The depot was built the same fall and located on lands given to that purpose by Sam W. Allerton, of Chicago. Mr. Southworth was the first business man who located at the town of Allerton. Before coming here he was engaged in the town of Archie in the lumber business. In 1887 he took charge of Allerton's steam elevator, removing his lumber yard here at the same time, and on July 20, 1887, he bought the first load of grain purchased in Allerton, a load of corn, from Thomas L. Miller, of Champaign County. The price paid was forty cents a bushel. As soon as the railroad was completed to his town he added to his stock of lumber, salt binding twine, sand and barbed wire. Mr. Southworth is a son of John R. and Anna (Akers) Southworth, the nativity of the former being at Thomaston, Mass., while the latter was born in Harrisburg, Pa. John R. Southworth was reared as a mechanic, working in the woolen mills at Lowell, Mass., but in 1854, thinking the broad prairies of the West were more conducive to happiness than the cramped shops of the East, he came to Champaign County, Ill., eventually. His first removal west was to Ohio, where he was married. As a farmer of Illinois he was fairly prosperous, and was prominently identified with the progress of his neighborhood, he died on his farm at the age of seventy-four years, while his wife still lives there. The maternal grandparents of the subject of this sketch died while Mrs. Southworth was quite young. They were natives of England, as were also the paternal grandparents. The great-grandfather, Roy Southworth, served with distinguished honor through the entire period of the Revolutionary War, and his descendants are in possession of a cane, the head of which is composed of solid silver in the shape of a dog's head, and inscribed thereon are the words, “Southworth, 1776." The silver was taken from the hilt of a British sword, which he captured from the enemy. Our subject's parents had six children: Addie, Julia, Frank, Lehmond, John J. and Lillie. John Jay Southworth was born at Coldwater, Mich., in 1852, and when he was but three years old emigrated with his parents to Illinois, where he was reared upon a farm and received his primary education at the public schools. At the age of twenty he entered Oberlin College, where he continued a student for some time, and afterward completed his education at Champaign. In 1875 he was married to Miss Mary F. Irwin, who was born in Champaign County, Ill., and who was graduated from the women's department of the Bloomington College. She was engaged as a teacher in her native county, for sometime and was reckoned as one of the best teachers. Soon after their marriage the young couple removed to Archie, where Mr. Southworth engaged in business, and from the start has been successful. They have had four children: Grace, Walter, Ida and Anna Mary; the latter died when she was twenty months old. Mr. Southworth owns a fine farm of eighty acres four miles north of Allerton. He is also engaged in the hotel business, he and his wife being the proprietors of the Allerton House. He is a member of the Odd Fellows lodge, and votes the Republican ticket. The offices of School Director and Trustee have been filled by him with ability. In all his efforts of life in which he has succeeded he has been ably seconded by his intelligent and faithful wife, and it is safe to predict that they will go on prospering. They are prominently identified with the prosperity of their town, and there are no better people in it.