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EARLY SETTLERS OF SANGAMON COUNTY - 1876
By John Carroll Power

These biographies were submitted by a researcher and evidently abstracted from the 1876 History of Sangamon County, IL. Errors could occur, so one should always verify the correctness by obtaining copies of vitals and performing all necessary research to document what is contained herein.




SHUFF, MRS. HANNAH H., was born April 18, 1784, in Greenbrier county, Virginia. Her father, Anthony Houston, when she was a child, made up his mind to emigrate west. There were no wagon roads and but few wagons. He provided himself with a large number of pack-saddles, and loaded thirty-two horses with household goods, farming implements,, and his family, and moved to what became Scott county, Kentucky. There he settled in a cane brake among the Indians, raised a family of thirteen children, and lived to be nearly one hundred years old. Two of his sons became Methodist preachers and one a lawyer. Ex-Governor Sam. Houston, of Texas, now deceased, was his nephew. His daughter, Hannah H., whose name heads this sketch, was married Nov. 5, 1806, in Scott county, Kentucky, to Jacob Shuff. They had three children in Scott county, and the family moved to Gallatin county in the same State, where Mr. Shuff died August 24, 1824. Mrs. Shuff moved with her family to Sangamon county, Illinois, arriving in the fall of 1833 in Island Grove, three miles west of Berlin. Of her three children--

JOHN W., born August 28, 1807, in Scott country, Kentucky, married in Gallatin county, in the same State, to Angeline Lindsay. He came with his mother to Sangamon county, and in 1835 moved to Morgan county, Illinois, five miles east of Jacksonville. They had nine children. Mr. Shuff died in May, 1872, while sitting at a table with a friend, drawing a map of a road. A few days after his death, his fifth son, JAMES, was drowned while bathing. His widow and children, nearly all of whom are married, reside near Jacksonville, Illinois.

MARY ANN, born August 9, 1809, in Scott county, Kentucky, married in Gallatin county Feb. 1, 1831, to Henry Yates. See his name. She died May 11, 1835.

ANTHONY H., born August 18, 1811, in Scott county, Kentucky, married in Sangamon county, Illinois, Feb. 23, 1837, to Siron Foutch. They had eight living children. MARY A. P. married J. W. Walker. WILLIAM H. H. resides with his father. JOHN W. married Mary Mendenhall and died April 2, 1872. JAMES A. married Lucinda Alsbury and lives one mile west of Berlin, Illinois. NANCY H. and THEOPHILUS A. are unmarried. CAROLINE married A. Shultz, and lives at Carthage, Illinois. MILLARD F. lives with his father. Mrs. Siron Shuff died June 4, 1868. Anthony H. Shuff was married March 17, 1873, to Mrs. Elizabeth A. Phelps, whose maiden name was Townsend, a native of Ithica, New York. She has one child by her first marriage, ANNIE PHELPS. A. H. Shuff and wife reside on the farm where the family settled in 1833. It is three miles west of Berlin, Sangamon county, Illinois. Mr. Shuff has been a cripple for more than forty years, caused by having taken eleven doses of calomel in 1835, and without proper attention afterwards, the greater part of it remained in his system, and it seems wonderful that he could endure what he has, and live.




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