Willis Aikman was born near Washington, Davies County, Indiana, on March 14, 1833. He was a son of Samuel Aikman and Henrietta Coleman and came with his parents to Edgar County, Illinois, in 1835, and to Marion in 1837 with a family of six boys and three girls.
His father, Samuel, invested his money in Marion real estate until he owned a strip one-half mile wide by a mile and a half long, consisting of 640 acres, which he bought off the Government at $1.25 an acre. Continue reading
The following is taken from “Thy People Shall Be My People or Elizabeth Ann and the Roberts Clan” by Daisy Roberts Malone. These excerpts were written by Elizabeth Ann Chadwell who was born 10 May 1825, the daughter of John Shepherd and Sarah Clark. She married William Rufus Roberts 18 Aug 1841 and after his death married Charles W. Chadwell 9 Nov 1849, both marriages in Williamson Co., Illinois. Elizabeth Ann died 13 May 1916 and is buried in Zion Cemetery, Corinth, Illinois. Continue reading
Robert E. McKinney was born December 26, 1902 in Crainville, Illinois. McKinney who was active in school affairs and followed in his father’s footsteps as County Superintendent of Williamson County schools spent 44 years in teaching and supervising duties. Continue reading
It’s hard enough to imagine going down into a coal mine to work equipped only with a carbide lamp strapped to your head, but imagine what it’s like to spend over a day crawling around in a pitch black mine trying to find your way out without any light at all. That is exactly what a Marion man experienced in 1937. Continue reading
G. W. Ingels, 88, and Phil Johnson, 100-year Old Colored Veteran, Are Survivors In Marion
Memorial Day in Marion in 1937 finds the thinning ranks of Civil War veterans has dwindled to two Union soldiers, one of them a white man who shouldered a gun at the age of 15 years and the other a colored man who at the age of 17 went away to war from a Kentucky plantation with the echo of the slave-driver’s lash and the cries of beaten human beings echoing in his ears. Continue reading