Wallace Silvers

 

SOURCE: "History of Champaign County, Illinois with Illustrations," 1878

SURNAMES: KARR, MULLER, SILVERS

WALLACE SILVERS was born in Springboro, Warren county, Ohio, May 29, 1829. His father, David SILVERS, was born in New Jersey in 1798, and removed to Ohio in the year 1800, when he was but two years old. His mother, Eliza Silvers, was a native of Ohio.

The parents came to Champaign county, Illinois, in the fall of 1854, and settled on the improved section 2, town 19, north, range, 9 east. In the fall of 1867 the father returned to Ohio, where, in 1875, he died. The mother died in this county in November, 1863. Wallace is the third son of a family of five children, all of whom at the present time are alive. He was reared upon the farm, and his life occupation, as also that of his father, has been farming. Mr. Silvers has been twice married. His first wife, Rebecca B. MULLER, to whom he was united in April, 1850, and by whom he had two children,---both boys, Howard and Charles W.,---was a native of Springboro, Ohio. His second wife was Mary D. KARR, of New Jersey, by whom he has one child, a boy. Charles W. is married, and at present is principal of a school in Sterling, Rive county, Kansas. Howard is also engaged in teaching in Wisconsin.

Mr. Silvers has given his children all the educational advantages that our present very excellent school system affords. Both Howard and Charles W. are graduates of the Illinois Industrial University. His second son, Charles W., in order to perfect himself in agricultural chemistry, and acquire a more thorough knowledge of everything connected with the science of agriculture than our own schools afforded, spent a year and a half at school in Europe, namely, about one year at Halle, Germany, and six months near London, England, with an eminent professor and agriculturist.

Mr. Silvers, in his boyhood, owing to the comparatively low and defective system of education that then prevailed, did not have the facilities afforded him of acquiring an education that children of the present day possess. Nevertheless, possessing an active and inquiring turn of mind, and a taste for reading, he has in a great measure remedied that defect in his early training, and is therefore a well- informed man and converses fluently and intelligently upon all the current topics of the day.

Mr. Silvers cast his first vote for Gen. Winfield Scott in 1852, but ever since its organization has been an active and prominent member of the Republican party, and with unfaltering step has ever been found doing service in the fore-front of battle, holding aloft the glorious old banner of freedom, under whose ample folds, with liberty for their watchword, its conquering legions have so often been led to victory.

As an evidence of the esteem in which he is held by his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence they repose in him as a man of influence and business tact, it is merely necessary to state that, as first assistant supervisor, he represented Urbana township four terms. In conclusion, we gather from the foregoing brief biographical sketch of Mr. Silvers the following summary of important facts, namely: that he is a wide-awake, public-spirited citizen; that he has been for many years a leading farmer and stock-raiser of this county, and moreover has been identified with every public movement that has had for its object the advancement of its agricultural and educational interests. And to-day Champaign county is in no small degree indebted to such men as he for the advanced ground she has taken and now occupies among her sister counties in these all-important and leading interests.