Allen M. Sadorus

 

SOURCE: "Portrait and Biographical Album of Champaign County, Illinois," Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1887
SURNAMES: HAMILTON, SADORUS

 

ALLEN M. SADORUS was born in Rush County, Ind. March 13, 1821, the son of the pioneer, Henry Sadorus, and was but little past three years of age when, on April 14, 1824, the family settled in the upper timber groves of the Okaw River, in what is now known as Sadorus grove, which afterwards became a part of Champaign County. Here Mr. Sadorus spent his childhood and early manhood, the particulars of which constitute a part of the preceding chapters of this volume.

In 1847, Mr. Sadorus was married to Margaret HAMILTON, a daughter of the well-known pioneer, John HAMILTON, who was among the early school teachers of the county, and whose home at the uppermost limit of the Okaw timber, was for many years a landmark to travelers as well as a hospitable place of entertainment for well-disposed visitors.

In 1850, with his wife and one child, Mr. Sadorus joined a large company on their way to California. This journey occupied many months and was attended with hardships of the most extreme character, as well as perils from Indians, who hung upon the skirts of the wagon train all the way from the frontier settlements of Missouri until it came within sight of the waters of the Pacific. In describing this journey Mr. Sadorus becomes grave and emphatic, and says that no consideration would induce him to expose himself and family again to these hardships and dangers.

Arrived in California he engaged in ranching and stock-raising, which he followed there and in other locations not far away, until about 1890, when his wife having died, he returned to the home of his boyhood in Champaign County. Here he is quietly spending his declining years, as did his father and other members of his family before him.

The life of Mr. Sadorus as a pioneer of Champaign County, and as a pioneer in California for many years, is only one out of many which might be described. His early experience and his later life have been full of privations and perils, such as few have undergone. His store of frontier knowledge and frontier anecdotes is large and he loves, in his old age, to sit among friends and unfold reminiscences of his father and family in Champaign County, to recite the experiences of other pioneers here, to tell of the dangers from Indians for many months in the Rocky Mountain region, and to recount his adventures as a rancher in California.

His biography, if written fully, would constitute as exciting a tale as is ever narrated in fiction, for the admiration of wondering youth. His personal recollection of Champaign County goes further back than that of any other living person, and makes him one of the most interesting characters to be met with in the county.

In politics Mr. Sadorus, like his father, has always been a Democrat.