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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of John V. BROKAW 

[Surnames: BROKAW, LAWSON, MORROW, TEN EYCKE] 

BROKAW, JOHN V. 

    
In the career of John V. Brokaw, whose devotion to the science of farming for quarter of a century has won him a competency, and a business reputation as a stockholder with the two banks, whose judicious and successful management have gone so far to sustain the monetary reputation of the city of Canton. 
    
On both sides of the family Mr. Brokaw is descended from men prominent in the early days of the Republic and of decided pioneering tendencies. The paternal branch of the family had its representatives among the French Huguenots, who were fortunate to escape from France and seek asylum, presumably in New Jersey. The maternal branch of Ten Eycke had its good name sustained by the admirable service of Col. Ten Eycke, during the Revolution. 
    
The sword cane carried by this able soldier, dated 1773, is one of the prized possessions of his great-nephew, John V. Brokaw. 
    
Charles S. Brokaw, father of John V., was born in Somerset County, NJ, as was also his wife. Jane L. Ten Eycke. The parents married in Somerset Co., NJ, and in 1846, came to Fairview, Fulton County near which they purchased land and settled on the farm, now owned by their son. Here they prospered as farmers and stock-raisers, and about 1890 retired to the town of Fairview, where the father died in 1898 and the mother in 1895. 
    
Seven children were born to them, of whom four sons are still living. 
    
The fifth oldest, John V. Brokaw, born on the old homestead in Joshua Twp., Fulton County, Dec. 18, 1857, and received his education at what was known as the Brokaw School District. He afterward attended Hedding College at Abingdon, and later Knox College, Galesburg, being a student at the latter during the Presidency of Dr. Newton Bateman, one of the foremost educators of the Central West, and one of whose tasks was the editorship of the Historical Encyclopedia part of this work. 
    
At the age of 20, Mr. John V. Brokaw began his independent career as a teacher in Fulton County, He well recalls the early experience in an old-fashioned structure in Deerfield Twp., with the benches along the sides of the room, and the sun, or rain, or snow coming in through the roof. He remained a year in the old schoolhouse and in the Spring engaged in general farming and stock-raising, which he continued for 25 years, making a specialty of Polled-Durham cattle. In may of 1905 he retired from active life, locating in Canton, and since has occupied the old Dr. Howard homestead. 
    
At the Churchill Hotel, Canton, March 4, 1880, Mr. Brokaw married Elizabeth E. Lawson, who was born in Joshua Twp., Dec. 10, 1858, the daughter of James and Jane (Morrow) Lawson, natives of Pennsylvania and Sharpsburg, MD, respectively. Mrs. Brokaw is of Scots- Irish descent, and her parents were early settlers of Joshua Twp., subsequently locating in Deerfield Twp. 
    Mr. Brokaw is a Democrat and is prominent fraternally with the Masonic Order, Eastern Star, and B.P.O.E. With his wife, he is a member of the Reformed Church in Fairview, the first church of that denomination built west of the Alleghany Mountains. 
    
Mr. Brokaw is one of the heirs of the late Abraham Brokaw, of Bloomington, Illinois, who left an estate estimated at about $2,000,000.