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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County
Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1890

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The Biography of Thomas Officer CAM(E)RON 

Pages 485-486, transcribed in full by Danni Hopkins 

[Surnames: CAMERON, CAMRON , ELLIS, HARRELL, HARROLD, WELSH] 

    
THOMAS OFFICER CAMRON. Those interested in pioneer experiences would derive much pleasure from conversation with this gentleman who well remembers many incidents of frontier life in this county. His father, James Camron, is a native of Kentucky, whence he came to White County when but a child. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Joel Harrell, a Kentuckian and a slaveholder, who on removing to what was then the Territory of Illinois brought slaves with him. The marriage of this couple was probably the first celebrated in Cass Township. Their first home was near Smithfield where their first-born, our subject, opened his eyes to the light February 18, 1828. His parents had eleven children, nine of whom lived to maturity. The mother entered into rest in 1872 and the father subsequently contracted a second marriage. 
    
When our subject was about six years old his parents removed to a farm near Bernadotte, being accompanied by his uncles, Thomas and John. The latter had begun building a mill which was the starting point of the town, and was the first watermill on Spoon River. He, of whom we write, distinctly remembers the journey hither and that, the river being up, the goods were brought across in an Indian dugout while the men were obliged to swim and drive their stock. A cabin was built in the brush from which their land extended on to the prairie to the south. This part of the farm was soon placed under cultivation, and by the aid of their cattle, of which they owned a considerable number, the brush was soon killed around the house. The stock grazed about at will and Mrs. Camron was in the habit of sprinkling salt about in the brush when the dew was on to induce the animals to graze there and so tramp down the bushes. 
    
The sod of the prairie was turned by a plow with a wooden moldboard, drawn by an ox-team, and the tract upon which our subject now lives is one of the first pieces subdued from its primitive wildness. Mr. Camron remembers an Indian scare which was occasioned by a settler named Welsh who lived some five miles northwest, passing Mr. Camron's yelling and comporting himself in a savage manner, thus giving the impression that the red men were in the neighborhood. On another occasion Indians had camped in the vicinity, and refusing to leave when ordered to do so were set upon with hickory switches and whipped away. While the home or our subject's parents was near Smithfield there was an unusual fall of snow which is distinctly recalled by Mr. Camron. His father was getting in wood by hitching the horse to a "drag" and starting him homeward in a place which he had broken down somewhat in the snow. The wife would unhitch the horse and start him back to her husband, in this way saving his passage to and fro in the drifts. 
   
He of whom we write, received his education in an old log schoolhouse about two miles from his home, his text books being Webster's Speller and a paddle, and during the latter part of his attendance, a geography. He lived on the home farm until he was twenty-two years old, when he was united in marriage with Miss Mary C. Ellis, entered a prairie farm in Boone County, Iowa, and established his home there. Mrs. Camron is a daughter of Solomon H. Ellis, one of the old settlers in White County, where she was born and lived to the age of eighteen years. She belongs to a family which is of the Dunkard religion. She has borne her husband nine children, two of whom died in infancy. The survivors are Joel Franklin, Permelia J., Emma A., Ellen, Enos A., William H. and Alice S. The oldest of these has a wife and three children and is now farming in Calhoun County, Iowa. Permelia is the wife of J. F. Harrold, of Farmers Township, and Ellen, the wife of M. Dunblazier, also a farmer in this township. The others are unmarried and still reside under the parental roof. 
   
The Iowa home of our subject was about seventy miles from Spirit Lake where the massacre took place in 1847, the section at the time of his residence being quite on the frontier. When the war broke out Mr. Camron returned to his native State with the intention of leaving his family at home and going into the army. His people, however, were so set against his intention that he finally abandoned it and settled, selling his Iowa land and buying about two miles north of his present residence. There he remained twelve years, then traded for about eleven hundred acres in Arkansas County, Ark., where he made his home three years. He then returned to this county, traded a part of his land for a farm of one hundred acres in Bernadotte Township, near the village, upon the corporation line of which the tract corners. The most of this property is under a fine state of cultivation, but our subject makes his home on his father's homestead in order to keep it in proper condition. 
   
Although favoring Democratic views in the main, Mr. Camron is not so radical a party man as many of his associates. He has never been an office-holder, finding sufficient occupation in his personal affairs, the quiet duties of citizenship and the pleasures of social and domestic life. 

Note from transcriber: In all of my files the name is spelt CAMERON, and the HARROLD that is mentioned is HARRELL. Also, this article mentions that Thomas' father remarried after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Harrell. His 2nd wife was Rebecca Matilda ELLIS who was a sister to Mary Catherine that married Thomas Officer Cameron. So Rebecca was his stepmother and his sister-in-law. Joseph Franklin Harrell is the wife of Permelia Jane Cameron. --Danni