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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 Edwin Page DEWEY 

[Surnames: DEWEY, SHINN, WRIGHT] 

DEWEY, EDWIN PAGE

    
At the age of ninety, men who have retained their faculties and profited by their experiences look across life and see mostly the far shore of their childhood from which they have receded, rather than the bridge which connects it, and of which they have been one of the builders, and it is thus a pleasure to know and talk to one who had lived so long and gathered so much of interest as Edwin Page Dewey. 
    
Mr. Dewey was one of the retired colony of Canton, and his life has gone parallel with the development of Fulton County since his arrival here with his parents in 1832. He was fifteen years old, having been born on Feb. 4, 1817, in Hanover, NH. His father, Oliver Dewey, married in early life to Jemima Wright, and when he arrived in this county had little besides his determination and hope to accompany his first years of hardship and deprivation. 
    
He had but limited educational chances but to some extent made up for this by the application of later years. He sought the quiet paths of the lover of nature and the tiller of the soil, content to await the arrival of his harvests and the sale of his products in the town of Canton. 
    
At the age of twenty-five, Sept. 1, 1842, he married Anna Maria Shinn, and to him were born six children: Roswell W., Sarah P., Charles Arthur, and Eliza Maria, still living, and Stephen and Henrietta, the former of whom died at the age of seven months, and the latter at eleven years. 
    
Three years after his marriage, Mr. Dewey purchased and moved upon an 80 acre farm in Sect. 11, Canton Twp., upon which he lived and prospered until his retirement from active life for more than 40 years, and the years had dealt gently with him, giving him the companionship of many friends and the solace which comes of dealing fairly with one's fellowmen, when he was called away by death in 1898.