****************************************************************************
File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format 
without the written consent of the author at http://fulton.ilgenweb.net.

****************************************************************************

Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

****************************************************************************

The Biography of Harmon MARTIN 

Transcribed exactly according to the original complete text by Alice Stipak. 

[Surnames: BROCK, DAVID, EASLEY, MARTIN, McCAMANT, SMITH, STINES] 

[starting on page 972] 

    
MARTIN, Harmon.--Among the retired farmers of Ipava, are men who, while appreciating the enormous strides in progress during the past half century and the many advantages which lighten the burdens and increase the well-being of those of the present generation, yet look longingly upon many of the accompaniments of the frontier, and especially to that peace of mind which competition and the craze of wealth for wealth's sake have relentlessly and unalterably routed. Harmon Martin, when sitting before his bright fire in the winter time, likes to dwell in retrospection upon conditions as he found them during the 'forties, when but two houses adorned the site of Ipava, one occupied by John Easley and the other by Henry David, and when the former owned the greater part of the land upon which since have sprung into existence the beautiful homes and flourish- [Page 973] ing industries of the town. There was a little church near by, and on Sunday morning approaching it for miles around were the settlers in rough wagons hauled by peaceful oxen, a restful contrast to the nerve-destroying locomotion of the twentieth century automobile. Then products were pure and honey was made by bees, and man struggled for a home and the simple comforts and simple luxuries of life. It was to such a region that Mr. Martin came with his parents in 1841 from Belmont County, Ohio, where he was born May 6, 1839, a son of Hugh S. and Martha S. (Smith) Martin, who settled in Bernadotte Township, where the father died in 1868 and the mother in 1872. 
    
Hugh S. Martin turned to good account the undeveloped land which he found in Bernadotte Township. He was industrious and had excellent judgment, qualities as essential to success on the frontier as at the present time. Turning his attention principally to sheep-raising, he succeeded so well that, with his 160 original acres as a nucleus, he in time became the owner of 1,000 acres of land. For his first land he paid fifty cents an acre, and for the remaining one dollar and fifty cents. At the present time some of this land is worth $120 an acre. At one time Mr. Martin had 3,000 head of sheep roaming over his lands, and in addition he raised large quantities of grain and other food for his stock in the winter. He was methodical and exacting in the management of his property, and it was these traits that advanced his fortunes and placed him among the sheep kings in the middle of the last century. 
    
Young Harmon Martin found plenty of work around his father's farm, and from sunrise to sunset he tended sheep on the praries--a decidedly monotonous if not physically difficult task. Eventually he brought a young wife to the old place, his marriage to Mary McCamant, of Ohio, taking place in January, 1864. Samuel McCamant, the father of Mrs. Martin, came to Fulton County in 1854, settling in Ipava, where he followed the carpenter trade until shortly before his death, February 11, 1896. He was born in Virginia and lived for many years in Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Martin have two daughters, of whom Vada C. is the wife of Charles Stines and lives on the old place with her parents, and Annie E. is the wife of Jesse F. Brock, a farmer of Bernadotte Township. Not long after his marriage Mr. Martin's father gave him a farm, to which he moved and which he cultivated continuously for thirty-six years, in 1903 moving to Ipava, where he since has lived retired. Mr. Martin is not identified with any church, but contributes liberally of his means to the support of the Presbyterian Church, of which his wife has been a member since her fifteenth year. He is of the old school of courteous and honorable men, one who would scorn to do an ungenerous or inconsiderate act and whose loyalty to friends and their interests has never been questioned.