****************************************************************************
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 W.D. VANSYCKELL 

VANSYCKELL, W.D.

[Surnames: ESHELMAN, ROHER, VANSYCKELL] 
    
Two generations of toilers have pinned their faith and lent their practical energy to the farming property now owned by W. D. Vansyckel. Samuel Vansyckel, the earlier owner, whose declining years are being spent in retirement in Canton, came here when settlers were widely separated and little has been accomplished to suggest the unexampled prosperity of the present. 
    
He was a young and unmarried man when ambition directed his step westward, and after becoming settled here he married Mary Eshelman, daughter of a Fulton County Pioneer. W. D. Vansyckel was born on the farm in Fulton County in 1866, the year after his father made settlement, thereon, and has since known no other home. He became reared to hard work and to an intelligent appreciation of the many advantages of country life. As a lad he attended the public schools. 
    
Practically all the improvements on the place have been placed there by father and son, and the latter became the sole owner in 1901, purchasing the land outright from the older man. 
    
In 1901 he brought to the old place a young and helpful wife whose maiden name was Susie Roher, a native daughter of Fulton County.