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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 George WOODRUFF, Farmington Postmaster/Businessman 

Pages 672-674, transcribed in fully by Karen CRANE Goggin 

[Surnames: BARTON, BURBRIDGE, CATLIN, CHAPMAN, FAHNESTOCK, GOVE, HASKINS, HOWARD, LUTHER, MERRILL, NICHOLS, PARISH, SNIVELY, WEBSTER, WOODRUFF] 

    
GEORGE WOODRUFF is the gentlemanly and efficient Postmaster of Farmington, is pre-eminent in the business, social, religious and political life of this part of Illinois, and no one has done more towards building up its varied interests than he. Besides attending to his official duties he conducts and extensive grocery and meat business, and his name is connected with various enterprises that have been inaugurated in this section. 
    
Our subject is derived from a sterling ancestry. The Woodruffs have been men of standing and business ability for generations. They originally came from England and settled in the Green Mountain State before the Revolution, when it was a part of Massachusetts. The Burbridges, his mother's family, were also of English extraction and they settled in Virginia in Colonial times. The paternal grandfather of our subject was in the War of 1812, and also served in two or three Indian wars as captain and at one time was captured by the Indians; and grandfather Burbridge was also in the War of 1812. 
    
Hosea Woodruff, the father of our subject, was well-known to the citizens of Fulton County, and especially in Farmington, where in early years he was engaged in the dry-goods and grocery business. He was born in Vermont among the Green Mountains of that State, and when he was six years old, his parents, Anthony and Martha Woodruff, removed to New York where he grew up. They later became pioneers of Ohio where he learned the trade of a carpenter. In 1842 he came to Illinois with his first wife, and the six children born of their union. He settled at Farmington and was engaged as a general merchant here for a few years, and after he had become a well-to-do man he interested himself in the coal mining and wood business in Peoria County. He operated a colliery, situated at Reed's Landing, which was one of the first coal mines opened in this State. His attempts at mining ended disastrously on account of the high water in the Illinois River in the spring of 1850, whereby he sustained a very heavy loss which almost drove him to insolvency and he never fully recovered his former financial standing. He died in Farmington in 1868, at the age of fifty-nine years. His wife died at the age of fifty-seven years at Canton, and is buried at Farmington. By the last union the father had two children--George and Luther. The latter was killed when sixteen years old by the accidental discharge of a gun. Of the six children of the first union two are now living--Dr. J. Woodruff of Roseburg, Ore. and Mrs. Jennie Barton of Joseph, Ore. The maiden name of the mother of our subject was Mary J. Burbridge, and she was a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Catlin) Burbridge, both born in Virginia. They lived in Ohio awhile before they came to Illinois. 
    
The father of our subject was always opposed to slavery and was a stanch Union man. He was very temperate in his habits and for many years he was one of the leading officers in the Baptist Church in Farmington. He was pronounced in his views, and it was an easy matter to find him, as he always stood bravely for what his reason and conscience told him was right. He held various township offices in Farmington. He was a man of uncompromising integrity, was even-tempered and made a great many very warm friends; even now twenty-two years since his death, the older citizens of Farmington think of him with tenderness and regret. Only a few days ago Mr. Henry Merrill, an old friend of his, remarked with tears in his eyes, "if there was ever a man I loved, that man was Hosea Woodruff." 
    
The subject of this biographical review was born June 11, 1851, at Reed's Landing in Peoria County, while his father was engaged in the coal business there. Shortly after, his father returned to Farmington where our subject grew up. He had all the advantages to be obtained in the schools of this town, which he attended until he was fifteen years old. At that age he was called on to assist in the support of the family, and he worked at carpentering and at whatsoever else his hands could find to do. His father took building contracts for erecting houses and bridges and he also contracted to furnish timber for railroads. George began to work in the woods when but fourteen and learned to swing an ax with the ease of a veteran lumberman. While getting out timber for railways the father found it convenient to operate a steam sawmill and the son being then fourteen or fifteen years old, and having considerable mechanical genius was employed to attend to the machinery. After a year and a half of experience around the stationary sawmill he became very proficient in the management of the engine, and when but sixteen years old he obtained a position as engineer in the wool carding factory of Mr. L. Parish of Farmington, receiving in payment $40 per month for about a year. At the age of seventeen he went to work for P. P. Chapman as a laborer in his lumber yards, and was employed by him by the day the ensuing year. Gaining the confidence of his employer and his goodwill, he was appointed foreman of the extensive lumber business and in the first year that he occupied that position he handled two million feet of lumber. 
    
Mr. Woodruff acted as foreman in the lumber yard until 1874, and then became the manager of Mr. Chapman's coal business. For three years prior to his superintending the mines they had not paid their owner, but under our subject's skillful management Mr. Chapman derived a handsome income. Mr. Woodruff was superintendent of the mines for ten years and during that time he had a wonderful experience with the miners. He went through the strikes of 1877 and at times his life was threatened by the KuKlux or Mollie Maguire miners of Pennsylvania, who unfortunately had been brought from there to work in the mines of Farmington, because laborers here were very scarce and the managers were driven to make use of any class of men they could obtain. Our subject worked so long and faithfully in the interests of his employer that his health gave way in the constant excitement and strain necessitated by the responsibilities of his position, and he was obliged to resign. He took a trip for the purpose of recreation through the West and Northwest and spent some two months in Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin. In 1882, while yet acting as superintendent of mines, he invested in the harness business, becoming a partner with S. Barstow of Farmington. The next year he sold his interest in that, and the following year he and Dr. Gove bought the drug business of Reiley Bristol of Farmington, and conducted it until 1886 when they disposed of it, having lost $4,000 by that venture. It was conducted strictly in accordance with our subject's high principles of morality and right on a temperance basis, no liquors being sold over or behind the counter for fever and ague, or any other disease, so that it is not surprising that financial success did not result.