Daniel Harmon Brush
Julia Ann Etherton Brush
Rowland R. Brush
Josiah Wood
John Asgill Connor
James Monroe Campbell
Dr. and Mrs. Richart
Mary Ann Singleton
Edwin M. Babcock
Nelson W. Graham
Samuel Trasker Brush
Moses R. & Hannah T. Embree
Georgiana Rapp
Hugh Lauder
Amanda Templeton
My comments this morning reflect what Julia Etherton Brush, one of our early church members, might have to share about her husband, Daniel Harmon Brush, her friends, and the earliest members of this First Presbyterian congregation.
It wasn’t typical, for women of Julia’s era to speak publically...even in a church setting, so I’ll not act the role of Julia. My words are scripted, for accuracy.
I got interested in our town’s history two years ago, while I was on the Carbondale Sesquicentennial Committee About a year ago, I began gathered information about our church founders and early member. I’ve a wonderful time sifting through 7-8 sources rather thoroughly. In the course of it all, I linked by on line with a great-great granddaughter of Julia and Daniel Brush. Her insights have been helpful and fun. The whole project has grown and grown and I’ve love doing. Now...to share!
Let’s begin our journey with a word of thanks for our congregation’s “early saints”:
Lord! We are all travelers, “just passing through” a world filled with a multitude of changes and challenges. We hope to become worthy of belonging with the saints of our church, past and present, and future. Help us to be part of the parade of Christians who finally meet in the place you called Heaven.
As we turn our thoughts back to our earliest members and friends, open our minds to an understanding of and appreciation for the early saints of our congregation.
May looking back help us to appreciate the present, and look to the future, with renewed Christian enthusiasm and understanding .....amen
The GENESIS of The First presbyterian Church of Carbondale was in 1852; however, “The thirteenth of February, 1854, Reverend Josiah Wood declared the organization of First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale”. At that beginning point, seven members joined.
Between 1856-58, other families came by professions of faith and letter.
September 24, 1859, after much toil and growing pains, our first “little white church” was dedicated. Twelve more members joined and eight children were baptized in the church on West Monroe Street.
Contributing to the establishment and growth of our church were some who became members and some who did not. All were, in their own ways,“saints”. Let’s begin with an early member, one of Carbondale’s founders:
Daniel Harmon Brush was born in Vergennes, Vermont, April 15, 1813. In 1820, his family moved to Greene Co. IL. His father died the same year. The family held the homestead together until 1828, when his mother remarried, moving to Sangamon County. Daniel moved to Jackson County to live with his sister Mary Brush Jenkins.
For the first 10 years, 1837-47, Mr. Brush gained political experience working for his brother-in-law, Alexander Jenkins and Mr. Joel Manning.
In 1841, Daniel married Julia Etherton. They parented nine children; three died quite young.
In 1850's, Daniel undertook the building of a town on the new IC railroad. He chose a location, gathered support, purchased land, and helped found Carbondale.
Brush built the first business house, mill, bank and freight office. He was the first station agent.
In 1854, the family from Murphysboro to Carbondale. They lived with Julia’s sister Jane, the widow of Daniel’s brother, James. Daniel was dismayed at her second marriage. When she died, later that year, Daniel sought and assumed responsibility for her six children.
Daniel owned 10 acres where Brush School & later Carbondale Public Library were built. He had a fine new home built for his family and moved in July, 1857.
The total cost exclusive of land value was:
$8000 for the house
$800 for a barn
bee house and fixtures $260
$300 for a brick smokehouse
$250 for a chicken house & pigpen
The approximate total of $9600 was for those times a huge expenditure.
On Sept. 24, 1859, Daniel and Julia became members of the newly built Presbyterian Church. Mr. Brush was know as a pious Christian, church-goer & strict Sabbath-keeper.
In 1861, the Civil War found him at height of physical & business career; however, he did not hesitate to offer his services to his country. Daniel served with determination, discipline and order. Since Brush set such high standards, he was considered stern & unsympathetic. Colonel Brush oft-times incurred the displeasure of his own enlisted men. At one point he was arrested by complaints from his enlisted men, but was cleared of all charges. Completing his service, Colonel Brush returned to Carbondale.
He added to his businesses: a law practice, a coal mine and a newspaper. April 29,1866, Colonels Brush and Ingersoll were marshals of the 1st Memorial Day celebration held in Carbondale’s Woodlawn cemetery. Julia died in 1867, the year Daniel Jr. entered West Point.
Within a year, Daniel remarried. The second Mrs. Brush was a New York lady. She seemed to lived happily with Colonel Brush, yet never really adjusted socially to the small Midwestern community. Following his 1890 death, she went back east.
Daniel Harmon Brush died February 10, 1890. He observed workmen trying to fell a tree near his mansion and went out to help. He tied a rope around the tree and his wrists. When the tree fell in an unexpected direction, Daniel Harmon was catapulted into the air and slammed into the ground. Resulting injuries caused his death.
Daniel Harmon’s later years were ones of financial success and community respect. However, he was considered something of a “character”. Sadly, Daniel’s will did not favor his younger son and daughter. He held rigid standards for himself and all of those around him. Perhaps those ambitions & high standards were KEY to his success as a town planner and businessman. Unfortunately, his actions caused a deep split in the family which endured for many years.
Julia Etherton was born July 14, probably in 1826. Three dates are given for her Jackson County birth. She married Daniel Harmon Brush in November, 1841.
Together they had nine children. Three died quite young. Julia took on the added responsibility of raising her sister Jane’s children when she died in 1854.
Daniel had a lovely home built on West Main Street, He owned 10 acres beginning where the “old Post Office is now. The lumber was prepared in their own saw mill.
Julia and Daniel joined the First Presbyterian Church
in September of 1859. Possibly, several of the eight children baptized that day were theirs. In the original church, on West Monroe, they sat in pew 40.
Julia had the majority of the care of their home and family while D.H. was involved in founding the town, building up his businesses, and serving in the Civil War, She died in 1867, after 26 years of marriage to Daniel.
Her youngest children were four and eight years old.
Daniel Harmon Brush’s Tribute to His Wife
“Julia was a perfect and most loveable girl. She was a blessing to me as wife, true and faithful to the end, and in her motherly love for our children she could not be excelled.
She had been born and raised to womanhood in this county and did not have the advantages of education in schools that she deserved.
She had, however, a good Christian mother whose influence in her training was the best, so that her home life was pure in its teaching and perfect in forming an earnest, positive Christian character.
Modest and retiring in her disposition, her home was her theater of action and her motherly love the specter by which she ruled her household.
Twenty-six years she was my helper and the cherished guardian of my home, and then her God took her. Her surviving children may well rise up and call her blessed.”
The Family Monument in Woodlawn
As originally made out, Daniel Harmon’s father’s will provided for a monument at his burial site. Long after Elkanah’s death, the location, “under a spreading oak”, near his log cabin home, could not be identified. The bequest was modified and the tall monument in Woodlawn Cemetery was inscribed:
“This stone is erected by the sons of Elkanah Brush to his memory. He was born in Vermont, March 7, 1762 and died in Greene County, Illinois, July 11, 1821. In the fall of 1820 he migrated to Vergennes, Vermont with his family consisting of his wife Lucretia and their children, Mary, Daniel Harmon, James and Rowland, Jr, the eldest nine and the youngest one year old, and settled at a point afterward named Bluffdale making the whole distance with horse teams and being the first to take wagons to the region where he located, then in the wilds of Illinois.
He built a cabin of rough logs for his family residence, broke land and put in crops and died. Also in memory of our mother Lucretia who died December 14, 18,47, aged 68; Sister Mary who died May 1, 1841, aged 30; Brother James who died June 10, 1849, aged 33; and brother Rowland R. who died March 9, 1880, age 60. Beloved in Life! Your memories we fondly cherish. Rest in Peace.”
Rowland was the youngest brother of D.H. Brush. Their father, Elkanah Brush, died when Rowland was two years old.
He lived with his mother and stepfather, and then with his brother Reuben until 1847, when he married Frances E. Sherrel. The couple lived in Peru, Illinois, until Daniel urged him to move to Alexander County to operate Brush’s sawmill. They came to Carbondale when the sawmill was moved to Carbondale in 1854.
In 1854, Rowland was elected an elder soon after joining the church with his wife Frances.
In 1858, he owned several dozen lots in the Brush subdivision. In a 1861 real estate transaction, his wife was listed, but no offspring.
Rowland served in the Civil War and apparently did not return to Carbondale to live following the war; however, in 1871, seven town lots west of Illinois Avenue and north of Walnut were listed in his name.
Josiah Wood is credited with preaching the first sermon delivered in Carbondale, Illinois, in December, 1852. It was given in the unfinished log cabin of Asgill Connor. That home was located on the north side of Main Street about where the Methodist Church now stands.
Wood, who was from Old Du Quoin, lived in Murphysboro at the time. By 1855, Josiah has moved to Carbondale.
Brush’s memoirs record that he and Josiah Wood chose lot 59, in the southwest part of town, a lot set aside for churches, as the Presbyterian Church site. Not until 1856 were funds and plans complete for beginning the actual building on lot 59.
February 13, 1854, Wood formally “organized” First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale. Seven residents became members. His status as an “official minister” is not certain. He was listed as Clerk of the Session in 1854 and preached at intervals in Carbondale. Woods had experience as a preacher in Old Du Quoin, Murphysboro, and Tamaroa between 1843 and his death on June 5, 1870.
Though never a member of the Presbyterian Church, John Asgill Connor was a vital part of the establishment of The First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale, Illinois. The first book of trustees record, shows that on January 4, 1853, Josiah Wood selected Lot 59 in the new town of Carbondale, on behalf of the Presbyterian denomination, “for the purpose of erecting thereon, a house of worship”. On that date, a subscription paper was drawn up and “some money subscribed” to be paid to Asgill Connor and William Richart. The funds were to be held by them until “properly elected trustees were qualified to hold said property and proceed with the erection of a church thereon.” Connor was a friend of Daniel Brush, and co-founder of Carbondale.
Mr. Connor was born in Pomona Township. His name appears on every city board of trustees from the charter year, 1856 through 1862. He served as a trustee for Carbondale College.
Asgill loved farming and was Jackson County’s first scientific farmer, introducing to southern Illinois: red corn, red sweet potatoes and new varieties of grapes. He experimented with bananas and was one of the first to grow cotton in the area. The Chicago Press & Tribune reported in 1858 that Mr. Connor “grew remarkable fine wheat weighing 65# to the bushel.”
Mr. Connor “passed” in 1875, leaving his wife Margaret, sons Benjamin and James, and daughter, Frances. Though never a member of this congregation, his role as financial guardian was timely and vital.
Though not a member of the First Presbyterian Church congregation, Mr. Campbell helped establish both the church and town. He served on our first church “Board of Trustees”.
Moving here from Williamson County, he soon became a large land holder. The Campbell Hotel was built on lots 157 and 158, that would be the corner of Washington and East Main. Later the Newell House replaced it.
James Campbell was contracted to build the structure for Southern Illinois Normal University in 1870. Sadly, he lost his life when a timber being lifted struck his head. He died the following day, April 3, 1871. Immediately, work on the building stopped. Ironically, his friend, Daniel Harmon Brush would meet a similar sort of death...an accident involving a tree took the life of Brush in 1890.
Julia and Daniel Brush’s daughter, Lucretia Charlotte married the Campbell’s eldest son, Henry.
William Richart, one of Carbondale’s three founders, had moved to Murphysboro in 1850, with his wife, Elizabeth Worthen. They had no children of their own, but adopted a child they named “Eddie”.
The Richart’s moved to Carbondale soon after William, a medical doctor and surveyor, laid out the new town. He acquired a great deal of land. He and Asgill Connor held the funds for the first church until trustees could proceed with the erection of the Monroe Street building.
The couple were listed as among the first seven members of First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale, February, 1854.
Though quite well off, they built and lived in a two-story, frame building north of the first building at the corner of Washington and East Main. Their quarters were upstairs, the doctor’s drugstore downstairs.
Dr. Richart died in 1868. His wife left for a time to live with Eddie. She soon returned to Carbondale and lived here until her death in 1916.
Mary Ann and Alfred Singleton were among the first seven members to join the “new” church in 1854. Ib August 4, 1856, Mr. Singleton was listed among the first trustees of First Presbyterian.
Mrs. Singleton was a progressive lady, co-owning several pieces of property with her husband. One site held the city’s first boarding house on the northeast corner of the town square.
Their son Eli never returned from “The Great Rebellion”. He was mortally wounded at Fort Donelson in 1862.
No record of the couple exists in city census or church records after 1862. The couple, it appears, did not stay in Carbondale after the Civil War years.
Mr. Edwin Babcock was the principal of the first school to be built in Carbondale. The one-story high, 20' X 36' frame schoolhouse was located on lot 37, later the site of Brush School and near the present Carbondale Public Library.
The Babcock’s Italianate home was built on Outlot 59, a large lot on what is West Walnut, in 1868. In 1879 it became the home of S.I.N.U. President Robert Allyn, who made major changes to it. In 1912 there were still 11 fireplaces and stoves to heat this white-painted brick home.
It has since been occupied by the *Barrow-Brown-Sloan-and Kimmel family.
* While Barrows lived in the house, the third floor was rented by a young couple named David and Wanda Kenney.
In 1868, Mr.and Mrs. Nelson W. Graham sat in pew 7....rental paid was $5.00.
Mr. Graham owned a mill 100 feet south of Main Street, east of Woodlawn Cemetery, across from where Attucks School was built later. At the mill, named Jackson Mill, Nelson developed “Graham Flour”. It was shipped nationwide by 1878. The mill had a 200-240 barrel per day capacity with an on-site cooperage to provide barrels. One of three mills operating in 1887, all local mills were closed by 1890-91.
Mr. Graham then gave his time to the “new” electric light plant. Mrs. Graham, however, insisted on oil lights in their home, tending them herself.
April 9, 1893, the Presbyterian Church became “electrified” at a cost of $7.60 per month for 26 lights.
The Grahams moved to Chicago apparently due to Nelson’s failing health. He died there in 1901.
Samuel Trasker Brush was born to James and Jane (Etherton) Brush in 1842. His father’s died in 1849; Samuel was indentured to his uncle, Daniel Harmon Brush.
During the Civil War, Samuel was an adjutant to Colonel Brush in Company C, 18th Infantry of Illinois.
He then became in involved in Carbondale real estate. By 1874 he was superintendent of the Alden Fruit Preserving Co. Their main crop was dried apples. From 1876-1880 he was listed as a city alderman.
February 15, 1874, his son George was born and his wife died. In May of that year, Samuel succeeded his Uncle Daniel as secretary of First Presbyterian Church.
In 1884, he remarried. He and his wife Jennie had two daughters, Elizabeth and Jennie.
In the 1890's, Samuel was involved in mining, much of it in Williamson County. The non-union mines were a struggle to keep open. Negro miners were even brought in from Jellico TN. In 1906 the Brush and Colp mines were finally closed.
It appears that Samuel Trasker Brush provided substantial financial support for the 1906 church building.
Moses R., a carpenter, came to Carbondale with his wife Hannah and a son and daughter..
July 17, 1868, M. R. Embree was credited by the Presbyterian Church with a rental payment of $6.00 of for pew 24.
By 1869, the church building, on Monroe Street was a decade old. Structural problems resulted in it being raised on stone pillars so that $400 in repairs to the inside could be made. Among the modifications were a new interior entrance platform and railing and a front fence outside. “The bell was rehung “so as to ring right.” It is assumed Mr. Embree was knowledgeable about the procedures needed for repairs. The Embree family were members during the time of Colonel Brush’s “infamous boycott” over “locked pews” and an altered pulpit arrangement.
Davis N. and Amanda Hamilton Davis and their first child, Ellen, moved to Carbondale from Shawneetown in 1855. He was respected as a “good citizen, retiring and well-mannered”. He purchased 4 city lots.
He was listed in the 1860 census as an insurance agent and became a lawyer and city attorney in 1874. He served a term as police magistrate and justice of the peace. Mr. Hamilton soon helped organize the Shekinah Lodge, A.F.& A.M. (Masons).
In 1860, the family included children Ellen, Alice, Georgianna, Cordelia, William and Charles. The family occupied pew 38 (rental $11) at the original Presbyterian Church.
After Mrs. Hamilton died and he remarried. The woman’s name was Angeline, but little else is know.
Mrs. Rapp was the wife of Isaac Rapp. D.H. Brush contracted Isaac Rapp and James Edwards of St. Louis to built his home, and a church building for the First Presbyterians, between 1855-59. Isaac and C. Ward, their son, planned and constructed the 1906 church.
The Rapps were married in 1851. Georgiana bore four children by 1861. After Isaac returned from service in the Civil War, they had five more children.
Georgiana Rapp was one of twelve added to the church roll in September 24, 1859, when the building on Monroe Street was dedicated. Eight children were baptized on that day of celebration. It is possible several were children of the Rapps.
Mr. Rapp built their home at 406 W. Main Street. It had wonderful trim and moldings planed at Rapp’s mill. The Chapman home on West Main, later the First Baptist Parsonage, was another example of Rapp’s work. These homes were razed in the 1950's.
In 1872, the Illinois State Legislative gave Isaac the contract to complete the S.I.N.U. building that had been halted upon the death of James M. Campbell.
Daniel Harmon Brush, Jr. married into the Rapp family, taking their daughter, Harriet, as his wife.
Lucy Ann Ennisson (Mrs. James) was born in New York state and retained strong allegiance to her native home throughout her life.
Mrs. Ennison joined the Presbyterian Church in 1859, sitting in pew 23. Pew rental of $6.00 was paid by Lucy.
In 1861, Mrs. Ennisson bore her first son, William, elsewhere in Illinois. In 1863, a second son, Walter Jay, was born in Carbondale.
In 1885, the couple moved to Chicago and celebrated their Golden Anniversary in 1887. A rarity in an age where the average live span was considerably shorter.
Lucy Ann, according to her obituary in the local Free Press, “often expressed the desire to be buried in her native state of New York.” Around 1900, she went back to New York there to live with her son William. There she died and was buried. Mrs. Ennison was survived at that time by her husband and two sons.
In 1862, Hugh Lauder married Harriet Nelson of Ohio, in Carbondale. Following his service in the Civil War, the Lauder’s returned to Ohio. In 1888, they moved back to Carbondale where he was listed as Third Ward Alderman. The 1898 city directory listed him as a real estate operator living at 504 S. Poplar. Mr. Lauder served as mayor of Carbondale 1897-98. It appeared to be customary to serve one-year terms at that time.
In 1905, Hugh and Harriet were listed at 404 W. Main. He was a hardwood lumber and real estate operator. From 1909-1913, he was a trustee of Southern Illinois Normal University. In 1917, he retired to Florida, dying there the next year.
Mr. Lauder owned a quarry in Boskeydell. It appears he was one of three men purchasing the lot for this structure, Dec, 12, 1902, from Nannie Davis of Chicago. Of great import to our congregation is the fact that he donated the stone for the 1906 church building. It was “dressed” at the quarry, hauled to this church site, and supervised by of Frank Hayden and J.J. Arnold, the stone was “put in place without the sound of hammer.”
At the turn of the century, the Presbyterian Church established a mission at 310 E. Birch. Miss Amanda Templeton was its supervisor from the beginning until her death December 19, 1925.
Miss Templeton had been a missionary among the Indians of the Southwest. Her father, Rev. W. H. Templeton was a missionary among the Seminole. Amanda was a relative of present church member, David Kenney.
Her assistants for many years were Margaret Phillips and her mother, Mrs. Nellie Phillips of 197 South Poplar Street. This was the family of past member Frances Phillips.
When Daniel Harmon Brush wrote of the first 25 years of the church, he concluded with these words: This church has exerted great influence for good in the past, and doubtless will be a power for good in time to come.
Following Brush’s death, First Presbyterian Church DID continued to grow and exert a positive influence on citizens of the town. But, that is not for this visit...as Paul Harvey says “That’s the rest of the story”, for another time.
Since this is our 150th anniversary, it would be interesting to share other church “saints”. I need your guidance about who and what you feel we should research and share. Our next area on concentration may be 1900-1952. Our church website will soon have more lore about early church members and events.
Lord, we pray that in sharing our past, we become more aware of and thankful for our present and future.
Help us to proudly proclaim: Come join us in our journey, ‘cause it’s time that we begin; we hope to share in that judgement...to join our fellow members and friends...when the saints go marching in ...Amen
First Members (1854)
Rowland (Roland) and Frances Brush
Dr. and Mrs. (Elizabeth) Richart*
Alfred and Mary Ann Singleton
Almira Doughty
Early founders (non-members)
Robert Marron, James Campbell, and Henry Saunders
Members who joined upon the church’s dedication (1859)
Daniel and Julia Brush
John and Julia Collom*
Lucy Ennison
I.M. Edwards
Lucy Fitch
Ann Marron (Mrs. Robert)*
Catherine Post (wife of Rev. W.S. Post)
Georgianna Rapp (Mrs. Isaac)
Charles and Martha Pelton*
Sources for First Presbyterian 150th notes:
One Hundred Years, materials gathered by Mrs. Theodore Midjaas and Miss Alice Milligan, Edited and prepared by Mrs. Will Griffith, 1953
A History of Early Carbondale , John D. Wright, 1977
75 Years in Retrospect, Eli Lentz, 1955
Growing Up With Southern Illinois, Daniel Harmon Brush, 1992
An Architectural History of Carbondale, Illinois, Susan E. Maycock, 1983
Carbondale, A Pictorial History, Betty Mitchell, 1991
S.I.U. Special Collections, Presbyterian Church collection, excerpts from History of Jackson, Illinois, 1878 and Alton Presbytery reports.
Thanks to David King for researching assistance
Materials gathered and compiled by Dorothy A. Lingle Ittner, 2002-2004.