Daniel Harmon Brush was born April 15, 1813, in Vergennes, Vermont. When he was 7, His family moved to Greene Co. IL. His father died same year. Daniel helped hold the homestead together for 8 difficult years. His mother remarried and moved to Sangamon County. In 1828, Daniel moved to Jackson County to live with his older sister, Mary, who had married Alexander Jenkins.
From 1837-47, Mr. Brush gained political experience working for Jenkins and Mr. Joel Manning.
In 1841, he chose Julia Etherton, to be his wife. They parented nine children; three died quite young.
During the early 1850's, Brush saw the possibility of a town on the new IC railroad. He chose a location, gathered support, purchased land, and helped found the Carbondale in 1852.
Daniel built the first business house, sawmill, bank and freight office, and was the first station agent. In 1854, the family from Murphysboro to Carbondale to live with his widowed sister-in-law, Jane. Jane was Julia’s sister, the widow of Daniel’s brother, James. Daniel, dismayed at her second marriage, assumed responsibility for six of her children when Jane died in 1954.
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 approximate $9600, for those times a huge expenditure.
On Sept. 24, 1859, Daniel and Julia became members of the newly built Presbyterian Church. Mr. Brush was a pious Christian, church-goer & strict Sabbath-keeper.
During the Civil War, Daniel served with discipline, determination, and order. Brush set such high standards that he was often considered stern & unsympathetic. At one point, the Colonel was arrested upon complaints from his enlisted men. He was cleared of all charges.
Returning home, Brush established a law practice, a coal mine and newspaper. April 29,1866, Colonels Brush and Ingersoll were marshals of the first Memorial Day celebration held in Carbondale’s Woodlawn cemetery.
Julia died in 1867. Daniel remarried, a New York lady. She was happy with Colonel Brush, yet never adjusted socially to the small Midwestern community. Following his 1890 death, she returned to the East.
February 10, 1890, workmen tried to fell a tree near West Side School and the Brush mansion. In trying to help, Daniel tied a rope from the tree around his wrists. When the tree fell in an unexpected direction, Daniel Harmon Brush was catapulted into the air and slammed into the ground. Resulting injuries caused his death.
In his later years, Daniel Harmon enjoyed financial success and community respect, though he was considered quite a “character”. His did not favor his youngest son and daughter in his will. Richard and Nora did not reflect the rigid standards Brush held for himself. This caused a split in the family which endured for many years.
Julia Etherton Brush was born around 1820 in Jackson County IL. Julia married Daniel Harmon Brush in November of 1841.
Together they had nine children. Sadly, three, including their first-born son, Rowland, died young. In 1854, when her sister Jane died, Julia took the added responsibility of raising the six younger children of Jane and James Brush. James had died of cholera in 1849.
Daniel Harmon had a lovely home built for his family on Main Street. It was located in area between the old post office post office and the present library.
Julia and Daniel joined the First Presbyterian Church
in September of 1859. In the original church, on Monroe Street, they sat in pew 40. Possibly, several of the eight children baptized that day were theirs.
Julia had the majority of care of their home and family, while Daniel 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. That year Daniel Harmon, Jr. entered West Point. Their two youngest children, Richa-rd Dunning, age 8 and Nora, age 4, were left motherless.
Daniel Harmon Brush’s Tribute to His Wife Julia Etherton
“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
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.
Josiah Wood is credited with preaching the first sermon delivered in Carbondale, Illinois, December, 1852, The site, an unfinished log cabin of Asgill Connor, was located on the north side of Main Street where the present Methodist Church stands. Wood, from Old Du Quoin, lived in Murphysboro. He later moved to Carbondale.
D. H. Brush’s memoirs report 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.
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 Clerk of the Session in 1854 and preached at intervals in Carbondale. He had experience as a preacher in Old Du Quoin, Murphysboro, and Tamaroa between 1843 and 1870.
Connor was a co-founder of Carbondale. Though never a church member, John Asgill Connor played a vital role in establishing First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale. The first book of trustees records: January 4, 1853, Josiah Wood helped select Lot 59 on behalf of the Presbyterian denomination, “for the purpose of erecting thereon, a house of worship”. A subscription paper was drawn up and “some money subscribed” to be paid to Asgill Connor and William Richart. They held these funds until “properly elected trustees were qualified to hold said property and proceed with the erection of a church thereon.”
Asgill loved farming and was Jackson County’s first scientific farmer, introducing: red corn, red sweet potatoes and new varieties of grapes. His banana and cotton growing experiments were innovative to the area. In 1858, The Chicago Press & Tribune reported: Mr. Connor “grew remarkable fine wheat, weighing 65# a bushel.”
Mr. Connor died in 1875, leaving Margaret, his wife, sons Benjamin and James, and daughter, Frances.