Grandfather and great grandmother were from Germany and emigrated to New Jersey at an early day. Isaac Hurff, father of our subject, was a farmer—a self-made man—and Thomas was raised on the farm, with such advantages of education as the imperfect schools of New Jersey at that day afforded. He made the best of his opportunities as a boy, and after he became of age, for a period of five years, till the spring of 1837, lived on a produce and fruit farm, on the Delaware river, twenty miles below Philadelphia, form which he carried his produce to the city markets. Being then a singer man, and twenty-seven years of age, he came alone to Illinois. He started on the 1st of March, and, on account of the bad roads and imperfect facilities for traveling, was thirty-two days in getting to Elmwood, Peoria county. His father had been here the year previous and had purchased eighty acres, a part of Mr. Hurff’s present homestead and here he hoped to begin operations immediately on his arrival, breaking prairie and making improvements. But to satisfy himself if there was not some better place in the west, he spent that summer in exploring on horseback, guided by a pocket compass, the prairie regions round about, and portions of Iowa, and returned at last fully satisfied that no place he had seen could equal that of his first choice.

Mr. Hurff came to this county at the time of the financial crisis of 1837, the hardest time for settlers in this new country of any period in the history of Illinois; but he had energy and inventive resources equal to the emergency, and the expedients he adopted to get along, if they were all related, would make a story of romantic interest. For three years, until 1840, everything went down so fast that making anything at ordinary farming was an impossibility. He raised good crops of corn and wheat but prices were so low that it was the next thing to throwing them away to attempt to sell them. He therefore resolved to hold his corn, and bought sucker hogs and and fed and shipped them to New York, by the way of New Orleans, then the best route, as railroads to the east had not been built. He raised white beans and sent them to market but got almost nothing for them. He sent a team, loaded with prairie chickens—six hundred, killed in the winter and froze and packed—to Philadelphia, and sold them, making something in the operations; also, selling the team at the same time for a good round sum, so that the trip, upon the whole, was a financial success. He did everything and tried every experiment almost that could be thought of, determined that adverse circumstances should not sink him.

During those hard times, Mr. Hurff not only kept his head above water, but gulped something in the way of substantial improvement and added largely to his lands. Up to 1847 he had bought and paid for about one thousand acres, in different counties, which, in 1848, he sold for almost one thousand dollars, thinking that better than to pay taxes on them. He was then sick and found so much land a burden to him. Spending a summer in New Jersey, visiting his father ad friends, he recovered his heath and returned in July 1849, and had that year about one hundred acres of wheat to harvest. Next year, he and three others rested a whole section and raised corn and wheat on it, doing well by the operation. Then he kept on till at present he has one of the finest estates in the county, containing about eight hundred acres of excellent land, with a home residence which for durability, and beauty in appearance, is rarely surpassed by any country home.

Mr. Hurff was married in New Jersey, December 24th, 1837, to Miss Mary Ann Cheesman, daughter of Ephraim and Anna Cheesman, of New Jersey. By this marriage, they have had nine children, three sons and six daughters, seven of whom are now living. The son living is settled on a farm of his own, one mile northeast, on one of the farms of the homestead property.

Mr. Hurff is a man of great energy of character. It will be seen from the record already given that few men have the determined purpose and versatility of talent which have characterized him in all his struggles to succeed in life, and few, taking everything into consideration, have been more successful.

He has a high appreciation of the advantages of the present generation over that in which he set out a poor boy to make his way in the world, and values the facilities for education. Nearly all his children he has give good advantages, sending them away to school. One of his draughts is now at Lombard University, at Galesburg, Illinois.

Mr. Hurff’s homestead farm is of great value on account of the coal deposits it contains, their good quality, and advantages for market. See view of his place elsewhere in this work. (page 61)