Charles Dawson

Portrait and Biographical Album of Peoria County (1890)
Transcribed by Danni Hopkins!

Charles W. Dawson is a native of this county and is now classed among the most intelligent and progressive farmers and stock-growers of Rosefield Township, where he is conducting his agricultural interests very profitably. Our subject was born east of Oak Hill, on section 6, this township, August 28, 1845. His father, Rodimus, was one of the early pioneers of this part of the county. He was born near Wheeling, W. Va., February 23, 1813. He married for his first wife Mary Ann Johnson, the mother of our subject, who was born near that city, her birth taking place November 17, 1813. She died at the age of sixty-eight years, closing a well-spent life and leaving behind her the memory of a virtuous and upright woman. The father of our subject married Amy Hutchinson for his second wife and lives with her in Oak Hill. When he came to this county he settled in this township on an eighty-acre tract of land which he improved and to which he subsequently added another forty acres. In 1856, he moved to Marion County, Iowa, and thence to Mahaska County in the same State, where he resided eighty years. He was better pleased with this locality, however, and at the expiration of that time he returned to Rosefield Township, and located on a tract of one hundred and twelve acres of land on section 7. He acquired a competence and for the past three years has lived in retirement in the village of Oak Hill. He and his wife are true Christian people and in them the Methodist Episcopal Church has two of its best members.

By his marriage with the mother of our subject, Mr. Dawson became the father of seven children, namely: Cornelius, a resident of Farmington, who served in Company I, Eighteenth Illinois Infantry; Rebecca; Mary, wife of Samuel Finarty; Charles W.; James, a resident of Iowa County, Iowa, who served in the Seventy-seventh Illinois Regiment; Elizabeth, wife of George Hammerbacker, and Jennie, wife of W. H. Bower.

The subject of this sketch was reared to the life of a farmer and early began to assist his father in his work. He was given a common-school education and at the age of twenty-one began life for himself as a railroad man, and was thus employed for the space of one year. He had not attained to manhood when the war broke out but he watched its progress with intense and patriotic interest and as soon as he could, entered the army, enlisting in Company I, Eighteenth Illinois Regiment, February 28, 1865, and in his service at Little Rock, Ark., proved himself to possess good soldierly qualities. He was honorably discharged in the month of December, 1865, at Pine Bluff.

Since his return from Iowa, Mr. Dawson has lived on the homestead where he now resides and has been busily engaged in general farming and in stock-raising. He has acquired considerable valuable property, and is the proprietor of a fine farm of two hundred and forty acres in Dawson County, Neb. He lives very comfortably on his Rosefield homestead, which is provided with a substantial set of buildings, and everything about the place indicates care and good management.

Mr. Dawson was married March 3, 1870, to Mary A. Bower, who is all to him that a devoted wife and able helpmate can be. She is a daughter of Daniel and Catherine (Stall) Bower, who came from Pennsylvania to Rosefield Township, about 1851. They had a family of three sons and two daughters. Our subject and his wife have five children—Edgar Charles, Nettie O., Hiram Reuel, Maggie Alsasia and Myra Edna.

Mr. Dawson’s course through life has been honorable to himself and creditable to his native township, and all who know him will certify to his high moral character and steady sober habits. He and his wife are Christians in the truest sense of the word and are zealous in the cause of religion as represented in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which they are members of high standing. Socially, Mr. Dawson is identified with the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

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