Mr. Doubet is of French birth and antecedents and came to this country in 1837, when he was twelve years of age, with his father, Joseph Doubet, who settled about a mile from where our subject now lives, in Kickapoo. When they first came here there were but few settlements in the county. Deer and prairie chickens were plentiful and with wild turkeys formed the staple meat of the pioneers. Prairie wolves abounded and made night hideous with their howls. A perfectly white wolf, which is a rare animal, used to be seen quite often in this neighborhood and was afterward killed by poison and his body found in the vicinity. Wild turkeys used to venture even to the corn cribs of the pioneers and eat the corn, and game was so abundant that Jack Johnson killed in one winter a large quantity, as he was an extra good shot and many a time brought down a prairie chicken with his rifle while it was on the wing.

The pioneers conducted their work after the most primitive methods. In those days they used to mow altogether with the scythe, and cradle all their grain, and when it was ready for threshing put it on the ground and drive the horses over it, as there was no machinery of any kind in use. The people were clad in homespun that was the product of the womenkind. Mrs. Doubet, when young, was very skillful in weaving and spinning and coloring the cloth thus made, and making it into jeans, casinet and gingham, and she also made woolen cloth, which was used for dresses. She was likewise an expert in the manufacture of linen, and gives an interesting account of the process. First the flax was pulled and dried and bound in small bundles, which a man could take in his hand and about twelve of them were put together in a shock. These would set in the field till cured, and her father would then take the bundles down to the Kickapoo Creek and immerse them in water, leaving them six weeks, when the flax thus treated would be taken out and spread to dry and then bundled together again. After that he would take each bundle to a machine which he had made, in which four teeth fitted into the grooves between three teeth on the reverse side. This would break the stalk, and the next process was to take a board on edge and hold the fibre over it, and then with a large wooden knife pound or thresh the wooded part out of the lint. After this the women of the household took the flax in hanks as the father put it into twists, and next came the hackling process when the lint was taken by the women and drawn through the combing machine, which was an inverted comb of steel teeth about four inches long, set in rows, each alternate row breaking the joint of the one in front, there being eight or ten rows with about fifteen or twenty lengthwise, eighteen to twenty inches long, this being fastened with a chain to their machine. From this the flax would come in large silken skeins, with each particular fibre lying side by side, and from this they made thread to sell, which supplied the whole neighborhood, and also manufactured cloth for sheets, pillow cases, towels, summer clothing, and mixed with cotton for the women’s wear. They often colored their cloth gaily with different varieties of bark. For yellow, they used hickory bark with copperas; for blue, chamber lye and indigo; butternut for brown; for green, peach leaves and alum; and for red they had to buy madder from the stores.

Our subject was well educated in his native France, his father having been a teacher. After coming to this county, he was sent out to work and the self reliant, manly lad became independent early in life. By his marriage, January 18, 1849, to Harriet Slane he had the good fortune to secure a good wife, whose intelligence, quickness and natural ability have been no unimportant factors in the attainment of the wealth that is the fruit of their united labors.

Mrs. Doubet is a daughter of Daniel and Mahala Slane, of Hampshire County, Va. They removed from their native State to Guernsey County, Ohio, where they were married, and there four children were born to them. In the old days of muster Mr. Slane was a fifer in a militia regiment, and when the war broke out he was importuned by the men of the regiment, with whom he was a great favorite, to enlist in the army, and his name was enrolled among the volunteers of the Seventy-seventh Illinois Infantry, at Peoria, and for six months he did good service at the front. But he was too old for the hardships of army life, and was taken sick and was honorably discharged. He died in February, 1885, leaving behind the record of an honorable, upright life, well spent. His widow now makes her home in Rosefield, and draws a pension on account of his connection with the army.

After marriage our young couple began their wedded life in a log cabin on the same place where they now live. They originally owned but eighty acres of land, but have added to it until now the farm comprises four hundred acres, all of which is under the plow and has been brought to a fine state of cultivation, and is supplied with many valuable improvements. The house in which they live was built in 1857, and is a neat and comfortably furnished residence. A new barn has been recently erected and there are other necessary outbuildings. Mr. and Mrs. Dou bet have had ten children, of whom the following is recorded: George LaFayette, a farmer of Knox County, is married and has four children; James H. died at the age of four years; Joseph D., of Knox County, is married and has seven children; Eliza is the wife of William Guy, of Carroll County, Iowa, and they have one child; Isabel M. is the wife of Edmund Secretan, a farmer of Kickapoo Township, and they have one child; Rebecca died at the age of twenty-one; Delilah died at the age of fourteen; John is at home; Charles E. is the last in order of birth. All the children were well educated for their opportunities and are bright and useful citizens, and are well settled in life.

Mr. Doubet possesses sound, roundabout common sense, a keen, resolute nature, a marked faculty for practical work, and these attributes, together with his financial sagacity, have led him on to fortune. His reputation for honesty and general integrity is good and he stands well with his neighbors and fellow-citizens. For a number of years Mr. Doubet has been connected with the School Board of Director, and has actively interested himself in educational matters. He belongs to the Democratic school in politics. He was reared a Catholic, but has broken away from the church and does not affiliate with any denomination.

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