Untitled Document

DAVID M. HARKRADER

Publisher; Spring Grove Township , Warren County (post office, Alexis): comes of an old German family, which, for generations, has been honorably represented in Virginia . He is a descendant in direct line from John Harkrader, who was his great-grandfather, and who came from the Fatherland to America . John Harkrader, son of the first John.was born in Wytheville, Va., and married Christina Lock, a native of Lancaster County, Penn. Samuel Harkrader, their son, father of David M., was born at Wytheville, Va., in 1806, and died i» 1881. He married, near Xenia , Ohio , Rebecca Brown, daughter of Daniel and Hannah (Renshaw) Brown, Virginians, who was born in 1814 and died in1884.

Mr. Harkrader's great-grandfather was captain of a Virginia company in the war of the revolution, and was at Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis surrendered. His son, John Harkrader, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, hauled supplies for the United States army with his own team during the war of 1812. Samuel Harkrader, Mr. Harkrader's father, was an educated man, who taught school in the intervals of farming, and was long a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, of which his wife was also a member. He came to Hancock County , Ill., in 1852, and late in life removed to Brookfield , Mo. where he died. His wife died at Macon , in the same State. Their son, David M., was born near Shaker Village , Warren County, Ohio, September 28, 1832, and gained a good common school education.

May 24, 1861 , he enlisted at Quincy , Ill., in Company D, Sixteenth Regiment Illinois Infantry, with which he served until July 8, 1865 , when he was mustered out. At Bentonville, N. C., where he displayed conspicuous bravery, March 22, 1865 , he received a serious wound. After the war he attempted to establish himself as a blacksmith, but was unable to handle iron and heavy hammers and, going to Pike County , Ill., he began the publication of the Milton Beacon, a newspaper now known as the Pike County Times. In 1881 and 1882 he published the Astoria Argus.

In 1884 he came to Alexis and issued the Alexis Argus, in connection with which he publishes the Viola Enterprise. He is the inventor of a three-horse plow evener, which was patented January 10, 1882, and of a three-horse wagon tongue, which was patented September 19, 1882, which have attracted wide attention among plow and wagon men. In religion be is a Presbyterian and in politics a Democrat. He married, at Paducah , Ky. , April 12. 1864, Sarah A. Burns, born in Williamson County , Ill.. October 25, 1843 , a daughter of John and Martha J. (Harpod) Burns. Her father, who is of the same Scotch family which produced Robert Burns, the poet, was born in Tennessee, and removed to Williamson County, Ill., where he died when Mrs. Harkrader was a child. His widow, aged about eighty years, is living in Kentucky . To David M. and Sarah A. (Burns) Harkrader have been born child ren as follows: Everett S., Charles S., Oliver D.. William H.. George A., Grace, Nellie and Gretta. Everett S., manager of the Viola Enterprise, married Lula Brown, and they have

daughters named Hazel and Phyllis. Charles S. publishes the Alpha Advance, at Alpha, Ill. Grace married William McFarlin, a farmer, and has five children. Charles S. married Alice Johnson and has two children. Oliver D. married Myrtle David and has two children. Gretta married L. T. Graham, assistant cashier of the Alexis bank. Nellie teaches music and art in the high school at Aledo. Mr. Harkrader's sons are all printers except Oliver D.. who is now engaged in the pottery business at London Mills, Fulton County , Ill.

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