My Genealogy Hound

CROSS, JOHN, merchant, P. O. College Springs; born in Massachusetts, June 1, 1797. When he was eight years of age his parents moved to New York, in which state he resided until 1839. He then removed to Illinois, remaining until the year 1857, when he became a resident of Amity. His interest in and connection with the college of learning at, and colonization of College Springs is quite fully given in the history of Amity College, to which Mr. Cross has sustained official relations for a number of years. When thirty-six years of age Mr. Cross entered the ministry of the Congregational church, and has had charge of a congregation the greater portion of the time since until within five years ago. During the war Mr. Cross united with the Wesleyan church. He was a strenuous anti-slavery advocate, spending many years in propagating his views; he enforced them in an active manner, since he was connected with the famous “underground railway,” and aided many fugitives to reach the north. He was married on January 1, 1818, to Miss Luanda Hulbert, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who was born in the year 1800. They are the parents of seven children, of whom two are now living: Mary A., wife of J. H. Beach, and John A. Mr. Cross lost his wife by death, October 8, 1875, after a long and happy married life of fifty-eight years. Mr. Cross is a man of influence and worth, a genial gentleman and a firm friend.