My Genealogy Hound

CHARLES F. McGILL. Throughout the years of his business career Charles Frank McGill has been a resident of Woodson county, having located within its borders in 1876. He makes his home in Perry township, where he follows agricultural pursuits, finding therein a profitable source of income. He was born March 6, 1856, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Thomas Mc Gill, who became a well known farmer and stock-raiser of Marshall county, Illinois, where he died in October, 1899. He was born in Virginia in 1817, but in early life went to Pennsylvania and was married in Pittsburg, that state, to Martha Craig, who departed this life in Woodson county in 1899, at the advanced age of four score years. The original American ancestors of the McGill family were of Irish birth and came to this country at an early epoch in its development. In the years which followed his arrival at man’s estate, the father of our subject was a boatman on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, running between Pittsburg, St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans. He was thus engaged for thirty-five years, being made a pilot at the age of eighteen. At one time he was on a transport on the lower Mississippi when General Marmaduke’s soldiers fired upon the boat. He was twice wounded and his injuries forced him to give up piloting.

Upon leaving the water Mr. McGill turned his attention to farming and was connected with agricultural interests in La Salle and Vermillion counties, Illinois, finding this a profitable labor. He thus carried on business until the infirmities of age forced him to retire to private life. His children were as follows: John, of Woodson county; Annie, wife of Charles Griffin, of Winona, Illinois; George W., of Woodson county, and C. Frank, of this review.

In taking up the personal history of our subject, we note that he spent the greater part of his youth in Illinois and is indebted to the public school system of that state for the educational privileges which he enjoyed. He became familiar with the labors of field and meadow upon his father’s farm and remained in Vermillion county, Illinois, until 1876, when he came to Kansas, making the journey by rail to Humboldt. He then located upon section eleven, township twenty-six, range sixteen, and for many years he has now been classed among the leading agriculturists of Perry township. His diligence and perseverance are numbered among his salient characteristics and have been the leading elements in his success. His political support is given the Democracy, in harmony with the political belief of the McGill family.