My Genealogy Hound

J. M. Herlocker, one of Barton County’s prosperous merchants, was born in the State of Pennsylvania in 1842, and made his home with his father until twenty years of age, when he joined the Eighty-fourth Illinois Infantry, Company F, under Col. Waters, and served until receiving his discharge in June, 1865, having been in the engagements at Perryville, Danville, Stone River, Chickamauga, where he was wounded in the leg by a gun-shot, Franklin and Nashville. After the war he taught school until about 1881 in Illinois and Missouri, coming to the latter State in 1878, and purchased a partially improved farm in Newport Township. Then he engaged in his present business, his stock of goods being valued at from $3,000 to $4,000. He is doing a thriving trade, and has increased his capital about $3,000, his annual sales amounting to $6,000. In 1881 he was married to Miss Ida M. Hickman, of Pennsylvania, by whom he has two children, Bertha and Reed. Mr. Herlocker is a Democrat politically, and has served his party as justice of the peace and township trustee. His early opportunities for acquiring an education were not of the best, but by self-application he became a well-educated man, and acquired a thorough knowledge of public affairs. His parents, Josiah and Margaretta (Swartz) Herlocker, were born in Pennsylvania in 1807 and 1817, respectively, and the former has always taken a deep interest in church work, being, as was his wife, a member of the Christian Church. They were married in 1834, and were engaged in agricultural pursuits in Pennsylvania until about 1849, when they moved to Illinois, and settled on a farm in McDonough County. He is now eighty-three years of age. but is yet strong and active, and has recently gone on a visit to his old home in Illinois, a distance of about 500 miles. Five of his eight children are living: Mary J., wife of W. A. Griffin, of McDonough County, Ill.; Henry, in Marshall County, Iowa; J. M.; George, also of Marshall County, Iowa; and D. A., a druggist, of Fulton County, Ill. The mother of these children died in December, 1887.