Spencer
ELLSWORTH, the late well-known editor of the Lacon Home Journal,
was born at Denmark, New York, June 10, 1824. His parents,
Benjamin and Roxana ELLSWORTH, moved to Cattaraugus county when
he was seven years of age. He only attended the common schools
of the day, but was a student and lover of books all his life,
and at his death left a library of several hundred volumes. At
eighteen years of age he came west and found employment in a
general store at Galena, Illinois. Two years later, by strict
attention to business and frugal use of his money, he was
enabled to start a store of his own at Wyota, Wisconsin. In 1850
he married Lucy McCOLLUM, daughter of Dr. Asa McCOLLUM, of
Leicester, Massachusetts, who survives him. Three children were
born to them, the first, Lillian, living only sixteen months;
the other two are: Evelyn Ninetta, now Mrs. T. L. JONES, of
Henry, Illinois, and Spencer Ellsworth, the present publisher of
the Journal. He removed to Elkader, Iowa, in 1855, where he
engaged in general merchandise until 1862. In 1862 he located in
Lacon, and, associating himself with E. H. HALSEY under the firm
name of Ellsworth & Halsey, continued in the dry goods business
until 1866.
He had a facile pen and all his life up to
this time he had written more or less for local papers, and for
several years had used the nom de plume of “Crowquill.” In 1866
he bought the Illinois Gazette, one of the oldest papers in
Illinois, changing its name to the Lacon Home Journal. He loved
his paper and his business, and he gave himself to it with a
constancy that for eighteen years never flagged, and under his
management the Journal became popular and one of the best
country papers in central Illinois. He was especially interested
in the instrumental in the organization of the Marshall County
Old Settlers’ association. His love of the old and primitive led
him to collect a large amount of historical matter in regard to
the settlement and organization of Marshall and Putnam counties,
which he published in book form under the title, “Records of the
Olden Time,” a work of real merit. He was public-spirited, ever
interested in the advancement of Lacon and was emphatically the
father of the woolen mills, now in successful operation. He was
a republican in politics, a Mason and a Knight Templar, a
successful business man and universally respected. He died July
26, 1884, from injuries received in a runaway accident.
Extracted May 2011 by Norma Hass from The Biographical Record of Bureau, Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois, 1896.
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