Mexican War
Also gives a short bio of each in the Mounted Rangers
The soldiers of the Mexican War who lived and were buried in Jersey County are as follows: Edward R. Brigham, W. Harrison Slaten, Samuel C.
Ellis, Robert McFarland, George Martin, and James E. Suddeth.
In addition to the above, there were a number of men from Jersey County, in the Mounted Rangers, enlisted in 1820,
to assist in the protection of the settlers against Indian depredations. Among, and in that force, were Chauncy Brown and his brother, Elam
Brown, Cyrus Tolman, Col. Charles H. Gregory. These men all came to Jersey County from eastern states when they were young men.
Chauncy Brown was born in Massachusetts in 1799, and
he, with his brother, came to Illinois before he was twenty-one years old.
Charles H. Gregory was born in Connecticut, May 28,
1797. His father emigrated to Ohio when Charles H. Gregory was a child, and there he resided until 1818, when he,
and Chauncy and Elam Brown came down the Ohio River
in a canoe, landing at Shawneetown, from whence they walked overland to WoodRiver, Madison County, Illinois.
Cyrus Tolman was also a native of Massachusetts, who
settled in Greene County, Illinois, in 1820. Later , he married to Polly
Eldred, and removed to what is now Jersey County.
In 1835, Chauncy Brown came to Jersey County, and settled
on a farm in Mississippi Township, which he afterwards sold to Addison Green. In 1840, Chauncy Brown and Cyrus Tolman were elected commissioners of Jersey County. They supervised
the building of the courthouse and county buildings and the title to the public square was conveyed to them as
commissioners of Jersey County. Chauncy Brown was married
to Adeline Gorham of Jacksonville, Morgan County, Illinois,
in 1825, and in later years, after his removal to Jersey County, on his annual trips to Morgan County to visit
his former home, in company of his wife, he would drive from his home to that of Judge
Cyrus Tolman, and spend the night there, driving from Judge Tolman's home to Jacksonville
the next day. When returning from Morgan County, he made it a point to spend the first night with Col. Charles H. Gregory at Whitehall, returning to his home on the
day following. Thus, on these annual trips, he made it possible to have the opportunity of visiting with
and recalling reminiscences of their early life with his two pioneer friends.
In 1855 Chauncy Brown removed to Grafton, and in the
fall of 1857, he purchased a farm and removed to Calhoun County, where he died in 1878, and was buried at Newbern
Cemetery in Newbern Township. Four of his daughters and one of his sons are still living, and two of them in Jerseyville,
namely; Mrs. Delia
Lurton, who is eighty three years old; and Mrs. Eliza
M. Hamilton, the wife of the writer, who is aged seventy-six years.Mrs. Sarah H. Squier, another daughter, and formerly a resident of Jerseyville,
is now living in Calhoun County, aged eighty-one years. The other living daughter of Chauncy
Brown, is Mrs. Lucretia Buckstuhl
of Louisville, Ky., who is seventy-eight years old, while the son, Thomas
Brown, aged seventy-one years, lives in Louisiana. The children of Cyrus Tolman are all now deceased.