of Menard and Mason Counties
By T.G. Onstott
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CHAPTER XXXIX Page 360 Reverdy J. Onstot, who delights to call himself a "snow bird" was born December 6, 1830 (the winter of the deep snow), in New Salem, Illinois, made historical by being the home of Abraham Lincoln from 1831 to 1837, who he remembers very well and was a frequent visitor at the grocery store kept by Lincoln & Berry. Mr. Onstot is the possessor of two iron well-bucket hoops that was part of four, and the bale his father took for seventy-five cents on Lincoln's board while he kept the tavern in New Salem in 1833. Mr. Onstot also has the plat of the town of Huron, which was surveyed and platted by Lincoln at Miller's ferry, on the Sangamon river, for Geo. Miller. Col. E.D. Baker, Simeon Francis, John Houge, N.W. Edwards, David Prickett, Samuel Morris, William Carpenter, Geshom Jayne and Chas. B. Francis, of Springfield, who were partners of Geo. B. Miller. Nothing ever came to the town as the canal up the Sangamon river from Beardstown to Springfield was never built as projected in 1833. His father moved to Petersburg from Salem in '39, where R.J. often heard Lincoln, Douglas, Baker, John J. Hardin, Murrey McConnell, David Logan, Judge Robbins, T.L. Harris and many other noted men speak. Mr. Onstot did not go as a soldier as he was badly ruptured while assisting in raising a Lincoln pole in Havana in 1860, where he then lived. He assisted in raising two companies, and was the first route mail agent of the P.P.& J.R.R., with headquarters at Pekin where he helped originate and organize the Union League; a service to his country second to none. It was the Union League that cemented Republicans and War Democrats into the Union party for the preservation of the Union. If was through him and Postmaster Hart Montgomery that Leagues were at once organized in Havana, Virginia, Jacksonville, Springfield, Bloomington and El Paso; he also assisted in organizing at Peoria; it then spread all over the loyal Northern states and gave to the Union cause those great victories at the pools in '63. Mr. Onstot was prostrated by overwork and laid in bed for two years. Upon his recovery he came to Mason City in 1874 where he has since lived, being engaged in the book and news trade. He has never held an office since '63 and the one he then held he resigned and gave up his position to a brokendown soldier. He has never been an office seeker, though he has been one of the hardest workers in the party and for a long time one of the County Central Committee for Mason City. If there is a man that deserved recognition for party service it is he, for he is both honest and capable.
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