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CHARLES BETTS, whose name is familiarly known throughout the city of Freeport and vicinity, is a native of the Empire State, having been born at Batavia, Genesee County, June 13, 1825. Without the advantages of a collegiate education, he improved his early opportunities for study, and while still a youth entered the law office of Hons. Heman J. Redfield and Benjamin Pringle, who were then associated in partnership, and occupied a high position in the legal profession of New York State. He studied under the instruction of these eminent gentlemen for a time, and afterward became connected with the office of Hons. Isaac A. Verplank and John H. Martindale. The counsel and as-sistance of these distinguished attorneys had great influence in molding his character and educating him up to a high standard of excellence in the profession of his choice, and being honorable, high-minded and faithful, through his inbred moral principles he early gave evidence of his fitness for the high career to which he was subsequently called.
Mr. Betts was esteemed and beloved not more for his genial social qualities and the grace of his person, than for the brilliancy of his talents which began developing at an early age. The writer well remembers that at the greatest political mass meeting ever assembled in the United States, and numbering over 100,000 persons, on the 4th day of October, 1844, at Rochester, N. Y., one of the highly praised speakers on that occasion was the subject of our sketch. He then delivered his maiden speech, which in a marked degree pointed to a distinguished future. Three years later he was admitted to practice in the courts of New York State with the highest honors of his class, at Rochester, in December, 1847. The following year he emigrated to Illinois and located in the city of Freeport, where he has since resided engaged in the practice of his profession, and in which he has uniformly sustained a prominent and honorable position.
In the political campaign of 1852, when quite a young man, Mr. Betts received unsolicited the nomination by the Whig party for Auditor General of Illinois. He also took the stump in behalf of the party in that campaign, in which he rendered valuable service in support of the great principles he entertained. In the great political revolution of the country, in 1858, our subject finding that the principles which had divided the two great parties had become measurably obsolete and suspended by the all-absorbing question of slavery in the Territories, saw the great Whig party swallowed up by a new party, based upon the slavery question. As an honorable, high-minded man, having no selfish political ends to serve, he believed that the success of the party, sectional in its character and based upon the single idea of slavery, would result in civil war and possibly dissolution of the Union. He readily indorsed the sentiments and principles of the lamented Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, and remained the fast friend and able supporter of that great statesman to the hour of his death. Convinced of the vital importance to his country of this issue in the election campaign of 1860, few men in Illinois labored with pen and from rostrum with greater energy, eloquence and power to secure the election of Douglas than did the subject of our sketch. Since that time he has remained an active, energetic, able and eloquent expounder of the Democratic faith, as viewed from the standpoint of Jefferson, Jackson and Douglas.
At the Congressional Convention of the Democratic party in the famed Third Congressional District of Illinois – the E. B. Washburne district of 1870 – Mr. Betts received without solicitation the appointment of standard bearer of his party, and effected a highly commendable result against his Republican antagonist in the district where the candidate of his party two years previous was defeated by 10,000 majority, and reduced that majority nearly one-half, signally demonstrating his deserved popularity.
Mr. Betts, having a thorough contempt for the office-seeker, has uniformly declined public positions which have been tendered him and which he would have filled with honor and ability. Few men laboring in early years with like disadvantages have more signally achieved and deservedly obtained the esteem and confidence of their fellowmen than Hon. Charles Betts. Never in any instance has his ambition, although highly commendable, been known to overreach his judgment or set aside the best interest of his State and county. He has carried his honors modestly, and has built up a record which his descendants will be proud to review in coming years.
Contributed by Carol Parrish from Portraits & Biographical 1888 Stephenson Co IL Pg 322
 Almost from the beginning of his residence in Illinois, Mr. Betts was recognized as a capable political leader, and in 1852 he was nominated by the Whigs for Auditor General of Illinois, a great honor to come to a young man so soon after his entrance upon the arena of state politics. He went upon the hustings, and his voice added strength to the growing principles of liberty and justice which were soon to bring about the great political revolution of 1858. Mr. Betts saw very plainly that old political divisions were obsolete, and following the counsels of Stephen A. Douglas, with whom he had the warmest personal associations, he took strong ground against the aggressive proslavery party of the south, and did everything that he could possibly do to secure the election of Judge Douglas in the campaign of 1860. After the readjustments of the war, he was once more an advocate of sound Democratic principles from the standpoint of Jefferson, Jackson and Douglas. In 1870 he was nominated for Congress, against his protest, by the democratic party, and in a district hopelessly republican,-the famed E. B. Washburn district, and which two years before had given the republican nominee more than ten thousand majority. He made a stout canvas, and reducing the adverse majority more than one half, demonstrated a well deserved popularity. With this exception he has uniformly declined nomination to office, though he has often been tendered positions he would have filled with honor and credit. He has been satisfied to command the respect and confidence of the community, and has effectively prevented his ambition from overreaching his judgment. For more than half a century Mr. Betts has made his home in Freeport, and through all these years has retained the respect and esteem of - his fellow citizens by an upright and honorable life. The Betts family is of English origin, where the grandfather of the Freeport representative was born and married. His wife, a Miss Pennoyer, was a French lady and could not speak a word of English at the time of her marriage. They came to this country and settled in Norwich, Connecticut. Robert Pennoyer Betts, the father of Charles, and the thirteenth child in the family, was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1791. He learned the cabinet-maker's trade, and while still a young man moved into New York, where he was engaged in it a number of years. Later in life he became a merchant, and was the proprietor of a considerable establishment at Batavia, New York. He vas a Whig, and when the republican party came into power, was among the first to rally in its favor during the stress of the war. He was a man of scrupulous honor, somewhat taciturn, and very domestic in his tastes. He taught school in the east, and his handwriting was remarkably fine. He died in 1864 at Freeport. Ill. He married Malinda Owen at Batavia, New York. She was born near Syracuse, New York, in 1800. She was a daughter of Daniel Owen, and died in 1862 at Freeport. Her father settled four miles east of Auburn, New York, where he cleared a farm of two hundred acres. He died a few years before the Civil war, about eighty-five years old. His father, Owen Owen, was of Welsh and Irish extraction. Mr. Betts was married in Freeport, to Miss Mary Celestine Wilson, August 14, 1878. She was born in Freeport, and is a daughter of James Wilson, who is now dead. He was at one time a farmer in Stephenson county and was born near Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. His father, John Wilson, came from Appleby, near Liverpool, England, with his wife and four children about 1800. John Wilson was a clergyman of the Wesleyan Methodist church, and was a convert and friend of the Wesleys ; and was a circuit rider in Tioga county, New York, and afterwards in Tioga county, Pennsylvania. He bought a large tract of land in the latter state, and late in life became a preacher of the Baptist church and instituted close communion in that denomination. He is prominently mentioned in a book called "Early Methodism." He married Betsy Metcalf, and the descendants of their eight children are of strong force of character very largely, and many of them occupy exalted positions in the world. James Wilson was their first child born in America. He was twice married. His first wife was Phoebe Cooley, who bore him four children, two of whom are still living. His second wife was Sarah M. Walton, and the widow of Dr. J. M. Lowman, who died of cholera during the epidemic of 1854. Her father, John Walton, married Mary Ann Hall, whose father moved from Philadelphia, where Mary was born, first to Clark county, Ohio, and then into Illinois, where he died in 1852. James Wilson and his wife are the parents of two children, Mrs. Betts, and her brother Edward, who is in the ministry at St. Paul, with Ballington Booth's God's American Volunteers. To Mr. and Mrs. Charles Betts five children have been born: Cora, Charles, Maude, who died at the age of five, Robert and Mae. Cora and Charles are graduates of the Freeport high school where Cora was especially proficient in Latin; she also graduated from the Freeport Business college and in '99 moved with her parents to Chicago where she entered the Chicago university. History of Stephenson County IL
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