Nameoki Township

Nameoki Township

Consequent upon the building of the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railroad, in 1858, a station was located on the boundary line between sections 5 and 6, for the accommodation of shippers to which was given the above name by A. A. Talmadge, a conductor on that road. It is a small village, having the following business industries :

The Sons of Herman have here a neat, substantial twostory building, erected at a cost of $4,400, which they occupy for lodge purposes. The name. Sons of Hermon, was bestowed in honor of the fact that Hermon freed Germany from Roman Catholic rule. Moltke Lodge, No. 15, was organized September 6, 1872, by Robert Krueger. The name was bestowed upon the lodge by Krueger, as a compliment to General Moltke, under whose command he had been a soldier. The lodge numbers seventy-four members. It is exclusively German. Its objects are benevolent in character.

Six Mile Lodge No. 87 1. O. O. F. was instituted January 2, 1851, and the charter was granted by the Grand Lodge of Illinois I. O. O. F., signed by the Grand Master, H. L.

Riicker, and attested by the Grand Secretary, S. A. Gorman, to E. p. Pettingill, T. J. Irish, James S. Smith, Amos Atkins and Joseph Squires, charter members and first ollicers. There are now left only T. J. Irish, P. G. W., and Amos Atkins, P. G., of the original five whose names and energy in sustaining the Lodge ought never to be forgotten. Six Mile Lodge at present owns her own beautiful cemetery, her own Hall, and about sixty-three acres of land, well-improved, and carries in her treasury from $1000 to $1,500, shielded only by Friendship, Love and Truth, and always extending

The population of the township, census of 1880, was 1,466 inhabitants. Extensive gardening is carried on here for the St. Louis market. The township is well supplied with schools.

Biography

Few of the numerous residents of the American Bottom are as widely and favorably known as Dr. T. J. Irish. He possesses a firm mental-motive temperament. He is quick, impulsive and decided in character and conclusious. He penetrates a subject at a glance, grasps its minutise - comprehending almost in a single thought what many others would require a long process of reasoning to determine. He has firmness and determination that never yields to disparagement. When he will, he will, and there is no use for the elements to oppose him. He is quick, but not combative ; firm, but not stubborn ; set, but yet reasonable. He is of a kind, generous, sympathetic nature. In his intellectual capacity he has the general ele- ment of success. He is a man well calculated to win the good-will of all who are thrown in contact with him; and with his social, genial disposition he can disarm the most inveterate foe and secure his respect and good-will. Dr. T. J. Irish is a native of Livingston county, N. Y. He was born on the 28lh of -July, 182.3, and is the first child of Benjamin and Sarah (Tyler) Irish, who were natives of New York. The father of Benj. Irish was a Baptist minister in Auburn, N. Y.

Benjamin Irish, the father of Dr. T. J. Irish, was born about the year 1798. He graduated in medicine in his native State, and in 1840 emigrated to Illinois, settling at Equality, near Shawueetown. At this point he remained about two years, and from thence removed to the American Bottom, Madison county, opposite St. Louis, where he engaged in the practice of medicine with great success. He rapidly rose to the front rank of his profession, and attained an enviable reputation throughout the State. lu 184S, the Pope Medical College of St. Louis conferred upon him the ad eundem degree. He continued the practice of medicine until July, 18.")1, when he fell a victim to cholera.

Dr. T. J. Irish received his education in New York. In 1842 he came to the West, stopping for a short time at Equality, near Shawneetown, Illinois, where he engaged in teaching school. In 1844 he came to St. Louis, and engaged in the study of medicine with his father, graduating, in 1848, in the Mi.'isouri State University, of St. Louis, in the same class with the late Dr. John T. Hodgen, who became one of the ablest surgeons of the West. In the same year he graduated. Dr. Irish settled in the American Bottom, on section 8, township 3, range 9, where he at once engaged in the practice of medicine, which he has since followed with fine success. By the death of his father, in 1848, Dr. Irish came in possession of a very extensive practice throughout the American Bottom, and we but echo the universal sentiment of those who know him best, when we say that he is truly " a chip oft" the old block."

Dr. Irish was married on the 26th of October, 1848, to Miss Lucinda, daughter of Thomas Elliott, Esq., who was a native of Virginia, and who was descended from one of the more prominent families of that State. By this union Mr. and Mrs. Irish have had born to them a family of eleven children, four of whom are now living. Tyler E., now a practicing physician of Nameoki; William A., a farmer living

Dr. Irish started in life with ()uite limited financial means, and he states, as an incident illustrative of his early financial condition, that when he first visited Shawneetown, he was walking along the street with F. M. Little, and fortunately picked up a dime from the sidewalk, which embraced the sum total of the young men's finances - the dime in ques. tion furnishing the cheese and crackers from which the young men made a tolerable dinner. Mr. Little afterwards became Mayor of Salt Lake City, and a man of prominence and independence in that city. He is an own nephew of Brigham Young.

As we have stated, the Doctor ranked among the more prominent in his profession, and rapidly accumulated a comfortable competence. He now, at the meridian of life, owns upwards of nine hundred acres of the celebrated American Bottom land. His fine home place, near Nameoki Station, on the W., St. L. & P., C. A. I. & St. L. Railways, is finely improved, and replete with superior grades of stock of every description.

In politics, the Doctor is now, and has always been an admii-er of the principles of the old and historic Democratic party. His first vote was cast for Tennessee's stateeman, James K. Polk, candidate for President in 1844. During the late war. Dr. Irish espoused the cause of the Union, and no man in Madison county was more earnest in his support of the government than he.