Sill, Andrew J.

SILL, DALY, HANNAFORD, LEWIS, NEWELL, TUCKEY, HEMPSTEAD

Posted By: Volunteer Transcribers
Date: 1/31/2003 at 01:31:26

Source: "The 1901 Biographical Record of Clinton Co., Iowa, Illustrated" published: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1901.

ANDREW J. SILL

A.J. Sill, an engineer on the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, running between Boone and Clinton on the East Iowa division of that road, was born in Chemung, McHenry county, Illinois, March 25, 1848, and is a son of Albert and Mary (Daly) Sill, the former a native of Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, the latter of Vermont. The mother died in Caledonia, Illinois, at the age of sixty-eight years, and the father subsequently came to Clinton, Iowa, where he departed this life in 1899 at the age of eighty-five. He was a Methodist minister and was engaged in preaching throughout the northern part of Illinois for many years. It was in 1843 that he removed to that state, and in driving through Chicago found the place little better than a mud hole. His children were Helen, wife of C.A. Hannaford, of Traverse City, Michigan; Esther, widow of G. B. Lewis, of the same place; Albert, who served in the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war, and died in 1881; A.J., our subject; Maria, deceased; and Henry, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland.

The subject of this review received his education in the public schools in Illinois. In 1863, at the age of sixteen years, he entered the service of his country by enlisting in Company I, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and went with his regiment to Camp Butler, where he was taken ill with typhoid fever. While convalescing he engage in nursing the sick in the hospital. H was mustered out in 1864, and returned to his home in Adams county, Illinois, where he followed farming until 1872.

During that year Mr. Sill commenced firing on the East Iowa division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, under DeWitt Sernberger on the Baraboo, running from Clinton to Cedar Rapids. Seven years later he was promoted to engineer and given charge of engine No. 198. He has never been in a wreck for which he was responsible, although he has met with several accidents and was severely injured in a collision at Beverly in 1899, by the engineer on the other engine running his train on the main line contrary to orders. He was in a collision at Otis in 1896, which was the fault of the train dispatcher. In both cases he remained with his engine, but at Ontario when his engine ran into an open switch he and his fireman jumped while the train was going at forty-five miles an hour, and the latter was killed. At one time his engine was tipped over at Stanwood and he was badly scalded and was off duty for three months. For the past five years he has been running a passenger train, and is now running the fastest train in the world, the schedule time from Clinton to Boone being three hours and fifty-five minutes for two hundred and two miles, during which eight stops are made. The rate of speed of his engine is ninety miles an hour, and makes several miles in thirty-five and thirty-eight seconds. The first sixty-four miles of the run are made in sixty minutes, and the speed is then increased.

In 1868 Mr. Sill was united in marriage with Miss Rachel Newell, a native of Adams county, Illinois, who died, leaving two children: Mary Vanetta, widow of John Tuckey, who was killed while serving as conductor on the Northwestern Railway in November, 1900; and Bart V., a brakeman on the same road. For his second wife Mr. Sill married, April 21, 1886, Miss Belle Hempstead, native of Nevada, Story county, Iowa, and to them was born a daughter, Esther Myrtle.

Fraternally Mr. Sill is a member of the brother hood of Locomotive Engineers, and is also a thirty-second degree Mason, having been initiated into the mysteries of that order twelve years ago. He is one of the most popular railroad men in the employ of the company, and has a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, not only in Clinton, but all along his route.