Oliver McMahan, Lyons

OLIVER McMAHAN, banker and capitalist, was born in Ohio in 1819. His father, Joseph McMahan, served as a soldier during the entire period of the American revolution, and was highly esteemed for his patriotism and sterling integrity. He was killed on the ill-fated steamer Moselle, at Cincinnati, in 1838. His ancestry reaches back to the first settlers of Pennsylvania, and is thence traced to the Protestant section of the north of Ireland. His mother, a worthy and estimable lady, was likewise a native of the same state.

After pursuing his studies in the common school of the vicinity during his early childhood, the necessities of his family compelled him to provide for himself. At the early age of twelve or thirteen years, with a very delicate and slender body, weighing only sixty pounds, he sought and obtained, at length, employment on a farm at four dollars per month; and during the following six years labored in a stone-quarry without adequate compensation. These years of severe toil and trial tended ultimately to develop the latent sterling qualities in the boy, and bring them forth into active manhood.

It is worthy of remark that although the parentage of the subject of this sketch was humble, yet it was honorable and justly respectable. The resources of the country immediately subsequent to the war of independence, having necessarily been neglected and undeveloped, left the people extremely impoverished. Many families were compelled to endure poverty and destitution. The heroes of many a well-fought field found it difficult to keep the wolf from the door of their humble dwelling; hence many worthy youths, thrown upon their own resources, were forced to seek and obtain their own livelihood. In 1837 he was induced to seek a home in the west. Having taken his farewell look of Cincinnati, and of all in it that was near and dear, with the world all before him, he set his face westward. " The child is father of the man," says the poet, an aphorism happily illustrated on this occasion. Arriving in due time at his destination -with very limited resources, and without means to grapple successfully with the obstacles that opposed him in his new and rugged sphere in which he was called to labor, he spent years struggling with the adverse circumstances that surrounded and hedged him in on every side. Fortune at last seemed to change in his favor. His brother, unitedly with himself, entered into a profitable and successful enterprise of steamboating on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In this employment they continued several years working hard and faithfully, and advancing step by step, showing what indomitable energy and intelligence can accomplish.

He married in 1840, and settled in Illinois.

In 1842 the connection with his brother having been mutually dissolved, he embarked in the lumber business, and during the eight following years was widely known as a very successful lumber merchant. At this period of life every enterprise on which he entered was crowned with success. In 1863 he united with other capitalists and organized the First National Bank in Clinton county. As a banker, he has been highly successful, and is greatly esteemed by the business communitv for his integrity and thoroughness. In the various transactions of business in which he has been engaged during the past quarter of a century he had acquired such a reputation for financial ability and thorough acquaintance with monetary affairs, that when the panic of 1857 occurred he carried all the public interests intrusted to him successfully and triumphantly through that financial crisis.

Mr. McMahan is likewise, at this time, heavily interested in the well known house of Stiles, Goldy and McMahan, a firm that justly enjoys the confidence of the business community in which it is located. The extent and variety of his business relations, and his reputation for financial ability, is so extensive that he is made the custodian of important trusts, not only in his own, but in neighboring communities. His entire business and financial career has been characterized by eminent success.

Educational topics have always had for him a very strong attraction, and he has in the education of his children always patronized the best institutions in the country.

Although generally eschewing politics, he is a decided republican in principle and sentiment, yet has no sympathy with the party hacks who make politics a trade.

In religion, he has been a worthy and prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal church more than twenty years, contributing liberally to its support, and working zealously for its interests and welfare.

He has always manifested public spirit, and has contributed materially to the improvement of his immediate vicinity and county. Though of slender and delicate organism, he has led since his early childhood an eminently busy life; and the honorable position to which he has attained has been won by his own unaided and indefatigable efforts. He ground his wealth out of poverty, by never exceeding his means, and by always laying up some portion of his earnings for capital. Whatever spoils he took, he won, and became what he is by the development of his faculties and resources. He is widely esteemed for his intrinsic worth and social qualities.

Source:

The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men. Iowa Volume.

Chicago and New York: American Biographical Publishing Company, 1878