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WILLIAM C. DOWELL John C. Dowell married Miss Sarah Mobley, a North Carolina lady of Irish blood and a native of County Down, Ireland. She passed away in 1886, at the age of seventy-eight years, and her honored husband died in 1907, in his eighty-ninth year. Concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Dowell, four passed away early in life; William C. is the immediate subject of this review; Alice is the wife of William Gulledge, of Williamson county, Illinois; Monroe died at Carterville, Illinois, and is survived by a family; and Thomas L. passed away at Marion, Illinois, where his family is now residing. William C. Dowell, of this notice, was a child of but four years of age at the time of his parents removal to Illinois. He grew to maturity in Williamson county, to which public schools he is indebted for his preliminary educational training. As a youth he engaged in the railroad business on the Illinois Central Railroad as station man at Carbondale, following that line of enterprise from 1871 to 1877. Subsequently he spent six months with the United States pension department at Salem, Illinois, and at the expiration of that period he became 1205 interested in the prison work and came to Chester, as previously noted. He became assistant clerk in the Southern Illinois Penitentiary in 1877 and in the following year was made purchasing agent of the institution. He served in the latter position until 1885, when he was appointed deputy warden by General Mitchell, the warden. He served as deputy warden until 1893, when he was appointed captain of the World's Fair secret service force at Chicago. From 1894 to 1896 he was assistant secretary of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, the committee which so successfully blocked the efforts of the Bryan management and carried the state by an overwhelming majority for McKinley, thus closing the greatest political campaign ever fought in the United States. In 1897 Mr. Dowell returned to Chester as deputy warden, by appointment of J. M. Tanner, and he served as such until 1904, when he again resigned, only to be reappointed in the following year by Governor Deneen. In his capacity as prison official Mr. Dowell has covered a large portion of the United States in pursuit of escaped convicts and he has a wide acquaintance among prison men and peace officers everywhere. His familiarity with Illinois and her public men is most pronounced and the statesmen and politicians developed by the conditions of the Civil war were in their palmiest days of service when he was annexed as a public servitor. Mr. Dowell became interested in active politics as a young man and was a delegate to the state conventions of 1876, 1884 and 1896, as a Republican. He has served under all the governors of the state since 1877 and under seven wardens during that period. In fraternal circles he is a Knight Templar, an Odd Fellow and an Elk, and he was a delegate to the Grand Lodges of the Odd Fellows order in 1876 and 1877. At Chester, Illinois, on the 18th of November, 1885, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dowell to Miss Mary Dunn, a daughter of Andrew Dunn, who was born and reared in County Antrim, Ireland. Mrs. Dowell was born at Chester, Illinois, and is a member of a family of eight children, six of whom are living, in 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Dowell are the parents of the following children, - Linnie, who is the wife of D. M. Logan, of Shawneetown, Illinois; Jean, who is with the Terminal Railway Company of St. Louis; and Dorothy, Margaret, David and Mary, all of whom are at the parental home. |
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