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JOHN E. LUFKIN.
One of the old and honored residents of Anna Illinois, where for nearly forty years he was engaged in business, is John E. Lufkin, proprietor of the Fair View Poultry Farm, and a man who has proved himself an honest and reliable citizen in every walk of life. He was born in the state of Maine, in 1830, and was twenty years of age when he went to Ohio and engaged in railroad work. He came to Anna in January, 1853, where he became identified with the Illinois Central Railroad as foreman of a construction gang, Anna at that time being a cornfield on which were three log houses. Eventually he became employed in the train service and was one of the two conductors who took the first passenger trains into Cairo, on completion of the I. C. Railroad to that point. His service with the Illinois Central covered a period of fourteen years, and he held the position of roadmaster on different divisions of the road from 1857 to 1867.
In 1867 Mr. Lufkin gave up railroad work and started a grocery store in Anna, being proprietor thereof for many years and attaining considerable success. He finaly sold out in 1905, and for four or five years was engaged in travel, but eventually returned to Anna and bought a farm of forty acres, where he is now engaged in poultry raising. The Fair View Poultry Farm is modern in every respect, and Mr. Lufkin carries on his operations in a scientific manner, having made a deep study of his business. He now has about five hundred Plymouth Rock
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chickens and thirty-five turkeys, while his son gives his attention to ducks. Although advanced in years, Mr. Lufkin is still actively engaged in business, and he makes his home in Anna instead of on his farm. His operations have been successful because he has prosecuted them earnestly and in an intelligent manner, and all who have had business dealings with Mr. Lufkin will testify to his honorable principles. He is essentially a self-made man, and the rise of the youth who came to this city with but one dollar and fifty cents in his pocket to the prominent man of business has been sure and steady. The interests of Anna have always been foremost in his mind, and he has done his full share in developing the rich resources of this section.
On December 25, 1856, Mr. Lufkin was married to Chloe Allen Bagg, who was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and to this union the following children have been born: Harry E., who is now acting as state superintendent of Sunday schools in the state of Maine; Adele, who married A. J. Nesbitt, a resident of New Mexico; Virginia, the wife of Oliver Alden, living in Anna; Arizona, who married Peter Auten, of Princeville, Illinois; and John E., Jr., part owner of poultry farm, and who married Miss Belle Sifford.
Mr. Lufkin joined the Odd Fellows in 1854, at Murphysboro, Illinois, the same night and at the same place that John A. Logan became a member of that order. Formerly a Democrat, since the Civil war he has acted with the Republican party, but he has never sought public preferment, although he is a stanch supporter of his party's principles. The family is identified with the Presbyterian church, and Mr. Lufkin though never a member of any church, has been liberal in his support of religious and charitable movements.