WILLIAM H. PORTERFIELD, retired, Fairfield. Biography may seek to illuminate its subjects with more brilliant achievements, and romance may furnish more thrilling pictures and greater variety of exciting adventures. but there is nothing as directly interesting to the faintly as the simple history of the lives of William R Porterfield and Elizabeth M. Wall. The former was born in Westmoreland County, Penn.. February 28, 1830, but moved with his parents when quite young, to Armstrong County. His boyhood was spent on the slopes of the Allegheny Mountains, and among the rugged hills which embrace the great coal mines, oil wells and iron foundries of the "Keystone State."
His father was a poor but industrious farmer, who gained for his family a decent living by the sweat of his brow, and although he had to encounter many misfortunes and disadvantages, he, together with the assistance of the willing hands of wife and children, managed to keep their heads above want. But as the crowded and growing population of the East afforded few advantages to the poor man, and as his opportunities for providing for the future welfare of his family were limited, he decided to remove to the "Prairies of the Golden West."
Consequently a home was selected in Wayne County, Ill., and later a permanent home was purchased near the present site of Mt. Erie, where, though they had the inconveniences of frontier life with which to contend, they enjoyed a sufficient degree of prosperity to enable them to live comfortably. Here in their Western home, many both happy and sad seasons were spent by the family of John Porterfield. Though many changes have taken place in the old homestead, and death has claimed its portion of its occupants, including the parents, it is still owned by a younger brother, James T. Porterfield.
William H. had reached the age of nineteen, when the family removed to Illinois. He had received a liberal common school education, sufficient to enable him to teach the rural districts. But little of time was spent this way, the labors of the farm claiming the greater portion of his time, and the toil and hardship incident to pioneer farm life eminently fitted him for this calling in later years, and supplied him with the necessary energy to insure his future success.
Elizabeth M. Wall was born in Daviess County, Ky., February 1, 1836. Her father was likewise possessed of small fortune, and longing to live in a free State and to otherwise better his condition, in obtaining for his family a home, he severed the ties to the "Old Kentucky Shore," and settled in Wayne County, Ill., in 1850, near where the Porterfield family had located in the same year.
William H. Porterfield and Elizabeth M. Wall were married on the 30th of November, 1854. They still live to Comfort each other in decline of life, and have surrounded themselves with a host of ardent friends, who love them for their many virtues. Their family consists of
Mr. Porterfield, in August, 1862, enlisted in Company D, Eighty-seventh Illinois Regiment, and served as an officer in that organization until discharged in July, 1865. He participated in the siege of Vicksbnrg and the Red River expedition.
Four of the children have engaged in the county as teachers. The older sons, M. W. and W. C., were educated at Ladoga, Ind., graduating in the class of 1878. Since 1880, they have engaged in the drug trade at Fairfield, and are now associated with William N. Lasley, and are enjoying a lucrative patronage, which they evidently merit. The entire family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Fairfield, Ill., where the parents have recently moved for retirement.
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