Rev. John S. Whittenberg was born in Blount County, E. Tenn.,
in 1823 and now makes his home in Tunnel Hill Township, Johnson
County. His father, William Whittenberg, was born in 1803, on
the same farm, and was a son of Henry Whittenberg, Sr. who was
born in Wittenberg, Germany, and came to the United States in
an early day. He was a man of limited means, and settled in Blount
County, Tenn., on wild land soon after the Revolutionary War,
while Tennessee was still a Territory. He married Mary Pate, of
German ancestry, with whom he lived happily for many years and
reared five sons and four daughters. Three of the former were
soldiers in the War of 1812 under Gen. Jackson. The names of these
nine children were as follows: Henry, Daniel, Joseph, Matthew,
William (father of Rev. John S.), Mary, Sarah, Betsy and Margaret,
who all became heads of families and lived to a good old age.
The grandfather of our subject removed to Illinois in 1840 or
1841 from Tennessee, where he had acquired six hundred acres of
land, out of which he gave each of his sons a farm. Their son
Joseph, and daughter Sarah, wife of John Phillips, were the first
of the family to come to Illinois, which was soon after it had
become a State.
John Phillips was the Representative of his county, Washington,
several years, and was one of the framers of the Constitution
of the State. Joseph Whittenberg went back to Tennessee and brought
his aged parents to Illinois on a visit, but they liked Illinois
equally as well as Tennessee, and sold their property in that
state and made this their home the rest of their lives, the mother
dying at the age of eighty-one years, being followed to the land
of rest by her husband a few years later. Both were intelligent
people, retaining their strength and mental faculties to the last,
and belonged to the Methodist Church, of which they were active
members for a number of years.
William Whittenberg, the father of the subject, married Miss Nancy
Smith, daughter of John M. Smith, a Methodist clergymen possessed
of much ability, and a classical education. Mrs. Whittenberg was
born March 7, 1800 in Virginia, in which State her mother, Nancy
Dyson, who was related to William Henry Harrison, President of
the United States, was also born.
The parents of Rev. John S. Whittenberg were farmers in Tennessee,
where the father died in 1842, only thirty-nine years old, leaving
his widow and eight children, four sons and four daughters, and
having previously buried two infant sons. About two years after
the death of the father the remainder of the family moved to Henry
County, Tennessee and in the winter of 1845 came to Johnson County,
Ill. Their first home was in the Grantsburg Township, where they
entered forty acres of land and bought thirty-six acres, upon
which there was already a little improvement, a few acres cleared
and a small log cabin. Here they made a good farm, which remained
the home of the mother until her death,
June 24, 1868, in her sixty-ninth year, when her remains were
interred in the Salem Cemetery. Her husband and two children are
buried in Tennessee, and one son and a daughter are buried in
Grantsburg Township.
Rev. John S. Whittenberg and his sister Malinda, wife of Elihu
Vaughn, reside in this township on good farms. Sarah, widow of
Kit Peterson, resides in Goreville Township. And Matthew is a
well-to-do farmer of Pope County. Our subject was reared a farmer
and had but nine months’ schooling before he was twelve years
old, and attended school but fifteen days during his fifteenth
year. His mother was, however well educated and taught her children
the common branches, which helped them considerably, and all are
at present time well-informed young men and women. One brother,
William P., is a wealthy farmer in Bloomfield Township. Rev. Mr.
Whittenberg taught a term of school when he was twenty-three years
old, and afterward taught during the winter months for thirty-five
years, becoming very efficient in that profession.
He was School Superintendent of Johnson County two terms, and
organized the first school institute in the county, conducting
it himself for four years. He has also been a local preacher in
the Methodist Church for thirty-two years.
Our subject was married February 15, 1853, to Isabella Gregg,
of Kentucky, but who was a resident of Metropolis, Massac County,
this State, and a daughter of William and Dorcas (Clayton) Gregg,
who were the first settlers of Massac County. Mr. Gregg was a
farmer, and for some years a hotel-keeper at Metropolis, and it
was at his hotel that Rev. Mr. Whittenberg met Miss Isabella and
his fate. They began their married life in the log cabin on the
same farm where they now live, which comprised forty acres of
new land. He added to the foty acres from time to time until he
owned over three-hundred acres, some of which he has since sold,
and now owns only one hundred and eighty-five acres, one hundred
of which are under good cultivation. Living in the log cabin a
few years, Mr. Whittenberg built, in the fall of 1861, a part
of the present house, which is a good two-story building, partly
frame and partly hewed logs, weather-boarded and ceiled inside.
He lived economically and worked industriously until enabled to
make an improvement on it in 1867, and twety-five years later
added an addition.
Rev. Mr. Whittenberg has taken ten degrees in Masonry and has
been connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since
1877. He has represented the Grand Masonic Lodge some fifteen
times and takes a strong stand in politics, being one of the organizers
of the Republican party in this county. He could not well avoid
being a Republican, for he stood on the slave markets in the South
and seen families separated, at which all the finer sensibilities
of human nature must revolt.
Mr. and Mrs. Whittenberg have lost four infant children, and one
son, John W., who died in his eighteenth year, and was a teacher
one year before his untimely death, in May, 1887.
Our subject and his wife have eight children living, two sons
and six daughters, namely: Ellen, wife of James Harrell, who has
three sons and four daughters; Adeline, wife of G. W. Hood, who
has two sons and one daughter; Sarah, a school teacher at Carbondale;
Necy, engaged in the millinery business at Tunnel Hill Township;
Belle, who is a young lady and at home; Alonzo, a farmer and teacher,
who is married to Eva Race, and has one daughter; William C.,
at home; and Flora, ayoung lady still with her parents. Rev. Whittenberg
is the youngest man of his years in this part of the country and
is still very active, engaging still in some hard work. He inherited
a splendid physical and mental nature, and has done his share
of the work of the world.
_Copied from The Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope and Hardin Counties, Illinois Chicago Biographical Publishing Co. 1893 pp. 289-293
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