The subject of this sketch is a veteran of the War of the Rebellion, and
as a souvenir of one of the many battles in which he engaged with
distinction carries in his knee a leaden missile from a Confederate gun. He
displayed great valor in those strenuous days of carnage. In Preston
township, Richland county, Illinois, where he has lived for many years is
well and favorably known.
Mr. Standiford was born in Hardin county,
Kentucky, September 5, 1846, the son of Archibald B. and Eliza Jane
(Courtright) Standiford, who were also natives of that state, as were their
parents before them. The grandfather of the subject served for seven years
in the Revolutionary war under George Washington, and when the strife came
to an end returned to Kentucky to engage in agricultural pursuits. The
father of the subject was born in 1804. He was also a soldier, having served
three months in the Black Hawk war. Shortly after his return to his home in
Hardin county, Kentucky, he was wedded to Eliza Jane Courtright, and in the
year of 1850 they started overland to Illinois, enduring many hardships
before they arrived at their objective point, Jasper county. Here Mr.
Standiford purchased eighty acres of land, of which seventy acres were of
timber, while the remainder had been cleared. Their dwelling was a rude log
house, and there was also on the land a sort of makeshift of a stable. The
clearing of the timber land was a herculean task, but Mr. Standiford finally
succeeded in getting forty acres thereof under cultivation. The subject was
then four years old, and the family remained on the place until the death of
the father, September 16, 1866, aged sixty-two years. The mother survived
him by several years, she dying in Indian Territory, August 20, 1903, at the
ripe old age of ninety-five. When the subject became old enough to do hard
work, he hired out to neighboring farmers, but finally decided to return to
Kentucky. He remained in that state two years. His employer owned a store in
Nashville, Tennessee, and he worked at that place for about a year, at the
end of which time he was called back to Jasper county, his father having met
with an accident. He then worked on the farm until December, 1862, when he
enlisted in the Forty-sixth Illinois Regiment, Company F, Col. John J.
Jones, commanding. At the close of the war he was mustered out at Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, January 21, 1866. After drawing his pay at New Orleans he
returned home to Jasper county. The subject received a gunshot wound in the
knee at Fort Blakely, Alabama. He participated in many battles, among them
being at Yazoo City, Vicksburg, Meridian Hill, Champion's Hill, Jackson,
siege of Richmond, Spanish Fort, and Fort Blakely. During these battles his
regiment was under command of General Sherman. In January, 1865, he was
transferred under A. J. Smith, Fourteenth Corps, when he engaged in the
battle of Mobile, and then moved to Dolphin Island to guard the gunboats,
after which he went to Baton Rouge, where he remained until he was mustered
out.
After the death of the father of Mr. Standiford, in 1866, the
wife and mother sold the farm, and lived with her children until her death.
The subject is the third of seven children, all of whom grew to the years of
maturity, and married, two of them now being dead. After the war, Mr.
Standiford learned the milling business, and after five years returned to
Kentucky, where he married Laura Ann Smith, March 14, 1871. He continued in
the milling business, operating large water mills for the parents of his
wife. At the end of five years they removed to Arkansas, where he purchased
a farm, upon which they remained for nine years, when they went to Macoupin
county, Illinois, where Mr. Standiford took a position in a flour mill. His
wife died February 26, 1881, aged forty-five years. Three children had been
born to the couple, two girls and one boy, the latter dying in infancy.
After the demise of his wife the subject engaged in the business of selling
fruit trees in Southern Illinois and Missouri, which he continued for
fifteen years. He finally settled in Noble, Richland county, and after a
residence there of three years moved to Dundas, Preston township, where he
married Mrs. Lottie McCarty (nee Evans), April 11, 1900, his bride being the
widow of Robert S. McCarty, and daughter of Miller and Elizabeth (Hough)
Evans. She was born in Ross county, Ohio, July 17, 1850, her father dying
when she was eight years old. She had lived on the farm with her mother
until her marriage to Robert S. McCarty, October 11, 1868, and as a result
of this union there were four children.
Although he had but three
months' schooling in Jasper county, in a log house where rough planks served
for desks, and this in the days when if a pupil could write a fairly legible
hand, he was considered eligible for the position of teacher, he accumulated
much knowledge in after life, spending all of his leisure time while in the
army learning to read and write.
Mr. Standiford is a Republican and
cast his first vote for Lincoln. He is a member of the Grand Army of the
Republic, Post 449, Chesterfield, Illinois. He and his wife are both active
members of the Methodist church in Dundas, both of them having been allied
with this denomination for more than four decades. They are in comfortable
circumstances, owning a pretty home, and four lots in the town of Dundas.
The subject draws a small pension.
Extracted 21 May 2019 by Norma Hass from 1909 Biographical and Reminiscent History of Richland, Clay and Marion Counties, Illinois, pages 444-446.
| Jasper | Crawford | |
| Clay |
 |
Lawrence |
| Wayne | Edwards | Wabash |
