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Stephenson County, Illinois Genealogy
Honorable Charles Betts
HONORABLE CHARLES BETTS, Freeport, is one of the most
prominent figures of the Stephenson county bar, and his long association
with legal affairs gives him the colloquial title of "Judge"
Betts. He is called the Nestor of the bar, and is now living in an
honorable retirement from professional life. He was born in Batavia,
Genesee county, New York, June 13th, 1825, and up to the time of his
admission to the bar his life was passed in the Empire state. His
educational privileges eminently fitted him for the profession of his
choice. At all times he has made the most of his opportunities, and
endowed by nature with, strong mentality, his advance has been rapid and
commendable. While still a youth he began the study of law in his native
state with Honorable Heman J. Redfield and Honorable Benjamin Pringle as
his preceptors,
and completed his course in the office of Hon. Isaac A. Verplanck and
General John H. Martindale, of Batavia. The counsel and assistance of
these distinguished gentlemen and able attorneys had great influence in
moulding his character and educating him to a standard of excellence in
the profession before him, from which he has never deteriorated.
Honorable, high-minded and faithful through inbred moral principles, he
early gave evidence of fitness for that high career that was opening
before him. He was esteemed and loved, not more for his genial social
qualities and grace of person, than for those brilliant mental powers
which unfolded early and bloomed with wonderful beauty. The writer well
remembers that at the greatest political mass meeting ever assembled in
the United States, numbering over one hundred thousand people, on Oct.
4th, 1844, at Rochester, New York, one of the most highly-praised speakers
on that occasion was the subject of this review. He then delivered his
maiden speech, which, in a marked degree, pointed to a distinguished
future. Three years later he was admitted to the bar at Rochester in Dec.
1847, with the highest honors of his class. The following year he sought a
home in Freeport, and engaged in the practice of his calling, and here he
has made his home to the present time. In all the intervening years he has
uniformly sustained a prominent part in the legal transactions of the
county. His practice embraced the most important litigation heard in the
courts of northern Illinois up to the time of his retirement, and his
thorough knowledge of jurisprudence, his judicial turn of mind, and his
quickness in applying fundamental principles of the law to cases under
consideration, have won him a marked success and produced a very
substantial and well deserved financial reward. Mr. Betts added to a
thorough knowledge of the law a wonderful power of analysis, close
reasoning, and unusual oratorical gifts, and these have been important
factors in his success.
Almost from the beginning of his residence in Illinois, Mr. Betts was
recognized as a capable political leader, and in 1852 he was nominated by
the Whigs for Auditor General of Illinois, a great honor to come to a
young man so soon after his entrance upon the arena of state politics. He
went upon the hustings, and his voice added strength to the growing
principles of liberty and justice which were soon to bring about the great
political revolution of 1858. Mr. Betts saw very plainly that old
political divisions were obsolete, and following the counsels of Stephen
A. Douglas, with whom he had the warmest personal associations, he took
strong ground against the aggressive proslavery party of the south, and
did everything that he could possibly do to secure the election of Judge
Douglas in the campaign of 1860. After the readjustments of the war, he
was once more an advocate of sound Democratic principles from the
standpoint of Jefferson, Jackson and Douglas. In 1870 he was nominated for
Congress, against his protest, by the democratic party, and in a district
hopelessly republican,-the famed E. B. Washburn district, and which two
years before had given the republican nominee more than ten thousand
majority. He made a stout canvas, and reducing the adverse majority more
than one half, demonstrated a well deserved popularity. With this
exception he has uniformly declined nomination to office, though he has
often been tendered positions he would have filled with honor and credit.
He has been satisfied to command the respect and confidence of the
community, and has effectively prevented his ambition from overreaching
his judgment. For more than half a century Mr. Betts has made his home in
Freeport, and through all these years has retained the respect and esteem
of - his fellow citizens by an upright and honorable life.
The Betts family is of English origin, where the grandfather of the
Freeport representative was born and married. His wife, a Miss Pennoyer,
was a French lady and could not speak a word of English at the time of her
marriage. They came to this country and settled in Norwich, Connecticut.
Robert Pennoyer Betts, the father of Charles, and the thirteenth child in
the family, was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1791. He learned the
cabinet-maker's trade, and while still a young man moved into New York,
where he was engaged in it a number of years. Later in life he became a
merchant, and was the proprietor of a considerable establishment at
Batavia, New York. He vas a Whig, and when the republican party came into
power, was among the first to rally in its favor during the stress of the
war. He was a man of scrupulous honor, somewhat taciturn, and very
domestic in his tastes. He taught school in the east, and his handwriting
was remarkably fine. He died in 1864 at Freeport. Ill. He married Malinda
Owen at Batavia, New York. She was born near Syracuse, New York, in 1800.
She was a daughter of Daniel Owen, and died in 1862 at Freeport. Her
father settled four miles east of Auburn, New York, where he cleared a
farm of two hundred acres. He died a few years before the Civil war, about
eighty-five years old. His father, Owen Owen, was of Welsh and Irish
extraction.
Mr. Betts was married in Freeport, to Miss Mary Celestine Wilson, August
14, 1878. She was born in Freeport, and is a daughter of James Wilson, who
is now dead. He was at one time a farmer in Stephenson county and was born
near Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. His father, John Wilson, came from
Appleby, near Liverpool, England, with his wife and four children about
1800. John Wilson was a clergyman of the Wesleyan Methodist church, and
was a convert and friend of the Wesleys ; and was a circuit rider in Tioga
county, New York, and afterwards in Tioga county, Pennsylvania. He bought
a large tract of land in the latter state, and late in life became a
preacher of the Baptist church and instituted close communion in that
denomination. He is prominently mentioned in a book called "Early
Methodism." He married Betsy Metcalf, and the descendants of their
eight children are of strong force of character very largely, and many of
them occupy exalted positions in the world. James Wilson was their first
child born in America. He was twice married. His first wife was Phoebe
Cooley, who bore him four children, two of whom are still living. His
second wife was Sarah M. Walton, and the widow of Dr. J. M. Lowman, who
died of cholera during the epidemic of 1854. Her father, John Walton,
married Mary Ann Hall, whose father moved from Philadelphia, where Mary
was born, first to Clark county, Ohio, and then into Illinois, where he
died in 1852. James Wilson and his wife are the parents of two children,
Mrs. Betts, and her brother Edward, who is in the ministry at St. Paul,
with Ballington Booth's God's American Volunteers. To Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Betts five children have been born: Cora, Charles, Maude, who died at the
age of five, Robert and Mae. Cora and Charles are graduates of the
Freeport high school where Cora was especially proficient in Latin; she
also graduated from the Freeport Business college and in '99 moved with
her parents to Chicago where she entered the Chicago university.
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