Vail, Isaac

The following data is extracted from Biographical Sketches, Coles County, Illinois - Charleston Township.

Isaac Vail, proprietor of livery, feed and sale stable, Charleston; was born in Dutchess Co., N. Y., Nov. 29, 1833; in 1839, his father removed with his family to Chautauqua Co., N. Y., and after residing there ten years, to Erie Co., Penn., thence the next year to Steuben Co., Ind., and, in 1851, to Coles Co.; his father located 800 acres of Government land in Hickory Tp., four miles north of Charleston, at a cost of $700. Three years later he removed to Livingston Co., where he is a prominent farmer. Mr. Vail left home in 1852, driving an ox-team across the plains to Oregon, and spent three years in that State and California. He returned in 1855, and, the following year, erected a mill in Livingston Co., which he ran till the breaking-out of the rebellion. In August, 1862, he enlisted in the 129th I. V. as Sergeant in Co. E; he was with Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta. and on the famous march to the sea, and up through the Carolinas and Virginia to Washington, participating in all the battles of his regiment. He returned in 1865, and the same year located in Charleston, and ran a planing-mill for two years. He then sold out and went to farming, and, in 186S, built his livery-stable, and engaged in his present business. He was a member of the Board of Aldermen which, in 1875, put in the Charleston Water Works at a cost of less than $40,000, said to be the cheapest works in the State. He was married in 1852 to Miss Rebecca Fisher of Coles Co., and has six children - William I. (now of San Francisco), Frank, Ida, Fred, Eva and Nay.

Source: Biographical Sketches, Coles County, Illinois - Charleston Township

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