WILLIAM S. DEWEY. To Hon. William S. Dewey belongs the happy distinction
of holding the office of county judge of Alexander county for a longer
period of time than any other encumbent. His entire life has been passed in
Cairo, Illinois, with the exception of a few brief years in early life, and
his record for uprightness and fair-dealing throughout his entire career
accords him an enviable place among the flower of Cairo's citizenship.
William S. Dewey is the son of Edmund S. Dewey, who in the year 1872
brought his family from Irvington, Washington county, Illinois, (where
William was born August 25, 1869) to Cairo, Illinois, where Edmund S. Dewey
passed his remaining years.
Edmund S. Dewey was a native of the Old
Bay state, having been born at Lenox, Massachusetts, November 10, 1836, and
in Lenox his boyhood days were quietly and industriously spent in attendance
at the public schools of that town. He was a son of Oliver Dewey, who
established the Dewey family in Illinois, coming thence in 1853 from Lenox,
Massachusetts, where he was born in 1805 and where he had passed his days up
to the time of his departure with his family for the state of Illinois. He
was the husband of Eliza Sabin, and they were the parents of six children:
Robert K., who served in the Illinois troops during the war of the
rebellion, and who is now a resident of Greenville, Illinois; Edmund S.. the
father of our subject, and who also served in the Federal army, as before
mentioned; Mrs. H. Josephine Sabin, now residing in Lee, Massachusetts;
Oliver B., who did duty in the Illinois Cavalry during the Civil war and
died later at St. Lawrence, South Dakota; Charles A. of De Kalb, Illinois;
and Mrs. Mira E. Beveridge, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In 1901 Oliver
Dewey died in Greenville, Illinois, at the venerable age of ninety-six
years.
It was in the year 1860 that Edmund S. Dewey came to
Greenville, and he taught school in the village until the time of his
enlistment in the Federal army as a volunteer in 1862. He was commissioned
adjutant of the One Hundred and Thirtieth Illinois Infantry and served in
General Grant's army in the Vicksburg campaign. Later he was in the Red
River expedition under General Banks and participated in the operations of
the army along the Mississippi river, taking an active part in the capture
of Mobile and generally acquitting himself with credit to himself and his
country. He was twice wounded while in the service, but each time resumed
his duties as soon as his condition would warrant it, and was finally
mustered out at the close of the war. after having served over three years
in the Federal army.
Following the close of the war Edmund S. Dewey
resumed once more his former occupation, that of teaching, becoming a member
of the faculty of the Southern Illinois College at Irvington, but abandoning
his career as a teacher with his removal to Cairo. He was there engaged in
the commission business for several years, and it was in the year 1886 that
he was appointed circuit clerk of Alexander county by Hon. O. A. Harker,
then circuit judge. Mr. Dewey succeeded Alexander H. Irwin in the office,
and at the close of three years' service he was elected to the office, and
was twice re-elected, holding that official position for fifteen years. When
he retired he was appointed city comptroller by Mayor George Parsons, which
office he held until the time of his death, November 28, 1906.
Mr.
Dewey was in life a Mason of the Knights Templar degree, a staunch
Republican always, an active and honored member of the G. A. R., and a
devout member of the Presbyterian church. A man of fine inherent traits,
cultured and educated, Mr. Dewey chose his wife from a family of similar
qualities. He was married at Irvington, Illinois, in June, 1868, to Miss M.
Jennie French, a daughter of Rev. D. P. French, principal of the Southern
Illinois Agricultural College at Irvington, and a native of New Hampshire.
Mrs. Dewey departed this life in 1889, and they left a family of six
children, named as follows: William S., who is the subject of this review;
George F., city engineer of Cairo, Illinois; Charles B., a traveling
salesman with headquarters in Cairo; Jennie E., a teacher in the Cairo
public schools; John M., who is deputy circuit clerk of Alexander county,
and who is engaged with his brother William S. in the abstract business in
Cairo; and Josephine, the wife of T. J. Flack, of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
William S. Dewey passed through the schools of Cairo, and afterwards entered
the Sioux Falls College at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and was graduated
therefrom in 1889. He then began a course of law reading in the office and
under the supervision of Hon. Walter Warder, of Cairo, Illinois, and in the
year 1892 at Ottawa, Illinois, he was successful in passing those
examinations which admitted him to the bar of the state of Illinois, and he
began the practice of his profession in Cairo, Illinois, the same year.
Especially fitted by nature for the duties of public life, Mr. Dewey soon
found himself absorbed in active politics. In less than two years after he
began the practice of law in Cairo, he was made the Republican candidate for
county judge of Alexander county and was elected to succeed Hon. John H.
Robinson. He has been four times re-elected to that office, and with the
expiration of his present term will have completed twenty years' continuous
service in one official position, a distinction which rarely falls to the
lot of any man, however qualified he may be, and which fact speaks volumes
for the tact, talent and general fitness of Mr. Dewey for the place he holds
in the civic life of Cairo.
On June 14, 1904, Judge Dewey was wedded
to Miss Katherine Kleir, a daughter of Francis Kleir, who was wharfmaster
for the Mobile and Ohio Railway for many years. Mr. Kleir was a native of
Hamburg, Germany, and was married in Cairo to Miss Phoebe Justice, their
daughter, Mrs. Dewey, being one of their six children.
Judge Dewey,
while absorbed in the cares and duties of his office, has found time to
become affiliated with a number of secret and fraternal societies, as well
as being interested in various business enterprises in Cairo. He is a member
and past chancellor of Ascalon Lodge, No. 51, Knights of Pythias, a member
of the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandery of Masonry in Cairo, and of the
Commercial and Alexander Clubs, besides which he is the secretary and
general attorney for the Cairo and Thebes Railway Company, as well as being
one of its original promoters and is a member of the firm of E. S. Dewey &
Company, abstractors of title and president of The Citizens Company,
publishers of The Cairo Evening Citizen, daily and The Citizen, weekly.
Judge Dewey, while a busy man, has found time to fulfill the duties of an
elder and trustee of the First Presbyterian church, of which he is a member,
and is a member of the Illinois State Board of Directors of the Y. M. C. A.,
giving generously of his time and substance to that cause, in which he is
deeply interested.
Extracted 15 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1912 History of Southern Illinois, Volume 2, pages 859-861.
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