Jacob Strawn came from Ohio and settled in Morgan county in 1827, and a few years later was probably the most extensive cattle dealer in the world, but his operations were, to a large extent, local and his most distant shipping point, Saint Louis. His pastures in Morgan county embraced about 15,000 acres and his business reached its maximum about 1860.
Survivors of that period recall Strawn's free handed methods. He purchased cattle by the thousands, fixing the price on mere verbal description as to quality and weight. Frequently, at delivery time, nobody was on hand to receive the cattle, but they were driven into the Strawn pastures and left with confidence that payment would be prompt. Both Strawn and his successor, Alexander, were always ready to buy cattle, in fact they were the market of that period. Strawn was at the height of his career when John T. Alexander came on the scene. Strawn produced beef as a feeder and grazier; Alexander contracted cattle to be delivered in the future.[17]
Mr. T. C. Sterrett relates that in the summer of 1856 he came to Illinois and was informed that the largest cattle dealer in the state was Jacob Strawn, living near Jacksonville, in Morgan county. He visited Strawn's place and found a remarkably large brick house and was astonished at the amount of brick paving about the house. Mr. Strawn lived on a good farm at Orleans Station, east of Jacksonville. He owned a lot of good horses and Shorthorn cattle. Piloted by the foreman, Mr. Sterrett went out into a 1,200 acre pasture which was fenced with rails and stocked with a fine lot of cattle. He was very much struck with a hundred head of the finest general work horses that could be found anywhere. This band of horses and cattle, the good fences, and the general appearance of everything about the place, indicated the power and ability of the owner. Mr. Strawn was by far the greatest American cattleman of his time.[18]
Benjamin Franklin Harris[19]
December 15, 1811—May 7, 1905
B. F. HARRIS at 55
"Benjamin Franklin Harris was born December 15, 1811, on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley, near Winchester and Harper's Ferry, in Frederick county, Virginia. He was the second of ten children of William Hickman Harris and Elizabeth Payne (own cousin of Dolly Payne Madison from England). His grandfather, Benjamin Harris, with two brothers, came from England and settled on the eastern shore of Maryland in 1726. The family were of Scotch-English extraction and Quakers; in this country becoming fighting Quakers, then Methodists. He grew to manhood on his father's Virginia farm, attending the country schools until sixteen years of age. At that time, President Jackson's attitude toward the United States bank so seriously affected values that wheat declined from $1.50 to 50 cents and Virginia farm land to less than one-third of its former price. These declines so affected the father's obligations that Benjamin Franklin Harris and his brothers, each with a six horse team—in those days without railroads—went into the "wagoning" or freighting business, and for three years "wagoned" freight over that section and out through Pennsylvania and as far west as Zanesville, Ohio, in order to recoupe the father's losses."
On March 20, 1833, the Virginia farm had been sold at 40 % of its original cost, and in a one-horse gig and a two-horse carryall, the Harris family set out for Ohio, arriving at Springfield on April 8, and nearby, purchased and settled upon their new farm. It was during this year that Benjamin Franklin Harris commenced business for himself, buying and driving cattle overland to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and there disposing of them to cattle feeders.
In 1834, he started for Illinois via Danville, then through the present site of Sidney, and Urbana—where there was but one cabin—and on to what is now Monticello in Piatt county. During the ensuing years, he began to accumulate farming lands in Piatt and Champaign counties and to buy cattle throughout all this section as far south and west as Mt. Vernon, Vandalia, and Springfield. During several seasons, he bought for the purpose of feeding cattle, all the corn for sale in Macon, Sangamon, and Champaign counties. Each year, for nine years, he drove these cattle overland via Muncie, Indiana; Springfield, and Columbus, Ohio, into Pennsylvania, and some into New York and Boston, where they were sold.