Biography - John Jordan
John V. Jordan, one of the old and well known of the early settlers now
living and residing in Murdock township, settled in what is now the confines
of Douglas county in the fall of 1854. He is the son of Edward Jordan, who
was born in Virginia and reared in Kentucky, a son of Samuel Jordan, who was
one of the pioneer settlers of that state. Edward Jordan wedded Christina
Van Duyn, who was born in New Jersey and was a daughter of John and Rebecca
Van Duyn. In about 1823, Mr. Jordan's parents immigrated to Vermillion
county, Indiana, where he was born in the year 1830. Here he was reared and
received the meager education obtainable in the early pioneer schools of
that day. After arriving in Douglas county, he entered first an eighty acre
tract, and soon after bought another eighty acres, which was second hand.
For that which he entered he paid one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre,
and the other at three-dollars and seventy-five cents per acre. He now owns
in all three hundred and fifty acres. He has only recently donated one acre
to the Fairland Cemetery Company. He has always taken an active interest in
common school education and was school trustee and treasurer before he
became a voter in Douglas county.
In January, 1855, he was united in marriage to Miss Lydian C. Lemon, who was a native of Lawrence county, Indiana, and a daughter of M. B. and Eliza Lemon. To their marriage were born six children: Lemon, Ella, Edward, John, Lucy and Dell. Lucy died in 1888, at the age of twenty-one years.
John V. Jordan, before the formation of the Republican party, was a Whig, and since the latter party went down he has been a Republican. When he first came to the locality in which he now resides, among those who had come previously were Robert E. Carmack, who was born in Tennessee and located here in 1852; Samuel and James Wishard and Jacob Caufman; also Samuel A. Brown, all coming from Vermillion county, Indiana; Rev. Jones and Arthur Bradshaw were the early preachers.
Extracted by Linda Lang from the Historical and Biographical Record of Douglas County, Illinois, page 173.
