FRANK CLEMENTS. The successful son of a distinguished and venerated
father, and the scion of families resident in this country from very early
colonial times, and strong factors in all phases of its history in many
localities and all worthy walks of life, Frank Clements, of Carbondale, has
shown himself to be fully entitled to the high and general esteem in which
he is held by his exemplification in his own life and the manly spirit of
his ancestors.
Mr. Clements was born in Carbondale on September 17,
1865, and grew to manhood in that city, attending the public schools for a
time and completing his academic education at the Southern Illinois Normal
University. After leaving the University he clerked in a dry goods store in
Carbondale a short time, then passed ten years in the same capacity in the
employ of John V. Farwell, of Chicago. In the great metropolis of the West,
which is one of the modern wonders of the world, he manifested the same
qualities of upright and elevated manhood that have since distinguished him
in his long residence in Carbondale and won the admiration or the friendship
of every acquaintance he had there.
In 1893 he returned to his native
city and bought an interest in the business of A. F. Bridges, which
subsequently became the firm of Clements & Etherton. Mr. Clements is also
connected in a leading way with other business institutions in Carbondale
with benefit to them and the public. He is one of the directors of the First
National Bank and secretary of the Carbondale Mill and Elevator Company. He
has taken a warm and serviceable interest, too, in the public affairs of the
community, having served as alderman two years and as a member of the board
of school trustees twelve years. In these offices he has kept his eye firmly
on the interests of the people and done all he could to protect and promote
them.
In religious faith and alliance he is connected with the
Methodist Episcopal church, and faithfully serves the congregation to which
he belongs as its treasurer. Fraternally he is a Freemason, and is the
treasurer, also, of his lodge in the order. Politically he is a Republican,
always loyal to his party, but not an active partisan and never desirous of
the honors or emoluments of public office, although he is everywhere
recognized as capable in a high degree of discharging official duties in a
manner most beneficial and satisfactory to all for whom they are performed.
Mr. Clements is a son of Isaac and Josephine (Nutt) Clements, the former
born in Franklin county, Indiana, on March 31, 1837. The mother's father was
Rev. Cyrus Nutt, D. D. LL., D., at the time of her marriage president of the
Indiana University, and one of the prominent and distinguished educators of
the country, everywhere recognized as such and everywhere revered for his
high character as a man, his unaffected and impressive piety, and his great
intellectual powers, as well as for his exact and exhaustive learning.
Isaac Clements, the father of Frank, at the time of his death, which
occurred on May 30, 1909, was governor of the Soldiers' Home at Danville in
this state, a position which he accepted on January 6, 1899, after a long
and brilliant career in other departments of the public service and in
professional life. It is high praise but only a just tribute to demonstrated
merit of a high order, and to a disposition that always radiated genial
sunshine, brightening and warming all with whom it came in contact, to state
that during his ten years' tenure of this trying office he was not known to
make one enemy, and he was known to seal to himself the cordial devotion and
loyal friendship of thousands of persons, including not only the inmates of
the Home and all their friends, but also all the residents of Danville who
were brought into association with him or heard of his genuine kindness of
heart, unvarying courtesy and seasoned wisdom.
The ancestors of Isaac
Clements were among the founders of Maryland, being members of the colony
which made the first settlement in that state under the lead of Cecilius
Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. They received a large grant of land in
the new colony by a "king's patent" which made them owners of "sixteen
square miles anywhere within Lord Baltimore's domain." They selected as
their portion and as the home of the family in the new world a tract of the
designated size on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake bay, on which they
located and began to take a leading part in the activities of the first
palatinate on this side of the Atlantic.
The grandfather of the late
governor of the Soldiers' Home fought under Washington in the Revolution and
felt that great commander lean on him for support, even though he walked
serenely under his mighty burden of care. The father of the governor, whose
name was Isaac also, was a valiant soldier in the "War of 1812, and in that
short but significant contest with the mother country well maintained the
reputation of the family and the glory of the "Old Maryland Line," for both
he and his wife, whose maiden name was Nancy Burt, were born in Maryland in
1790, and lived there until sometime after the war.
They then moved
to Lebanon, Ohio, and some years later to Franklin county, Indiana, where
their son Isaac was born, as has been stated, on March 31, 1837. He attended
the common schools of the time and place, but was not satisfied with the
education they could afford him, and determined to secure a better one. When
he was but fourteen he entered a private school, sawing wood and sweeping
the school room to pay his tuition. In this way he prepared himself for
college, and in the fall of 1854 matriculated in what was then Asbury but is
now De Pauw University, at Greencastle in his native state, from which he
was graduated with high honors in 1859, delivering the Latin oration for his
class as a mark of his exalted rank in it.
During vacations he taught
school to pay his way through the University, and after his graduation
continued to teach to prepare himself for the law. This he did in Illinois,
moving to this state a short time after he received his diploma. In 1860 he
opened a law office in Carbondale, and at once began, taking an active part
in politics. In the exciting presidential election of that year he supported
Mr. Douglas for the presidency, but after the election showed his loyalty to
the Union by opposing the secession sentiment then prevalent in Southern
Illinois in public speeches vigorous in argument and ardent with patriotism.
Before the call for troops to defend the Union was made Mr. Clements
organized a company of infantry which afterward became Company G of the
Ninth Illinois regiment, and was chosen its second lieutenant. He wag
mustered into the service on July 27, 1861, and remained in it three years,
being mustered out on August 3, 1864. His regiment took part in some of the
bloodiest battles of the war, and he was wounded three times, twice at the
battle of Shiloh and once at the battle of Corinth.
From the close of
the war until his death he was almost continuously in office, so well was he
qualified for executive and' administrative duties. In 1868 he was appointed
register in bankruptcy, and in 1872 was elected to congress. A political
upheaval defeated him for re-election in 1874, and President Grant at once
appointed him pension agent for the Southern Illinois district. An act of
congress consolidated the two districts in the state in 1878, and Mr.
Clements retired from office for a few months. Before the end of the year,
however, Governor Cullom appointed him commissioner of the Southern Illinois
Penitentiary, and he held this position until President Harrison appointed
him pension agent for Illinois.
Soon after the accession of Cleveland
to the presidency Mr. Clements again became a private citizen, and he
remained one until 1897, when Governor Tanner appointed him superintendent
of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home at Normal, and thereby found a way out of
great difficulties he had in connection with the management of that
institution. He served the state well and wisely in that position until he
received his last appointment as governor of the Federal Soldiers' Home at
Danville. In all these various offices he rendered service so signal and
satisfactory that there was never a word of criticism of his administration
of them even by innuendo.
Mr. Clements became a member of the
Methodist Episcopal church while yet a young man, and during all his
subsequent years was devout, sincere and consistent in his daily
exemplification of the teachings of Christianity. He was a charter member of
John W. Lawrence Post, No. 297, Grand Army of the Republic, and its
commander several years and a member of the Loyal Legion. He also belonged
for many years to Shekinah Lodge, No. 241, A. F. and A. M., and for two
years served as grand orator of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in the Masonic
order. He was the life and soul of the Grand Army post while commanding it,
and a luminous and eloquent expounder of the ritual and principles of
Freemasonry while serving as grand orator of the order in this state.
When his remains were laid to rest amid the lamentations of the whole
community, and with the highest funeral honors his companions in arms and
all other soldiers at hand could pay him, the bench and bar of the city and
the fraternal organizations to which he had given so much life and light
attended the funeral in a body, and they all afterward placed on enduring
record strong tributes to his merits as a man and citizen; his capacity and
fidelity to duty in office; his loyalty to every obligation he ever took;
his obedience to the behests of honor, truth, humanity and duty, which
exists in the nature of things and need not be expressed in formal codes and
creeds, and the powerful influence for good of his example wherever he had
been known and in connection with every line of human endeavor in which he
had ever been employed.
"Mark the perfect man, and behold the
upright; for the end of that man is peace."
Extracted from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, volume 2, pages 633-636.