Amasa E. Belden, Berlin, was born in Wyoming County, N. Y., April 17, 1813. His early life was spent in farming in his native county. His father, Amasa Belden, was a native of Vermont, and was in the war of 1812: his wife, Amy Banister, was a native of Connecticut. They were the parents of ten children, three of whom are now living, viz: Amasa E., Timothy and Sylvester P.
Our subject came to Bureau County in 1845. He crossed the lakes to Chicago, and then came by team to this county, where he has since resided. He first bought the farm at Dover now owned by J. Hoyt, on which he built a house, hauling the lumber from Chicago, which he also made his grain market. He lived in Dover for eight years, and then bought his present farm in Section 28, which was then unimproved prairie.
Mr. Belden was married, in Wyoming County, N. Y., to Miss Mary Kellogg, a daughter of Deacon Daniel Kellogg. She was born in 1816, and died at the age of sixty years and two months. She was the mother of three sons and three daughters: Daniel K.; Harlan A.; Augustus H., who was in the army three years; Sarah, wife of W. B. Howe of Chicago; Amy, wife of Rev. James Hunter Clark, who is pastor of the Congregational Church at Millard Avenue Station, Chicago; Janie B., wife of W. H. Lewis, a farmer of Berlin Township. The sons are all dead, but all were married; one left a wife and four children, another a wife and two children.
In politics Mr. Belden is identified with the Republican party, and in earlier days was associated with Lovejoy, Bryant, and others in the Abolition movement of this county. He has been a member of the Congregational Church most of his life, and has been a deacon in the church at Malden since its organization. Mr. Belden has always believed in a strict observance of the law, of the Sabbath, and of morality, and his influence has not been unfelt.
Source: History of Bureau County, Illinois, H. C. Bradsby, Editor. World Publishing Company Chicago 1885