Hamilton F. Corey, Ohio, was born in Cayuga County, New York, July 17, 1811, and is the son of John and Lucina Corey, formerly of Connecticut. Mr. Corey’s grandfather, David Rodes, was a soldier of the Revolution, and died in New York at the age of eighty-four. Our subject’s father, John Corey, was a soldier of the war of 1812.
The subject of this sketch was raised on the farm, where he resided till the spring of 1835, when he came to this State and settled with his sister (now Mrs. Lemuel Carey) in Morgan County, where he remained till he came to this county in 1845, and first settled in Dover Township in 1846. In 1835 Mr. Corey married Esther Mead, of New York, who was born in 1807, and came to this county with her husband, where he died in 1874. Of this marriage there is a family of six children, four now living: Mrs. Elizabeth L. Smith, Ohio, Illinois; Mrs. Almeda Hammer, King City, Missouri; Mrs. Elsa Rainer, of Nebraska; and John H. Corey, who was born October 30, 1843. He enlisted in Company B, Ninety-third Illinois Infantry, August 11, 1862, and served in the Civil War till July 6, 1865; engaged in the following battles: Wyatt, Miss., December 4, 1862; Yazoo Pass, expedition from March 23 to April 7, 1863; Jackson, Miss, May 14, 1863; Champaign Hill, Miss., May 16, 1863; charge on Vicksburg, Miss., May 10, 1864; Dalton, Ga., June 28, 1864; McAllister, Ga. July 20, 1864; Allatoona, September 10 and 11, 1864; Salkebatchie, S.C., February 2, 1865; Columbia S. C., February 15, 1865; Lynch’s Creek, February 25, 1865; Bentonville, N. C., March 19 and 20, 1865, and Sherman’s march to the sea from November 15, 1864 to April 27, 1865. He was wounded May 14, 1863, at Jackson, Miss. September 12, 1865, he married Phebe Rainer, by whom he has one son.
In 1874 Mr. H. F. Corey married his second and present wife, Rachel Martin, of this county, by whom he has one son, Harry F. Corey, was born September 130, 1876. Mr. Corey owns 320 acres in Ohio and 328 acres in Dover Townships.
He was formerly a Whig, and is now a republican. Mr. Corey is one of the family of seven children four sons and three daughters all now living; the youngest, Mrs. J. Lewis, lives at Jack’s Riffs, New York, aged sixty-four.
This family (according to Mr. Corey’s own statement) is somewhat peculiar, in the fact that they had the poorest of advantages during youth were not brought up but came up, all beginning with nothing, and all are now ell off, and everyone the owner of lands.
Source: History of Bureau County, Illinois, H. C. Bradsby, Editor. World Publishing Company Chicago 1885