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A. D. & C. A. BALDWIN

Day before yesterday, they were young, full of life and activity, giving their strength unsparingly at duty's call in battle for the nation; yesterday, they were the stalwart men of mature age, men of affairs, the bone and sinew of the nation, diminished in numbers, but still a host; today, they are few and scattered, and those few becoming feeble, reaching that age when memory takes the place of activity; tomorrow, they will all have disappeared. But never, while this country stands a monument to their sacrifice, will the work which those brave soldiers of the Civil war accomplished be forgotten, though they themselves have long passed away. Those who now survive, members of the Grand Army of the Republic, are, in every assemblage in which they appear, made honored guests and awarded heroes' places.

C. A. Baldwin was born in Berrien county, Michigan, April 1, 1844, the son of A. D. Baldwin, who was born in New York, and Mary A. (Allbright) Baldwin, born near Knoxville, Tennessee. His paternal grandfather, Amos Baldwin, a native of New York, served faithfully in the was of 1812, and married a Miss Woodworth, of his own state. His maternal grandparents were Christian and Martha (Walker) Allbright, he a native of North Carolina, she also from the South.  Grandfather Allbright was a farmer. He died at A. D. Baldwin's home in Fayette county. Grandfather Baldwin was a farmer and physician, one of those pioneer settlers who so usefully combined those occupations.

A. D. Baldwin was educated in Michigan, where he lived until 1846, when he and Grandfather Allbright came to Stephenson county, Illinois, and Mr. Baldwin, who had a team, entered eighty acres of prairie and twenty acres of timber, and put up buildings and made a home. This was twenty miles northeast of Freeport, and the town of Davis afterwards grew up on the same location. In 1857 he came to this county and bought two hundred and seventy acres in section 23, Pleasant Valley township, and lived there until his death.

C. A. Baldwin had a limited education. In 1862, at the age of eighteen, he enlisted in Company H, Thirty-eighth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, served with credit for eighteen months, and was then discharged on account of disability contracted in the service.  Returning home, he farmed in Fayette county until 1885, when he removed to Elgin, engaged in the agricultural implement business for three years and then retired. On September 8, 1867 he was married to Esther A. Cooley, who was born near Elkhart, Indiana. They were the parents of ten children; Maggie, born July 27, 1868; John A. born November 1, 1869; Ellen M., October 29, 1871; Allisha L., April 12, 1873; Lily M., September 16, 1874; Sarah A., June 2, 1876; George A., October 12, 1877; Emma R., November 13, 1879; Della E., April 9, 1882; Florence J., January 6, 1884; F. Logan, May 29, 1885.  Mr. Baldwin's mother died in 1909, aged ninety-two. Mr. Baldwin and his family are Methodists. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Iowa Legion of Honor, a man whose many virtues speak for themselves more strongly than words can express.

~transcribed by CMD for Fayette County IAGenWeb