HANCHETT, Seth F.

HANCHETT

Posted By: Chantel Schmitt (email)
Date: 5/6/2012 at 15:52:26

Seth F. Hanchett (1842-1905)

Seth Hanchett was born in Mayville, New York, and orphaned at nine. In 1856 he was in Chicago working for the railroad, and, when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Ninth Illinois Cavalry. Incapacitated with fever, he was discharged until 1863 or early 1864 when he re-enlisted in the Fifteenth New York Cavalry. He served under several generals - Seigel and Hunter in West Virginia, Sheridan in the Shannandoah, Custer and Grant at Petersburg. At Five Forks Mr. Hanchett lost his left arm, only a week before Lee surrendered at Appomatox.

After recovering, he returned to Chicago where he was appointed superintendent of the Cook County sSldier Home. In 1867 he became bailiff of the County Court. He was elected sheriff of Cook county in 1880. In 1885 he was the custodian of the indicted Hay Market rioters, who were convicted and hanged that year, and when his term of office expired the next year, he moved to Rockford.

Mr. Hanchetts's farm was the present Good Samaritan Farm south of Rockford. The home itself he designed after Jefferson Davis' home in Kentucky. In 1898 Mr. Hanchett moved to Rockford, where he took charge of the Beebe House until failing health forced retirement to his farm in 1902. There he died January 10, 1905.