DuFay Alonzo Fuller (1852-1924), DuFay Darius Fuller (1888-1971)

From the Illinois Legislative Directory of 1897-98.

    An insurance man based in Belvidere, Boone County, Illinois, DuFay Alonzo Fuller represented Boone County in both houses of the Illinois General Assembly between 1897-1905. A lifelong Belvidere resident, DuFay A. Fuller was born in that town on February 21, 1852, being one of five children born to Seymour and Elizabeth (Mordoff) Fuller. Besides producing a two-term representative and one-term state senator in the man highlighted here, the Fuller family would also boast Charles Eugene Fuller (1849-1926), a circuit court judge and eleven-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois' 12th district.

  A student in the public schools of Belvidere, DuFay Fuller married Cherry Valley, Illinois native Jennie Robinson (1857-1895) on March 24, 1875. The couple were wed until Jennie's death in November 1895 and had one son, George, who died in infancy in 1887. Fuller remarried in 1901 to Blanche Merrill (1875-1966), with whom he had three daughters, Louise (1903-1994), Marian, and May. 

    DuFay A. Fuller made his first foray into public service in the mid-1870s when he was named as a justice of the peace, and until the early 1890s resided on a farm. In 1892 he decided upon a career in insurance and became affiliated with the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company, serving as a district manager beginning in 1895. In 1896 he became a Republican candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives from the 8th district and in November bested Republican nominee George Lyons.

   Fuller's first term in the state house (1897-98) saw him named to several house committees, those being Agriculture, the Executive Department, Fees and Salaries, Horticulture, Insurance, and Senatorial Apportionment. He would win a second term in 1898, garnering 11, 296 votes on election day. Serving during the 1899-1901 session, Fuller set his sights on an Illinois State Senate seat in 1900 and was successful in his attempt, polling an eight-thousand vote majority over Democratic nominee Henry M. Coburn.

   Taking his seat at the start of the 1901-05 term, Fuller would serve alongside another oddly named senator, Lennington "Len" Small of Kankakee County. The pair would develop a firm friendship that would continue for many years afterward, and following his election as Governor of Illinois in 1920, Small appointed Fuller (who had been a staunch supporter during that year's gubernatorial campaign) as a state parole officer.

DuFay A. Fuller, from the 1901 Illinois Legislative Directory.

   Following the conclusion of his senate term, Fuller continued work in insurance and real estate, and also held memberships in the Masonic order, the Belvidere Y.M.C.A board, and the Odd Fellows lodge. Upon the election of Len Small as Governor in 1920 Fuller was appointed as a parole officer for the district comprising Belvidere and continued to serve in that role until his death on March 3, 1924, just a few days after his 72nd birthday. The Freeport Journal Standard relates that Fuller was fatally stricken by a heart attack while walking home from his insurance office and died shortly thereafter. He was survived by his wife Blanche and daughters and was later interred at the Belvidere Cemetery.

From the Freeport Daily Standard, March 4, 1924.

Portrait from the 1943-44 Iowa State Register.

  The nephew of the preceding gentleman, DuFay Darius Fuller also went on to success in politics, albeit in a different state. A two-term state senator from Jackson County, Iowa, Fuller was also a bank vice president and lawyer based in the city of Maquoketa. The son of George H. and Ella Fuller, DuFay Darius Fuller was born in Rockwell, Iowa on September 27, 1888. A former president of the Rockwell Savings Bank, George H. Fuller (1845-1925) was the brother of DuFay Alonzo Fuller (mentioned above) and Congressman Charles Eugene Fuller. A student in the public schools of Rockwell, DuFay D. Fuller graduated from the Rockwell High School and later went on to attend the Central College in Pella, Iowa, graduating in 1906. Deciding upon a career in law, Fuller undertook further study at Drake University School of Law, where he earned his bachelor of laws degree in 1909.

  In June 1915 Fuller married to Mildred Widdows (birth date unknown), to whom he was wed until her death. The couple would have two children, DuFay Darius Jr. (born 1917) and Dorothy (born 1921). Prior to his marriage Fuller began his political career at the local level, serving as deputy county auditor for Cerro Gordo County from 1910-12 and as deputy county treasurer from 1913-1925. During the First World War Fuller enlisted in the U.S. Army but wouldn't see combat, as he was stationed in Iowa City.

  Following his brief military service Fuller practiced law in Mason City, Iowa, and from 1918-1928 served as a referee in bankruptcy. In 1925 he made his first foray into banking, becoming cashier for the Primghar Savings Bank in Primghar, Iowa. Fuller stepped down from that post in 1926 and spent the next decade in California before returning to Iowa in 1937, and in that year took on the post of vice-president of the Jackson State Savings Bank at Maquoketa.

  In early 1940 Fuller entered into the Republican primary race for state senator from Iowa's 23rd district and in June of that year won out at the polls, garnering 629 votes. That November he would win election as senator, besting Democratic candidate Frank Ellis by a vote of 4,620 to 4,213. Fuller's service in the 1941-43 session saw him chair the Boundary Bridges committee and was also named to the committees on Banks and Banking, Claims, Dairying, Educational Institutions, Highways, Public Health, and Ways and Means.

Portrait from the 1943-45 Iowa State Register.

  In the 1942 election year, DuFay D. Fuller won a second term in the senate and during the 1943-45 session was named to several new committees, those being Cities and Towns, Compensation of Public Officers, Enrolled Bills, Livestock and Marketing, and Public Health. He would also chair the State Accounting System committee. Fuller left office in 1945 and details on the remainder of his life remain hard to come by. Following his term, he resided in California and Arizona before relocating to Arkansas in January 1971. On July 30, 1971, Fuller died at a hospital in Bentonville, aged either 83 or 84. Although an exact cemetery name remains unknown at this time, Fuller's death notice in the Joplin Globe denotes his burial occurring at a cemetery somewhere in the Hampton, Iowa area.

Dios Corides Hagle (1839-1898)

Portrait from the Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1896.

    Nineteenth-century political figure Dios Corides Hagle can lay claim to being one of the oddest named individuals to ever win election to the Illinois State Senate and is also one of the few men profiled here who served in the legislatures of two different states (those being South Dakota and Illinois.) Like many of the men who've preceded him here, Hagle's first and middle names can be traced back to the ancient Roman Empire and one Pedanius Dioscorides, a traveling physician in the army of Emperor Nero. Regarded as a master herbalist and the "Father of Pharmacy", Dioscorides authored the landmark five-volume work De Meteria Medica (On Medicinal Substances), which would become the "prime authority and source work on herbs and other medicinal substances in the history of Western Civilization, and quite possibly the world."

   The life of this oddly named man began in Brown County, Ohio, where he was born on September 11, 1839. The son of Abraham and Mary Williams Hagle, it is unknown as to why Abraham and Mary chose to split the name "Dioscorides" into two separate names and bestow it upon their son. Sources of the time frequently abbreviate Hagle's name as "D.C. Hagle", and you can imagine my surprise when I found out what those initials actually stood for!

    The Hagle family resided in Brown County until Dios was two, whereafter they relocated to Jefferson County, Illinois. The Hagles later moved to the neighboring county of Wayne, where Dios would attend the "common schools", as well as work on his father's farm. He continued along this route until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, and, finding that the quota for enlisted Illinois soldiers was complete, enlisted as a private in Company D of the 11th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. His time with that company extended three years, during which Hagle saw action at the Battles of Corinth, Iuka, the Red River campaign, and the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863. 

   Hagle's three-year term of enlistment expired in 1864 and following his return to Illinois again took up farming. Shortly after his return, he married Sarah Cunningham, who died in 1866. Around 1867 he began studying law in Clay County, Illinois, and was admitted to the bar the following year. Hagle would remarry in 1869 to Mary Catherine George, with whom he had two children, Maud Araminda (1872-1958) and John W. (who died aged three in 1878). 

   Soon after his admittance to the Illinois Bar Dios C. Hagle established his first law practice in the town of Louisville. He spent several years in practice there and in the mid-1870s relocated to the South Dakota Territory, eventually settling near the city of Yankton, where he would reestablish his law practice. Hagle's time in the Dakota territory saw him enter into the field of politics for the first time, as he was elected to the Dakota Territorial House of Representatives in 1876. Representing the county of Hutchinson during his service, Hagle would be further honored during his term when was chosen as Speaker of the House, continuing in that role through the 1877 term.  In that same year, he decided to return to Illinois, his second wife Mary Catherine having died two years prior. 

   Following his return to Illinois, Hagle began practice once again in Louisville and married for a third time in 1879, taking as his wife Ms. Cerissa B. Ingham (1854-1931). Five children would be born to their union, and are listed as follows in order of their birth: Christa Bell (1881-1893), Dios Corides (1882-1930), Gail H. (1884-1969), Mary (1886-1904) and Dorothy I (1889-1933). 

   A year after his marriage Dios C. Hagle was elected as County Attorney for Clay County, Illinois. He was returned to that office in 1884 for another four-year term and in November 1888 was elected to the Illinois State Senate for a four-year term, representing the 44th district. During this term Hagle was named to several important committees, those being the Judiciary; Railroads; Finance and Claims; Corporations; Appropriations; County and Township Organization; and Engrossed and Enrolled Bills. 

   At the conclusion of his term in 1893, Hagle continued to be a prominent figure in Republican party circles in the state.  In April 1896 he figured prominently in the campaign of John Riley Tanner, then the Republican nominee for Governor of Illinois. Tanner (who had been married to Hagle's wife's sister Lauretta) had his name placed before the state Republican convention by Hagle, who was acknowledged by the Chicago Tribune as having been an "orator of no mean ability." In November 1896 Tanner won the Governorship, defeating incumbent Governor John Peter Altgeld by over 100,000 votes.

   With the incoming administration taking office in January 1897, Governor-elect Tanner appointed Dios Hagle as Assistant Attorney General of Illinois. In what would become his last public office, Hagle served under Attorney General Edward Aiken and died in office on February 6, 1898, at age 58. He had been ill for several months before his death, having suffered from pleurisy (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the lungs.) A resident of the town of Flora, Illinois at the time of his death, Hagle was survived by his wife and four children. He was later interred at the Elmwood Cemetery in Flora. Decades following her husband's death, Cerissa Hagle moved to California with her daughters Dorothy and Gail and died there in November 1931.

Hagle's death notice from the Illinois True Republican, Feb. 7, 1898.

A death notice from the San Francisco Call, February 7, 1898.

Corbus Plummer Gardner (1868-1925)

From "The Breaking of the Deadlock" published in 1904.

   We continue our stay in Illinois to highlight the life of another oddly named Prairie State political figure, Mr. Corbus Plummer Gardner of the city of Mendota. Described in Volume II of the 1916 Courts and Lawyers of Illinois as "a vigorous and ambitious lawyer" and "one of the best-known men in Northern central Illinois", Mr. Gardner represented LaSalle County in the Illinois State Senate for three terms beginning with his election in 1898.

   Corbus P. "Busty" Gardner was born in Mendota, Illinois on September 2, 1868, the youngest of nine children born to George Washington and Margaret Gardner, both natives of Pennsylvania. Corbus worked on the family farm during his youth and attended the Blackstone High School in Mendota. In the late 1880s, he enrolled at the University of Michigan's Law School and graduated in the class of 1890. Following his graduation, Gardner read law in the office of Mayo and Wilder for a short period and in 1891 opened his own law practice in Mendota.

   Although he was only in his mid-twenties at the time of its opening, Gardner's law practice grew exponentially, branching out to include other areas in LaSalle, Bureau, and Lee County. The Courts and Lawyers of Illinois give note that Gardner became affiliated with the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad in 1897 and served as that railroad's attorney for a number of years. He would later take a position as an attorney for the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad in 1904, and following that year was primarily based in Chicago. Gardner married on December 11, 1901, to Georgia Smith (1873-1963) and later became the father of two children, Margaret Wilda (1904-unknown) and Robert Bruce (1908-1925).

From the St. Louis Republic, February 6, 1903.

   Noted as being a "staunch Democrat" throughout his life, Corbus P. Gardner had never served in elective office before his election to the Illinois Senate. In November 1898 Gardner won election to that body for the first of three terms. He won reelection in November 1902, defeating Republican candidate P.J. Lucey by a vote of 7,919 to 7,347 and during his second term (1903-1907) Gardner served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Gardner etched his name into the history books in 1905 when he introduced a bill in the senate that proposed $150,000 to provide for the construction of an Illinois Supreme Court Building. Gardner's bill was passed by both houses of the legislature and was approved by Governor Charles S. Deenan on May 18th of that year.

   Gardner's third term in the Senate commenced in 1907 and during this session chaired the committee on Revenue and also held a seat on the following committees: Appropriations, Chicago Charter, Education, Judicial Department and Practice, License and Miscellany, Parks and Boulevards, Primary Elections, Sanitary District Affairs, State Charitable Institutions, and Waterways. As one of the most influential Democratic senators serving in the legislature, Corbus Gardner was noted for his "fair dealing and honesty", but in his last year in the senate, his sterling reputation took a significant hit when allegations of graft were leveled against him.

From the Indianapolis Daily Sun, June 25, 1910.

    As the Indianapolis Daily Sun related in its June 1910 edition, Senator Gardner was accused of "offering a $10,000 jackpot contribution" for securing the passage of a bill through the legislature. The bill in question (referred to as "a bill to permit the damming of rivers for power purposes") had been killed during the last session of the legislature, and Gardner's ethics were called into question when he appeared before a grand jury in Springfield to explain his involvement. This jury also heard testimony from H.S. Green, the manager of a power company in Morrison, Illinois who had mentioned that a "demand" concerning the bill  "was bluntly made of him by the Senator". 

   Gardner vehemently denied the charges against him, and despite being in the hot seat, had little to worry about politically. An article in the Rock Island Argus in February 1910 noted that several incumbent senators "had no desire to be returned" to office in November and that Corbus Gardner was among them. The Argus also related that it was Gardner's wish to "engage permanently in the practice of law in Chicago" after the conclusion of his third term. From what newspaper articles of the period have indicated, Gardner appears to have weathered the scandal, although the same cannot be said for state representatives Lee O'Neil Browne, Robert Wilson, Frank Traut, and Louis Hersheimer, who were indicted by the grand jury in June 1910 on a conspiracy to bribe. 

From the Rock Island Argus, June 25, 1910.

   Despite his leaving the senate under a black cloud, Corbus P. Gardner spent the remainder of his life actively following politics, and in 1912 became affiliated with U.S. Senator Shelby Moore Cullom's campaign for reelection. Cullom established his political headquarters at the Hotel LaSalle and Ex-Senator Gardner was named as its head. In the end, however, Senator Cullom did not run for a fifth term and left office in March 1913 after serving 30 years in the U.S. Senate.

   Gardner continued to practice law in Chicago and Mendota for the remainder of his life and is also noted as having been a member of the LaSalle, Illinois, and American Bar Associations, the Bethany Commandery No. 28 of the Knights Templar Masons and the Medinah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He died at his home in Mendota on May 3, 1925, at age 57, and was later interred at the Restland Cemetery in that town. Gardner's son Robert Bruce died one week later, aged just 17, and was interred alongside his father. Georgia Smith Gardner was also buried here following her death in 1963 at age 90.

Corbus Plummer Gardner,  from "Ottawa in Nineteen Hundred".

Epler Cadwell Mills (1893-1984)

 From the 1931-32 Illinois Blue Book.

   The Illinois General Assembly has had its fair share of oddly named individuals serve amongst its ranks over the past two centuries, and following on the heels of the September 11th profile on DeGoy Bowman Ellis (a state representative from Kane County) another interestingly named Illinois legislator receives a profile--Epler Cadwell Mills of Cass County. A two-term member of the state senate, Mills had earlier distinguished himself during the First World War and was first elected to the Illinois senate at age 27.

  Born in Virginia, Illinois on March 16, 1893, Epler C. Mills was the son of local attorney Richard Watson Mills and his second wife Nellie Epler and was bestowed the odd first name "Epler" as it was his mother's maiden name. He attended schools in the Virginia, Illinois area and also studied at the Montclair Academy in Montclair, New Jersey. He continued his education at the University of Illinois Law School and later graduated from there with his Bachelor of Laws degree.

  Following his graduation Mills began the study of law and continued his studies until the beginning of American involvement in WWI. In May 1917 he signed on for military service and in the following month married Helen Odiorne (1895-1984) and later had two daughters, Jane and Elizabeth (1922-2012). Mills began his military training at the Fort Sheridan Training Camp in Lake County, Illinois and after being commissioned was assigned to the Co. H., 19th U.S. Infantry. He served with this outfit for the duration of the war and eventually rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant, being stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He resigned from the Army in January 1919 and after returning home returned to studying law.

   In 1920 the then 27-year-old Mills was nominated for a seat in the Illinois State Senate and in November of that year defeated Democratic incumbent Walter Manny by a vote of 22, 432 to 15, 718. Taking his seat in January of the new year, the freshman senator was named to seats on the committees on Agriculture and Live Stock, Appropriations, Civil Service, and Dairying during his first term.

  

A youthful-looking Epler C. Mills, from the 1921-22 Illinois State Blue Book.

   Epler C. Mills represented Cass County in the Senate for a four-year term (1921-1925) but wasn't a candidate for reelection in 1925. He was elected to a second term in the Senate in November 1928 and served another four years in office. During this session of the Senate Mills served on 22 different committees, which are listed as follows: Agriculture, Livestock and Dairying; Apportionment; Appropriations; Canals and Waterways; Civil Service; Community Welfare, Corporations and Industrial Affairs, Criminal Procedure, Efficiency and Economy, Elections, Fees and Salaries, Forestry, Fish and Game, Harbors, Insurance, Judiciary, License and Miscellany,  Military Affairs, Municipalities, Parks, Boulevards and Playgrounds, Public Utilities, Railroads, and Roads and Highway Transportation.

  After leaving the senate in January 1933, Mills returned to his hometown of Virginia to practice law with his brother Myron. In 1934 Mills mounted a candidacy for the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative from Illinois, and during the April primary placed a distant fifth behind winning nominee C. Wayland Brooks, who had garnered 479, 479 votes. Following his primary loss, Epler Mills continued practicing law for forty more years and was also affiliated with numerous fraternal clubs in Illinois, being a member of the Masonic Order, the Modern Woodmen, the Hamilton Club of Chicago, and the American Legion. 

  Epler C. Mills died in Illinois on June 5, 1984, at age 91, and was shortly thereafter interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. Helen Odiorne Mills survived her husband by only a few weeks, dying on July 3rd of 1984 at age 89, and was buried alongside her husband at the Oak Ridge Cemetery. One of the most prominent cemeteries in Illinois, Oak Ridge is also the burial location of former Illinois senator Shelby M. Cullom, Illinois Governor Ninian Edwards, American labor leader John Llewellyn Lewis, President Abraham Lincoln, and oddly named Springfield mayor Rheuna Drake Lawrence, profiled here back in March of 2012.

Epler C. Mills, from the 1922-1923 Illinois Blue Book.