". . . . . . 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 war 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 and seventy acres in section 23, Pleasant Valley township, and lived
there until his death.
C. A. Baldwin had a very 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."