The Macomb Journal, page 4
Thursday, January 2, 1902

Hainline.

John D. Hainline died at his home in Emmet township, this county, at 4:15 a. m. Friday, Dec. 27, 1901. His ailment was that decline incident to old age. He was in his 86th year. Funeral services were held at his late residence at 11 a. m. Saturday, after which his remains were taken to the Spring Creek graveyard and buried.

John Dumford Hainline was born in Montgomery county, Kentucky, some seven or eight miles from the now city of Mt[.] Sterling, Sept. 7, 1816. He was the oldest son of George Hainline, who was a native of Kentucky, and whose father came into the territory from North Carolina contemporaneous with Boone, Whetzel and Kenton as early as 1775. The subject of this sketch grew to manhood on his father's farm, much of which he assisted to clear of the immense forest that grew upon the land. IN 1836 when 20 years of age, he was married to Miss Margaret A. Douthitt. In the fall of 1838 he moved west, and in October of that year arrived in McDonough county and settled on the land where he died; and during the 63 years of his life since, had the entire time resided in houses, none over a fourth mile distant from the other. When he located in what was then known as "Spring Creek settlement," there were probably not over 600 inhabitants in the county, the population being confined to those points where the prairie met the timber that skirted the streams and known as "settlements." He lived to see the then almost trackless prairie land of the county converted to the finest farms.

November 3d, 1869, his wife died. A year later he was again married, this time to Mrs. Amanda J. Purdy, who survives him. He also leaves six children, as follows: William H. of this city, Flora A., wife of Marcellus Shryack, Warrensburg, Mo.; Mary Isabell, (wife of the late Captain B. A. Griffith, well known in the county), of Chicago; J. Quincy of Hire township, Andrew J. of Macomb, and May, wife of Wm. J. Sticklen of Hire. His oldest son was killed during the Civil war at the battle of Bentonville, N. C. He also leaves three brothers--Thomas S., living in Knox City, Mo., William C. of Hire and George W. of Blandinsville township.

Deceased, while never an office seeker, always took active interest in politics. In the early years of his majority he was a strong Whig and, coming from Kentucky, was a great admirer of Henry Clay. So strong were his Whig sentiments that he could not surrender the party traditions, and in 1856, though thousands of his former Whig associates had left the party and voted for Fremont as president, he clung to the declining fortunes of his party and cast his vote for Millard Fillmore, the "American" candidate, but who upheld the vital parts of the Whig doctrine. Two years after, however, when Abraham Lincoln ran for the United States Senate from Illinois against Judge Douglas, Mr. Hainline inscribed on his banner "Clay Whigs for Lincoln." and from then until the day of his death was an earnest Republican. His admiration for the great emancipator was even greater than it had in former days been for Clay, and it was always his highest pride that he was a delegate to the Republican state convention in Decatur in 1860 that gave instruction and formed the nucleus that resulted in the nomination of Lincoln for president a few weeks after at Chicago.

When the war of the Rebellion began he had arrived at an age where he had begun to take that rest from laber [sic] that his years gave him title to; but his grown sons went away to war, he went back to the plow and again and without a murmur grasped the hand of toil; for his patriotism was as exalted as his politics were active and earnest.

Deceased was never a member of any church, but was a man of strong sympathies and his hand and purse were ever open to the needy. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" was his motto and rule of action. On that principle he walked his path through life, and on that record he trusted his future to his Creator.

In the death of John D. Hainline passes from the stage of action the last of the pioneer of the "Spring Creek settlement." The Russells, Humberts, Simmonses, Fergusens, Halls, Sweeneys, Champions, Painters, Walkers, Penningtons, Head, Clarks, Wilsons, Osbornes, Purdys, Hardins and other Hainlines who were his associates in those early days, are all gone. He was the last survivor and, as he passes to the other shore, the places of the pioneers of the Spring Creek settlement are filled by a second and third generation.