Matthew Bonar Blish

As printed in 1910

MATTHEW BONAR BLISH.

The student of history cannot carry his investigations far into the annals of Henry county without learning of the long and active connection with the Blish family therewith, and Matthew Bonar Blish is numbered among those who are today prominent in the life of the community. He has for a number of years been a leading business man of Kewanee and like the others of the name merits and receives the high respect and good will of those with whom he has been associated. He is a son of Charles Cheney Blish and a brother of James K. Blish, both mentioned elsewhere in this volume. His birth occurred at Wethersfield, Illinois, December 5, 1848, and he attended the local schools of that place and Kewanee, while subsequently he spent one year in the University of Michigan. Following his marriage he began farming, which continued to be his business until a year or two after the death of his father in 1890. He had previously in connection with his father under the firm name of C. C. Blish & Son, developed one of the finest herds of shorthorn cattle in the west and they became widely known as prominent stock breeders and dealers. After the death of the senior member of the firm M. B. Blish, never of strong physique, felt that the constant care necessary to maintain the herd was telling upon him and disposed of it at a public sale, the high prices realized being an unmistakable index of the quality of the animals.

It was on the 23d of December, 1868, in Wethersfield, Illinois, that Matthew B. Blish was united in marriage to Miss Martha Florence Morrill, a daughter of Daniel Webster and Elizabeth Almira (Wedge) Morrill. Mrs. Blish was born November 18, 1849, at Ripley, Virginia, and this marriage has been blessed with three children: Kate Elizabeth, who was born in Wethersfield, October 13, 1869; Charles Bonar, born February 25, 1871; and Dwight Morrill, May 23, 1881. For a number of years Mr. Blish, to avoid the rigors of the northern climate, spent the winter months in Mobile and Citronelle, Alabama. He is officially connected with the Kewanee Fair Association and is a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity. The family has always stood for a high type of American manhood, for loyalty and progressiveness in citizenship, for trustworthiness and enterprise in business life, and the history of those who bear the name constitutes a most important and interesting chapter in the records of Henry county.

As printed in History of Henry County, Illinois (1910). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.