TAMPICO AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Source: Portrait & Biographical Album of Whiteside County, IL
Originally published 1885 Chapman Bros., Chicago, IL

Transcribed by: Becky Jones

Page 257

Addison S. Melvin, merchant of Third Street, Sterling, was born Sept. 22, 1828, in Geauga Co., Ohio.  His parents, Alonzo and Roenna (Lyman) Melvin, were natives of Massachusetts and descendants of the old Puritan stock. They came to Ohio when young, married in 1819, and had nine sons and four daughters, all of whom excepting one son lived to be grown; the son died when four years and six months old.

Addison remained with his parents until 22 years of age, passing his youth on the farm, at the district school and two years (17 to 19 years old) at the Western Reserve Teachers’ Seminary at Kirkland, Ohio. He then taught school one season, but, his health failing, he returned to farm labor in New York State.  Two years afterward he went to Southern Indiana, where he followed carpentering for nine years. He came from there to Sterling and engaged in coopering, employing 12 men, and continued in the same line for 16 years; then, in 1882, he started in the grocery business, under the firm name of Melvin & Son, and is now prosecuting a successful trade in that line.

Mr. Melvin was married Sept. 7, 1856, to Miss Cordelia McKinney, a native of New York, and they have had five children, three of whom are still living:  Arthur N., Addison S., Jr., and Alonzo D.  Arthur married Gussie Roberts, of Lyndon, Ill., March 16, 1882.

In political matters Mr. Melvin is a Republican, and in religious he is connected with the Congregational Church, as is also Mrs. M.