Source: History of Bureau County, Illinois
H.C. Bradsby, Editor
Illustrated
Chicago: World Publishing Company  1885
Reprinted by: Higginson Book Co., Salem, MA

Transcribed by: Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 548

NELSON HINKSTON, New Bedford, was born in Hudson, Summit Co., Ohio, September 20, 1817, and is the son of Joseph and Caroline (Webb) Hinkston. The Hindston family is of English descent and came to America with the Puritans. Joseph Hinkston was a soldier in the war of 1812, and a pensioner of the Government until his death at the age of ninety-four years four months and eight days. The family is of a hardy and long-lived race. Nelson Hinkston is one of a family of ten children, all of whom lived to reach maturity, and six still survive. At the age of sixteen years our subject began to learn the shoe-maker's trade and followed the business, under one roof in Hudson, Ohio, for twenty-eight years. He worked on the bench only three years after learning his trade, then bought the establishment; carryiing on a manufacturing business. employing from eight to twelve hands. Mr. Hinkson loaned to the Broad Gauge, Cherry Valley & St. Louis Railroad Company $5.000, which he lost through the failure of the company, but instead of being discouraged he applied himself with new vigor and soon replaced his loss. In September, 1863, he came to Bureau County, Ill. and settled at New Bedford. He has since been engaged in the buying, improving, renting and selling of lands and loaning money.  He owns in this county between five and six hundred acres of land. In politics Mr. Hinkston is a supporter of the Republican party. He was amember of I.O.O.F. for seventeen years in Ohio, but since he has resided in this county he has not belonged to any order.

He was married  January 1, 1839, to Mabel Clark, a native of Connecticut but reared in Twinsburg, Ohio.  She died in September, 1858, after a sickness of two years. She was the mother of one son, Elmer, born July 6, 1840. He was a soldier in Company K, Seventh Ohio Infantry, enlisting in June, 1861, in Cleveland, Ohio. He was wounded at Ringgold, twenty two miles from Chattanooga, Tenn., where he was taken, and died January 21, 1864. Mr. Hinkston was married March 14, 1869, to Mary C. Whittington, who was born in Ashland County, Ohio, March 28, 1847. Her father, John Whittington, is now living at New Bedford, Ill., at the age of seventy seven years. The mother, Jane Whittington, died at New Bedford, January 21, 1883, at the age of sixy-nine years.