furniture and undertaking business in Pleasant Hill; and Clarence, who was married to Winona Harvey, of Nebo, Illinois, and holds a position in the Pleasant Hill post office. They have one son, Everett E. The family have long occupied an enviable position in social circles in this community.      Politically Mr. Oakley is a republican and his sons have followed in his footsteps in this direction. He has been without aspiration for office, however, preferring that his time and energies should be given to other interests. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church of Pleasant Hill and he holds relations with the Knights of Honor, the Modern Woodmen and the Grand Army post at Pleasant Hill. He is one of the few surviving veterans of the Civil war and he takes great pleasure in meeting with his old army comrades around the camp fires held by the post in this village. In a review of his work it is seen that his chief characteristics have been commendable and that in his relations with his fellowmen he has never been neglectful of the duties nor obligations which devolve upon him. He has taken life seriously, has performed his full share of the world's work and a citizen and business man has made a creditable record. Now in the evening of life he is enabled to enjoy a well earned rest amid the comforts and luxuries which go to make life worth living.                                                   ________________                                                GEORGE  E.  GRAY        George E. Gray, one of the enterprising and progressive young business men of New Canton, owns and controls a good lumberyard and at the same time has valuable farming interests in the county. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, January 10, 1881, and is the adopted son of Eugene and Lydia Gray, natives of this county. Eugene Gray was born in Barry in September, 1839, and for a number of years prior to his death was the oldest native citizen of the town. He was descended from one of the early New England families, tracing his ancestry back to John Gray, who was born in Salem, Connecticut, in 1704, and who was the father of Daniel Gray, whose birth occurred in the same state in 1757. The latter became a resident of Rensselaer county, New York, where Thomas Gray, father of Eugene Gray, was born in 1812, being the youngest in a family of thirteen children. In that county he was married to Mary F. Crandall, whose birth occurred in the same locality in 1820, and for more than a half century they traveled life's journey together, rearing a family of three sons and seven daughters. On leaving New York Thomas Gray came at once to Pike county, Illinois, traveling by canal, lake and river after the primitive manner of those early times. He began business in Barry as a general farmer, and for many years was actively associated with the agricultural development of this part of the state.      Eugene Gray was reared in Barry and in early life began teaching but subsequently turned his attention to clerking and to various other business pursuits, but when his capital justified his purchase of a store he began business on his own account in Barry, thus continuing a representative of trade interests until after the outbreak of the Civil war, when his patriotic spirit was aroused and he offered his services to the government, becoming one of the boys in blue of the Sixty-eighth Illinois Infantry in 1862. He was afterward a member of the Twenty-Eighth Illinois Infantry and he continued at the front until April, 1866, when he was mustered out at Brownsville, Texas, being honorably discharged at Springfield. He participated in a number of engagements and sieges, the last being that of Mobile and he was ever a faithful soldier, unfaltering in his loyalty to the old flag and the cause it represented.      When the country no longer needed his aid Mr. Gray returned to his home and resumed the pursuits of agricultural life and until 1867 busied himself as a teacher and clerk. He next entered into partnership with W. H. Odiorne and at the end of a year he sold out to Mr. M. D. Massie but remained in the store as a clerk. a year later he entered into partnership with Mr. Massie and they continued the business together with gratifying success until 1883, when Mr. Gray sold out with the intention of going west but he did not find a favorable location and returned to New