Source:  History of Macon County, Illinois, Published 1880 - Page 151

Source:  History of Macon County, Illinois, Published 1880 - Page 138

AQUILLA TOLAND (Deceased).
     Aquilla Toland, a former resident of Austin township, was a native of Ohio.  His father, Dr. Toland, was born in the state of Maryland, emigrated to Ohio at an early day and settled, in Madison county, where he resided for a number of years until his death in December, 1866.  He practiced medicine nearly half a century in that part of Ohio.  He was a man of great enterprise and public spirit, and contributed greatly to the development and improvement of the locality in which he lived.  Elizabeth Lewis, Mr. Toland's mother, was of Irish descent, and born in Madison county, Ohio, and belonged to one of the pioneer families of that state, Aquilla Toland was born at London, Madison county, Ohio, on the fourth day of July, 1840.  He was the youngest of a family of four children.  His boyhood was spent in his native county.  He had excellent opportunities for acquiring an education, and attended the common schools and an academy at London.  His father desired that he should enter one of the professions, but he preferred an out-door life.  His inclinations ran in the direction of farming and stock-raising.
     On the breaking out of the war of the rebellion he was one of the first men to offer his services to the government in Madison county.  He was then not yet twenty-one years of age.  On the 19th of April, 1861, he enlisted under the three months call for troops in Co. C. Seventeenth regiment Ohio Volunteers.  He was chosen orderly sergeant of his company.  His term of service having expired he re-enlisted in Co. A. One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio regiment.  On the fifth of February, 1863, Gov. Tod commissioned him second lieutenant.  During the sickness of the captain of the company, who was his brother-in-law, he commanded the company for nearly a year.  While a member of the Seventeenth Ohio regiment he served in West Virginia, and while with the One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio, in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, taking part in several battles among which were those of Mission Ridge, Shiloh, and the siege of Vicksburg.
     After the close of his service in the army he returned to Ohio.  In 1865 he came to Macon county with the purpose of improving a large track of land in Austin township.  At that time few improvements had been made on the prairie of that part of the county.  He was married on the fourth of November, 1868, to Lydia A. Smith, daughter of Edward O. Smith, one of the old residents of Decatur.  In 1870 Mr. and Mrs. Toland took up their residence in Austin township on the farm, which consists of thirteen hundred and fifty [1350] acres, and lies in sections thirty-one and thirty-two.  Since her husband’s death, which occurred on the 15th of February, 1878, the farm, an illustration of which appears on another page, has been under Mrs. Toland’s management.  Mr. Toland was a republican in politics.  He possessed strong convictions on all subjects, was charitable and generous in his disposition, and steadfast and devoted in his attachments.  He was a man of the highest personal honor, and his word could always be relied on.  He had excellent business capacity, was active and energetic, and among the foremost to lead in public improvements in his part of the county.
Source:  History of Macon County, Illinois, Published 1880 - Page 227

JOHN TRAINER   The subject of this sketch was born, August 26th, 1844, near the little village of Wilkesville, Vinton county, Ohio.  At the age of four years his father removed to Columbia township, Meigs county, where young Trainer was brought up.  Settling as his father did in his wild forest home, his sons grew up in the “clearing,” and were thoroughly inured to the hardships of the very severest farm labor.  Mr. Trainer well remembers what it is “to pick brush, to grub, to chop, to maul rails, to roll logs and to plow ” day after day.  Thus situated, he did not have much opportunity for acquiring knowledge in the school-room.   After he was old enough to do any kind of work on the farm he was allowed to attend school a short time, in mid-winter or “of rainy days.”  By the time that he had reached his majority he had made up his mind to try and get an education; accordingly, he “went to the furnace,” and hauled wood and worked in the “coaling” in order to secure means to buy books and for the purpose of attending school.  As soon as this was accomplished he entered Ewington Academy, and remained in his classes one year; his funds failing he procured a teacher’s certificate and taught school one year in Vinton county.  He then attended Atwood Institute, Albany, Athens county, another year; then taught and attended this institution of learning till he obtained, what might be termed, a good academic education.  In 1869 he came to Illinois and stopped with Mr. Jesse Lockheart, of Niantic, as a farm hand.  Mr. L., learning that he was a teacher, persuaded him to take a school in the fall of that year, instead of going to Missouri, as he intended.  He procured a school in the Dingman district, and has taught in this county continuously to the present.  In 1877 he was elected to the office of County Superintendent of schools for Macon county, by a large majority, and has successfully filled this office, three of the four years for which he was elected, his term expiring in 1881.
     Mr. Trainer is what he has made himself—an industrious, practical man, a man of few theories ; but when he has one he invariably puts it to the practical test.
Source:  History of Macon County, Illinois, Published 1880 - Page 154