Humphreys

Born: 1832-01-01 Todd County, Kentucky

Died: 1920-10-08 Los Angeles, California

Alternate name: Humfreys

John F. Humphreys was a grocer, real estate investor, merchant, Mason, and business owner. His father died when he was just a few years old and his mother remarried in 1839. The blended family relocated to Peoria County, Illinois, soon after. His stepfather ran a cooper shop, and young Humphreys performed his first paid work there. For a time he lived with Dr. Thomas P. Rogers of Washington, Illinois, and studied medicine. But when Dr. Rogers acquired one-third interest in a store in Bloomington, Illinois, he sent the then eighteen-year-old Humphreys to work there. A fire destroyed the store in 1853, after which Humphreys went into real estate. His investments paid off and he was able to open his own grocery store in Bloomington soon after marrying Laura M. Burhans in May 1854. She was the step-daughter of Dr. Rogers, they married via elopement, and eventually had two sons together. The company was known as J. F. Humphreys & Brothers. In 1855 he lost his store to a fire, but rebuilt soon after. He also built storehouses and opened a wholesale grocery business with a Mr. Gustin as his partner. The pair eventually sold the business and relocated to Chicago, Illinois. By 1860, he owned $8,800 in real and personal property.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, McLean County, 8 May 1854, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Jacob L. Hasbrouck, History of McLean County, Illinois (Topeka, KS: Historical, 1924), 2:1268-69; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 1, Bloomington, McLean County, IL, 129; The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 7 August 1899, 3:3; 11 October 1920, 5:1-3; Gravestone, Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, IL.