Jesse Pollock, an old pioneer of Fulton County, is now one of its most substantial farmers and his fine farm in Lewistown Township is one of the best in the locality. His birthplace was a farm two miles from Florence in Washington County, Pa., and the date of his birth was April 3, 1812. He is a son of one David Pollock who was born of Scotch ancestry in the North of Ireland. His parents were Presbyterians and reared their family in the same faith. The father, two brothers, Benjamin and John, and three sisters came to America and made their home in Pennsylvania. The father of our subject arrived in this country at the commencement of the Revolution and enlisted with the Minute Men and did good service in the war. After peace had been declared, he settled in Washington County, Pa., of which he was a pioneer. He carried on farming on leased land there until 1818. In that year with his wife and six children, he started with a team for Ohio, and was one of the first settlers in that part of Richland, now included in Ashland County. He bought a tract of heavily timbered land in Milton Township, and erected a log house in the primeval wilds, where deer, bear, wolves, and all kinds of wild game roamed at will. There were no railways or canals in that part of the country in those days and lake ports, forty miles distant, were the principal markets. He cleared away the forest trees from his land and evolved a productive farm from the wilderness, and there the remainder of his life was passed. His wife also died on the home farm. Her maiden name was Betsey Morrow, and she was a native of the North of Ireland and of Scotch ancestry. They reared a family of seven children.

Their son, Jesse, was six years old when his pioneer life commenced in the wilds of Ohio, and there he was bred to a stalwart, vigorous manhood. He early commenced to assist his father in clearing his land and in its cultivation. At that time lumber was of no value, as there was no market for it, and large logs that today would bring a good sum of money were rolled together and burned. In 1830, our subject left the home of his youth and returned to his native county, in Pennsylvania, where he learned the trade of a carpenter. He worked at it there two and one-half years and then went back to Ohio, and followed his calling in that State until 1836. In April of that year, imbued with the pioneer spirit of his forefathers, he set out with a pair of horses and a wagon, taking with him his wife and two children and started for the wild prairies of Illinois. A journey of four weeks and three days brought the little family to the southeastern part of Knox County, and for a year our subject rented a farm in Salem Township. In the spring of 1837 he came to Fulton County, and bought one hundred and sixty acres of timber land on section 6, Lewistown Township, and eighty acres in Putman Township. The price of this two hundred and forty acres of land was $5.50 an acre, and it took all his ready money and left him $60 in debt.

Mr. Pollock went to work at once to prepare his land for cultivation and his first crop paid his indebtedness. He has since improved all the land, has it under a fine state of tillage, and has erected neat frame buildings. His hard pioneer labors have been well rewarded and besides this valuable estate he possesses another farm, comprising one hundred and twenty acres of choice land, and he is now in possession of a handsome competence. As a pioneer he has done much to develop the agricultural interests of the township and county and his name will ever hold an honorable place among those of the early settlers of this part of Illinois. His life course as a husband, father, neighbor and citizen has been creditable to himself and has won the esteem of all around him.

Mr. Pollock and Jane Emmens were married in 1831. She was born in Wayne County, Ohio. Of their marriage there are six children living: Ann, widow of Mr. Linn; David; Elizabeth, wife of David Whitnah of Cuba; John; Alvina, wife of Napoleon Bowen of Iowa, and Sylvester of Grand Isle, Neb. Our subject's wife died in 1850, he was married a second time in 1855 to Miss Jane Conner who died in 1883; by his last marriage there were no children."