LEMONT OBSERVER SOUVENIR EDITION. BOARD OF EDUCATION. Excellent Work of the Various Boards in Building Up the Public School System of Lemont. GROWTH OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. S. B. Brier, President. R. BRIER is one of the promiM with nent the men of greatest Lemont stone connected quarrying industry of the United States. A native B. BRIER. S. B. BRIER. of Germany, he was born on the 7th day of December, A. D. 1852. Mr. Brier has been variously connected with the quarries of Lemont for close to thirty years. In 1866 he began as tool boy for the Singer & Talcott Stone Co., About the year 1870 he accepted the position of engineer for the Boyer & Corneau Stone Co., which position he retained until he was tendered the position of foreman for the same company four years later which he accepted and occupied until 1878. At this time he took the position of foreman for the Excelsior Stone Co., in which he remained eight years and then became Ass't Div. Supt. for the Western Stone Co. He remained in this position until about C. A. TALTY. two years ago when he was made Div. Supt. for the same company which position he still occupies. In May 1863 his parents came to America where they settled at Turner Junction and remained two years. From there they moved to the town of Lemont in 1855 but did not become residents of the village of Lemont until 1872. On March 7th 1871, Mr. Brier was joined in wedlock to Miss Catherine Wier, of Lockport, Ill., and immediately thereafter the young couple settled down to the calm enjoyments of married life in the village of Lemont where he has made his home ever since. Six children have been born of this marriage, two boys and four girls the eldest of whom is now 20 years of age. Mr. Brier is a man of strong intellectual characteristics and is a man calculated for success in any walk of life. He served one year- 1875 to 1876 as village clerk and was elected last April to the position of president of the board of education, which he still occupies. C. A. Talty. R. C. A. TALTY has been a M tion member for of eight the board consecutive of educayears. Born and raised here, he has practically ocen a resident of Lemont his entire life time and was for years identified with the interests of the stone industry of this place. In 1885 he accepted the position of superintendent for the Kimball & Cobb Stone Co. at Blue Island where he remained one year. The next year he took the position of foreman for the Corneau Stone Co. of Lemont, which he retained until the close of 1890. In 1891 he was tendered the position of superintendent for the Western Stone Co. at Lockport, which he accepted and retained until the close of *92. In the spring of 1893 he began the business of general contractor and superintendent and shortly afterward secured the contract for the erection of the new village hall, which now stands as one of the structures of Lemont, which promises to stand for generations to come. Mr. Talty will still continue in the business of contractor and superintend- B. F. Welch. NE of the old residents, a @ member of the board of education and a highly respected citizen of Lemont is Mr. B. F. Welch, who came here as a practitioner of veterinary surgery something more than twenty-eight years ago. For over thirty years Mr. Welch has been a practical D. V. S. in the state of Illinois and is a man thoroughly versed in the mysteries of diseases as manifested in the race equine. His life has been devoted to the diseases of which horsekind is heir and their symptoms are to him as an open book. He is also an expert in every phase of practical surgery pertaining to his profession and is exceptionally competent and well fitted to perform surgical operations of every description. Mr. Welch was born in Ashtabula Co. Ohio, in 1835. In 1837 his parents came by lake to the then little city of and from there to Lockport, Ill., by wagon. Days were consumed Chicago in making a journey which can now be accomplished in a few hours. Mr. Welch was married in 1864 to Miss Caroline Stevens, of Naperville, Ill. Of this marriage nine children have been born five of whom three girls a aged respectively eight,seventeen and 19 years, and two boys aged six and fourteenare living. Mary, the oldest girl is engaged in the Western Union telegraph office of Chicago, while Miss Hattie, the next in age, is a valued attache of this office, and a contributor to the work ofthis special edition of the OBSERVER. Theother children, a girl and two boys, are stillat home with father and mother. As a member of the board of education Mr. Welch is an eflicient and honored incum bent of one of the most important offices in the gift of the people- an office B. F. WELCH. that has to do with the educational in- H. J. Laughlin. J. LAUGHLIN is a member of the board of education of the TOT town of Lemont and also a member of the police department of the village of Lemont. Ten years ago Mr. Laughlin came to Lemont and opened* the meat market now owned and operated by Mr. James Hennebry which he sold to the present owner. He was then employed by the Singer & Talcott Stone Co., until its business was absorbed by the Western Stone Co., with whom he continued until he was appointed to the police force. In April 1893 he was elected to membership on the board of education which office he still holds. Mr. Laughlin still mourns the death of his wife which occurred at their residence, corner Porter and Maxwell streets last April. Besides her husband she H. J. LAUGHLIN. left to mourn her loss four children aged respectively four, ten, thirteen and fifteen years. While with the stone companies he | LEMONT HIGH SCHOOL. was employed in the capacity of planer until two years ago when he was given charge of the night force in the planing department of the works of the Western Stone Co. As an officer he is efficient and capable, as a citizen he is respected and loved by all who know him. William Linnehan. PILLIAM LINNEHAN was He has been twice elected to the board of education and is the only representative from Hastings. Mr. Linnehan is a progressive and WILLIAM LINNEHAN. loyal American citizen in the truest sense and is an enthusiastic advocate of the public school system. The school at Hastings has always been, under his supervision, conducted on a high plane of excellence and has accomplished some remarkably good work. He was married February 27th, 1876, to Miss Eliza Lane, of Taunton, Mass. Besides himself and wife, his family consists of four boys and one girl. Joseph Frelichowski. OSEPH FRELICHOWSKI was born in Nakel, 1866. He is one | young business Germany on Oct. 5th of Lemont's model men whose parents came here twentyfive years ago. His family was one of the first of Polisi nationality to settle in Lemont. For years he was a trusted employe in the store of H. S. Norton. By industrious and faithful work and economical management Mr. Frelichewski not only became a practical and thorough-going business man but accumulated sufficient means to enable him to venture on the mercantile sea in his own bark, which he has steered rigat into the great port of business success. Mr. Frelichowski was elected township collector for the town of Lemont in 1892, in which office he served one term. In the spring of 1893 he was elected a member of the board of education, which office he still holds. Mr. Frelichowski was married in 1887 and has since been blessed by the birth of three children. T. F. Friedley. R. T. F. FRIEDLEY has practicM ally twenty been a years. resident He of was Lemont born for in Naperville, Ill., March 6, 1866, and came W. born Ireland, in Glinvelle, county Cork. 1843. January 14th. He came to America in September, 1866 and remained awhile, first in New York and then in New Jersey. In the spring of 1867 he went to Salem, Massachusetts, where he remained three years. In 1870 he left Salem and came to Lemont with the intention of making this his permanent residence and he has resided here ever since. Mr. Linnehan's first employment here was in the stone sawing mill operated by Edwin Walker on what is now quarry No. 1 of the Western Stone company's works, where he had charge of a gang of saws. He remained with Mr. Walker until the Western Stone Co. purchased the quarry when he was employed by them and has been so employed ever since. He is mechanical with his engineer and general repairer in the 1877 he moved mill at quarry No. 1, and is a trusted boo, Wisconsin, and valuable man. the went to of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Pau railroad. remained in the shops until 1883, when he went on the road as locomotive engineer for the same company. In 1887 he gave up railroading entirely, returned to Lemont and opened up a hardware business of which he is now proprietor. Mr. Friedley was practically the founder of Keepotaw Lodge, Knights of Pythias in which, since its organization, he has held various positions, and of which he is now prelate. He has been for two years and is now a member of the board of education. Mr. Friedley's store is located on Canal, by many incorrectly called Lawrence street, and is complete and firstclass throughout. The stock contains the leading makes and highest endorsed of heating and cooking stoves and ranges of every description, table and pocket cutlery, carpenters and builders hardware and in fact a stock lacking in no department the full quota of hardware supplies. Mr. Friedley also does tin and galvanized iron work of all kinds and is one of Lemont's leading and most substantial business men. Public Schools. THE people of Lemont have alJ ways been wide-awake to the necessity and value of good public schools and the disposition of the general public has been well represented by the various boards of education, to which immediate charge of affairs educational have been entrusted. It is about fifty years since the first public school in this vicinity was established midway between what is known as the old Luther farm and the present village of Lemont. It was a small school and a small beginning of the educational advantages that have since been developed, but the germinating seed there planted was destined to develop into an educational plant that would grow and flourish in a great community of people, where thousands of children might pluck its nourishing and invigorating fruit, to the incomparable benefit of mankind for generation after generation yet to come. The founders of that school built better than they knew. They laid the corner stone of a foundation for an educational superstructure that is to go on building until the copestone of high perfection shall have been laid to cap JOSEPH FRELICHOWSKI. the structure of a great educational edifice reared to the honor and memory of all earnest advocates of the public free school system. Previous to the erection of the present commodious structure, which was built of Athens marble at a large cost in 1869 and was first occupied in 1870, Mr. Horace M. Singer, one of Lemont's large hearted, public spirited and philanthropic gentlemen who was thoroughly imbued with the idea of the value of education, had erected the building on Illinois street now occupied by the German Evangelical Lutheran parochial school, for private school purposes, but on completion of the public school building, Mr. Singer's school was abandoned and the building turned over to the Lutheran congregation by whom it was for a long time used as a place of worsnip. The high school is located in a commanding situation at the top of the hill at the head of Stephen street and overlooks not only the business section of Lemont but a vast stretch of fertile, beautiful country. In this main building are four teachers besides Superintendent Faston. There are two branches known respectively as the Hastings and the Brackin schools, each of which is presided over by one teacher. At Hasting's school there is quite a library, free to pupils, which was founded by the efforts of one of the teachers, John Welch. A new impetus has been added to the work of the public schools since Professor L. B. Easton came last fall and it is confidently expected by the professor that even greater improvements will be added to the system next year. Besides the public schools four parochial schools are supported by the various churches of Lemont, all of which are well attended. T. F. FRIEDLEY. parents to Lemont in 1874. In with his parents to Barawhere, as a young man, work in the machine shops
