Galena Weekly Gazette
July 30, 1896
DEATH OF J. B. PARKINS
Veteran Employee of the Illinois Central Passes Away
John B. Parkins, agent of the Illinois Central railroad at Council Hill
station, died last Wednesday at 8 o'clock after a lingering illness, with a
tubercular disease. He was hopelessly ill the last eighteen months and
frequently seemed on the verge of death, but he showed wonderful vitality
and railed time and again. He was a veteran in the railroad service and for
thirty years was the station agent at Council Hill. He was a member of the
Wildey Lodge, I.O.O.F. of this city, which gave him all fraternal aid in his
last trying illness. He was widely known in Galena, and among railroad men
all through the West.
Mrs. Parkins was 59 years of age. He was born in Hamilton, Ont., Oct. 18,
1836, and was married to Miss Thomisina Cragg in Detroit, Mich., in 1859.
Their surviving children are Mrs. W. R. Bierce and Miss Mary Parkins,
Charles and John. In a small station the duties of agent and telegraph
operator are combined. Mr. Parkins was a veteran at the electric key and it
has been often said of him that he schooled more telegraphers than any other
man in the country. He always had at least one student, and frequently
several at a time in his office, and there was not a railroad system in the
west without its quota of employes in high and low station who graduated in
the telegraphic art under his tutorship at Council Hill.
Contributed by:
Susan Wilson