From History of White County (IL) Gallatin County – Bear Creek Township (ca 1882-1884), P.  968

Philip C. Quigley, son of Aaron Quigley, was born I Gallatin County, Oct. 7, 1841.  He was reared on a farm and received a common-school education.  He enlisted in the late war when twenty years of age.  He was with Grant at the battles of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Shiloh.  He was afterward with Thomas at Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely.  He was captured at Holly Springs, Miss., and sent to St. Louis, Mo., when he was paroled and exchanged, arriving at Vicksburg on the day of the surrender.  He was with the land forces who supported Farragut at Mobile, Ala.; went from there by ship to Galveston, Texas, and from there to Houston; from there to Springfield, Ill., where he was mustered out, having served four years and five months.  Mr. Quigley was married at the age of twenty-six to Nancy J. Eubanks.  They have three children.  Mr. Quigley owns a farm of seventy acres.  He is also engaged in the manufacture of wagons, buggies, plows, etc.

Submitted by:  Linda Roberts

My great-great grandfather, Lewis Questell, was one of the early
settlers of White County, Illinois. His grandparents, Nicholas and
Jeanne Claude Questel, came from France to America in 1790, escaping the
French Revolution, but she died aboard ship while giving birth to his
father, John Baptiste Questel. Nicholas was among the 500 Frenchmen who
founded Gallipolis, Ohio in 1790.

On March 3, 1816, John Baptiste Questel married Elizabeth Fuller, and
their son Lewis was born on July 29, 1825 in Gallipolis. Lewis first
married Nancy Thevenir who died during childbirth in Ohio. Lewis
married his second wife, Sophronia Burlingame on October 23, 1850, and
in 1856 they made the decision to move from Ohio to Illinois. Traveling
by flatboat down the Ohio River, they landed at Shawneetown, Illinois.

It appears that Lewis was the first to begin spelling the surname
Questel as Questell. Perhaps it was his way of differentiating his
family from the Ohio clan. Some families in later generations would
revert to the original Questel, and other families added an extra “e” to
the name, making it Questelle. But they are all one and the same.

In March 1856, Lewis took his family a few miles north to White County
and bought 160 acres of heavily timbered land east of Herald at $4.00
per acre from William Little. With his sweat and muscle, he carved his
farmland out of the virgin forest. A total of 125 acres were cultivated.
To wrest a living from the land always has been to live a life of
struggle. Before modern agricultural methods and mechanized farm
equipment, it was difficult to raise crops in years of poor weather.
But Lewis and Sophronia thrived and raised their children; three
daughters, Marietta, Henrietta, and Francis; and five sons, Simon
Baptiste, Edmondson Theodore, Lewis, John, and Ellsworth. In 1879,
Simon Baptiste Questell, the eldest son of Lewis, married Theresa
Isabelle Bonner.

Another early settler of White County, Edwin Arthur Marlin, built a
general store at Herald, Illinois. On September 13, 1886, the U.S. Post
Office Department established a post office in the general store and
appointed Edwin’s sister, Lilly Ann Marlin, as Postmaster. Simon
Baptiste Questell later became involved in the general store and
replaced her as Postmaster on April 17, 1889. The letterhead of the
store said, “Marlin & Questell, Dealers in General Merchandise—Hats,
caps, dry goods, notions, groceries, boots and shoes, hardware, etc.”
Simon later served as Postmaster of New Haven, Illinois.

In the following years the families of Questell and Marlin operated the
general store and their relatives and descendants took turns serving as
the Postmaster of Herald. Service was suspended at this post office on
February 13, 1998, after Julie A. Dagley retired and the postal service
was unable to find a replacement. The old general store building stands
vacant today in Herald.

Simon Baptiste Questell was my great-grandfather, and I found the fact
that he had been a Postmaster very special because over a hundred years
later in 1990, I became Postmaster of Franklin Park, Illinois. On March
28, 1923, Simon Baptiste Questell died at age 72. He was buried in
Union Ridge Cemetery in White County beside his wife, Theresa.

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