Died, at his residence in Toulon, of consumption, Jan. 31st, 1885, at about 2:30 a.m., John Runyon Atherton aged 82 years, 11 months and 14 days. Again are the ranks of the old settlers thinned by the dread messenger, death. In this instance the corn was fully ripe and ready for the sickle, he having long since passed the allotted three score years and ten and by reason of strength it was lengthened to our score and almost three and that life full of the incidents of frontier life in three states. He was born in Fairmouth, Kentucky and moved with his parents when only about a year old, to Hamilton county, Ohio. He was married to the present widow sixty years ago the 16th of January last 1825. He moved to Illinois ten years later and settled in Hancock county near Nanvoo, where he resided until the Mormon trouble made the location undesirable to him. He traded his farm there for one in Toulon township, to which he moved in still another decade of years 1845. In 1859 he moved to Toulon where he resided with the exception of about two years when he lived in Goshen township with his daughter Mrs. Martha McClennahan, continuously until last Saturday’s early morning when he quietly and painlessly breathed his last. He was the father of six children, five girls and one boy. The latter is buried in Hancock county and a daughter is laid in a cemetery south of Toulon. Four daughters survive…Mr. Atherton was a member of the Baptist church for over forty years.
