The Story of John Kempshall 

 

Our story beings in England, the year 1820. It revolves around the family of John Thomas Kempshall and his wife Elizabeth. John Thomas was a shoemaker by trade. He lived and worked in the village of Wescott Surry England. John and Elizabeth were very happy and although not wealthy lived a comfortable life. They had five lovely children born of this happy union. Four boys and one girl. They had Charles, Elezer, John Jr., Agnes and of course little Willie. The older boys were typical young boys who loved to explore, play and of course get into mischief now and then. Agnes was the little lady. Very proper like her mother. She learned to sew, cook and to do some tatting and knitting. She loved doing all these things with her mother. Little Willie was not well from birth. They didn't*t know exactly what was wrong with him. He wasn't*t able to run and play like other children. He remained inside with his mother most of the time. John Thomas worked hard to make a good living for his family and Elizabeth kept their home and took excellent care of the children. They were a very loving and caring family.

As the years passed John Thomas kept dreaming of moving to the United States. He just couldn't get it off his mind. Finally in the year of 1854 John Thomas decided it was time to go. They sold what they couldn't take with them, loaded up the children and boarded the ship called the "Old Henry Hudson". The ship was old and somewhat crowded, and the trip was long and very hard on all of them. John Thomas spent a lot of his time visiting with people on the ship and talking about everything. Elizabeth kept busy entertaining the children. Their nights were spent dreaming and talking about their new life in America. Their future hopes and dreams. Elizabeth did make some friends on the ship and being able to talk to other wives and mothers made the trip a little easier. The food was not great but plentiful and they had enough to keep them going. The seas were pretty quiet and they ran into no storms which really helped. The trip lasted approximately fourteen days.

They landed in New York at Ellis Island. The first thing they saw was the beautiful Statue of Liberty. It was breathtaking to them all. Going through immigration took several hours. They were asked a lot of questions and had a lot of papers to fill out. When they were finished they realized they were strictly on their own. It was a little scary for awhile. They knew they didn't want to stay in New York as it was too crowded so decided they would move to New Haven, Connecticut where some friends of theirs lived. They found a house after a short time and John Thoms found a shop to work in. They learned that the ship the "Old Henry Hudson" that they sailed over in had sunk on its voyage back to England. They felt very fortunate they had made the trip safely.

They lived and worked in New Haven for about three years and then decided for business that they would do better in Brentford, Connecticut. They moved there in 1857. Stayed there for a short period of time and John Thomas decided he would like to move to Knoxville, Tennessee, and off they went again. John Thomas seemed happy with the move. They found another house and John Thomas went back to making shoes. Everything was going well and tragedy struck. Little Willie and Elizabeth took sick and died. John Thomas was beside himself with grief. He was left with four children to raise. He had always depended on Elizabeth to care for the children. Life was extremely had on John Thomas and the children at this time.

John Thomas continued working and caring for the children and then one day decided he needed someone to care for the house and children so he looked for a lady to help him out. He met Fanny Hemstock. Fanny and John Thomas hit it off right away. They shared a lot of ideas and she enjoyed the children very much. That was very important to John Thomas to have someone who got along well with the children. They courted for awhile and John Thomas asked Fanny to marry him. She said yes and that started their life together. John Thomas, Fanny and four children. They had a good life and as the years passed Fanny gave John Thomas four more children. All boys. Their was William, George, Albert, and Edwin. Add to that Charles, Elezer, John Jr and Agnes. Sometimes Agnes was a little overwhelmed having to put up with a house full of boys. They did love to tease her. She always had Fanny on her side though. Fanny and Agnes got along very well. The whole family got along.

The years passed and when John Jr was old enough he started helping his father at the shoe shop. John Jr really liked making shoes. It was after awhile that John Thomas started making shoes for the Confederate army. John Jr was seventeen at this time and told his father that he wanted to join the Confederate Army. His father threw a fit and told him not to. But John Jr really wanted to join so he did without his father*s approval. It was shortly before his eighteenth birthday that he left home. The family was so upset and then on top of John Jr leaving, his two brothers Charles and Elezer decided to join the Union Army. All three had left home now.

John Jr joined the First Tennessee Light Artillery, Capt. Kains Battery, Mabrey Grays. It was Lieutenant Mabrey that gave the men their first uniform. His brothers joined the Thirty Fourth Illinois Regiment, Union Army. They all fought in many battles, the biggest for John Jr was Stones River in Murphysboro, Tennessee. Later it was Cumberland Gap where John Jr was captured. Kains battery had a good supply of weapons. They had 2-12 Pounders, 2-6 Pounders smooth bore, 1-rifled 6 Pounder, 1-12 Pounder Howitzer, 2-Mountain Howitzer plus ammunition. During the fight at Cumberland Gap the conditions were very foggy and most of the men could not see their enemy approaching. It was General Burnside that captured John Jr and his men at the Gap. John Jr didn*t realize that he was fighting against his own brothers at the time. John Jr*s brothers found out that it was John*s battery and went looking for him and on not finding him presumed him dead. The captured men were taken to Chicago, Illinois to Camp Douglas Prison by way of train. They were stuffed into box cars for the trip. It was a long ordeal. At Camp Douglas Prison they had barracks which held one hundred twenty five men in each. They had fifteen foot walls around the prison and three foot walk top for the guards to walk on. The prison was built to hold eight thousand men. Some nine thousand men arrived weak, with severe diarrhea and pneumonia. Deaths averaged six a day. Within the first week two hundred went to the hospital, four hundred sick in barracks, twenty nine died.

The camp was low and their were pools of standing water and urine. The smells were terrible. The grounds were covered with human excretions and garbage. The soil was reeking with miasmic accretins of rotten bones. Although food was available the prison commander felt that the men being inactive didn*t require much food to eat so therefore they got very little. Sometimes a loaf of bread was shared by nine or ten men. Death came with disease, starvation, and some froze to death.

On October 8, 1864 a Colonel Kelley with John Jr*s father came to visit him in prison. It seems that Colonel Kelley had made a trip to Washington to see President Lincoln and obtain a reprieve for John Jr. The guard went to find John Jr and told him he had a visitor. John Jr asked if it were a man or woman. The guard said he would tell him if he would give him the ring John Jr had on his finger. John Jr*s ring was one a buddy had made him out of a black button and some silver. It meant a lot to John Jr so he told the guard he would find out for himself who was waiting for him. He walked up front and was so happy to see his father. He asked about the family and they talked for awhile. He told his father he missed them all so much and longed for the day he would be back with them. His father told him of the reprieve. John Jr said to his father, "You wouldn*t want me to swallow the dog would you?" If John Jr was to accept the reprieve he would have to swear allegiance to the north and he just couldn*t do that. He was a true southerner and was fighting for the cause that he totally believed in.

His father left with tears in his eyes and John Jr was crying too. It was a hard decision to make but one that John Jr never regretted. Being in the prison was very bad and it just got worse. The prisoners spent time playing cards, marbles and some baseball. The men were so hungry that they caught and ate rats to keep from starving. At one point some men killed the guard*s dog and for this some were placed in the dungeon. John Jr was one of them. He lived on bread and water while he was in there.

A wagon came to the prison everyday to pick up bodies. The man was paid one dollar and fifty cents for each one. The bodies were placed in pine boxes and numbered. There were about seventy men who escaped through a fifty foot length of a tunneled hold dug by hand. There were one hundred sixty five men released by taking the oath of allegiance. Something of course that John Jr would never do. Hundreds of men died from all sorts of things in and out of the hospital.

In 1896 a monument was erected in Oakwood Cemetery to honor four thousand, four hundred fifty seven men who died in Camp Douglas. The prison had a lot of punishments to give to the men. One of them was called "Morgans Mule." They had a four foot piece of lumber with four legs nailed to it, ten to fifteen feet off the ground. The men would be told to mount the mule. They used a ladder to climb up and straddle the narrow beam. The guards would tie a brick to each leg. They would have to sit for four or five hours at a time whether hot or cold. A lot of them in winter would have frostbite caused by exposure.

Another punishment was "Reaching for Grub". Prisoners bent over keeping their legs straight with their fingers on the ground. They would have to stay in that position till they fell over. Some stayed to long that the blood would run from their nose and mouth. Still another punishment was to stand at attention for hours at a time. Sometimes they would put half a barrel over a mans head and make him parade back and forth. The conditions of this prison couldn*t have been any worse. Their were few who lived through it. Yes, John Jr was one of them.

On March 1, 1865 they paroled five hundred sick prisoners. John Jr was one of eleven in his battery to leave alive. He weighed eighty pounds on the day he left. On leaving they gave him fifty cents and a slab of bacon. He started walking toward Richmond, Virginia. Down the road apiece he saw a woman in front of her home with some children. The family looked very poor and hungry. John Jr stopped and talked to her for awhile. He found out that she had lost a husband in the war and they were barely getting by. John Jr asked her if she would like some of the bacon. She was very pleased that he asked and went in and fixed the bacon and they had a nice meal together. It was good for John Jr and for the lady and her children too. After eating and resting for awhile John Jr started back on the road for Richmond.

After days of walking he finally reached Richmond and joined up with his company. He served with his men till General Lee surrendered at Appomattox. He was sent to Christianburg, Virginia to disband. While John Jr was in prison his father chose to move again and this time moved to Clinton, Illinois. John Jr joined them there. They lived in Clinton for quite sometime and then John Jr decided to move to the village of Maroa which was some ten miles away from Clinton. He purchased a home on the outskirts of town. He then opened a shoe shop and did very well. He later met and married Ruberta Ball. Ruberta came from a nice family in Virginia. Her father being a coach maker and painter by trade. Her mother was busy with nine children at home. John Jr's business did so well that he had to hire three people to help him. John Jr. and Ruberta had four children. They had Lee, Agnes, Mynn and Tot. Lee grew up and became a salesman for Schenk Cigar Company. He lived in Maroa, met and married Edna. They had one child Wayne. Agnes met and married John Henry Kirchhoff. Agnes was a teacher. John Henry*s family came from Germany. John and Agnes had one child. A boy named John Homer. Tot (or Bernice) met and married Fred Grady. Tot was a school teacher also like her sister. Fred was an attorney in Maroa, Illinois. They had one daughter Bertie. Then there was Mynn. She was always in poor health and her eyesight was very bad. She always wrote to a Dr. Baker. He always looked in on her when he was close to Maroa. She wanted to get married but her mother Ruberta talked her out of it. She lived at home till Ruberta died and then moved in with her sister Agnes. All of the family remained in Maroa to raise their children and work. John Jr always considered himself a Democrat. In around the year of 1912 he started to admire Woodrow Wilson and change to the Republican Party. John Jr served two years as a tax collector in Maroa. He became active in the Odd Fellows Lodge and was always interested in national and international affairs.

John Jr believed in his flag and upheld it proudly. A lot of the men would go into John*s shop and relive the war daily. They all had their opinions of how it should have went. John Jr was quite a kidder and enjoyed life. He has been known to have a few drinks and it seems like when he would drink he would always bring home a piece of china for Ruberta. She had quite a collection. He loved to play harmless jokes on people. He had a good sense of humor. John Jr loved to read. He had a little bit of knowledge about everything. He was a forceful teacher and exponent of patriotism. An example for all to follow.

John Jr*s two brothers that fought against him moved back to Connecticut. Charles worked for Stanley Rule and Level Company. He married and had a family. Elezer was president of Kempshall Golf Ball Co. Elezer had over one hundred patents. He had a non-skid heel patent in May of 1912. He was a millionaire. He kept all his money to himself, never to share with his family.

John Jr. had pneumonia and was in a weakened state with tuberculosis. He said he would wear out the disease. He was sick for about seventeen months. It finally got the best of him and he passed away January 17, 1923 in Maroa. He was seventy eight years old. They said his last words were "The Flag". This city of Maroa lowered their flags down Main street to half mast the day of this funeral. John Jr had a lot of friends and he would be greatly missed. His casket was draped with the U.S. Flag. There was a military salute fired. The paper said of him "The memory of his patriotism, his staunch friendship and his fighting spirit will remain in the minds and hears of those who knew him and called him friend, and there are many".