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LOUIS LINCOLN EMMERSON.
Conspicuous among tbe really big men of Mount Vernon who have attained to high places in financial circles in Southern Illinois is Louis Lincoln Emmerson, for twenty-five years past a resident of Mount Vernon, and a participator in practically every enterprise worthy of note in his section of the country. He has from the beginning of his association with Mount Vernon filled various positions calling forth qualities of strength and dependability, and in his present connection with some of the most thriving commercial and financial institutions in the country those splendid traits have increased commensurately with the added responsibilities.
Born December 27, 1863, at Albion, Illinois, he is the son of Jesse Emmerson and Fannie (Suardet) Emmerson, and the grandson of Alan Emmerson, a native of Kentucky who migrated to Indiana and later settled in Illinois, near Albion, in 1817. There Alan Emmerson married a daughter of the Mounts family. He was but twenty years of age at that time, and he and his wife lived together in harmony for sixty-five years. They reared a family of fourteen children, and in 1876 the aged pair passed away within a period of three months. He was a veteran of the Black Hawk war, rendering valiant service to his country in that conflict. Their son Jesse married Fannie Suardet, as previously mentioned, and four children were born of their union; three sons and one daughter. They are Morris, who is publisher of the News Herald in Lincoln, Illinois; Charles, cashier of the First National Bank at Albion; Louise, the wife of Otto Krug, of Sullivan, Indiana; and Louis Lincoln, of Mount Vernon, The father, Jesse Emmerson, was a prominent and familiar figure in his locality throughout his life time. He was always active in political circles, serving in a number of public offices. At one time he was clerk of Edwards county, and during the Civil war served as county sheriff. He died in 1891, and the wife and mother survived him for almost twenty years, passing away in 1911, on November 16th.
Louis Lincoln Emmerson passed his boyhood and youth as a student in the public schools and the high school of Albion, in which city he lived until he had reached his twentieth year. Completing his schooling, he became engaged in business in Sullivan, Indiana, and was thus occupied for one year. In 1886 he located in Mount Vernon and became interested in mercantile pursuits, in which he continued successfully for a number of years. In 1901 he became cashier of the Third National Bank, filling that position acceptably and capably until 1909, when he was elected to the presidency of the bank. In that year further honors became his, when he was appointed to the secretaryship of the Steele-Smith Dry Goods Company of Birmingham, Alabama, a department store owned principally by Mount Vernon capital, and in which he is a prominent stockholder. Mr. Emmerson has become connected with numerous other commercial and financial enterprises in and about Mount Vernon, by reason of his peculiar ability in the successful administration of any business requiring traits of progressiveness, aggressiveness and, withal, proper conservatism. He is a stockholder and director of the Mount Vernon Ice Company, the Illinois Knitting Company and the Mount Vernon Car Manufacturing Company, all of them being institutions of solid organization, and branching out with the passing of time with an avidity consistent with safe managership. Mr. Emmerson has been secretary of the Mount Vernon Building & Loan Association for the past ten years, and is connected with numerous other smaller banks and commercial organizations throughout Southern Illinois as a director and stockholder. He was one of the principal organizers of the Albion Shale Brick Company recently incorporated,
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and he is president of the company. This is adjudged to be the largest shale brick plant west of the Alleghany mountains, having a capacity of 100,000 bricks daily, and incorporated with a capital stock of $200,000. In addition to his many other positions of trust and honor, Mr. Emmerson was at one time appointed to fill a vacancy as commissioner of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary, which post he accepted and discharged the duties in connection therewith in a highly creditable manner.
Mr. Emmerson is an adherent to Republican principles, and has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the party, as well as a dominant factor in Republican state politics. He has been county chairman of the Republican party for the past ten years, and is state committeeman from his district. He is prominent as a fraternalist, being especially so in Masonic circles, in which society he has taken the thirty-third degree. He is also a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and of the Modem Woodmen. He is a communicant of the First Presbyterian church of Mount Vernon, materially aiding the work of that organization on all occasions.
In 1887 Mr. Emmerson married Miss Anna Mathews, the daughter of Thomas Mathews, of Grayville, Illinois. Two daughters have been born to them: Aline, aged eighteen, now a student in the Belmont College of Nashville, Tennessee, and Dorothy, aged fifteen, a student in the Mount Vernon high school.