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W. H. PIPPIN.
One of the conspicuous figures in the recent history of Jasper county is the present popular and efficient sheriff whose name introduces this review. It should be added, however, that his popularity is far greater with the sound law-abiding citizenship than, with that class whose business unfortunately takes them out of the straight and narrow path, for the duties of his office are scrupulously carried out by him, the chief custodian of the law. He is influential in local Democratic councils and takes an active part in the many-sided life of the community.
Mr. Pippin is a native son of Jasper county, his birth having occurred in Crooked Creek township, August 1, 1870. His father, Bird Pippin, was born in middle Tennessee, November 16, 1846, and came to Illinois after the Civil war. He had at first served in the Confederate army under General Longstreet, but as soon as he received his discharge he joined the Tennessee volunteers of the Union Army, his sympathies being with the cause it represented. Upon coming to Illinois he engaged in agriculture and continued in this line of activity until his demise in 1905. He was married in 1868 to Mary Jane Kilburn, of Jasper county, and of the three children born to them, Mr. Pippin is the eldest and the only one living at the present time. The wife and mother died in 1874 and the father married again, Martha N. Hudson becoming his wife. Four children were born to the second union. The second Mrs. Pippin died in 1891. The subject's father is Democratic in politics and is one of the highly respected men of his locality.
W. H. Pippin has spent almost his entire life in Jasper county and no one is more loyal to its institutions or more ready to advance its welfare. He received his education in the public schools and when quite young learned the barber trade, which he followed for seventeen years. In the meantime he held a number of offices, his faithfulness to any public trust soon becoming apparent. For two terms he was township clerk, for an equal space of time was village clerk and for one term, village trustee. He finally gave up barbering and served two years and ten months as city marshal. In January, 1910, he resigned the office of city marshal to make the race for sheriff and was elected by a very large majority. He carried the primaries by three hundred votes and the general election by a large majority. He still holds the office and has two deputies. He spares no pains to be agreeable to all having business to transact in his office, while his determination to enforce the law to the letter and bring law-breakers to justice has made his name a terror to evil doers within his jurisdiction. Determined to carry out the mandates of the court and execute the laws as far as maintaining the peace is concerned, he has been untiring in his efforts, and has brought to the bar of justice a number of hardened criminals.
Mr. Pippin was married at the age of twenty-one to Della Rice, who became the mother of one daughter, Velva Irene, who was left motherless by her death on Christmas day, 1899. The subject was married in 1902 to Iva Bunton, and by this union there are two other daughters� Viva Leora and Hally Lee.
Sheriff Pippin is of wholesome social and fraternal proclivities and
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takes great pleasure in his affiliations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America and the order of Ben Hur.